So I’m not sure if I can say this as a priest, but King Herod sucks. In the Gospel today, King Herod is evil. He is Voldemort, he is Thanos, he is the Mind Flayer all rolled into one. All he wants to do is control everything, the Jewish people, the Roman government, even to control the God of the universe, even to the point of wanting to kill Jesus Christ. A lot of the times we can be like Herod in our hearts where we want to control God. When we say, “God this is what I want for my day. “This is what I want for my life. “God, you have to do these things in my life.” We can do so many things where we try to control God during our day or throughout our lives.
The easiest way to fight against that is realizing his plans for us. The plans that you may have for your life are probably awesome and good and holy, but the Father’s plans for you from the beginning of time, those plans are perfect.
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Embracing Shame
Defensiveness, denial, rationalization, avoidance. What do these things have in common? It’s what we do when we avoid shame. None of us like to experience shame. None of us like to experience suffering. And we love to avoid. We love to deny. We love to distract ourselves because shame does not feel good. Here is the gospel, though, where Saint Peter does the same thing. He tells Jesus…
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God Stays
So, two couples I’m preparing for marriage chose this Sunday’s Gospel for their wedding. So, I asked both couples the same question: “Why did you choose this reading?” Couple number one responded, “Yeah, we chose this gospel because it was the shortest option.” And I was like, “Bruh.” The second couple replied, “We chose this gospel because God wants to remain with us…
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Living on the Sidelines?
Sometimes, I feel like Guy. If you’ve ever seen the movie, “Free Guy,” you know that Guy is living his life on the sidelines. He doesn’t really think his life is about him. But at one point, Guy realizes that the video game that he is in is his story and that he is the main character. And he gets after it. On this Palm Sunday, we hear the entire story of Jesus’s passion for us. A lot of the time, we feel like we are on the sidelines…
