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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True Love Costs Something
Remember when Hiccup loses his leg in “How to Train Your Dragon”? It’s an emotional rollercoaster. The love that Hiccup has for his family and Toothless leads to him sacrificing one of his legs. Hiccup’s love costs something, and the gospel for this Sunday, Jesus, is very clear: it is easy to love when it’s easy to love, but real, true, authentic, Christ-centered love costs something. Are we just loving Jesus when it’s easy when…
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Imitate Jesus
I am so excited. Our Newman Center just got a new statue of St. Joseph. It was handcrafted in Germany, it is absolutely beautiful, and my favorite thing about it is that the baby Jesus, the Lord of the universe, is holding the world, but is being held by his dad, St. Joseph, and the baby Jesus is safe and resting in his dad’s arms. St. Joseph was a good father, and he must have learned how to be a…
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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…
