Someone Must Carry You

 

Learning to be carried in the Father’s arms

12/02/2025

Luke 10:21-24 Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." Turning to the disciples in private he said, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For
I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it."

Every Friday I drive some students to Ozark Catholic Academy in Tontitown, I’m the bus driver, but I also get to visit my parents for the day in Springdale. To be completely honest, it has been very hard to watch my parents growing older. They are a little more forgetful, move slower, and are not as steady on their feet.

I still want them to be the adventurous, swashbuckling couple who courageously moved their family half-way across the world for a fresh start and brighter futures. They learned new languages and not just English and some Spanish but also the languages of texting and Facebook.

They raised three children in an unfamiliar culture, sent them to Catholic schools, and two are still married and one is a priest. But their biggest challenge was finding decent spices to cook great Indian food. If it is hard for me to accept they can no longer do those things, just imagine how hard it must be for them.

One insight that helps me make the transition to this new stage of their life – and my life – is to see how they are becoming more childlike. And I only mean childlike in the most positive sense. For example, a couple of weeks ago after going out for dinner I helped my father to undress and tuck him into bed.

What a deeply humbling experience for me and for him. I recalled how often as a small boy I fell asleep on the couch at night while watching TV and woke up in my bed the next morning. And by the way, my bedroom was upstairs so my dad had to carry me up a flight of 13 steps – yes I counted – to tuck me in.

I am reminded of God’s words to Moses and the people in Deut 1:31 – some of the most poignant words in the entire Bible – “The Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all along your journey until you arrived in this place.” And “this place”, of course, was the Promised Land.

What a privilege every Friday to help my parents and to return the favor in a small way for the countless sacrifices my swashbuckling parents made for me as a child, and still do today. But the only way to learn that biblical lesson is to become childlike, and take turns carrying each other, until we arrive at “this place”, the Promised Land.

No surprise, then, that in the gospel today Jesus praises those who are childlike. Paraphrasing Deut 1:31, Jesus says: “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.”

And in some mysterious sense, our Lord adds that even he enjoys a similar position in relation to the Father: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” In a sense, just as God the Father has carried the Son from all eternity – more precisely we say the Son is eternally begotten of the Father – so all children of the Father enjoy this privilege of being carried by the Father.

That is, if they are willing to humble themselves and become helpless and childlike, like my parents are in some ways today. In other words, no one walks into Paradise on their own two feet but must be carried into heaven “like a father carries his son, all along your journey, until you arrived in this place.”

One concrete way to practice being childlike is not only to trust in the Father to carry us, but also being docile enough so our Mother, the Church, can teach us. We all struggle with some doctrine or teaching of the Catholic Church: immigration or abortion or same sex marriage or the environment or the death penalty or any host of other teachings that make us cringe, and wish it would change.

But if we can humble ourselves and become more childlike, perhaps we can simply accept the remarkable truth that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to his apostles who would “guide them into all truth” (Jn 16:13). God the Father carries us and our Mother the Church teaches us, but only if we become childlike.

It’s like how my parents carried me as a child and now I try to return the favor every Friday in helping them. And why does that matter? Because no one walks into heaven on their own two feet. Someone must carry you. Or, changing metaphors, perhaps it’s like a Bridegroom carries a Bride over the threshold into their new home.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Top That!

 

Developing a healthy rivalry of faith and love

12/01/2025

Matthew 8:5-11 When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully." He said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion said in reply, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven."

Have you ever noticed a kind of friendly rivalry among the many religious order in the Church, like Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Benedictines? Even here in Fort Smith I have heard stories about how the Sisters of Mercy would try to one-up the St. Scholastica Nuns, and vice versa. One group of nuns say: “We’re going to run a high school!” And the other would respond, “Oh yeah? We’ll build a hospital!”

Every order wants their founder to be the most renowned saint. I remember when I discerned joining the Carmelites and asked: “Who founded the Carmelites?” And the Carmelite friars always smiled big and answered: “Elijah the Prophet did on Mt. Carmel in the Old Testament.”

That is, the Carmelites’ claim to fame is being older than all other religious orders. If you ask a diocesan priest, “Who started the diocesan priesthood?” We humbly answer: “Oh, just Jesus Christ.” In other words, “Top that!” Of course, all such one-upmanship is always motivated by faith and love for the Lord.

In the gospel today, Jesus puts all such friendly rivalry in proper perspective by a healing requested by a Roman centurion. In his petition to heal his servant at home, the centurion includes a remarkable profession of faith, saying, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”

Of course we immediately recognize those words because we repeat them right before Holy Communion when Jesus enters under our roof, our body. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, in a speech he delivered at West Point Academy to graduating officers in the Army, referred to the Centurion: “A Roman military officer made a profession of faith as profound as St. Peter and St. Thomas.”

But notice what Jesus says about the faith of this pagan soldier: “I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if your religious order was founded by St. Francis or the Prophet Elijah, or if you have built a hundred hospitals or scores of schools. What matters most in the end is faith to enter the kingdom and recline at the banquet.

I continue to see record attendance at Masses on Sundays here at I.C, in fact, we almost ran our of Hosts at the 10 a.m. Mass yesterday. And priests I talk to report similar swelling crowds. Our OCIA classes are so full this year that they would not all fit in the sanctuary yesterday when we celebrated the Rite of Entrance for the unbaptized catechumens and the Rite of Welcome for those baptized in another faith tradition.

That is, there are a lot of modern-day Roman centurions demonstrating great faith and who want to recline at the table of the Eucharist. And how should this influx of new blood in the Church make us cradle Catholics feel? Well, how did it make the Jews feel when Jesus complimented the Gentiles and added: “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith”?

Our Lord was essentially tweaking their Jewish noses and said, “Hey, wake up and get with the program because these Gentiles are on fire with faith and making your Jewish faith look like smoldering ash." In other words, our Lord wants to encourage a healthy and holy rivalry where the children of God try to out-do each other in faith and love.

Therefore, now is not the time to sit back, slack off, and say: “Great, let these new Catholics do everything.” Rather, we cradle Catholics must up our game and see how we can attract more people of faith to recline at the table of the Eucharist until the whole world is seated at this holy banquet.

Modern-day converts to Catholicism are detecting the poverty in the current culture, and by contrast, recognizing the great wealth hidden in the Church. Their new faith should inspire us Catholics of old faith not to exchange the wealth we have for the poverty of the world. New Catholics are basically saying to us old Catholics, “Top that!”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Don't Miss the Boat

 

Learning to count our blessings and not stresses

11/30/2025

Matthew 24:37-44 Jesus said to his disciples: "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have  stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."

My friends, we have officially embarked on a season that is both extremely busy but also extremely blessed. But which do you feel more? I love that old saying: “Too blessed to be stressed!” But Advent can feel exactly the opposite: “Too stressed to be blessed!” For example, we can be so stressed with hanging Christmas lights that we forget how blessed we are that Jesus is the Light of the world.

In Advent we should feel blessed waiting for the coming of Christ, the God-made-Man, who rules the world. But instead many today are stressed waiting for the coming of A.I., the “machine-made man”, who will take over the world. When I ask small children who was born on December 25, more say Santa Claus than Jesus Christ.

Children feel stressed worrying about how Saint Nick squeezes down the chimney than feeling blessed about God squeezing into a Baby born in a manger. In other words, as we begin Advent, we have to ask ourselves: “Am I too blessed to be stressed?” or rather “Too stressed to be blessed”?

In the gospel today, Jesus warns his disciples not to let stress of daily activities overshadow the blessing of being saved. He gives them this example: “In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark.”

In other words, people were going about their daily business, and feeling so stressed about eating and marrying - weddings are definitely stressful! - and completely missed Noah constructing a huge ark in which they might be saved. Noah’s contemporaries were not just too stressed to be blessed, they were too stressed to be saved.

Let me suggest three strategies to help us feel too blessed to be stressed and not miss the blessing of salvation. First, find some way to reach out and help the poor, the immigrant, the unborn, and our foster children. Recently, some caring parishioners introduced me to the Arkansas Family Alliance.

They provide basic needs to children and families before they become homeless or dependent on the system. They explained that one of the biggest ways to help children is by providing good bedding, so they can sleep well. I had never thought how much sleep reduces stress and so I made a donation.

And by the way, authentic Catholic social teaching sees helping all these categories of people as a seamless ethical continuum of Christian love. Why? Because we are helping Jesus in every case, no questions asked. When we reach out to foster children, the homeless, the immigrants, and the unborn, our stress becomes less because we discover how blessed we are by contrast.

A second strategy to feel more blessed than stressed is develop spiritual practices during Advent. Sure you can go to parties and Friendsgivings, and and dress your dog up in a Santa suit like I did with Apollo last year. But also get an Advent wreath and sit down as a family for supper every Sunday of Advent, light a new candle and pray for the coming of Christ at Christmas and at the end of time.

This year we are pleased to present the second annual Classical Christmas Concert here at I.C. with brilliant musicians to lift our hearts up to heaven, and bring heaven down to earth. You’ve heard the old adage: “Music calms the savage beast.” Well, listening to our school Treble Makers choir and professional trombones, trumpets, and tenors will calm your savage soul so you feel too blessed to be stressed.

A third strategy is to make a sincere confession and prepare your soul for the coming of your Savior. Think about it: nothing causes more stress than sin, the loss of our friendship with God. And therefore, there is no bigger blessing than being reconciled with Jesus and being restored to his friendship.

That’s why every Advent all the local parishes schedule reconciliations services. All the deanery priests go to each parish to hear confessions. And they will come here to I.C. on Thursday, December 11 at 6 p.m. I promise you that if you make a good confession, you will feel too blessed to be stressed.

Folks, if you don't want to be so stressed that you miss the blessing of salvation, then do three things this Advent: (1) help the poor (all of them, not just the ones you like, because Jesus is in all of them), (2) get an Advent wreath and come to our Christmas concert, and (3) go to confession. And if you do these three things, then you will not miss the boat of salvation like the people did in Noah’s day.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

No Shoes, No Shirt

 

Trusting God and seeing everything as his gift

11/27/2025

Luke 17:11-19 As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?” Then he said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”

A few months ago I was conversing with our sacristan, Dan Rose, and he pointed out something in church I had never noticed before. He said that in practically every statue of Jesus and Mary, they are depicted as barefooted. For example, look closely at the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus behind me. Our Lord is barefooted.

Take a quick glimpse at the statue of Mary on the other side of the sanctuary. Our Blessed Mother wears no shoes or sandals, and she’s treading barefooted on a snake. Have you ever noticed that artistic detail before? In Christian iconography and art, being barefooted symbolizes total trust in God’s providence and see everything as a gift. You walk with no fear, but only with faith.

But Jesus and Mary are not the first two people to walk around barefooted. Can you guess who the first two were? I am currently reading a book called “The Obedience Paradox” by Mary Stanford who suggested that in the beginning Adam and Eve also displayed this unflinching trust in God and saw all creation as his gift to them. Gn 2:24 describes them as “naked without shame” and obviously they didn’t wear Hokas around the Garden.

Mary Stanford explains why: “The first man and woman received everything, including themselves, from the loving hand of God…He was the Giver, and they were the grateful receivers.” That is, not only were they barefooted, but their whole bodies were also bare because of their total trust in God to give them everything as a gift.

Think of small children who run around the house naked and barefoot, at least they do here in Arkansas. Why? Well, because they have complete confidence that mom and dad will give them everything they need or want. They walk and run with no fear but only faith. Jesus said in Mt 18:3: “Unless you become like children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

In other words, we will not need shoes, or maybe even clothes, to enter heaven, but rather run around “naked without shame” like trusting children. You know, some restaurants hang a sign that says: “No shoes, no shirt, no service.” Well, for Jesus and Mary, for Adam and Eve, and for small children, wearing “no shoes and no shirt” always get them the best service.

In the gospel today Jesus cures ten lepers, but only one returns to give thanks to Jesus. I don’t know if that one leper wore shoes or went barefooted but he discovered that he could trust God to give him everything as a gift. That is, when he was healed of his leprosy he responded with deep gratitude and trust, which is also known as faith. Hence, Jesus tells him: “Stand up and go, your faith has saved you.” The grateful leper felt like a child who didn’t need shoes or shirt to get service.

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. And we want to follow in the footsteps of the grateful leper and come to Jesus at this Mass and say: “Thank you, Lord!” We have all received so many gifts and the best response is deep gratitude and total trust, that is, the response of faith.

I personally feel immensely grateful that I still have my parents and both are in good health. My dad is 91 years old, and my mom is…younger than him. I feel deep gratitude for the 3 years I had with my dog Apollo and all our cherished memories together. And I feel blessed to be the priest of a parish where the sacristan is smarter than the pastor.

But even more than walking in the footsteps of the grateful leper, today we should ask for the grace to walk barefoot like Jesus and Mary in Christian iconography, and Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and small children running around their home naked. What do I mean?

Well, try to have such complete faith and trust in God’s love and care for you that you begin to see everything as a gift. That is, learn to walk without fear but only by faith. Thanksgiving, in the fullest Christian sense, invites us to become like small children who know that even with “no shoes and no shirt” they will nonetheless get the best service.

I am reminded of visiting my uncle and his family in New Delhi, India many years ago. We were there on a Sunday and so naturally we attended Mass. But I noticed a very curious Indian custom. Before the parishioners entered the church, they removed their shoes and left them outside the front doors. Indians always wear their best socks to church!

But walking into Mass barefooted was a powerful symbol of trusting totally in God’s love, who gives us everything as a gift. And of course at every Mass, we receive the greatest gift of all: Jesus in the Eucharist. At Mass in India, even with “no shoes and no shirt” you will still get the best service.

Praised be Jesus Christ!