11/6/2014 – Thursday of 31st week in ordinary time – Luke 15:1-10

       We’ve all been lost before, haven’t we, when we couldn’t find our way?  When we’re lost, it is not a very good feeling.  I remember a couple of times when I was walking to one of the villages I had to visit in the jungle as a missionary, thinking I had made a wrong turn or didn’t know where I was going.  I was terrified.  I didn’t know how I would find my way back, I didn’t know who would help me.   Luckily, I always seemed to find my way back somehow, or I always found someone to give me directions. 

      Today, we hear Jesus telling the parable of the lost sheep.  If only one of a flock of 100 sheep is lost, the good shepherd finds him and brings him back.  Jesus is that good shepherd for us.  No matter how lost we feel, Jesus is there ready to carry us on his shoulders, helping us in our time of need.

       There a lot of different shepherds that the Lord has entrusted to care for his flock throughout history.  Spain is a country that has been on the forefront of Catholicism and it has produced some of the Church’s most beloved saints, such as Ignatius of Loyola, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila.  But Spain has had some very dark times throughout its history as well.  During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, more that 6,800 priests and members of religious congregations, including 16 bishops, were martyred for the faith. More than 4,000 lay people were killed for helping or hiding them. The Church has beatified or canonized more than 1,000 them as Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, mostly under Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II. November is the month of remembrance when we remember the faithful departed and those who passed down the faith to us. May we remember the Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War and all those others who have continued the work of Jesus the Good Shepherd in the world.

11/7/2013 – Thursday of 31st week in Ordinary Time – Romans 14:7-12

Paul makes some very bold statements in his letter to the Romans.  Today he tells us: “If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord.”  Do we really believe this?  Do we really live like this? In talking to parishioners lately in our parish here in Tupelo, we have been discussing the sacrifices we as a parish are having to make for the faith, especially in our collaboration with the other parishes in the area. Many of these parishes do not have a resident priest, that have one of the priests in the area to come there in order to celebrate mass. Up in Corinth and Booneville, they had to bring in a priest all the way from the Jackson area in order to celebrate mass for All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation.  Yet, here in Tupelo, we had three different masses on All Saints Day and two different masses for All Souls Day, but did not have great attendance at those masses, and did not have very many youth and children attend. What does it mean if we are bursting at the seems at the Fall Fest, and then for the holy day masses associated with that festival, we don’t have very good attendance at all?  As a priest, I am not here to scold people or to try to make the parishioners feel bad, but I am here to remind us of what our Church expects out of us as Catholics, what responsibilities we have in living out our faith.  As our world becomes more secular, the freedom to live out our faith and to attend mass might become something that will become more difficult and more of a challenge.  We might look back at these days when a parish has four different masses on a weekend as a luxury.  What does it mean to live for Christ?  What does it mean to make sacrifices for our faith?  I think we all have to ask ourselves those questions.