That All May Be one

 

Deacon Dave · 260125_002

Homily for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Jan. 25, 2026. Theme: That All May Be One 

 Today is the end of the annual worldwide Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that has been taking place every Jan 18th-25th for the past 117 years. The inspiration for it came from a prayer that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper in which he made a heartfelt plea to God for the unity of his Mystical Body the Church, saying, “May they all may be one, Father, as I am in you and you are in me, may they be one in us…so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21-23) Notice that Jesus linked Church Unity to the world’s acceptance or rejection of him as Lord and Savior. That puts a great responsibility upon us and therein lies the reason why we should all be very concerned about restoring Church Unity. 

 What those words of Jesus at the Last Supper mean is that his Message of salvation hasn’t reached as many hearts and hasn't changed as many lives as it could have by now precisely because of us. That is, because of the lack of credible witness we have given to others as the Body of Christ. What the world has seen from us throughout much of history up til today is a divided and broken Christianity. What it has heard from us as Christians is a babel of voices as various denominations preach a different and often conflicting version of the allegedly same Gospel. So in the midst of all this confusion caused by us, how in the world are those who do not yet know Christ supposed to take him and his Message seriously? 

 Well, in 1908, a small group of Episcopalians in New York, called the Society of the Atonement, began a quest to heal the broken Body of Christ. They felt called to find the Church that was personally established by Jesus Christ himself and do what they could to share their discovery with others. They delved more deeply into the New Testament and were struck by the words of Jesus to Simon-Peter, declaring him to be the rock upon which the Church was to be built. They studied ancient Christian history and saw that whenever there were disagreements over what Jesus’ words meant or how Christians were to live the Gospel, they turned to the pope for the final answer. In other words, they saw quite clearly that the Holy Father was the bond that held the Church together as one Family in Christ. 

 The truth of their discovery was easy for them to see by looking at the trail of a broken Christianity all around them. They saw that they were part of this problem and so they were determined to become part of the solution. They saw that whenever the role of the pope had been ignored or was outright rejected, it brought nothing but division that bred even more division with each breakaway group defining their own interpretation of Christianity. This was why there were (and still are) thousands of different and often opposing Christian denominations each claiming to be preaching the same one Gospel of Christ! 

 That group of Epicopalians became convinced that the Holy Spirit was leading them to share their discovery with other non-Catholic Christians and thus do what they could to help bring about the fulfilment of Jesus’ Last Supper prayer for unity. Knowing that the task ahead of them was wholly dependent upon the grace of God and the conversion of hearts, they started the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and soon after this they became members of the Catholic Church. They practiced what they preached. Unbeknownst to them at the time, they had lit the fire for what would become a worldwide movement for the reunion of Christians that is called ecumenism. Their very small and humble Week of Prayer soon spread to other denominations and was officially embraced by the Catholic Church at Vatican II in the 1960s. But by the turn of the 21st century this ecumenical movement had sadly lost much of its original purpose, enthusiasm and energy. 

 At the beginning of this year’s Week of Prayer, Pope Leo has called for a revival of this quest for Church Unity. It is a stated and important goal of his papacy. He reminded us that real unity can never be built at the expense of truth and that we do not seek unity through compromise, but through conversion— beginning with ourselves. He asks first of all that we each make Jesus’ heartfelt plea for unity a special intention in our own prayers, especially when we recite the Lord’s Prayer that all Christians share in common. He reminds us that while there can be great diversity of style within Church Unity, if we are to be faithful to Jesus’ original intention, then what we ultimately seek is the corporate reunion of all Christians as one flock gathered around the pope as the earthly shepherd of the Church. 

 And so what does promoting Church Unity look like for us here and now? Well, along with prayer as Pope Leo asks of us, we each really need to know the Bible and our Catholic faith well enough to share it meaningfully with others. It doesn't mean you need a degree in theology or be ordained as a minister. It just means that you need the determination to do so because the grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit are already within you and have equipped you for this task. As a parish we try to help you do this by offering Bible Study every Sunday morning and by sending out Flocknotes that teach the Faith every week. I can assure you from personal experience that studying the Bible in the light of history can be very effective for deepening your own personal faith-commitment as well as in helping others find their way into the one sheepfold of Christ. 

 As a matter of fact, it's the very reason why I am standing here before you today because, you see, I myself have traveled the road to Church Unity. When I was a young man I was drawn to Jesus but confused by the smorgasbord of various flavors in Christianity. I knew that I had to bite the bullet, change my lifestyle and commit to Christ but I just didn’ t know where to do that. I wasn't terribly attracted to Catholicism and as a matter of fact it was dead last on my list. And in Protestant circles I was so happy to hear people say, “I used to be Catholic until I started reading the Bible.” Because that made me confident that I wouldn’t end up Catholic. 

I began an intense period of Bible study, however, I arrived at a very different conclusion! And so afterwards whenever I would hear someone say they stopped being Catholic after reading the Bible, I would reply, “Well, that’s really interesting because I wanted so badly to be Protestant but then I started really reading the Bible and that’s what brought me to the Catholic Church.” And so here I am before you today…which I think shows us that God has a great sense of humor!

Two of my Saintly Heroes...

Fr. Paul Francis Wattson and Mother Lurana White

Founders of the Society of the Atonement and the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. 

Both are now candidates for sainthood in the Catholic Church.

Behold the Lamb of God!

 

Deacon Dave · Behold the Lamb of God!

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. Jan. 18, 2026. The Gospel of John 1:29-34. Theme: Behold the Lamb of God! 

 If there’s a title for Jesus that we Catholics hear the most and yet probably understand the least, I would say that it’s the one proclaimed in today’s Gospel: Lamb of God. We are so familiar with saying it and hearing it at every Mass that I think it may have become just one more of those “Catholic things” that we no longer stop to really think about because they are so familiar to us. It’s kind of like the way so many of us look upon a crucifix. We are so used to it being on the walls of our churches or homes that we no longer really see it for what it is: the bloody corpse of a tortured man. But the thought of Jesus as “Lamb of God” should arouse within us the same sentiments of pity, love, and gratitude as that of the cross. Why? Because they are really one and the same thing just expressed in two different ways. 

 To grasp this connection we need to take a brief look at the religious worship of Judaism, the spiritual womb out of which Christianity was born. The religion of the Old Testament was significantly associated with animal sacrifices offered in atonement for sin. Lambs, whose white wool coats became symbols of purity and holiness, had a preeminent role in these sacrificial Jewish liturgies. And the most important of them was that of Passover which we retell in our Liturgy every Easter. God commanded that the blood of a sacrificed lamb was to be smeared on the doorposts of Hebrew houses in Egypt granting them protection from death. Then, after the family ate the flesh of this sacrificed lamb in a special ritual meal, they took off on the Exodus journey. 

 However, these ritual sacrifices were insufficient to actually remove sin and actually wipe away their guilt. Why? Because both the Jewish priest making the sacrifice and the people offering the lamb as a proxy for themselves, were sinful human beings with no power whatsoever to bring about atonement for sin. A better way was needed and God himself provided this better way. You see, the only way that true and effective atonement could be made was if the one making the sacrifice was himself utterly free of sin and motivated by pure and perfect love. In other words, the human race stood in need of a perfect and all-holy human being who would thus be able to offer up a perfect and all-holy sacrifice on behalf of all! And this put us in quite a quandary because no one among us stood before God free from sin! 

 And so, to make this seemingly impossible condition possible, God himself became man. This was the only way it could be done. With the consent of God the Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit acting upon Mary, God the Son freely gave up the glory of his heavenly realm in order to truly become one of us. And this is why the Gospel of John tells us that, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone whoever believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) Finally, true atonement for sin became possible! The sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, accomplished what millions of animal sacrifices could never ever do, because it had divine love and divine power behind it. And this sacrifice of Jesus as the victim-lamb had actually been foretold by the prophet Isaiah, 700 years before it took place. He said that the Messiah would be like a lamb brought silently to the slaughter, to take the sins of the people upon himself and wash them away through his blood. 

  The Passover ritual of the Old Testament was a foretelling of the Great Passover of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. His Precious Blood of Atonement was first poured out on Good Friday and then has been ritually re-enacted ever since in every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Just before Holy Communion, the priest like St. John the Baptist, points out to us the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He directs us to turn our eyes towards the Lord, whose heart is full of compassion and pity for us in our weakness. This is why we respond with the plea for healing and forgiveness. Then we acclaim Jesus as the Lamb of God three times, and in the first two of these petitions ask him to “have mercy on us.” 

 But why do we change the last invocation, to “grant us peace”? Because the Lamb of God brings us serenity of heart since we know we are immensely loved. He bestows upon us serenity of mind because he has brought our sins with him to the cross. And when that Lamb rose triumphantly from the grave our sins remained behind, dead, buried and gone. And so we know that by grace through faith we have been freed from the guilt of our sins and this fills our hearts with a peace that the world cannot give.

Why was Jesus Baptized...Why Was i Baptized?

 

Deacon Dave · Why Was Jesus Baptized...Why Was I Baptized?

Homily for Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. Gospel of St. Matthew 3:13-17. Theme: Why Was Jesus Baptized…Why Was I Baptized? 

 Today’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord brings our Christmas Season officially to an end. It ushers us out of Bethlehem, and moves us fast-forward 30 years to the banks of the Jordan River. Jesus is no longer a baby in the manger but now comes to us as a young adult, a tradesman from the village of Nazareth, who is about to start out on the mission for which he was born. In the Gospel reading we encounter him approaching his cousin, St. John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets and the one who was chosen to see the fulfillment of what all the prophets had foretold. John had the task of preparing Israel for the Messiah’s public arrival and now the long-awaited day had finally come. 

 To understand what’s really happening in this story, it’s important to remember that Jesus was not baptized because He had sins from which to repent. Rather, Jesus began his public ministry as our Savior by showing solidarity with us who are sinners and who do stand in need of repentance. He entered the Jordan River with St. John the Baptist as his first step in washing away our sins. By means of his divine presence submerged into the river, he intentionally sanctified the element of water, empowering it to become an instrument for spiritual cleansing in the Sacrament of Baptism. So in short, Jesus was not baptized because He needed it but because we do. And the story of Jesus’ Baptism teaches us that what happened to Jesus at his Baptism, is also what happens to each one of us at ours, just in a different way. 

 The first thing we hear about after Jesus comes up out of the water is that Heaven was opened. And this is precisely what Baptism does for us. It re-opens the way to Heaven which was closed to us by the original sin of Adam and Eve. Recall that these first humans were given the choice of living in obedience to their Creator or of living life on their own terms. And whatever they chose would be not just their fate, but the fate of all of us who descended from them. They freely chose to separate themselves and the human race from an intimate relationship with God. But Jesus our Savior came precisely to undo what they had done. He mended the relationship and closed the spiritual rupture they caused, bringing about a reconciliation between humanity and God. And so our first step towards Heaven is taken by leaving the ways of Adam and Eve and uniting ourselves intimately with Christ through Baptism. 

 The next wondrous thing we see happening to Jesus at the Jordan River is the Holy Spirit coming down upon Him under the appearance of a dove. Now, we might wonder why God chose to manifest himself in the form of a dove? Well, it could be because the dove is a biblical symbol of peace and innocence. By the power of the Holy Spirit who comes down upon us at our Baptism, we are made innocent through the forgiveness of sin and we make our peace, so to speak,with God. Baptism puts us into a right relationship with God as our Creator and Father, with the Son of God as our Savior and Brother, and with God the Holy Spirit as our Sanctifier and Life-giver. The innocence and peace we receive from this Sacrament remains with us as long as we remain faithful to our baptismal promises to reject sin and Satan, to trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and to live what He teaches us through the Bible and His Church. Should we ever fall away from these promises we can reclaim them once again through the Sacrament of Confession. And the Good News is that God is so rich in mercy that there’s no limit as to how many times we can seek and receive this post-baptismal reconciliation! 

 Finally, the Gospel tells us that God the Father’s voice was audibly heard declaring Jesus to be His Beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. And this is exactly what God the Father thinks about each one of us, about you and about me at our Baptism. when we become uniquely his! Through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus, we become God’s beloved children in whom He finds great delight! The Scriptures assure us that God rejoices over you, rejoices over me, rejoices over each one of us personally and not because of anything we have done but simply because of who we are and who he is. We are his children! He is our Father who loves each one of us unconditionally! And it’s this conscious awareness of God’s personal love that moves us from the inside out to strive to become the best that we can be by doing our best to live in a right relationship with him after our Baptism. A

nd so, it’s good for us that we move on from the Nativity in Bethlehem to the Baptism in the Jordan River. You see, if we compare the life of Christ to a book, we could say that staying at Christmas would be like never getting past the first chapter. Never getting caught up in its dramatic plot of interesting characters, miraculous cures, and powerful teachings. Never reaching the exciting apex of its conclusion with the stunning and world-changing events of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday. So you see, the Baptism of Jesus follows upon the heels of Christmas because it sets us up for the rest of the story. Through the Gospels proclaimed at the Liturgy over the following weeks and months, we will learn more and more about the marvelous and awesome things that God has done for us and still does for us today, through Jesus Christ, his Christmas gift to us that keeps on giving!