Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
Learning Mercy
Rev. James A. Wickersham

The Church gives us Psalm 145 today, a psalm traditionally attributed to King David. And in this psalm we hear David say, "I will praise your name forever, my king and my God." At first that sounds exactly like what we expect David to say. But if we know David's life, we also remember that his life was not always one of praising God. We remember Bathsheba. We remember her husband, Uriah. We remember the lust, the deception, and the death David arranged for Uriah so he could have Bathsheba. David was capable of great holiness, but he was also capable of great sin.

So why should we take David seriously when he speaks about faithfulness in today's psalm? When David says, "I will praise your name forever," I am really tempted to roll my eyes at him. It's understandable that people might have some problems with this psalm. David hasn't always praised God; he hasn't always been a good boy.

Or maybe this psalm shows David has discovered something about God that only a repentant sinner can understand. David is not praising his own faithfulness. He is praising God's faithfulness. David has failed, but God has never failed.

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Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
God's Reward
Rev. Mr. James Fourcade

Today’s readings draw us into a single, challenging, yet beautiful theme:  We know that when we welcome God into our lives, God changes everything.  He calls us to discipleship and there may be a cost of our discipleship but God’s surprises us with an abundance of His reward. 

In our first reading, the Shunem (Shoo-numb) woman welcomes the prophet Elisha into her home. She does not do it to seek a reward or to gain influence.  She simply recognizes holiness and makes room for it.  Her hospitality was intentional.  She prepared a room.  She offered food.  She rearranged her life to make room for God’s presence. She simply saw a servant of God and responds with an open heart.  In return, God gives her what she never imagined – the promise of a child.

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Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
Awfully Quiet
Rev. James Wickersham

One of the toughest questions people ask is this: If God loves us, why does he seem so quiet and distant? Why doesn't he stop people from walking away from him? Why doesn't he stop suffering? Why doesn't he stop families from being divided? Why doesn't he stop children and grandchildren from drifting away from the faith?

Jeremiah knew something about those questions. The people around him wanted him to fail. The responsorial psalm says, "I have become an outcast to my brothers, a stranger to my mother's children." These are not enemies. These are family members.

Many people know exactly what that feels like. You love the Lord. You come to Mass. You pray. Yet there are people you love who no longer believe, no longer practice, or no longer care. Sometimes they mock the faith or simply ignore it. Either way, it hurts.

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Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
A Kingdom of Priests
Rev. James A. Wickersham

We all know what it is like to look at the world and say, “This is not how it is supposed to be.”

Young people especially see this. A young person starts to notice so much that is wrong in the world: hypocrisy, injustice, and cruelty. And so they speak up and say, “This is wrong.”

I think noticing the injustice in the world is one of the signs that we were made for God. Because why do we long for justice if justice is not real? Why do we desire truth, beauty, and goodness if those things do not come from somewhere deeper than ourselves?

These are universal longings in the human heart. The human heart is able to recognize that the world is disordered because the human heart was made for communion with God, who is just, merciful, good, and true.

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The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Bread from Heaven
Rev. James A. Wickersham

Last Sunday and today, the Church celebrates two of her greatest mysteries. Last Sunday we celebrated the Holy Trinity: God is one, and God is three. We ended with this: the Trinity is not a mystery to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. Today we celebrate the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, what we call Corpus Christi.

And with a mystery like the Eucharist, there are two mistakes we can make. One mistake says, “This is all mystery, so we cannot really say anything about it. Just accept it and move on.” The other mistake says, “If we cannot fully understand it, then it must not really be mystery at all. It must only be a symbol, a reminder, a religious reenactment of something Jesus did long ago.” The Catholic faith refuses both mistakes.

The Eucharist is mystery, but mystery does not mean darkness. Mystery means there is more light than our eyes can see. We cannot master the Eucharist and we cannot explain it away. But we can speak about it because Christ has spoken. We can ponder it because God has revealed himself. We can adore it because this is not bread and wine anymore. This is the Body and Blood of Christ.

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The Most Holy Trinity
Communion
Rev. James A. Wickersham

A week ago, the Church celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Today, eight days later, the Church celebrates the fullness of God himself: the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When priests preach on Trinity Sunday, I think there is often a temptation to try to explain the Trinity. And certainly the Church has spent centuries reflecting on this great mystery. One of the most beautiful explanations comes from the Athanasian Creed. Listen to how the Church speaks and thinks about God:

"We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity; neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God."

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The Ascension of the Lord
Lord of the Stars
Rev. James A. Wickersham

You know what? I’m going to do it again. I’m going to talk about UFOs at this Mass, or what we more often call now, UAPs.

In the last few weeks, there has been more public discussion about these sightings. The government has released more material, including pilot and military reports, and much remains unclear.

Around the same time, I came across a couple of purported news articles — and I say purported because we have to be careful about what we read — claiming that some Protestant pastors were warning their congregations that if intelligent life beyond Earth is discovered, Christian faith could collapse. I do not know whether those pastors were quoted fairly. Headlines are often written to provoke. We should not jump from unexplained to alien. We do not know what UAPs are.

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Sixth Sunday of Easter - Year A
Orphans No Longer
Rev. James A. Wickersham

St. Peter tells us today, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.”

So, what is the reason for your hope?

Maybe before we talk about that, we have to ask: what is hope? The Catechism teaches that hope is the virtue by which we desire heaven and eternal life, trusting in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the grace of the Holy Spirit. In other words, hope is not just feeling good because things are going well. Hope is what allows us to trust Christ when things are not going well.

I would wager that almost every adult in this church is worried about something right now. There is something that keeps you up at night or wakes you up first thing in the morning, and before your feet hit the floor, you are already thinking about it. When the anxieties of life rear their ugly heads, it can feel like they will last forever. They make us fearful of the future. They make us feel alone, as if we have to shoulder everything ourselves. And when fear takes over, we either want to run and hide, or attack and destroy whatever is in our way. Ultimately, anxiety makes us feel like we are orphans.

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Fifth Sunday of Easter - Year A
Offer Yourself!
Rev. James A. Wickersham

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. For his mercy endures forever.

Over the past two years, my role has been changing. When I was asked to become Vocation Director, I felt the weight of it. The weight was not mainly the meetings or the schedule. It was fear. What if I fail at this? What if no men come forward?

But, you know, fear is not a plan. I knew I had to rethink how I used my time, what I could say yes to, and what I had to say no to. Even handing over my calendar to Kim was part of that. And it has helped a lot.

Now, beginning this summer, my responsibility shifts again. I will be working directly with our seminarians, almost 30 of them, and serving as a bridge between them, their seminaries, and Archbishop Coakley. And I had the same feeling again: What if I fail?

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Fourth Sunday of Easter - Year A
Good Shepherd Sunday
Rev. Mr. James Fourcade

Today’s readings invite us to encounter the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd, and to reflect on the call to conversion and deeper trust in God.

Throughout Scripture, there is a consistent image of the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep. Jesus’ use of this image makes perfect sense, because people of his time understood well the role of a shepherd to his sheep. The shepherd cared for his flock, even to the point of laying down his life to protect them. He led the sheep rather than following behind them. He gathered them together to himself rather than letting them wander. He instructed them in Scripture which becomes the doorway into the sheepfold of Christ. Those who confess the true Christ enter through the door. Shepherds use the door; thieves seek whatever entrance is possible.

The Good Shepherd is also the gatekeeper. In the evening, shepherds of a village would gather their sheep into a common fold—a corral surrounded by briars or other barriers. The shepherds would take turns lying across the entrance, becoming the gate themselves, protecting the sheep from predators. At sunrise, each shepherd would enter the corral and call his sheep. The sheep recognized their shepherd’s voice, and he would lead them out to pasture.

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Third Sunday of Easter - Year A
This Was the Way
Rev. James A. Wickersham

The two disciples were talking about everything that had happened. That is how the Gospel begins. Two of the Lord’s disciples are leaving Jerusalem, going back to where they came from, trying to make sense of it all.

And what are they talking about? Jesus, the one they hoped in, was crucified. And they say it plainly: we were hoping. You can hear the disappointment. You can hear the confusion. There is a sense that something went wrong. And if we are honest, we would have felt the same way. Many people do feel that way when they look at Holy Thursday and Good Friday. It can seem like something went wrong.

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Second Sunday of Easter
Peace Be With You
Rev. James A. Wickersham

There is a moment in the Gospel today that is easy to miss if we move too quickly. The doors are locked. The apostles are inside. And they are afraid. This is where we find them after everything that happened—after the arrest, the scourging, the crucifixion. After they ran. After Peter denied. After almost all of them disappeared. None of them gave a strong showing. And this is where the risen Lord comes.

He does not wait for them to get their act together. He does not stand outside and demand an explanation. He does not send word ahead to see if they are ready. He comes into the room they have locked, stands in their midst, and says, “Peace be with you.” This is where it changes. Because the story of the apostles is not a story of men who got it right the first time. It is a story of men who failed, who scattered, who were afraid—and who still waited for the Lord to come back to them. And he did.

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