Daily Homilies for Priests

The Nathanael we hear about in today’s Gospel is traditionally understood to be Saint Bartholomew. And there is something Jesus recognizes in him almost immediately: there is no duplicity in him.

Bartholomew certainly begins with questions. He has his doubts about what Philip tells him. But he comes and sees, and once he recognizes who stands before him, he believes. There is a firmness to that faith that will eventually define his life.

Many things can shake our faith over the course of a lifetime. We see things we cannot understand. We experience suffering and disappointment. Even our own fears and emotions can cause us to question what we know.

And we should not forget that there is an evil influence at work as well. The devil works through lies and deceit. What greater victory could he desire than to draw a priest away from God, convincing him to doubt what he has believed, preached, and given his life to?

But the lies do not change the Truth. God remains faithful. Christ remains Truth.

So the question for all of us is whether we remain faithful to him. Do we allow those lies to deter us from the Truth we have come to know? Is there duplicity within us, or do we cling wholeheartedly to Christ?

Jesus tells Bartholomew that he will see greater things. And he did. His faith carried him from that first encounter with Jesus through the Resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the proclamation of the Gospel, and ultimately, according to tradition, a horrendous martyrdom.

You have seen many things over your years of faith and ministry. You have seen the grace of God at work, and undoubtedly you have also seen and experienced things that have tested your faith. Yet Christ’s promise still stands. There are greater things to see.

Revelation points us toward them today. Beyond everything that can shake us in this life stands the heavenly Jerusalem and the fulfillment of everything we have believed.

May the Lord strengthen in all of us that same faith, so that like Saint Bartholomew, we may cling wholeheartedly to Christ, remain faithful to the Truth, and one day see the greater things he has promised.

Jesus prays today for something we cannot accomplish by ourselves: “that they may all be one.” And He is not praying simply that His disciples tolerate one another or learn to live with their differences. He prays that our unity might reflect the communion of the Father and the Son: “as you, Father, are in me and I in you.” That kind of unity can only come from God.

Jesus tells us how: “that they also may be in us.” Our unity with one another flows from our union with Him.

Saint Bernard lived that union intensely. His love for Christ drew others toward Christ. Men followed him into religious life. Clairvaux grew to hundreds of monks. Monasteries multiplied. He advised popes, confronted kings, worked to heal divisions within the Church, and drew countless souls toward God.

There was a fire in him.

You have heard the Gospel where Jesus said, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” And today’s Collect describes Bernard as a man “consumed with zeal” and asks that we might be “on fire with the same spirit.”

That fire of Christ has sustained you through many years of priesthood. But Saint Bernard challenges us to ask whether we have allowed that fire not only to sustain us, but to consume us.

What remains within us that is not of God? Pride, resentment, old wounds, attachment to our own way, the desire to be recognized or proven right? These are the things we bring before the fire of God’s love and ask Him to burn away. Not so that less of us remains, but so that Christ may shine more clearly through us.

And perhaps this is where Christ’s prayer for unity begins to be fulfilled. The more His love consumes what separates us from Him, the less there is within us to separate us from one another.

After all these years of ministry, the Lord is not finished with any of us. There is still more to surrender, more to purify, more deeply to love. Let the fire of His love burn away whatever keeps us from belonging completely to Him, and whatever keeps us apart from one another.

May the fire that burned so brightly in Saint Bernard burn ever more brightly in us, so that Christ’s prayer to the Father may be fulfilled in us.

Saint Lawrence understood something essential about Christian service: we can only give what we have first received.

Saint Paul tells us today that God “will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” The seed does not originate with us. God supplies it. The grace is His. The gifts are His. Even the strength with which we serve Him is first given to us by God.

Lawrence received abundantly, and so he gave abundantly. He gave himself in service as a deacon. He cared for the poor and those in need. And when the Roman prefect demanded the treasures of the Church, Lawrence gathered the poor, the suffering, and those dependent upon the charity of Christians and presented them as the Church’s true treasure.

Lawrence recognized a treasure the world could not see.

For each of us, the Lord has entrusted us with gifts that were never meant to end with us. Our faith, our vocation, our experiences, the wisdom gained over a lifetime, the grace received through the sacraments, even the trials through which God has carried us: all of these can become gifts offered in service to others.

And we do not need to fear that generosity will leave us empty. Saint Paul reminds us that “God is able to make every grace abundant for you.” The more completely we place what we have received at God’s disposal, the more He is able to bring forth a harvest beyond anything we could produce ourselves.

Lawrence ultimately gave everything, even his life. Yet his martyrdom was simply the final offering of a life already given to Christ.

Today, may we recognize the treasure God has entrusted to us, and freely give what we have freely received, trusting that the Lord will make it fruitful.

Jesus tells us today, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.”

Saint Maximilian Kolbe could not have known how much fruit would come from one decision made at Auschwitz.

When Franciszek Gajowniczek was chosen to die by starvation, he cried out for his wife and children. Father Kolbe heard the anguish of another man and stepped forward. He offered to take his place. There was no way for Kolbe to know what would become of the man whose life he was saving. He simply saw a brother in need and gave himself for him.

In that moment, the words of Jesus became flesh: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

And the fruit continued long after Kolbe’s death. Gajowniczek survived Auschwitz and the war. For decades afterward, he told others about the priest who had given his life for him. The sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe became part of his own witness to the love of God.

But the Gospel does not speak only about the fruit that has already been borne. Jesus says, “I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.”

That calling does not have an expiration date.

The Lord still places people before you who need the gift of your priesthood. There are still people who need your prayers, your wisdom, your presence, your absolution, the Eucharist offered by your hands. There are brother priests who need your fraternity and encouragement. There are still opportunities to lay down your lives, perhaps not in one dramatic act, but in the quiet and repeated gift of yourselves for Christ and His people.

And you may never know what will come from those gifts.

Kolbe could not have imagined that the man for whom he gave his life would spend decades telling the world about the love he witnessed in that place of hatred. One act of self-giving became a witness that outlived them both.

The Lord chose you for the same reason He chose His first disciples: to go and bear fruit that will remain.

So keep giving Him your life. Keep laying it down for your brothers and for the people He places before you. There is still fruit to be borne, and by His grace, some of it may remain long after any of us are here to see it.

Saint Paul tells us that we have been “entrusted with the Gospel.” And with that trust comes a constant challenge: to speak and live “not as trying to please men, but rather God.”

That struggle never really leaves us. We naturally want to be accepted. We want people to think well of us. And even in ministry, it can be easy to allow the opinions and expectations of others to influence us more than we realize.

Saint Pius X gives us a powerful example of the freedom needed to resist that temptation.

He was born into poverty, the son of a village cobbler. Yet as the Lord called him from parish priest, to bishop, to cardinal, and eventually to pope, he never allowed position or prestige to define him. His will expressed the simplicity with which he lived: “I was born poor; I lived poor; I wish to die poor.”

There is something much deeper than material poverty in those words. Pius X lived with a poverty of spirit that left him free to belong to God. He did not need the things of this world, or the approval of others, to tell him who he was. That freedom allowed him to give himself courageously to what God placed before him.

Saint Paul says that he was determined to share “not only the Gospel of God, but our very selves as well.” That kind of self-gift requires poverty. We cannot give ourselves completely while still clinging tightly to ourselves.

And perhaps that is why Jesus’ question to Peter is so important: “Do you love me?”

If our answer is yes, then we must continually ask what that love requires of us now. What am I holding onto that keeps me from giving myself more fully? What needs to be left behind?

Saint Pius X challenges us to live our ministry with that poverty of spirit: free from the need to please men, free to give ourselves, and free to live entirely for God.

There is a freedom in the lives of the martyrs that the world does not understand.

Saint Sixtus and his companions had reached a point where nothing was more important than Christ. Not comfort. Not security. Not even their own lives.

That is holy indifference. It does not mean that we stop caring. Quite the opposite. It means loving God so completely that everything else finds its proper place. We desire whatever allows us to love God and our neighbor more faithfully.

That is the freedom we hear in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells his Apostles, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” The death of the body is inevitable. So too is the passing away of everything we possess in this world. None of it can last forever.

But what belongs to God cannot be taken from us. Our faith, our hope, and our love draw us into a life that death itself cannot destroy. Even the body that dies will one day be raised and restored in the resurrection.

Saint Sixtus and his companions believed this deeply enough to stake their lives upon it. They could surrender everything because they knew that, in Christ, they were losing nothing that truly lasts.

None of us will be asked to make the same sacrifice Saint Sixtus and his companions made. But we can share in the freedom that made their sacrifice possible. When Christ is our greatest treasure, we are free to receive each day as a gift. We are free to love generously, to serve wherever the Lord gives us the opportunity, and to remain faithful without needing to control what tomorrow will bring.

The Collect today asks that we be “docile in believing the faith and courageous in confessing it.”

That courage is still ours to live. Keep fighting the good fight. Keep loving. Keep serving. Keep giving yourself to Christ and to those he places before you.

Our lives are in God’s hands, and there is no better place for them to be.

Peter asks Jesus a question that probably seems reasonable: “How often must I forgive?” There must be some limit. At some point, surely, enough is enough.

But Jesus turns the question around. He reminds Peter, and us, how much mercy we ourselves have already received.

God knows us more intimately than anyone else ever could. He knows our sins, our weaknesses, our failures, even those things we would rather no one else know. And still, His mercy toward us is beyond anything we could ever deserve.

Yet sometimes it is much easier to extend mercy to someone we barely know than to someone close to us.

We can be compassionate toward the stranger who comes to us carrying his burdens. But when it is a brother we live with, someone whose habits we know, someone who has frustrated us or perhaps hurt us, mercy can become much more difficult. Familiarity can make the offense feel more personal.

The master in today’s Gospel initially responds to his servant with judgment. But when the servant pleads with him, he is moved with compassion and changes his response. This shows us something about how our human emotions can respond. Our first reaction does not have to be our final response.

We may be angry. We may feel hurt. We may believe that a brother has wronged us. Mercy does not require us to pretend otherwise. But with grace, we can reconsider. We can choose not to hold onto the debt.

We will never be a perfect family here. We will frustrate one another, misunderstand one another, and sometimes hurt one another. But that is precisely where the Gospel must become lived.

If God, who knows us completely, can show us such extraordinary mercy, surely we can ask for the grace to show a little more mercy to the brother beside us. And perhaps, through that mercy, we become better together.

One of the consoling truths in today’s Gospel is that it is not the Lord who changes. Jesus is the same before Peter steps out of the boat, while Peter is walking on the water, and when Peter begins to sink. The Lord remains constant.

It is Peter who changes.

He begins with complete confidence in the Lord. For a moment, he experiences what is impossible by human strength because he is sustained by God’s grace. But then his humanity asserts itself. Fear enters. His attention shifts. He begins to trust what he sees and feels more than the Lord who called him.

Our humanity is easily distracted. We become absorbed by the winds around us or the fears within us. When that happens, our confidence begins to rest on shifting ground rather than on the Lord, who alone remains constant.

That temptation can find its way into every Christian life, even into ministry. Whatever good the Lord has accomplished through us has never been the result of our own strength. Every conversion, every life touched, every grace received has always been Christ at work in us. The moment we begin to rely on ourselves, or imagine that the work depends upon us, we begin to sink.

Yet Peter’s failure is not the end of the story.

The moment he cries out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately stretches out His hand.

That is our hope. There will be times when our faith wavers and our attention drifts. But the Lord does not withdraw His hand. He remains faithful. Every time we turn back to Him, we find that His grace is sufficient, His mercy is unfailing, and His hand has been outstretched all along.

Today, let us renew our confidence, not in ourselves or in our circumstances, but in the Lord, who alone remains constant. He is always faithful to those He has called.

“Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”

Those words were first spoken to the disciples, but they are spoken to us as well. By God’s grace, you have come to know Jesus Christ. You have heard the Good News. You have received the mysteries of the Kingdom. What an extraordinary gift that is.

The Lord did not reveal Himself to the disciples simply for their sake. He revealed Himself so that, through them, others might come to believe.

Jeremiah reminds us what happens when people turn away from the Lord, “the source of living waters.” Having rejected Him, they sought life elsewhere and found only broken cisterns that could hold no water. Yet the Lord never abandoned them. He continued to call them back through the prophets, patiently inviting them to return. Jesus does the same in today’s Gospel. Even knowing that many would not receive His message, He never ceased revealing the mysteries of the Kingdom.

As priests, that same perseverance is entrusted to you. Not every homily will bear visible fruit. Not every invitation to conversion will be received. Not every heart will be ready to hear. But the Lord does not ask you to measure success. He asks you to be faithful.

Whether from the pulpit, in the confessional, at the altar, around the dinner table, or through the quiet witness of your life, you continue to proclaim the kerygma. Never grow weary of preaching Christ.

Blessed indeed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. May the Lord continue to strengthen you with His grace, so that you may persevere in faithfully proclaiming Him until the day He calls you home.

Today’s first reading begins with the people asking God a question: What more can I give You? They keep imagining that God must want a greater sacrifice. More offerings. More gifts. Something extraordinary.

But God answers in a way they never expected:

“You have been told… what the LORD requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Notice that God does not dismiss sacrifice. He simply puts it in its proper place. Sacrifice finds its meaning only when it flows from a humble relationship with Him.

For many of you, sacrifice has marked your entire priesthood. You have offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass thousands of times. You have carried the burdens of your flocks, anointed the sick, buried the dead, preached the Gospel, and sacrificed yourselves in the service of Christ. Those sacrifices have borne tremendous fruit.

But now the pace of ministry has slowed. There are fewer appointments, fewer responsibilities, and fewer opportunities to serve as you once did.

Yet God’s call has not diminished.

If anything, Micah’s words become even more important: Walk humbly with your God.

The Lord who called you decades ago has not retired. He is still walking beside you. He still desires your companionship. He still speaks in the quiet of prayer. The deepest work of your priesthood has never simply been what you did for Christ, but whether you walked with Him.

Perhaps this stage of life is not a time of less sacrifice, but of a different sacrifice: offering Him your time, your limitations, your dependence, and even your hiddenness. There is a profound humility in allowing yourself to be loved by God when you can no longer do all that you once did.

So perhaps we leave today with the prayer the Church placed on our lips at the beginning of this Mass: “See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul.” The Lord who called you has never ceased walking with you. He still invites you to walk humbly with Him. And as long as He sustains your soul, your priesthood continues to bear fruit, for you can still offer Him the sacrifice of a willing heart and praise His holy name.

Jesus says something today that deserves our careful attention:

“If you knew what this meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’…”

The Pharisees knew the Scriptures well. They had devoted their lives to studying them. Their problem was not that they lacked knowledge. It was that they had stopped allowing the Word of God to continue forming their hearts. They knew the words, but they had become less open to where those words were leading them.

That temptation is not limited to the Pharisees. It can quietly find its way into our own hearts.

We’ve all heard the expressions, “He’s set in his ways,” or, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Perhaps, if we’re honest, we’ve recognized that tendency in ourselves from time to time. But a disciple never stops listening. We are called to continual conversion, always returning to God’s Word with open hearts, ready to hear what the Lord desires to teach us today.

None of us has arrived yet. At least I haven’t witnessed any levitation in the chapel or reports of bilocation around the residence. Until the Lord calls us home, He is still shaping each of us more fully into the image of His Son.

Jesus’ words are spoken not only to the Pharisees, but to us as well. Every time we hear the Scriptures proclaimed, the Lord invites us to deeper conversion. We should never become so familiar with God’s Word that we leave no room for Him to surprise us, challenge us, or draw us more deeply into His life.

The longer we have walked with Christ, the greater the temptation to confuse familiarity with openness. Yet the saints never stopped being disciples. In fact, the closer they drew to the Lord, the more teachable they became.

Every time we open the Scriptures, the living Word stands before us once again. He is not simply asking us what we know. He is asking whether we are still willing to be changed by what we know.

Let us ask for the grace to remain lifelong disciples, always listening, always learning, and always allowing the Lord to continue His work of conversion within us. Amen.

 Isaiah tells us where peace is found:

“O Lord, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done.”

Isaiah does not deny the labor of God’s people. They have struggled. They have suffered. They have remained faithful through trials. Yet, looking back, they recognize that every grace and every good work ultimately belonged to God.

Over the years, you have preached the Gospel, celebrated the sacraments, touched countless lives, shared in people’s joys, and carried their crosses. I also know that many of you have had to accept the limitations that come with age or declining health. That is not an easy surrender.

The priesthood is not about what you accomplish. It is about what Christ accomplishes through you. Isaiah offers a grace for precisely that moment. Your peace is not found in what you are still able to accomplish, but in recognizing what the Lord has accomplished through your faithful ministry. The Kingdom was never built by your strength. It has always been built by His grace, working through your faithful cooperation.

That is why Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” He doesn’t say, “Come to me when your work is finished.” He says, “Come to me.” Then He invites you to take His yoke upon you. A yoke joins two together. Christ has never asked you to carry the work of the Gospel alone. He asks you simply to remain beside Him.

Today we ask for the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that honors Him. Perhaps one thing to leave behind is the quiet belief that everything depends on you. It never has. It is the Lord who has accomplished all that has been done through your priesthood. The Lord’s work does not end when your strength begins to fade. His dew is a dew of light, bringing life where we see only limitation. In humble gratitude, rest in the peace of knowing that the Lord who has accomplished so much through you continues to bring forth life.

Today’s solemnity gives us two great apostles who appear very different, yet the Lord accomplished the same work through both of them.

Peter is rescued from prison by an angel. Paul tells Timothy, “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength.” At first glance, we might think the lesson is that God protects those who serve Him. But both Peter and Paul would eventually receive the martyr’s crown. God’s protection was never a promise that they would avoid suffering. Rather, He strengthened them until their mission was complete.

That is an important reminder for us. The Lord gives us exactly what we need to fulfill the work He entrusts to us. Sometimes He opens prison doors. Sometimes He simply gives us the strength to remain faithful while the chains stay in place.

Peter’s confession in today’s Gospel also reminds us where ministry begins. Jesus tells him, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Peter could confess Christ only because he had first received that gift from the Father. Paul could preach Christ because the Lord first stood beside him and strengthened him.

The same is true for us. We cannot give what we have not first received. Every homily, every sacrament, every act of charity must flow from our own communion with Christ. Otherwise, we risk offering ourselves instead of Him.

The Church honors Peter and Paul today because they poured out what they had first received. May we do the same without measuring the cost, trusting that the Lord will give us all that is needed until the work He has entrusted to us is complete.

Amos’ response to Amaziah is striking. He doesn’t defend himself or point to everything he has accomplished. He simply says, “The LORD took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” Amos’ confidence isn’t in what he has done. It is in the God who called him.

I suspect every priest here could tell a similar story. Looking back over the years, you can see the Lord’s hand in ways you probably didn’t recognize at the time. You can see His providence in assignments you didn’t expect, in people you never imagined would shape your priesthood, and even in crosses that only later revealed God’s purpose. Those memories are gifts, and they should lead us to gratitude.

But there is a subtle danger in every long vocation. We can become so grateful for where the Lord has led us that we begin living more from yesterday’s call than today’s grace. Gratitude for the past is a gift. Living there is not.

Amos doesn’t recall the day the Lord called him to reminisce. He recalls it to explain why he is standing before Amaziah today. The God who called him from tending the flock is the same God who is speaking to him now.

The same is true for us. The Lord has never stopped drawing us to Himself. His love has not changed. His call has not changed. What changes is our capacity to receive Him. As our hearts become more receptive through the years, the Lord continues to reveal more deeply the life He has always desired to share with us.

That is why the Psalm proclaims, “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.” God’s Word does more than remind us of what He has done. It keeps us attentive to what He is saying today.

Perhaps these readings leave us with one simple question: “Lord, what are You asking of me today?” Not because yesterday no longer matters, but because You are still speaking. The One who first called us continues to lead us, continues to give Himself to us, and continues to invite us into a deeper communion with Him. May He find us with hearts open enough to recognize His voice and faithful enough to follow wherever He leads.

There is one line from today’s psalm that should stop us in our tracks:

“Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?”

Those words were spoken to God’s own people—not to pagans, but to those who knew the Lord and claimed to belong to Him.

We should hear them as if they are spoken to us.

We proclaim God’s Word. We preach it. We celebrate the sacraments. But today’s psalm asks a question that none of us can avoid: Am I living the covenant I proclaim?

Ministry has a way of breeding self-reliance. We begin by asking, “Lord, what do You want?” Years later, if we’re not careful, we find ourselves saying, “Lord, here’s what I’m going to do.” The shift is subtle, but it is real. We still invoke His name, but we are no longer listening for His voice. We have taken the driver’s seat, assuming we know the road better than the One who called us.

Amos tells us exactly what the Lord desires: not simply faithful worship, but hearts that seek good, hate evil, and allow His Word to shape every decision. The psalm reminds us that it is possible to profess the covenant while no longer living by it.

Our prayer today is that we not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always stand in the bright light of truth. Perhaps the darkness we should fear most is not obvious sin, but the quiet illusion that we’ve done this long enough to stop listening. Years of ministry should not make us more self-reliant; they should make us more dependent on the Holy Spirit.

Shall we pray:

Lord, put me back where I belong. Teach me again to listen before I speak, to follow before I lead, and to seek Your will before my own. May Your Word shape my heart more than my experience, Your Spirit guide me more than my instincts, and Your will always be greater than my own. Amen.

The first reading recounts the collapse of Jerusalem. The Temple is plundered, the king is exiled, and the people are carried off to Babylon. What generations had regarded as permanent was suddenly gone.

Perhaps that is what strikes us most. The people had become accustomed to a certain way of life, their city, their worship, their routines, and the confidence that tomorrow would look much like today. Yet they had gradually drifted from the Lord, and when those comforts disappeared, they were left wondering what remained.

We know something of that experience. As we age, many of the things we once relied upon begin to change. Health weakens, ministries end, friends die, and familiar routines are interrupted. There can be a temptation to ask, “What remains?”

The psalm answers the question: “Help us, O God our savior, because of the glory of your name.” The prayer is not first for the restoration of Jerusalem, but for God himself. When everything else is shaken, the Lord remains faithful.

Jesus makes the same point in the Gospel. It is not enough to say, “Lord, Lord,” nor even to point to good works accomplished in his name. The deeper question is whether we have built our lives upon him by listening to his word and acting upon it.

Our prayer today is that we may be set firm on the foundation of God’s love. That foundation does not depend upon health, ministry, or the comforts of this world. The rains will come, the floods will rise, and the winds will blow against every house. But the house built on rock stands firm.

The Lord may permit many earthly securities to pass away, but he never stops guiding those who place their trust in him. If Christ is our foundation, then even losses can lead us to deeper trust, and our prayer becomes one of quiet confidence: “Help us, O God our savior, for the glory of your name.”