My name is Don, and I’ve been a Catholic priest now for over 50 years. And during that time, I keep going back to the same readings over and over again, only to discover that they contain something I never understood was there before. It gives me new enthusiasm and excitement for the message that keeps revealing itself. And I pray that the message that I’m sending you will be valuable, and if you find it so, please share these podcasts with your friends. Thank you. Good morning.

Before I begin our homily this morning, I just thought I’d like to talk to you a little bit. It’s weird being a priest that’s used to having an audience in pews in front of him. And now for the last 12 years, I’ve been talking either on the radio or through podcasts or through videos. And hello. I just have a feeling of having missed that kind of connection with my audience. So I want to talk to you, the audience, for a few minutes and say a few things about me, my favorite subject.

But it’s this. I long for a connection with people. That’s kind of my M.O. i guess. And the homily today is going to be a little difficult for me because there’s ways in which I try to make that connection that are not so healthy. But we’ll talk about that in the homily.

But now I realize that I have an audience that’s bigger and broader. I have people listening perhaps to this program in Chicago or Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus or Cleveland, Ohio, Providence, Rhode Island, Myrtle Beach, Hiawatha, Kansas. Or maybe you’re here listening on Sirius xm. Or maybe you’re in Dallas and you’ve listened to me on WRR and nothing seems to have changed for you. And since I’ve been on there for so long. But those of you who don’t know me, I want to say a few things about me.

I’m not an expert at this, you know, I’m not a. I’m not the one who’s got this all down. I am like you, struggling, worrying, wondering, afraid at times, at peace at times. But I never want you to think that I’m sitting up here telling you the things that you need to do or be. And I’ve done them, and I am those things. I am like you, struggling.

And the things that I ask you to think about and believe in, they come and go. You know, you can be so convinced that God is in you and loving you and taking care of you, and then next week you’re just in a kind of darkness. And I’ve been in and out of that all my life, and I think all of us are. So I’m just saying this to you to say I’m a co laborer in the vineyard, not the one who’s got it all figured out. And I hope that connects us. I wish I could have a chance to sit with you, talk with you, get to know you, or at least have you in the same room where I can look out and feel the presence of the people there.

But I’m going to let God take care of that because I want to feel connected to you as I talk to you. I want you to feel connected to me as you listen. And the one that’s doing the work is God, and the opening prayer says something wonderful about Him. So let’s start with that. It says the 18th Sunday in Ordinary time, and this is what we’re praying for while we listen to these readings. The prayer is Draw near to your servants, O Lord.

Answer their prayers with unceasing kindness. But for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide, you may restore what you have created and keep safe what you’ve restored. The Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen. A Reading from the Old Testament from the book of Ecclesiastes, first chapter, second verse in second chapter, 21st to the 23rd verse. Vanity of vanities, says Koheleth.

Vanity of vanities. All things are vanity. Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill and yet to another who has not labored over it, he must leave property. This also is vanity, and a great misfortune. For what profit comes to a man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored under the sun? All his days are sorrow and grief, and his occupation, even at night his mind is not at rest.

This is also vanity, the Word of the Lord. Responsorial Psalm if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts, you turn man back to dust, saying, return, O children of men, for a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday, now that it is past, or as a watch of the night. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts, you make an end of them in their sleep. The next morning they are like the changing grass, with which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades. If you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.

Return, O Lord, O Lord, how long have pity on your servants. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days. And may the gracious care of the Lord our God be ours. Prosper the work of our hands for us Prosper the work of our hands. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

A reading now from St. Paul, letter to the Colossians, third chapter, first through the fifth verse and ninth through the 11th verse. Brothers and sisters, if you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, for Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not what is on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.

Put to death then parts of you that are earthly immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry. Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and put on the new self which is being renewed for knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is not Greek or Jew circumcision or uncircumcision. Barbarian Scythian, slave free But Christ is all and in all the word of the Lord. Hallelujah. Verse Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia the gospel for this 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Luke 12:13, 21st verse. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me. He replied to him, friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbiter. And he said to the crowd, take care to guard against all greed. Although one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.

Then he told him a parable. There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, what shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest? And he said, this is what I shall do. I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and all my other goods.

And I shall say to myself, now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for so many years. Rest, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, you fool, this night your life will be demanded of you, and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong? Thus will it be for all who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich in what matters to God. The Gospel of the Lord Satan the opening prayer that I mentioned sets the tone, as it always does, for what we should be looking for in the readings. And there’s something in this reading that.

This prayer, rather, that strikes me. It’s a word I haven’t really thought of before. But we’re praying to God to restore us to how we are, how we were created. Restore what you have created. Keep safe what you have restored. Well, if something’s restored, it means it was one thing and now it’s not what it was and it needs to be returned to what it was.

And there’s a passage from Jeremiah that’s always struck me as so interesting, you know, yet it doesn’t always sink in because it’s a piece of wisdom. And you know that the work that we’re always doing as we listen to readings and open our heart to them is we’re. We’re listening for wisdom. Wisdom is the goal of the Scriptures. It’s the goal of my preaching. It’s the goal that we are here to achieve, that is to see things as they really are.

And wisdom is not something that’s logical and practical. The mind has a really hard time holding it because there’s so many exceptions to it that we get all confused. But it really does make sense to the heart, that mysterious organ that is like a brain and has the same cells as the brain has. The heart thinks and it ponders and it wonders. But when you give it wisdom, it just smiles if that makes sense and it feels comfortable. So what I’m getting at is a phrase from Jeremiah where it says, God, before I was born, you knew me in my mother’s womb.

You gave me a task, a work to accomplish, and I longed to accomplish that work. When you think about that, it’s really fascinating because it means that if we believe that, it means that there is a reason for us being who we are, how we look, what gender we are, what race we are, where we’re living, what time we’re living in this place. And we have a role, a responsibility while we’re here. And there’s something about that kind of notion of life that goes so far beyond what is practical and what is normal that takes up all our attention during the day. And so if we can believe that we have this kind of destiny, we have this self that’s beautiful. And yet we know that when we grow up in families of origin, they’re all different.

And sometimes depending on the dynamic of the family or just depending upon how we deal with the family, sometimes it’s not the family’s fault. We don’t come into the world without a personality, without a kind of background. I love even thinking about that background being the background. The person we were created by. God has a certain capacity for things and understanding of things. But in either case, when you think about it, just think that we come into this world and the very person that we are maybe stops growing and feels threatened and isn’t nourished.

And that part of us doesn’t grow, and it needs to be enlivened, awakened, enriched, restored. So I think the theme of this set of readings is how do we stay rooted in the role that God has given us? And how do we enter into that role more fully and not be distracted by everything around us, particularly not be distracted by ways in which we’ve figured out to live in this world. The world is difficult. I mean, the world that you and I are living in is really not that different than many other generations. We may think things are worse.

People say the world is crazy now, and it is kind of crazy. But it’s always been crazy. And there’s always been. There’s always been violence, there’s always been pain, there’s always been disease, there’s always been pandemics. You know, this is the way the world is. And when you’re in that world and you’re trying to make it better or you’re trying to make yourself better, when you’re working hard to change everything so that it becomes something more palatable to you, that’s vanity.

And vanity is nothing other than trying to achieve something through a goal. And it cannot. It cannot achieve it. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought this. I think it often, if it would just not be so hot, if it just would not be so violent. If we could just get past this pandemic, then everything would be okay.

Everything would be fine. We’re not here to make the world into a place that is just comfortable and easy. We have a different purpose. And the purpose is described in the second reading. Jesus, rather Paul, is saying to us, look, here’s the thing. Jesus came into the world to do something.

And what he was going to do, what he did, what he did was he taught us something about how to live in the world. And he used the most bizarre thing. He used crucifixion. And when you look at a cross, I don’t know whether you do what I sometimes did in the past, but you look at it and you kind of don’t really want to fully focus on it so much because it seems to be Saying that God came into the world to create a world for us, and it’s going to be really hard, it’s going to be difficult, and you’re going to suffer and be in pain. And the more pain you’re in, the more love that you show to God. And when God saw all the love coming out of Jesus to the Father, it made up for all the terrible things human beings did.

A very bad interpretation of crucifixion. Jesus was teaching us something. And he said what he was saying is that you have to understand that there is something you have to die to put to death a part of you that’s earthly. And the earthly part of you that Vanities points out is the part of you that wants to have a world that is created by you to be more comfortable, more full, filled with all the things you want. The image in the gospel is so clear. A person thinking, I’ve really done the right thing.

I’ve been in the world, I’ve made money, I’ve made possessions, or I’ve made a name for myself. I’m famous, I’m loved, I’m respected, whatever. All of that is like, wow, I’ve got that now. That’s wonderful. That’s what I’ve been here for. And that’s not what we’re here for.

We’re here to go into a process of discovering who God intended us to be and the work that we’re here to accomplish. So when Paul is saying, look, put to death the things, the parts of you that are earthly, and then he uses greed as one of those things. Stop lying to one another. All right, let’s look at those two. Greed and lies. Greed is anytime you want something more out of life than it was ever intended to give you, you have a personality, you look a certain way, you have a certain gift, a certain talent.

People are not always content just to have that. People like me sometimes, because I grew up in a family where conditional love was the sort of way things were. You know, I always feel like I have to find somebody that will appreciate who I am and tell me that I’m worth something. So I have to work really hard in making myself into what they want. They want me to be. That’s a lie, you know, but it’s also sad because what it is, it’s sort of like I want to have a sense of my value and my worth, and I don’t have it because God tells me I have it.

I have to earn it. I have to show, do something that makes me feel that I’m important or that I’m safe or that I’m. That I’ve achieved what I’m supposed to achieve. Isn’t it interesting that God is not so much asking you to create a person that you think he wants you to be. He wants you to be the person he created, not the one you think he wants. So one of the things that’s interesting about Qoheleth in the first reading is that one of the big things he was working against by saying anything you do to make the world better, anytime you try to make yourself comfortable or do something wonderful, it just doesn’t make any difference.

Life just goes on. It’s sort of like. It’s like depressing. That’s the only word I come up with. It’s depressing. But what he’s really attacking is a thing called justice that has to do with the way the Old Testament kept seeing God’s relationship with you and me and that relationship that we create, not that he created.

The one that we create is that we think if we please God, then he’s going to bless us and give us good things, retribution. But if you do bad things, he’s going to take things away from you and make life miserable. Now, that’s a major part of the Old Testament. It’s still around. It floats around. It’s in prosperity gospels that talk about if you just do everything that God wants, you’ll be rich and you’ll have everything you have ever wanted.

That’s a kind of greedy way of being in the world, doing what you’re doing because it’s going to feed you and your ego and what you want. The antithesis of what God wants us to be. He wants us to die. To that part of us that says, I’m in charge of how God relates to me. I’m in charge of whether good things or bad things happen to me. And I’m working, working, working at it.

It’s exhausting. Gohelas said, that’s all vanity. So what does God really want us to feel? How do we deal with the world in the craziness of it, all the problems of it? It’s pretty simple. It’s something about believing in who God is and who we are.

And the best way I can describe it is that God who created you, made you exactly as you are. And he’s in love with what he created. From the minute it was created. The minute you came out of your mother’s womb, you were loved. And nothing you can do, nothing you can do, can Take that love away from God, pouring it toward you, in you, for you. That’s so hard for me to believe that it is that unconditional.

I have to do something to earn that. No, you don’t. In fact, when you do feel you have to earn it, you can’t receive it and don’t get the full benefit of it. Because there’s something so transformative, knowing that you’re loved that way. And then he tells you you’re safe. He’s not going to let anything harm you.

He says it over and over again. He holds us close in his heart. I looked up the word hold in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means to keep close, to keep in mind, to watch over, to guard, to keep from falling, to sustain, to remain with, not to lose. That’s who God is in your life. That’s what this life is for, for you to believe that and live with that.

And then the last thing he says is not only are you safe, not only are you loved, but you have value, enormous value. And that value is not in your becoming somebody you think God wants you to be, or who the world wants you to be, or what your religion demands that you be. No, it’s being authentically you, restoring that beautiful person that God created, that he knows everything about you. Before you came out of your mother’s womb. And now we’re in this world. And first and foremost we have to believe that the real world we live in is an environment of love, care, protection, hope, peace.

Doesn’t have a lot to do with what’s going on around us. To find that is a miracle, but it’s what God created at the beginning. So it’s there and it’s waiting to be restored. The Closing Prayer Father, free us from the responsibility we sometimes mistakenly feel that we have to achieve something great. Before you pay attention to us, before you love us, before you bless us. Give us true faith, true trust in who you are.

And let us not doubt your love or your care or your protection. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. The music in this program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner. I’m excited for the opportunity to awaken your spiritual journey. If you enjoy this program, please subscribe and share it with a friend. This ministry also needs your support, so make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website.

Thank you so much for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible.