“Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” There is a very popular quote that you likely have seen on Catholic t-shirts or alluded to in names of Catholic apostolates or […]
Read more "Power Made Perfect in Weakness: Sermon for the 14th Sunday through the Year, July 7, 2024"St. Paul makes a spectacular claim in this Sunday’s second reading: There is something lacking in Christ’s sufferings. How could this be? How could Christ’s suffering on the Cross be lacking anything? Where could we possibly find a better example of a complete gift of self, a total outpouring of love? What more perfect suffering […]
Read more "What is lacking in Christ’s sufferings?"Last month, I gave a sermon on Good Shepherd Sunday on how to raise good future priests – future good shepherds. You might recall that one of the points I offered on how to encourage our sons to consider a priestly vocation was raising them to have reverence for the Eucharist. Since today is Corpus […]
Read more "The Habit of Eucharistic Faith"One of the great things about our Catholic faith is that each Sunday, rather than the preacher picking a topic that he feels like it would be best to address, Holy Mother Church sets out a programmatic approach to the Sacred Scriptures and the mysteries of our faith. This is not just the selection of […]
Read more "The Spirit Will Teach You Everything"“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13). Heaven is all about love. St. Paul tells us, “So faith, hope, love abide, […]
Read more "Heaven and True Love"What does it mean to love someone? It is hard to capture in English what Christ is asking Peter in the Gospel today. Greek, the language in which St. John composed his Gospel, has many words for love, two of which John employs here – “agape” and “philia.” “Philia” is a love of deep friendship, […]
Read more "Do you love me?"“For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” St. Paul writes today about a radical transformation of the human person. God allowed his Son to “become sin” for us – taking on the greatest effect of sin, that […]
Read more "Entering the Silence of True Prayer"“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. … Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The people listening to our Lord must have been shocked to hear Him say these words. St. Luke tells us that, “the eyes of all […]
Read more "Bringing Glad Tidings to the Spiritually Poor"Over the course of the year, through the Church’s different celebrations, we get to live the entire earthly life of our Lord. Actually, we really do so in a matter of five months between Christmas and the Ascension. After Christmas, we fast-forwarded to when He was 12 years old for the finding in the Temple, […]
Read more "God’s Love Cannot Be Earned"Why do you all think that Christmas is such a big deal? We can imagine this question being posed by someone who doesn’t know much about Christianity – maybe someone from China, Iran, or North Korea. But that same question would actually be posed to us by the earliest Christians themselves! To them, today’s feast […]
Read more "The Gifts of the Magi"
Father Gregerson 