June 2022 – Life on the Chrism Trail

Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Sixtieth Anniversary of Priestly Ordination of Monsignor Raymund Mullan

June 28, 2022
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, TX

Amos 3:1-8; 4:11-12
Psalm 5:4b-6a, 7, 8
Matthew 8:23-27

“They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?’ Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.”

Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 26, 2022
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21
Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62

The Gospel finds Jesus resolutely turning toward Jerusalem where He knows that He will face His death. Luke makes it clear that Jesus is fully aware of the mission His Father had set for Him and what that mission will entail. This mission is not ultimately about Jesus’ death but about the Father’s mercy and forgiveness offered through Jesus for our salvation. On the way to Jerusalem, the Sons of Thunder become enraged at being mistreated and want a Samaritan town destroyed for its lack of hospitality, but Jesus corrects this desire of James and John. In so doing He draws them more deeply into His mission of love and compassionate mercy. One admirer of Jesus eagerly promises to follow him, and Jesus reminds him that this decision will result in his being without a home. To be without a home means that our ultimate sense of belonging cannot be met here in this world. A second individual is invited to follow Jesus, and a third volunteers to do so, but they cannot let go of their previous commitments and prior lives and they remain admirers of Jesus but decide not to belong to Him or His mission.

Baccalaureate Mass for Cristo Rey Catholic High School

June 3, 2022
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, TX

Acts 25:13b-21
Psalm 103:1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab
John 21:15-19

In our Gospel reading just proclaimed, Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves Him. After each one of Peter’s answers, Jesus asks him to do something — to feed His shape, to care for the members of His flock. After the third time, Peter finally grows frustrated at what he takes to be redundant questioning and with distress he responds to Jesus, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus says to him again, “Feed my sheep.” Jesus then tells Peter the type of death he will undergo out of martyrdom for his faith and belief in God, that “another will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”