Isaac McCracken – Life on the Chrism Trail

Homily for the Priestly Ordination of Isaac Joseph McCracken

May 24, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Numbers 11:11b-12, 14-17, 24-25
Psalm 111:1, 2, 3, 4
Acts 20:17-18a, 28-32, 36
John 12:24-26

In today’s second reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Saint Paul’s farewell address to the local Church of Ephesus gathered together: Apostles, presbyters, and faithful. Saint Paul with a heart full of hope directly instructs the presbyters of Ephesus, “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that He acquired with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group men will come forth perverting the truth to draw the disciples away from them.”

Homily for the Ordination of Isaac McCracken to the Transitional Diaconate

Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary

March 19, 2024
Saint Maria Goretti Catholic Church
Arlington, Texas

Numbers 3:5-9
Psalm 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 10
Romans 4:13, 16-18, 22
Matthew 1:1-16, 18-21, 24a

Today in her liturgy the Church offers us a respite from Lent in all its purple and penitence, in giving us this great solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On this day, the Gloria returns for one celebration until the Vigil of Easter and the triumphant color of white for the purity of the saints made so by Christ’s conquest of sin and death is returned for the moment as we celebrate this solemnity of Saint Joseph, Most Chaste Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Foster Father of Jesus, and Patron of the Universal Church. It is more than fitting that we celebrate the ordination to the diaconate of Isaac McCracken on this great solemnity of the Church’s calendar that we might enter more deeply into the mystery of the Church’s call to holiness.