March 2011 Chaplains Summation KOC

Our Lenten Journey

March Reflection

Deacon Kevin Reid

We as Catholics begin our 40 day Lenten Journey on Ash Wednesday and we end it on Easter Sunday.

Out of the ashes the Phoenix will rise, but our journey that starts out with the acknowledgment of our own sinfulness, ends in the reality of Christ's victory over Sin and Death. We are given the gift of eternal salvation.

We mark our time in the "Desert" with Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving.

As Advent was a journey outward from Darkness to meet Christ. Lent is an inner journey into our relationship with the same Emanuel that we encountered at Christmas.

During the time of Lent, we are able to see the reality of our own limitations with out Christ and each other and also the Hope that we together can bring to the world by our going the "Extra Mile" during these 40 days.

We like Christ must turn and set our eyes firmly on "Jerusalem" to the promise of the Resurrection. My Brothers and Sisters along the way we will be tempted as Christ was, tempted to give up, to turn away to think that we can't on own possibly ever make a difference. And on our own it is difficult but in Christ all things are possible.

The presence of Evil in our World is very real and it must be confronted with faith, hope and with love. Not with fear, hate or indifference, but with forgiveness and understanding. We need not fear the Evil one but we must always be aware of his intent and his methods.

The dreaded Cross once the brutal symbol of Death that the Romans used to keep their occupation intact was turned by Christ into the tree of Life, each of us must have our own Resurrection experience to get through the fears that hold us back. We must die to ourselves and "Live" within him.

We are confronted by a Secular World that tries to minimize all that we hold Sacred.

The value of life, the obligation to be children of the light, rather then a people held hostage by fear, greed and prejudices.

Jesus was tempted in his own Desert experience, his perseverance was and continues to be an example of how Satan is always there trying to chip away at our "truths" with his lies.

He knows our individual weaknesses and uses them to divide us rather then to let us unite us, remember the example of the rope and how the individual strands easily broke, but when joined together formed something that could not be broken.

When we Knights give up hope, we stop being Knights and we no longer are the example to others that we were originally Knighted to be. Our Prayer to Mary our Queen should be prayed frequently and with renewed fidelity.

Our Almsgiving can take the form of giving something up or by doing something extra, but it should cause a feeling of sacrifice a giving not from our excess but rather from our needs.

Our prayers can be one with Christ in his journey, perhaps along the FridayStations of the Cross, or in the encounter of Reconciliation with the "Light being left on" for us on Wednesday nights at our Parishes.

It can also be a quiet time each day where we ask for help, as we confront the World but do not give in to it.

Finally our fasting can be a renewed effort to by our doing with out increase our dependence on the one who truly gives us sustenance. Perhaps if possible we should make a renewed effort to attend daily Mass for the more frequent reception of "The Bread of Life".

Or perhaps in those times of Hunger of o our feeling empty we can fill ourselves up with some quiet time in the Chapel at Immaculate Conception in Eucharistic Adoration.

We will be filled a and satisfied by either of those experiences, and will also be given the strength that we need to continue in our Journey to the Light of the Risen Christ. As we too continue toward Jerusalem and the Kingdom of God.

I pray that Almighty God will continue to walk with us in our Lenten Journey as we go forth as Knights of Columbus. All for the greater glory of God.

Deacon Kevin

Roman Missal Changes: 'Missal Moments' in the Diocese of Charlotte

Roman Missal Changes: 'Missal Moments' in the Diocese of Charlotte: "The Diocese of Charlotte, N.C., has debuted a new video series 'Missal Moments' about the upcoming revisions. The first explains the people'..."

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

Martha and Mary

16th Sunday Ord. time "C"

Each of us at different times has had a "Martha or perhaps a Mary" experience.

Perhaps it was similar to the situation that Martha found herself in, we got so busy getting our place ready for our guests that we were not able to enjoy them when they were there.

We got so caught up in the idea of the experience that we in fact missed out on the experience it self. If we look back we probably can recall that we got so caught up in the details that we often let the experience slip right by.

In this busy crazy world, of multi tasking it can seem like there is never enough time to smell the flowers. To take things in, to savor the moment.

Jesus in his experience with Mary was able to see the struggle in his friends that all of us feel at times. We are as parents often have to act like time keepers that try to divvy up the time that we devote to each of our children.

We in our secular busyness may think that as long as we work hard that our families will understand, let me share with you that after working as a Chaplain for the past three years at GBMC that what families need most is more time with each other.

And just as we need that time with each other, we come to realize that we need quiet time with God each day, we need to be more like Mary in the midst of our very busy Martha like

We can if we choose look at life as a journey with many opportunities for us to participate in the Kingdom of God that is at hand, not like it is a series of obstacles that we need to check off as we move along, but rather that it is an opportunity each day to choose the better half.

It is in the journey that we can experience the Divine life giving presence of God imagine Abraham in today's first reading, he had once been told that he was to be the Father of many Nations.

His faith in this prophecy must have been challenged in all of the years that he and Sarah had remained childless. So when the three strangers arrived at his tent his extension of Hospitality to these strangers was an epiphany of sorts his prayers were going to finally be answered even in his old age. it was like they had been waiting all along for just the right gesture from Abraham to appear to him and to announce this new life into the lives of Abraham and Sarah.

Think about it my friends how many of us would offer Hospitality to three strangers who just showed up, Honey I'm home and by the way I'd like you to cook that very special meal with that secret recipe for these folks" for me these strangers had better be from Publisher's Clearing House and hopefully they have a check with them for my wife to entertain them on a moment's notice.

Yet back in both the Old and in the New Testament times such a request would not have earned someone a month in the proverbial dog house. It quite simply was what you did when strangers showed up unexpectedly. No there were no texts that were exchanged in advance, no map quest to follow and no protocol in advance was even thought of.

For certainly it was seen as a Blessing to receive guests graciously, to open one's home and share one's bounty and give freely to the stranger. We from this meal we have the expression be ready always for you never know when Angels will come to your house for dinner.

In today's Gospel reading we see Jesus as both the guest and the Host, as he often was in so many of Luke's many stories of Jesus at table. It was Jesus who showed us how to welcome tax collectors and sinners to table when he entered their houses and taught them with Authority, it was Jesus and by his loving example who taught them and us to recognize that the Law that he had written unto our hearts calling them to welcome the Stranger among them. Remember that what ever you do to the least of God's people you do unto me.

Our readings today challenge us this week in our Prayer time to be attentive to our sense of "WELCOME" do we make time to sit with those who most need our time and our attention .

And most importantly do we make time for ourselves and the attention that we also need to receive when we let our selves be in the presence of the Son of God, that same Jesus who Mary sat so attentively listening to.

Brothers and Sisters, as we prepare ourselves to join Jesus our host at his table to be fed with his Sacred Body let us pray that we will go forth both as an attentive and as a Welcoming Community, mindful that in doing that what the Lord calls us to do in love is truly choosing the better part, the part where we experience Jesus our friend and our Lord.

August Chaplain's Summation KOC

Martha and Mary and their Brother Lazarus

Deacon Kevin Reid

Salutations, greetings and all good Blessings to you my Brother Knights and to all your families as well.

Jesus had three very good friends that we know about from Scripture.

Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus and they lived in a house outside of Jerusalem on the way to Bethany. Jesus in his travels often would stop and visit with them and they at least from the little that we do know were his closest friends outside of the Apostles.

We do know that Jesus performed one of his most significant Miracles after Lazarus had died, when he raised him from the Dead. The story of Lazarus is significant because it shows the power of Christ as God and the ability to suffer as a Man.

Jesus had been asked to go to their home for Lazarus had taken ill, and by the time he finally did arrive Lazarus had already passed away. And now my Brothers comes the important part, when Jesus saw how sad Martha and Mary were he himself wept.

The man who created the stars and the heavens wept over the loss of his friend, and he prayed to his Father to our Father and asked to Raise his friend. We know that Lazarus rose and he came out of his tomb.

What is significant here is that Christ has promised to raise each of us like Lazarus on the last day, in Baptism we are for ever reborn into eternal life. We will one day join him and his Father and hopefully our friends and family that have gone before us to a life in eternity.

The other lesson that we learn from the friends of Jesus, is the difference between being present in mind and body to the Ones that we love.

It's so easy for most of us Men to convince ourselves that our work is what defines us.

Look to the Lesson from the friends of Jesus who had welcomed him to their home, Martha had been busying herself in the kitchen preparing some food for her guest.

Mary meanwhile was sitting in the other room, just listening to Jesus speak. Her thoughts were not in the same place as her Sisters, she had found in Jesus all that she was looking for or would ever want.

When we are able to separate what it is we might think we want, from what we truly need this lesson will be easier to understand. When the day comes what will our children be able to say about our relationship with God and with them.

Will we put things like work or our Season tickets to the Ravens ahead of regular attendance at Mass as a family. Will they remember that we were there for them when they needed us, if we can achieve this then we have succeeded as Fathers and as Knights.

We are constantly observed by those in whom care and teaching we have been entrusted. The lesson of Lazarus and his rising will only be possible for our Children and for us if we are the best of Teachers.

The lesson of where to find our true calling can only be found where Mary the friend of Jesus found it. At the feet of the one who is with us always to the end of time. Jesus the one who tells us to leave our yoke and to take up his, for his burden is light and that we will find rest with him on our Journey home.

Brothers let us pray for the coming of the Kingdom and for the wisdom and the Grace to count Jesus as our friend just like Martha,Mary and Lazarus.

Peace,

Deacon Kevin

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

What is the meaning of Life, or perhaps more specifically what is the meaning of our own life's, and is our treasure something here? Were you able to take it along with you when you moved here?

The question that we hear today in our readings, points us in a direction that maybe, just maybe the things that we work for all of our lives are just things.

And that perhaps the things that really matter to each of us in the end, when we look back and see things more clearly with the wisdom that comes with age, looking back over our life's through a different kind of a Lens, were acquired maybe not always as a result of being able to buy them at the time, but were the sum of our relationships that we formed and are still forming along the way.

Jesus is telling us in this Parable in today's Gospel that we should be aware and know the difference between being rich in earthly possessions and by being Blessed with the richness of knowing God.

We can be blinded by our ambitions, and we can lose ourselves if we allow things like money and possessions to divide our families, Jesus has been asked by the one gentleman to settle a money matter that had arisen between two brothers, certainly nothing has changed there in the last two thousand years. Money has been the culprit in many broken families, everything that one generation has sacrificed for, another might squander. Good men, Brothers and family members can, and often do fight over inheritances each unwilling to yield. Many might stop talking to each other, and will turn away from God and their brother over money or over possessions.

This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the very things you have prepared, whose will they be? So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves.

But are not rich towards God.

There is no need to build bigger barns, but rather as Jesus has suggested perhaps there is a need to reappraise where are treasure lies. Open the eyes of my heart Lord, open the eyes of my heart. I want to see as you see Lord, when we are looking at things from the Heart, we can see the futility of Life as our first reading told us today if we put all of our hopes and dreams in this life and not the next.

Vanity of Vanities, All things are vanity says the teacher. The writer was despairing over what he saw is the reality that all that we can spend our lives toiling for at times can seem like it's for nothing if we are looking for our happiness in all that we have accumulated.

Perhaps the way we might look is to see in the good work that we have accomplished in our brief lives might be in the way we have witnessed the Gospel to others. Do our children have a relationship with Christ that is modeled on the one that they saw in our lives?

Do they value the things that truly matter in life like love and faith, are they going to be able to pass these qualities along to their children. The questions is will the examples that we have taught, be based on building up relationships or will it be based on building barns to store things that will ultimately fade and pass away.

Saint Paul in our second reading warns the Colossians to seek what is above, that just as they have been raised with Christ Jesus so too have they died with him. Jesus reminds us to suppress the earthly desires we might be tempted by and to seek the things that are from above.

Loving Children, Good Friends, Good Health and an active relationship with the Lord these my good friends are the items that we can not purchase with money but rather can only be purchased with the hearts of the faithful.

The graces of Love, Charity and friendship, the brotherhood of sharing not only our wealth but also our poverty. Yes each of us has both wealth and poverty to share, and we each have something ton give and to take. The Church and the Body of Christ present and active in this faith community cares for the Common Good as the original Community of believers cared for each other.

Paul tells his followers to follow him and to strive to put to death their immorality, impurity, passion and evil desires.

His advice that he gives to them is to stop lying to each other, and also to put on our new selves, he has told us over and over to open the eyes of our Hearts, to see things in a NEW way, in his way.

Patient Trust

Patient Trust

By Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of progress that it is made by passing through some states of instability and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually --- let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Copyright: The Institute of Jesuit Sources

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

19th Sunday in Ordinary time "C"

Finding the Faith to Live each day as if it was our last.

My Sisters and Brothers, some of us have been Blessed with near death experiences, there are those among us who have survived Cancer, that have lived through Heart Attacks, and have walked away unscathed from total car wrecks.

Many sadly of course do not live through these types of experiences, and we are often left to wonder why some survive and some do not, perhaps for those who live for another day their job is to remind the rest of us how fragile and temporary this life that we share for a brief time really is.

February 6th this past year for most of us was the day that Snowmegedon came to Baltimore, the whole state was paralyzed for about a week. I was away up in RI attending the celebration of the fifty year anniversary of my Catholic Elementary School's opening. I had caught the last plane out of Baltimore the day before, just as the snow had started to fall here in Baltimore.

While up there in RI, I suffered a major Heart Attack and was fortunate enough to be delivered to a Trauma Center within 8 minutes of my attack. I had found the Grace of God's Providence in Providence.

That very same day another friend named John back from my old elementary school was living in Boynton Beach Fl, and he also had a Heart attack, sadly he was buried the day after they put three stents in my clogged artery.

If my Heart attack had happened here in Baltimore that day, there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be standing here in front of all of you. I'm quite sure that the ambulance would never have been able to make it through my neighborhood.

Faith is something that we profess to believe, but yet at the same time we also confess that we can no easier prove it then we can explain why some of us live to survive and others don't.

The living have an obligation to go out and to live as witnesses to the Grace and Love of the truth of the Gospel, proclaimed by Christ Jesus and his disciples.

In our second reading today we are reminded of the great faith of our fathers from the Old Testament.

The letter to the Hebrews starts out by saying; "Brothers and Sisters, Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen". Because of it the Ancients were well attested.

We know that their faith was constantly being tested, and that many times they stumbled but they none the less persevered.

Our Father Abraham journeyed in Faith, to become the Father of many nations.

He did this by the time that most men of his age were already dead.Three of the major religions of the World; Judaism,Islam, and Christianity all count him as a Spiritual Father.

His descendants lived and died in Faith for the Homeland that was promised to them.

We have come to trust and believe that it is the same Homeland that Christ Jesus speaks of, the same Homeland that has been promised to us by him.

In today's Gospel he says affectionately "Do not be afraid any longer little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom"

He goes on to tell us the parable of when the son of man will come, and how we must be prepared for that faithful encounter. I am not sure that I was ready for that encounter back that day in February and I pray that my friend John, God rest his soul was there with his lamp lit waiting for the Master to arrive, ready to greet him and to join him.

I know that having had this near death experience that I am more ready now to go out and to greet him then I was that day.

When I was there in my Hospital Room my window looked out at the Steeple of the Church that I was Baptized in. The light of the Steeple brought me great comfort, and greatly helped strengthen my Faith in God's plan for me as a Deacon, as a Father and a Husband.

One Hundred and Six years ago on September 8th, 1904 James Cardinal Gibbons dedicated this Church that we are now in, he spoke that day here in front of 1500 people who were in attendance as he presided over the Ceremonies of Dedication.

We wonder where we get our Faith, perhaps it is by standing on the shoulders of those many early believers who have stood in this Church that we now stand here today, together with one common Faith as a Community.

Cardinal Gibbons in his book "The Faith of our Fathers" was speaking at the time of our Catholic Faith and the truths of our Church when he wrote :

"The prophecies were fulfilled. The Apostles scattered themselves over the surface of the earth, preaching the Gospel of Christ. "Their sound," says St. Paul, "went over all the earth and their words unto the ends of the whole world." 6 Within thirty years after our Savior's Crucifixion the Apostle of the Gentiles was able to say to the Romans: "I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ because your faith is spoken of in the entire world" spoken of assuredly by those who were in sympathy and communion with the faith of the Romans.

St. Justin, Martyr, was able to say, about one hundred years after Christ, that there was no race of men, whether Barbarians or Greeks, or any other people of what name so ever, among whom the name of Jesus Christ was not invoked.

St. Irenaeus, writing at the end of the second century, tells us that the religion so marvelously propagated throughout the whole world was not a vague, ever-changing form of Christianity, but that "this faith and doctrine and tradition preached throughout the globe is as uniform as if the Church consisted of one family, possessing one soul, one heart, and as if she had but one mouth.

For, though the languages of the world are dissimilar, her doctrine is the same. The churches founded in Germany, in the Celtic nations, in the East in Egypt, in Libya, and in the centers of civilization, do not differ from each other; but as the sun gives the same light throughout the world, so does the light of faith shine everywhere the same and enlighten all men who wish to come to the knowledge of truth."

We who are here today are part of that great tradition of faith started with Abraham and lived out in the never-ending story that we proclaim in our Liturgy.

Friends within our Liturgy we enter into the timeless and eternal brotherhood of the faithful who have come before us, and that hopefully that we ourselves will lead those who will one day follow after us into, till we all meet in that same Heavenly Kingdom that Christ Jesus has promised to each of us.

Until that day, let us continually be strengthened by the frequent reception of the Body of Christ to Live each day as if it were possibly our last.

Ready always to go out immediately when he knocks and to joyfully greet him in Faith and in Love when our own last hour finally arrives.

September Chaplain's Summation September 2010

Mary Star of the Sea

Deacon Kevin Reid

This past Sunday we celebrated the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mother who was physically taken body and soul into Heaven.

Her Ascension into Heaven is celebrated usually as a Holy Day of Obligation, in other words a day that the Church declares to be so special that we are REQUIRED to attend as if it was a Sunday.

This week I am in the Outer Banks vacationing with my family along with my Mom Muriel, my mother in-law Marilyn and my Father in-law David. So counting Lisa and the boys there are 7 of us here.

Of the seven present here, three of them are Mothers. As Catholics and as Knights of Columbus we count Mary as our Spiritual Mother. Mary who has so many titles, that each culture claims as their own. Each culture has a special devotion and reverence that they hold for "Our Lady".

Our Lady of Guadalupe the Patroness of the Americas, Our Lady of Knock for the Irish, Our Lady of Fatima for the Portuguese, Our Lady of Lourdes for the French, Our Lady of Pompeii for the Italians. Of course there are many more then I can name or that we have the time or the space for.

This past Sunday while attending Mass here on in the Outer Banks, the Priest who presided at the Liturgy said of all of the Titles that have been given to Mary, perhaps the one that best fits her is the title of "The Perfect Disciple" for in all of Mary's life she was and is always the perfect disciple.

We do not think of Mary as a God, but rather as the perfect example of Discipleship, she is the model of obedience and of love for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Her "YES" to the angel Gabriel was a yes for all of Humanity, she became the second more perfect "Eve" the Spiritual Mother of all of us.

So perfect was her discipleship that she is the only person born to be called the Christ Bearer her body was the Tabernacle that held the Infant Jesus before he was born, when she visited her cousin Elizabeth it was her own son John the Baptist who leapt in the womb at the sound of the voice of the Mother of God greeting his Mother.

Brothers and wives of Knights how easy is it for us to be able to recognize the Lord when he appears in our presence. Our prayers in the Rosaries that we carry in our pockets can be part of the key for own attempt to be perfect disciples.

In our reflections on the Mysteries of the Rosary we enter into the Graces that Mary her self received in her own perfect discipleship, to know sorrow and joy at the same time.

So as we pray the Rosary whether at home in our own private prayer time or as a group in a Public setting, we too enter into the mysteries that help us to better grasp at the path of true and perfect discipleship that Mary emulates in her joys and in her sorrows.

The path to Discipleship is not unlike the path to Knighthood, it involves self discipline, faith and a willingness to offer our lives up in sacrifice as Christ did for the least of his people.

Mary our Spiritual Mother always there guiding her children and especially her Knights who have sworn an Oath to her son and to be her Knights and to defend life and to be examples of Discipleship to all who observe us.

I started this refection with the Title of Mary Star of the Sea, while on the beach here I have reflected on Mary guiding Columbus in his journey to the Americas and in the trust he had in his Lady guiding him through then Stars across the Seas to this new land of hope and promise. Mary is like the moon reflecting God's love to his people and his Holy Church.

Let us pray for that same guidance and reflection of his unending love for us this month in our own journey towards perfect discipleship, as we trust in the perfect light as we follow our "Stella Maris" Mary Star of the Sea.

Deacon Kevin Reid

Making the Best of a Good Thing!

Making the best of a good thing

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

Amos 8:4-7

1st Timothy 2:1-8

Luke 16:1-13

Deacon Kevin Reid

My sisters and brothers, surely at one time or another we have all heard the popular saying about someone making the best of a bad thing, but perhaps maybe today we might after hearing the Good news in our Gospel might want to prayerfully consider making the best of a good thing.

The good thing that WE might just want to consider making the best of is in the life that we are ourselves are living, do we find ourselves consciously making the best of it or are we struggling, maybe we are just getting by, scraping along sadly from one day to the next.

OR are we using the many GIFTS and the life giving GRACES that we have been Blessed with to contribute to the GREATER GOOD of the rest of the world.

I don't mean that perhaps you personally have to build an irrigation system in sub-Saharan Africa, but have we in some small or major way made a difference for someone else anywhere ?

It could be in the life of a stranger or a neighbor that we have befriended, or the child living with out a Father, or the Widow that can't get a ride to the store or even to Mass.

Jesus in today's Gospel is not praising the so called dishonest steward, but rather he is preparing each of US for the time when we one day will stand before him and we will be asked to explain our own "STEWARDSHIP" .

My friends have we in our time, as the stewards of the Graces and the opportunities that we have been Blessed with used them for the Greater good, or have we ourselves perhaps squandered them.

To squander them might be to hold on to our things like they are more then things, if we share what we have been given then it multiplies.

The so called dishonest Steward had the sense in today's Parable to reevaluate his present day circumstances, he had been given an extraordinary opportunity to get his "house in Order" to prepare for an Audit that would possibly put him into a life of servitude and hard labor.

Friends the Lord today is offering us all that same opportunity this is the "GOOD NEWS" in today's Gospel that you have heard proclaimed here.

This story can have a good ending for bus just has it did for the Steward in the Parable.

All we have to do is to decide that enough is enough and that we want to make a difference in this world.

My friends the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Scripture reminds us to think of the boy with the five fish who gave all that he had, so that ALL could eat, the five fish that according to Luke fed the five thousand. His act of goodness multiplied one thousand fold by Jesus blessing his offering.

He could have easily taken the five fish home and handily fed his family, Lord knows they probably were counting on him to do just that.

One could be Blessed with a voice like an Angel but if no one ever gets to hear us sing, of what use is that talent, sadly it will eventually die and fade away with you if you don't share it.

You see that is why we are called to make joyful noise when we are singing. To let our voices rise up to Heaven and to stir in our Hearts the joy that the Good News brings to our Lives.

Just be glad that when I am singing that I'm not that close to any microphone so that you can in the Congregation can see my effort but not suffer with my flat off key and out of tune voice.

Rest assured good people if you do use your talents the way God intended you to, they will live on in our collective memories long after you have left us.

How many of us sitting here can remember that special recipe that our long since departed Grandmother made for us when we visited her house.

We can still smell and almost taste that memory.

Years may have definitely passed, its been forty five years now but I can still see that kitchen and taste in my mind my Nana's wonderful cooking.

She was the inspiration for my becoming a Chef, and helping me to discover the talent that I was blessed with. She brought out the good in me by her example of loving service to her family. No one was more important for her to cook for then her family.

When we stand before the Lord on that fateful day, maybe we could let our cooking story be the one where we faithfully made a few pans of meatloaf for Our Daily Bread, each month for all of those many years and the taste memories will then be something that the Lord himself will recall.

He will say to us when we stand before him in judgement "When I was Hungry you fed me", and when we say "when did we feed you Lord" he will say to us "I was the boy standing in line at Our Daily Bread on that cold November day, and your Meatloaf was the only warmth I felt that day".

We never know the time or the hour when we will stand before the Master in this life or in death.

The Lord has has sworn by the pride of Jacob:

"Never will I forget a thing they have done".

So today's readings have a collective theme, that the Lord in his Wisdom has chosen us to be his faithful Stewards and he has described to us all of the benefits of joyful stewardship and also the dangers of not being good, and honest stewards.

The prophetic voice of Amos today speaking across the ages to us today, think back not that long ago to the decision by the folks on that Oil Platform owned by BP to keep going on with the drilling even though the warnings of possible problems were plainly there, the decision was simply based on Greed to make more money and not on any other factor.

Surely the full impact of that decision to press on would not have been made if the blinders of Greed were not so securely in place, but that is the difference between living in a world of MAMMON, and not of God. The world of Mammon is fueled by our desire for more and more, me,me, ME.

Let every one fend for himself no one ever helped me.

We can not choose to be "Children of the Light" if we are living in that kind of darkness.

Our choices according to Jesus have to be radical ones that may just go against the grain of so called economic sense, we all know that economic sense and moral sense are sometimes further apart then men being from Mars and women being from Venus.

Yet even in our present day world we are reminded of the COST of our neglect as Stewards of our planet.

This past week I heard an interview with a Coal Miner in West Virginia who was describing how his father and father in law both Miners had died from Black Lung Disease, how they literally in the end of their lives were coughing up parts of their lungs before they passed, and that NOW he too had the same illness. But ironically he was lamenting the loss of the Mining jobs in his community and not the loss of his lungs. You can not serve both God and Mammon.

The odds are just not with you when you try to do both, it's like betting against the Casino, my friends the Casino never loses.

We can have a difficult road ahead of us, if we choose to serve God the rewards are not always apparent. To many the work that the sisters in Calcutta chose to do with Mother Teresa did with the untouchables was unthinkable most folks could not even bear to look at these poor unfortunates, and yet Mother Teresa said she could not bear to do otherwise.

She now has a crown to wear and is reunited with those poor unfortunates in Heaven. No more suffering or pain only joy and beauty.

In the popular movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" based on the novel of the same name, the main character is a widower Lawyer named Atticus Finch, who lived in the 1930's in a small Alabama town with his two school aged children.

Atticus has been assigned by the County Judge the job of defending Tom Robinson a black man falsely accused of crimes against a white women.

The townsfolk can not understand why Atticus did not turn down this demand, after all he was one of THEM, and why would he go against his own people. he and his children suffered greatly for his decision to represent this MAN who had been falsely accused.

They were taunted and they were threatened, you can not serve both GOD and Mammon. The children of the light must be there as a symbol of God's love for his people.

The reason that Atticus gives for making his decision is pretty concise and actually pretty simple he says in the end of the book "I just can't live one way in Town and another way in my home".

That's what it means to have an undivided heart, that was the secret of his Integrity, his strength of soul and his peace of mind. Can we there for live one way in our homes, in our Churches and live in another way when we are in our TOWN.

In a few minutes we will be beginning our preparations to receive the body of the one whose heart was never divided, who had the love of his friends above the love of his own life.

As you extend your hand today in peace, let us pray that the Peace we extend to our neighbor will be the genuine lasting peace of having an undivided heart.

Our stewardship here is a relatively short one if we compare it with the rewards of eternity, on the other hand we can always choose the low road but remember that the low road only leads us to one place. The high road on the other hand takes us to a place of unsurpassed beauty and unending joy.

Life is a series of choices that together make up the story of our existence, it is up to each of us to write and to live out the conclusion to that particular novel.

By the Grace of free will we are the Authors of our own stories, we can allow ourselves to serve either God or Mammon that choice good people will determine the ultimate outcome of our story, the one that people one day will remember us for.

Chaplains Summation KOC October 2010

October 2010 Chaplain's Summation by

Deacon Kevin Reid

Cardinal John Newman, a Man for all Seasons!

Today marked the end of the historic four day visit to the United Kingdom by Pope Benedict XVI. He was in England to preside at the Beatification Ceremonies of Cardinal John Newman he will be the first Saint in England in Centuries.

The Cardinal had many admirable qualities but perhaps he is best known for his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Newman attributed his Conversion to the fact that in the end there were far more things that he and the Catholics believed in than the few things that had kept them apart.

Cardinal Newman's example of tolerance in the face of Prejudice in an example to all of us on the true essence and meaning of Catholicism.

His support for the least of his people is evident in all the aspects of his life that we now know.

As the Pope was preparing to leave the UK to return to Rome he was addressed by British Prime Minister David Cameron who said:

"Your Holiness Pope Benedict, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

This ceremony brings to a close an incredibly moving four days for our country.

Your Holiness, on this truly historic first State Visit to Britain you have spoken to a nation of 6 million Catholics but you have been heard by a nation of more than 60 million citizens and by many millions more all around the world.

For you have offered a message not just to the Catholic Church but to each and every one of us of every faith and none.

A challenge to us all to follow our conscience to ask not what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities? To ask not what we can do for ourselves, but what we can do for others?

Cardinal Newman, who was beatified here in Birmingham this morning, once said that one little deed whether by someone who helps "to relieve the sick and needy" or someone who "forgives an enemy" evinces more true faith than could be shown by "the most fluent religious conversation" or the most intimate knowledge of Scripture."

In his immense contribution to the philosophy of higher education Cardinal Newman reminded the world of the need for education for life not just for the workplace.

That broader education for life mattered because of the responsibilities of each person in society obligations and opportunities that came from what Cardinal Newman described as the "common bond of unity" that we all share".

It is amazing to me that in a Country with so few Catholics that Cardinal Newman can still speak and be listened to by the great majority of his countrymen no matter what their faith differences might be.

It is so appropriate that in today's Gospel Jesus gives us an example that we can all seek to imitate the example of the so called Dishonest Steward who had been accused of squandering the wealth that he had been entrusted with by his Master.

We are given this example so that we too can reevaluate our own circumstances, and prepare ourselves for the day of judgement when we will stand before our own Master.

Cardinal John Newman was given a chance to reevaluate his life in his Conversion, his examples of faith love and charity still remain with us his writings speak out over the ages to always seek that which is the better half.

So my Brother Knights perhaps for us then as Catholic Men, Newman's example can be an example to us in love and tolerance of looking at an issue with a pure and an undivided heart.

Brother Knights each of has been blessed in many ways by Our Lord Jesus, it is up to each of us to use and share the talents that we have been blessed with just like Cardinal Newman did for all of the people of the U.K. and also for all of us in his Ministry of Loving and Faith filled service to all of God's Children.

Deacon Kevin Reid Testimony to Baltimore Catholic Buisiness Network

I was born in Providence Rhode Island back in the mid 1950s I am one of three children born into an Irish Catholic family and since I was the oldest son both my Mom and Grandmother both expected me to become a Priest.

I grew up in the part of Providence that is called South Providence, and for the first five years of my life we lived right in the center of South Providence by a Catholic church that was within walking distance from our house. That Church will appear again later in my life as part of God's plan for me. We lived close enough to walk to Mass it was just down the street from our apartment.

Saint Michael the Archangel Parish is the name of my first Parish. I was going there during those early years, with my Mom and We became great friends with the Parish Priest there Father Kevin who would go on to be a VERY pivotal person in my life, he was a former German POW from WW II and his faith and his charisma made a lasting impression on me growing up.

After the first five years we moved to the suburbs out to Warwick, and it was there that I started first grade at Saint Peter elementary school and we also joined the Parish as our new church.

I received my first reconciliation and first Communion and I also was confirmed there and became an altar boy in third grade and this was done in the time when the mass was still in Latin as it was pre-Vatican II. I learned everything that we now say as our responses in our Mass in Latin. It really took quite a bit of time to memorize it all.

I guess almost 45 years have passed since then and yet I still remember the many cold mornings walking up to the church with my mom. It was an important time in my life and my Mom taught me a lot about responsibility and follow through.

We only had one car in the family so we would walk together to the daily mass when I was assigned to serve at the 6:45 weekday Mass, you were given three days in a row as your assignment.

The lessons that I learned back in those days were the lessons that the Sisters of Mercy taught us about the Old Baltimore Catechism back in class and also the examples that the Priests showed to me while I was serving for about six years as an Altar Boy would be the foundation of my Formation from going from being a Boy to being a Man.

I went to that Catholic school for a total of eight years it was from first to eighth grade.We had no coed Catholic High Schools back then so I ended up going to a public high school, which was like a complete night and day difference experience for me no Nuns to make sure that you had completed your work, nobody really knew you there certainly not like you were known back at the elementary school.

We also had a Parish Boy Scout Troop that met each week in the School Cafeteria, friendships that have endured for almost 45 years were began back there and going away to sleep away camp was a rite of passage.

In high school I was very involved in the CYO program or Parrish. I actually used to be in charge of all the dances that we scheduled during the school year, we had a very active CYO group and it was just part of the culture back then of the Parish being the touchstone of most Family Life.

God had a plan that was going on in my life, I just didn't know it at the time.

The retreats that we went on back in CCD classes and also with the CYO were a very important formative part of my teenage years that I remember so clearly. hormones were raging and is was a time of just questioning values, of getting ready to go out into the World, by now the Vietnam War was being questioned and protested on a daily basis on the nightly news and also in the papers.

Watching the war nightly on TV and living through the Assassinations of the two Kennedy's and Martin Luther King had sort of put everything in perspective, for the next period of time in my life.

Everything was in flux,for me the only thing that most of my friends and I who didn't go to college ever talked about was what was your draft number and if you might just be sent to Vietnam.

The next twelve years of my life proved to be a very important time in my life, I joined the Army under a program called Stripes for Skills, and left RI and never really went back. For me the Army was the first time that I ever was really away from home, on my own.

And if there was anytime left yet to grow up it happened super fast there, being in a Multi Cultural setting and not being with a bunch of people that all looked like me and who all talked like me would be a MAJOR turn in my life,

you see (God had a plan for me) I just didn't know it yet.

After I get out of the army I went back to Rhode Island for a short time. I Started cooking at this restaurant that was owned by the Narragansett Indians as part of an apprenticeship that I had secured for myself with the Rhode Island professional chefs Association. There was a Chef who was training me who had lit the spark for me of what a REAL Chef does. I guess looking back it was there that I decided that maybe I should think about becoming a chef as my occupation.

So I had thought for a while back in High School of going to the Culinary Institute of America in New Haven CT.

Well it moved to Hyde Park NY while I was in the Army, and I decided to apply there, the critical thing about this decision was that the only money that I had back then for school was from the GI bill.

I didn't realize until I started at the CIA that the new school was built in an Old Jesuit Seminary called Saint Andrews on the Hudson. It is the place that Teilard de Chardrain the famous Jesuit Theologian and Scientist is buried there in the Jesuit Cemetery located on the Campus.

This time here at the school is a major point in my life's formation at this time and in the FUTURE.

In order to afford school I would have to work two jobs while studying as a full time student. It was a no nonsense time in my life when my Career was more important to me then it should have been.

From the CIA, I headed to Atlanta, Miami, and CT during that time I would get married and have two daughters, as the girls were born I started to get my head screwed back on, my Career was not everything. There were other things to worry about, I started to attend Mass again regularly.

Unfortunately my Marriage was not going all that well, my wife was very unhappy, we moved to FL after the crash of 87 and it was there that I found out that my wife had Ben having an affair with a friend back in CT.

I tried to save my Marriage and was really worried about the affect that this would have on my two daughters, as it turned out my wife had decided that before she had ever married me that it was a mistake, she had no intention of staying with me.

At this point by now I had heard about an Irish Sister of Mercy at the Parish next to mine who did counseling from a neighbor friend she helped people who were going through a crises of sorts, we began to see each other once a week for the next four years.

She led me through the grief process and back to God, he had never left me during that time, all though I thought that he had. The opposite in fact had been happening God was. Actively intervening in my life deliberately as look back now putting folks into my life who would be part of my HEALING.

Sister Mary suggested when we first met that I had a right to be angry, but I did not have a right to hold on to the anger, she suggested that I let Christ take it from me because it was keeping me from God and my children. She suggested that for me to attend a healing service in 1991 conducted by Sister Bridge McKenna who along with Father Kevin traveled all over conducting HEALING masses, my anger over my divorce left me pretty much for ever that night. Christ had taken my yoke from me and now I was sharing his, and it was a lot lighter on me.

I got up and I left that Church a new person, yet I was the same person just a healed person who had been restored to a wholeness.

After that I became involved in Ministry to Children, my girls and I went to Mass every Sunday and I started out with Childrens Liturgy of the Word, and then became a Sixth Grade Catechist for the next eight years.

It was strange that the busier I became with Church and with Childrens Ministry the closer my girls and I became. Every night we read a Scripture story and a story from the lives of the Saints. When I first got divorced my fear was that my girls would grow up to not really know me, but nothing could be farther from the truth. As a single Dad I had become even closer to them them then I could have ever imagined.

Sister Mary toward the end of our time began to challenge me to continue to give back she suggested that I might prayerfully consider the Permanent Deaconite as a Vocation.Truthfully at that time I was not even sure what a Permanent Deacon did or how it could even happen. God in his goodness was beginning to point me to Baltimore.

It was Sister Mary who had suggested it and a couple of friends who had already gotten an Annulment so that they could Married who had suggested to me that I might want to get an annulment, and it was in this process in this DISCOVERY that I came to know the TRUTH of my Marriage.

It was a great time of Healing and of Christ once again directly intervening in my life, gently pointing me in the direction of becoming a Minister in his Church, and allowing me the Grace of meeting someone who would be the "ONE" for me.

I began to volunteer at a restaurant that took reservations from homeless people, it's mission was to restore the dignity that homelessness had taken from them.

I thought I'd be a natural as a volunteer chef, but they very wisely chose for me to be a table companion to the clients. It was a Grace for me to learn Humility from those to whom I was Ministering to.

At this restaurant guests order each day from a Menu, prepared by a Salaried Chef and his assistants, each table seated four and had one table companion for every three guests.

It was there in WPB at Cafe Joshua that I would meet Christ for the first time in the flesh, in the person of one of our clients.

Lawrence was his name and he was a very large man who every day wore the same clothes and to me at first I thought that he just there that he had figured it all out and he was "working the system".

I had never sat with him and I just was going on first impressions, and boy was I WRONG, he spoke to me that first time and was able to in a second convey all of his pain and all of his feelings of rejection over his weight and also over his poor health. His eyes were the eyes of Christ as he described his hurt and rejection.

I also met a another very important person in my life there a recent Graduate from Loyola College, here in Baltimore who upon Graduation had decided to give a year of her life in service to the poor.

A last minute decision on her part changed her mind from going to Denver to work with unwed pregnant teenagers to decide to go instead to Cafe Joshua in WPB she had read the Joshua book by Father Grizzione and that was the factor that she chose her assignment by.

Coincidently I too had read the same book, and it was the reason I chose to volunteer myself at Cafe Joshua, God had at this time intervened in both of our lives and punts together. We became engaged after a year and a half of dating.

Three years later I would move here from WPB and got married to my wife Lisa here in Baltimore, about two and a half years later I would start and finish the CLI it is the first step in becoming a Deacon, after meeting with the Deacon Formation Team I would be accepted into a year of discernment and then into three more years of Formation before becoming Ordained.

Formation was very challenging for us every Saturday at the Seminary, each week a new text book to read and write papers on. Spiritual Direction, daily praying of the Liturgy of the Hours, and all the while at the same time my life was still going on, my two sons were born a year and seven months apart.

Our journey to parenthood would be a difficult and a painful one, Lisa had been seeing a fertility expert, and just could nt seem to conceive.

There were many nights of holding her and asking her to TRUST in the goodness of the Lord who didn't seem to be at the time answering our prayers.

Finally she got pregnant and our hopes were in the clouds, at about seven weeks we went in for our first ultrasound and the embryo was not in the egg as it was empty, we were devastated.

After that we were offered injectable drugs that might have produced multiple

Embryos, and we would have to agree to possible selective abortion, we decided that we could not do this despite our wanting a child so bad, we could not ever decide to make that kind of choice.

It was only after we had completely given up that idea of ever being parents that Lisa got pregnant not once but two more times. Our prayers were answered in ways better then we could ever imagine.

We were blessed with two beautiful boys.

After the birth of my first son a health complication would arise and a perforated intestine with two major surgeries would be a major distraction, to my own life plan. Once again it would be part of God's plan for me, I just needed to learn that for myself.

By then I had been given my service internship as a Chaplain at SJMC, the same hospital where I myself would be a patient.

I was later assigned to SPX and was there for my year of Pastoral Internship, I learned to preach and to proclaim the word of God there.

It was a great experience being there it helped to prepare me for my permanent assignment at Immaculate Conception Church, it's bigger then SPX with a similar congregation. I have been made to feel very welcome since I was assigned there three and a half years ago. I asked to be assigned to ICC because I am good friends with Father Matthew Buening, he and I had met in a Pastoral Spanish Class a few years earlier and I thought it would be great to work with him on my first assignment after Ordination, Fr. Matt was transferred two weeks after I started at ICC.

Among my duties at ICC, I work every Tuesday at GBMC as a Chaplain my job is to do Pastoral Visits to the Catholic Patients that are there staying at the Hospital. I have been there most every Tuesday Morning since I started at ICC, and since our Former Pastor Msgr. Dennis Tinder had his back surgery I have been presiding at a Communion Service that is broadcast to the Patients on their TV's if they would like to watch. I get a lot of the staff there who come to the Chapel for the service.

Working as a Hospital Chaplain in my Clerics enables an instant intimacy with the Patient, in affect you are invited into the suffering of another human being, my job then is to offer prayers and blessings as well as to provide Spiritual and Pastoral Care for the suffering and their families. I also go to Shepherd Pratt and visit the sick who are there, my Ministry to the sick at the Hospitals is one of prayers, blessing and presence.

Also I am part of a group of Deacons who go to BCDC each Friday afternoon to Preside at a Communion Service for the male detainees who are being held while they wait for trials, back when I was in Formation to become a Deacon doing Hospital and Jail Ministry did not seem like something that I would be doing so regularly since Ordination.

I started a tradition of having the Formation team from the Seminary come to my house once a year for a special dinner, we get together for food, wine and fellowship. Well after the first dinner I was asked by Father Patrick Carrion if I would cater his 25th anniversary of Ordination dinner for him.

The dinner that night was the impetus for starting my own business IGT Catering, almost all of my clients are from the Catholic Church in one form or another, everything from Elaborate Parties for the Archbishop to doing box lunches at Saint Mary's Spiritual Center at the original Seminary on Paca Street in Baltimore City.

My catering company is mainly a family business with both of my daughters and my wife working on most of our parties.

My two sons aged five and seven have even helped out on some deliveries and setups, last month we did a welcome luncheon at Saint Mary's at Paca Street for 80 Seminarians from Saint Mary's Seminary and University in Roland Park.

It is there in Roland Park that I had my base client the Provincial House of the US Society of San Sulpice, I was a subcontractor for the first six months there as the Personal Chef for the Senior Staff at the Provincial House, they are of course very understanding of my Ministerial Responsibilities as a Deacon, with funerals, wakes, and my work on the Deacon Personel Board and as the Chair of the Placement Committee for the assignments for Permanent Deacons.

I am not sure that you might remember from the beginning of my Testimony that I am originally from RI, I was invited to the 50 year Anniversary of my Catholic School that I attended from first through eighth grade, I was to be the Deacon of the Mass and then my Mom,Brother and Sister were going to sit with me as they both attended the school as well.

My Mom and I caught the last flight bout of Baltimore on Feb. 5th the day before the big Blizzard hit Baltimore, that night after assisting at the Mass, back on the altar that I used to serve on as an altar boy and having dinner at the Seminary that I had once considered attending to become a Priest forty years earlier I had a major heart attack.

The Lord was once again with me as I arrived by ambulance at RI Hospital within 8 minutes from the time we called the Ambulance.

I had been so lucky that it happened there and not while in was in my big driveway shoveling snow back in Towson, I would have thought at first it was just the shoveling that had me out of breath.

I am not at all sure that the Ambulance would have even been able to make it into my neighborhood and certainly not able to get me to a Cardiac Trauma Center in 8 minutes. I had found Providence in Providence, the most amazing part of my adventure was from my Hospital Room I could see the light in the Steeple of Saint Michaels Church in Providence, fifty years of sprawl had brought the Hospital within eyesight of the steeple.

But really it was much more than that it was 55 years of God watching out for me and guiding me exactly where ever I need to be. Last week Pope Benedict XVI traveled to England to beatify Cardinal John Newman who once said "Almighty God has a plan that is unique and suited to the particular talents and graces that he has blessed each of us with, all we have to do is let him guide us to do the work that he intends for each of us, here in the Kingdom.

Kevin F. Reid

Chef / Owner

In Good Taste Catering

443-570-0395

Giving Thanks - KOC Reflection Novemer 2010

Giving Thanks

Chaplains Refection for November

Deacon Kevin Reid

Here in the United States and also in Canada where they celebrate it on a different day we both celebrate Thanksgiving, a unique Holiday that some say may have started back with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.

They had come to America seeking an opportunity to practice their Puritan Faith with out fear of Persecution. Most of us have learned the story of the Pilgrims and the ship that they arrived on the "Mayflower".

What most people do not know is how much they suffered in that first year of being there in Plymouth MA, it was much colder and more harsh then they had expected it to be. The winter was cold and severe and many of them perished in that year of being in their new "promised land" yet they had faith like Jesus described when he spoke of having faith the size of a mustard seed and that anything could be accomplished if we believed in the saving power of Jesus Christ.

Imagine leaving the security of your home and journeying to a new and distant land in search of a New Jerusalem. No radios or radar to guide you, cramped,cold and weary from the journey but yet filled with faith and praying ceaselessly.

Well I am sure that at first it must have seemed like God was not listening to their petitions, after all so many were dying and life was so much harder here then it was back for them in England.

And yet they never gave up praying or in believing, it is upon the shoulders of these Pilgrims and their sacrifices that we ourselves have continued the good work that these Pilgrims started.

Any one is now free to worship here in America to what ever God that they choose and in what ever faith tradition they claim for themselves.

We in Maryland are part of the original Catholic State the home of the Premier See in the United States, the first diocese in this new "promised land". Our church has grown beyond the dreams of Bishop Carroll, he probably never could imagine that one day five Catholics would sit on the Supreme Court, that a Catholic would be elected President and that there would be so many more dioceses around the US that would be formed.

We Catholics once endured hardship for our faith, but our faith was stronger then the hate that was once directed towards any Catholic that tried to get ahead.

Our Catholic ancestors were not unlike the Pilgrims in the fact that they overcame what ever it was that came at them and that God provided them with a way not only to get by, but in fact to flourish.

Our school system educated generations of Catholics and gave them the tools to get bout of the low level jobs that they once had and to build a better life for their children.

I heard the other day that for many the American Dream is dying, I suggest that they are dead wrong. The American dream ha s never been easy, and we stand on the shoulders of brave Catholics like Father Michael McGiviney and Bishop Fulton Sheen and so many others who have given us such great examples of faith filled lives to be role models for the rest of us to emulate.

We have a responsibility to keep the dream alive to our children by being examples as Knights, as fathers and as Catholic gentlemen. We have the examples of so many good men and women to give thanks for and for us to "carry on" what they have started to fight the good fight as Saint Paul teaches us, we are still a Pilgrim People on our way to the Promised Land.

For that Grace my Brothers let us be thankful and may we also continue the good work begun in Christ Jesus in establishing the Kingdom of God here on Earth.

For that amazing grace that we are so blessed with, let us come together with glad and grateful hearts and "Give Thanks".

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

Salvation is God's free gift to us

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time "C"

Deacon Kevin Reid

Brothers and Sisters once again in Luke's Gospel Jesus is talking in this parable about the Pharisees who were a people WHO had set them selves APART from the rest of their society, they had started their movement some six centuries before Christ during the Babylonian exile.

While they were in exile a group that was familiar with the laws of Moses took it upon themselves to organize the teaching of the "MOSIAC LAW".

Since there were no priests available they took it upon themselves to do the job of interpreting the Scriptures and organized their worship into their daily lives.

This changed the way that people looked at things when they returned from the exile, now there was an authority of a "living tradition". that the law was not something that was just carved just in stone, but rather that it MUST be lived EACH AND EVERY moment, and then applied to all day to day situations.

This new idea was that this could be done not just by the priests but also by the laity. This was a radical change that had taken place, it was recognizing that life it self is organic, moving and not static.

It was in itself a radically great idea that lost it's way in the six centuries that it took for Christ to be born, the Pharisees started believing that they were better then others because "THEY WERE THE ONES WHO GOT IT, and nobody else did.

They had become self righteous and arrogant, a seductive and a dangerous form of self deception had taken root.

Perhaps it once again was Satan who was at work sowing the seeds of distrust, pride and fear. Let us remember that bit was Satan in the garden who had told Adam that he could be just like God, and that he would not die.

The original ideas had been complicated and the ideas that sprang out of this deception ignored the laws that were written onto the hearts of all men, not just these slaves of this new thinking that had taken root, this bondage to the written law, had separated them from these so called "Others".

It had convinced them that they could lay all of these heavy burdens on others with the intention to "MAKE THEM BETTER".

More like themselves, friends it his a seduction that knows no Boundries, we still vilify others and think that WE have all of the answers, and all of the solutions as well.

This idea of self justification was very popular, among the SCRIBES and the PHARISEES they became like the Publican in today's Gospel convinced that it was their own actions that had saved them from the fate that these "others" would surely receive.

They became so obsessed living in the written law that it had began to separate them from both God and Man.

In essence they had become not justified but were in a State of Sin, it wasn't that they were consciously trying to sin.

In the midst of their misguided actions they were separating themselves from both God and Man, not unlike the Corrupt Judge in last weeks Gospel who cared not for God or Man.

They were so convinced that THEIR actions would save them and that it would not even be God who would be part of the solution.

My brothers and sisters once again Luke is showing us that the way of man is different from the way of God, once again there has been a reversal of fortune. God is the BOTH the Source and the Supplier of Grace, we just need to be in right relationship with Him and also with each other to be open to receive what he freely gives.

Certainly a way to be open is ton open a channel to dial in to those graces, in today's gospel the difference is plain to see. Both The tax collector and the Pharisee are in prayer but one is a prayer of supplication for mercy and the other is a Litany of why he SHOULD not be denied.

How we come before God in prayer is how we will either open ourselves to him and his divine Mercy like the tax collector or perhaps we will be more like the Boastful Pharisee talking at God rather then talking with him.

Sincere prayer is a dialogue, in today's first reading the wise old Sage Ben Sirach is instructing his students and us here today to come humbly before God, to petition the Lord with prayer and that the Lord most High will LISTEN.

We here Paul near the end of his life saying to his Beloved follower Timothy that "I have competed well, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith"

Good friends will we one day be able to at the end of our lives be able to say the same, that we too have given our best, that we too have kept the faith, that the Lord most high is the source of ALL that is good in our lives,that we have like Paul been poured out like a libation to be taken home to our heavenly place.

Christ teaches us that only when we are in right relationship with each other and with God can he justify us, that all good that we receive is a GIFT that is freely given and not one that one we should ever expect, like some spoiled child.

My friends this is a slippery slope that we can easily lose our own footing on, if we allow ourselves to think that we are better THEN those OTHERS better then those SINNERS.

Remember that we are never called to be judges, for Christ has taught us in Luke's Gospel that there is only one judge, there is room for each of us to be a living witness to the TRUTHS of the Gospel, to help him to lead others to him so that they too might be saved.

The Deacon and Evangelization

Evangelization begins with the recognition that the gospel is good news and that a culture or church that ignores that fact is dull and asleep and needs to be awakened.

Father John Hurley in his recent talks spoke of us the command of Jesus

"To go out and making disciples of all nations"

And he joked that what part of "GO" is it that we might not understand.

There are three elements to evangelization:

Turning toward god

A turning that effects both individuals, and the society and culture

A turning that is ultimately caused by the power of the gospel and the holy spirit.

Evangelization has to happen at three levels:

The renewal of the evangelizers themselves

A calling back of those who have heard the gospel, but among whom it has not taken hold or has been lost in some way

A calling of those who have not yet heard the gospel.

We need to begin our proclamation with what lies at the center of our faith,namely, that Jesus Christ has died and has a risen. Jesus is the icon of the invisible god, gods pattern of being In the world.

Our evangelization must be predicated on this insight : In the old order of things we believed that violence and evil come into the world and they are to be often rid of by a morally superior violence. But I

In the new order of things, in Jesus, justice and peace are restored not through violence but through empathy and forgiveness. We kill god, but god returns in forgiving love and this is what opens up a new world

We may not continue to keep our faith private. Evangelization must show itself public ally- like the medieval pilgrimages and processions in todays world youth days. Faith must be expressed publicly and in colorful and romantic ways. We must stop building "beige churches" and build churches that build public faith.

We are drowning in individuality, especially as it pertains to sustaining and passing on faith. To sustain a faith life today involves more than a vague human connection; it must be supported in a real human connection- church,family, community.

Jesus offers us the model; he tries to move us from one state to another: we are asleep and he tries to wake us.

We are deaf and he tries to open our ears;

We are dumb, and he tries to open our mouth to speech and praise;

We are narrow, and he tries to widen our perspective;

We are blind, and he tries to open our eyes;

We are lost, and he tries to find us;

We are dead, and he tries to resurrect us. This must be our model of evangelization to a secularized world.

The seed falls in then soil and we are, each one of us, all four kinds of soil.

We are the soil by the side of the road- where the birds eat the red before it has a chance to root. This Refers to our failure of attention.

We are rocky ground- we receive the word with great joy but don't have the depth to sustain it, especially in time of persecution and trial.

We lose the word through our failure to be able to handle contradiction.

We are the soil where the seed grows together with the thorns which eventually choke out the seed. The seed has to transform the thorns and not simply grow along side them.

We are finally also the good soil.

We need to pray, minister, and live out our evangelization with more imagination, namely, with more originality, more evoking of gods presence beneath then surface of hints, more risk, more commitment to the justice of wholeness, more daring to embrace what is human, more traveling to sin and guilt and lingering there.

First Sunday in Advent "A"

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, and we are wearing Purple Vestments today as a visual reminder to all of our Community that we as a church are in a Time of Preparation. We also have the benefit of wearing the Raven colors as our team plays each Sunday.

Today I would like to call attention and welcome to our Candidates and their sponsors from our RCIA program who like Joseph and Mary have set out on a journey. They have come with different stories and faith experiences in their choice to journey with us as a faith Community, we now walk along with them and pledge our prayers and our support to them as they journey to the Light of the Easter Vigil, when they will become fully and sacramentally part of our Holy Catholic Church.

They have made a choice and a commitment to become brothers and sisters in Christ with all of us here today all who are part of our living Liturgy, and also with those who came before us the ones who were the ones who showed us the Light.

Advent as I said earlier is a time of preparation it's an annual opportunity for us to count our blessings and to prepare our homes for the visitors that will travel to visit us.

Most importantly it is a time a season to prepare ourselves not just to commemorate the historical birth of the infant Jesus, but it's a time to prepare our own affairs for the second coming of Jesus our King.

The one whom we will each one fate filled day stand before, how then will we use this sacred season to prepare for this inevitable encounter, so that we will be ready on that day!

Paul in our second reading reminds us; that our Salvation is nearer to us now then when we first believed. He tells his Roman followers to put on the armor of light.

Dear friends I just yesterday returned with my family from New England after spending our families Thanksgiving with my brother and sister who both still live up there.

Any of you that have ever had a long drive with two small children will surely remember how it can quickly turn into "Are we there yet" or "How much farther" and the many driving games you had to invent to keep everyone focused and possibly from going crazy.

This year on the drive we counted and took note of all of the bright and varied Christmas lights that we saw along the way in our travels, It was obvious that some people go to great lengths to prepare their Holiday lights, some perhaps to the point of borderline OCD.

But what about our own preparations with our "LIGHTS", have we been as compulsive about making ourselves ready to shine? Are all of our bulbs lit just right are we lined up the way we were intended to be?

Have we taken the time to let the true light of Christ come into our hearts ?

and

THEN do we allow our new LIGHT to radiate the the peace of the Risen Lord. are we a beacon for those who might still be living in Darkness?

Like a Spiritual Lighthouse ready to steer others who like our RCIA candidates might be here with us searching for the Light that Paul speaks of to the Romans?

How many if us here have put on our own Armor of Light before coming to Mass today?

Do we like Isaiah the Prophet in our first reading SEE the light of the Lord in each other as we walk in and look around at our assembly?

Do we SEE the people of God gathered here to worship? Or do we see that SO and So is wearing that OLD coat again, or that family is here again the ones who just can't control their children.

It's kind of like the glass being half full or half empty, but if we are in a spiritual darkness we will never see the light in each other, the LIGHT that Christ sees in each of us.

Matthew tells us in his Gospel message the GOOD NEWS that some will be taken and some will be left, friends this is the time when we want to be sure that we are waiting in the RIGHT line, he says that we need to PREPARE ourselves for the day of judgement.

Isn't better to know what we can do, to prepare ourselves for that encounter to have a PLAN?

We can live in the moment or we can live for eternity. As I was writing this Homily and eating some take out Chinese I opened my fortune cookie and think that the Lord in the person of the Holy Spirit was talking to me through this cookie it said " Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need".

So as we begin the WORK of our Advent preparations let us be strengthened by the life giving blood and bread of life so that our WORK will be a labor of love.

That this Advent Season we will be all of the LIGHT that anyone would ever need to SEE!

Now is the time, now is the time to worship, now is the time to offer the gift of our lives to be Light to those who are possibly still living in some form of Darkness.

Now is the time to put on the "Armor of Light" for we are the sons and daughters of the LIGHT!

God's Word

Opening Prayer - Deacon Placement Committee

December 4th 2010

Where is God’s word to be kept? Obviously in the heart, as the prophet says: I have hidden your words in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.

Keep God's word in this way. Let it enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life. Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread, or your heart will wither away. Fill your soul with richness and strength.

Emmanuel "God with Us"

Emmanuel "God with Us"

Fourth Sunday in Advent "A"

Deacon Kevin Reid

December 19, 2010

Therefore the Lord HIMSELF will give you THIS sign the Virgin shall Conceive, and Bear a SON, and She shall name Emmanuel.

The readings on this fourth Sunday that mark the last Sunday in Advent, are speaking to us today across the ages and are a sort of Theological Bookmarks.

Sort of a beginning and an end of the STORY.

Today's first one the "beginning of our bookend" speaks to us here today from back in the time of the prophet Isaiah who was answering the King Ahaz,who was seeking guidance for the political trouble that was brewing with his neighbors and he was asking for advice from the prophet Isaiah the one who "spoke" for God.

Ahaz like a wise politician was hesitant about who to endorse in this time of turmoil, not unlike our current politicians who are so quick to sidestep any real issue, perhaps dear friends it's just human nature for us all in times of trouble to look for an easy solution.

Isaiah the prophet is telling the King to ASK for a sign from the LORD that is as deep as the Netherworld and as high as the skies.

But Ahaz true to political form or human nature answers back that he will not tempt the Lord, perhaps the real situation might be just a little different for Ahaz as it sometimes can be for ourselves.

Just maybe perhaps like Ahaz we might be afraid of God's reply to our own petitions we might like Ahaz not like his answer, from that dilemma we get the statement that we should always be mindful and be careful of what we pray for

as we might just get what we are asking for but in the end not like the final result.

The truth today is not any different for us however the outcome we need to trust in Emmanuel the God who came into our world not only just to Shepherd us through all the difficult times but to also be there present to help us to celebrate in the best of times as well. You know it seems that often in those times of tension we do indeed TURN to the God whois willing to reach out his hand to us like he did when Peter who had himself for a brief moment walked on water, until he cried out "Lord save me".

But in TRUTH wasn't it that same God who was with him as he walked on the Water who also reached out so quickly to save him as he lost his faith and started to drown.

That is the God who is always with us; THE SAME GOD that Isaiah spoke of the one who would deliver his people he would be called Emmanuel.

In today's other end of our Book the other Bookend we see the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Messiah the long awaited Savior that would deliver his people from the centuries of hardship, bondage and turmoil.

We know now that the Long Awaited Messiah did not ride into Jerusalem on a great white horse with one arm holding a sword up and displacing the Roman Occupation Force.

But rather like in his birth this savior would arrive by donkey just like how his mother had carried him into the City of David for the his foretold prophecy to come from the line of David, from the line of Ahaz. That his would be a miraculous birth and that Joseph a good and upright man would not turn his fiancé Mary away but stood by her after the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

So in this gospel story there is a parallel to the story in our first reading.

In todays first reading Ahaz whose kingdom is threatened on all sides by his neighboring enemies.

Isaiah the prophet intervenes with an oracle of Salvation - Life is affirmed at the doorstep of destruction: A virgin will bear a child and his name will be Emmanuel "God with Us".

So Joseph in his dream is told by the Angel to call his child Jesus because he will deliver his people from Sin.

We are reminded of God's love and direct involvement in the two Dreams that Joseph would experience in caring for The child Jesus and his mother.

This Advent for me has been a time of joyful waiting and it has been particularly enlightened once again by our Childrens Christmas play at the elementary school.

The joy of watching their young voices singing together in faith has been for all who were in attendance that night a great example of the Beauty of all of the Hosts of Heavenly Choirs singing on the night of the Birth of Jesus.

As we prepare ourselves to welcome Jesus into our bodies with the reception of his body and blood let give thanks for Emmanuel "The God who is always with his people" and let it be our Advent prayer and vow to offer him a place to let his light shine forth from not only on this Christmas, but in every time we receive him into our hearts!

The Lamb of God

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - "A:"

January 16th 2011

Deacon Kevin Reid

Church of the Immaculate Conception

Is 49.3, 5-6

Psalm 40

1st Corinthians 1.1-3

John 1.29-34

Behold the Lamb of God the one who takes away the SIN of the World.

My brothers and my sisters just before you line up today for Communion please if you would just for that moment as Father Stew says those words consider in your heart what it means to behold to truly treasure something. To realize that we are about to receive a gift that has no price other then our saying "Amen".

And then as you approach the altar you will be given the Grace to taste and see the same Lamb of God that John the Baptist saw some two thousand years ago.

Many years ago while attending Mass with my family the Pastor lifted up the host and said this is Jesus the Lamb of God and my Son Owen said in just as loud of a voice "Where's Jesus, I don't see him" of course he was looking for a character in a tunic with a beard and a shepherds staff, the Jesus from his childhood story books.

The question we should be asking ourselves is what Jesus do we hope to encounter today.

The God of Creation, of healing, the one who delivers the prisoners from Bondage, the sight to the Blind, who removes demons from our lives? Is this who we are hoping to come into Communion with?

We here at ICC have the luxury of a Perpetual Adoration Chapel, a place that you can go into any time of the day and just spend some quiet time with the Lamb of God there present in the Eucharist in peaceful and humble adoration.

We can find him there, always patiently waiting for us, to come to him and to lay our burdens at his feet. The same feet that were nailed to a cross for each of us, that was part of his vocation.

Good people his humble presence quiets the restless soul and gives hope to the hopeless.

He is at one time both the beginning and the end. He is judgement and mercy, life and death.

He is the sacrificial lamb of Abraham, the lamb of Moses who brought deliverance from Slavery. The lamb sacrificed on the Cross at Cavalry. And he is also the victorious lamb of the Apocalypse in his final victory over evil.

The Lamb who takes away the Sin of the WORLD.

John was speaking to his Disciples when he said this was the ONE, this was the long awaited Messiah, the one who came and died for each of us gathered here this morning in Community.

He is the promised new covenant, the source of life and the wellspring of the Father's mercy and of the Holy Spirit's unending guidance and Love.

My friends we are the honored guests at this Holy Banquet when we gather here as one, we enter into the timeless mystery of our Sacred Liturgy when we break this bread and when we share his cup we as a people come together to take a share in his Divinity.

Good friends we are living in a precarious time in our Countries history, more then ever we are called to be light for those who might be living in Spiritual Darkness!

This past weekend tragically six people breathed their last breaths, not knowing that they would be meeting the Lord that morning, two had just come from Mass and had probably just had the opportunity to Behold the Lamb of God before they met him.

The youngest victim Christina Green was featured in a book that was called the faces of hope, and it showed a child from each state who was born on Nine Eleven.

We have had our faith tested many times in recent years, eight years of war, an economy turned upside down.

But this young girl Christina believed in something, bigger then all of our fears she believed in Christ Jesus and in eternal salvation she believed in all of us and our capacity to Love in the face of Evil, in the face of brutal terrorism and in the unseen face of fear mongering. Through God's eternal Mercy her organs were used to save the life of another child.

Paul in our second reading wrote to the church of God which in Corinth, "To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord ".

Paul is writing to them to guide and support them in their Christian life just as he sends that message to us here today Paul knew something of the problems of that a community could face.

It is at this point that this introduction by Paul begins to open up a new understanding of the world.

Despite our differences there is something that unites us. We are called to be saints with all those who in every place, call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

Friends we are all God's children despite our differences,we all belong together, as one family that spans the globe.

This short passage then opens to us the reality of our unity and the universality of the Church. This might seem obvious but we must go one step further.

If we are all called to be saints and we are all on our pilgrim journey together, why do we show such disregard for each other?

Why do we fail to recognize the needs of our sisters and brothers in the Lord?

Perhaps it is because in our busy lives we don't take the time required to get to really know each other.

How many of us here today can count on our hands more then a few REAL friends?

And if we are lucky enough to have true friends why is it that we sometimes do not have the faith and the trust to tell others of the problems we face?

When we try to do it without Jesus we usually face disappointment, but when we walk with Jesus we walk in hope!

We hear so little of the good that goes on in the world; instead we hear only of the horror, the natural disasters and the only-too-human atrocities.

We could be forgiven for thinking that there is only bloodshed and death, that there is no hope in the world.

But this is a distorted view of the world and it remains the image because we often allow ourselves to focus on what divides our faith rather than on what unites it. The Sin of the world is indeed a powerful force to test our will and our faith.

Imagine a different world, or at first a different Church, a Church made up of disciples who speak to one another, or write to one another; and more importantly a Church of disciples who listen to one another and try to understand their situation.

It is together that we follow the Lord, not as individuals, and Paul's greeting reminds us of this.

Saint Bernard said " Unhappy is he who carries the Cross of Jesus, but is not with Jesus".

How can we speak to an unbelieving world when we as Church ignore each other and ignore the plight of our sisters and brothers as well as their joys?

My Dear friends in Christ let us join together as a People of Faith and Hope and offer our prayers for those whose lives were taken from them, and for divine healing for their families and for the survivors of the attack, and also for healing and forgiveness for the young man who's own Spiritual darkness had overcome him.

We today have a sacred obligation within our own lives lived as the light of Christ to never forget that Jesus willingly laid down his life for those sins that we are part of by commission or by omission.

Paul reminds us that we have been Sanctified in Christ Jesus, That we as Children of the LIGHT are called to be the Light of Christ to others. To lead and show others to the ""Lamb of God".

So today as we receive the body and blood of Our Brother Jesus, let our Amen, be one of both wonder and thanks for the salvation that we have been given, won for us by the one that we behold and testify with the gift of our lives in our vocations.

Jesus the one we still to this day call Agnus Dei the "Lamb of God".