Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

Free to be Inconvenienced

In today's Gospel Jesus helps us to see who our "neighbor" is (anyone whom God places in our path), and he calls us to be inconvenienced and involved in the lives of those who need help. Reflecting on how Jesus has done this for us, may we say "yes" to his call: "Go and do likewise!"

The Call to Mission and 15 Years of Priesthood

Today's challenging Gospel gives us the opportunity to reflect on God's call to mission for each one of us Christians. What is my mission? In each particular way that God calls us, we are going to experience at times our poverty and weakness that forces us to rely on God's strength and not our own. The harvest is abundant, so may the Lord of the Harvest give us the grace to go out on mission, where we will experience God's power working through our weakness.

The Pope and the Hierarchy of the Church

Whenever June 29 falls on a Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul instead of the normal Sunday in Ordinary Time. When this happens, we have the opportunity to reflect on the nature of the Church and its masculine, hierarchical dimension. This aspect of the Church gives us the grace of the Sacraments and the guarantee of the truth of her teachings. Yet, the constant conviction of the Church is that her nature is fundamentally feminine, as the "Bride of Christ." Learning to be receptive, like Mary, is the key to our self-understanding. May Peter and Mary teach us to be Church!

The Eucharist is the Heart of Jesus

350 years ago, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary, exposing for her His Sacred Heart, He called His Heart the "Sacrament of Love". He was referring the the Holy Eucharist. When Jesus gives us His Body and Blood, He is giving us His Heart. What does this mean for Jesus? And what does this mean for us who receive Holy Communion?

Trinity Sunday: God is Love

Today we celebrate the central mystery of the Christian faith: That the one God is a Communion of Love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While God never needed to reveal this to us, He did in Jesus Christ. As if this wasn't amazing enough, He chooses to allow us to share with Him the Divine Life by giving us of His Spirit -- the Love which flows between Father and Son.

Inebriated with the New Wine of the Holy Spirit

Some of those who were witnesses of the transformation of the disciples at Pentecost and their joyful praising of God accused them of being drunk with "new wine." The Fathers of the Church says that they were! They were inebriated with the new wine of the Holy Spirit, which results in the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, etc. May we experience the closeness (and gladness) to God that the Holy Spirit brings!

Ascension Sunday: Where is Heaven?

The account of Jesus's ascension into heaven in the Acts of the Apostles gives us the detail that Jesus is taken up in a cloud. From a Scriptural perspective, this is a sign that Jesus is not going "up, up, and away" but rather into God. This actually the meaning of what we profess in the Nicene Creed: "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father." Jesus goes into the realm of God, which is also heaven. As Pope Benedict taught, heaven is not a place but a person. To enter into Jesus is to enter into heaven.

The World's Peace vs. Christ's Peace

In today's Gospel Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you." Clearly Jesus is distinguishing his own peace from the peace that the world has to offer, but what is the difference? How can we seek Christ's peace and not simply  what the world considers to be peace?

What does Jesus mean by "Love"?

We recognize our graduating seniors this Sunday at Holy Family, and we have a beautiful Gospel with which to do so. Jesus commands his disciples (and us): "As I have loved you, so you must also love one another." What does Jesus mean by "love" and is his meaning different from the way we usually understand it? Is he commanding us to have warm feelings for each other? To like each other? We explore the various meanings of "to love" in Greek and look at how Jesus uses the word "agape" to define what he means by love.

Good Shepherd Sunday: The Gift of the Priesthood

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, the Church and world rejoice that a new Shepherd for the Church has been named, Pope Leo XIV. The Gospels make it clear both that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and that he Shepherds through Peter (and by extension through the bishops and their priests). May we rejoice today that Jesus is our Shepherd and that He shepherds us through the Church!