Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

10/7/18: 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Contraception and Natural Family Planning

In today's Gospel we have Jesus's challenging words on the indissolubility of marriage, but in the second which seems to flow out of this teaching on marriage, we hear Jesus say to his disciples, "Let the children come to me. Do not prevent them." It seems that Jesus is giving a nod to the two essential aspects of marriage: the unitive dimension, by which a bond of love is formed and strengthened between the couple, and the procreative dimension. Uncoincidentally, these are also the two essential aspects of sexual intercourse (the one-flesh union spoken of in our first reading from Genesis and by Jesus himself in the Gospel). The Church has always taught that if we intentionally disrupt either of these two essential aspects of sex-- the unitive, or loving, dimension, or the procreative dimension, we turn sex into something that is not true to itself. The blessing of Natural Family Planning (NFP) is that it helps couples to follow the signs present in the woman's own body to avoid pregnancy if they have a good reason not to seek a child at that time.

9/30/18: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Bible and Violence (with a brief excursus on Hell)

In today's Gospel, Jesus uses some graphically violent images to illustrate a point: Sin is real, and we should be ruthlessly intolerant of it in our lives.

9/23/18: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jesus Reverses the Values of the World (Ours)

Today we hear Jesus saying this: "If you wish to be first, you must become the last and the servant of all." Our temptation is to try to be the "first": To be important. Influential. Wealthy. Having it "all together". Jesus makes it clear that he is not interested in the most important in society, the movers and shakers, but rather in the most insignificant, like a child. The least is whom he chooses to identify with. Will we align our values to his or continue to hang on to the values of the world?

9/16/18: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Is Faith all we need to be Saved?

Today's second reading from the Letter of James is important because it deals with a topic of great importance in the history of religious: The relationship between faith and works. Does "faith alone" save us? Or are we saved by our works? We reflect on Catholic teaching regarding faith and works in today's homily, which I borrow a lot from Bishop Barron's homily for today. Listen to his for a better version of this homily! www.wordonfire.org.
 

9/9/18: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: How to Get the Spiritual Healing We Need

The Fathers of the Church always said that we interpret the Scriptures not only literally but also spiritually. So as we read of these physical miracles performed by Jesus, like today's healing of the deaf and mute man, we also have to read on the spiritual level. While the man in today's Gospel suffered from physical deafness, do we not often struggle with spiritual deafness? How many times do we say things like, "I just don't hear God's voice." "I don't know what God wants of me in this situation." And our spiritual deafness -- our inability to hear God -- results in spiritual muteness: It's hard for us to speak of God when we cannot not sense him in our life. The remedy? Jesus gives us a program for spiritual healing in today's Gospel.

9/2/18: 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Making the Faith Interior (a.k.a. How to Avoid Being a White-Washed Tomb)

As we return to our Sunday Gospels from the Book of Mark, we see a very familiar scene: a confrontation between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees. Out of any group of people in the Gospels, Jesus is most critical of this group. Why? Because they are extremely concerned with the exterior following of the Law -- which is not necessarily a bad thing -- but they are unconcerned with with what is happening on the interior. In Matthew 23 Jesus calls the Pharisees "white-washed tombs": having everything put together on the outside but rotten and rotting inside. In this homily we talk about how to avoid the white-washed tomb syndrome in our faith.

8/19/18: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time: It is Not Enough to Believe in Jesus... We Must Eat Him Too

The dialogue between Jesus and his Jewish audience in John's 6th chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part, Jesus focuses on the necessity of believing that he is "from heaven". In the second part Jesus insists that we must eat Him, the Bread come down from heaven. When the Jews protest (rightly), "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?", Jesus doubles down: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood you do not have life within you.... [M]y flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink." Acoording to the Scriptures, tt's not enough to believe in Jesus. We must eat him too, so that the divine life which flows from the Father and through Jesus flows right into us as well...

8/15/18: Why do we Believe Mary was Assumed into Heaven Body and Soul?

A short time ago, a young woman stopped me after Mass and asked me why we believe in the Assumption of Mary even though it is not recorded in the Bible. Why do we as Catholics believe this and what is the evidence to suggest that it is really true?

8/12/18: 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Problem with Murmuring (a.k.a. Do We Really Believe Jesus is Who He Claimed to Be?)

In today's Gospel we continue to work through John Chapter 6, the pre-eminent teaching on the Eucharist in the New Testament. Jesus has just made the claim that he is the bread "come down from heaven". And his audience, the crowd, rightly protests. How could this man say that he came from heaven? We know his parents: He is from Nazareth, not heaven. And they "murmur" against Jesus. By using this word John is bringing us back to the first place in the Scriptures where this word is used: To the book of Exodus, when the Israelites "murmur" against God, precisely as he is performing mighty works in the midst and actively saving them. So this tells that this is what the people are doing in this scene: Complaining to Jesus precisely as he performs mighty deeds and is saving them. In fact, he is their salvation in person, and they still complain to him, because of their lack of faith. But if we are honest with ourselves, do we not do the same?

8/5/18: 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time: God's Remedy for our Complaining Hearts

Today's 1st Reading is the story of what happens immediately after God shows his power and love to the Israelites by leading them out of slavery in Egypt and defeating their enemies in the Red Sea: They start complaining. Yet instead of writing his forgetful, ungrateful people off, he responds to their cries for food by giving them bread from heaven. Do we not see ourselves here? How quick are we to forget God's protection in the past and cry out in our lack of trust? Yet God's response to us is even greater than it was to Israel. Instead of feeding us with mere bread He gives us His Son, the true bread of life, the remedy for body and soul.