Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

7/1/18: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Do We Touch Jesus with Faith or Are We Simply Bumping into Him?

In today's Gospel, the woman who is hemorrhaging approaches Jesus and touches Him with confident faith. The Gospel writer contrasts the touch of the woman with the crowd of people who are bumping into Him. Yet it is only the one who touches Him with faith who is healed. When we approach Jesus in the Sacraments, do we merely bump into Him ... or are we--aware of our own desparate need for grace and healing--just bumping into Him?

6/29/18: A Wedding Homily on the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul

6/17/18: 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: How to Grow the Seed of Faith

A lot of Jesus's parables involve the seed, which is a very helpful metaphor. A seed itself is small, plain, seemingly worthless and lifeless. Yet if the seed is placed in an environment conducive to growth, a miracle happens: the skin bursts and a shoot sprouts from within. What seemed dead has not given place to life! The same is true with our faith, which starts out small, humble, invisible: The seed planted in our hearts at baptism. The seed remains only that if it is not placed an a conducive environment. This is helpful information for parents, that they would make this a priority. And for us adult Christians too, that we would not merely strive for the "minimum" in living out our faith, but to strive for excellence by giving our own seed of faith an environment most conducive to growth.

6/10/18: 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time: What the Story of the Fall Tells Us about Us (a.k.a. Why It's Hard to be Vulnerable)

The Story of the Fall is full of symbols and is not simply a legend written thousands of years ago but speaks to our contemporary world in a stunningly precise way. Sin, what sin is in its essence, our relationship with God, relationships between men and women... All of these deeply personal areas with which we have all struggled are spoken to and illuminated through this profound text.

6/3/18: Corpus Christi: Why Do We Go to Mass? Because the Bread and Wine become God

Today's Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord gives us an opportunity to reflect on this great mystery of faith: That when the priest says the words of consecration over the bread and wine, these elements are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. We as Catholics do not believe this is a symbol but rather the reality. This is why we consume all of the Precious Blood consecrated at Mass and that the hosts not distributed are placed in the tabernacle. How amazing is it that God humbles Himself in this way! Apparently it wasn't enough for the Son to humble Himself by becoming man, nor enough that He would suffer a humiliating and painful death. He wanted so much to communicate His Love -- literally, to come inside of us -- that He makes Himself a helpless piece of bread and bit of wine... The only explanation for such foolishness? That He is a God of absolute Love who will debase Himself more and more until we love Him back.

5/27/18: Trinity Sunday: Love the Origin and Destiny of our Life

On Trinity Sunday, we reflect on the central Christian mystery: the mystery of our God who is One in three Persons. How amazing it is that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in this way at all! He could have kept His innermost Being a secret, but then He sent His Son and the Holy Spirit, and we learned that God is not alone in a single person but a Communion of Love. This Love, in whose image and likeness we are created, informs our who existence from our origin in the love of our parents to our vocation to our destiny in God. When we understand more the Trinity, we understand more ourselves!

5/20/18: Pentecost Sunday: What Confirmation is NOT

Today's feast of Pentecost reminds us of the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our lives and the world. We have received this same Spirit at our Baptism and Confirmation that the apostles and Mary received in that Upper Room 2000 years ago. We did not receive a lesser Spirit but the same Spirit, and the same Spirit of God can work miracles in our hearts as it worked miracles in the hearts of the Apostles, changing them from scared men to confident and bold proclaimers of the Gospel.

5/13/18: Solemnity of the Ascension: Heaven is Here

The mystery of the Ascension that we celebrate today nudges us to think more about heaven. One of the reasons we might tend not to think about heaven very often is because it seems so far away... But when the Son of God became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary, heaven came to earth. And when Jesus ascends to heaven, he ascends in a human body, having taken upon himself our humanity, and earth goes to heaven. So in Jesus there is no dichotomy between earth and heaven. This reality of heaven is upon whenever we encounter Jesus, who lives in our hearts and who touches us here and now, on this earth, if we let Him!

5/6/18: 6th Sunday of Easter: Love is not a Feeling

Today's 2nd Reading and Gospel are totally about love. Jesus affirms God's love for him, his love for us, and the mandate that we love one another. But what does it mean for us to love one another? Does it mean that we have to have warm and fuzzy feelings for everybody? And if I don't have positive feelings towards everybody, what does that mean? Today we are reminded that love is not a feeling but willing the good for the other. This is how God loves us -- always giving us in life what is good for us, even when it is hard or costs us. And this is how God wants us to love each other.

4/29/18: 5th Sunday of Easter: If We Want to Bear Fruit, God Has to Prune Us (With a Brief Excursus on the Wonder of Wine)

Today Jesus calls himself the True Vine and we the branches. He then goes on to tell us that his Father (the "vine grower") prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. This means that getting pruned is a good thing, even though it involves a painful process of being stripped of the excess in our life. So how can we let God prune us? It is only possible if we "remain" in him. "Remain in me as I remain in you."