Monday, April 13, 2009

CHRIST IS RISEN!


http://deacbench.blogspot.com/2009/04/homily-for-april-11-2009-easter-vigil.html

I highly recommend to all the Easter Vigil homily of Rev. Mr. Greg Kandra, deacon of the Diocese of Brooklyn. A section is below and the full homily is linked.


Describing the Catholic Church, James Joyce once said, “Here comes everybody.”

Yes. That says it.

Here comes Peter, the denier and Thomas the doubter, and the converted pagan Augustine. Here comes the soldier Ignatius, and the scholar Aquinas, and the tentmaker Paul.

Here comes the outspoken Catherine of Sienna and the quiet Therese of Lisieux.

Here comes Francis, preaching to the birds.

We are all that and more.

We are monks who copied scripture onto parchment, and preserved God’s word during one of the darkest times in history.

We are priests and nuns who could barely speak the language, but came to an unruly place called America and created the most extensive parochial school system on earth, passing on what they knew, and what they believed.

We are laborers from Italy and Poland and Germany who arrived in Brooklyn with nothing, and left behind towering temples of stone and glass in what we now call a City of Churches.

We are Chesterton and Merton and Hopkins.

We are Bob Hope and Newt Gingrich, John Wayne and Oscar Wilde, Tony Blair and Fulton Sheen.

We are Oscar Romero and Bobby Kennedy and Caeser Chavez and Mother Angelica.

We are the soldier in Iraq praying the rosary, and the immigrant in the barrio with Our Lady of Guadalupe tattooed on his back.

We are Fr. Mike Dalton, in a jeep in Germany, hearing one last confession.

We are Rosa and Richard, about to be baptized here tonight.

We are Amanda and Lydia and Ana and Justine and Carmen, about to be confirmed.

We are saints. We are sinners. We are everybody.

We are the Body of Christ. Bruised. Broken. But resurrected and given new life, new hope. Changed forever.

6 comments:

phlojd said...

But sadly, there are those who seek to divide and diminish some as CINOs* and cafeteria Catholics.

* Catholics in name only.

Sam said...

How Obama actually delayed pirate rescueWhile Barack Obama is basking in praise for his "decisive" handling of the Somali pirate attack on a merchant ship in the India Ocean, reliable military sources close to the scene are painting a much different picture of the incident – accusing the president of employing restrictive rules of engagement that actually hampered the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips and extended the drama at sea for days.

Read the latest now on WND.com.

Bob said...

Katherine, how can you support a man who ordreed the killing of three Black teenagers on the high seas? Obama is obsessed with killing children.

Katherine said...

You guys gotta get your stories straight. Which is it, Sam's or Bob's?

phlojd said...

Consider why the Somali pirates emerged in the first place.

First, international commercial (over)fisher pirates took away the traditional livelihood of the Somalis on the coast.

Then after the area was fished out, international terrorists used the Somali coast as a dumping ground for nuclear and toxic waste.

Finally, "Ninety percent of internationally traded goods are transported on approximately 50,000freighters and tankers, but putting aside domestic and Great Lakes shipping, only about 200 of these ships are registered to the United States and staffed by Americans. Today’s ships are registered under “flags of convenience,” exempting their multinational corporate owners from taxes and environmental and labor regulations. These corporate pirates, hiding behind a rainbow of colorful Jolly Rogers, have netted hundreds of millions in booty by underpaying workers, skimping on safety and sanitation, and evading taxes to governments that we the people otherwise have to shoulder the burden of supporting."

So the Somali pirates who figured they could get in on the action are actually a fourth generation of pirates.

See:
http://www.mediastudy.com/articles/av4-16-09.html

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to the homily. Even if I found this "late" it is very relevant to me.

Bdm