"Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves": 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Listen to the homily here.

Notes:

“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”

As a priest, I want to share the fact of sexual abuse within our clergy, whether deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals

·     As your pastor, I am sorry from egregious acts from my brothers, especially if anyone here experienced these hellish experiences.  

·     Please call the police, whether it was today or decades ago

·     If so, know that I can listen to you and I have been praying for you every day.

·     I, as a priest, is not here to be the boss…God is the Boss—our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mary is the Boss.

I want to hone into what I proclaimed a few moments ago: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”

·     In 2002, after the Boston sex abuse scandal, I believe that our Catholic Church in the United States made many steps forward

·     We were taught for zero tolerance, calling the police, transparency with our leaders and public authorities

o   I am proud of our police and praise God they are half a block from our Church

·     Unfortunately, some bad apples and listen a third time that we must “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”

o  That is our Boss, written through humans to show us what we leaders must do…not just hearing, but acting

Know that to your children, we have what we call in our Diocese of Duluth, Safe Environment

·     To work with your children, each individual, myself, our employees and our volunteers must learn our process which you can see on each of our websites, as well as a background check…period

·     And for me, as a priest, even before I could enter our Diocese as a seminarian, I went through a personal and psychologist inventory, a meeting with a psychologist, and our Diocesan committee before I could even be a seminarian—praise God.

Listen to another challenging what Jesus spoke in Mark 7

·     “"From within people, from their hearts,come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,adultery, greed, malice, deceit,licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.  All these evils come from within and they defile."

·     Yes, some of my brothers did such of these evil acts

My hope is that our Catholic Church were be purified, purged and cleansed through Jesus Christ

·     At the same time, everyone of us, myself included, must do the same thing in our hearts, as each of us is a sinner

Friends, pray for our brothers and sisters that these victims may become survivors, and continue to know of Jesus Christ’s love and compassion

·     Pray for our priests and Bishops around our country and in our Diocese

·     Pray for Pope Francis

Finally, “Be doers of the word”…Jesus Christ our savior!