Homilies, Videos

19th Sunday Ordinary Time – Msgr. LoPinto Homily

| St. Charles Borromeo

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-730437.

Transcript:

I think to be able to come to grips with the Gospel selection of today, it is important to connect it with the Gospel of last week, when we saw Jesus feed the thousands with the five loaves and the two fish. If you remember that story, the disciples come to him and tell Jesus to let the people go home because they’re concerned that there isn’t food for them and there are no places in that vicinity where they will be able to buy food.

Jesus says to them, well tell me what you have. And they say all we have are five loaves of bread and two fish – what good will that do with all these people? Remember the number that’s given us is five thousand plus the women and children.

And Jesus simply says to them, bring me what you have. And he blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them to distribute. And all of the people are fed, and there are 12 baskets left over.

The story picks up here. Jesus says to the disciples that they should get in the boat and they should go to the other side and he’ll meet them there. And then he dismisses the crowd and he goes off to pray on the mountain alone.

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Events, Videos

Community Mass – 19th Sunday Ordinary Time – 8/9 11:15 am EDT

| St. Charles Borromeo

Please join us for our Community Mass for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday, August 9 at 11:15 AM EDT. It will be a public Mass celebrated in the church and also streamed online.

Instructions to view the Mass are available here. You can also watch the video via YouTube Live in the window here.

Messages from Parishioners

Retreat Yourself! – Antonia Fusco

| St. Charles Borromeo

My name is Antonia and I’ve been a parishioner at St. Charles since my Confirmation in 2017. The last time I wrote here, I shared how the parish community helped raise me Catholic. Let me edit that last phrase: how the parish community is helping raise me Catholic. The formation process, I’ve discovered, is ongoing for all of us. For people who like to know what’s what (and you know who you are!!), it’s a bit of a challenge sometimes to accept the Mystery that is at the heart of our faith. Yet there’s a profound beauty and comfort in that, too, because it is through the Sacraments, Mass, Scripture, and Prayer that our Trinitarian God reveals Himself to us slowly, lovingly, surprisingly, if only partially. It’s an ever-evolving relationship. And when it comes right down to it, isn’t that true of all intimate relationships?

Anyone who’s in or has been in a long-term relationship, however, knows that you can fall into a rut or a period of stagnation. One solution is to go on vacation or do something together you haven’t done before; basically, becoming vulnerable and open. A silent, spiritual retreat with God, I’ve found, is similar. It’s an opportunity to step away from all that you’re attached to, including your attachment to yourself, so you can hear His knock and open the door to Him. Your spiritual director will help you invite Him in and encourage you to let Him restore the interior of your house. Like all renovations, though, it’s intense, messy, and filled with unanticipated challenges and delays—caused by your not fully retreating and allowing Him to renew you. It’s not easy surrendering—from holding on to be being held, from giving to receiving. At least that was my experience last month when I went to St. Edmund’s Retreat House on Enders Island. It’s a slow process, this letting-go, but every step of the way you begin to see everything as a gift, as a form of great love:

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Messages from the Pastor

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Accepting the Need to Be Transformed

| Fr. William Smith

Christ Walks on Water, Eero Järnefelt, 1891, Pori Art Museum (Wikipedia)

Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Romans 9:1-5
August 9, 2020

Last week we concluded our reading of Romans 8 with its ecstatic hymn to the power of God’s love to reach us: “(nothing) will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord .” (Rom. 8:39b). Paul had already assured us that by our Baptisms we were chosen by God. (Rom 8:29-30) and so the Romans, and we ourselves, should ask “What about the Jews?” Were they not chosen? Have they been abandoned by God?

This would have been particularly important to Paul’s original audience, the church at Rome. As we have seen repeatedly throughout this letter, that through their commercial interests many members of this community were closely connected to Jerusalem. Their Christianity would also have had a distinct Jewish flavor. Not all however had these same ties and some were not born Jews. Although all professed belief in Jesus there would have been tensions. These tensions were so great that the emperor Claudius around 45 AD expelled the Jews who followed “Chrestos” from the city of Rome. By the time Paul is writing to the Romans, “gentile Christians” were moving to Rome. Paul would need to explain himself and he did not have the best reputation on this issue. Continue reading “19th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Accepting the Need to Be Transformed” →

Homilies, Videos

18th Sunday Ordinary Time – Fr. Smith Homily

| St. Charles Borromeo

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-730437.

Transcript:

Whenever St Matthew makes a reference to a previous event, he is telling us to take it very seriously. He begins today with “when Jesus heard of it”. The it was the section immediately preceding this one usually called the martyrdom of St John the Baptist. Yet Matthew will emphasize the dinner at which it occurred and as we prepare for the next stage in our lives as Christians in general and members of St Charles Borromeo church in particular so should we.  

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