1. Lec # 16- Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord- Christmas Day- Dec 25, 2013- Fr. Bresowar

    My brothers and sisters, as we gather once again to celebrate the glory of the incarnation, I’d like to personally wish all of you a very happy and merry Christmas.

    It’s been a very interesting year. We’ve had quite a lot of change not only in our country, but also in our Church. We have a new Pope who is capturing the hearts and minds of many all around the world. He even received Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” award for what that is worth. To him, I’m sure it means little, but nevertheless, he seems to have captured the world’s attention.

    Catholics, who for years have been away, seem to be returning in droves, and in large part due to the example of Francis and his simple call to live the gospel truth.

    Jesus Christ, we who celebrate today, his incarnation came into the world in a very humble way, to show us, through humility the image of the Father. A Father who is love! Pope Francis is calling all Catholics to mimic this humility, to love our neighbor, to not turn our back on the outcasts, and especially to seek out the poor. IN this, he is showing us the love that the Father has for us, a love which is contagious and melts the hearts of even the most lax of Catholics, inspires them to move beyond the darkness of sin and despair, depression and laziness, and to return to the light of Jesus Christ. Even Atheists love Pope Francis.

    I’m convinced though, after reading much of what our Holy Father has written, that even though he is misunderstood and misused by some to push an agenda, that’s it not Pope Francis who is converting hearts and minds to the Truth, but it is God who is using Pope Francis, through his example of humility and love, qualities, that speak to the heart, and fill a need that each of us has to respond to that love for which we were created.

    Here we see the mystery of the Incarnation once again.

    As so many others have stated before Pope Francis, including Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and many more saints and holy men and women throughout the history of the Church, we are seeing once again the call to not create a utopia here, but a call to unite ourselves with the mystery which has transformed humanity for the last 2000 years.

    What is the mystery?

    It is one, which no matter how hard we try to deny it, it simply cannot be shut out. In every age, no matter how far we may move away from God, it continues to shine through. Our existence is contingent on it, our hearts were created to bask in it, and we are all restless until we are fulfilled by it.

    The mystery of the Incarnation, that is, that God is love and it was that very love that impelled God to become one of us.  

    Everything that our Lord does, everything, both in Himself, and outside of Himself, is an act of Love.

    And this love is not finite, it is infinite, and it is eternal. Therefore, God loved Man with an eternal love, and loving him, called him into existence, giving him both natural and supernatural life. Through love, God not only brought man out of nothing, but chose him and elevated him to the state of divine sonship, destining him to participate in His own intimate life, in his eternal beatitude or blessedness.
    This was God’s first plan. He created us, although he needed not to, but because he desired to share his infinite love with us so that we would enjoy His glory. This was awesome enough, and it reveals God’s infinite charity towards us.

    But we rejected this love. And so God, instead of washing his hands of us, he goes a step further, and willed to redeem us, after we fell into sin, after he created by an act of love, he willed to redeem us with an even greater act of love. After giving man natural life, after having destined him for the supernatural life, what more could He give us than to give Himself, His Word made flesh, for our salvation?

    God is Love. It is not surprising, therefore, that the story of His benevolent action on behalf of man is all a poem of love, and of merciful love. The first stanza of this poem was our eternal predestination to the vision and to the fruition of the intimate life of God.

    The second stanza relates, in an even more touching way, the sublimity of his mercy, to the mystery of the Incarnation. 
    The good news proclaimed by the angel some 2000 years ago is as glorious still as if it happened tonight,

    “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
    For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.
    And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

    And what a sign indeed! That the greatest of all acts of Love that man has ever known, even greater than being created, began in a manger, with an infant, subjected to the care of his mother and foster father.

    God shows us from the very beginning his plan for redemption was going to be accomplished through humility. This means that love is humble. And as St. Paul tells us in his first letter to Corinthians, it is patient as well.

    God could have redeemed us in anyway at anytime, but in this way, redemption is perfect not because God needed to redeem us this way, but because we needed to be redeemed this way.

    Everything he does, he does for love of us. It was his will, that we be saved. It was his son’s will to show us how to do the Father’s will.

    So why not show us that to do the father’s will equality with God, which was the sin of Adam and Eve, and at the root of every sin, is not something to be grasped at.

    Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
    he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

    And it was because of this humility, that God exalted him, and gave him the name above every other name, that at his name, all knees shall bend, and every tongue in Heaven and on Earth will confess to the glory of God that Jesus Christ is Lord.

    My brothers and sister, adoration and glory belong to our God and to no one else. This is what the Son revealed to us in the mystery of the Incarnation. The true path to our liberation, as Pope Francis is so manifesting, and the world is once again powerless to resist, is not in our own glory, but the glory of God.

    All we must do is mimic the humility of the baby in the manger. The love that he showed us by choosing to be born in the least of ways, he does for us and then invites us to lower ourselves with him, in humility, so that we might defeat sin and death, with him and accomplish the will of the father. This is our only path my brothers and sister and until we learn to walk this path, we will still struggle with the darkness.

    But the light overcomes the darkness. Love is patient; love is kind.

    Have a very merry Christmas, remember that Christmas is about humility, and the greatest act of love shown forth in the incarnation of the Word made flesh, in a manger, in a small town, to redeem us, to save us from our depression, to set us free from the captivity of sin and the inordinate desire to be equal with God so that we might experience the liberation that the Son so desperately desires we participate in, and learn to love as the Father loves, as the Son loves, as the Holy Trinity loves, and then, and only then, will our joy will be complete.



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  2. Lec # 7- 3rd Sun of Advent- Dec 15, 2013- Fr. Bresowar

    It’s good to be here with you this week where once again we gather in this Advent journey to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

    Now, It is very easy for me to get up here week after week and kind of pick a particular struggle, a particular imperfection of the human condition, and harp on it, speak about it, and preach on the solution. I mean there is no shortage of things I can preach on with respect to our problems, our sins, and our weaknesses.
    And there is multiple ways to approach the human condition as well, weak and wounded as it is. There is the hell, fire, and brimstone, approach, this plays off our fears of divine retribution and for some, who are seeking retribution against the ones that have hurt them, they may resonate well with this type of homily.

    You’re all damned, every one last one of you! Unless…. For others, it’s uncomfortable, and for me, it leaves barely any room for compassion and mercy. In this approach almost all hope has been eliminated.

    Then there is the passive approach, almost stoic which is to say, let’s just ignore the weak human condition and preach on happy, joyful, things. Death, suffering, sin, and its reality need not be spoken of as they are not pleasant topics. Hell doesn’t really exist in this approach; I call it the Southern Lady approach. I grew up around it, we just don’t speak such bad things.
    This rarely reflects reality either. Compassion and mercy are abundant and evil doesn’t exist.

    Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in.

    There is no need for hope in this approach ether, because everything is already complete, perfect world, or at least the appearance of it is maintained.


    In reality, we live in a world, full of both hope and despair, of constant strife and tragedy and also constant joy and hope of the overcoming of such difficulties. To ignore hope and joy, or to focus solely on them, simply do not reflect real life.  

    This seems to be the movie script type homilies that most people enjoy, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. We relate to such realities, because in our lives, we all have imperfections, problems, and we long for solutions to these problems to be actualized. We like a good ending, we love the happy ending love stories, because they give us hope that the current crisis of whatever hardship we happen to be enduring will indeed end in joy, or at least in vindication.

    As Isaiah says in the first reading, Here is your God,
    he comes with vindication;
    with divine recompense
    he comes to save you.

    And this need to hang on to hope, this very human need to believe that things end well, is depicted in almost every drama out there in film or theater. So pick your favorite movie, and almost anyone, except maybe a rare few would pick movies that, despite a developed crisis in the plot, the movie ends well.

    No one enjoys only tragedies; even in the arts there is something unsettling about a story which ends in despair or unfinished. It may receive critical acclaim, but it still leaves something lacking, an Incompleteness or empty void.

     Maybe this is one reason that Christianity resonates so well with us, is the promise by Jesus that this story, filled with tragedy after tragedy, an enduring test of patience, will have a happy ending, no void will be left, nothing will be incomplete.

    However, unlike the 2 hours of a movie, this story last 70 to ninety years or more on average, and that’s a really long love story.

    Nevertheless, despite its length, this is a love story. Our lives our one giant love story. It need not become a tragedy. And yet for many, it seems like all life is, is one big tragedy.

    So what about the individual who has been destroyed by tragedy? The girl who was molested at a young age, whose innocent was robbed of her? The wife whose husband walked out, the man who became helplessly addicted to drugs, or pornography? The woman who could not escape the very real disease of the depravation of self-esteem? What about the girls sold into slavery, the parents who watched their children self-destruct in front of their very eyes, the abuse that exist on such a gigantic scale, surrounding us, and even invading many of our own existences in a very real and tangible way. What is the end of this story where hope seems like a distant unseen light, and nothing surrounds these individuals but constant strife and darkness.

    It was for these and the poor, and many more, who Jesus came to bring out of the darkness and into the marvelous light and give hope.

    It is for these, that Jesus answers John the Baptist question today. John himself had lost hope, sitting in a prison, waiting to die, or worst, contemplating the rest of his life rotting in a jail cell. So he sends his disciples to ask Jesus, are you one or should we look for another?

    It was for John and so many others who have lost hope that Jesus answers

    the blind regain their sight,
    the lame walk,
    lepers are cleansed,
    the deaf hear,
    the dead are raised,
    and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
    And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.

    Pope Francis reminded us just the day that hope of Christians is that God is the author of the story. And that the story is the greatest love story ever known.

    Only a little while longer and Jesus will make all things right. That is that He is our only true hope. When we try to make sense of our lives apart from Him, we become like the blind following the blind, or the blind leading the blind.

    Our problems, and the problems of the ones we care about, can’t be solved apart from Jesus. If only the world would finally learn this lesson. For us Christians, we have what the world rejects, as they rejected John the Baptist, as they Rejected Jesus, we possess Hope because we do not reject.

    As we move closer to Christmas day, where we celebrate the coming of our Hope once again, let us move forward and continue to prepare a place for him to dwell within our lives and give meaning to our existence. Fast and prayer and repent and believe the good news, Christ our hope is the on the way.



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  3. Lec #690A-Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. De. 12. 2013
    Fr. Bresowar

     Hermanos y hermanas, es mi privilegio y alegría estar aquí con ustedes esta noche para celebrar una vez más esta gran Fiesta de la Virgen de Guadalupe.
      En el corazón de esta celebración encontramos un amor tan profundo que no hay palabras para describirlo.  Por siglos, y particularmente en Mexico, la Virgen ha estado ganando corazones y mentes para su hijo Jesucristo.  Y aquí estamos unos quinientos años más tarde, uniéndonos para celebrar este gran milagro de la Virgen de Guadalupe, el gran  milagro de México y de las Américas.
      Nuestra Señora, la madre de Jesucristo, tiene un amor profundo y único por su hijo.  Y ella quiere que nosotros  con todos nuestros corazones, mentes y cuerpos vengamos a conocer a su hijo.
      ¿Por qué quiere ella esto?  Porque  a diferencia de cualquier otra  mujer en la historia, la Virgen comprende que nuestros problemas, nuestras dificultades y nuestras enfermedades solamente pueden ser curados por Jesús.  Ella sabe que el enemigo trata de mantenernos alejados de Jesús y  de su Iglesia. Ella sabe que el enemigo nos tienta a que tengamos corazones de piedra, corazones que viven solamente para si  mismos y no por otros, corazones que se niegan a obedecer a su hijo.

                                       --2-
     Ella lo sabe, y ella también sabe cuan difícil se hacen nuestras vidas cuando no ponemos a su hijo en primer lugar, sino en el último lugar, ( si es que tenemos un lugar para El ).
      Sin embargo, ella nunca deja de tratar.  La única razón de su existencia en nuestros días es su deseo de compartir con noso-tros las buenas noticias concernientes a Jesús, y la libertad que nos llega cuando finalmente entregamos nuestras vidas a El.  La alegría que no puede expresarse, la esperanza que es restituída, la voluntad de continuar esta vida  y todo lo que viene con el amor que solamente Jesús puede ganar para nosotros, este es el objetivo de la bendita madre.
      Por  eso es que ella le apareció a San Juan Diego.  Ella quería ganarse los corazones y las mentes de los Indios.  Ella quería que  México conociera y amara a su Hijo.  Ella quería la conver-sión entera de todo el país.
      En el Evangelio de hoy oímos acerca de su fe.  Ella dijo “Sí” al plan de Dios, y porque ella dijo  “Sí” es que nosotros tenemos a Jesús.
      Entonces ella nos muestra que cuando finalmente nosotros  nos rendimos y comenzamos a decirle “Sí” a Jesús, aun cuando esto quiere decir que nuestras vidas tienen que cambiar drásti-camente,  es  entonces  que recibiremos todo lo que hemos necesitado.

                                -3-
     Pero el enemigo también sabe esto.  Es por eso que es tan difícil para nosotros el vencer sus tentaciones.  El sabe  que nuestras vidas serán mucho mejores cuando finalmente regresemos a la Iglesia; cuando finalmente regresemos a la confesión y a la Eucaristía, cuando por fin reorganicemos nuestas vidas y pongamos todo en las manos de Dios.
      El enemigo sabe esto, y por consiguiente trata que sigamos sintiéndonos miserables.  El trata de mantenernos borrachos, adictos a los placers mundanos, trata de que sigamos  chismeando y usando malas palabras, de mantenernos odiando e incapaces de perdonar, trata de mantenernos donde estamos, atrapados por nuestros pecados, porque él sabe que es ahí donde nos sentimos más miserables.  El demonio quiere  nuestra miseria porque el demonio odia a Dios.  Y Dios quiere nuestra libertad,  nuestra felicidad y nuestra alegría.  Dios nos quiere para si mismo.
      Satanás lo sabe, y él odia a Dios.
      María nos muestra la solución a ese problema que es Satanás.  Ella nos demuestra en su simple fe que para resisitir al enemigo lo único que necesitamos hacer es decirle SI a Dios y seguir a su Hijo Jesús.
      Mientras no hagamos eso continuaremos teniendo tiempos difíciles no confiando en El.  Pero una vez que confiemos en Jesús nunca  nos volveremos atrás porque nos daremos cuenta de que no hay nada mejor hacia lo que podamos volvernos.      -
                         -4
     Dios quiera que todos ustedes tengan un día de fiesta maravilloso, que la Virgen los guíe a su Hijo y que regresen  siempre  a Jesús y que lo sigan  a El y a su Iglesia.
      Juntos, con la ayuda de María y de la gracia que viene de Jesús a través del Espíritu Santo y de su Iglesia, seremos gente más felices, más alegres, gente llena  de un gran amor por Dios  y por nuestro vecino.  Juntos aprenderemos a perdonarnos en lugar de juzgarnos los unos a los otros, y llegaremos a conocer al Hijo tanto como El lo desea, libres de adicciones terrenales, libres de las manos de nuestros enemigos, y seremos felices.
      Juntos seremos una Iglesia.
     Si uno de ustedes ha estado enojado por mucho tiempo, no ha estado recibiendo los sacramentos o no ha estado viniendo a Misa regularmente, yo lo invito a venir para que se de cuanta de todo lo que  usted se ha perdido.
      Jesús quiere darnos su gracia a través de la Eucaristía y es en la Eucaristía que encontramos el verdadero propósito de nuestras vidas.  Lo único que necesitamos hacer es confiar en El, de la misma manera que la Virgen confió en El.  Es tan fácil como eso y a la vez tan difícil.  Dios quiera que tengamos la disciplina de decir SI como ella hizo.
      ¡Que el Señor los bendiga y los proteja siempre!


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  4. Lec # 4- 2nd Sun of Advent- Dec 8, 2013- Fr. Bresowar

    My brothers and sisters, it is very good to be here with you today to celebrate this second Sunday of Advent. I would like to first start by saying congratulations to Bob Becher on being ordained a Deacon this weekend. It has been a long journey for Bob and his family, and we are extremely happy he has answered this call to serve the Lord in the sacrament of Holy Orders and that he is assigned here to our parish. So congratulations to Deacon Bob and his family!

    This week, as we continue to move towards Christmas day, the day of our Lord’s birth, we take a moment to reflect on a theme that I believe is very apparent in the readings this weekend, as well is a theme that Pope Francis has been preaching since he became Pope.

    This is the theme of hospitality, and in general welcoming all, inviting all to the family of Christ, which is the Church.

    As you are well aware, we live a society, which has many fears, and in particular, one of those fears which exists not only today, but even in Jesus’ time, is the fear of people who are different.

    This fear exists in every culture, in every country. It is not unique only to Alabama or to the United States, but all over the world, many people are afraid of other people, or hate other people simply because a they look different, act different, worship differently, and because of this fear, often times they form opinions or attitudes which are not very healthy.

    In our own state, many people disliked, and some still do, African Americans because they were different. They didn’t look the same as the white person, they didn’t behave the same, and so they were not liked, not appreciated. This led to a culture of racism and bias, which still in many places manifests itself. It has also led to a culture of bitterness within African American communities as well.

    Hispanics too are in many places not welcomed. This leads to division, and isolation in communities. So that people will generally only associate for the most part, with people of the same skin color, economic or cultural background, and the attitude of fear and pseudo-racism develops within the community and even within the family

    Now this fear is not simply manifest only in one race to the next. This fear exist within every culture, every race as well. So within the Hispanic, African America, Anglo, Asian, and other cultures, the notion that someone is different from me is often time a stumbling block in terms of accepting that person. So if a person appears different, has less money, or behaves different, even within the same race, often times this becomes an issue of fear and keeps us from loving our neighbor.

    Jesus encountered this fear as well. In his time, Jews did not associate with gentiles. It was culturally unacceptable and there was not a lot of love that existed between the cultures of the time.

    Jesus was constantly reaching out to people who were different from Him, looking beyond the barriers of skin-color, or economic status, and challenging his disciples to do the same.  

    Pope Francis is taking the lead, and showing us that true discipleship transcends and moves beyond all these barriers our culture has placed on us, and simply loves the individual because they exist and for no other reason.

    Some might call me a liberal for speaking this way, but there is nothing liberal or conservative about it. Even those terms can be used to create barriers. We must try our best to reach out to all people, for God does not define us according to our differences, and we have any hang-ups, they do not come from God.

    God defines according to our existence; he loved us into existence, and we are his beloved, no matter what are differences may be.

    This does not mean that we accept all behaviors as good behaviors, but it does mean that the old adage of love the sinner, despise the sin, is important to remember.

    Pope Francis seems to be reminding us all the time; we must first love…

    Instead of immediately defining a person according to how they failed, or what their skin color is, or how much money they do or do not possess, which is a tendency that we all must fight against; let us look at each other, not with eyes which seek to judge first our differences or our faults, but simply look at each other the way Jesus looks at us.

    When we are able to see Jesus in our neighbor, when we are able to look beyond the differences, then we can begin to love unconditionally, and I really believe this is how God loves us. There must be some truth in this type of love, or loving without conditions.

    God Bless each of you, and may we continue to fast and pray, and repent of our faults as we move closer to Christmas Day.


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  5. Lec # 1- 1st Sun of Advent- Dec 1, 2013- Fr. Bresowar

    My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is good to be with you here on this first Sunday of Advent. Now that the Iron Bowl is out of the way, we can concentrate on our true religion, this first Sunday of the Liturgical year, this season where we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus Christ.

    Christmas season is here! Actually no it’s not, Christmas season starts on Christmas day, but as we know the world around us doesn’t really concern itself so much with Advent. The temptation then for us, can be to forget what this season of Advent is all about.

    Contrary to the popular opinion, Advent is not simply about 4 candles and Christmas lights, decorations and the like. Although those things are fun, and who doesn’t like a 10 foot inflatable Santa Claus in their front yard? Advent isn’t really about all of that. Advent is a season of repentance, fasting and preparation.

    Maybe lost in the bliss of all the Christmas joy that surrounds us during this special time of the year, is the reality that the reason the Church gives us this season before we celebrate the great feast day of the Birth of our Lord is because she want us to take this time to reflect and prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus Christ, not only as a reality that happened some 2000 years ago, but a reality that is very much going to happen once again, and at any time.

    In the readings today, we see this theme running throughout. The prophet Isaiah gives us a glimpse of the things to come and the need to follow the ways of the Lord until this reality has come to completion.

    In days to come,
    the mountain of the LORD’s house
    shall be established as the highest mountain
    All nations shall stream toward it.

    Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord the psalmist reminds us while St. Paul admonishes the Christians to be prepared.

    You know the time, he says…
    it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep.
    For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

    Jesus even reminds all of us, “stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
    Be sure of this: if the master of the house
    had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake
    and not let his house be broken into.

    Pope Francis gave a stark homily just last week in which he touched on the end of time, and what it is going to be like for us. Picking up on this theme of being prepared, of knowing what is coming, of staying awake as our Lord tells us, building from last week’s feast day of Christ the King, the pope said that faith will be increasingly pushed out of the public square and that persecution of Christians is a “prophecy” of what is to come.

    We’ve seen that happening more and more in our society. These are the signs. He goes on to clarify, He asks “what does this mean for us?”

    “It will be like the triumph of the prince of this world: the defeat of God.”

“It seems at that final moment of calamity, it seems like he will (have) taken over this world, (that) he will (become) master of the world. At that moment when all seems lost, the Jesus will come.

    These worldly powers which seek to destroy God, said the Pope, also manifest in the contemporary desire to keep religion as “a private thing,” That not only is a temptation from wordly leaders, but if we are honest with ourselves, how often do we try to keep religion as a private thing in our own lives. That’s the temptation of the devil, of the prince of this world.

    Sure at home, we might be bold in our proclamation of faith, but are we bold around people who may not be so friendly towards our beliefs. Do we know our faith well enough?

    He said it is as if, “You must obey the orders which come from worldly powers. You can do many things, beautiful things, but not adore God. Worship is prohibited. This is at the center of the end of time.”

    Curiously our Pope is speaking about the end of time and giving us a real blueprint for what it will be like. To our part, he says, it is prudent for us to be prepared. Not to be scared of these things which necessarily must occur, but to be prepared for persecutions and the like. Be prepared to give a witness, a testimony of our faith. Not simply at the end, but always.

    He asks all of us, Do really worship Jesus Christ? Or, he says, Or, are we half in or half out, do we in some way play a game of the prince of this world?”

    Worship until the end,” the Pope says, “with confidence and fidelity: this is the grace we must ask for.”

    As we seek to turn our attention this Advent to the coming of the child in Bethlehem, let us not forget the other purpose of Advent, which is to be prepared for the coming of our Lord at the end. AS Jesus says in today’s Gospel,

    “So too, you also must be prepared,
    for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”


    And as we await the coming of our Savior at the end of Time, in worship and adoration, regardless of what worldly powers may try to do to us, we will be ready. And with acts of fasting, prayers, almsgiving, especially during these penitential seasons, of Advent and Lent, we will be adhering to the words of Jesus, and we will find ourselves increasly unshamed to be Christians, to call ourselves Catholic, even in the public square, even when others laugh at us or persecute us. And this is the true gift of Advent, to be prepared for the coming of our Lord and the end of time.
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About Me
I am a Catholic Priest in the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama. This blog is where I post my homilies from time to time. May God bless you always!
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