Mercy Triumphs: Weekly Homilies of a Catholic Priest

Some time ago, someone I knew, tragically, passed away from a drug overdose. I'm going to call him “Al.”   From my experience, Al was not religious.  Well, one day, a couple years before he died, Al approached me and said he thought he saw Jesus.  What happened was, Al was employed by a church. And, as Al was doing work in the church, he noticed a very disheveled looking man kneeling and praying in the front pew. This confused Al because the doors to the church had been locked and secured for some time. Inside the church were: Al, a cleaning person, and this very disheveled looking man.  Al was then on his way out of the church to grab something and, on his return, he planned to ask the man to go on his way, since nobody was supposed to be in the church at the time.  Al was comforted that there was a cleaning person there to keep an eye on the man.  Upon Al’s return inside the church, the man was gone. So, he approached the cleaning person an...

I was reading a published letter by a nun, Sr. Ruth O’Callaghan, who died from an aggressive form of breast cancer in December of 2020. She was 43 years old. The letter I'm about to quote from was written shortly after her diagnosis in December of 2019. Sister Ruth wrote, “You might think that, for nuns, everything is under control, or that we are bulletproof and these things simply do not happen to us. Yes, these things happen to us too… A bomb of emotions exploded inside me, and I didn’t even know where I should start to try to calm myself down. For the first two days, I think I cried out of pure shock but, at the same time, I had peace. It is hard to describe. So many things were going through my head…but the only thought that was clear in my mind was that ‘I may well soon meet the Lord…’” Sister Ruth’s letter continues: Jesus said, “‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ I had never meditated on these words of the Lord so deeply and so intimately…So many of the prayers at ...

There was a nun named Sister Clare Crockett. She was born 1982 in Ireland. Growing up, she desired to be a famous actress and, having early success, was encouraged by professionals that she had real hopes of going to Hollywood. During that time, prior to her conversion, she was living a life that reflected how millions live theirs: For the moment; for the weekend; for fun, with over drinking and casual relationships. One day, her friend invited her on a trip to Spain. Clare thought it was for fun, but it was actually a religious trip. And, it just so happened they were going to be there during Holy Week. So, on Good Friday, when the group went to church, she was encouraged to kiss the feet of Jesus on the crucifix. She reluctantly went up to the altar and, as she kissed the Lord’s feet, she had this epiphany that her sins are what nailed Jesus to the cross; that Jesus died for her …She returned to her pew and wept. After her trip, at home in Ireland, her life didn’t change much e...

Is anything worth your soul? Is doing anything that will cause us to lose our souls worth losing our souls over?   The ashes of Ash Wednesday remind us that even our very bodies are not worth our eternal souls.  Everything will turn to ashes and dust but our souls will live on and, where they go, is up to whether we take God serious or not. …God wants to make your life here amazingly beautiful. He does not desire for you to live in misery but to live in joy, peace, and hope. But that means we have to get rid of those things that steal our joy and peace, and damage our hope. We gotta get rid of that stuff and start doing those things that will give you that joy, peace, and hope that God wants for you. Daily prayer and weekly fasting is a great way to do that, and it will lead you to make those decisions in your life that will make your life increasingly beautiful and amazing. Ash Wednesday is a great reminder to take God seriously once again, to take the church seriously once a...