Wednesday’s Wink from Above 11/04/2026, Homily Cycle A 11/01/2026 offered at OLPH

 

Fr. Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal & goes up to the first man he meets and says, "Do you want to go to heaven?"

"Yes, I do, Father."

"Then stand over there against the wall." Fr. Murphy continued his inquiry with other men, each one responded, “Yes, I do Father.” Father said, “Stand over there against the wall."

Fr. Murphy finally approaches O'Toole and asked him the same question. O'Toole answered, "No, I don't, Father". Surprised Fr. Murphy said, “Don’t you want to go to heaven when you die?” O'Toole said, "Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go tonight".

Tuesday’s Office of Readings offers us this insight “Teach me goodness & holy wisdom -  For I have put my trust in your guidance.” [11/27/2026 week II] 

Today we are asked to reflect on the most basic question, Do you want to be a saint? Our Solemnity points to our goal – sainthood, to be with God forever in heaven. “To most, even good people, God is a belief. To the saints God is an embrace.” [Francis Thompson] As disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to be saints. “To become saints means we fulfill completely what we already are, … adopted children in Jesus Christ.”  [Pope Benedict XVI, Magnificat, November 2020, p.27] “

There is only one real sadness in life: not becoming a saint.” [Leon Bloy Ibid., p.20]

In our reading from Revelation we heard, “Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen” Our Responsorial Psalm reminds us that our ultimate joy is “… to see the God’s face.” The second reading echoes that, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God ….” The Gospel outlines the Path to follow Jesus the Beatitudes.  

Maybe this story can aid us in understanding our call, I Am the Path. A missionary got lost in the jungle he finally found a small village & asked one of the natives to lead him out of the jungle. They walked for hours through dense brush hacking their way through the unmarked jungle. Finally the worried missionary exclaimed, "Are you quite sure this is the way? Where is the path?" He responded, "I am the path."[Adopted & modified from Sermons.com]

Our path in the jungle of this world is Jesus Christ. Today’s Gospel offers us light for our path The Beatitudes the Christian blueprint for life. The translation “Blessed” is more accurately translated “highly esteemed” or “truly honorable.” [John J. Pilch, St. Lewis University Web Site Sunday, Historical Cultural Context, 11/01/2020]  

Truly honorable are the poor in spirit, they realize this world is the way to heaven - Jesus said “… true honor and esteem are determined by God ….” [Ibid.] St. Francis de Sales pointed out, “Saints are people who do ordinary things, extraordinarily well.” 

This story offers some light on the ordinary, lived extraordinarily well, it is called “A Father’s Love” Philip Yancey described a visit with his widowed mother as they looked through a box of old photos. A picture of an eight-month-old baby caught his eye, it was tattered & bent, he asked her why she had kept it, “… she had kept the photo as a memento, because during my father’s illness it had been fastened to his iron lung.”

In the last four months of his life, Yancey’s father lay on his back, completely paralyzed by polio at the age of twenty-four and asked his mother for pictures of her and the two boys; it was jammed between metal knobs so that he could see them, and last four months of his life were spent looking them.[Yancey’s book, Disappointment with God]

Choose sainthood as your goal in life; Matthew’s Gospel Chapters 5 thru 8 will guide you there. By offering the Ordinary in our life to God for His blessing, we will live an Extraordinary life as a disciple of Jesus

May God Be Praised.

Wednesday’s Wink from Above 10/28/2026 - Unbearable Burdens

 

 

The Unbearable Burdens

Life becomes an unbearable burden whenever we lose touch with the presence of a loving Savior and see only hunger to be alleviated, injustice to be addressed, violence to overcome, wars to be stopped, and loneliness to be removed. All these are critical issues and Christians must try to solve them; however, when our concern no longer flows from our personal encounter with the living Christ, we feel an oppressive weight.

Here arises a key question: “Can we see Christ in the world?” The answer is, “No, we cannot see Christ in the world, but only the Christ in us can see Christ in the world.” This means that through prayer the Christ within us opens our eyes to the Christ among us. [Henri Nouwen, The Road to Peace: Writings on Peace and Justice] 

Take a few minutes and listen to the powerful and beautiful song The Impossible Dream from the play, “Man from La Mancha,” [based on Miguel de Cervantes’s book Don Quijote de la Mancha]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo7VlD66ISM]

“To reach the unreachable star” that star is the Lord Jesus who is not unreachable, who reaches out to us continually, and we are called to respond to Him.

 

 

Reach for the Lord, He is waiting for you.

May God Be Praised.

Wednesday’s Wink from Above 10/21/2026 “The Mustard Seed, the Canaanite Woman, and President Abraham Lincoln: Courage & Humility”

 

Many times, we don’t follow Christ not because we lack Knowledge, but because we lack the Courage. For us to “Live Jesus” we need to allow His grace to form and inform us. We need to have the courage to allow the grace of Jesus Christ to guide our lives and our decisions.

St. Matthew wrote in his Gospel [chapter 17], “Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

 

Faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain. The important question is What mountain does Jesus want us to move? The Lord wants us to move the daily mountains we meet throughout our lives, our obligations and burdens.

The Canaanite women appears in Matthew’s Gospel [chapter 15] where she displays deep and total FAITH in Jesus as she pursues the answer to her prayer [her child’s healing].   Jesus seems to be rude and mean to the Canaanite woman. And then she appears to outwit Jesus. But she didn’t outwit Jesus. Their  meeting “…challenges us to take a much bigger view of our world & the people who inhabit it.” [Connections, 08-17-08]

The Canaanite woman reminds us that female-male isn’t important in faith, rich-poor or immigrant or native born isn’t important BUT unwavering trust in Jesus & His Gospel is IMPORTANT, not that we have the faith of a mustard seed BUT that we act on, that we live the Faith that we have been given at our Baptism, Faith of a disciple of Jesus Christ, true God & true Man. 

This story may help us understand the Courage to be Humble. “Carl Sandburg, in his book Lincoln: The War Years, tells about Colonel Scott who requested a leave to attend the funeral of his wife who accidentally drowned. President Lincoln refused the request. Early the next morning Lincoln came to Scott's hotel room and admitted to the amazed officer, ‘I have had a regretful night and come now to beg your forgiveness.’ Then Lincoln took the officer in his own carriage to the steamship and sent him on his way to the funeral.” [Sermons.com John R. Brokhoff, Jesus ... Who?, CSS Publishing Co., Inc.]

Although he had the heavy burden of the Civil War on his shoulders, Lincoln showed the Courage to be Humble. The Canaanite Woman despite being  despised by the Israelites was Humble and Courageous while she persisted in her faith in Jesus. The Canaanite Woman, Abraham Lincoln in different ways lived with TRUST in Jesus, we are called to do the same.

In our culture today, Faith is shunned and ridiculed by many but like the Canaanite Woman and President Lincoln we should TRUST the Lord and live our FAITH with Courage in a Humble Way.  

May God Be Prayed.