Father, Make us Like Mary

 

(Solemnity of the Assumption: This homily was given on August 15, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-10; Psalm 45:10-16; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1: 39-56.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Assumption 2026]

Until a few years ago, there was Carmelite Monastery in Barrington, RI.  My mother used to go there quite often for Mass and for days of personal prayer.  Well one of the sisters in the monastery was very gifted musically, and at one point she wrote a very brief but beautiful song about the Blessed Mother.  And here are the words:

Father, make us like Mary;

Father fill us with grace;

make us open and empty—

To receive your word each day; to give birth to your Son—to give birth to your Jesus;

To give birth to your Son; to give him to everyone.

I would say that the meaning and the message of the feast we celebrate today—the feast of our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven are present in those few short lines. The Catholic Church teaches that when we die, our souls are separated from our bodies, and our souls go either to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory.  Only at the Final Judgment will our bodies be resurrected and reunited with our souls.  But for the Blessed Mother, the separation never occurred.  At the end of her earthly life, she was taken—soul and body—into the Lord's eternal Kingdom.  And so, her Assumption is, as the Catechism tells us, "a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection, and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians." (CCC, 966) That means, quite simply, that what's already happened to Mary will someday happen to us, if we are in the state of grace when we die.  So in that song, when it says, “Father make us like Mary” ultimately we’re asking the Lord to make us like Mary AS SHE NOW IS!  We’re saying, “Father, bring us to your kingdom where we will eventually live forever with Jesus, Mary and all the saints with our souls and with our bodies.  That’s our goal—as it should be the goal of every human person.”

The rest of the song points us to the path we need to travel in order to reach that ultimate goal.  At the Annunciation, when Mary said to the Lord, “Be it done unto me according to your word,” she was giving God permission to come into the world through her.  That’s really what was happening. Mary said that yes to the Lord by the power of God’s grace working in her—and not by her own power.  As the song also indicates, Mary was totally open to the Lord and empty of her own self-will.  She was sinless—she received God’s word each day and lived it in perfect obedience.  She gave birth to the Son of God and now brings to him all those who come to her seeking him.

What the Lord asked our Blessed Mother at the Annunciation he asks us (believe it or not) every single day.  Whether we realize it or not, our Lord says to each of us every day, “My son—my daughter—I came into the world 2,000 years ago through Mary.  Will you allow me today to come into the world through you?  Will you give me permission to come into the world through your love, through your holiness, through your compassion, through your charity, through your mercy and forgiveness, through your patience, through your purity, through your witness to the truth?”

And so our prayer every day should be like the words of this song:

 

Father, make me like Mary;

Father fill me with grace;

make me open and empty—

To receive your word each day; to give birth to your Son—to give birth to your Jesus;

To give birth to your Son; to give him to everyone. Amen.

One of the Roots of Fear and How to Deal With It

(Nineteenth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on August 9, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Matthew 14: 22-33.)

 [For the audio version of this homily, click here: Nineteenth Sunday 2026] 

It’s a well-known fact that more people fear flying than driving (and that was the case even before September 11, 2001!).

This is because, as psychology professor David Myers has said, “We fear what we can’t control.  We fear flying more than driving because we feel we are in control of the car, but we know we’re not in control of the plane.”

In today’s well-known gospel story from Matthew 14, Peter walked on the water in faith, but then sank in fear.  And that fear was rooted in what he could not control, namely the weather!  Scripture says, “Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.  But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’”

“When he saw how strong the wind was . . .”

Before that moment he was doing just fine; in fact, he was doing a lot better than “just fine”—he was doing what was humanly impossible!  He had his eyes on Jesus—meaning that he was totally unconcerned with what he could not control—and he walked on the water.

But once he took his eyes off the Lord, the “uncontrollable” suddenly grabbed his attention—and that was the beginning of the end of his little stroll on the lake.

There are many things in life that we cannot control no matter how hard we try: certain aspects of our health, for example.  We can do our best to take care of our body through diet and exercise and yearly check-ups with our doctor, but in spite of our best efforts it’s still possible to come down with a serious disease.  We can’t control the other terrible drivers on the highway; we can’t control the price of gas; we can’t control the weather.  We can’t control what other people say about us; we can’t control what other people do to hurt us (I’m sure you parents wished you could control your children in this way, but you can’t.  They will disobey and hurt you at times in spite of all the good things you teach them, and the good example you try to give them.)

If we really stop and think about all the events and circumstances of our lives, we’ll realize that the vast majority of what we have to deal with each and every day is totally beyond our control.

But “the majority” is not “all”!  That’s good news, because it means that there are some dimensions of our lives that we can control successfully if we choose to.  And these, believe it or not, have a direct impact on how we deal with all of those uncontrollable things in life that sometimes cause us to be fearful.

Here Peter serves as a great example.  As I noted at the beginning of my homily, he could not control the weather that day on the Sea of Galilee: he couldn’t stop the wind; he couldn’t calm the waves that were tossing around the apostles’ boat.  But he did have the power to control his mind—his thoughts—in the midst of it all!  And he actually did that very well—for a brief time. 

That’s when he walked on the water.  He had his mind centered on the Lord; he had his eyes riveted on Jesus; he put his complete and total focus on his Savior—and he acted fearlessly!  Even though he was in the midst of a situation that he could not possibly control, he had no fear in his heart!

But then he chose to focus his attention somewhere else.  He made the decision to take his mind and eyes off Jesus, and allowed himself to be distracted by what was uncontrollable.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Like Peter, we can also control our choices—especially our choices regarding Jesus Christ and our Catholic faith.   We can choose, for example, to take the teachings of the Church seriously every day and apply them in every circumstance we face; we can choose to nourish our relationship with Jesus through daily prayer and frequent reception of the Eucharist; we can choose to read at least one passage from the Bible every day so that our thoughts get in line with God’s word; we can choose to read books that will build up and not undermine our faith; we can choose to strengthen (or repair if necessary) our relationship with Jesus by going to Confession on a regular basis.

If we choose to take positive, spiritual steps like these every day (all of which are under our control), they will have a direct, positive impact on how we deal with the many things in our lives that we cannot control.  We will be spiritually stronger in the midst of those uncontrollable events, and less fearful.

Once again, look at Peter.  The man who freaked out in the midst of some bad weather on the Sea of Galilee, later went to his death fearlessly!  He obviously had changed.  He obviously had grown spiritually.  And his was no ordinary death, remember: Peter was crucified upside down near the obelisk that now stands in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

Jesus had said to him, “When you were a young man you fastened your belt and went about as you pleased; but when you are older you will stretch out your hands, and another will tie you fast and carry you off against your will.”

Peter could not control Nero and the Romans who condemned him to death.  But he could control his inner response to their condemnation. 

This time he made the right choice—and stuck with it!  This time he chose to keep his eyes—the eyes of his soul—firmly fixed on Jesus till the end. 

So today’s lesson is simple: By controlling what we can control in life, we strengthen ourselves to face the things that we cannot control.  And this can eliminate—or at least lessen—our level of fear (perhaps even our fear of flying!). 

 

When it comes to suffering, there is very often a difference between the way things are and the way things appear to be

 

(Eighteenth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on August 2, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 55:1-3; Psalm 145:8-18; Romans 8:35-39; Matthew 14:13-21.) 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Eighteenth Sunday 2026]

When it comes to the sufferings of this life, there is very often a difference—a very big difference—between the way things are and the way things appear to be.

Our second reading today provides us with a great illustration of this truth.

In this text from Romans 8 that we heard a few moments ago, St. Paul tells us the way things are in our relationship with God.  He tells us that no trial, or pain, or tragedy, or persecution—not even physical death—has the power in and of itself to separate us from the love of Jesus Christ.  That’s good news!  Unrepented mortal sin, of course, has the power to cause separation from the God who loves us, but none of these other realities does.  That’s the way things are; in other words, that’s the truth!  But sometimes that’s not the way things appear to be, is it?  For example, Paul indicates here that suffering does not have the power to separate us from the love of Christ.  But suffering can often appear to separate us from the love of Christ—and we all know this by experience.  We suffer and sometimes we wonder, “Where is God?”  “Why didn’t God do something to stop this?”  “Why doesn’t God take this pain away?  He must not love me anymore.”  That’s the conclusion we jump to.

We all have the tendency to think that the difficulties of life separate us from God and his love.  I’m sure, for example, that some of the relatives and friends of Cory Jacobson have had to battle that tendency in recent days.  Cory, who was an altar server here at St. Pius during my early years at the parish, had a heart attack on his way home from work a couple of weeks ago, and got into a car accident from which he never recovered.  He was only 49-years-old.  He left behind a wife and two children—and a lot of people who loved him.  That was evident at his funeral.  This church was packed for that Mass; it was a huge crowd.  I’m told his wake was also well attended.

Now God was present through it all.  This tragedy, as bad as it was, didn’t separate Cory’s family and friends from Jesus and his love, but it might have seemed that way to many of them.  And that’s understandable; that’s the tendency we have in tragic situations.

Is there a way to overcome this tendency, and get in better touch with the Lord’s love and way things truly are?  Yes, there is: by developing a deeper personal relationship with Jesus.  Which means, among other things, that Sunday Mass is not enough!  St. Paul, who suffered a great deal during his life, knew that his trials didn’t separate him from the love of Christ because he had a deep personal relationship with the Lord—a relationship which was rooted in the sacraments and Christian fellowship and a strong prayer life.

We should all desire that same type of relationship.  So should every Catholic! 

The importance of this came home to me the other day at another funeral Mass I celebrated: the funeral Mass of Jerry Lyman.  Jerry was 88-years-old; he was a good and faithful parishioner of St. Pius for many years.  I anointed him at the hospital a couple of weeks back; he had a number of ailments and wasn’t doing too well.  Well, the following day he gave me a call.  At the time I didn’t have my cell phone with me, so he had to leave me a voicemail.  Let me read to you now a few of the things Jerry said in that voicemail.  He said, “Father Ray, I think that after our get together yesterday (that was when I visited him in the hospital and anointed him) I’m ready to go.  I had some tests and things aren’t looking good.  I don’t know if I’m going to make it.  If I don’t, I’d like you to say my funeral Mass.  Amazing Grace—it’s important that that be sung through, and Here I am, Lord—I love that song.  It’s important.  And if you do give a homily, recommend that everybody stay close to God and pray for Jesus’ help.  I want to be able to see them all again in heaven.”

Those are the words of a man who knew that his suffering didn’t separate him from the Lord.  In fact, I would say that from all external indications Jerry’s suffering in recent years actually led him closer to God.  So his attitude was, “If this is my time to go home to the Lord, I’m ready.”  He clearly knew Jesus; he didn’t just know about Jesus.  And he had his eyes (the eyes of his soul) on the prize of eternal life that Jesus won for us by his passion, death and resurrection.

This should help us to understand the key line in the middle of this text from Romans 8.  After mentioning all these negative experiences of life (anguish, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and the sword), St. Paul says to us, “In all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.”  Physically Jerry Lyman was conquered by age and by illness, but spiritually he was not.  Spiritually he actually conquered his ailments—and whatever fear might have been present in his heart because of those ailments—by faith: a faith that was rooted in the love of the Christ he knew personally.  That’s why, I believe, he had a measure of peace at the end of his life, and why he looked forward to heaven.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, help us to deepen our relationship with you each and every day of our lives, so that we will know this same type of victory in the midst of our daily crosses.  Amen.

How ALL Things Work for Good for Those Who Love God

 

(Seventeenth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on July 25, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Romans 8:28-30.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Seventeenth Sunday 2026 ]

“Brothers and sisters: We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

St. Paul tells us that in today’s second reading from Romans 8.

But, how can this be true?  Realistically, how is this possible, given all the evil that’s present in the world?

·        How, for example, can experiencing hatred work for someone’s good?  (In other words, how can anything good come out of something as evil as hatred?)

·         How can experiencing envy work for someone’s good?

·         How can being lied about, or being in prison, or being a slave, or being torn away from your father, or almost being murdered by people in your own family: how can any of these things work for a person’s good—even if the person loves Almighty God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength?

For the answer to those questions, my brothers and sisters, we need to go to Joseph.  No, not Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, but rather Joseph, the Patriarch—one of the twelve sons of Jacob—whose story is told to us in the Old Testament Book of Genesis.

I say that we need to go to Joseph because he experienced every single one of those evils I just mentioned: hatred, envy, slavery, prison, etc.

Most of us, I’m sure, know at least the basic outline of his story, but for the benefit of the few who might not …

Joseph was the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons: the child of his father’s “old age,” as the Bible puts it.  But, even though he was number eleven on the birthday list of the sons of Jacob, Joseph was number one in his father’s heart.  And Jacob made that abundantly clear to everyone, especially when he gave Joseph a special tunic to wear.  (Some of you may remember the musical that was named for that event: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”)

Joseph’s older brothers hated and envied him for the relationship he had with his dad—so much so that they actually hatched a plot to kill their brother, throw his dead body into a cistern, and then tell his dad that he had been eaten by wild animals.  Thankfully they thought better of that plan, and decided instead to sell Joseph to some Ishmaelites who happened to be passing by one day on their way down to Egypt.

There Joseph became the slave of Pharaoh’s chief steward, a man named Potiphar, whose wife thought that Joseph was kinda cute.  So she tried to seduce him—several times!  (See what interesting stories you can find in the Bible!  Yet another reason to read the Scriptures!)

Anyhow, when she failed to have her way with Joseph, Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of sexually assaulting her, and had him thrown into jail—where he remained until the day he was asked to interpret a dream for Pharaoh.  The dream, according to Joseph, predicted seven years of bountiful harvests which would be followed by seven years of famine.  Pharaoh accepted the interpretation, and proceeded to make Joseph the number two man in the entire nation of Egypt!  He then put him in charge of stockpiling food for the next seven years, so that there would be enough food to last for the seven lean years.

And Joseph did it.  He did it so well, in fact, that people from outside of Egypt came to him to get food during those seven lean years, since the famine wasn’t just affecting the Egyptians.

Well guess who showed up one day looking to buy some grain.  That’s right: his ten older brothers.  They didn’t recognize him, but he sure recognized them!  It was the perfect chance for some “payback”; it was the perfect opportunity for Joseph to finally get his revenge—to get revenge for all those things I mentioned at the beginning of my homily: the hatred, the envy, the attempted murder, the slavery, the prison, the lying, the separation from the father he loved so deeply and who so deeply loved him.

But that’s not what Joseph did.  Yes, he did put his brothers to the test a couple of times, but in the end he forgave them and revealed himself to them.  And when he did reveal his identity, he said something that makes it clear that he believed this truth which St. Paul expressed so beautifully in Romans 8:28: that ALL THINGS work together for good, for those who love God.  Listen to these words from Genesis 45:

“Come closer to me,” Joseph told his brothers. When they had done so, he said: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.  But now do not be distressed, and do not be angry with yourselves for having sold me here.  It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.  The famine has been in the land for two years now, and for five more years cultivation will yield no harvest.  God, therefore, sent me on ahead of you to ensure for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.  So it was not really you but God who had me come here; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.”

“It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.”  Joseph could see beyond all the evil he had experienced to the good that God had brought out of that evil.  Now please do not misunderstand.  He wasn’t happy about the evil—he wasn’t thrilled that he hadn’t seen his dad in years or that he had been a prisoner and a slave—but he was able to see how even those injustices and sufferings and trials had worked together for his good—and not only for his good, but also for the good of many other people, both in and out of Egypt.

“We know that ALL things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

Notice it does not say there that everything that happens to God-loving people is good—because it’s not true.  Joseph (and many others) have shown us that sometimes very bad things happen to godly people.  But by God’s grace even those bad things can work for a godly person’s ultimate benefit, and for the ultimate benefit of many others.

This even applies, believe it or not, to our sins—if we repent of them, confess them and turn away from them.

St. Paul has shown us that.  After his conversion he used his forgiven sins for good, by talking about them when he was trying to encourage other people to seek God’s mercy—especially those who might have thought that they were beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness.  In First Timothy 1, for example, he wrote:

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, that he has made me his servant and judged me faithful.  I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man filled with arrogance; but because I did not know what I was doing in my unbelief, I have been treated mercifully, and the grace of our Lord has been granted me in overflowing measure, along with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.  You can depend on this as worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  Of these I myself am the worst.  But on that very account I was dealt with mercifully, so that in me, as an extreme case, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, and that I might be an example to those who would later have faith in him.

“That I might be an example …” That was Paul’s way of saying, “If God can forgive me for all I did in my past life, he can forgive anybody—including you.”

“For those who love God ALL things work for good.”

This is a truth, my brothers and sisters, that many of us don’t reflect on often enough—so I invite you to do that sometime during this coming week.  When you have fifteen or twenty minutes of time (and we all do), sit down in a quiet place (maybe a church or a room at home) and reflect on the significant events of your life (the good ones, the bad ones—even the painful ones), and ask the Lord to help you to see how all these experiences have worked for your good, and for the good of those with whom you share your life.

And when God does help you to see those good things—those gifts—those blessings—please do remember to thank him.

 

Whoever Loves Father or Mother More Than me is not Worthy of me . . .

 

(Thirteenth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on June 28, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Matthew 10:37-42.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirteenth Sunday 2026]

Bishop Fulton Sheen once said: "It's only because we are loved by God that we are loveable."  This should help us to make sense of the hard saying we heard at the very beginning of today's Gospel reading.  In that passage from Matthew 10 Jesus said, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."  Why would Jesus say such a thing?  Well, before we can answer that question, we've got to deal with a more foundational one: Why do we love?  Or, to put it another way: What is it that motivates us to love another person?  It's the good that we perceive in the person, is it not?  John loves Jane because he finds something good and attractive in her: her compassion, her joy, her patience, her kindness.  But the fact is: everything that's truly good comes from the hand of almighty God.  As we are told at the end of Eucharistic Prayer number 3, all good things have their source in the Lord, even those good things which come to us through other people.  So yes, John loves Jane because of her compassion, joy, patience, and kindness; but the only reason Jane is compassionate, joyful, patient and kind is because God has given her the grace to be that way.  This is what Bishop Sheen was getting at when he said that it's only because we are loved by God that we are loveable.  God, who is love, places some of his love inside of us, and that grace is what makes us attractive to others.  Consequently, it makes perfect sense for Jesus to tell us in today's Gospel that our love for him must be primary.  We are to love him with all our heart, because if it were not for him, there would be nothing loveable in us or in anyone else.  In fact, if it were not for Jesus, we wouldn't even exist!  As St. Paul reminds us in Colossians 1:16, "In [Christ Jesus] everything in heaven and on earth was created, . . . [and] in him everything continues in being."

This is a very important lesson to remember, especially when someone close to us dies.  Here's a very common scenario.  This kind of thing happens all the time: a loved one (we’ll call him “Uncle Joe’) passes away, and several members of his family get angry at God.  They blame him for Uncle Joe's death, as if the Lord were some kind of divine assassin.  What these family members have forgotten (or failed to realize) is that God is the one who created Uncle Joe in the first place.  If it had not been for the Lord, Uncle Joe (with all his good qualities) would never have existed.  They have also forgotten (or failed to realize) that God was the source of all the blessings and good things that they experienced during their lives through this deceased relative.  Uncle Joe's love, his acts of kindness, his compassionate words—these were all inspired by the Lord's grace.  So here they are blaming the God who gave their uncle life, who blessed their lives through their uncle, and who sent his Son to die so that they could live with their uncle forever! 

What's wrong with this picture?!!!

A man from town told me about a conversation he once had with his daughter. She was 8-years-old at the time.  The girl said, "Daddy, do you love me?"  Her father, who was understandably anxious to emphasize his affection for his daughter, responded, "I love you more than anyone else on this earth."  The little girl said, "But what about God, daddy?  You're supposed to love God more than me."

God bless that little child, because she was absolutely correct!  Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, would have heartily approved!  He would definitely have commended her for her very perceptive insight.  It’s my prayer at this Mass that all of us will be equally perceptive in our lives.

 

The ‘Response Crisis’ and What we can do About it

 

(Eleventh Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on June 14, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Exodus 19:2-6a; Romans 5:6-11; Matthew 9:36-10:8.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Eleventh Sunday 2026]

“The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

That verse, from today’s gospel reading from Matthew 9, has a certain application to all of us, but it has a particular application to priests.  It’s no secret that in many places today (including our own diocese) there is a shortage of priests.  Many parishes that used to have a resident pastor no longer do, and many priests currently active in ministry are overseeing two and sometimes even three church communities.  As of July 1, for example, Fr.  Mahoney will have two churches to worry about: St. Pius and St. Clare’s.  Fr. Frank Francese from Westerly will have three to be in charge of:  St. Joseph’s in Hope Valley; St. Vincent’s in Bradford; and Our Lady of Victory in Ashaway.  That kind of work overload is becoming more and more common these days all over the country.  Some dioceses are doing well with vocations, but most are not.

Some say that in all this we’re experiencing a “vocation” crisis, but that’s inaccurate.  In fact, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a vocation crisis.  A vocation is a “call” (that’s what the word means).  To say there’s a vocation crisis is to say that God isn’t calling enough men to serve him in the ordained priesthood.  But that can’t be true.  The Bible says that God always supplies our need (Philippians 4:13). So obviously the Lord is calling enough men to the priesthood to supply for the needs of his Church at the present time. However, some of those who are being called are not responding to the Lord for one reason or another.  It may be because of the attractions and temptations of the world; it may be for some other reason. 

So yes, we have a crisis, but it’s not a vocation crisis, it’s a response crisis!  And some who initially say yes to the Lord and get ordained don’t persevere in their yes.  After a period of time, they leave the priesthood.  That’s yet another dimension of the problem. 

Is there anything that we can do as individuals to help change this?  Are there any concrete actions we can take in order to promote and support priestly vocations in the midst of the present response crisis in the Church?  The good news is: Yes, there are!  I’ll share three of them with you this morning.

The first thing that we can and should do, of course, is PRAY.  No surprise there, I’m sure. That’s what Jesus tells us in today’s gospel text: “Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  We pray for vocations here at our Sunday Masses every weekend.  Hopefully you also do that in your personal, daily prayer time—at least every once in a while.

The second thing we can and should do is ENCOURAGE: we should encourage young, single men that we know who are serious about their faith to consider the possibility that God is calling them to be priests.  Now here we need to remember that there’s a very big difference between encouraging and nagging.  Encourage—yes; nag—no.  If you know a young man who seems to possess the personal and religious qualities that would make him a good priest, tell him so!  Then give him the time and space he needs to reflect on what you said.  Sometimes that’s all the encouragement that’s needed.  I thank God my mother never pressured me about the priesthood.  Her attitude was, “Raymond, it’s your decision.  If you discern that God wants you to be a priest, then I want you to be a priest.  But if you discern that God does not want you to be a priest, then neither do I.  One way or the other, I will support you.”

That kind of encouragement meant a lot.

In addition to praying for vocations, and encouraging potential vocations, we also need to make the effort to LIVE our vocation—our personal vocation—as well as we can.  That’s the third thing we can do to address the response crisis.  Young men will say yes to the call to be priests if they’re surrounded by priests and lay people who live their vocations well—who live their vocations joyfully, especially if their vocation is to marriage.  I had a theology professor at Providence College who pointed out something one day in class that I’ve never forgotten.  He pointed out the fact that when you look at the history of the Church, what you see is that in those periods of time when the institution of marriage was strong, the priesthood was also strong; whereas in those periods of history when marriage was weak (as is the case today), the priesthood was also weak.  Which really shouldn’t surprise us since both marriage and priesthood involve permanent, lifelong commitments.  It’s inspiring for a young man who is discerning a vocation to the priesthood these days to be surrounded by married people who are resisting the cultural trend and are living their vocation well—and who have been positively influenced by the priests in their lives.  That can make a big difference.

Our former Holy Father, Pope Francis, said it well (and I’ll leave you with his words): “No vocation is born of itself or lives for itself. A vocation flows from the heart of God and blossoms in the good soil of faithful people.”  By our prayers, by our words of encouragement and by our faithfulness in living our personal vocation, may we be among those faithful people.

 

The Faith/our faith and the Holy Eucharist

(Corpus Christi 2026: This homily was given on June 7, 2026 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Exodus 24:3-8; Psalm 116:12-18; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Corpus Christi 2026]

A Catholic bishop was doing missionary work in a foreign country.  One day he was having a conversation with a well-educated Muslim man.  The Muslim said to him, “I don’t understand your Catholic beliefs about the Eucharist.  How is it possible for ordinary bread and wine to change and become the Body and Blood of Christ?  It seems impossible.”

The bishop paused for a few seconds to collect his thoughts; then he responded, “You were very small when you were born—but you didn’t stay that way, did you?  You physically grew because in a certain sense your body ‘changed’ the food you ate into flesh and blood.  Well, if your own body can transform bread and wine into flesh and blood, then so can God!  In fact, the Lord can do it far more easily.”

The Muslim then shot back, “But how is it possible for Jesus to be wholly and entirely present in such a little host?”

The bishop answered, “Look, for a moment, at the landscape before you, and think how much smaller your eye is in comparison to it.  And yet, within your very small eye is an image of that vast countryside.  Isn’t it possible for God to do in reality what is done in us by way of likeness or image?”

Finally, the Muslim said, “But how is it possible for the same Body of Christ to be present at the same time in all your churches and in every consecrated host?”

The bishop responded, “Nothing is impossible with God—and that answer ought to be enough for us.  But the physical world also gives us an insight into this phenomenon.

Take a mirror, for example, and throw it onto a hard floor.  It will immediately break into many pieces.  But, amazingly, each piece of that broken mirror can carry the same image that the whole mirror formerly reproduced.  Likewise, the very same Jesus reproduces himself in each consecrated host—not as a mere likeness, but in reality.  Thus he is truly present—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—in every one of them.”

When we pause to reflect on the Holy Eucharist—which Catholics all over the world are doing on this Corpus Christi Sunday—we must always make a very important distinction: it’s the distinction between “The Faith” (capital T and capital F) and “our faith” (lowercase o and lowercase f).  What the bishop shared with that inquisitive Muslim man was “The Faith.”  With the help of some very good analogies, the bishop made clear to him exactly what the Catholic Church believes and teaches about this sacrament.  When Jesus said, for example, “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood,” the Catholic Church maintains that Jesus meant exactly what he said!  He wasn’t speaking symbolically or metaphorically, as some of our Protestant brothers and sisters believe.  And the Catholic position is certainly verified in Scripture passages like John 6, where Jesus speaks very clearly and very realistically about the Eucharist: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.’… ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Did this Muslim man become a believer after his conversation with the bishop?  We don’t know—but, quite frankly, he probably did not!  The bishop’s very good analogies—his excellent efforts to explain The Faith—probably didn’t bring this man to a personal belief in Christ and in the Eucharist (at least not right away).  This is why I said that when it comes to this sacrament, we must always distinguish between “The Faith” and “our faith” (i.e., our personal faith).

For a Catholic, of course, the two should be identical: what the Church officially teaches about the Eucharist in the Catechism should be exactly what we personally believe in our own heart.  Our personal faith should be The Faith.  But it might not be!  In fact, the polls indicate that it’s actually quite common these days for members of the Church to reject at least some aspects of Catholic Eucharistic teaching.  And they usually manifest their rejection in their actions.  Catholics, for example, who receive the Eucharist at weddings and funerals down at Christ Episcopal Church (and at other Protestant churches), clearly do not fully embrace Catholic teaching on the Eucharist.  Catholics who come to Communion after missing Mass on a Sunday or Holy Day without good reason—and without going to Confession first—clearly do not fully embrace the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist.  Catholics who need to have their marriages validated and who still come to Communion do not fully embrace the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist.  Catholics who fornicate, masturbate, contracept, or commit some other mortal sin, and come to Communion without repenting and going to Confession first do not fully accept the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist.

My simple prayer at this Mass is that this situation will change where it needs to change—here in our community and throughout the world—because the graces of the Eucharist are awesome and many.  But those graces become operative within us only to the extent that we accept the Church’s teaching and act accordingly.  Or, to put it another way, if we want all the blessings that come with receiving Holy Communion, “The Faith” must be our faith.

 

E-Mails From Hell, And What It Means To Believe

 

(Trinity Sunday 2026 (A): This homily was given on May 31, 2026, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read John 3:16-18.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Trinity Sunday 2026]

A couple from Minnesota decided to go to Florida in January to escape from the cold winter weather and enjoy some fun in the sun.  They planned to stay at the same hotel where they had spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier.

However, because of their busy schedules and previous commitments, they were forced to fly down on separate days.  The husband booked his flight for Thursday, and his wife was scheduled to join him on Friday.

When he arrived in Florida on Thursday afternoon, the husband checked into the hotel.  When he entered his room, he was pleased to see that there was a computer on the desk in the corner, so he decided to send a quick e-mail to his wife back home.  (This was before people could get their e-mails on their cell phones.)

Unfortunately, however, he accidentally left out one letter in her e-mail address. 

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, Texas, a widow had just returned home from her husband’s funeral.  He was a minister who had died of a heart attack a few days earlier.

The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting to find some letters of condolence from concerned relatives and friends.

She read the first message in her mailbox, screamed, and fainted.

Her son rushed into the room, found his mom on the floor, and then looked at the computer screen.

There he found these words:

To: My loving wife.

Subject: I’ve arrived.

Date: January 15.

I know you’re surprised to hear from me.  They have computers here now and you’re allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. 

I’ve just arrived and have checked in.  I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow.  Looking forward to seeing you!  Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P.S. It sure is hot down here!

There are two morals to that little story.  Number one, make sure you don’t leave out any letters in e-mail addresses; and number two, never forget that there is something at stake in this life!

When that poor woman in Houston received that misdirected e-mail, her minister husband was hopefully in heaven with his Lord and Savior—or at least in purgatory.  But the “other place” was a definite possibility for him—and his dear wife knew it! 

In today’s Gospel text from John 3, Jesus makes it clear that hell is also a possibility for each and every one of us and for every human person.  Furthermore, he indicates that this is not something that happens by accident.  It happens by choice: by choosing those attitudes and behaviors that put us on what Jesus later called the “wide road that leads to destruction.”

But before he gets into that dimension of things, Jesus clearly states that God wants something better for us—namely, heaven—and that God has done everything necessary to make it possible for us to get there.  He says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

In Trinitarian terms (this, remember, is Trinity Sunday), that text says, “The infinite and perfectly happy Triune God loved us so much, that the Second Person of that Trinity took on mortal flesh and came into this world of suffering and pain, in order to rescue us from the eternal consequences of the sin we have freely chosen.  Later, after he had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, the Son (and the Father) sent us the Holy Spirit—the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity—to give us grace through Baptism and the sacraments—the grace we must have in our souls to enter into his eternal kingdom.  God did all this so that the world might be saved through Jesus.”

Only after he expresses this positive truth does our Lord mention the possibility of going to hell.  In that regard, he says, “Whoever believes in him [Jesus there is referring to himself] will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Which leads to the obvious question: What does it mean to ‘believe’?  Does it simply involve saying Amen to a set of intellectual propositions, such as we have in the Nicene Creed? 

The answer is No!  Belief is more than that!  Belief, according to Jesus, is not simply a “head trip.”

When our Lord tells us we must “believe,” he means two things: yes, we must assent with our minds to the Creed and the Catechism; but secondly—and just as importantly—we must obey with our lives! 

Belief, for Jesus, always implies obedience.  This is crystal clear, incidentally, from a very interesting line that we read later on in John 3.  In verse 36 of that chapter it says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.”  Notice that instead of saying, “whoever disbelieves in the Son,” the text says, “whoever disobeys the Son.”  Disobedience, not disbelief, is presented as the opposite of belief.

Obviously for Jesus—and for John, the author of the 4^th Gospel—belief and obedience were pretty much synonymous.

And that’s the way they should be for us—and for everyone who claims to be a believer in Jesus Christ.

The philosopher Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am.”

In a similar fashion, every Catholic and every Christian should say, “I believe, therefore I obey.”

May that be our common philosophy of life, as disciples of the Lord.  If it is, then even if they do allow e-mails out of hell someday in the far distant future, we can be confident that our relatives and friends won’t be receiving any of those e-mails from us.