Tag: Saint Francis

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Sermon Notes – October 27, 2024 – “Things I Wish I Could See – Part 1”

“Things I Wish I Could See – Part 1”

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

October 26 – 27, 2024

Gospel:   Mark 10:46-52

I have to be careful when I read the paper because if I hold my head just right the light that shines through my glasses could start a fire.  Thanks to the heroic efforts of Dr. Billingsley, my vision is 20/20 and I am street legal to drive.   Because of him, I don’t need a dog and cane to get around, and he has the worry lines to prove it. 

When I pay attention, I can see things as well as anybody else.  The trouble is that I want to see better.  I see things as they are, but I want to see things as they truly are.  I want to see things that exist but cannot be seen.  I’m not saying that I want to see the deputy sheriff hiding behind a billboard on Highway 52.  Rather, I want to be like Saint Francis and Saint Teresa de Lisieux, the Little Flower.  They saw their guardian angels.  I would like to see our good Lord truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.  I would like to see our Lord celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and walk to the Father waiting at the altar.  I would like to see our Lord on the other side of the confessional screen absolving me of my sins by putting His hand into the chalice of His Most Precious Blood and anointing my soul.  I would like to see our Lord give the faithful new life through the Sacrament of Baptism.  I would like to see our Lord unite a man and a woman in the Sacrament of Matrimony and leading to procreation according to the order of nature which Saint John Paul II called the domestic church.  I would like to see our Lord give young people the Sacrament of Confirmation and impart the Holy Spirit upon them so that they can be faithful witnesses.  I would also like to see our Lord at a deathbed and giving Last Rites to prepare a soul to transition from this life to the next bringing them safely to Heaven where all of us are meant to be. 

I would like to see that, but I would settle for this – to see our Lord’s presence in those people who really irritate the you-know-what out of me.  You know them – they drive 10 mph below the posted speed limit and then they go 15 mph over it and then back to 7 mph.  In the military we call that the “slinky.”   They think the speed limit is just a suggestion.  I had one in front of me the other day, and I wished I were a cop so that I could blue light him.  He crossed over the yellow line, and then all the lines.  Dude!   But you know what?  There’s no need for all that angst and anxiety.  I work at the VA, and I had plenty of time to get where I was going.  But it’s all about me!  God might say to me, “Hey, this morning during your prayers you said you love Me.  How’s that working for you?”  Not well.  I could pray for more patience; however, patience is an acquired virtue, and if you pray, “Lord, please give me patience,” He will send every idiot your way.  But that’s how to achieve more patience.  You might feel angry, but how you react to that anger is how it can become a sin. 

The gift I pray for is to have eyes of faith that can see God in suffering souls.  That is the kind of 20/20 vision I would like to have. 

How will you apply this message to your life? _____________________________________ 

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com, clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes.”  On a cell phone: click on “Blog” and then “Menu.”  Scroll to the bottom and click on “Categories.”  Sermon Notes are also available on the Church’s Facebook page at OLA.Catholic.Church.  Click on “Groups” and then “Sermon Notes.”

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Remember to Remember God

Remember to Remember God

I have tried to learn from St. Francis. In my home, pinned to the curtain of my front door, is a reminder—”Remember to remember God.” In the Hebrew tradition, it is the mezuzah to be touched, to remind one of the sacred words on the scroll. To remind me of the sacred. Such a concept! To use each doorway as a portal. To pass through each doorway and remind oneself to do better, to live life just a little more virtuously—such a concept.

It wasn’t just the San Damiano crucifix for Francis—the cave, the lepers, and the poor began to speak to him of God, until eventually Francis could look at nothing without seeing God.

—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing

Franciscan Media: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/

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Sermon Notes – December 25, 2023 – “He Did Not Leave“

“He Did Not Leave“

Father Peter Fitzgibbons

December 24 – 25, 2023

Gospel: John 1:1-18

 I thought we would have a bit of scriptural study today.  Joseph “had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus” (Matthew 1:25).  You might think, “Joseph could have had relations with her afterward.”  But you are presuming facts not in evidence.   Just because it didn’t happen before the birth doesn’t mean it happened afterward.  You are reading into scripture to prove a point. 

What is love?  Love is our Savior in the manger.  It is also our Lord’s presence in the Tabernacle.  But the greatest act of love happened on the Cross.  These are the three greatest acts of love by God.  About Christmas Day, Bishop Sheen said, “On this day, a man no longer has to look up to Heaven to see God.  He can look down at the manger to see Him.”  The Wise Men and shepherds came so that they could look down at God.   You could today, and every day you come to church, replace their faces with a picture of yours because you come here to be in the presence of God Himself. 

Now, you keen observers in the parish may have noticed that we have new figurines for our crèche (manger scene).  The idea of a crèche was created by Saint Francis over 800 years ago.  Here’s a fun thing you can do when you see non-Catholics with a crèche.   You can say, “Oh, I see that you are Catholic.”  “I’m not Catholic!”  “Well, that’s a Catholic symbol.  Saint Francis of Assisi is the guy who came up with the idea.  You know – the guy who liked birds.”  Oops!  So, what is a crèche?  It is visible scripture. When Saint Francis came up with the idea, many people couldn’t read but they could see.  In our creche, we have beautiful, hand-carved wood figurines.  Notice that everyone has their attention on the Savior.  A short distance away, we have the three Wise Men.   They aren’t at the manger yet but will finally arrive in a few weeks to see the infant Jesus.  Have you ever noticed that a lot of people are late for church?  

Who do you find around our Lord whether it’s at the manger or the foot of the Cross?  You find the very holy – the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph.  You also find those who know that they don’t know anything.   The Wise Men were very educated and had achieved the fruits of their education.  What are the fruits of an education?  You discover that you don’t know everything.  The Wise Men had learned that.  The shepherds already knew that they knew nothing.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been in pastures walking around sheep dung in the middle of a Palestinian night.  I’ve been there, and it is very, very cold.  You don’t want to be out there.  It’s 40 degrees, but when the temperature drops from 80 to 40 in a couple of hours, you freeze.  So that’s who you will always find around our Lord.  And when you come here to be with our Lord, you have a choice of which to be…educated or uneducated.  But either way, we come to adore our good Lord.

Christ is coming into the world and made manifest to us all.  But Christ has never left the world.  “Father, didn’t He ascend to Heaven?”   Well, His human nature which He took from the Blessed Mother and with which He taught, healed, suffered, and rose from the dead went to Heaven.  But He has always been in the world.  He is there in the Blessed Sacrament.  His divine nature in the form of consecrated bread and wine is in the Tabernacle.  He did not leave.

At Christmas, Jesus is made manifest to the world in human form.  He was already in the world nine months before that in the womb of His mother.  Now He is made manifest to the world so that all can come see the beginning of the greatest gift of all.  This is the beginning and not the end.  That comes 33 years later which shows the fullness of His love.   I am sure that I will be meditating today on all the gifts my parents gave me.  I’ll meditate about their love, patience, and all the wonderful things they did as parents by God’s grace.  This may be why I became a priest. 

Catholics can celebrate Christmas all year long.  Every day is your Christmas.  Every day you are the shepherds and the Wise Men who came to be in the presence of our Lord.  When you are here, you take their place.  Our Lord shows the greatness of His love, not by taking a human nature upon Himself, but by suffering at the hands of His own creatures and being put to death by His own ungrateful creatures on the Cross.  Mary Magdalene, Mary of Clopas, Saint John, and the Blessed Mother stood at the foot of the Cross.  You take their place at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by being with Christ during the Mass.  As they were there during His original suffering which is always before the Father and made present during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, you take their place.  So, when you come to Mass, when you come into the presence of our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament, you are a part of that. 

God is with us and not just in the spiritual sense.  He is physically here.  But it was not enough for Him to come into the world; what He wants most is to come into our souls.   We can experience His incarnation.  Today, if you catch me in a good mood, I’ll hear your confession so that Christ can come into your soul and remove your sins.  By the way, I’m running a 3 Hail Mary Special from now until New Year’s Day. 

I hope you all have a crèche at home.  If not, we have them in the bookstore.  Put your family’s faces over the faces of the shepherds and Wise Men.  That’s what we are called to be and what we will be in Heaven.  

Father’s Reflections . . . I was thinking back on the Christmases that I’ve enjoyed.  Some of those overseas, I wouldn’t want to repeat, but that’s the roll of the dice you take.  The gift of love that was given is still unfolding.  I’m still a young man – Hah! –  and I’m still working to understand the gifts of love that were given.  They all have a deeper meaning, not only on a human level that includes your family and friends but also on a spiritual level. 

“Father, we should have a Mass at dawn.”  Really?  I want to see the guy who can get up to do the Mass at dawn after doing the Vigil Mass at 5 p.m. and then the Midnight Mass.  That ain’t me.  I’m getting too old for that.  We have priests in the diocese who are in their 80’s, and I don’t see them celebrating Masses at midnight.  My days are getting shorter on that too.  But like any real man, my mind writes checks my body can’t cash.  I still think I’m 18 with a big red “S” on my chest and able to bend steel with my bare hands.  Uh no. 

How will you apply this message to your life?  ________________________________________

You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to AnnunciationCatholicAlbemarle.com and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” then “Sermon Notes.”  On a cell phone: click on “Blog” and then “Menu.”  Scroll to the bottom and click on “Categories.”  Sermon Notes are also available on the Church’s Facebook page at ola.Catholic.Church.  Click on “Groups” and then “Sermon Notes.”

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Minute Meditation – We’re All Sinners

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32).

Francis used this passage from Scripture to rebuke the guardian of one of the houses where the brothers were living. The guardian had driven away a band of thieves from the house and proudly told Francis of his deed.

St. Francis scolded him severely, saying: “You acted in a cruel way, because sinners are led back to God by holy meekness better than by cruel scolding. For our Master Jesus Christ, whose Gospel we have promised to observe, says that the doctor is not needed by those who are well but by the sick, and ‘I have come to call not the just but sinners to penance,’ and therefore He often ate with them. So, since you acted against charity and against the example of Jesus Christ, I order you under holy obedience to take right now this sack of bread and jug of wine which I begged. Go and look carefully for those robbers over the mountains and valleys until you find them. And offer them all this bread and this wine for me. And then kneel down before them and humbly accuse yourself of your sin of cruelty.

We find it difficult to admit when we’re wrong, when we’ve sinned. And it seems the more we try to live good Christian lives, the harder it gets to acknowledge how often we fail. It is that acknowledgment, though, that allows us to find the forgiveness and grace we need to change our lives.

—from the book Lent with St. Francis: Daily Reflections by Diane M. Houdek

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Minute Meditation – Living the Gospel in Daily Life

Groups of penitents existed before the Franciscans, and from the beginning, Francis and his brothers identified themselves as penitents from Assisi. Many individuals in these penitent groups desired to be associated with Francis and the brothers, and from this emerged what might be called the Franciscan penitential movement and eventually the Third Order. In a spontaneous response to Francis’ teaching about conversion, members of every social class were moved to a change of heart, to renounce sin and turn away from worldly concerns to serve the Lord in all states of life: cleric, religious, and lay. As Francis and the brothers reached out to them with admonitions and instructions on how to live the Gospel, groups of devout souls began to gravitate to the churches where the friars were located, turning to them for counsel, seeking a deeper understanding of the spiritual life.

The preaching and example of St. Francis exercised such a powerful attraction for people throughout Italy that many of the laity began to desire a deeper experience of God. Because they were bound by family responsibilities, Francis encouraged them to begin leading a Gospel-rooted life in their own homes or places of work, thus inspiring a new “third order” for the universal salvation of all people. Francis admonished them to live simply within the bonds of marriage, or singly, and to love and serve the Lord by serving their neighbor and participating more fully in the life of the Church.

—from the book Franciscan Field Guide: People, Places, Practices, and Prayers
by Sister Rosemary Stets, OSF

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – The Touch of Jesus

The touch of Jesus. How it burned! And how sweet the sensation of this love in its searing penetration. Francis lay upon the cold ground of his hut at St. Mary of the Angels and felt nothing but the touch of Jesus in his feet and hands and side.

He would die with the brothers witnessing the way a traveler with Jesus dies. Poor. Broken in body. Radiant in the light of the Spirit glowing from his eyes and from the marks of Jesus’ touch. And the peace of his departing would seal the genuineness of their own vocations as Lesser Brothers of the Lord.

To be real at the end. In that the brothers would be sure they were also authentically on the road with Jesus. They need only persevere as Francis had and Christ Himself would touch them with his perfect Peace.

He looked around the hut and prayed for everyone he saw dimly standing above him and for the Lady Clare and her sisters. The Dream was theirs, the Journey lay before them.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – They Only Self We Bring to Christ 

Despite being a finite creature in the midst of an all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present Being—an absolute nothing next to God, in every way dependent and with no reason to boast—I never feel insignificant or unwanted. I am God’s child, chosen and adopted out of love, called to love and serve in his kingdom. What could ever matter more than knowing this? Truly, everything else is straw. Everything else is the working of a false self, an ego that knows nothing of reality. It is why in his admonitions St. Francis writes, “As much as [one] is before God, that much he is and nothing more.” Nothing in all of existence matters at all except what God thinks of us. What we say about ourselves, what others think of us, who we wish were are—these are all useless questions, false selves that keep us from who we truly are before God, and prevent us from following after Christ with our whole hearts. If we want to be his disciples, the only self we can bring is the one that he created and redeemed. Everything else, we must let go.

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Herald of Christ’s Dream

Some faces seemed to fix upon him the searching, expectant look of those whose journey had no end, of those who wandered aimlessly through life because they did not know what else to do, or because they were fleeing from something rather than toward something. For these Francis had the most compassion because they had no dream and because the dream would have to come from within themselves where all was barren desert. Or could someone else find the dream for them? He began to wonder if everyone heard an inner Voice as he had, or whether some heard only human voices.

If his Dream were something very special, then perhaps he would have to become a voice from Christ for others to hear. He would have to become the Herald of Christ, singing aloud the glory of the Dream that God had made for everyone. As he walked about the countrysides and through the streets of all the world, he would imagine that he was taking each face from the anonymous crowds and breathing hope and love into it. He would share the Dream.

—from the book Francis: The Journey and the Dream
by Murray Bodo, OFM, pages 26-27

//Franciscan Media//

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Minute Meditation – Who Are You, God, and Who am I?

For St. Francis, this search for himself began and ended by asking the only one whose opinion mattered: Jesus. Rather than filling his head with the opinions of the world, getting bogged down by his own self-doubt, letting his successes fill up his ego, he went to God in prayer and asked the two most essential questions anyone could ask: “Who are you Lord, and who am I?” So simple and pure, and yet so powerful. In these words and the response that follows is everything that could ever matter. How we come to answer them will define everything.

In my case, these questions inevitably draw me to littleness. When I ask God, “Who are you Lord, and who am I?” the image that always returns to me is that of a child of God. My place is not off alone ruling my own kingdom, but as the beloved in the kingdom of my Father. Despite being a finite creature in the midst of an all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present Being—an absolute nothing next to God, in every way dependent and with no reason to boast—I never feel insignificant or unwanted. I am God’s child, chosen and adopted out of love, called to love and serve in his kingdom.

—from the book Let Go: Seven Stumbling Blocks to Christian Discipleship
by Casey Cole, OFM, page 16

//Franciscan Media//