Detail: Pentecost, by El Greco

There are numerous resources connected to today’s homily of you’d like to do a little more research.

First, here is the quote from Pope Francis on our lack of knowledge of the Holy Spirit.

“Even now, many Christians do not know who the Holy Spirit is, what the Holy Spirit is. And you sometimes hear: ‘But I get on well enough with the Father and with Son, because I pray the Our Father to the Father, I have communion with the Son, but I do not know what to do with the Holy Spirit. . .’ Or people say, ‘The Holy Spirit is the dove, the one that gives us the seven gifts.’ But in this way the poor Holy Spirit always comes last and finds no place in our lives.”

Speaking in tongues and the validity of the Charismatic Renewal is a very broad subject. Here are just a few links to get you started:

• On the Gifts and Charisms (from the Diocese of Lafayette website)
• Fr. Cantalamessa on Baptism on the Holy Spirit
• Good post on the Charismatic Renewal from EWTN

Here is Pope Francis on the need to evangelize with apostolic zeal:

“There are backseat Christians, right? Those who are well mannered, who do everything well, but are unable to bring people to the Church through proclamation and Apostolic zeal. Today we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this Apostolic fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the Church the grace to go out to the outskirts of life. The Church has so much need of this! Not only in distant lands, in the young churches, among people who do not know Jesus Christ, but here in the cities, in our cities, they need this proclamation of Jesus Christ. So let us ask the Holy Spirit for this grace of Apostolic zeal, let’s be Christians with apostolic zeal. And if we annoy people, blessed be the Lord. Onwards, as the Lord says to Paul, ‘take courage!’”

Finally, here are some links on the three “joyful” priests I mentioned. You should be able to see how joyful they are from looking at their faces and seeing them talk:

• A talk by Fr. Harold Cohen
• Eulogy for Fr. Harold Cohen
• Obituary for Msgr. Bobby Guste
• Fr. Cantalamessa on the Charismatic Renewal
• “Sober Intoxication in the Spirit” by Fr. Cantalamessa

The post Pentecost is Real! – Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost 2013 appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

Here’s the entire quote from Pope Francis that I used at the end of the homily:

“There are backseat Christians, right? Those who are well mannered, who do everything well, but are unable to bring people to the Church through proclamation and Apostolic zeal. Today we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this Apostolic fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the Church the grace to go out to the outskirts of life. The Church has so much need of this! Not only in distant lands, in the young churches, among people who do not know Jesus Christ, but here in the cities, in our cities, they need this proclamation of Jesus Christ. So let us ask the Holy Spirit for this grace of Apostolic zeal, let’s be Christians with apostolic zeal. And if we annoy people, blessed be the Lord. Onwards, as the Lord says to Paul, ‘take courage!’”

The post Homily from Spring 2013 UL Graduation Mass appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

Congrats to Josh Wilson who was just accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Lafayette.

Josh is from Abbeville and just finished his sophomore year at UL. He was very involved here at Wisdom with the Ragin’ Cajun Catholics and FOCUS.

He will be attending St. Joseph Seminary College in Covington, LA this fall.

Josh will be sponsored by St. Mary Magdalene parish in Abbeville. (Fr. Blanda is very proud).

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Check out a the Wikipedia article on Biblical Cosmology.

The post Understanding the Ascension – Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension 2013 appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

I am very happy to announce that effective July 1, Bishop Michael Jarrell has appointed Fr. Garrett McIntyre as Associate Pastor here at Our Lady of Wisdom.

Fr. McIntyre was ordained to the priesthood in 2011 and for the past two years has been serving as Associate Pastor at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Ville Platte.

I’ve known Fr. McIntyre for a number of years now. When he was a seminarian, he spent one of his summer pastoral assignments with me at St. Joseph’s in Parks. Then in 2007, I taught his Moral Theology class at Notre Dame Seminary.

Fr. McIntrye is a good friend and I am excited to have him as Associate Pastor here at Wisdom. He will be a great blessing to the parish and many of the students already know him and are looking forward to working with him.

If you have a Facebook account, please “friend” Fr. McIntyre and leave him a message on his profile page.

The post Associate Pastor for Wisdom Announced appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

We avoid and fear shame maybe even more than we do suffering. Shame strips us of our defenses against our fragile mortality. We have no justice to call on, no public esteem to hope for, no leg to stand on. Just feel that blush that engulfs your whole body. Shame is nakedness in the face of ridicule, vulnerability in the face of blame, and guilt without excuse. If wisdom is going to speak from the depths, it must pierce our pride and reach our shame.

This is the quote from Pope Francis’ homily:

But Jesus in the confessional is not a dry cleaner: it is an encounter with Jesus, but with this Jesus who waits for us, who waits for us just as we are. “But, Lord, look … this is how I am,” we are often ashamed to tell the truth: ‘I did this, I thought this’. But shame is a true Christian virtue, and even human … the ability to be ashamed: I do not know if there is a similar saying in Italian, but in our country to those who are never ashamed are called “sin vergüenza’: this means ‘the unashamed ‘, because they are people who do not have the ability to be ashamed and to be ashamed is a virtue of the humble, of the man and the woman who are humble.

The post Surrendering Our Shame – Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter 2013 appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is a video of John Prine performing “Hello in There”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is my favorite version of “Hello in There” performed by Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Billy Bragg.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The post Hello in There – Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter 2013 appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

A priest who seldom goes out of himself, who anoints little – I won’t say “not at all” because, thank God, our people take our oil from us anyway – misses out on the best of our people, on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart. Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, “has already received his reward”, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, become sad priests, lose heart and become in some sense collectors of antiques or novelties – instead of being shepherds living with “the smell of the sheep”, shepherds in the midst of their flock, fishers of men. True enough, the so-called crisis of priestly identity threatens us all and adds to the broader cultural crisis; but if we can resist its onslaught, we will be able to put out in the name of the Lord and cast our nets. It is not a bad thing that reality itself forces us to “put out into the deep”, where what we are by grace is clearly seen as pure grace, out into the deep of the contemporary world, where the only thing that counts is “unction” – not function – and the nets which overflow with fish are those cast solely in the name of the One in whom we have put our trust: Jesus. Dear lay faithful, be close to your priests with affection and with your prayers, that they may always be shepherds according to God’s heart. – Pope Francis, Chrism Mass Homily 2013

The post The Smell of the Sheep – Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter 2013 appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.

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I will try to provide you here with links to various resources on the Gosnell case and the reality of abortion that I cited in my homily. There are so many others out there, I encourage you to do your own resource. WARNING: Many of these resources contain very graphic images and descriptions. They are not for small children, but I do think adults need to see this to be reminded of the reality of abortion.

Gosnell Trial

• 3801 Lancaster Documentary - It’s just over 20 minutes long and very well done. It covers all the bases in the Gosnell case and in the broader abortion debate. Please watch and share.
• Article that gives good background to the Gosnell case. Very graphic.
• Kirsten Power’s article from USA Today.
• Article explaining the media blackout
• JD Mullane’s Twitter feed (journalist that has been honest and on top of this case)

President Obama and Abortion

• Video comments on third-trimester abortions
• Obama and infanticide
• Site with numerous references to Obama’s position on abortion

Other Resources

• Heather King’s book Poor Baby: A Child of the 60′s looks back on abortion
• Video of demonstration of a partial birth abortion
• Video of 4D ultrasound of 24 week old baby
• 4D ultrasound of 12 week old baby
• Trailer for documentary on Planned Parenthood called “Blood Money”

“After a mother has smiled at her child for many days and weeks, she finally receives her child’s smile in response. She has awakened love in the heart of her child, and as the child awakens to love, it also awakens to knowledge: the initially empty-­?sense impressions gather meaningfully around the core of the Thou.”
– Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone Is Credible

The post Kermit Gosnell and the Reality of Abortion – Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter 2013 appeared first on Ragin Cajun Catholics.