Father Samuel's Pod

23Jul23 (23aO16). Liturgy is messy and so is life. Life has good and bad. We wish that there was not bad and want God to rip it all up, but God wants to give us every chance to grow in love of free will.

18Jun23 (23aO11). This is the first homily on Camp Pendleton Chapel. The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few. Pray so that there may be more laborers in the Kingdom. God is calling men and women to live in celibacy, with an undivided heart for the Lord.

16JUN23 (EFCfinal). This is the final talk given at a middle school summer camp of Extreme Faith Camp (EFC). What are seeking for happiness? Hopefully one has encountered God at EFC and can go home bringing the witness of faith. If we are faithful it will bring light to other people.

28May23 (23Pentecost). The Holy Spirit brings unity in diversity. Tower of Babel has unity in pride that leads to being divided. Pentecost has disunity present that brings unity in the midst of diversity. All people hear St. Peter's preaching in their local language. God respects and loves the diversity of peoples and talents. We need to also be grateful and love the differences in people.

23APR23 (23aE3). The story of the Road to Emmaus has the first Mass where they have the Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist. God wants to draw us to faith and love. He has drawn me with the Eucharist to grow and love more. This is not done through the secret, right action, but always being with Jesus as he is always with God the Father and with us. Be at peace with Being with Jesus.

02APR23 (23Easter). There are more details about the Resurrection then we may initially realize. The resurrection gives us founded hope for our faith. Jesus has risen from the dead and we can know that all that he told us and taught us is true. Let us come to the Eucharistic sacrifice with gratitude and reverence for the great gift here.

09APR23 (23Friday). Jesus died for us. His love and passion has no bounds. Let us always look upon the cross and know that God has no limits for what he is willing to do to bring us back into relationship with him.

02APR23 (23aPalm). The Passion of Jesus Christ not only refers to his suffering, but also his passionate love for us. He is so in love with us that he is willing to suffer and die for us. Wow! We should also be passionate for him. Two great ways that He shows us to be perfect in love is humility and obedience. Let us grow in our passionate love through this humility and obedience.

19MAR23 (23aL4). God uses physical things to effect things. With David he used Samuel's anointing that made the Spirit rush upon him. In the Gospel Jesus uses spit and clay with the man's action of washing to bring about healing. He continues to want to affect us with physical things in the Sacraments and most especially the Eucharist.

12MAR23 (23aL3). Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. Think about that. Not while we were perfect or had our life together, but while we were sinners with no proof of correction. This is the unconditional love of God which we can not fathom. This is the knowledge we are called to live in.

05MAR23 (23aL2). God wants to strengthen us for difficulties. However, our tendency is to forget. Let us build up the memory of what God has done so we never forget. Don't allow Spiritual Amnesia to ruin your life, fight against it and talk to God.

26FEB23 (23aL1). Adam and Eve didn't trust God and grasped. Lent helps us to let go and receive from the Lord. Let us grow be learning the obedience of Mary and Jesus in love.

22FEB23 (23Ash). Convert and believe in the Gospel. This Lent let us orientate our life towards Christ.

19FEB23 (23aO7). Be Perfect… simple and clear? We do not need to be perfect by human standards, but by God's. God wants us to be perfect in love. A radical and foolish love which always “Wills the good of the other, for the other's sake”. What is keeping you from love?

05FEB23 (23aO5). It is time to start thinking about lent. The more you put in the more you will get out. God speaks through silence. So give him some silence.

28JAN23 (23aO4). We are all weak and struggle. Pride and insecurity often cause us the biggest problems in life. If we admit our weakness and seek help from God (in prayer) and from help around us (mental health). “Praying it away” is not always the answer, sometimes we need good faith and reason and the support of the amazing mental health advances. One of the gravest mental health problems is suicide. It is frightening and often avoided, but it is important for us to talk about and learn to help ourselves and others. Let us be weak in the Lord and seek the strength that he wants to give us.

21JAN23 (23aO3). It is easy to get taken by political debate and rhetoric. We need to be Christian in our world view and not political. We follow Jesus. We need to serve the poor or else we will go to hell. We can do everything right, but if we don't do that we are not falling on the right side. The most poor and vulnerable are those in the womb and we need to create a pro-life culture of life that values all, especially the most vulnerable. We believe that abortion is wrong but what have we done about it?

15JAN23 (23aO2). It is too little to just get by. We need to offer more than just the bare minimum of sacrifice. The sacrifice is to guide all our life. John the Baptist guides us to full Communion with Jesus. As Catholics we have the great gift of the Eucharist which we have to sacrifice and love. As a parish we are beginning Adoration on Friday. That commitment is important to pray and be transformed by adoration.

08JAN23 (23Epiphany).  The Wisemen seek the truth and find Jesus. Faith and reason are not opposed, but two wings to help us to fly. Let us always pursue the truth and help it lead us to Jesus. “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves” (JP2, Fides et Ratio) “Stand firm in the faith! Do not let yourselves be confused! It often seems that science — the natural sciences on the one hand and historical research (especially exegesis of Sacred Scripture) on the other — are able to offer irrefutable results at odds with the Catholic faith. I have experienced the transformations of the natural sciences since long ago and have been able to see how, on the contrary, apparent certainties against the faith have vanished, proving to be not science, but philosophical interpretations only apparently pertaining to science; just as, on the other hand, it is in dialogue with the natural sciences that faith, too, has learned to understand better the limit of the scope of its claims, and thus its specificity. […] I saw and see how out of the tangle of assumptions the reasonableness of faith emerged and emerges again. Jesus Christ is truly the way, the truth and the life — and the Church, with all its insufficiencies, is truly His body.” (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Spiritual Testimony)

01JAN23 (23Mother).  The feast today of Mary the Mother of God is an opportunity to ponder on the theological mystery of Jesus' humanity and divinity and unity. It is also a good time to ponder on our new year. How does the Holy Spirit want to guide you in growth this year?

25DEC22 (22Christmas). We may be thinking a lot about Santa Claus during Christmas. There are some similarities to God such as his knowledge, but huge differences after that. Jesus is God and came to dwell and be with us. We are never alone. He came to be with us. “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Deus Caritas Est, 1).

18DEC22 (22aA4). Christmas is naturally good, but it is also supernatural. In the midst of all the natural goodness let us remember the supernatural good. He comes to reveal Himself, but we can never fully comprehend his mystery, but we can always ponder and meditate. JESUS   Manifest Infirmity, wondrous Humility, in which all the greatness of God lay hidden: He is both great in the nature of God and small in the form of a servant. But His greatness is not diminished by His smallness, nor His smallness overwhelmed by His greatness. He Himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit precedes all spans of time, but on this day, issuing from His mother, He stepped into the tide of the years.   * * * * *   He who made man, was made Man; He was given existence by a mother whom He brought into existence. He finds no room in the inn, but He builds a temple for Himself in the hearts of those who believe. Unspeakably wise, He is wisely speechless; filling the world, He lies in a manger. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but He gives us a garment of immortality. John the Baptist baptized Christ, the Giver of Baptism, in waters made holy by the One Who was baptized.   * * * * *   In Him we see our God made visible, and so are caught up in the love of the God we cannot see. He came to pay a debt He didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. Such is the love of our God! Then let us be kindled with love, that we may come to His eternity!   By Marie E. Barfknecht

04DEC22 (22aA2). How is the 1% challenge (https://www.evangelicalcatholic.org/onepercent/) going this Advent? John the Baptist is a crazy person who is calling us to reality. Repent!! In order for repentance to be real and authentic it needs to be proceeded with changes and fruit. This can be difficult to know exactly how to repent and change. So the only effective way is to pray to precede the way forward.

27NOV22 (22aA1). Today begins Advent the season of anticipation, hope, and preparation. Advent is not a season to be in Christmas but is a mini lent. Two of the greatest things to focus on are prayer and almsgiving. I am taking the 1% challenge and I am challenging you as well to spend at least 1% of every day in advent on prayer: https://www.evangelicalcatholic.org/onepercent/

20NOV22 (22cKing). Jesus Christ is King of the Universe. He is king of this world, but is he King of your heart. We often try and create the world and God in our image with disastrous effect. Jesus came to teach us about truth and help form us into true humans formed in God's image. Jesus only gave us a few direct imperative commandments. One of them was “Do this in remembrance of me” and so we celebrate Mass in fidelity to Jesus' command and are formed by Him. During Advent we will celebrate Mass Ad Oreientem. Here is a short youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXzgVlK-reg  and a letter from a bishop encouraging the practice https://dioceseofgallup.org/celebrating-the-mass-ad-orientem/ and here is a priest from Minnesota's explanation: https://icchurch.cc/ad-orientem/

13NOV22 (22cO33). It is the end… Remember Death. It is coming. As Christians we should not be flippant or scared, but prepare and be ready.

02NOV22. Today I talk with Paul Duenas and Tamami Elizabeth Hatakeyama about choir and music in the liturgy. I get to hear a little more about their experience and joys, I get to share about my love (but inability in music), and about the Church's intention of music in the Mass.

30OCT22 (22cO31). Children have a love of something and those things they want to do again and again and again. God also has a young soul that takes great joy in monotony.  He creates and keeps in existence again and again. He wants to enter our home, our soul, through the Mass in especially the Eucharist. “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy)

23OCT22 (22cO30). We often take part in unhealthy comparisons. Either placing us in worse life situations than other people or thinking of ourselves as better than other people. Ultimately God loves each of us individually not in comparison. The only comparison we should do is between us and Jesus and we will lose every time. That puts us in the right place to pray with the Tax Collector “O God, have mercy on me a sinner”.

19OCT22. Megan and I discuss about three major events that are coming up. The piece that was played at the beginning and the end was “La Danse Macabre” which you can watch/listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71fZhMXlGT4 .

15OCT22 (22cO29). Blessed Solanus Casey always encouraged to Thank God for answering our prayers even before we received them.

02OCT22 (22cO26). Do we have faith the size of a mustard seed? What is the bare minimum as a Catholic? We have the 5 precepts of the Church which give that bare minimum standard. Not an exciting homily, but still something. Attend Mass on Sundays and on Holy Days while resting from servile labor. To receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation at least once a year. Te receive the Eucharist at least once a year. To observe the days of fasting and abstinence. To help provide for the needs of the Church according to one's ability. * To obey the laws of the Church concerning marriage. https://cmvic.net/documents/2015/3/5%20PRECEPTS%20OF%20THE%20CATHOLIC%20CHURCH.pdf

18SEP22. Megan and I discuss about the 4 evangelists in this podcast. The four evangelists are pretty cool. I love the symbols and the uniqueness of each of them.

18SEP22 (22cO25). Little things don't really matter, but they matter so much. It is a hard thing to completely understand that little things are important. We can easily lie to ourselves that we can do the big things, but we just won't worry about the small things. We don't run into large things often, but everyday we learn, grow, and prove our trustworthiness in the small things. It isn't about perfection, it is about trustworthiness and faithfulness.

11SEP22 (22cO24). Human's understand Justice, we don't understand Mercy as much. God is perfectly Just, but also infinitely Merciful. He gives us Mercy because it is the only way to reconciliation and relationship. May we know that great gift and give it. This world does not need more Justice, but more Mercy.

10SEP22. Andy Bogen was an English Teacher at the Yokosuka Middle School. He died unexpectedly on the anniversary of John the Baptist's own death. I was blessed to be able to offer the Mass for the repose of his soul. He was a fan of CS Lewis (I am too), so I drew a lot from CS Lewis's sermon “The Weight of Glory” https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Lewis%20Glory.pdf .

09SEP22. Conversation with Megan McMechan the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Community at the Chapel of Hope in Yokosuka Japan. We talk about Education. Education in the early Church, monasteries, parishes, and in the US. Parents are the primary educators of their children as a whole human person which is more than just getting a job. Here is a great site to learn about Catholic engagement of reason, faith, and science: https://www.reasonfaithscience.com/ .

04SEP22 (22cO23). Jesus is not a good recruiter. He tells us not about all the good things of discipleship, but all the things we need to give up. The cost of discipleship is high. It is not a small call of what maybe we happen to give, but a call of all.

28AUG22 (22cO22). Humility is the virtue opposed to pride. Pride brought down Satan, Adam & Eve, and can easily bring us down. We pray for humility by recognizing the reality of our dirtness as well as our inestimable value. The Mass gives us plenty of moments of humility in prayer, let us engage in those prayers and grow in humility and combat pride so we may be the best of friends to God and neighbor.

21AUG22 (22cO21). Will only be a few be saved? We are the chosen few right? Everyone else won't be saved, but we will. Actually, we need to strive! Enter through the narrow gate. It is not enough to just know Jesus or be an acquaintance. Jesus wants us to be disciples. The way we become disciples is through discipline. There are many ways that that we are disciplined. Mass, fasting, penance, service, confession, and learning. Let us not assume salvation, but strive for salvation and the Lord will provide.

14AUG22 (22cO20). St. Catherine of Sienna said “Without war there is no peace”. Combat and war is division and difficulty. We seek peace in this world, but not as the world gives. We may be in tension with ourselves and that is ok as long as you never give up. Pray for that blazing fire.

11AUG22. Conversation with Megan McMechan the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Community at the Chapel of Hope in Yokosuka Japan. We talk about Holy Days of Obligation and about the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I will offer two links. Ideas about how to celebrate the feast day from a Catholic mother: https://www.elizabethclareblog.com/celebrating-the-assumption-of-mary/ More about Eastern Catholic Church: https://www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/sites/default/files/files/2014-08-17_weekly%20column.pdf

07AUG22 (22cO19). “With great power comes great responsibility” was popularized by Spider-man. It is certainly a truth we understand in our moral, ethics, and law. The Gospel today indicates this understanding with greater punishment for those who are more blameworthy. Catholicism makes the distinction between Mortal and Venial sins. We are to avoid sin and pursue goodness. If we fail and turn away from God in a serious way it seriously hurts us and we must turn back to God.

31JUL22 (22cO18). What are we made for? What end (Telos) are we made for? To fulfill our purpose is happiness. We are made for God and love. When we seek the things of this world as our end we are disappointed. St. Ignatius of Loyola beautifully wrote “The First Principle and Foundation”. It is an amazing statement that is a challenge to everyone.

10JUL22 (22cO15). We are called to be disciples by love. Love of God and neighbor. It is not be avoidance of sin, but by action. The only way we know how to properly love is by prayer which will help us to be formed in God's image of authentic love in difficult circumstances.

03JUL22 (22cO14). We are sent forth from this Mass into the world, to be in the world, but not meant to be part of the world. It is ok if we don't fit in. We should not be normal, but we also shouldn't be weird. The letter to Diognetus https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010522_diogneto_en.html is a great reminder of how we are supposed to live in the midst of the world. The US has been a strange place for us Catholics. We are grateful for 1st Amendment right for the free exercise of religion, but we have always been a little in the minority. Now we live in a wanning Christian culture. We are sent for to be lights in darkness.

26JUN22 (22cO13). We are called to follow Christ in discipleship. This means to walk closely with Jesus and to become like him. We are called to freedom to love our neighbor. I was challenged with this in college with abortion in a moral and ethics course. It challenged me to think about what I actually believe. Roe vs. Wade has been over turned and although we will not be deciding supreme court decisions or legislation, we are influencing the culture of life by our discipleship. We influence the culture of life by our actions. Here are a few actions 1. talk about support and not condemnation in family. 2. Support Pregnancy Help Centers for crisis pregnancy. 3. Prenatal and Postnatal healthcare for difficult pregnancies and births. 4. Have Pro-family attitudes at work. 5. Have Pro-family attitudes at home acknowledging that the most important job and role in the world is motherhood. 6. Support foster care. 7. Support adoption. 8. I did not mention in the homily but is supper important get the father involved. Most of the burden is on the mother, we need to do a better job of calling on the men to be fathers and take responsibility. The world is a dark and difficult place. It needs light and hope and love. Let's be those disciples that do so.

19JUN22 (22cCorpus). Humans need to eat every day to not be starving. We also need to pray every day or we will be spiritually starving. God has given us the Eucharist to be fed. It does require small participation to have any effect, but with that small gift of self it multiplies and satisfies.

12JUN22 (22cTrinity). The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most foundational doctrines. It is a mystery and confusion, but there are some amazing things to take from it. God is ultimately a God of relationship and communion!! Wow!! Every time we make a sign of the cross we should be reminded that God is love, and wants us to be in relationship and communion with him.

5JUN22 (22cPentecost). Holy Spirit is active today. It has been present in the past and wants to be active in the present. One of the ways you can engage the Holy Spirit in your life is discernment.

29MAY22 (22cAscension). Jesus ascended to Heaven not to abandon us, but lead us differently. Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.” (John 14:12). We live in the Church's age of the Holy Spirit. We live in the age of the impact driver. Amazing power if we just ask for it, “Come HOLY SPIRIT…”