OLS - Reno Homilies

What does God offer to us in our Scripture and in this Feast? What invitation comes to us from God? To be Christian means to believe that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Trinity. Community and Relationship for the very nature of God. God is three and God is one. The Trinity is NOT three separate deities who got together and formed a strong bond, like three good friends. The Trinity is one, always with no beginning and no end. God communicates God’s self to us through the Trinity, therefore through relationships and community, and God invites into that community. Even from the beginning God created Humanity, through Adam and Eve; a relationship in which God offered God’s self to them. God continued this because this is God’s way. God calls out to Abram and Sara and gives to them descendants, family, through whom God wants to show the rest of the world God and what God offers. Jesus, the Son of God and descendent of Abraham, fully reveals all who God is, as Father in the Holy Spirit....

Merry Christmas to all! We celebrate that God, the all powerful, almighty creator of all things visible and invisible offers us the fullness of life. Not only does God offer fullness of life, but offers it freely, no price. Not only does God offer fullness of life freely, God enters into our human life completely to reveal the value and worth of our human life, to reveal just how much humanity means to God, and to reveal what a full human life is. God comes, God reveals, God lives in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, incarnated.   Accept the Gift of God!  Live life fully as Jesus reveals. This means live with humility; be open to being changed, recognize that we still need to grow; there is more to life than we know. Engage in healing and forgiving; welcome and share, give of ourselves for the good of others; a full life always involves the love of others.. Be those best versions of ourselves, as God created us to be. Christmas celebrations encapsulate all of this. We give g...

It is great when something old, but good, gets innovated and becomes something more, even better. Last week I was at a local restaurant with a friend. He ordered a cocktail, I was not going to have one. He ordered an Old Fashioned, which is made with whiskey or bourbon. However, they made it with Mezcal. He sipped it and said it was great. I took a sip, AMAZING. I ordered one. Innovations can make life different, even more enjoyable, livable. We like to think this country thrives on innovations. Companies use the term innovation to promote themselves. Yet, innovations can also challenge us; some people don’t like them. People stay focused on the original (a la new coke); locked into original modes of thinking, acting… This can be detrimental at times. Once many many decades ago, I went to Ohio to visit my folks. Dad wanted to grill burgers. They had chiles growing in the garden, so I said how about we roast those and put them on the burgers, a western innovation. You would have though...

 Joy, the reality of God is Joy. Joy, that gift of a moment, of an experience, in which we sense hope, trust; a moment in which the eternal is touched. Joy, that gift of God that renews us and calls us to live life differently. We cannot make Joy happen by our own efforts per se. This is why trying to buy joy through objects and things does not work. Joy runs deeper, it is that recognition of hope and love for the future, within people; affirmation of hard work with others. Joy again, is pure Gift. We can’t make it happen, we can only prepare ourselves for it. Joy, it is that moment in which we witness a couple formally adopt their child and a family grows.  Joy is that moment when a couple say I do to each other while looking into each other’s eyes, and we know that they truly mean it. Joy is that moment when a parent sees real maturity in their child who has begun to make good decisions for themselves. Joy is the moment when we children thriving, laughing and simply enjoying...