Pastor’s Blog

Compassion at the Heart of Jesus

Sunday is the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. We begin the Gospel with the words, “His heart was moved with compassion, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.” The ministry of Jesus is one of compassion and mercy. Those who share in the ministry of Jesus must also be moved by compassion for the people of God.

Compassion is a willingness to let one’s heart be touched by the sufferings and pain of another. Mercy means the willingness to suffer in one’s heart for another. Love is the willing of good for another, regardless of emotional attachment or lack of emotional attachment. Compassion, mercy, and love are how love manifests itself through us for another. Compassion, mercy, and love are not just feelings; they are calls to action on behalf of another.

The Call to Healing

In the Gospel, Jesus calls us to a better lifestyle that saves us from sin and from ourselves. He gives his Apostles the task of curing the sick, raising the dead, healing the leper, and expelling demons. Wow, that is a tall order. Looking at our society, perhaps Jesus is on to something here.

How many of us need healing physically, emotionally, and spiritually? How many relationships need to be healed through reconciliation? How many families have fallen apart because of a need for healing? How many of us are dead? We are breathing, yet we are not living. We go through the routine of life, but there is no spark of life because of many reasons.

Can a vibrant faith life, rather than a ritualized religious practice, create new life in a person? How many of us have ostracized people from our lives? We write people off because they may not agree with us, see life differently, or even see social conventions differently. Who are the lepers in our lives, and how do we reach out to them in a healing gesture?

How many suffer from demons? Yes, there are many types of demons. Some suffer from the demon of self-abasement, fear, anxiety, jealousy, and general unhappiness. How many of us simply cannot be grateful? How can we be a person who, for the sake of Christ — not for popularity or acclaim — makes life better for at least one person in the many worlds in which we live?

The Life-Giving Relationship

The Apostles were enthralled with Jesus. Their relationship with him, both individually and as a community, was life-giving to them, so much so that it moved them to be better people while helping others to see clearly the mystery of the Gospel. Did their relationship with Jesus not create in them a heart moved with compassion?

Msgr. Guy A. Massie
Sunday, June 14, 2026

Sunday, we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. This celebration is also known as Corpus Christi. The Scripture readings for today suggest three basic points: the sacrifice offered by Christ in his Passion and Death, the redemption brought about by the sacrifice of Christ, and the abiding presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and in us, the Church.

The Eucharist as Self-Giving Love

The Eucharist is the sacrament in which we encounter Christ’s total self-giving to us. The Eucharist is a sacrament of Christ’s real presence with us. In his lifetime, Christ gave of himself constantly. We see the self-giving of Christ in his teaching, his compassion, his miracles, and his faithfulness to his mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. His faithfulness to his mission ultimately brought him to his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. His faithfulness redeemed our unfaithfulness. His selflessness redeemed our selfishness. Christ’s total giving of himself on Calvary is made present to us in the Eucharist.

The Sacrifice Made Present

The Eucharist is a constant reminder of the great Redemption we have in the Death and Resurrection of Christ. At the celebration of the Eucharist, we believe that through the Holy Spirit, present in the Holy Orders of the priest, present in the community of the Church, and present in the memory of the Church, that sacrifice of Calvary is made present again for us in our time and space. We are not offering another sacrifice, but rather we make the sacrifice of Christ present again through the Holy Spirit. This great sacrifice is present to us sacramentally under the appearance of bread and wine.

We are Catholics who believe that the Risen Christ is really and truly present with us. The Eucharist is not a sign or symbol, but rather a real encounter between us and Christ. We meet the Lord in this sacrament. While we meet the Lord in the Eucharist, we are also in communion with all who are receiving Christ, thus making us the Body of Christ, or the Church.

The Body of Christ

In our society, which is growing in its appreciation of food and slowly coming to the realization that we are what we eat, the reception of the Eucharist transfigures us into the Body of Christ. This transformation of us into the Body of Christ makes us the Church, or the Mystical Body of Christ in the world. The Eucharist is amazing and awe inspiring. The Church celebrates the Eucharist, remembering Christ, every day except on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. On the days when we do not celebrate the Eucharist, there is a profound sense of absence felt by those who receive Communion every day.

A Call to Reverence

As you receive Holy Communion, do not take this sacrament for granted. Realize what you are doing and who it is you are encountering. Realize the price paid by Christ for your redemption. Know that you too are part of the Body of Christ in the world. This sacrament can and will change your life.

Pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Adoration and contemplation of Christ present with us gives us solace, consolation, and challenge. As we process through the streets of our neighborhood, may we today celebrate who we are: the Body of Christ in the world. May we also proclaim the Real Presence of Christ in this Most Holy of Sacraments.

Msgr. Guy A. Massie
Sunday, June 7, 2026

Sunday is Trinity Sunday. While the Easter Season ended with the celebration of Pentecost, today’s feast and next week’s feast of Corpus Christi are extensions of the Easter Season. It seems somewhat redundant that we have a feast celebrating the Holy Trinity, since every day and every liturgy celebrates God who is Trinity. Yet the feast brings into focus for us the great mysteries of God.

While we believe in one God, we believe in a God who is love. Love presupposes relationships. Our God is encountered through relationships. We believe in a God who is in relationship with us. We experience this great mystery of God through three distinct relationships. While the three relationships are divine, they are different yet united and indivisible, unique and distinct. Thus God is experienced as Creator or Father, Redeemer, Savior, Word of God, or Jesus the Son, and Sanctifier, Sustainer, or Divine Presence, the Holy Spirit.

God as Trinity

St. Augustine tells us that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are always in a relationship with God as the Trinity. This Triune relationship happens simultaneously, never separately. For example, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are in a relationship to the Trinity. The prayer is formed by Christ, the Word of God among us. The inspiration to pray is the Holy Spirit, and the prayer is addressed to the Father.

When we are reflecting on the sacred text, we are relating to the Trinity. The desire to reflect on Scripture comes from the Holy Spirit. The appropriation of the text to our lives comes from the Holy Spirit. The Scripture text we are reflecting upon may be about Jesus, a psalm, or even a text of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Word in the Old Testament or the New Testament is Jesus, who leads us to the Father. Notice the prayers at Mass. They are addressed to the Father, through the Word who is Jesus, and in unity with the Holy Spirit.

Created for Relationship

God is a mystery in whose image we are created. We are created in the image of the Trinity. We are created in the image of the God of relationships. It is only through our relationships that we come to be known to ourselves and that others experience us. The same is true for God. We know God in and through relationships with him and with others.

Each relationship and each person contains mystery. Mystery is experienced rather than understood or explained. God is experienced through the mystery of love. Love creates. Love gives of itself for the good of the beloved. Love is enduring and inspiring.

Msgr. Guy A. Massie
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
May 31, 2026

Sunday is Pentecost. Pentecost means fifty days after Easter. On this day, we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. The Holy Spirit is the Breath of God and the third person of the Holy Trinity.

We experience God in three distinct relationships at once. We experience God as Father and Creator. We experience God as Word, Savior, and Redeemer, whom we call Jesus. And we experience God as Sanctifier and Sustainer, whom we call the Holy Spirit.

It is the Spirit who opens us to belief. It is the Spirit who converts religion into sincere and convicted faith. It is the Spirit who gives us zeal for the faith, and it is the Spirit who reminds us of all Jesus said and taught. It is the Spirit who moves us to recognize Jesus as Lord. The Holy Spirit sets our hearts on fire. That is why the color of the day is red, symbolizing the fire that came upon the Apostles.

The Work of the Spirit

It is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us when we receive the sacraments. At Mass, it is the Spirit, through the sacrament of Holy Orders in the priest, who makes Jesus present in the Eucharist. It is the Spirit who moves us to ask for forgiveness in the sacrament of Reconciliation. It is the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Baptism who allows us to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, as Jesus foretold.

It is the Spirit who inspires us to understand and grow spiritually through our contemplation of the Scriptures. It is the Holy Spirit who brings us the gifts of God: Wisdom, Understanding, Good Counsel, Knowledge, Fortitude, and Piety. These gifts produce fruits in us that show the Spirit is present. These fruits of the Spirit are love, peace, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, chastity, patience, generosity, and self-control. It is the Spirit who helps us live out the Gospel.

Perhaps this is easier understood if we say: the Father speaks the Word, and the Spirit is the Breath needed to speak the Word, who is Jesus.

A Pentecost Reflection

What gift of the Holy Spirit do you see yourself as needing? What fruits of the Holy Spirit have you recognized in others and in yourself? The gifts of the Spirit are given to be shared. How do we share the gifts of the Spirit given to us in all the sacraments?

Rev. Msgr. Guy A. Massie
Pentecost Sunday
May 24, 2026

Truth as a Central Theme in the Gospel

I would like to focus on the Gospel. Jesus prays that his apostles, and through them all of us, be consecrated in the truth. Truth is a major theme in the Gospel of John. Jesus describes himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So we must ask: what is truth, or better still, who is truth?

Jesus brings us truth about God, about God’s attitude toward us, and about the purpose of life itself. Jesus is the truth. Those who seek the truth are, in the deepest sense, seeking God — seeking Jesus.

Truth in a Distracted Society

It seems to me that in our society, the desire to know the truth has taken a back seat to conspiracy theories, fear tactics, and rumors. Truth has been reduced to a personal preference. We hear phrases like “your truth” and “my truth,” as though truth were simply a matter of feeling or mood.

Our society seems more ready to embrace falsehoods than to search for a truth that exists outside ourselves — a truth confirmed by real events and real actions. If that is where we find ourselves, then we must ask: how do we receive and hold fast to the truth that the Church teaches?

The Truths of Easter

What is the truth of the Easter Season and its celebrations? What truths are we consecrated in? To what truth are we called to bear witness?

If these are truths, they must be lived. Jesus prays that we be consecrated in the truth. To consecrate is to set something apart for a sacred purpose. With that in mind, consider the truths we are called to bear witness to — with our lives, and if necessary, even with our deaths:

The truth that God is.
The truth that God became incarnate among us, fully human in all things but sin.
The truth that we are created in the image of God.
The truth that God has invited humanity to share in his own divine life.
The truth that God so loved the world that he entered it in Jesus, redeeming our unfaithfulness through his perfect faithfulness.
The truth that we must imitate Christ by willing the good of others.
The truth that Jesus is risen and is still with us.
The truth that life will triumph over death, light will triumph over darkness, and truth will triumph over falsehood.
And the truth that what we do to one another, we do to God.

The Foundation of It All
Upon what are all these truths grounded? On this: that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That God is light, and in him there is no darkness. That grace and truth came to us through Jesus Christ.

We are called to live Jesus.

Msgr. Guy A. Massie
May 17, 2026

On the Sixth Sunday of Easter, we continue our Gospel reading from the discourses at the Last Supper, according to St. John. Today, Jesus gives us two main points: first, his commands; and second, the promise of the Holy Spirit.

The Commands of Jesus

What are the commands of Jesus, and what is the motive for obeying them? There are many commands of Jesus. Among them are: love one another as I have loved you; do this in memory of me, referring to the Eucharist; be merciful as your Father is merciful; and forgive your enemies. There are many others.

The reason we believers are commanded to obey these commandments is because we love Jesus. We are not to obey simply out of legalistic reasons, but rather because we love Jesus. This presupposes that each of us has a deep relationship with Christ in the depths of our hearts.

Jesus invites us to forgive, not because the one being forgiven deserves forgiveness, but because we love Jesus. We are being asked to come to the celebration of the Eucharist not to fulfill a law, but because we love Jesus.

There are people who say, “I do not go to Mass; I pray at home. I do my own thing.” The Eucharist calls the Church together. We are called by Christ to gather in his name. We are Catholic; we never stand alone. We always stand as a member of this body.

While praying at home is good, and while doing your own thing may be wonderful, it is not what Jesus commanded. It is what makes you happy. If we love Jesus, we do not need emotion or feelings of fervor. We need to obey these commands because we love Jesus.

We grow in the love of Jesus as we learn more about Jesus in the sacred text and in the teaching of the Church. It is in experiencing God as Holy Spirit that we are drawn to Jesus.

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

The second point of today’s Gospel is the promise of the Holy Spirit. The Easter Season began on the Second Sunday of Easter and continues until Pentecost. Pentecost is fifty days after Easter. It was on this day that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the community of the Church gathered in the upper room.

While the goal of the Easter Season is to celebrate Easter, it is also a preparation for the great feast of Pentecost, which this year is on May 24.

Msgr. Guy A. Massie
May 10, 2026
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