First Sunday after Easter, April 27th, 2025

 First Sunday after Easter, April 27th, 2025

In the Twentieth Chapter of St. John's Gospel,  the evangelist tells us when the disciples were gathered together after Our Blessed Lord had been crucified and laid to rest in the tomb.  St John relates in verse 19 that "the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews."  Our Lord appeared to them and we can only imagine their utter shock and disbelief if we were in their position at that time.  After after Our Blessed Saviour had greeted them, St John tells us:  " . . . . He shewed unto them His hands and His side. "

How often when we are in disbelief about something . . .  anything . . . do we have to show the evidence to show what we are talking about?  If we get cut doing something, we run and show the cut.  Or if a storm has gone through and knocked down a tree or at the very least knocked down heavy branches, you tell somebody to come and look at this.  "Oh, look at that  . . . . "  As humans, we are physical beings.  We see with our eyes.  We feel with the touch of our hands.  We hear with our ears.  We want to experience something first hand by seeing it for ourselves.  Our Lord knew this and this is why He showed the disciples His wounds.  He wanted them to see with their own eyes the "evidence" that it was Him.  

In our own life . . .  for those of us who claim the name of "Christian,"  . . . . . the question remains how do we show the "evidence" of our faith?  As mentioned above, we are able to see with our eyes, for example, the result of a storm . . .  or a car crash.  We can see the fruit of our labour when we work hard on a project and we see it after completion.  Such as building an addition on a house, cleaning and organizing a room, etc.  We can see the results with our eyes with examples such as those mentioned.  But how do we "see" a person's faith?  Faith is definitely something that is internal to each one of us.  Faith itself is not something that we can "see" physically with our eyes.  And yet the faith that we have inside of us.  The faith that we have internally that demonstrates our love for God.  This same faith is translated into action.  The way that we treat others.  The way that we are moved with compassion.  The things that we do for others around us that are less fortunate.  These are all examples of how we can "see" faith.  

As human beings, we want to "see the evidence," we want to see with our own eyes.  Let us all work on "showing" others our love of God.  Let others see how much we love God by how we live our lives.  As I often say in my sermons, the majority of people that you encounter this week probably do not ever go to church.  For those people they will only see the face of Christ as it is found in you.  If this is true, what will the world see?

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!

Palm Sunday, April 13th, 2025

 

The Sunday Next before Easter, commonly called 

Palm Sunday, April 13th, 2025

In the Epistle for Palm Sunday taken from the Second Chapter of the Epistle written to the Philippians, we are reminded to  " . . LET this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus  .. . ."  meaning that our mind-set should also be the same mind-set of Our Blessed Saviour.   Always keep in mind that Our Lord did not have to do anything which He did.  He did not have to be born as a small baby in this world.  He did not have to grow up and become a carpenter.  He did not have to be mocked and laughed at.  He did not have to be scourged at the pillar.  He did not have to carry His Cross.  And He certainly did not have to die a cruel death on that same Cross  We are reminded that  " . . .  He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death . . . ."  Our Lord humbled Himself to become a human being like us in all things but sin.  We are called to humble ourselves as well.  This is difficult for the vast majority of us.  Namely, because we always want things to be our way.  But as St. Paul reminds us we are also called to become humble and become obedient unto death.  In our case, though, we are called to become humble unto the ways of God and dead unto the ways of the world.  The world does not offer anything to us that is lasting.  Yes, it's true that the world offers a lot of things that capture our attention for the moment:  worldly things such as possessions and power . . .  money and wealth . . .. trinkets such as electronics or clothes or jewelry.  All of these things are nice in their own way but none of these will ever last.  What God offers to us is everlasting.  What God gives to us freely can never be taken away.  He offers us His love.  But we are often torn by the ways of the world.  We Christians live in the world, but we are not called to be of the world.  Slowly . . . gradually . . . we need to turn ourselves more and more away from the world and turn more and more to God, Whose love is everlasting.  Let us imitate Our Blessed Saviour and humble ourselves to God and become obedient to the death of sin in our lives and dead to the ways of the world so that we can grow closer to God.

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!

Fifth Sunday in Lent, Passion Sunday, April 6th, 2025

 Fifth Sunday in Lent, Commonly Called Passion Sunday, 

April 6th, 2025

In the Eighth Chapter of St. John's Gospel, we read about an encounter between the Pharisees and Our Blessed Saviour.  As we read through this encounter we can only envision the drama unfolding before our eyes.   In this passage, Our Lord poses two questions to those gathered before Him.  First He asks:  "Which of you convinceth me of sin?"  (St. John 8:46)  In other words, Our Blessed Saviour is saying "Is there anyone here who can honestly convict Me of any sin?"  Our Blessed Lord followed quickly with another question:  "And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?" (St. John 8:46)  In other words, if Our Lord is speaking the truth, if He is saying what is true, why don't you believe Him?  To both of these questions the response Our Lord receives is silence.  They can not answer Him.   When Our Lord continues on with discussion, He begins to speak about eternal life and anyone who keeps His sayings will never see death.   At this point, the Pharisees are getting irate with Our Lord.  They even question Him and ask:  "whom makest thou thyself?" (St. John 8:53)  In other words, they are asking Our Lord, "Who are you making yourself out to be?"  To this question, Our Lord responds that it is His Heavenly Father Who glorifies Him  

Let's give credit where credit is due.  In my opinion, the Pharisees ask a perfectly valid question which, quite frankly, each one of us should ask ourselves:  Who are you trying to be?  So many of us try to be someone else.  As we grow up when we are young children we try our best to be the characters in our favorite story book or movie.  Children want to be super heroes or a princess or their favorite character from their favorite cartoon.  As we grow older, we try to be someone different as well.  We want to dress like our favorite musician or our favorite movie star.  We want to be popular so we wear what we believe is the "latest style" in clothing or shoes.   We get our hair cut just a certain way because it is popular.  So often we try to be somebody else by what we wear . . .  or how we act . . .  or what we do . . .  or what products we buy.  We only wear a certain type of jean or a certain brand of shoe.  We have to arrive at work with an eight dollar cup of Starbucks coffee because everybody else goes there and buys an eight dollar cup of Starbucks coffee.  Again, we ask the question:  Who are you trying to be?  The Pharisees asked Our Blessed Lord this very question and He gave the response that each one of us should give.  We should try to be someone that God wants us to be.   Instead, so often we try to be someone the world wants us to be.  But for the devout, faithful Christian we need to focus on what God would have us do  . . .  what God wants us to become.  So often, as I like to say because it's true, we defeat ourselves before we can ever get started.  In other words, we convince ourselves that we aren't holy.  We convince ourselves that we can't accomplish what we are trying to do.  And then what happens?  We quit.  We stop trying.  Of course we are going to fail in life.  Of course we will never be perfect.  But despite these facts we should never stop trying.  When things got tough, St. Peter denied Our Blessed Lord three times.  Yet, Our Lord still remained loyal to St. Peter.  God always remains faithful to us even though we do not always remain faithful to Him.  This is because God always stays true to His promises.  He never breaks His word.  Stay true to your commitment to God.  Let us try to be more like Christ and less like the world.

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 30th, 2025

 

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 30th, 2025

In the Sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel we begin by hearing of the "Feeding of the Five-Thousand."  Of course, this is where Our Lord takes a few small loaves of bread and a  few small fishes and is able to feed five thousand people.  But, you see, the story doesn't end there as we continue reading further in this chapter.  Because we find out that many of these five thousand who ate of the loaves and fishes followed Our Lord seeking for Him.  And in Verse 26 of this chapter Our Lord says to them:  "Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled."  You see, dear friends, as Our Lord testifies in this chapter He is the Bread of Life.  "I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth of Me shall never thirst." (St. John 6:35)  And Our Lord continues in Verse 51:  "I am the living bread which came own from Heaven: if any man eat of this bread; he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."  Our Lord gives of Himself.  Our Lord sustains us . . .. He nourishes us . . . . He feeds us with HIs own Precious Body and Blood.  So often we think the things of the world give us "life."  But we know that the things in this world fade away.  But whoever seeks Our Lord will never be disappointed.  He gives us life.  He sustains us.  He nourishes us.  He is our salvation.  

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!

Third Sunday in Lent, March 23rd, 2025

 Third Sunday in Lent, March 23rd, 2025

Maybe it's just me, I don't know, but I am amazed at how often I "revert" back to doing something when I know I should not be doing it and then I turn around and do it again.  For example, I type every day on the computer.  And sometimes . . . . I don't know the reason why .. . . I may type the wrong letter in a certain word and then I will go back and erase it and type the correct word but then the next time I get to type that same word I end up typing the same exact wrong letter again.  And then it gets to the point that it is laughable because then suddenly no matter how hard I try and how determined I am NOT to type that one wrong letter . . .  . I do it again.

Sin is like that as well.  We may keep doing the same wrong things all over again even though deep down inside we know that the sinful behaviour is no good for us but we keep going back and doing the same thing over and over again.  In the Fifth Chapter of St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, we hear the following:  "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord."  (Ephesians 5:8)  Our Blessed Saviour redeemed us by His Own Precious Blood.  Our Saviour took our sins upon His shoulders and carried them to that hill at Calvary.  Our Saviour saved us from our sins by dying on the Cross for us.  With all of this in mind, it begs the question:  why do we do what we do . . . . especially when we supposedly know better?  How often do we do something really stupid and then we say out loud to ourselves:  "Why did I do that?"  St. Paul is saying to the Ephesians just like he is saying to us:  "You used to be ignorant of your sins but now you have knowledge in Christ . . . you are knowledgeable of Our Lord . . .  you know about Him . .    you know His ways . .  . you know Him . . . . now, act like Him and do not go back to your former, sinful ways."  This, in essence, is what St. Paul was saying to the church at Ephesus and what he is saying to us.

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!

Second Sunday in Lent, March 16th, 2025

 Second Sunday in Lent, March 16th, 2025

In the Fifteenth Chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, we hear the story of Our Blessed Saviour meeting the woman of Canaan who besought Our Lord seeking favour for her daughter.  Now keep in mind that this woman was not Jewish, and yet she said to Our Lord: "Thou Son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." (St Matthew 15:22)  Right from the beginning, it is evident that this woman must have recognized the greatness of Our Lord or else she would not have referred to Him as "Thou Son of David."  Now, we have all heard this story because Our Lord at first  . .. .. it seems .  .  .. that He ignores her because He says not a word at her first request.  After that it is apparent that she then proceeds to bother the disciples for her request because St. Matthew informs us that they "besought Him, saying, Send her away: for she crieth after us." (v.23)  After this, Our Lord still ignores her request by basically saying, in essence, that He was sent for the children of Israel.  And despite all of this, this woman still persisted until finally Our Lord recognized her persistence and her faith when He said:  " O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." (v.28)

Now the point that we can all learn from this is to be determined and to have faith.  The woman of Canaan had both.  She recognized Our Lord to be the source of help and healing for her daughter.   But she was also determined.  In faith, we need to be determined.  But we need to be determined for the right reason.  In other words, sometimes we only get "religious" when we need God for something:  We want to get hired for a new job.  We need a favour of some sort.  We need guidance to get our of a jam.   Now there is nothing wrong with going to Our Heavenly Father when we need His assistance.  What is wrong, though, is when we ONLY go to Him when we need something and forget about Him the rest of the time.  A lot of people only go to God when they get into a jam or when they need something.  They suddenly get real "religious" when they are in need but the rest of the time they act as if there is no God.  Our Lord came to offer us Salvation.  He came to die on the Cross for us.  But He also spent some thirty-three years on this earth being a human being like you and I.  He knows what it is like to walk in your shoes.  He knows what it is like to laugh and to cry.  He knows what it is like to work and to rest. He knows what it is like to walk in your shoes as a human being.  As such, we can go to Him on a daily basis and we should go to Him on a daily basis.  Do not just go to God when you are in need of something.  Go to God every day with your concerns, your joys, your sorrows, your everything.

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!

First Sunday in Lent, March 9th, 2025

 First Sunday in Lent, March 9th, 2025

Have you ever worked on a project and after you put all that time and effort into it, everything fell apart anyway.  And you throw your hands up in the air and say, "That was a total waste of time."  Or perhaps you put a lot of time and effort and expense into buying something for a child or a loved one and you discover that the item goes unused just sitting on a shelf or in a closet.  Again, don't you feel like your efforts and money you spent were totally wasted?  Why did I spend all that money, you ask yourself.  Why did I go through all that?   We get frustrated when we feel that our efforts are in vain or go to waste.

In II Corinthians 6:1 we hear:  "WE then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain"  In other words, St. Paul is reminding each one of us that we should not let Our Lord's efforts for be nothing.  God sent His Son into the world to save us from our sins and despite His efforts so many throughout the world still ignore Him.  So many souls throughout time would rather follow the world than to follow Our Lord.  St. Paul is reminding all of us not to let Christ's saving actions to be in vain.  Christ died on the Cross to save you from your sins.  Give your heart to Him.  Follow Him.  Don't let His efforts go for naught.  Our Lord spilled His Precious Blood for you in the hopes that you would spend eternity with Him.  Don't let the spilling of His Blood be for nothing.  The world has nothing to offer you other than pain and sorrow.  The joys of this world are fleeting at best.  But what God offers to His children lasts for eternity.  Give your heart to God.  Spend these upcoming weeks before Easter dedicating your life to Him.  Give your life to Him Who gave His life for you.

(NOTE:  Remember to set your clocks ahead one hour tonight due to Daylight Savings Time)

Join us at 10:30 AM on Sundays at St. Margaret church.  We worship at the beautiful chapel at Marquette Manor, located at 8140 N. Township Line Road on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. 

Please consider joining us for Mass.  Come hear the Word of God found in the King James Version of the Bible and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  Consider setting aside an hour of your week where you can dedicate that time solely to God.  Come hear the Word of God.  Listen to God speaking to you directly and hear what He has to say for YOU!  Receive the Precious Body and Blood at Communion time to be strengthened and nourished for your journey!