EASTER SUNDAY
He is Risen! Alleluia!! Truly He is Risen!!!
Liturgy of the Hours
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MEET OUR SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR
MONSIGNOR BENJAMIN FRANZINELLI INVESTED INTO THE ECCLESIASTICAL ORDER OF KNIGHTHOOD OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH'S PRESTIGIOUS SOCIETY OF THE EQUESTRIAN ORDER OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
Monsignor
Benjamin Joseph Franzinelli
Ordained
to the Holy Priesthood
Vigil of Pentecost,
May 31, 1952 - May 31, 2006. Congratulations
Father! 54 Years!
If
you would like to send Monsignor Franzinelli a greeting, please e-mail:
b.franzinelli@att.net
MAY THE SPIRIT OF GOD'S LOVE REIGN IN YOUR LIFE
"The most precious gift I have to share with you is the Eucharist at Christmas and as often as I am able throughout the year"
Monsignor "Father" Ben
HOMILIES 2007
ARCHIVES
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Aug-Dec 2001
May-Jul 2001 ||
Mar-Apr 2001 || Jan-Feb
01 || Nov-Dec 2000
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Homilies 2002
|| May 2004 Homilies || Homilies 2005 || Mar-May 2006 Homilies || || Aug-Oct 2006 Homilies ||
|| Nov and Dec 2006 Homilies ||
HOMILY, SECOND SUNDAY in LENT
March 3, 2007
Sunday's Gospel tells the story about the Transfiguration. In his Gospel Luke gives the reason why Jesus "went up the mountain" that day: He went up "to pray." It was prayer that made his raiment "white as snow" and his countenance "like the sun." Prayer takes up Christ's whole life and prayer tells us about the identity of his person. Jesus is also a man and it is as a man that he prays.
It is precisely Jesus' prayer that allows us to consider the mystery of his person. It is a historical fact that in prayer Jesus turns to God calling him "Abba," that is, dear father, my father, papa. This way of addressing God, although not unknown before Jesus' time, is so characteristic of Jesus that we are obliged to see it as evidence of a special relationship with the heavenly Father. Listen to this prayer of Jesus reported by Matthew (Matthew 11:26-27).
"At that time Jesus said, 'I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to mere children. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" there is, as we see,"a close, familiar relationship between Father and Son His own disciples did not understand this and continued to dream of a destiny of glory and power. Jesus replies were, "I did not come to be served," he said, "but to serve." He did not come to take anyone's life away, but rather "to give his life in ransom for many."
In the Transfiguration of Jesus, His Divinity shines through His Humanity. When we receive the Eucharist, believing that we are really and truly receiving the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, that reality can shine through our humanity.
We cannot see the resemblance with our bodily eyes. No matter. We do share His Life with the promise of Resurrection. The resemblance of holiness can transfigure our own appearance.
Whatever we do either brings out the Divine looks or clouds that identity, and at times, serious sin obscures it completely. In our journey through life, more often than not, our human weaknesses, our sins, hide that dignity.
Using the Holy Sacraments of His Church, especially confession and Eucharist, Jesus Christ wants to renew His Shining Image in us and pray as Christ asked you to Pray, calling God your Father. Pray patiently with the confidence. Appreciate the Eucharist, the Holy Mass and God’s forgiveness.
The episode of the Transfiguration is a mystery "for us,". However, in the second reading, St. Paul says: "The Lord Jesus will transfigure our miserable body, conforming it to his glorious body. The experience of Mount Tabor is an open window on our future; it assures us that the capacity, opacity of our body will one day be transformed into light. But Tabor also tells us something about the present. What our body already is, beneath its miserable appearance, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
For the Bible, the body is an essential to human beings. Man does not have a body; he is a body. The body was created directly by God through His Natural Law, and is made holy, sanctified, by the God, the Holy Spirit, in baptism. The specialness of the human body is described in the Bible: "You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me" (Psalm 139). The body is destined to share the same glory in eternity as the soul.
Christianity preaches the salvation of the body, not salvation from the body, "He will transfigure our miserable body, conforming it to his glorious body." Bodies humiliated by sickness and death will be ransomed. Even Jesus will be disfigured in the passion, but will rise with a glorious body with which he will live for eternity and, faith tells us, with which he will meet us after death.
HOMILY, FIRST SUNDAY in LENT
February 25, 2007
As we come together to celebrate our first Sunday of Lent we are reminded how personally frail and weak we are in the face of terrible temptations. The 1st reading today reminded the Jews that but for the mercies of God where would they be. We should be grateful for God’s help for choosing us to come together to pray. To thank GOD and give Him Praise. That is EXACTLY what Jesus did right after His Baptism in the Jordan River. Jesus Prayed in the desert to be strengthened to overcome the temptations. We, too, are prone to face temptations from the evil spirit called Satan. Without prayer in our own time especially when we are tired and struggling, the fall to sin is inevitable. The second reading from St. Paul offers hope - whatever it may have been, don’t lose heart; God has offered you forgiveness of your sins and promises mercy, compassion and loving kindness. Go to confession, pray. Believe and Trust in God.
It is true the Gospel tells the truth that Jesus suffered temptations. How else could He have taughht us how to overcome our own temptations. Jesus suffered not only those temptations in the desert but throughout His life on earth. You are not alone to face our own temptations. Prayer is your weapon, Our Lord is there to help you just as His Father was there to help Him to overcome the Spirit of Evil. His mother was there also with her prayers. See the tremendous importance of prayer. Remember Our Lord prayed He went into the desert to pray for forty days. His was a habit and life of prayer. His Mother taught him to pray and to pray often. Just as she does now for us in all of her apparitions especially her messages from the seers of Medjugorje.
How do I compare the temptations of Jesus in the desert to my own human experiences. He was very hungry, 40 days.
The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'" He teaches us...No matter how much my body craves be it food, the lust of sensual desire, or your self pride for so called human rights for comfort and pleasure. Ask this of yourself, Am I asking God to do the impossible or against nature and unnatural for me. Another temptation is. Power and idolatry. "I shall give to you all this power and their glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me." Jesus said to him in reply, "It is written: 'You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve. For us is the attraction for money power, a personal god, and material wealth: worship neither money, nor your home , your car, any of your possessions, nor any human person, woman, man or child or whatever, no matter what could be promised you. Refrain from the expressions ,“I adore you” or “I’d give anything.
The next temptation was thinking that your indestructible, presuming: taking irresponsible risks to test your luck or fate or to test God. Jesus said to the tempter, 'You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. Of all temptations, the one temptation that cover most is the temptation that you do not need to pray, and that you don’t need to go to Church On Sunday and realize that God exists, and set before us a way to live and fulfill His Plan, to do His Will. We are not our own we belong to Him. In short Obedience to the Will of God, and Pray.