Christ at the Center

July 11, 2021 -Summoned and Sent by the Lord to Sanctify

"Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two..." (Mark 6:7). We profess that we believe in "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" (Nicene Creed). The Church is apostolic because she was founded by the Lord Jesus, who entrusted His message and mission to His Apostles. The Apostles, along with their successors, the bishops, are responsible for ensuring that the Church is faithful to what Jesus handed on. The Church is also apostolic because the Sacrament of Baptism empowers every member of the Church to be witnesses to the Gospel. We are summoned and sent by the Lord to sanctify. What does this mean in the concrete circumstances of our lives?

June 27, 2021- The Road to Recovery

Holy Family Parish is observing our 145^th anniversary. We have been striving to be faithful to our mission to proclaim the Gospel of Christ and build His Church in our part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. This includes the challenging experience of this pandemic. Time allows us to reflect on the healing of a woman who had been afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. After hearing about Jesus and learning that He was near her, she courageously engaged in practicing her faith. She worked through the crowd, encountered the Lord, experienced healing, and left with the confident expectation that her recovery would be complete. Holy Family Parish had experienced growth in the last five years. Then the pandemic came. With the Lord Jesus Christ remaining at the center of parish life, we can confidently expect that we are on the road to recovery.

June13, 2021 - Growing in Faith Takes Patience

It takes time for plants or crops to grow. Our Lord Jesus Christ uses two parables to encourage His disciples to trust in God's timing. The Kingdom of God has grown from a declaration by the Lord (cf. Mark 1:15), to the proclamation of the Gospel, the building of the Church by making of disciples of every nation who are professing and practicing the faith. The same growth in faith can happen in our individual circumstances. However. it takes trust in God and patience as the process unfolds.

May 9, 2021 - The Will to Love as Christ Loves

After extending Mother’s Day greetings, Father Harris begins part 5 of his Easter season homily series, “Arise: Experiencing Life in Christ.” Love can refer to the bonds between friends, family members, and romantic couples. However, the love in which Christ speaks about in the Gospel reading is a sacrificial love which promotes the good of the other for the sake of the other as God defines what is good. This is the love that God shows us. It influences how we are to love in every respect, including those who set themselves in opposition to us. To act in love is an act of the will. Holy Baptism identifies us with Christ and how He is saving us. Therefore, to love as Christ loves includes helping people to die to sin and to live to glorify God in their lives.

May 2, 2021 -The Fulfillment of A Fruitful Christian Life

Part 4 of Father Harris' Easter season homily series, “Arise: Experiencing Life in Christ.” The context of the Gospel reading is “The Last Supper” (cf. John 15:1-8). The Lord Jesus is about to suffer His passion and death. However, He would rise again on the third day. The first Christian generation did not understand what resurrection meant. After they encountered the Risen Lord, they remembered what He said before with a new perspective. To arise with hope in Christ is to trust in the fulfillment of His promises in light of His resurrection. If the Lord Jesus fulfilled His promise to rise from the dead, He will fulfill every promise, which includes experiencing the fulfillment of a fruitful Christian life.

April 25, 2021 - Let the Lord Jesus Lead the Way

Part 3 of Father Harris' Easter season homily series, “Arise: Experiencing Life in Christ.” Our baptism into Christ is an ongoing reality. We continue to receive the divine gifts of faith, hope, and love. The virtue of faith was the subject for the Second and Third Sundays of Easter; hope, for the next two Sundays. Faith enables us to believe in God, and what He has  revealed through His Church because God is truth. Hope enables us to trust that God will fulfill His promises as we cooperate with His providence. We continue to arise with hope because of the promises that God has already fulfilled. Let the Lord Jesus lead the way through our journey of life in preparation for the life to come.

April 18, 2021 - Christ Has Confience in the Power of our Witness

Part 2 of Father Harris' Easter season homily series, “Arise: Experiencing Life in Christ.” In the Gospel Reading, the disciples went from confidently declaring that the Lord is risen to becoming terrified when the Risen Lord appeared to them. But theyhad a joy that they could not contain when they realized that it was the Risen Lord and heard His message. Through our successes and stumbles on the journey of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ has confidence in the power of our witness. We must never discount it. Christ does not. He is depending on it for the salvation of souls.

April 11, 2021 - God Will Do What He Has Promised

Part 1 of Father Harris' Easter season homily series, “Arise: Experiencing Life in Christ.” Believing in the Risen Lord raises our expectations about what Jesus Christ can accomplish within us as we cooperate with Him. When we arise with faith in God, we trust that God will do what He has promised. We can cooperate with the Risen Lord by practicing the virtues of faith, hope, and love. God gave them to us through Holy Baptism. When we arise with faith in God, we trust in what God can do for Himself (i.e., rise from the dead), through His Church, and through each disciple. (Note: At one point, Father Harris had to address a major distraction in the church while he was preaching.)

April 4, 2021 - The Risen Lord Raises Our Expectations

When the “Holy Myrhhbearers” came to the tomb on the third day after His death, they expected Him to be dead. Other disciples had the same expectation, even though the Lord had taught otherwise. Easter is a reminder to allow the Risen Lord to raise our expectations about what He can accomplish in our lives with our cooperation.

March 24, 2021: Rejoice in Receiving the Remedy of God

Nicodemus believed that the signs that Jesus had performed showed that Jesus had come from  God (cf. John 3:2). In the incarnation of Jesus, the only Son of God, God provides the remedy for our wounds of sin and death. The great sign that He will show is the offering of Himself being "lifted up" in His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension (cf. John 3:14-16). After Nicodemus sees Jesus lifted up in His crucifixion, he responds in love, living according to the truth (cf. John 19:38-42; John 3:21a)). Nicodemus put his faith to work. It was "clearly seen as done in God" (John 3:21b).