Will He find Faith on Earth?

Of course, the readings of this Sunday reveal a beautiful truth about spiritual life.

Faith endures only when it is rooted in prayer, sustained by grace,

and strengthened by support of the community, of others.

People often lose faith. People often say to me, to other priests,

my faith is not strong anymore. It used to be stronger.

I am losing my faith. What can I do to believe in God again?

I don't believe in the Eucharist.

Jesus asked the crucial question at the end of the gospel today,

when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

And one would say, why would he say that? There is 1.3 billion Catholics throughout

the world, and I don't know how many Christians in general and people of different

faiths believing in a God.

And yet Jesus asks, will the Son of Man find faith on her when he comes back?

So each element is essential, and I think that's what I want to focus on in this homily.

If you want to sustain and preserve your faith, what is there that you need

to do, the minimum, in order to preserve it?

Because if you remove one of those elements, your faith will begin to falter.

Together, they form a structure that allows a Christian to stand firm in times

of trial, but also in times of prosperity when we should take even more pleasure in prayer.

Of course, pleasure in prayer is not our goal, but it's always nice when you

go and pray with just kind of excited mind and excited heart rather than just

dragging your feet to the chapel

or to the church like maybe you feel or have felt most of your life.

But if you endure, God will reward you.

So in the book of Exodus today, we have Moses in prayer, right? He's raising his hands.

Remember, he's the leader of the people, just like a priest is at mass,

right? He is in the audience position.

We kind of clarified that recently.

The same way Moses is praying, he's the leader of the people.

And as long as he's praying, Israel is winning, as long as his hands are up

in the audience position. But when his hands grow weary, the people began to falter.

Which is a great image of the connection between the leader of the prayer or

the one like let's say moses would be like a father of a household the father

of a household has no prayer life,

how will his children and the wife and the whole community that they create

in a house be strong in faith if he is the spiritual head of the family right

you should look up to him and say like, okay,

where are you going to lead us, father, husband?

Where are you leading us? And, you know, especially if someone is struggling

with addictions or just all kinds of things, where are you leading us?

Moses felt that pressure too, of course, because he felt inadequate,

as we all do, to carry out the responsibility.

You know, marriage and family is huge.

To take responsibility for your children and your family and you see them every

day. You cannot just say like, okay, see ya, you know.

Sometimes maybe you want to, but marriage is marriage. You have to come back

and then face the reality again. And that's what makes you a saint. It's supposed to.

So the image captures the reality of every believer's life. Prayer is not optional.

It is the lifeline of faith. Think of patients. You know, I've been to intensive

care several times as a priest when someone would call me and say,

like, Father, we are going to unplug.

Father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, unplug.

Right? That is always a very dramatic moment. I never feel, it never feels all comfortable.

It never feels like, okay, well, let's do it.

It's always a very dramatic moment when everybody's kind of quiet,

everybody's awkwardly, like, you know, the doctors and the nurses will be reading,

like, what the procedure is. and

is like, what do we, like, this is just strange. And yet it's happening.

And so if you take someone out of ventilator to breathe, if you turn it off or unplug, it's over.

The patient dies.

Like a phone without a charger. We often try to accomplish things without prayer

or support, and we are just kind of like suffocating in life.

We're looking dramatically and quickly for something to sustain us that is not God, right?

Sometimes I've told you that before, people come to me as the last resort,

or the last of the last of the last.

Let's go and ask the priest, and the priest will say like, well, go and pray, right?

Well I could have done it before yeah you could have but you didn't so here

I am telling you the obvious,

don't suffocate in your spirit without prayer the soul weakens you know the

body is strong today I see so much of this,

there was an article yesterday about this young nun she was kind of you know

objectively let's say pretty and someone and she was a nun a girl was a nun

already in a habit and someone came up to her once And he said this,

look how quickly we can kill the spirit of God.

Someone said to her, you are too pretty to be a nun.

And she took it to the heart so much that she left the convent.

And now she spends her life teaching yoga in like super, I don't know.

This kind of confused life in a very tiny bikini on a beach.

And then the picture was the nun in a habit.

Like you could see this kind of innocence in her and beauty in this.

Not the physical, but just kind of like in her eyes. And then you see this person

that she turned into because someone said, you're too beautiful.

And so she believed she was too beautiful to serve God. Can you imagine?

Do you remember a person from the scriptures who said that before,

who was too beautiful to serve God?

That's the story of Lucifer. He thought of himself too great and too beautiful

and too powerful to serve us, human beings, and you know how we are.

So Jesus repeats the same lesson in the gospel.

There is persistence that the widow has, and she never stops asking.

She's like we would say a person of prayer and her perseverance in prayer moves

even the unjust judge who is angry.

But he says like, if I don't do it, she'll strike me.

Imagine a parent who never gives up on a child, sometimes to the fault.

Whether a child is in great sickness or the child is in great danger of dying

or a child is in prison or rebellious one, the mother or the father will always

kind of be resistant to say,

yeah, my child is at fault here, or I will leave my child.

Especially if a child is sick, a parent will do everything it takes,

move the mountains and seas to help the child.

That's perseverance. Think of a soldier at war who will not give up on his brother's soldiers.

One of the greatest serious, if not the greatest, I don't know,

that's debatable between us if you want to, but is of course the band of brothers.

I think, you know, most of men at my age, at least probably have seen it.

It's just a great image of brotherhood in the army.

And you see so much. If one of them falters and has a crisis,

everybody's concerned.

If one is shot or killed, injured, everybody's affected.

That's how it is in community.

You know, I was watching recently, and it's hard for me to say it,

but it is the reality, unfortunately.

I was watching recently this movie made in poland about the life of hooligans.

And you know i was in a sense part of that environment for a short period of

time so i kind of knew and it was amazing as i was watching this very brutal

movie i felt like i was literally taken back 20 some years to the same environment

the way they spoke the way they behaved the way they did.

But one thing that was attractive about being with them was what?

One for all and all for one.

Do you know that there have been times in my priesthood where I wonder,

where is another priest to feel that way?

Do you know that that's how it is sometimes in our faith? Where is another Catholic

so I can feel that one for all and all for one?

It was literally sometimes among hooligans who had very primitive instincts,

but they had this conviction of one for all and all for one.

And you know why they had it? Because they were less concerned about being nice

and more concerned about just being authentic.

Being themselves. We lack that sometimes and it drives me nuts.

I like authenticity. I would rather see a fold but authentic than putting up

masks because they don't allow

you to form a true relationship with anyone. You're going to need it.

You're going to need brotherhood. You're going to need friends.

That's why we have communities.

And I love when people come to our parish and say, because you have a community,

or we are looking exactly for this kind of community, or we have communities within communities,

and people look for it, those who don't, one day you'll find yourself alone,

you will need brotherhood, you will need friends, but you will not have made

effort to do it, and you will need it.

So much God responds to all of us when we pray consistently.

When we have no friends, no brothers, no one to support us, we go to the Lord

and He will reward us. He will give what we need.

Second thing is to be sustained by God's help, right? It's the grace of God.

Perseverance is not something we achieve by willpower. Perseverance in prayer. It is a grace.

God sustains the believer in ways often unseen, guarding, strengthening,

providing interior peace when we when the world brings turmoil,

you know when we stay close to Jesus we are like this piece of wood thrown in

a fire the weather has been great recently,

chilly evenings and you can have a nice fireplace outside just imagine you put

a piece of wood in the fire and as long as it's in there it's red it's beautiful

burning you take it out and it turns black.

We are tried like gold in fire sometimes, but with prayer we persevere because we are with Jesus.

We are full of life, even though we might be going through difficulties,

because at the end we can say what? At least I have him.

At least I have him. But if you don't have him, what do you have?

So where do we seek that grace to persevere of prayer?

Well, we seek it in the scriptures, of course, because every time we open the Bible, God speaks to us.

We seek it even more in the Eucharist, especially Eucharistic adoration,

prayer, but also at home in any time of prayer when we shut everything down

and we are in silence with God and we listen to ourselves, we listen to our

needs, and we listen to our desires.

Eucharist, of course, is the highest expression of divine help because God not

only becomes our food for the journey, if we receive communion,

but also is his own presence.

It's like the presence of a best friend that you feel next to you,

whether at war, whether in turmoil, whether in your own struggle.

And so the last thing is we need to be strengthened by community.

Perseverance and divine help are meant to be lived out in community.

When Moses was losing strength in his arms you know what happened Aaron and

Hur came up and they kind of lifted his hands that happened to me here when I was doing procession,

Eucharistic our monstrance is very heavy and I'm like okay somebody needs to

lift my hands otherwise I'm just going to drop Jesus,

that's how heavy it is,

but Christianity by the way if you didn't know it is never an isolated island, it is always communal.

When one person grows tired, another prays, visits, listens,

or simply stands beside them.

And I know this is happening in our parish community. So many people helped

by others when they're in crisis, including me, this last seven weeks.

And I know people step up and very willing to help, but if you're not plugged

in, like I said in the beginning, if you're not plugged in, but just a visitor

kind of swinging by, you are here, but you really just kind of show up and go.

You can do that, but remember, you're not really plugged in yet.

One day you may need the support of the community, and it's good to engage with it.

We all need somebody's shoulder. if you're

struggling with an addiction if you're struggling with pornography for

example that's a good example actually it's a bad example but a good example

who's going to challenge you if no one knows who's going to sometimes you know

what's needed is an accountability partner which would be your best friend who

may be struggling with the same thing but if the two of you know you talk to each other.

I have these temptations.

I have these thoughts.

Okay, man, knock it out. Talk to me. Call me.

It changes everything. But if you by yourself, the devil will take you apart like a toy.

And it will break you like a toy. Without community, we can do nothing.

This is how God's help reaches us through the hands and hearts of others.

This is why the parish exists.

Parish exists not just as a building

for Sunday worship, but as a living community of prayer and support.

The parish is where faith is shared, where burdens are carried together,

where children and elders learn to pray side by side, and where the sacraments flow into daily life.

A parish that prays together becomes a family that endures together.

That's why as a family that prays together, stays together, a parish needs to pray together.

If we don't pray together, let's lock this door, take out Jesus from this tabernacle and go home.

Those who treat the parish merely as weekly stop, attending Mass but never entering

its life, may one day find themselves without the strength that community provides.

Don't be that person. Especially, I know some of you may not even have Catholic

friends outside of this church.

And if you don't have friends in this church, you don't have Catholic friends

outside, who's going to challenge you to believe in the Eucharist?

Non-Catholics will not. Who's going to challenge you to pray every day,

open the Scriptures, pray the Rosary,

change your life be a better father be a better husband be a better friend be

a better employee who's going to challenge you if no one knows how to pray as a catholic,

seek friends you one day you will need them faith cannot survive long in isolation

it it needs the warmth of belonging just like the band of brothers when you

feel you belong if you skip sunday mass you don't just feel like, okay,

well, I mean, I gained one hour, right?

Because I skipped Sunday Mass or I gained two hours.

But if you have community, you will want to be there, not only for God, but the people.

And that's the whole point. We are in it together.

Every parish should be a place where these three forces meet,

prayer, divine grace, and community.

In the Eucharist, we receive the grace that sustains us. In adoration, we learn the silence.

And in fellowship, we discover that we are not alone, that others are walking

the same journey of faith, and that helps.

Faith is not a sprint, it is a pilgrimage, and slow.

To persevere and not lose faith, we need the discipline of prayer,

the strength of God's grace, and the embrace of community.

When all three come together, the Church becomes what she is meant to be,

a people who can withstand any storm because their faith and their help is from the Lord.