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Fr. Coutts’ Homilies - We are blessed to have Fr. Michael Coutts (Toronto Canada) homilies on-line:
Michael Coutts S.J. is a Jesuit of the English speaking Canada Province. He is
the eldest of seven sons. Michael began his early Jesuit training in India. He was then posted to Guyana, South America in 1969. He worked there till 1985
except for 1970-73 when he studied theology at University of London, England. Most of his priestly life has been in parishes - in Canada, he has worked in Georgetown, Chepstow and Thunder Bay. From 1991 - 1998,
Michael worked at the Martyrs' Shrine, Midland. Ont. Since then, he has been working in parishes, while stationed at the Manresa Retreat House, Pickering
Ont. Now he is full time in Parish Ministry again, at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, in Toronto. Michael's mother lives in Toronto, his dad died in March, 2001 at the age of 94 year.
For a sample video, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyNejPf24es
NOTE: "These homilies were not written for publication - but for preaching: Do not look out
for a polished style or scriptural quotations or references. It is meant for a local Canadian parish and consequently it will have references to the local situation - not general or
abstract context. It is meant to get people to know the Kingdom of God and come closer to God. Please read it in that context."
To print the readings, you may go to a link off The Word Among Us (Daily Reflections on Daily Readings from Mass).
- Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time - And yet in our Gospel acclamation we sang, “the people who lived in darkness have seen
a great light” It sounds familiar, because we used these words of Isaiah during Advent – at the dawning of a new day, new age, new era, - the Kingdom of God.
- Third Sunday In Ordinary Time - The call from God may come suddenly, as Jesus called Peter and Andrew, James and John. It
might come out of the blue as it came to Jonah. But God waits patiently for an answer. God is not in a hurry. Like Mary, we must ponder things in our hearts. We can ask and we should ask
questions. We must discern, we can make mistakes like Samuel, but when we are sure that the call is from God, then as a charismatic tune is sung, we should sing, “I surrender all”. God
bless you.
- Mary Solemnity - Jesus was both God and man. Since Jesus was truly the Son of Mary, she could truly be called the Mother of
God. The blessing we have on this feast day is the gift of Mary, the Mother of God. She is given to be our mother too.
- Christmas Day - And so on this Holy Night, we are deeply grateful and give glory to God that there was No Room In The Inn.
- Christmas Eve - Midnight Mass - On this Christmas Day, God is coming to set things in Order. Peace and Harmony will reign in the
Chaos and Confusion. May the Peace of the Little Child born in a Manger, be a source of harmony and joy to each and every one of you.
- Advent Examen - The Ignatian Examen is a spiritual treasure that
has helped countless people become more aware of God’s presence in their daily lives. The Missouri Province of Jesuits has produced podcast reflections for you to prepare during the season of Advent for Christ’s birth.
- Fourth Sunday of Advent -
In this last week before Christmas, we are challenged with the same generosity and openness of Mary,
to make both time and space for the Lord of all human beings. We are challenged to a period of quiet to listen to what God is asking of us.
- Third Sunday of Advent - And so as we celebrate this fragile season of Advent, and I am faced with the question Who is he? -
I look at myself and see. Where am I lame when I should walk? Where am I blind that I should see? Where am I a prisoner, that I
should be set free?
- Second Sunday of Advent - We often sing that song: “let us build a City of God” – a theologian of repute has said that statement is
inaccurate. We cannot not build a City of God. God does all the work. We can help by keeping an open mind and heart.
- First Sunday of Advent - The angels will rejoice when you get there – but do not be in a hurry to depart from here. It is with this
spirit of gratitude we enter the fragile season of Advent. It is with joy and hope we celebrate this fragile season of Advent. We might suppress the Alleluias in Lent, but we sing it with joy in this fragile
season of Advent. God bless you all.
- Christ The King - Those that belong to the Sheepfold will be God’s agents in caring for the hungry, the thirsty, those in prison, those
who are sick. Now we can truly say in the response at the time of the Preface of the Mass, “It is truly right and just.” May Your Kingdom Come. May Your Will be Done.
- 33rd Sunday - The Master says, “My ways are not your ways.”
God can always achieve success. God did not ask you to succeed. God asks you to use your talent. Sometimes when we fail, when we blunder, God’s will is still done. Peter and Judas – both failed. One
denied, the other betrayed. One came back with faith in God’s loving kindness. The other believed he was beyond redemption.
- 32nd Sunday - Temptation does not consist in leading men to do
extravagantly wicked and deplorable sins. Screwtape is interested in saying that "the safest path to hell is the gradual one." He sees a
demon's primary goal to befuddle, confuse, and eventually corrupt a person rather than to tempt him to sin. “Do not get discouraged about sin, we are human after all.” You can always repent
tomorrow.
- 31st Sunday - These are more difficulty to explain in our Catholic church with its whole hierarchical structure. The lowest level of the
totem pole is called “father”. How does one deal with titles like Monsignor, Your Grace, Your lordship, your Holiness?
- 30th Sunday - You could do a lot of good and you could help your neighbour, but if you really wanted to love your neighbour without
any conditions, without any “buts” or “ifs” – then you really had to love God as well.
- 28th Sunday - God is showing us the way. God is inviting us. However, with our limited vision, we think that what we are doing is more important one to his farm, another to his business. And so as one preacher was famous for saying: “if you are not ready, you will miss getting on the Bus of Salvation.”
- 27th Sunday - Salvation is freely given. But do not presume upon it. False prophets think they have already attained salvation. It is
yet to come! Salvation is a gift not to be snatched at as if it were a right. Receive it with a grateful heart!
- 26th Sunday - In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his listeners, this
will no longer be the case. Salvation is universal, Salvation is for all. But since the Jewish Community rejected it, the Gentiles would benefit. They would receive this salvation.
- 25th Sunday - But as Isaiah tells us in our first reading, “God’s
thoughts are not our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways.” The beauty of this situation is that if we work things the way God does, if our generosity goes beyond what is expected, if those who
have, shared with those who have not, even when they do not deserve it.
- 24th Sunday - There are some interesting things to notice about today’s gospel. You will not find it in the other 3 Gospels. It is unique to Matthew. The opening verse is discordant with the
parable. The parable is not about forgiving repeatedly. It about a “refusal to show mercy on the part of One who has just seen and experienced mercy.” It is a parable that fits in with the long
discourse just given by Jesus to the community.
- 23rd Sunday - We live in a society where if a gadget does not
work, we throw it out and replace it with a new one. John Paul II has said that each individual is a unique, irreplaceable, unrepeatable image of God. As a result we have to take the time
and effort to dead with each member of our church in a unique and original and loving manner.
- 22nd Sunday - The Church needs to be vigilant. The church needs to
be more generous. The Church members will not be vindicated so much as evaluated as to whether they did pick up the cross daily and
follow Jesus. Will the final judgment be: “Get behind me Satan”? - or “Well done good and faithful servant?”
- 21st Sunday - When we recite the Nicene Creed, we say, “I believe in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Our Gospel Story today is precisely everything we say in that article of
the Creed. May our Act of faith be inspired as the one made by Peter. May it be confirmed by the Gift of the Spirit.
- 20th Sunday - Jesus is “beaten” by the Canaanite woman. The barriers he puts up are demolished by her faith.
- 19th Sunday - The Church is the boat in which all will be saved.
There will be persecutions represented by the storms. But Jesus is there to rescue them from their difficulties. They have to leave the safety of the boat. They have to leave their comfort zone. They
have to walk on the waters. This is possible for Peter. This is possible for all of us, as long as we put our hands in the hand of the Man from Galilee.
- 17th Sunday - We are called to use the Wisdom of Solomon to
know where and how the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price is in our life. We are called to use the Wisdom found in St. Paul to understand the fleeting nature of all things. We are called to
set our minds and hearts on the glorious destiny that is prepared for us who are loved by God.
- 15th Sunday - Jesus is speaking of a harvest of the Kingdom of God. Here everyone is included, every one is invited. It is the Will
of the Lord of the Harvest that every one should be saved. In the circle of life in the Kingdom of God, there is suffering and the cross but the certainty of eternal life. The Gift of Eternal life is always
there. It is our choice to accept or reject this gift.
- 14th Sunday - These were teaching given by Jesus at different times. Matthew joins them together as treasure trinkets on one
chain. However the more we pray and meditate on them, the closer we come to the true image of God. We come closer to know the mind and heart of Jesus Christ...
- Corpus Christi - In true Jesuit tradition, I would like to share with your three points:
- Food for the Journey
- Food for Companionship
- Food for Life.
- Sixth Sunday of Easter - We are approaching two great events, the feast of the Ascension and the Pentecost: the descent of the Holy Spirit. We have early signs of these two great feasts.
- Fifth Sunday of Easter - As we celebrate this Easter Season, and as we approach Pentecost, let us ask the Holy Spirit to give us
the Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom to know the Father – and to proclaim the Father’s love which Jesus announced as he took flesh and dwelt among us.
- Third Sunday of Easter - The Road to Emmaus is a story of the life of any Christian in this journey on earth It so rich in details to
cover the regular circle we encounter in life: Romance, Disillusionment and Joy. This cycle occurs regularly in our life story – and sometimes it can take place in a single day!
- Second Sunday of Easter - Faith is a gift and it will come as long as we are open to receive it. This gift comes through listening to the
Word of God as proclaimed by the Apostle. This brings us back a full circle to the very first line of the first reading: “The believers gathered to hear the Word of God.”
- Easter Sunday - Easter is all around us for us to see. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning referring to Moses and the Burning bush would say: Earth is crammed with heaven. Every bush afire with God. Those who see, remove their shoes. The rest sit around plucking
blackberries. We are called to bask in the light of the risen Lord, not to sit around and pluck at shadows.
- Palm Sunday - 2011 - Millions of people can survive if they do not
have cell -phones, but not one can survive without Water. The Passion and Death of Jesus continues as long as one dying child, one dying person says: I thirst.
- 5th Sunday of Lent - The raising of Lazarus bring to a climax the
ministry of Jesus. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the cleansing of the temple and the fact that Jesus acclaimed God as his Father was the final act that pushed the Pharisees to seek the death of Jesus.
- 4th Sunday of Lent - How many of us prefer to See nothing. Hear
nothing. Speak nothing. It demands less of us. It is less challenging. But Jesus invites us to have our eyes open and see the beauty to which have been called.
- 3rd Sunday of Lent - Jesus IS bound by the deepest of our human
desires: desire to be loved, to be accepted, to be respected, to be treated with dignity, not to be judged and condemned.
- 2nd Sunday of Lent - For us, it is a sign of things to come. Jesus
would say to Thomas, “Blessed are they who have not seen but yet believed.” The transfiguration for us is what we can hope for as we answer a God who has been calling us from before all time.
- First Sunday of Lent - We end up with a choice. We can be like the first Adam and disobey and choose death. Or, we can be like
the Second Adam, obey, pick up our cross daily and choose Life.
- Ninth Sunday - You do not even have to ask them to do these things. They look, they observe and they just put their backs to it
and get it done. These are the silent but reliable machines that cause the government, the church and our neighbourhoods to work smoothly. Their own families are a place of comfort and joy.
- Eighth Sunday - Our song should be: Don’t worry, be happy. God will take care of our basic needs. God will take care of our food, clothing and shelter. If God does this for the birds of the air and
lilies of the field, - how much more will God do it for us.
- Seventh Sunday - If we are not vengeful, if we are forgiving, if we
are generous, we will find that loving, being kind, caring comes very easily. The net result is that we become more and more God-like, we are on the road to perfection, we are at the junction of holiness.
- Sixth Sunday - He was honest enough to realise that he was human and he would fail. So how do we do good and choose life as
Sirach tell us, - when we know that we are frail, we are human we will fail, we will sin again?
- Baptism of our Lord - It is easy to be good, to do penance, to repent of our sins at the high seasons in the church: Advent,
Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. However it is in the Ordinary time that we live and grow and have our being in God – in Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Feast of Holy Family - Joseph stands for self sacrifice. He constantly put the Child and the mother (Mary) first. He got out of his own traditional comfort zone. Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph pray for us.
- Christmas Day - “Today is born for a Saviour – He is Christ the
Lord.” Or to use the more version : “Go tell it on the Mountains that Jesus Christ is born”. “We are blessed” - May that be truly said of
us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed in Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”, God bless Us, Every One!
- Advent Week 4 - When the angels return to heaven, when the shepherds return to their flock, when the Wise Men return to the
East, that is when the work of salvation will begin! And so we say: Maran-tha! Come Lord Jesus.
- Advent Week 3 - Are we willing to pay the price like the Magi? They were willing to follow the Star no matter how hopeless, no
matter how far! Or perhaps we are like the Richman who went away sad, because he was not willing to sell all and follow Jesus. O Come divine Messiah, the world in silence waits the day… When
hope shall sing is triumph and sadness flees away!
- Advent Week 2 - John is calling on us to pay the price. WE can be like the wise men in the Gospel who followed the Star. They braved the unknown, they lived with sand-flies and sand in their
clothes. But eventually they found Jesus. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. What is it going to cost you to be open to Christ?
- Advent Week 1 - Jesus warns us not to go after these false prophets. He will send us the Holy Spirit who will give us the knowledge and understanding, give us the strength and courage, give
us words to speak, so that we do not have to prepare a defence when we are brought before kings, rulers and judges. Let us enter and rejoice as we go to the house of the Lord.
- Archives 2010
- Archives 2009
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- Archives 2006
- Archives 2005
- Archives 2004 (Easter Sunday through year-end Christ The King)
- Archives 2004 (through Easter Sunday)
- Archives (2003)
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