Fr. John Ehrich Podcast

The way that scripture presents the four disciples in these readings is that, at one encounter, they drop everything in their lives and follow Jesus. At first glance, this act of leaving everything behind seems almost un-virtuous as if they abandoned their families and responsibilities. It seems like to radical of a move without further reflection. On a human level, we can probably glean what really happened - what’s more likely, is that they knew Jesus already, enough to trust him and make a conscious free decision to follow him. They were predisposed to make a commitment to someone who they most likely had grown in trust and relationship. Invitation can be life-changing. When we ourselves don’t always stay committed to the things we want to, such as our faith life and even relationships, we can find ourselves invited in various ways to reconnect and even connect others to these areas of our lives. We cannot predict the ways that these invitations will manifest new and profound interior and exterior movemen

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” We can recall the history behind these scriptural words - the sacrificial lamb at Passover, the suffering servant in Isaiah, and the sacrifice that becomes the Eucharist as Christ’s body and blood. Today, we need to have a deep understanding of who Jesus is - not just academically or theologically, but personally. The modern culture around the church has declined in numbers and fervor mostly because of the rise of an apathetic and unbelieving attitude towards the person of Jesus. This means we are lacking in our personal prayer or effort in seeking time directly with God. How can we bring ourselves to not just do the actions of faith but bring our authentic hearts to prayer? Asking the tough questions, sharing anxieties and all emotions, being open to the reality of who He is. Every time we carry out any ritual in the church, we are invited to connect our deepest, most vulnerable selves to a truly real God. It might take a conscious act of Will

We hear about another manifestation of who Jesus is in today’s readings. We see Jesus being baptized with the entire Trinity being revealed in the voice of God and the appearance of the dove as the presence of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist explains this baptism as an act of repentance. And yet, even though Jesus does not need to repent, He still exemplifies for us the gift and sacrament of baptism; and as salvation history unfolds, He takes responsibility for all acts of repentance. This is a huge bit of truth. God did not enter into our story to just teach, to heal or to model morality. His existed for the sake of forgiveness and reconciliation with God our Father. How can we ourselves be brought back to God in reconciliation? As baptized, transformed and adopted children of God, we can become like Jesus in his mission by forgiving and understanding one another. Everyone has or has been challenged to forgive someone in their life. It is not always easy to do. However when we do not forgive, it can be to

Fr. John Ehrich, STL St. Thomas More Glendale, AZ

In the readings, we hear words like ‘obedience, honor, and subordination.’ One thing we can remember when we hear these terms, especially in the context of family and relationship with God, is that the desire to be obedient comes from a place of respect and love and awe for the other person. Even in the structure of the Holy Trinity, the three persons of God are completely equal, mutually respected and loved among the three. This Trinitarian relationship is meant to be made manifest in our marriages and in our families. Though we may. often forget this love and respect in our everyday lives, it is so important to continually be reminded of the honor that we can hold for each other. It is so important that children are taught obedience for the sake of learning these concepts of love and respect and honor. Subordination is not a synonym for being controlled. Rather, it is rooted in trust and intimate relationships. A husband cherishes his wife, and therefore a wife can trust in the love and respect she can als

Let’s say you were the author of a story. The characters that you created are vast and intimately known by you, their creator. You decide to give your characters free will because that way, they get to choose themselves rather than be controlled. What are you to do as the author brings their attention to you? Would you enter into their story? Maybe you could enter into that story so that you could communicate directly and say, “ I love you, I have created you from the beginning and I have always been with you.” It’s an analogy that we can reflect on as a way to potentially see God's perspective. To clarify, God did not create sin, nor evil, but as a consequence of free will allowed the possibility of evils suffering to be apart of our story. This does not mean we are abandoned. The very opposite is true - God takes responsibility for our own sins. The main point of God entering into Hos creation was for Our redemption. The power of evil is therefore gone. Though we might not feel like evil and suffering has

God does amazing things through the people who say “yes.” Abraham is the one who makes a covenant with God initiates this pattern in scriptures. When finally the angel Gabriel asks of Mary to bear the son of God, she said yes to God's plan even without knowing the full story. Joseph also was asked to accept a difficult truth and to say yes to the idea of raising a foster child. Without knowing the entirety of the situation, these figures in the Bible represent an abiding trust in simply saying yes. And this trust might be interpreted as recognizing that this might be God's initiative, that it could be a beautiful gift in the making. Which is what it truly was for all of humanity. We can never predict what our life will be like. We simply cannot know what will take place through all of our moments of saying yes. While it’s easy to look at other people’s lives and think our lives should be the same, the comparison is not a factor with a God who creates us all so uniquely and with different purposes. Perhaps if

Abraham and Sara wait and are blessed with the fulfilled plan of allowing them to conceive. Even we’ll pass their old age, they desire to conceive and are finally graced with a child. There are many similar storylines in the Bible that share this theme. Conception as a gift from God. Its almost as if God was preparing humanity for the big one. The immaculate conception and the very salvation that would miraculously enter into the world. Emmanuel, God with us. We see in this narration a God who takes responsibility for our sin, who desires to be with us in our suffering as the only way to restore us. It is not only a story that is a mystery to our scientific minds, but to our psyche - that Christ desires to be actually apart of human history by becoming human Himself. He desires to be close, to be with us even in our unfaithfulness. We can look at our lives; times when we have been prosperous and times of victory, but also times of great need for help and healing. This God wants to meet us and for us to trust

Rejoicing. On this caudate Sunday, we hear all about all the blossoming of good things God will do, specifically in the “desert.” The location of the desert is significant because, during the time of John the Baptist and earlier prophets, the desert was seen as a place of barrenness, where the vast dryness of nature resides. Isaiah focuses on the messiah coming to these places of death, vast infertility, blindness, deafness, etc. We hear that He will renew the earth, renew and restore all people and unite us in the redemptive good news. The metaphors of the desert are not just relatable to our own places of emptiness, but a larger symbol for Gods coming into the world and blessing us with abundance, with promises of unending love and beauty. We are not called to live in anticipation of future glory, but to see that He is already renewing all of mankind by virtue of His Grace. Let us live and bask in these graces as often and courageously as we can. 

Confrontations and discouraging instances are no surprise for Jesus. He faced many such encounters. In the time of the gospels, the Pharisees would revel in the chance to point out the ways that others were wrong, unworthy, or not ‘measuring up.’ But notice that Jesus never joins in with that approach, rather He dismisses the Pharisees for it and instead, loves the ones who have been beaten down by life. Rather than condemn and criticize, how can we encourage and build one another up? We should recognize when we might have “Pharisee” moments when our approach might be harsh or without understanding. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” (A quote from Fr. John’s mentor). These unseen battles are very real, whether they are battles of guilt, shame, neglect, abandonment, fear or woundedness. We share in some of these battles whether or not we are aware. And so coming to mass, the welcome and receiving of one another in love can bring about the encouragement and affirmation that we all need

It’s Christmas time! Let the shopping and holiday events begin. As Catholics, this time of year is especially important as a time for preparation on a spiritual level, but we can only do this preparation by actually allowing ourselves to slow down, hearing Gods call to peace. St Paul asks us to not settle for the worldly expectations that constantly surround us, to not be complacent but to be always awaiting the coming of Christ.    Can we take the time to place ourselves in the face of Jesus? What words come to mind? What would it be like? Are we living like He really exists or is he an idea? Let us not forget how quickly this life goes and how this type of season that we are in now can bring our focus elsewhere. There are many opportunities to let God back in.  Through confession, honest prayer, and quality time with God, we can remove the “cobwebs” within our own spirituality. Let us live with an urgency that calls us back to our Lord. 

Priest. Prophet. King. Offering sacrifice, delivering God’s message and even ruling over nations are anointed actions shown in prefigurements in the Old Testament. People such as Moses and David. The New Testament accounts Jesus as a different kind of leader, as someone who does not desire the worldly platitudes we expect from other priests, prophets and kings of the past. A salvific leader, Christ’s kingdom encompasses a differing vision from temporal reality. The greatest act of power is not merely to command or fix, but to submit to a greater power. Jesus displayed this by surrendering to His Father; by dying on the cross so that the gates of heaven could be opened, allowing reigning mercy for all to become the last word. On a personal level, we hear the words in the gospel, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” We can understand that Jesus can truly reign in our lives and even at the end, when we are brought to our own salvation.

Fr. John reflects on the gospel and refers to the reactionary responses that often follow any hearing of "the end times," whether in scripture or in everyday life encounters. In the gospel, Jesus foretells the signs, both false and true, that will occur. As Christians, we believe in the Truth of the person of Jesus Christ, who desires us to choose Him over any other fears, idols, or ideologies that circumvent our understanding of Him. Fr. John names radical subjectivism as one of those dangerous ideologies. It is a mentality that is rampant in modern society and clouds the truth that the Lord has always had for His children. We cannot be both for and against God, rather, we must stay faithful to the heart of the gospel and its many gifts that we continue to unpack and understand. The God of mercy, justice, and hope is truly one to never forget amidst the chaos of today's times.

Fr. John Ehrich describes some misconceptions that many might hold in regards to our ideas about heaven, which are described by Jesus in the gospel. The idea that our loved ones who have passed have “become angels” may serve comfort to grieving families, but ultimately, we must clarify that we are only “like” angels, not actually new angels, when we enter into heaven. Another clarification is that marriage in heaven is not a part of the equation. Though Christ has compared eternal life to a wedding in other scripture passages, our human institution of marriage is not purposeful in the context of heaven. Why? One, there is no need for the procreation that marriage brings about because when we are in heaven, at that point, we are fully, purely, impermeably present with God. When we think about the state of affairs in heaven, it is easy to think very personally in the first person perspective (Will or won’t I be in heaven? Will it be my version of heaven? Will it be a land of golf, or chocolate, or _______), or

A pervading message in our minds is the phrase, "not good enough." A phrase that pops up in our thoughts about other people and especially ourselves. "I am not good enough." It is a damaging thought that can pervade our mentalities due to upbringing, culture, or just our own standard of evaluation. But God has not created anything that is not good. We cannot fully rely on our own judgement about ourselves because the reality is that Christ loves us in all that we are. If we exist, we are loved. We are enough. The famous "little and despised," Zachaus, a tax collector and an enemy to many people, encounters Jesus in the gospel reading today. It is well-known that because of his job title, many would think very little of him in character and moral standards, because he would have profited personally from the funds he would collect. Though we do not know exactly how Zachaus might have truly viewed himself, we can deduce that he still has an interest in the Messiah - so much so that he climbs a tree to get a bet

Fr. John continues to expand on the themes of the Gospel of Luke to be persistent in prayer, what prayer ought to be like, and what our disposition in prayer should be. We see how the comparison between the Pharisee’s prayer and the tax collector’s prayer speak to their different postures when approaching the Lord. In today’s time, the Pharisee could be seen as a “Good Catholic”, one who thinks that they are doing everything moral and upright because that’s what it takes to get to heaven. The tax collector is someone who knows that they are a sinner and they are helpless without God. God knows that there is nothing that we can do to earn His grace, and so he does not want us to “do everything right” but to recognize our state, who we are, and our need for mercy. We can try to do better, incorporate virtue, but recognize it is God’s operation first, God’s movement in our lives that moves us forward and upward towards perfection. Jesus’ time spent with sinners shows how he did not have time to spend with people

This week’s homily addresses the power of prayer. Is God telling us the truth in promising to give us what we ask for? Or did he mean something else or more for us? There are many cases in which are prayers are not answered…we see in war and worldly issues. Yet there are instances too in which sick people are healed after being told they have a certain amount of time to live from diseases. Fr. John Ehrich takes a survey of the congregation and many raised their hand and shared that they have had prayers answered, but it’s a question of whether it’s an answer to prayer or if God is operative in our every day life. We must ask for faith and a deeper understanding that if God doesn’t answer our prayers, he will deliver a good answer with our best interest in mind. Jesus is constantly telling us about persistence of prayer. Take the woman who nags at Jesus on the street. God says if an unjust judge will not answer this woman how much more will God bring justice to her? The reasons we ought to prayer is the same r

Fr. John Ehrich relates the ideas of Sunday’s first reading and Gospel passage, drawing attention to the parallels of gratitude and healing. The outcasts depicted in the scriptures, (such as lepers, or non-Jews) display this gratitude to Christ; the ones who are least expected to show gratitude, do. They not only recognize the immensity of God within their midst, but respond with earnest and honest graciousness. How often do we take Christ’s love and presence for granted in our lives? He explains his own experiences with this question. Certain moments remind him of this present-day goodness of God. Whether at a beautiful wedding or at the bedside for a dying young woman, Fr. Ehrich has recently experienced true gratitude among his community. He calls all of us, with full awareness of our human sufferings and frustrations, to be brought back to Christ in all that he offers. We are asked to continue to acknowledge our own blessings or circumstances and ultimately respond with gratitude.

Fr. John Ehrich Diocese of Phoenix Preaching from St. Thomas More Catholic Church

Fr. John Ehrich Diocese of Phoenix Preaching from St. Thomas More Catholic Church