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Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), June 7, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) All of us gathered here have approach Holy Mass (and indeed the Church and all of her Sacraments) in different ways. Hopefully we are here with the same agenda and the same expectations, but to be realistic we are here with differing views as to what we are doing. Each of us came into church moments ago bearing our own personal histories, both near term and long term, carrying our own burdens of personal problems, hungering and thirsting in our own personal wants and needs. We are all here with multiple expectations. Many of us arrived here with overburdened, complex lives filled with intractable problems, simply seeking the comfort and peace of Christ. Many of us hunger for the humble little flock, and want to experience the close and intimate family of faith, seeking out the faces of friends whom they know, feel close to, and whom they admire and love. All of us hunger for closeness with others and...
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Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 14, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) At the sight of the crowds, as we heard moments ago, Jesus was moved with pity; He had compassion for the crowd of humanity in front of Him. They were lying prostrate with exhaustion. Jesus of course saw that they were not just physically exhausted. More importantly He saw they were spiritually flattened and empty. Lost and leaderless, they were like sheep without a shepherd not knowing where to find what they needed to sustain them in the life of God’s Spirit. Our spiritual world is much the same as theirs. Even though science and technology along with our transportation and communications industries have moved us much closer together in what we’ve come to call “The Global Village”, we are as divided and fragmented as ever… as lonely and as isolated as generations of humans who have lived before us. Our fragmented and divided world, our violent inhumanity toward or fellow humans, is the constant report...
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Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday), May 31, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) There are three paths to knowledge that we frequently walk… thinking using concepts, thinking using pictures or images, and thinking using our experiences. They are all routes to truth even though experience seems to be the favored route these days. This is curious to me because learning through experience gives us some of life’s harshest lessons. We learn the hard way along that route. The other routes are not so harsh. From its earliest days, the Catholic Church has relied on images — pictures found in stained glass windows, statues of saints and holy people, and glorious mosaics found in so many of our churches. Television, movies, and computer images have surrounded us during the last century. As never before in human history our children are learning via images. Today I am going to share some thoughts with you about the Holy Trinity using mental images. It’s better that way. The history of a...
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Homily for Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) In speaking with you about Pentecost I must speak of what cannot be fully explained. All we can do is reverently gaze into the mystery of God’s final movement toward us, the alienated and distant men and women who, with Adam and Eve, have broken off relations with God. Words cannot capture the enormity God’s merciful love for us; they buckle under the weight of it. So Scripture and the Church employ symbols to try to carry Pentecost’s meaning to us. Sometimes symbols are more effective than words in conveying the truth of stupendous events. Essentially Pentecost is the final movement of God’s journey toward us. The initial movement begins in Genesis with God in the Garden of Eden. Note that it is God who makes the move. It is God who initiates; God who offers; God who loves us first. He chooses us. We do not choose him. He chooses us first because He is the superior. If it were otherwise, and indeed whe...
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Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, May 17, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) God the Father inaugurated His presence among us when Abraham responded to Him in faith. The Nativity of Our Lord inaugurated God the Son’s presence among us when God’s self-expression became flesh and was born among us as one of us. This Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven inaugurates the time of God the Holy Spirit’s presence among us. Jesus Christ ascension into heaven opens the door to the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within those who have been baptized into the Body of Christ. Our Blessed Lord’s Ascension into heaven challenges us to see God in a new way. Christ’s ascension is not an ending, it’s a beginning. On the surface in appears that Christ’s Ascension is a departure, but actually it is not. Spirit-filled in His resurrection, Christ now comes to us in a new way – in His Holy Spirit. It is a new beginning. Christ in His humanity is now taken to a new status, the highest of all state...
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Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The readings of this Mass impel me to reflect with you upon two things which are interior within us, two things that are mysterious and can be known only in their expression. One is love and the other is the Holy Spirit. Both cannot be really known in themselves; both are made real for us in their activity, in their expression, in their external manifestations that we bring into our lives in our responses to God’s love for us. As we all know so very well, talk is cheap, and words are without meaning unless expressed in deeds. Love is not simply a nice feeling, a sentiment, or merely a warm emotion. Love becomes real in the decisions we make and in what we do. It is in its actions, actions that result from our choices, that love is realized. Don’t get me wrong, the words of love are of extreme importance. There’s nothing wrong with saying “I love you.” In fact those three little words can be the mo...
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Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2026, Year A

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Many people believe that living the Gospel message is unrealistic. Numerous times people have begun a conversation with me using the phrase: “Father, out there in the real world …” Their unspoken assumption is of course that because I am a priest I am somehow not in the real world. History has given us a number of philosophers and thinkers who have told us that Jesus was a beautiful man, possessing tenderness of heart, infinite sweetness, and universal charm. In other words they are saying that Jesus was an idealist who saw and lived life in an idealistic dream world, not as it really is. They like to talk about Jesus, admiring His ethical code and His moral standards while at the same time they are locating Jesus out of this world, out of touch with reality. I suspect there are some here in church who are here just now for a few moments of relief in order to get out of this world and enter a dream wo...
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