Mass
The Church And Human Dignity
Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: June 29, 2025
“On this rock I will build my Church.” The plan of God, the plan revealed in Jesus, included the Church. Two of the great figures who were crucial to the initial building of the Church were Peter and Paul. These two great figures who began what we continue today. In the readings for this Feast we hear of Paul as one who proclaimed the Gospel to the Gentiles and who finished the race and kept the faith. Jesus calls Simon and names him Peter, the rock upon which he will build his Church.
The Church today continues to keep the memory of God alive in our world. But, perhaps more important than ever, the Church is called to work to protect human dignity. We are in the world, where once again war and weapons are the path we human beings are choosing. God is not on any side in these wars. God is only on the side of the many children being killed or suffering. God is on the side of the young soldiers required to fight in these wars which are the failure of leaders. In these wars, the dignity of human beings is ignored, the dignity of the human beings on the other side is not recognized.
The Church must be a body that defends all human dignity. God entered our human reality and so the Gospel message clearly reveals the great dignity of human beings. But, we easily forget or ignore the dignity of human beings who are not on our side.
Pope Leo speaks often about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. This issue is also about human dignity. Robots, machines, algorithms, these cannot take the place of basic human dignity.
During my recent trip to Europe I went to the city of Turin. While there I prayed at the chapel where the Shroud of Turin is kept. There I saw a prayer which I really liked.
“O God our Father, the figure of the Shroud sends us back to the sufferings inflicted on your Son, Jesus, who has taken on himself the sorrows of every human being. Help us to see Him in every person, …”
If we are going to be near to Jesus, if we are going to know Jesus, we need to see Jesus in every person. We need to care for Jesus in each person. The dignity of the human being is the heart of the Gospel and a mission of the Church today is to protect human dignity.
The Mass is the primary way that we the Church assemble together. The Mass is quietly very valuable in protecting human dignity. For many of us it is the one hour when we are not focused on our cell phones and social media. It is the one time when we are together with people of all ages, from seniors in their 90’s to little babies. Teenagers, young adults and middle ages. It is the one time when we are together with people of all different races and cultures. It is a time when rich and poor and people of different backgrounds are together.
This Mass is the way that the Church that Jesus began to build on the rock of Peter and in the Apostle Paul continues to be visible in our world today. The Mass builds up the Church and it leads us to recognize our own human dignity and the dignity of all human beings.
Jesus had a plan for a Church which would be built on the rock of Simon Peter. It is the Church that we continue to build up today. In the Mass this Church is made visible. This Church is th plan of Jesus to keep the Gospel alive, to remind the world of the fundamental dignity of human beings.
A School Of Love
6th Sunday Of Easter
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: May 5, 2024
Recently, I was at one of the sessions for the formation of Permanent Deacons, as I am the Director of Formation for Permanent Deacons in our Diocese. This year we have one candidate who just had a new baby. On these Saturday sessions, the wives normally join their husbands and we have Mass half way through the Saturday session.
This couple brings their new baby to the sessions as she is breast feeding. I was celebrating the Mass that day. After distributing communion I went down to bring communion to this wife who was holding her baby. As soon as I gave her communion I realized that the reason she could not come forward is that she was breast feeding her baby. This is the first time I think I have given communion to a mother while she was breast feeding!
But, what a wonderful connection. In communion, it is Jesus, the bread of life, feeding us from his very life just as this mother was feeding her child from her very self. We can really speak of the Mass as a school of love.
In John’s Gospel we hear Jesus say to his disciples, “You are my friends.” This is how God speaks to us through Jesus. Calls us friends. In the reading from the first letter of John, it simply says, “God is Love.”
There is a lot of discussion today about education, and in particular, Catholic education. The most important education that is needed for humanity, for each person to become a fully alive human being, and for the human world to become a place of peace, is education in love.
Jesus, is the model of the human being. In Jesus we see the model of self-giving love. He says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” In Jesus we have the great teacher and model of love. In the Mass we enter into a school of love with Jesus.
In the Mass we spend time with Jesus and there we are able to be educated in love. The church
teaches that we experience Jesus in four ways at the Mass.
First, we experience Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the bread of life in which we receive the real presence of Jesus. Like a mother breast feeding, Jesus feeds us with his very self.
Second, we experience Jesus in the Word of God proclaimed. Jesus is speaking to our hearts. The challenge for us, like in any relationship, is to learn to listen. To pay attention to what Jesus is saying to us through these readings. To do this well it is helpful for us to read and pray with the readings for Sunday during the week before the Mass.
Third, in the priest presiding at Mass, we are to experience Jesus gathering us together. The priest is a sacrament of Jesus. Of course, we priests are very ordinary human beings, so the challenge is to see through faith to Jesus working through us. The challenge for each priest is to try to reflect the self-giving love reflected in Jesus, as we give our life away in service. Of course, be patient with us in our weaknesses!
Fourth, we experience Jesus in the Assembly, the people of God gathered together for the Mass. For the church is called to be the body of Christ. Sometimes this is also hard to recognize. But, we need to keep awake to the presence of Jesus.
An example is when a baby is crying or children are distracting, instead of seeing that as a distraction at our Mass, we should open ourselves to recognize Jesus in that distraction. Years ago in a previous parish, I remember a young boy who wanted to be an altar server. He had some form of attention deficit and was very restless. He just could not sit still. But, he was so excited about being able to serve at Mass.
After Mass one elderly woman who usually sat behind the servers came to me as she was very bothered by this restless server. She said he was disturbing her Mass and wanted me to remove him as a server. The self-giving love reflected in the Mass had become a self serving thing for this woman. She was failing to recognize Jesus with her in the assembly, including this restless boy serving at Mass.
In fact, for me as a priest, one of the most important ways that Jesus is with me is through you the people of our parish. Jesus is the model of our humanity, the vision of self-giving love. The Mass can be a school of love for us. We need to allow Jesus to be with us and to spend time with Jesus at the Mass.
Coming to us in the Blessed Sacrament, speaking to us in the Word, guiding us in the priest presiding and also present to us in the assembly of the People of God gathered with us. God is love. The Mass is a school of love in which we are nourished by God as a baby being fed is nourished by its mother.