Homilies & Recorded Talks Downloads
We have recorded the following homilies and talks for you to download and listen.
| Real Prayer, Real Relationship with God - No Prayer, No Real Relationship with God | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: July 25, 2010
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Size: 3.9 MB
Length: 6min & 2min 8:34 total
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| This is another sampler of life at St. Mark Parish. We offer Father Harris preaching on prayer in this Sunday homily and then from the end of mass, in the announcements, Father offers more encouragement and insight and a practical way to live out a life of prayer. It’s another reason why people and families are growing at St. Mark! Memorable moment: “Prayer is essential to the life of a Christian. We pray not in order to change God, but to change ourselves. And we strive to persevere in prayer not so that God will finally hear us, but so we will finally hear God. Without a life of prayer it is absolutely impossible to for us to have a real relationship with God.” | |||
| Priorities Begin with God | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: July 18, 2010
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Size: 2.2 MB
Length: 4:49
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| If someone convincingly told you, in just a few minutes, how to have greater satisfaction in your life, how to have a healthier and stronger marriage and family, and how to live longer, you’d probably pay close attention. This homily is for you. Memorable moments: "Mary seated herself at the feet of the Lord and listened to His words and Jesus said that she had chosen the better portion. You see, it’s all about setting priorities in life… First Jesus… then everything else will fall into place." | |||
| Do We Love God, or Are We Distracted? The Scholar, a Priest, a Levite, and the Samaritan | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: July 11, 2010
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Size: 2.9 MB
Length: 6:15
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| Father Harris offers disturbing examples of urgent and noble tasks (or just silly ideals) distracting normal people away from loving God in this fresh look at the story of the scholar, a priest, a Levite and the ‘good’ Samaritan. Memorable moment: "Jesus says to us that if we want to go to heaven, then we must do what? We must love God; and we must love Him by loving our neighbor. This means, dear people, that those who truly desire to go to heaven never respond to a human need by saying, ‘It’s not my problem,’ but by asking, ‘What can I do to help? That, my friends, is always the Catholic and Christian response.'" | |||
| Are We Catholic in More than Name? | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: July 4, 2010
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Size: 2.7 MB
Length: 5:54
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| This morning’s Gospel has 72 disciples preaching and making Satan fall like lightning. If you want to feel comfortable as a Christian living with the status quo, don’t bother listening here. It is possible that Father Harris may have never made Catholics more uncomfortable than on this Sunday morning. But if you want the truth about your mission as someone who loves Christ, here is your homily. Memorable moments: “Our world today is in dire need of hearing the truth: the truth about life and death, about sex and intimacy, about marriage and celibacy, about heaven and hell. Our world needs to hear the truth because the pervasive power of the evil one has distorted the truth and replaced it with putrid lies, lies that eat away at our humanity like a fowl, infectious disease.” “The 72 disciples were people just like you, lay people. They had heard the message of Jesus and they believed. That’s all. Their relationship with Jesus had made a huge difference in their lives. And perhaps that’s where some of us part company with 72. Has Jesus made a huge difference in our lives?” “Did you understand that Jesus needs you; He’s depending on you, depending on you to bring His truth to this world in which you live?” | |||
| Who Follows Whom? | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: June 27, 2010
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Size: 3.1 MB
Length: 6:40
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| What would it take for us to miss a Super Bowl Game? What would it take for us to follow Jesus? Father Harris asks important questions of those who would say they want to follow Jesus. Memorable moment: "‘The foxes have lairs, the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.’ ‘Let the dead bury their dead; come away and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ ‘Whoever puts his hand to the plow but keeps looking back is unfit for the reign of God.’ These three responses of Jesus to three would-be followers exemplify the whole hearted and sacrificial nature that the Christian mission demands. You and I are here this morning because in one way or another we have said to Jesus, ‘I will follow You.’ However, oftentimes the problem is we don’t really want to follow Jesus, do we? No, we want Jesus to follow us." | |||
| Redemptive Suffering and the Cross of a Disciple | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: June 20, 2010
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Size: 3.7 MB
Length: 8:02
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| Memorable moment: “Dear people, your mission and my mission as a Catholic is not to do away with human suffering, but to meet it with compassion, true compassion when we see it in the lives of others and to embrace it with hope when it enters into our own lives. ‘Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am?’ ‘You are the Messiah. You are the Messiah who suffered and died to save my soul.’” KEY WORDS: “Suffering Messiah”, “Not the Messiah We Thought We’d Have”, “Eliminate Suffering?”, “Meaning and Purpose in Redemption”, “Help Humanity Find the Embrace of Suffering”, “Euthanasia – Avoiding Pain and Suffering?”, “Mercy Killing Is a Lie – It Denies the Mystery of Redemption Found in Suffering”, “No Mercy in Euthanasia”, “Nursing Homes”, “Meaningless Suffering?”, “Put them peacefully to Death?”, “Horrible Suffering Not Meaningless”, “Followers of Christ Take Up the Cross”, “I see their suffering and I see redemption” | |||
| How Do We Judge People? 'As You Judge, So Also. . .' | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: June 13, 2010
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Size: 2.7 MB
Length: 5:56
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| Do we see scandal everywhere we turn? 'How we judge' will in turn be 'how we are judged'. Father Harris, commenting on today's Gospel reading about a prostitute who came to Jesus, opens with a true story of a priest seen coming from a house of ill-repute. Father offers an anonymous poem: "I dreamed death came the other night, And heaven’s gate swung wide / With kindly grace an angel ushered me inside, And there to my astonishment stood folks I’d known on earth / And some I’d judged and labeled unfit-of little worth, Indignant words rose to my lips but never were set free / For every face showed stunned surprise, Not one expected me" | |||
| Yes, There Is a Trinity. Yes, It Is a Mystery. …but Yes, We Possess the Transforming Life of God in Our Midst | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: May 30, 2010
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Size: 4.0 MB
Length: 5:00 and 2 more sections, 8:40 total
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| Here is not only a homily 5 minutes in length, but also two more brief ‘audio snapshots’ of our parish taken from our 11am Sunday mass on Trinity Sunday. Father’s homily, our parish’s very scriptural and very Christian dedication to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and a playful moment between Father and some of the eight sanctuary attendants during an announcement about a vocation retreat, ‘Quo Vadis Days’, offer a view to you of our parish. About the homily, this memorable moment from Father says it all: “My brothers and sisters, on this feast of the Most Holy Trinity, it is clear to us that when it comes to the mystery of God, we know very little. But what we do know is enough to transform our lives and our world.” | |||
| God's Creative Breath in the Church and in Our Lives | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: May 23, 2010
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Size: 2.2 MB
Length: 4:47
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| Father uses the creation account of Genesis to tie the feast of Pentecost to our mission in today’s world. The image created in these scriptures is both captivating and instructive of our role in God’s plan of making a new creation. **Memorable moments: “The Church is His new creation. A newborn baby gasps for a first breath of air at birth. And with this first breath, a new adventure of life begins. In a similar way, Pentecost celebrates the birth of the Church. It is the day the Church took her first real breath of God’s breath,” and, “On this feast of Pentecost, we ask that God will breathe on us and that we will breathe in and receive the Holy Spirit and that we will not hold our breath, but breathe out and give the gift of God’s life to our world.” | |||
| Even to the Ends of the Earth | Listen Now | Download | |
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Speaker: Father Harris
Date: May 16, 2010
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Size: 2.4 MB
Length: 5:15
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| Whose 'fault' is it that we are Christians? Our parents? Maybe. But how did those people or the ones before them come to Christ? Father Harris answers this and makes his own call to St. Mark Parish 'to go to the ends of the earth'. | |||
Only the last ten messages are listed above, but you may also view the entire sermon archive if you wish.