Mary, Queen of Peace Catholic Church Bossier City, LA

Mary Queen of Peace, Bossier City, La

23 hours ago

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27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A-2026
Bread for the Journey
Sunday, Oct 4, 2026

In 1999, a series entitled “Jesus” aired on national TV. In one profound scene, Jesus is being tempted by the devil in the desert. Satan was trying to convince Jesus that His death would be totally in vain. He showed him the future full of war, poverty, and misery, including people killing others in Jesus’s name. Jesus responded: “I am in the hearts of men. I will die for the everlasting kindness of the human heart created by the Father, so that men will make His image shine once again. And for those who want to, they will find in me the strength to love unto the end.” All I can say is wow! “For those who want to, they will find in me the strength to love unto the end.”

Our Gospel reading proclaims that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our faith. Within that cornerstone, the other cornerstone of our faith is the call and command to LOVE because God is Love. We are made in love and created for love. It is in drawing close to Jesus and doing His will, that the gift of love, which St. Paul tells us is the greatest of all spiritual gifts, will be born in our hearts, grow, overflow in abundance, and endure.

The invitation and challenge we face on a daily basis is: Will we love those who look, believe, and act differently from us? Will we love when we do not receive love in return? Will we love those who hurt us? Will we love when it is hard and inconvenient? Will we love others in our thoughts, words, and actions? There are so many internal and external forces that tempt us to slack off on or abandon the gift of love. As we go through life, we have so many seemingly practical and rational reasons for doing so: loss of health, relationships, prosperity, and the stresses and struggles of life; unfulfilled and shattered hopes and dreams; and disappointment and disillusionment over the contradictions, indifference, maliciousness, and betrayal of other people.

I recently came across a quote on my Facebook wall that touches on another factor that can chill the love in our hearts. The quote states: “One of Satan’s goals is to destroy your ability to love people because that’s what makes you like Jesus the most. That’s why he attacks your forgiveness, your patience, and your compassion. Because when you stop loving people, you stop reflecting Jesus. Guard your heart and continue loving.” Satan tempts us to embrace the mentality that believing in and embracing love, is naïve, unimportant, too difficult, and not worth the continual effort. Therefore, Jesus becomes less reflected in our lives and in the world. The devil absolutely loves that. It is so important to believe, and remain mindful, that we are in a spiritual battle.

I remember a time as a young adult that I was seriously tempted to give up on the love of other people because my disappointment and resentment towards others was at an all-time high. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the following words from a song by the Christian band Petra were seared on my soul: “Don’t let your heart be hardened. Don’t let your love grow cold. May it always stay so childlike. May it never grow too old. Don’t let your heart be heartened, may you always know the cure. Keep it broken before Jesus, keep it thankful, meek, and pure.” In that moment of unexpected grace and blessing, my heart melted and I felt a renewed openness to love.

By bringing our bruised, broken, and angry hearts to Jesus, He can help us to do something we can’t do for ourselves. Jesus can give us His heart and His love. By being firmly anchored in Jesus our cornerstone, we will have the desire and courage to love for the first time, love once again generously and abundantly, love sacrificially and heroically, and keep on loving throughout this life and into eternity. Through our continued openness to the Spirit of Love, we will be able to live out the prayer of St. Mother Teresa entitled “Do It Anyway:” “People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

This life of LOVE, regardless of the circumstances of our lives, can be ours in lavish abundance, if we allow Jesus to be our cornerstone. As Jesus Himself said in the television series, “And for those who want to, they will find in me the strength to love unto the end.” Let us take Jesus up on His most wonderful offer! We and the people around us will be truly blessed, and we will inherit eternal life. Because only love can enter the kingdom of heaven. It is the ultimate House of Love.

#Homily by Father Karl Daigle #MaryQueenofPeace #Catholic Church in Bossier City, LA. For more information, please call 318-752-5971. ... See MoreSee Less

Mary Queen of Peace, Bossier City, La

7 days ago

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🕊️Sept 27, 2026
#Homily by Father Karl Daigle
🥖Bread for the Journey
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A-2026

“Because of this, God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bend, of those in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

These beautiful and profound words from our second reading are thoroughly permeated by the language of reverence towards Jesus Christ, our Brother and Savior. As Catholics, we often view reverence in terms of silence before and during Mass; genuflecting before the tabernacle; making the sign of the cross; bowing before receiving the Body and Blood; and resisting the temptation to use the name of the Lord in vain when angry, hurt, or startled.

In the Sacred Scriptures, the words “reverence” and “fear of the Lord” are often used in a synonymous way. These words are understood to convey a profound love, respect, and esteem for God. It flows from an interior awareness that God is the Supreme Being and has Supreme authority over heaven, earth, and the entire universe. We joyfully recognize that He is the source of all love, goodness, wisdom, power, perfection, and creation. The Bible proclaims that reverence or fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It becomes the starting point in how we view, approach, and respond to, life and all of reality. It is also the primary source of our faith and moral compass.

Within the Sacred Scriptures, reverence includes but goes beyond worship and external rituals. It is above all, the disposition of our hearts. I would like to briefly reflect on six ways we can show reverence to God. First, we reverence God when we do not use His name in vain. My definition will be quite different from what you expect. Do you realize that we use His name in vain by using God and faith to justify sin, violence, death, abuse, oppression, discrimination, inequality, greed, dishonesty, manipulation, unhealthy forms of control, or harsh judgment and condemnation? This is the deepest and broadest meaning of using the name of the Lord in vain.

Second, we reverence God whenever we reach out to Him in prayer. We realize that we need His love, grace, wisdom, and mercy in our daily lives. We equally reach out to Him in joy or sorrow, prosperity or deprivation. We show through both our words and actions, that it is in Him that “we live, and move, and have our being.” When we pray, we strive to stay mindful of Who we are talking to and what we are saying. We seek avoid just going through the motions or going into auto-pilot mode.

Third, we show reverence to God by eagerly and habitually seeking to learn and apply His will. It is a will that we discover through the study of and prayerful reflection on the Bible, church teaching, religious reading, and conversations with other people. As we learn, we reverence God by taking His will seriously, even when it personally calls out our sins and goes against our personal inclinations and preferences. This brings to mind the thought-provoking words of St. Augustine: “People reject the church because She speaks against the sins they love.” We can also be tempted to reject God and the will of God for the very same reason. We reverence God when do not view His will as merely suggestions, optional, or one possibility among many. Instead, we allow ourselves and our daily lives to be fully molded, shaped, and permeated, by the faith and morality that God has revealed to us through the Sacred Scriptures and His Body, His Bride, the Church. Therefore, we reverence Him through our humble obedience and surrender to Him and His will.

Fourth, we reverence God by reverencing ourselves. We do so by anchoring our deepest sense of identity and worth in our inherent dignity as His beloved daughters and sons. With this awareness as our “home base,” we seek to avoid people, relationships, places, behaviors, habits, and attitudes, that are not good for us personally and spiritually. To make this sentiment more concrete, we seek to avoid the following: the neglect and abuse of our bodies through the abuse of food and drink, and the use of drugs; unhealthy, unholy, or abusive relationships; allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of or used by another person or group of people; or betraying ourselves and our faith convictions out of loneliness, insecurities, self-preservation, and our need for acceptance and love. With our identity grounded in God’s passionate and faithful love, we will live with the awareness that we were made for so much more than that. We were made for authentic self-respect, genuine communion with God and other people, holiness of life, personal integrity, and for an exciting mission in partnership with God, all for the glory of God.

Reverence for ourselves includes what we habitually think about ourselves and how we talk about ourselves to other people. Self-talk is a big deal. May we be mindful of our self-negativity and strive to resist the powerful temptation of chronic “stinking thinking” about ourselves. May we be merciful to ourselves and become less frazzled and consumed by our weaknesses, limitations, and mistakes.

Fifth, we reverence God by reverencing other people. I am going to share a litany of ways we are called to show reverence towards other people. It comes down to how we think about other people(we focus on their virtue, talents, and most endearing qualities); how we talk to and about other people(we seek to build up them and their reputation); and how we treat them through our deeds of kindness, thoughtfulness, charity, selflessness, and sacrificial service. We also reverence other people by honoring their personal boundaries, respecting their beliefs and perspective, truly listening to them, and challenging or correcting them with loving kindness and respect. We treat other people as “holy ground” by not using them for greedy or selfish reasons, by helping them to grow in Christ instead of being a stumbling block in their walk with the Lord, by being faithful to our word and our personal commitments to them, and by carrying our weight in the home and workplace.

It is important to keep in mind that in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus personally identifies Himself with every person, without exception. That includes us. Therefore, how we treat ourselves and other people, both in positive and negative ways, is how we are treating Christ. It is a reflection of where we are in our relationship with Him. It can determine the depth of our union with God. It can determine if we are holy or not. It can determine if we are saved or not. In other words, at the end of our lives, it can determine whether we ultimately go to heaven, purgatory, or hell.

Finally, we reverence God by the reverence we exhibit towards all of His creation. Since everything is the work of God’s hands, it possesses inherent value and dignity. Therefore, we are called to treat it as such. We reverence God by how we treat and take care of our pets, our belongings, our property, and the environment. Reverence for creation flows from a sense of stewardship that has been personally entrusted to us by God.
Bringing it all together, reverence involves a spirit of respect, gratitude, and awe and wonder, for all the people, places, and things that God has made. Most of all, it involves possessing this disposition of heart towards God Himself. God is truly deserving of our ultimate reverence, both now and for all eternity.

#MaryQueenOfPeace 📞Please call the Church Office at (318) 752-5971 for more information. ... See MoreSee Less