Fr. Brian Soliven Sermons

The Word becoming flesh is a direct response to the shame endured by our first parents in Genesis 3:10.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Christmas has a peculiar way of catching us off guard. Even those who approach it with little religious intention often find themselves unexpectedly moved. There are the lights, of course, small defiances of darkness that seem to insist, stubbornly, on hope. There is the scent of evergreen, trees that refuse to play along with winter’s story of decay. Our tables groan under the weight of food, and for a brief moment, in houses that are otherwise quite ordinary, we dine like kings in castles we only half-believe in. We laugh, we sing, and sometimes, rather inconveniently, we cry. For Christmas has the habit of stirring not only joy, but memory and memory is often tinged with loss.This curious emotional upheaval is not accidental. Christmas reminds us that we are creatures made for relationship, and therefore made for love. We may grumble about the season’s commercialism, and not without reason. The tiresome pressure to find the “perfect gift” can make the whole affair feel suffocating. Yet even this complaint gives the game away. It reveals that we know, deep down, that shiny objects are poor substitutes for the thing we actually want. We sense that we are meant for something larger than consumption. We are not merely shoppers passing time in a well-lit store; we are beings made for communion.And this, I think, explains why Christmas persists in haunting us. If God is indeed our Maker, then it follows that He understands our design better than we do. We are not mass-produced articles stamped out by chance, but carefully imagined persons. Long before we learned our own names, we were known. Long before we could reach for love, we were made for it.One sees this truth most clearly, I suspect, at the end of life rather than at the height of it. When all the usual distractions are stripped away, the illusions lose their shine. No one, standing at death’s door, laments the possessions left unpurchased or the luxuries never acquired. Such things suddenly reveal themselves as what they always were—props, not pillars. What remains is love: the people we have given ourselves to, the people we have failed, and the question of whether we have ever truly responded to the Love that stands behind them all.Here, then, is where Christianity makes its most audacious claim. It does not say merely that love matters, but that Love itself has entered the story. The Word by whom all things were made does not remain at a safe and reverent distance. He becomes a child. The Author steps onto the stage, not as a commanding hero, but as a helpless infant. The Light enters the darkness so quietly that it can be ignored and yet so decisively, that it cannot be extinguished.This is why Christmas continues to unsettle us. It suggests that the longing we feel, the ache that no gift can quite satisfy, is not a mistake. It is a signpost. The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in doing so, He dignified our hunger for love by answering it—not with an argument, but with Himself.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Christmas has a peculiar way of catching us off guard. Even those who approach it with little religious intention often find themselves unexpectedly moved. There are the lights, of course, small defiances of darkness that seem to insist, stubbornly, on hope. There is the scent of evergreen, trees that refuse to play along with winter’s story of decay. Our tables groan under the weight of food, and for a brief moment, in houses that are otherwise quite ordinary, we dine like kings in castles we only half-believe in. We laugh, we sing, and sometimes, rather inconveniently, we cry. For Christmas has the habit of stirring not only joy, but memory and memory is often tinged with loss.This curious emotional upheaval is not accidental. Christmas reminds us that we are creatures made for relationship, and therefore made for love. We may grumble about the season’s commercialism, and not without reason. The tiresome pressure to find the “perfect gift” can make the whole affair feel suffocating. Yet even this complaint gives the game away. It reveals that we know, deep down, that shiny objects are poor substitutes for the thing we actually want. We sense that we are meant for something larger than consumption. We are not merely shoppers passing time in a well-lit store; we are beings made for communion.And this, I think, explains why Christmas persists in haunting us. If God is indeed our Maker, then it follows that He understands our design better than we do. We are not mass-produced articles stamped out by chance, but carefully imagined persons. Long before we learned our own names, we were known. Long before we could reach for love, we were made for it.One sees this truth most clearly, I suspect, at the end of life rather than at the height of it. When all the usual distractions are stripped away, the illusions lose their shine. No one, standing at death’s door, laments the possessions left unpurchased or the luxuries never acquired. Such things suddenly reveal themselves as what they always were—props, not pillars. What remains is love: the people we have given ourselves to, the people we have failed, and the question of whether we have ever truly responded to the Love that stands behind them all.Here, then, is where Christianity makes its most audacious claim. It does not say merely that love matters, but that Love itself has entered the story. The Word by whom all things were made does not remain at a safe and reverent distance. He becomes a child. The Author steps onto the stage, not as a commanding hero, but as a helpless infant. The Light enters the darkness so quietly that it can be ignored and yet so decisively, that it cannot be extinguished.This is why Christmas continues to unsettle us. It suggests that the longing we feel, the ache that no gift can quite satisfy, is not a mistake. It is a signpost. The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in doing so, He dignified our hunger for love by answering it—not with an argument, but with Himself. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

God became poor so that we might become rich.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Prepare the way of the Lord!  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

"My soul magnifies the Lord!"  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

If Christianity were something we had stitched together out of our own imaginations, I suspect we should have made a far more sensible job of it. We should have arranged a thunderous arrival: God descending like a general at the head of an army, the world brought to heel by sheer magnificence. But that, of course, is precisely why the story has the ring of truth. No one invents a God who chooses to enter His own universe not at the top of the staircase, but at the very bottom.For consider what is being claimed. The One by whom all things were made – whose voice set the stars burning and the galaxies spinning – comes among His creatures unable to speak a word or steady His own limbs. The hand that holds the oceans in their place must first be held. The omnipotent becomes, in the most literal sense, dependent. If this does not disturb our neat ideas of power, then we have not yet begun to understand it.At Christmas, all our ordinary measurements are quietly overturned. We habitually equate power with loudness, greatness with height, importance with the ability to command. God, however, chooses another grammar altogether. He does not shout; He whispers. He does not overwhelm; He invites. The Incarnation tells us that real strength is not diminished by humility, and that true majesty is perfectly at home in low places.We are tempted to treat the manger as a pleasant religious decoration, something to be admired and then passed by. But if we linger, it becomes a challenge rather than a comfort. God did not merely become a man; He became a baby. In doing so, He claimed every stage of human life as His own, from our first breath to our last. There is no corner of our experience, however small or humiliating, that He has not entered and redeemed.And here the blow falls squarely on our pride. The manger tells us, without rancor and without compromise, that the world is not saved by human cleverness or moral effort. Salvation comes not by our ascent to God, but by God’s descent to us. We do not scramble our way into heaven; heaven comes quietly to earth. Grace is not a wage to be earned but a gift to be received, as simply as a child is received into waiting arms.Christmas, then, is not a festival of human achievement but of divine generosity. It is the moment when Eternity puts on the clothes of time and asks, not for admiration, but for trust. God does not bully us into belief; He makes Himself small enough to be loved. The Infinite becomes an infant so that even the smallest and weakest among us might dare to come to Him.   --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

To ponder, to be bored in thought, offers a tremendous window into the depths of reality.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

 The fulfillment of prophecy is not merely a proof offered to reason, but an invitation to faith—calling the human heart to recognize that God truly enters history and walks with his people. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Today, the words of our Lord confront and unsettle us. He declares that “tax collectors and prostitutes” go before us. Why is this so? Because they possess a quality that every saint instinctively understands. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

When John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus with that piercing question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”, we must not too quickly suppose that John had lost his faith. Far more often, doubt is not the absence of belief but the collision of belief with unexpected reality. Even the greatest saints may stand bewildered before the mystery of God’s methods.Here is Jesus healing the blind and lifting the poor, hardly the thunderous overthrow of evil John may have expected. The prison cell in which John waited could not have made the contrast less stark. He had preached a roaring lion; Jesus seemed more like a quiet lamb. And so the messenger goes to the Messiah with the cry that every disciple must eventually utter: “Explain Yourself.”Jesus answers not by argument but by evidence. The blind see; the lame walk; the dead rise. That is to say, “Look at what is happening. The Kingdom is already breaking in, though not in the way you imagined.” God’s power often arrives not as a mighty earthquake but as a seed, small enough to be ignored by the proud and yet strong enough to split the stones beneath it.Jesus refuses to conform to our ideas of what God should do. We want a Savior who fits our expectations; He gives us a Savior who fits what we truly need, even when we do not realize it. In praising John, Jesus reminds us that greatness in the Kingdom is measured not by one’s spiritual résumé but by one’s nearness to the Light. John stood at dawn, pointing to the coming Sun; we stand at mid-morning, bathed in its warmth. The smallest soul who trusts Christ on this side of the Resurrection possesses a gift even John longed to see with his own eyes. What then shall we learn from the imprisoned prophet and the unconventional Messiah?Perhaps this: God may not behave as you expect, but He will always be better than you expect. His answers may not thunder, but they heal. His Kingdom may not arrive with spectacle, but it transforms everything it touches. For such a Savior does not simply rule the world; He remakes the human heart.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

My friends, if only we could grasp this staggering truth: God does not love you as one among many, but as though you were the only soul He ever fashioned. His gaze is not a broad beam cast over humanity; it is a narrow and radiant shaft aimed straight at your heart. The One who carved the stars has considered every sorrow you carry and every hope you scarcely dare to utter, and He loves you not in spite of these things but through them, with a tenderness fierce enough to pursue you into any darkness and a joy eager to welcome you home. When this truth is allowed to enter the secret chambers of the soul, it becomes impossible to believe you are forgotten; for the God who holds the universe in His palm has never once let go of you.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

We are far more valuable than we imagine ourselves to be; we are sons and daughters of the very Father whom Christ called His own. If we could see ourselves as Heaven sees us, we would walk with a courage that would unsettle every shadow in the world. And perhaps that is why the devil strains so fiercely to cloud our identity. For if he can lure us into forgetting whose children we are, he need not chain us; our own confusion will do the work for him. But the moment we remember, even faintly, that we belong to the Almighty, the darkness trembles, for it knows he is losing his grip.   --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Sooner or later every one of us reaches a moment when we realize we are lost. Perhaps someone here today feels that very thing – an inner drifting, a sense that spiritually or morally we’ve wandered from the path. Life hasn’t unfolded the way we expected. The days begin to blur into one another, wake up, eat, work, sleep, repeat. Somewhere in that routine we ask, Where is my life going?Dante, the Medieval Italian poet, put it powerfully when he wrote, “Midway on the journey of our life, I found myself alone and lost in a dark wood, having wandered from the straight path.” Many of us know exactly what that dark wood feels like.But hear the good news: Jesus Christ comes precisely for those who are lost. Christianity is not a reward for the strong; it is a lifeline for the weary. It is not a trophy for the disciplined; it is hope for those who finally admit they cannot fix themselves. That is why, in this Sunday’s Gospel, St. John the Baptist does not whisper but proclaims: “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand.”To repent is to say, “Lord, I have lost my way, and I need You to lead me home.” Unless we acknowledge that, we will never leave the dark wood. If we pretend we have everything together, we will never reach for the hand of the Savior stretched out toward us. And if we do not reach for Him, we will never know Jesus Christ as the One who rescues.Some say the Catholic Church asks too much – too many rules, too many expectations: confess your sins, fast during Lent, give back to God a percentage of your income, honor the Sabbath by attending Mass each Sunday. And yes, the Church asks much. But she asks much because she loves much. She has learned, through two thousand years of saints and sinners, that holiness requires real commitment. There is no such thing as cheap grace. As Scripture tells us, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” (Cf. Leviticus 19:2) When John the Baptist saw the Pharisees and Sadducees, religious men with impressive knowledge, he rebuked them sharply: “You brood of vipers!” Why? Because they knew the law but lacked the heart. They understood Scripture, but their lives bore no fruit. Knowledge without surrender had left them unchanged. And so John cried out, “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance!”As we walk through this season of Advent, let each candle we light be a small but steady call out of the dark wood and into the marvelous light of Christ. He is coming, not to condemn us for being lost, but to lead us out if only we will let Him.So, do not imitate the Pharisees and Sadducees who believed they needed no Savior. Instead, lift your hands in surrender. Admit your need. Welcome Christ into the places where you feel most lost. Let Him take the lead, guide your steps, and show you once more the path home.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

There was something wonderfully disarming about the way the sick came to Jesus -- no pretense, no polished virtue, only the quiet confession of need. And in that humble approach, His healing power shone brightest. For Christ never treated brokenness as a barrier but as a doorway through which His mercy might enter. He met trembling hands with compassion, fearful hearts with courage, and wounded lives with the peculiar grace that makes all things new. It is still so today: those who come to Him limping often rise again walking in hope. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

The following homily was delivered at a recent community wedding in which five couples, originally civilly married, had their marriages convalidated in the Catholic Church. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

In the spirit of George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, giving thanks to God reminds us that gratitude is not only a personal virtue but a foundation for national character. Washington recognized that the blessings of peace, liberty, and opportunity were not earned by human effort alone, but were gifts worthy of humble acknowledgment. Following his example, we pause to express our thanks to God, both for the visible blessings that shape our daily lives and for the unseen guidance that sustains us through challenges. In doing so, we honor a tradition that calls us to humility, reflection, and renewed commitment to the greater good. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Gratitude is the posture that opens the Christian heart to God’s grace. When we choose to be thankful, especially in ordinary moments or difficult seasons, we acknowledge that every good thing in our lives is a gift from the Father’s hand. Thanksgiving reorients our vision: instead of dwelling on what we lack, we remember the One who provides, sustains, and loves us without measure. A thankful heart becomes a fertile place where joy can grow, humility can flourish, and trust in God deepens. In giving thanks, we do not simply list our blessings, we draw nearer to the Giver Himself. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

It is 1927, and life in Mexico is changing with alarming speed. A nation that once found its strength and identity in faith is now facing a wave of hostility. The government has adopted a harsh, openly anti-Catholic stance, determined to uproot the very beliefs that shaped the hearts of the people. At that time, more than 90% of Mexicans saw the Catholic faith as the center of their lives. It was woven into every part of their story. Children were baptized in the Church, educated in its schools, married within its walls, cared for in its hospitals, and guided by its priests at the hour of death. For nearly five centuries, to be Mexican and to be Catholic were inseparable truths.But the government under President Plutarco Elías Calles set out to sever that connection by any means necessary. He seemed to ask himself, “How can I destroy the faith of an entire nation?” And under his leadership, one of the most brutal persecutions of the Church began. Foreign missionary priests were expelled. Catholic schools were shut down. Churches were padlocked, making the celebration of Mass illegal. Priests and nuns were forbidden to wear their habits or cassocks in public—doing so meant immediate arrest.Yet, despite the fear and danger, the faithful refused to bow. Their courage grew stronger in the face of oppression. Among them was a priest named Fr. Miguel Pro, a man whose bravery became a beacon of hope. Defying every government order, he continued to minister in secret. He baptized the newborn, prepared couples for marriage, taught the faith, and offered the sacraments whenever and wherever he could. Though police searched for him relentlessly, he continued his mission with joy and determination until at last he was captured.Fr. Miguel would be sentenced to die by firing squad. Before the soldiers aimed their rifles at the priest they asked if he had any final words. He raised his arms in the shape of a cross and cried out with unwavering courage: “LONG LIVE CHRIST THE KING!”The government printed the image of execution on the front pages of newspapers across the country, hoping to fill Catholics with fear. Instead, it filled them with strength. His final cry ignited a fire of faith that oppression could not extinguish.And so today, we remember a truth that Fr. Miguel’s life and death proclaim clearly: only Christ truly satisfies the human heart. The joy and peace we long for will never be found in the false promises of our age. They cannot be found in money, possessions, status, or comfort. These things fade, disappoint, and leave us wanting more. But Christ never fails.Christ never fades. Christ alone is our peace. Christ alone is our joy. All other claimants to our hearts eventually fall silent. Only Jesus endures.VIVA CRISTO REY!  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

In the Book of Maccabees, the mother who watched her seven sons die rather than betray their faith stands as one of Scripture’s most radiant examples of courage. In the face of unimaginable loss, she refused to surrender to fear or despair. Her strength did not come from the hope of earthly rescue, but from her unwavering trust that God would honor their sacrifice with eternal life. She spoke not with bitterness, but with a fierce, holy love that lifted her sons’ eyes beyond the suffering of the moment to the glory prepared for them. Her bravery reminds us that true courage is born when the heart clings to what is eternal—when love for God becomes stronger than even the deepest grief. --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give