The Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori (2026)

This homily was prepared for a Mass with the leadership of St. Pius X Parish in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, celebrated on August 1, 2026.

We all know that we’re gathered here to reflect on the future of our parish. And, because of that, it’s tempting to jump to practical questions:

What are our strengths?

What are our challenges?

What should we do next?

Those are important questions.

But before we ask any of them, we’re being invited this morning to celebrate the Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori. I think that is a grace for us.

Alphonsus began his adult life as a successful lawyer. He was intelligent, respected, and had every reason to believe his future had already been decided. But Christ interrupted those expectations when Alphonsus made the decision to become a priest. And, as a priest, he began to notice people that others had overlooked. He saw the poor. He saw those living on the margins of society. He saw people who had begun to believe that the Church had nothing to offer them. And because he saw them, everything changed.

The religious community he founded—the Redemptorists—wasn’t born from a strategic plan but from a conviction that no one should ever be left wondering whether the Gospel was meant for them.

That is the heart of today's celebration.

The Scriptures proclaimed today remind us that God's ways are always larger than our own. Again and again throughout salvation history, God looks where others fail to look, calls those whom others overlook, and entrusts his mission to people the world might never have chosen.

We see this same pattern at work in the life of Jesus.

So, before we ask, "What should we do?" Christ first teaches us to ask, "Whom do we see?"

Or perhaps the harder question: Whom do we fail to see?

As we begin this day of reflection together, I think those are the questions before us.

Who in our neighborhood has stopped believing there is a place for them in the Church?

Who longs for hope but has never heard an invitation?

Who carries burdens that remain invisible to us?

Those questions aren’t important because they are about numbers. They are important because they are about people. They are about learning to see with the eyes of Christ. Because, vision is not first about imagining a different future.

Vision begins by seeing the present differently.

It begins when we allow the Holy Spirit to enlarge our hearts until we begin noticing the people Christ notices, loving the people Christ loves, and recognizing the dignity of those whom others pass by. That is what Saint Alphonsus did. He allowed his encounter with Christ to reshape the way he saw the world.

As leaders in this parish, that is our calling as well.

Before we make plans...

Before we discuss budgets...

Before we evaluate ministries...

We are first invited to pray for the gift of vision. Not simply the vision to see where this parish might be five or ten years from now. But the vision to recognize where Christ is already at work among us—and where he is waiting for us in those who feel forgotten, unseen, or left behind.

If we begin there, then everything else we do today will rest on a solid foundation.

Because authentic renewal always begins the same way:

Not with better programs.

Not with bigger plans.

But with people whose hearts have learned to see as Christ sees. Because when we learn to see as Christ sees, we begin to love as Christ loves. And that is where true renewal begins.