Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

 

 

Twenty Second in OT  C  2025

 

In the first Scripture reading from the Book of Sirach, we read:  ‘My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.  Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.

This Old Testament teaching on humility is a lead-in to today’s Gospel.  From the evangelist Luke,  Jesus’ table fellowship is the context for teaching.  Much of Jesus’ teaching takes place in or around meals.  Jesus also will share table fellowship with anyone from Pharisee to leper.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is at a banquet and He notices how people scrambles to sit at places of honor.  It’s a very human scene –we are like recognition, respect, and prestige.  But Jesus turns that moment into a teaching on humility:  “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles will be exalted.”

Jesus is dining at the home of a leading Pharisee.  Jesus has obviously been invited for more than pleasant conversation.  The people at the meal are observing him carefully.  He is known for not following protocol during his table fellowship.  As the story proceeds, the dynamic shifts from the people observing Jesus to Jesus observing them. He is a wisdom teacher offering lessons in humility.

As Jesus observes the how the guests migrate immediately to places of honor, Jesus turns the notions of honor upside down.  Jesus says it is humility that brings honor in the eyes of God.

As we well know, in the political arena, in the sports world, and all too often in corporate life, climbing the ladder of success leads us to a self-centeredness that places ourselves at the center of the universe.

The disciples of Jesus are to have a healthy sense of the value and the virtue of humility.  C. S. Lewis says that “humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.”  Humility leads to compassion and leads to be involved in the lives of others.  Humility is not poor self-esteem; it is not a refusal to take any credit; a humble person is not disturbed by praise.  Rather, if we desire to be humble, we need to look into the eyes of people in need and identify with their pain and hurts and to respond with humble love to lift up people in need

Humility is not just modesty about my talents.  It is about looking into the eyes of another and identifying with their hurts.  Moreover, not just their hurts, we are look in the eyes of another and see God’s beauty deep within their spirit.

Humility frees us to see others not as rivals but as brothers and sisters.

And as Jesus indicates in the gospel, without humility we cannot have a relationship with God.  To enter the wedding banquet – and heaven will be a glorious banquet with Jesus as the Bridegroom and the Church as the Bride – to enter the wedding banquet, says Jesus, “take the lowest seat.”

Knowing God makes us humble; knowing ourselves keeps us humble.  All is a gift of God and we are the gracious recipients of God’s merciful love.  The talents we have are God’s gifts to us.  Knowing ourselves and our own limitations keeps us humble.

Jesus goes on even further:  he tells the host not to invite only friends, family or wealthy neighbors—people who can repay him – but the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.  Why? Because when we reach out to those who cannot repay us, we are imitating the generosity of God Himself.  God loves us not because of what we can give Him, but simple because we are His children.

Humility helps us to see ourselves as God sees us: loved but also in need of His mercy,

In today’s Gospel, Jesus has a strange way of looking on whom to invite and who are the most important.  The point is everyone is invited to the banquet of Jesus.

How do we take this gospel about how to hold a banquet and who to sit next to, how do we put it to work? It isn’t hard to see that every part of our lives are touched by questions of who makes our guest list and who does not. Just for one example, it’s hard not to notice that in such a pleasant suburban place to live as we all live in, separation from others is just part of our world here whether we planned it that way or not, and it’s a constant challenge to ask ourselves about how we feel about the people who are not here, who are not a visible part of this daily world of ours. They are all guests at the same banquet to which we are welcomed.

How are we to react to the unspeakable killing and injuring of the school  children in Minneapolis Catholic school this past Wednesday.  For sure, we are on high alert for the safety of our children.  We deal much too often with the scourge of gun violence.  Our hearts reach out to all who are victims of this violence.

The challenge of today’s gospel is to look honestly at where we seat ourselves in all the settings of our life, and who is included when we look around to see who is with us, who we exclude from the circle of people we refer to when we use the word “us.” We’re building the kingdom heaven here, where we find ourselves, at least that is supposed to be our task, and the kingdom of heaven is a place where literally everyone is invited, equally entitled to be there. And Jesus doesn’t say this, but he implies it, apparently we’re going to be kind of shocked, when we get to that ultimate kingdom of heaven, and find we are reunited not only with those we love but also everyone we didn’t, seated together in a way that has burned away everything that once separated us.

As we gather for this Eucharistic meal today, we reflect on how we have gathered for this meal.  Do we see each other as brothers and sisters?   Do we see ourselves as servants of each other?  Do we see ourselves as the servants of all who are poor?

There must be a welcome in our Eucharistic community for the needy signified by the gospel phrase ‘the poor, crippled, lame, and blind.’  What efforts do we make to ensure that no individual or group is excluded from the Lord’s meal?

 

Have a blessed day.

The narrow gate is the still small place n our hearts in which we say yes or no to God's love.

 

Twenty First Sunday in OT   C  2025

 

Today’s Gospel catches our undivided attention.   The disciples asked Jesus:  Lord, will only a few people be saved?”  Jesus responds: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”

 

Then Jesus goes on to say:  “When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’”

 

As people strived to enter the narrow door of salvation, the door was shut and people panicked and said: “Lord, open to us.”  Jesus responds:  “I do not know where you come from.”

 

Did you ever think of the Kingdom of God as a gated community?  As a gated community to which I am not welcome!  People who live in gated communities value privacy, security, and safety.  It is usually associated with some degree of affluence.

 

But isn’t the kingdom of God a home for all of God’s people – just the opposite of a gated community, is it not?  All are welcome into the kingdom of God.

 

I invite you to reflect on that haunting statement of Jesus in the Gospel:  ”I do not know where you come from.”  We need to ask ourselves the question:  “Where do you come from?”  It obviously means much more than geography and social connections.  In the Gospel account, people responded to the Lord:  “Lord you know us and where we come from.”  They come from the villages and towns where he taught and the dinner gatherings where he ate and drank.  We played golf together, don’t you remember? But superficial contacts of eating and drinking aren’t going to cut the mustard.

 

There will always be those who want in on their own terms.  They want to enter into the banquet table of the Lord because of who they know.  In all honesty, we need to confess that at times we want to come to God on our own terms.  We try to balance living out our faith amid the many commitments of our life.  We try to fulfill our obligations.

 

 

 

Is it enough to say that I’m spiritual in some abstract fashion.  Is it enough to say I’m spiritual when all is going very, very well.  Does our notion of spirituality embrace accepting the crosses of life?  Where is our spirituality as we struggle and deal with setback and loss and sickness and death?  Where is our spirituality when people disappoint us, and we are disillusioned by the hypocrisy and sinfulness of others?

 

Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is the willingness to die to self and center our lives on love of God and love of others.  What are the limits we place on our commitment to others?  Are we the followers of the Christ who died to bring healing to all people?  Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is sharing in this Eucharistic banquet Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.  To what degree can we say that the Sunday Eucharist is the source and summit of our prayer life?

 

Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is learning the great lesson of grace.  We begin through our efforts and spiritual disciplines to enter through the narrow door but ultimately our spiritual striving leads to spiritual surrender.  To pass through the narrow door means you can’t bring everything with you.You can’t b weighed down with pride, greed, grudges, or self-centeredness.  You have to strip down to the essentials – humility, mercy, faith, and love.  We ultimately live life with open hands and trusting hearts.  We trust in God’s healing grace for us, and we rely on God’s grace to lead us through the narrow door.  When our hope is in the Lord, that narrow door becomes the widest of gates. Our journey through the narrow door is a journey of faith.   All salvation comes from God.

 

The narrow door is not meant to keep people, but to keep us honest about what really belongs in God’s kingdom.

 

The takeaway message of the Gospel is learning this great lesson of grace.

 

Yes, the great lesson of grace calls us to the spiritual discipline of laying down our lives but always with the deep realization that it is not our will power; rather it is God’s loving and healing and forgiving presence in our lives that leads us to the fullness of life.

 

Jesus’ Gospel admonition still catches our attention:  “Strive to enter the narrow door.”  As with the entire Gospel, the “narrow door” is good news, not bad news.  It is the evangelium.  The Evangelium, the Gospel of Jesus is always Good News.  In fact, the narrow door is not so much about the constraint of space that keeps us from access of the kingdom of God.  Rather the narrow door is about the focus of our commitment to discipleship.  Actually the narrow door is the only entryway that is equally available to everyone, regardless of nationality, financial status, respectability, or health.  The narrow door is simply that still, small place in the heart where one says “yes” or “no” to the Gospel message of love.  It is the one place through which no external force can shape or coerce one’s choices.  It is what Theresa of Avila called the “the center of the soul,” wherein God dwells.

 

Finding the narrow door that leads to the center is not a matter of eating and drinking, or of knowing the right people or of reciting the right formulas.  It is, first and last, to share in the heart of Jesus that embraces in love all of God’s people.   Sharing in the heart of Jesus is an act of faith, trusting in the Lord, confident that God will indeed lead us to the narrow door of salvation. 

 

The door is narrow because all of our talents and abilities and disciplines and pieties will not lead us to the heart of Jesus.  For all of us the entreway to the heart of Jesus is simply that act of faith trusting that Jesus accompanies us in all experiences of life.

 

Jesus says in the Gospel that the last shall be first and the first last.  The first are those who have found in their heart what Jesus knew in his heart – divine love makes brothers and sisters of us all.  When we know this, the Lord knows us; and the narrow door becomes the widest of gates.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

Lord, teach us to pray.

 

Seventeenth Sunday in OT  C  2025

 

In the gospel, Jesus was praying by himself.  The disciples knew how important prayer was for Jesus, and so, they asked Jesus to teach them to pray. 

 

Jesus is a much better teacher on prayer than I am.  I was teaching a group of first graders on prayer some time ago.  After I finished my talk on prayer, one young girl raised her hand, and I was delighted that she wanted to engage on her prayer life.  So, when I called on her, she simply said:  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

 

Back to Jesus, of all the things the disciples saw Jesus do, the one thing they ask about is prayer.  “Lord, teach us to pray.”        

 

Now the disciples had noticed that Jesus often prayed.  Jesus prays before his baptism; he prays before the Transfiguration; he prays after the seventy returned from their mission.  Jesus prays all the time.

 

And the disciples see this.  They notice that prayer is an essential part of Jesus’ life, and that if they want to follow Jesus, if they want to be like Jesus, if they want to imitate Jesus, then they must pray.

 

 

Now, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us how to pray.  Most important, he teaches to whom we pray – a loving and caring Father into whom we entrust our concerns and our lives.  Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. 

 

We begin the Lord’s Prayer by addressing God as Father.  All who offer this prayer are children of one Father, thus brothers and sisters to one another.  We the faith community of the Church of the St. Joseph’s are brothers and sisters to one another.  There are to be no strangers among us -- only friends who perhaps have not yet met.

 

Before we petition God with our human needs, we say “hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”  We first unite ourselves with the being and the activity of God.  God invites us into an intimate relationship in which we see ourselves, and then we can feel free to boldly ask for what we need.

 

In the first Scripture reading from the Book of Genesis, we see the intimate relationship that Abraham enjoys with God.  In his prayer, he is bargaining with God to save the people of Sodom.  In this prayer, God promises Abraham, I will spare the city of Sodom if only ten innocent people can be found.

 

In our prayer life, can we speak with the kind of trust and confidence that characterized the prayer of Abraham.

 

 

 

In our prayer life, what would you describe as your greatest temptation?  What keeps from being focused on the priority of prayer?    It’s not that we are atheists or agnostics.  It’s not that we have actively rejected God and defied God by sinning.   Often it seems we simply are indifferent or too busy about many other things.

 

The Mass we celebrate is in itself a prayer.  Not to pray is to show God our indifference.  What does it mean when we turn Sunday Mass into something that is only optional?  For sure, we would not say that God is optional in the way we profess our faith in words, but we need to challenge ourselves and ask if the way we live our life matches the words we say.

 

As you reflect on your prayer life, what keeps us from deepening our relationship with God?   Do our deeds reflect that prayer works when we can fit it into our busy schedule, or do we say that prayer is the first requirement of a disciple of Jesus?  The rest of the day then is structured around our times of prayer.

 

Trust me as I present this challenge to you, I present this challenge to myself.  I know I need to be challenged as where I place the priority of prayer in my life.  May we all ask ourselves the honest question of whether our actions confirm that God is the lead priority of our lives.

 

The disciples have been taught the words of prayer in the Lord’s Prayer but more is needed.  We need to have the proper inner disposition.  We must open our hearts to our giving and forgiving God.  We need to trust that we are in the hands of God, and that all will be well for those who trust in the immensity of God’s love for us.

 

 

Jesus teaches to pray.   He also teaches us for what we pray:  not just for immediate needs, but, more important, for ultimate needs:  the furthering of God’s kingdom, the gift of forgiveness, and protection from anything that would take us from God.

 

Jesus teaches us not only the words to pray, but what deeds must match authentic prayer.  So, we are given three important truths about prayer.  The first comes from the parable of the persistent friend.  A pesky neighbor disturbs a sleeping friend and disrupts the household. In this parable, Jesus teaches us the need for persistence in our prayer life.

    

Then Jesus invites to be bold in asking for what we need – no need to be timid about our prayers of petition.  “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find.”  The Lord invites to present our needs before Him confident that our prayers will be heard.

 

Finally Jesus says:  “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?...How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”

Prayer then, for the disciple, is not imposing our will on God, but opening ourselves to God’s will for us.  For this to happen, within us and within the community, the Holy Spirit is indeed the gift that is needed.

 

In this Gospel, Jesus not only teaches us the words to say in the Lord’s prayer, but Jesus gives us also a window into the heart of God who can give be trusted to give us His beloved children always not what we want but always what we need.

 

Have  a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

Propagation of the Faith 2025

 

PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH HOMILY  2025

In my 57 years as a priest, excluding Christmas and Easter Masses, I have never experienced a liturgy in which at 6:00 am on each and every school day 1,000 high school girls in full Catholic school uniform sing the opening hymn with enthusiastic voices accompanied only by one high school girl in the choir loft striking a well-worn drum.  I tell you looking out from the altar at these Tanzanian girls was a mystical moment of prayerfulness and joy.

We were indeed on holy ground.  Father Damian Milliken, a Benedictine priest from Elmira, New York, was presiding at the Mass.  Father Damian is a priest now in his 90’s and has ministered in the last 50 years of his priesthood serving the poorest of the poor in Tanzania, East Africa.  The genuine love and respect that Father Damian enjoys with these young Tanzanians and their families and all who live in the area around Mazinde Ju is so Christ-like and uplifting. 

Equally impressive is a religious community of consecrated women who are such an important part of the teaching faculty.  These are the religious sisters of Usambara.  Dressed in their full habit, these sisters number 500 in Tanzania.  These sisters know in their DNA the joy of the Lord.

About six years ago, six parishioners from St. Joseph’s parish made this pilgrimage to Tanzania arriving in the Mount Kilimanjaro International Airport warmly greeted by Father Damian.  As a side bar, we did not have time to hike up Mt Kilimanjaro but that mountain sure is impressive.   We visited and became part of the community of St. Mary’s School in Mazinde Ju located on the side of a mountain in one of the poorest regions of Tanzania.  This was such a precious God moment for the six of us.  We were privileged to enter the world of Father Damian and the sisters of Usambara and these high school girls who are so very, very grateful for this educational experience that gives them the opportunity to go on to a university and have job opportunities which otherwise these students simply would not have.   For these students come from very poor families.

In a culture that is so different from what I am used to, to be immediately accepted and embraced and loved truly is an experience of a lifetime.

To describe St Mary’s School is a bit of a challenge.  It is a residential school where these students live during the academic year and are able to get three healthy meals each day.  The dormitories these students live in are filled with bunk beds.  Each girl has a tiny cubicle which houses all her worldly possessions including all her clothing.  I have a beautiful niece for whom to put all her clothes in this tiny cubicle would simply be impossible. 

These beloved daughters of God have no sense of entitlement by which they expect people to take care of them.  They are so grateful for every opportunity in life that is given to them.  They are not saddened by the effects of the poverty of the country; they are joy-filled in the opportunity that is given to them as students in this quality academic setting that is filled with so much love and so much spirituality.

Why do I tell you all this?  This weekend is our parish’s annual Propagation of the Faith Mission Appeal in which we are asked to spiritually and financially St Mary’s School in Masinde Ju in Tanzania.   Previously in this annual Propagation of the Faith Mission appeal, Father Damian has spoken in parishes in our diocese.  This year, Father Damian asked me to preach in order to save the money that would have cost for him to make the trip.

For the last several years, I have personally contributed $1,000 which provides a scholarship for a student for a whole year.   I gladly make this $1,000 contribution each year.  I had the profound privilege of spending some time with this young Tanzanian girl I have sponsoring.  I tell you I had to tell myself: “Be still my heart.” when I realized the opportunity I was giving this daughter of God in my prayer and in my tithing commitment.  In all truth, l cannot think of a better use of this money.  The second collection today goes in support of this Tanzanian ministry.  I have talked about St. Mary’s School, our contributions also go to support another nearby high school for schools founded by Father Damian and headed by Sister Christa, another Sister of Usambara.  Father Damian has also founded St Benedict’s parish with an elementary school connected to it. 

Today’s gospel is the very familiar and much-loved parable of the good Samaritan.  The gospel clearly calls us to be missionaries of mercy in the lives of people in need.  We are to be witnesses to the mercy of God to each other.  The mercy of God means sharing with one another acts of undeserved kindness.

In the parable, the scholar of the law asked Jesus the question:  Who is your neighbor?  I would ask you a follow up question:  Who is not your neighbor?

At both St Joseph’s and Holy Spirit, we seek to make a part of the DNA of our spirituality reaching beyond ourselves to help and serve and support and love people in need.  That is the message of Jesus demonstrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Our mission collection today, the second collection, invites us to be Good Samaritans to these Tanzanian high school girls.  Just as you would do everything for your daughters, I invite you to consider these Tanzanian young women as your spiritual daughters.

Yes, we live in a divided, polarized world.  Yes, in some ways, we live in a divided, polarized Church.

But I always go back to the last words that Jesus spoke to his disciples at the Last Supper on the night before he died:  By this all shall know you are my disciples, by your love for one another.

Have a Blessed day.

 

 

 

 

 

                                          

 

 

 

 

In what ways do we share equality with each other?

  

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN OT C  2025

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are equated equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

In reflecting on these words taken from the second paragraph of our nation’s Declaration of Independence, we must say there are many ways in which we are not all equal.  Some people enjoy the blessings of material prosperity much more than others.  Some people are more academically gifted than others.  Some folks enjoy the blessings of health much more than others.

 

And so we ask the question:  how is equality shared among us?  The Declaration of Independence says we are all created equal and that we are endowed by our Creator.  The fundamental equality that we all share is that each one of us without exception are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  The Declaration of Independence has it right when it says we are created equal, and that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Indeed the equality envisioned by the founders of this great nation is a Gospel truth that is to be celebrated.  We are God’s beloved, and that we are to relate to one another in ways that reflect that equality.

 

As we celebrate the Fourth of July weekend and as we give thanks to God for the many blessings we enjoy as citizens of this country that we deeply love, it is good to pause and reflect on being American and being Catholic.

 

For example, what is the freedom we aspire to as Americans and what is the freedom we aspire as the disciples of Jesus?  As Americans, it is easy for us to lose track of the meaning of freedom that was given to us by our founding fathers and mothers.

 

Sometimes as Americans we think of freedom as the right to self-expression, to express my individuality in any way I wish and at any time I wish.  This is my right as an American, thank you very much.

 

This overly individualistic view of freedom needs to be balanced and corrected by a Gospel sense of freedom and discipleship.  As St Paul says, Christ has set us free – free to serve, free to love, free to celebrate that the Kingdom of God is at hand.  Freedom for a disciple isn’t just about individualism.  It is the freedom to be about building up the Kingdom of God in the here and now; it is the freedom to serve; it is the freedom to wash the feet of God’s poor.

 

From today’s Gospel, twenty centuries ago, Jesus summoned 72 committed people and sent them, two by two, to communicate God’s love, to bind up wounds, and to be peacemakers in a troubled world.  These ordinary people took with them no great plan, no set speech, no “how-to” manual.  They brought only their faith, their trust, and their experience of Jesus.  Jesus knew they would make mistakes; nevertheless, he involved them in his mission and gave them his authority.

 

Jesus may have sent them out without purse, bag, and sandals, but he did not send them out without advice.  Yes, they were to live simply.  The disciples of Jesus are to experience freedom in that simplicity.  They are to be missionaries for the reign of God.

 

Flash forward now twenty centuries to July 6, 2025.  We are missioned to share in the mission and ministry of Jesus.  This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  We need to leave the baggage behind that keeps from focusing on our mission of witnessing to the love of Jesus in our community.  We need to leave behind the baggage of old hurts, of grudges that we have been holding on too long, of prejudices that keep us from recognizing in our neighbor one of God’s beloved.

 

The Gospel invites us to reflect on the truth that Jesus sends all of us out to be missionaries.  As American Christians, we have a dual citizenship.  We certainly are citizens of America; but as baptized disciples of Jesus Christ, we are also citizens of and belong to the Reign of God.

 

What would it take for us to live by the values by the founders of this great nation and what it take for us to be more faithful  to the mission that Jesus gave to His original apostles and disciples?

 

As we celebrate our nation’s anniversary of our independence, may we remember and celebrate that indeed we are a nation of immigrants; we celebrate the equality

we share with one another; we are a nation of welcome and hospitality; we are a nation that fosters peace and provides opportunities for growth for one and all.

 

May we retain true to these values as Americans.

 

As disciples, Jesus challenges us in our life’s work, in our relationships, in our personal spirituality to try to instill elements of the Reign of God into American culture.   As we celebrate the great nation that we have been blessed with, let us also be aware of the great gift of faith we have been blessed with. 

 

In today’s gospel passage, Jesus appointed 72 others to go ahead of him with news of God’s love and peace.  Those 72, in Luke’s view, represented the diverse nations of the world.  Jesus’ mission and message were intended for all.  That work of evangelization continues throughout history.

 

In sending out the 72,   Luke wants to tell us the mission of Jesus is not only carried forward by the so called experts like priests and religious, but it is the responsibility of every believer in Jesus.  Each one of us, as the community of the baptized, are missioned to communicate God’s love, bind up the wounds of our brothers and sisters, and we are to be peacemakers in a troubled world.

 

The mission of the Church is to carry on the mission of Jesus --  to live as Jesus lives, to love as Jesus loves, to forgive as Jesus forgives us.  The mission of the Church is to lift us and to affirm the dignity of each and every person – regardless of their race, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of their politics, their religion or whatever difference you can possibly think of.  Today’s Gospel makes clear that all of us are to be missionaries proclaiming this mission.

 

We are both Americans who are committed to the values of the founders of this great nation.   We are also the disciples of Jesus committed to binding the wounds of our brothers and sisters and we are to be peacemakers in a troubled world.

 

 

Have a Blessed Day.

"Who do you say that I am?"

 

FEAST OF STS PETER AND PAUL  2025

The great apostles Peter and Paul whose feast we celebrate today are part of the beginnings of our Church. They gave their lives over to Jesus.  They were the leaders of the Jesus movement that spread to the ends of the earth.

Peter and Paul were ordinary people made extraordinary by grace. As we celebrate their feast, may we pause to reflect on our own spiritual journey.  We too are ordinary that are  made extraordinary by God’s grace. Peter who was impetuous and who denied Jesus three times was the man Jesus chose to the first Pope.  As the pope, Peter kept the Church united in the years following Pentecost.  These were years of rapid growth in the Church.

Paul’s dynamic personality was different than Peter’s and through his tireless preaching the Gentiles, the non-Jews, were welcomed into the Church.  Whenever you see the statues of Peter and Paul, usually Peter is holding a key, symbolizing his duty as the head of the Church, and Paul is holding the Bible, symbolizing his preaching.

Jesus used the different personalities of Peter and Paul, and was not disillusioned by the weaknesses of both Peter and Paul.  God called them to use their personalities to spread the Gospel.  Peter used his  impetuous love to look after the flock, and Paul used his training as a Pharisee and his strength of character to ensure that non-Jews would be welcomed into the Church.  It is a reminder to us that our talents and our weaknesses too can become God’s means of helping others.

Peter’s journey is one of great hope for all of us.  He confessed Jesus as the Messiah and received the keys to the kingdom.  And yet, he denied Jesus three times.  Peter reminds us that failure does not disqualify us from discipleship.  What matters is our repentance and our willingness to return to the Lord.

What do we make of our brokenness in our spiritual journey?  Our use of pornography, our too frequent masturbation, our judgments we make on others, our impatience with the shortcomings of others, the distractions that accompany our prayer life?

You and I are sinners, flawed human beings whom the Lord calls us to discipleship.  Our spiritual journey is not marked by perfection or by a will power that has overcome the sinfulness of our lives but rather we are called to be disciples that recognize our need for God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Jesus didn’t say to Peter, “You are perfect, and upon this perfection I will build my Church.”  Rather the Church is built not on perfection but on grace, mercy, and the power of Christ.

Paul’s story is dramatic:  from persecuting Christians to becoming one of the Church’s greatest missionaries.  His life is testimony to the transforming power of Christ.  When Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, He didn’t just redirect this mission—He recreated his heart.

On the feast of saints Peter and Paul, we are reminded in a deeply personal way that our brokenness is not barrier to faith—but the very path through which our faith often grows.  These two great apostles, whose lives we celebrate today, were not perfect.  They were wounded, flawed, and broken in different ways—but precisely through those broken places, God’s grace entered and transformed them.

Paul’s past was violent—he persecuted the early Christians with zeal.  He stood by as Stephen was stoned.  But it was in the midst of his blindness that Christ encountered him on the road to Damascus.

Paul never hid his past.  In fact, he often spoke of his weakness and referred to a “thorn in the flesh.” But he also wrote:  “God’s grace is sufficient for me, for power is make perfect in weakness.”

Paul’s brokenness became his testimony:  proof that God can redeem anything, and anyone.

The lives of Peter and Paul reveal a deeper spiritual truth.  God doesn’t work around brokenness.  He works through it.  What we try to hide – our fears, our failures, our shame—become in God’s hands the very tools of grace and growth.

May you reflect this day on the spiritual truth that your brokenness may be your path to God, rather than a detour.  In the words of the apostle Paul, what is your thorn in the flesh?  May you encounter the Lord by opening yourself up to God’s mercy and forgiveness.

 Today we honor not just who Peter and Paul were, but who they allowed Christ to be in them.  They were flawed men, transformed by grace, and sent into the world with courage.

In praying over this Gospel, Jesus is asking the same question He asked the apostle Peter:  “Who do you say that I am?”
In the context of your life, amid your busyness, your commitments, your family, your fears and anxieties:   The question Jesus asks of us as well:  “Who do you say that I am?”  The apostles Peter and Paul were martyred for they believed.    Their faith wasn’t watered down to comply with the prevailing wisdom of the day as set forth by the Roman government.  Because of their willingness to surrender to God and allow their lives to be given over to a future they had not planned, Peter and Paul are two foundational apostles for us.

“Who do you say that I am?”  We gather as a faith community today to celebrate the Eucharistic presence of Christ among us.  We are fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord.  We deeply believe in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Jesus is among us and within us as we receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

“Who do you say that I am?”  Are we willing to discover Jesus as He lives in the hearts of people – as Jesus lives in His Church.  The mystery of Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures is the mystery of how Jesus lives in our world and in the lives of people.

“Who do you say that I am?”  May we recognize our own thorns in the flesh and may they us to trust more completely in the grace and mercy  of our loving God.

“Who do you that I am?”

Have a blessed day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mystery of the Trinity can only be grasped through the power of love.

 

TRINITY SUNDAY  C  2025

Today, we celebrate one of the most profound mysteries of our faith:  the most Holy Trinity – one God in three persons:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It’s a truth so central to Christianity that every prayer we make, every Mass we celebrate, begins and ends in the name of the Trinity.

 

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity.  We celebrate the mystery of the inner life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The inner life of God is communal, is relational; it is family.  In contemplating the Trinity, we reflect on the family of God.  We are drawn into the heart of God.

The Trinity is not a math problem.  No, it is nor isolation but communion.

The mystery of the Trinity can only be approached by analogy through our own experience of the power of love.  What we can understand points to what we cannot fully grasp, the inner life of God.  But we glimpse it.  God is a community, three divine persons emptying themselves into one another in an infinite cycle that is the source of all love.

To grasp the inner life of God in the mystery of Trinity, we don’t need to be theologians; rather we need to experience the great gift of friendship and love and mercy in life.  For us, Jesus is the face of the Father’s love and mercy.

Human friendship has the power to free people from the isolation we all experience as individuals.  At its highest point, friendship has the power to overcome the defenses and barriers that keep us separate.  We anticipate the thoughts and the needs of the beloved as our own, and we abandon ourselves in this exchange.  This is the beauty of love and friendship whether it is a young couple passionately in love, or the quiet intimacy of the long-married couple or with old friends whose habits are intertwined with affection and humor and familiarity.

It is only by analogy, but human relationships give us a glimpse into the mystery of the Trinity.  What does this mean?  For us to experience God in our hearts, we need to experience and value the friendship and the love of another in our hearts.  For me, God’s presence is revealed to me in family and in the friendships of my life.  When I love and am loved, I know God in my heart.

In some ways, the feast of the Trinity is the feast of family life.   We come from God in creation and we return home to God as we enter the fullness of God’s eternal life.  What will help us better appreciate where we have come and where we are going to is family life.  In the inner life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God is communal, God is family – the divine family.

Our experience of God is discovered in prayer, yes; our experience of God is also discovered in family – your family life.  Trust me I am not presuming your family life is perfect for you to experience  God.  I was born at night, but not last night.  There is struggle in all family life; to be a family is hard work at times.  But God dwells in your family life.  This I know.  In fact, there is no dimension of your family in which God is not present – in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.

The mystery of the divine family in the Blessed Trinity is perfect in the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But the mystery of God’s love and mercy is that God comes to us in our weakness, in our brokenness, in the craziness of our family life.  God’s love for us is unending.  What I like to say is there is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.

Our response to the Trinitarian love of God for us is one of gratitude.  And so, in this Eucharist, we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.   When we know the merciful love of Jesus in the depths of our hearts, we will love with an attitude of gratitude for our days. 

What are we to make of the messiness of our family life -- when a couple are struggling to love because past hurts keep them from reaching out in love to each other, when parenting their children seems to getting derailed by the failure of children to listen to their parents and by the failure of parents to listen to their children.  It goes both ways, of course.

The Spirit-filled grace we seek is to see in the struggles of our family life, we realize more fully our need for God’s grace and to be more immersed in the mystery of God’s love for us.  Jesus immerses Himself in our limitations and our struggles.  Through united to God, Jesus empties himself of divine privilege and becomes one of us and dies like a slave.  In so doing, God is pouring out mercy to a broken world.  Our brokenness does not keep us from receiving the love of God; rather, it is because of our brokenness that God send his Son into the world to be our friend as well as our Savior and Lord.

So, how do we live the mystery of the Trinity?

 

·       Be a person of communion.  Just as the Trinity is unity in diversity, we’re called to build relationships marked by love, forgiveness and mutual respect.

·       Be open to the Spirit.  Let God speak to you through prayer, Scripture, and conscience

·       Live from the heart of the Trinity.  Know you are loved – eternally, unconditionally – by a God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.

At the end of the day, it is in the human love and friendship we have with each other that is the lens in which we will discover the love and mercy of God that is poured on us from day to day, from moment to moment.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.