My simple resolution for New Years is to be open to God's plan for me in 2016.

The life of Jesus begins with Mary at the Bethlehem crib.  Therefore it is most appropriate we begin the New Year with Mary on this her feast day of Mary the Mother of God.

Perhaps this year following the example of Mary, instead of filling your plate with your plans, your resolutions for the New Year, simply try to be open for what God has planned for you in 2016.

Live this year with open hands and a trusting heart. As with Mary, say YES to God’s plan for you this year.  You may not hear the voice of the angel Gabriel as Mary did, but when you make room for God in your life, you will discern God’s call.  Yes, we may be surprised at what will happen.  It may not be what you expect.  There may be interruptions to our plans.  But know this, God won’t leave us alone.

You won’t need to make new plans for your family life, your work life, or your neighborhood life.  All that is necessary is to follow the example of Mary: 

The evangelist tells in today’s Gospel:  “The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger.  When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.  All who heard it were astonished by what had been told them by the shepherds.  And Mary kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”

My goal, my prayer for this New Year is to simply follow the example of Mary:  “She kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”  My simple plan is to take a few minutes each evening -- It could be any time of the day – and simple be aware of my day, what has happened, who I have encountered, and most importantly to be grateful for how God has been present in my life this day. 

This simple act of awareness, of reflection, of pondering, naming the feelings of the day is Mary’s pattern of prayer.  This also is recommended by St Ignatius in his SPIRITUAL EXERCISES.  It is called the awareness examen.  A simple example:  What beautiful thing did you see or experience today?  It came from God of course.  Why not say thank you.

For me, I visited today my brother-in-law today as he is a patient in Unity hospital.  To pray with him and his two beautiful daughters and to share with him the Sacrament of the Sick was truly a God moment for me today.  God was present to all of us.

Mary’s prayer was to ponder in her heart all that was happening to her.  To ponder means more than thinking, planning, organizing, worrying, doing, procrastinating, scurrying, etc.  To ponder means that we pray with a faith-filled heart over the joys and the struggles and challenges of the day.  It means to meditate, quiet down and know that we live surrounded by God’s unending love.  We give thanks for the blessings of the day.

  

May we pray as Mary prayed.  May we pray each and every day – and not just to ask God for a favor.  Seek to make your life a conversation with God.  Listen and ponder in your heart what God has to say to you.  God is speaking to you in all that is happening in your life – in both life’s joys and in life’s sufferings.  They are all part of the conversation God is having with you.  God desires for you to ponder these things in your heart and to say YES to the plan of God in your life.

What is life going to be like for yourself and for myself in 2016?  We may end up like our parish patron St Joseph in situations that are not of our own doing.  Joseph’s flight into Egypt from Bethlehem was unexpected and meant leaving behind the comfortable and the familiar and opening himself to new possibilities.  Like Joseph, we need to trust that God goes with us and our future is full of hope.

Along with the prayer of Mary of pondering in our hearts the events of our lives, I also commend to you the beautiful practice of asking for a blessing.  Before going on a trip or in dealing with illness in life, I am often asked to give a blessing for a person.  This blessing places our lives in the hands of our loving God with much trust and much gratitude. 

May the blessing that the Lord said to Moses be the blessing the Lord speaks to each of us:

The Lord bless and keep you.

The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

May your lives be blessed in all of 2016.

The power of God comes to us in a tiny infant.

In one simple unassuming sentence, the Christmas mystery is revealed.  From the evangelist Luke:  “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.”  The power of God comes to us in a tiny infant.  God is with us in the Bethlehem infant born to Mary and Joseph.

The mystery of Christmas happens for us  when we connect the story of our lives with the story of Christmas.  The Christmas message is the story of God’s unconditional love for us.  As his disciples we are to fill this world with many other stories that mirror and give witness to God’s love for us.  That is the meaning and wonder of the Incarnation.

A couple of stories that speak the message of Christmas:

In Africa, a tale is told of a boy called Amazu, who was always very inquisitive. One day he asked, "What language does God speak?" But no one could answer him.  He traveled all over his country questioning everyone but could not get a satisfactory answer. Eventually he set out for distant lands on his quest. For a long time he had no success.

At length, he came one night to a village called Bethlehem, and as there was no room in the local inn, he went outside the village in search of shelter for the night. At last he came to a cave and found that a couple and a child also occupied it. He was about to turn away when the young mother spoke, "Welcome Amazu, we've been waiting for you."

The boy, amazed that the woman knew his name, was even more amazed when she went on to say, "For a long time you have been searching the world over to find out what language God speaks. Well, now your journey is over. Tonight you can see with your own eyes the language God speaks. He speaks the language of love."

The woman in the cave spoke the language of love to Amazu in calling him by name.  Amazu knew in his heart he was loved by a person he had never met before.

This I know God is present among when we speak the language of love to each other.  I have reached that age in life when the gift I most appreciate is a smile that speaks the language of love.

When Jesus became an adult and on the night before he died, he said:  “By this all shall know that you are my disciples, the love you have for one another.

May the language of love be in your heart, in your family, in our parish life, in our work place, in our political discourse, in our attitude with Muslims and with all people who believe and act differently than we do.  Jesus came to fill this world with His love and we are to be the witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus.

Another story:

Long ago, there ruled in Persia a wise and good king who loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived, and he wanted particularly to know about their hardships. Often dressed in the clothes of a worker or a beggar, he visited the homes of the poor. No one whom he visited ever thought he might be their ruler.

Once he visited a very poor man who lived in a cellar. He ate the coarse food the poor man ate, and he spoke cheerful, kind words to him. Then he left.

Later when he visited the poor man again, he disclosed his identity saying, "I am your king!" Then the king thought the man would surely ask for some gift or favor, but he did not.

Instead, he said, "You left your palace and your glory to visit me in this dark, dreary place. You ate the course food I ate. You brought gladness to my heart! To others you have given your rich gifts. To me you have given yourself!"

This is the true meaning of Christmas.  As is said in the creed we profess together:  "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man."

With much joy and with great anticipation, the Christmas season is the season of gift giving --  most, most especially the gifts we give our children.  May our family Christmas tree be surrounded by the gifts we wish to share.  But at the end of the day,  what we know in our hearts, far greater than any gift we can give our children is the gift they give us  -- the gift of themselves, the gift of their love.  Our children bring out the magic of Christmas.  They speak to us of the presence of Jesus in our lives.

Christmas are my favorite liturgies.  As the pastor, I have the great privilege of presiding at our 2:00 and 4:00 Christmas children’s liturgies and the solemnity of our midnight liturgy.  At the risk of being schizophrenic, the presence of Jesus is revealed fully both in the blessed chaos of our children and in the solemnity of the midnight liturgy.   God is present in the youthful enthusiasm of our children and in the more solemn reverence of our other liturgies.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our children are the bearers of the mystery of Christmas to us, that is say, they are the bearers of the presence of Jesus to us even though the gift of silence is not part of the liturgy.  However, there is equal experience of the presence of Jesus among us in the  gift of silence, the gift of singing the Christmas mystery, the gift of reverence that is part of our other liturgies..

To celebrate Christmas with our children and to celebrate Christmas with those of us who know the Christmas story is ageless and needs to be told and retold with solemnity and reverence is the best of both worlds.  From the darkened hills of Judea in the dark of night long ago to this liturgy celebrated, Jesus is present in our midst when we speak the language of love to each other, when we share the gift of self, and when we gather around the Table of the Lord in awe and mystery to give thanks to the Lord our God.

I hope your Advent preparation includes Visitation moments when you simply share and laugh and pray with those you deeply love.

Christmas is on the horizon, and today’s Scriptures may be lost amid the merriment as well as the Christmas pageants and the busyness of the season.

The prophet Micah in the first Scripture reading speaks of a coming ruler who will restore peace to the world.  Emerging from unlikely Bethlehem, this leader will walk in the ways of peace and bring true security to the people. Can the prophetic dream of Micah calm our spirits and mobilize us to move from fearful reaction to hopeful action in facing the moral and political dilemmas of our time?   We have been dominated by fear and the terrorists’ threats in San Bernardino, California and in Paris and the Los Angeles school system.  As we watch the presidential debates in the significant questions about our security as nation, we wonder whether guns and our military might can save us, whether banning Syrian immigrants can save us, or closing the door to Muslim immigrants can save us?  Without waging into political debates, this I deeply believe:  only a heart open to God and our brothers and sisters can bring healing to us and our world.  May we pray for the coming of the Prince of Peace into our hearts and into our world.

In some ways, we have been in darkness of fear too long.  Fear has ruled us and we are in need of light to find our way.  Let the light of your countenance shine upon us, God, so that we might find peace and hope in the future.

In the second Scripture reading from the book of Hebrews, the coming of Christ changes everything.  The sacred writer proclaims that we need God’s presence in our midst.  Plain and simple, we are saved by grace, not by human achievement.

The Gospel is our family story – the story of our salvation.  It is a tale of the early days of our own religious clan.  We can claim Elizabeth and Mary as our ancestors in our faith history.  As both were pregnant through the grace of God, they came together as friends, as cousins, as soul mates.   We see Elizabeth’s great act of faith in the words she spoke to Mary:  “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Today’s readings invite us to treasure fond memories of these two women who are our ancestors in faith, these two whose faith freed them enough to believe in what reason told them could never happen.  These two knew they were only women.  Not only that, but Elizabeth was too old and Mary too inexperienced; there could be no rational expectation that God’s promises would be fulfilled through them.  But that impossibility, their utter incapacity, was precisely their advantage.  Because they knew they could not accomplish it by themselves, they did not limit God to their abilities or expectations.  They were empty enough to become full of grace.  

Today, as we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Nativity, we are invited to contemplate the example of Mary and Elizabeth.  They offer us a model of friendship rooted in shared faith, a faith so deep that it risks everything and can even rejoice in the adventure of an unknown future.

What about our family stories that are rooted in friendship and in shared faith?   May we treasure our family history and our family stories and increase our awareness of the spiritual dimension of these stories.  I very treasure my relationship with my two sisters, Anne and Jean, and my brother John.  In my family, as I willing to bet in your families, my siblings and nephews and nieces have different ways of living out their faith.  I don’t pretend to say we all are pray in the same way.  But I do know we love each other and treasure the times we are together.

Most recently, 55 of us were together on Thanksgiving Day at my brother John’s home.  We have celebrated marriages, baptisms, first communions, deaths of my parents and older brother and sister, and the priesthood ordination of my nephew Jason at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome by St. John Paul II.  There have been many, many treasured and special events in our family history.

But when I reflect on the Gospel visitation of Mary and Elizabeth in trust and gratitude, I don’t think of a most significant family event – a milestone event; rather I think of a very personal intimacy between two good friends who were sharing their love and faith with each other.  I know for myself it is such a gift when my sister and I share the Eucharist and then share a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  It is a very ordinary coming together of siblings – no big deal; but in another sense, what is more important in life than the gratitude and trust and love that my sister and I share with each other.  At the end of the day, this is what is lifegiving for me and for my sister as well.

I hope your Advent preparation includes Visitation moments when you simply share and laugh and pray with those you deeply love.  In that context, God is present and we will be led to pray as Mary did:  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Mary and Elizabeth are helping us to enter the Christmas mystery of God’s unending love for us.  God chooses to come to us in the context of family, as a tiny child.  May you value your family life and discover how Jesus seeks to be born again in family life – in your family life.

The Scriptures tell us that in the dawn of our salvation, the Savior was born in the humble insignificant town of Bethlehem; his mother was a young humble woman from Nazareth.  She chose to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth.  In their sharing and trust in each other, we come to pray a beautiful story of our spiritual family history.

May you reflect in this Advent-Christmas season on your personal family story  --- the spiritual dimension of your family history.  God chooses to come among in humble places and among humble people.  May you recognize the birth of Jesus in the ordinary, humble dimensions of your family life.  Maybe the youngest of your family is the birthing place of the Savior once more.

We are a Church that accepts everyone and refuses no one.

This past Tuesday, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter’s to begin the Jubilee of Mercy.  Francis said this Holy Year will focus on the topic of mercy.  He says he wants this church of 1.2 billion members to more merciful and less rigid toward sinners.  The Jubilee would be an occasion for all members – and for the church itself – to rediscover the need to be forgiving and generous.  The church is the home that accepts everyone and refuses no one – the greater the sin, the greater the love that the church should toward those who repent.

In that spirit, we have begun the liturgy of the third Sunday of Advent – Gaudete Sunday – by blessing the holy door – sancta porta – of our church.  This door between the church and our Blessed Sacrament chapel celebrates for our parish community God’s limitless mercy.   This door that connects our Eucharistic altar table with the Blessed Sacrament chapel is indeed a holy door.  May all who pass through this door celebrate God’s merciful love for us.  May we who pass through this door be confirmed in our vision of church that accepts everyone and refuses no one.

In the gospel of this third Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist is asked by the people what they should do to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.  John’s response starts out with what we have come to call the corporal works of mercy.  “Let the person with two coats give to the person who has none.  The person who has food should do the same.”  In other words, show mercy to those in need – without conditions.

Still others asked John what they should do to prepare for the Messiah.  John’s response was that they should not take advantage of others; treat others honestly and with respect; be satisfied with what they are given. Mercy is a component of these behaviors, for in them we treat others equally and without judgment.

This Advent is the perfect time for us to establish during this jubilee year of mercy our parish holy door of mercy.    As we pray in our Blessed Sacrament chapel and in our church, may we with grateful and joy-filled hearts celebrate the presence of Jesus among us.

As we gather this Wednesday evening for our Advent penance service with individual confession, may the door leading into the confession be also a holy door for us celebrating God’s limitless love for us.

In the first Scripture from the prophet Zephaniah, we are told that sin occurs when we search for happiness apart from God, when are too caught in the busyness, the commercialism, the fleeting pleasures of life.  The prophet reminds us that the Lord, your God, is in our midst.  The Lord wishes to rejoice with you and renew you in his love.

We confess the times we have searched for happiness apart from God.  Sometimes we search for happiness in our wealth, in our successes, in our desire to control people and manage what happens in life, in our pride, in our sexuality and so on and so on.

  

May the apostle Paul be an example for us.  The apostle Paul in the second Scripture tells the Philippians and all of us:  “Rejoice in the Lord always, I shall say it again: rejoice!”  Now mind you Paul is writing from his prison cell.  Paul was not rejoicing in the things of this world; rather Paul was rejoicing because God was with him in his prison cell as he wrote to the Philippian church.

The apostle Paul, even from a prison cell, knew that joy was the basic mood of a Christian.  This is the theme of Gaudete Sunday.  However, at times one gets the impression that it is not the experience of many Christians, who somehow have come to believe that religion is a serious business, that one is not living a good Christian life unless it is full of sacrifices, that a Christian means giving up many of the pleasures that are available to non-Christians.  They seem to think that being a Christian means living a half-life as the price for a better to come.

There is a saying:  “A sad saint is a sad kind of saint.”  A sad Christian is a contradiction in terms.  That is not to say that there is not sadness in any Christian life – as in any normal person’s life – times of pain, of sickness, of failure, of great loss.  Grieving and letting go is an important part of life but these experiences do not ultimately define as the disciples of Jesus.  Even in the midst of tears, the works of Jesus to us are:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Have faith in God and also in me.”

Every experience, if we can only realize it, is touched by God and has its meaning.  Once that meaning is found and accepted, inner joy and peace can return.  The great truth of our life is we have everything we need here and now to be happy.  Amen.  The problem is that we identify our happiness with people or things we don’t have and often can’t have.    Many of us people who are poor, people who don’t the things of life we take for granted, and yet they are filled with joy.  There joy comes from within.  It is the joy that is a gift of God to one and all.

May John the Baptist be an Advent guide for us.  Our aim, our mission is to lead people to the feet of Jesus that they may know him personally as Saviour, Lord, brother and Friend?  Our role is, like John the Baptist, to step aside once the introductions are over and leave Jesus to do his work.

At the same time, Jesus does need our cooperation.  Jesus works through every parent and every teacher and every parishioner who has a call to form people.  Saturday morning, we celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation with 139 of our younger parishioners.  To prepare these beautiful young people, we need the commitment of their parents, the parish catechists and staff,  the priests, and the example of the whole community.  Our commitment as a parish is to bring people to know and experience Jesus.  That is the pattern and meaning of evangelization, of bringing the Gospel to others.

In this Advent season, as we joyfully prepare for the coming of Christ, may we lead others to Jesus.  This is our mission as Catholics – to experience Jesus in our hearts and to share the love of Jesus with others.

The Word of God was spoken to an outsider (John the Baptist) in the desert. Who speaks the Word of God to us today?

We are an Advent people.  We are given the gift of time to prepare the inn of our hearts and to prepare our faith community for the coming of Christ Jesus.  I suggest we will value the true spirit of
Christmas to the degree that we have prepared as an Advent people for the joyful coming of the Saviour into our lives.

I like to think of Advent as a time of listening to what God is birthing in me.  Need to quiet down and listen.  Tuesday we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  She who gave birth to the Saviour calls us to the awareness that Jesus needs to be born again this Christmas.  In what way if God birthing in you?  Our Advent time of waiting for new birth is a labor of patient love.

How do we prepare as an Advent people?  We need to look to the Scriptures for guidance.  The evangelist Luke in today’s Gospel tells us that the Word of God was spoken to John the Son of Zachariah in the desert.  Say that again!  Where was the Word of God spoken and to whom?    Note that the Word of God was not pronounced by the religious and political leaders of the day.  It bypassed them all.  The Word of God did not come from the Palace of the Temple.  The Word of God came from an outsider in the desert.  The Word of God came to John in the desert.  What?  Did I hear that right?

It leaves with the question:  Where is the wilderness in your life in which the Word of God is going to be proclaimed to you?  Is there a wilderness area in your heart?  Perhaps that side of you that never sees the light of day.  Perhaps it is a place of struggle and turmoil and sinfulness.  The Word of God comes in the crosses and in the places of wilderness in our lives.

Where is the wilderness in the world about it?  Certainly we find it in the all too many senseless acts of violence in which innocent lives are lost.  There is the wilderness in the growing treat of terrorists and how to respond to acts of terrorism and the threatening face of war.  There is the wilderness of pornography, and in the lives that are lost in acts of abortion.   Yes, there is much, much wilderness but you may be sure that God is present and the Word of God is spoken to the wilderness.  May we, like John the Baptist, be aware of how the Word of God is being spoken.

Don’t discount any place in your life as a place where the Word of God may be spoken to you.  Into whatever area of your life you seem most vulnerable, most discouraged, that may well be the area of wilderness in which God is speaking to you.  In whatever relationship that is falling apart in your life, in whatever fear and anxiety is most troubling to you, into what political, secular, or moral component of society is most disturbing, the Word of God is present.

Today’s Gospel begins:  “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod the tetrarch of Galilee etc., the Word of God came to John the son of Zachariah in the desert.  I suggest if you daydreamed through the first lines of today’s Gospel, you missed the whole point of Luke’s Gospel.  The evangelist is setting the ministry of Jesus in its wider historical context.  The point is the sacred ministry of Jesus emerged right in the midst of secular history.  Secular history does not get in the way of the proclamation of the Word of God.  Rather, for us to hear the Word of God proclaimed in this moment of history means wen need to know the circumstances of our own history.  God’s word is being spoken in the midst of the mess of our own lives and in the mess of the church and the world we live in.  I know God likes to speak me when I am too busy to listen.  My Advent mantra is the word of the psalmist:  “Be still and know that I am God.”

Who speaks the Word of God today in the context in which we live our lives?    Is it the priest, a ministry person, a politician, a writer, a teacher, our children, a wisdom person we may know?  It is for us to be aware of the prophets in our midst.

The message of John the Baptist to the people of his day as well as to us:  God is about to act.  Therefore prepare the way of the Lord.  His message was and is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  John is talking about an inner change, a metanoia.  Before we can experience the joy of Christmas, John the Baptist calls us to a baptism of repentance.  We need to acknowledge our own sinfulness – our greed and consumerism, the sinfulness that devalues our sexuality, the compulsive busyness of our lives that keeps us from valuing the spiritual dimension of life, and our unwillingness to share more fully what we have with those in need.

May our Advent prayer include the beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation – this sacrament of experiencing the forgiving love of the Lord Jesus.  On Monday Evening at 7:00 pm, we will have a communal penance service with individual confession.  Frs Amann, Kreckel, Sergio, and I will be available for confessions.  The call to Reconciliation is such a significant component of our Advent preparation for the coming of Christ.

This Advent let us resolve to truly prepare for the coming of Christ by repenting of all that is wrong and living with an openness to God’s grace.  On Tuesday with the wonderful feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis is initiating our jubilee of mercy.  May we both rejoice in God’s merciful love for us, and may we bearers of God’s merciful love in the lives of others.

-          As you pray for God’s help in your life this Advent, think how you can extend God’s compassion to others.

-          Pray for peace and seek reconciliation within your own family, neighborhood, and work place.

-          Pray for healing and take the time to visit someone in a hospital or nursing home.

-          Rejoice in God’s love and rethink your own prejudices.

-          Pray for Christ’s coming and live as though he is knocking at your door right now.

MARANTHA.  COME LORD JESUS.

Advent is about our spirituality -- God is with us.

Following our wonderful Thanksgiving family time in which we are very much in touch with our spiritual roots of gratitude, the next day is Black Friday.  And so, the commercialism of the season gets into high gear.  Were you among the shoppers on Black Friday and were you able to get what you wanted at a very good price?

Further, often enough, we are reluctant to schedule parish events in December.  People are too busy.  There is too much to get done in preparation for Christmas.

But deep down we all well know that Advent isn’t about commercialism; it isn’t about non-stop busyness.  Advent is about our spirituality.  It is about being in touch with our spiritual center  --  God is with us.  “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”    The meaning of Emmanuel is God is with us.  May we deeply value the spirituality of this holy season.  May it a time of spiritual preparation  --  to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  May the Advent wreath be a symbol of hope as we await for the light of Christ to overcome the darkness of our world.

The Advent season invites us to reset our spiritual calendar, to readjust the choices in our lives to be sure that they are consistent with the priorities of Christ.    We seek to move beyond the darkness of fear, anxiety, and sin to live in the light of Christ Jesus. 

On the one hand, there are 27 shopping days till Christmas.  On the other hand, in the Advent season, we are given the gift of time – four weeks – to prepare in joyful for the coming of the Saviour.

Pope Francis has given us a most challenging Advent message.  If we live in a world of war, and we see that the only solution to our problems to take us arms and defeat the enemy, Pope Francis then says our Christmas is a charade.   Christmas isn’t about military might as a solution to our problems.  Christmas is about embracing the message of the Prince of Peace.  Somehow we have to reconcile our political life as Americans with our spiritual life as the disciples of Jesus.  May we embrace the dominant message of Jesus of bringing the forgiving love of God to a sinful people.  In this Advent, we need to reflect on the meaning of our prayer for the coming of the Prince of Peace among us.

A week from now, on December 8, Pope Francis will be opening the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome inaugurating our Jubilee Year of Mercy.  Our Advent=Christmas spirituality is to proclaim and to witness to the merciful love of Jesus in our world.  We the Church of St. Joseph’s are to proclaim the gospel of mercy in our prayers, in our teachings, and in every ministry we engage in.

If are not proclaiming the merciful love of Jesus in all we say and do, then we need to reset our spiritual calendars.

In today’s Scriptures, the prophet Jeremiah proclaims to a discouraged people that “the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel.” The prophet Jeremiah is a prophet of hope and mercy that God’s promises will be fulfilled.

The apostle Paul writes:  “Brothers and sisters:  May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all.”  Paul’s words are the living word of God that are spoken to us as well.  The love we shared with our family members on Thanksgiving Day is the love the Lord wishes to share with one and all. We are to the witnesses of the love of Jesus in our world.

The Advent message of hope may be more difficult to see in today’s Gospel for it contains a stern warning to us.  Jesus says:  “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in disarray; perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will die of fright…Additionally, beware that you hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and do not be overwhelmed by the anxieties of daily life.”

But the core message of Advent remains:  watch and wait for God, not with a sense of fear, but rather with joyful hope.  Sometimes we Christians tend to think Jesus came to sing us lullabies:  that when things are comfortable he’s with us, and when they get turbulent we’ve lost him – like the disciples in the stormy boat. Today’s Gospel tells us otherwise.   Yes, the sea of our heart sometimes is turbulent, fearful and anxious.  Even in these times, God is with us in the present moment and in every day of our future.  We are and will always be the recipients of the merciful love of Jesus.

To wait for the Lord who comes means to wait and watch so that the Word of Love enters inside us and focuses every day of our lives.  Advent calls us not only to welcome the coming of Christ but to incarnate it in our lives.  We are to be the light that illumines the world.  What does it mean for us to incarnate the love of Christ into our lives and how are we to the light that illumines the world?

I am very conscious that on December 12 we will have 130 of our younger parishioners celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time?  That is an amazing number and a great blessing to our parish community.  Now, are we as a parish community going to witness to the forgiving and merciful love of Jesus in the lives of these young parishioners?  Will the staff of St Joseph’s, will the families of these candidates, will the parish family of St Joseph’s witness to these candidates that we have experienced the forgiving love of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation?  You can take to the bank that unless we ourselves witness to the grace of the sacraments in our lives, it is a long shot for these candidates to values the 2^nd and 3^rd and 4^th time they celebrate this beautiful sacrament of God’s forgiveness.

I am not here to try to give a guilt trip on any of us.  But I am inviting in this Advent to reset our spiritual calendar to value the many ways that God is with us in this Advent Season.  May this Jubilee Year of Mercy be our time to more fully experience the merciful love of Jesus in our lives.  If we know Jesus in our hearts, we will readily witness to the Lord’s mercy in the lives of others.

We have much to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday that expresses very well the spiritual roots of our nation.  We are at our best as Americans when we are grateful to God, grateful to one another, and grateful for the blessings we enjoy as a nation.  We are at our best as a nation not by the force of our military might, but when we in humility give thanks for the incredible blessings that we enjoy.

We are now living in the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack in Paris.  We are mourning the breakdown of the global human family.  How can humans, created in the image of God, choose death rather than life, choose revenge rather than mercy?    How do we continue to anchor our faith life in the love and compassion and forgiveness of Christ Jesus?

May we, with God’s grace, move beyond this senseless cycle of violence to pray for peace and to live in gratitude with the same passion as those who would wage war.    May we wrestle with the Gospel  truth that we will never get out of the mess of the fear and terrorism that we live in by going to war.  The Thanksgiving – Ad vent – Christmas message is to live in hope of the coming of the Prince of Peace.

The threat of terrorism, as unnerving as this is for us, does not give us a free pass on the commandment to love one another.  Love was and is and will always be the first requirement of our discipleship of the Lord Jesus.

On the fourth Thursday of November, we remember our foundational value of gratitude that was expressed back in 1621 by the Pilgrims at that Plymouth Plantation.

For us as Catholic Christians, the first Thanksgiving took place on another Thursday, approximately 2000 years ago, Holy Thursday, in a rented room in Jerusalem where Jesus gathered with his apostles at the Last Supper and celebrated the Eucharist for the first time.

To give thanks is to go to the heart of the Gospel.  Our spiritual lives stem from our gratitude for God’s unconditional love for us for being exactly who we are, no better, no worse, no strings attached.  Lord our God, give us grateful hearts.

In the healing of the ten lepers in the Gospel account, it is important to note well that divine love and healing went out to all the lepers in the Gospel account.  In the same way, we are all the gracious recipients of the unconditional and unending love of God.  God’s love is for everyone but our gratitude response to God’s love is also a most important dimension of our conversion process.  Lord God, give us grateful hearts.

As we reflect on the reaction of the lepers to God’s healing love, when only one came  back to give thanks.  How about ourselves?  Do we always live with grateful hearts?  Are there times when we also  run away from God’s invitation  to love?  Do we run away from God in the midst of life’s struggles?  Do we run away from God’s love when we are fearful?  Lord, give us a trusting heart that is anchored in gratitude for your unconditional love.

I think it can be said with considerable truth that our lives are directed by the stories we choose to dwell  on.  Are the family stories you remember rooted in gratitude?   God gave us a memory so that we can remember and give thanks.  The memory enables us to bring forth from the storeroom of the past the wonderful moments of success, love happiness, so that we can re-live, re-enjoy them and be grateful.  Lord, give me a grateful heart. 

What are your memories in your journey of faith for which we give thanks.  For we wish to pray:  Lord, give me a grateful heart.  I can remember back as a fifth grader at Our Lady of Good Counsel School, as I was training  to be altar boy, my dad taught the Latin responses for the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar.  Introibo ad altare Dei.  Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meanm.  My dad was really proud to see me as an altar boy and I have a grateful heart to my dad for teaching me in Latin the words:  “I will go to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.”  Those words still have much meaning as I go to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.”  My memory of my dad’s faith and his desire for me to be an altar boy laid a most beautiful foundation for me in my journey to the priesthood.

May we remember our family stories and our personal faith stories.  They are our truth that helps fashion who we are today.   May we also remember and celebrate the stories of God’s love for us that is revealed in the Scriptures.  As  St Paul writes in the second scripture reading, “ I give thanks to God always for you and for how you have touched my life.”  The Scriptures reveal the story of God’s unending love for us.

When we gather this afternoon around our Thanksgiving table, we will be grateful for the food, of course, but also for belonging – that we are with family and friends who accept us and share our lives.

This morning,  as we feast at the table of the Lord, we are grateful for the food, the bread of the Eucharist that comforts us in this life and nourishes us toward life that is eternal.

And we are grateful for belonging – to this parish community that loves and supports us and we are grateful that we belong, both in life and death, to Jesus our Brother.

Lord Jesus, give us a grateful heart.

On this the last Sunday of the Church year, the Feast of Christ the King, we celebrate that Jesus is the Lord of all creation, the king of the universe.  The Gospel chosen for this feast is taken from the trial scene where Jesus is being interrogated by Pilate, who directly asks Jesus. “Are you the king of the Jews?”  Jesus responded in so many words:  “Why do you ask?”

The evangelist John’s portrayal of Jesus’ trial before Pilate depicts Jesus and Pilate having a rather extended dialogue over Jesus’ identity as a king.  We are left to reflect on what it means to be a king.

Pilate comprehends a rule in which the sovereign can enforce his will.  But everything Jesus is about pertains to another plane, one based on loving relationships.  Jesus draws all people to himself, not by force or fear, but by the example of his life-giving love.

Jesus was certainly a strange kind of king:  Jesus was born in a stable and reached his glory on the cross of Calvary.  I invite you to gaze at our image of the crucified Christ.  Jesus is a king who serves – not one who rules.  Jesus’ dominant ministry is mediating the forgiving love of God to sinful people.

The prayerful question we ask ourselves:  “In what ways is Jesus the ruler, the king of your life?” 

Presently as we are dealing with the fear and threat that was generated by the horrific terrorist attack in Paris last weekend?  Is the message of love and forgiveness professed by Jesus as the Lord of our lives get modified as we are gripped with fear of terrorists?  How safe are we from the threat of senseless violence?  Are we still expected to look with love on those whose hearts may be filled with hate?  Can we welcome refugees with love in our hearts if we are paralyzed by fear that these refugees are a threat to our safety?

We mourn the breakdown of our global family and the violence in so many places when humans created in the image of God choose death instead of life, when they choose revenge instead of mercy.  In the midst, we still ask how is Jesus the king of the culture we live in?

Closer to home, is Jesus the king of your family life?  Is each and every member of your love treated with the love that Jesus has for each member of your family?  How much of a commitment do you have for family prayer?  Can you really say that Jesus is the King of your family life if you are too busy to pray together?

Is Jesus the king of your sexual life?  If we use pornography for our sexual pleasure in ways that does not reflect our profound respect for another’s person’s sexuality, are we really believing that Jesus is the king of our lives?  How much of our hearts are filled with generosity when we reflect on the number of children that we would like for our family?

This weekend we are celebrating our stewardship commitment Sunday, a time to Jesus first – to make him King – in at least three areas of our life  --  our time, talent, and treasure.   We are asking you to place your stewardship commitment card in the second collection today.  If you have forgotten to bring yours, there are extra stewardship cards in the pews.  We invite you to fill out the card now as together we reflect on the stewardship of time, talent, and treasure.  We then ask you to place the stewardship commitment card in the second collection today.

The stewardship of time is your prayer life.  Prayer is our conversation with Jesus.  How often to you talk with Jesus?  Personally I cannot envision a day to go by with our spending some time in prayer.  Can you say that Jesus is the king of your life if prayer is not part of your daily life?  If Christ is the king, the Mass needs to be part of your life Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.

The stewardship of talent is how you use your God-given talents.  In the stewardship of talent, we are called to participate in some dimension of our parish life to serve others in our parish community and to help us be a faith community that gives praise and thanks to God for our blessings.

Is Christ the king of your lives if our participation in our parish amounts to a few minutes each Sunday?  We can sit back and lament that our parish used to be larger than it is now.  We can lament that our youth are not as religious as we are.  Or we can commit ourselves to become part of the solution and be willing to use our talents for the building of our parish community.  If we trust in the kingship of Jesus as the Lord of our parish life, then our future is full of hope.  The spirituality of stewardship calls us to make a commitment to serve, for example, on one of our parish leadership teams.

Is Jesus the king of your hard-earned finances?  How much are we called to share what we have with our Church, with our diocese in the CMA, and with people in need in our community?  If we are able to tithe the biblical 10% of our income, that is incredibly generous.  Do we think in terms of tithing as we value our income?

But still, there is a further question to be asked:   we need to further ask is Jesus the King of your life over how you spend the remaining 90% of your income.

Christ the King won’t ask how many material possessions you have, but He will ask if they dictated your life.

Christ the King won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived, but He will ask how you treated your neighbors.

This weekend we are asked to make a decision on our spirituality of stewardship.  We ask you to take a couple of minutes in quiet or perhaps in filling our stewardship commitment card to be placed in the second collection.  Thank you for your generosity and for your spirituality.

Apocalyptic language is a message of hope.

Autumn now seems to be giving a hint of the winter to come. Many leaves have fallen and others are continuing to fall.  There seems to be more cold darkness as the days grow shorter.  Additionally, the liturgy calls us to consider the end times as we approach the end of the liturgical year.  The first reading from Daniel and the Gospel from Mark uses very apocalyptic language designed to be sensational.  “The sun will be darkened.  The stars will be falling from heaven and the power in the heavens will be shaken.”

They speak of the breakdown of the stable parts of our surroundings.  Yet, apocalyptic language is a message of hope.  Why?  Because Jesus has triumphed over sin and evil.  The ultimate victory belongs to Jesus.  Even though it seems like our world is falling apart, for those who trust in Jesus, the message is always one of hopefulness.

Even before the ultimate end times, all of us at one time or another experience our life being shattered;            

                --we lost our job;

    --our spouse proved unfaithful;

                --we fell into a habit of sinfulness.

                --we learned we were ill;

                --we lost someone dear to us.

Our world fell apart—the sun was darkened; the moon lost its brightness.

But you did not abandon us, Lord God.   In the midst of turmoil, we received a great grace.  We understood for the first time the meaning of our faith.  We discovered inner resources we didn’t know we had; friends rallied around us.

The Gospel calls us to learn a lesson from the fig tree.  Even in the midst of the deep winter of our lives, the twigs on the fig tree have become supple indicating that summer is near.  In the big picture, before this generation has passed away, new and wonderful things will have taken place.

Lord, prayer is trusting totally in your love, knowing with unshakeable confidence that heaven and earth will certainly pass away, but your love for us will not pass away.

Jesus makes it very clear that we do not know when the end will come; of that day or that hour no one knows.  Our task is to act as the people who have been given the responsibility to use creation well, to act as good stewards, and to remember that when we abuse creation, we are breaking God’s fundamental loving trust is us. The creation is God’s; we have been entrusted with it; we are called to be good stewards. 

In our parish, we are beginning a two week cycle of stewardship.  We are inviting all of us to consider the commitment we make in helping us as a parish community to celebrate the spiritual dimension of our lives – the ways we give thanks to the Lord our God in prayer for the blessings of our lives.  We reflect on what it would mean for us to become more than a “one-hour a week” Catholic.  What commitment are you called to make to build our parish community so that we better serve one another and how we witness to the love of Jesus in our community?

What is stewardship?  It is a very biblical word.  From the first pages of the Book of Genesis, we all called to be stewards of God’s creation.  In the sacrament of Baptism, we are missioned to witness to the love of Jesus in the world.  We do this by a stewardship of time, talent, and treasure.

The stewardship of time is our prayer life.  Is prayer a part of our daily lives?  How do we pray? Do we come to Church to participate in our Eucharistic Adoration?   Do we pray with our family?  As a parent, is family prayer a part of the rhythm of your family’s life?  Is the Eucharist a commitment Sunday after Sunday after Sunday?

The talent portion of our stewardship is using our God given talents in the building of our parish community.  How can we get involved in our parish life?  We are having a ministry faire immediately after Mass in our parish life so that you may become more familiar with our parish ministries and that you will make the decision to become involved in one or more of our parish ministries.  This ministry faire is an important part of our stewardship commitment.

We have four parish leadership teams:  worship, faith formation, community building, and operations.  There are multiple ministries within each leadership team.  We would love for you to take a few minutes after Mass to stop down to the parish hall and see how you can become involved in one of our parish ministries.

This coming Wednesday evening at 7:00 pm, I will be an “state of the parish” presentation, and we will dialogue together on the blessings and areas of growth for our parish.  As your schedule, I am hopeful you will join me this Wednesday Evening at 7:00 pm.

The stewardship of treasure is your decision to tithe a portion of your income to the Church for the building of the Body of Christ.  You have received a stewardship commitment card in our parish mailing to you.  Next Sunday is stewardship commitment Sunday in which we ask you place your commitment card in the second collection reflecting your stewardship of time, talent, and treasure.  If you are able to increase your stewardship commitment by a bit, it enables us to expand the ministries of our parish.

Part of the stewardship of treasure is our commitment to the diocesan CMA.  We have become stagnant in reaching our goal of $81,456.   We are stalled at $43, 845 from 220 donors that is 53% of our goal.  We need the support of everyone for us to reach our goal.  We would ask you to consider making your CMA pledge this week.  Thank you so much.

In a few words, the spirituality of stewardship is grounded in our conviction that all is a gift of God.  What is have been given is given for the sharing.  We are missioned to be the stewards of God’s creation.  Each one of us has a responsibility.   With the grace of God and when we work together as the faith community of the Church of the Holy Spirit, all things are possible in Him who strengthens us.

The way through loss and death...is love.

In the first Scripture reading from the book of Kings,  the prophet Elijah was asking the poor widow of Zarephath first for a cup of water and then for a bit of bread.

If we are to understand the widow of Zarephath, we need to notice something about her that has not been probably part of our experience:  she is starving.  She and her son have strictly rationed themselves as their store of food diminished.  Meals would have gotten fewer and fewer.  She and her son must have been wasting away long before they got to the last handful of flour.

Yet when a stranger asked her for something to eat, she looked him in the face – and did not say no.

Would we have the compassion of the widow of Zarephath who was worried not just about herself but about her son a well.  She gave to the stranger the food she had saved for her son.

There is such an important lesson here.

To give from our livelihood is not only an act of generosity; it is also an act of trust in God.  We can give from our need only if we trust that God will provide for us.  Jesus himself demonstrates the ultimate act of generosity and trust in God as he gives his life for us on the cross.

And as the Scripture tells us, she was rewarded for that trust in God:  “her jar flour did not run dry.”

When does our giving and giving generously challenge us that we have to trust in God for that next bit of bread?  Have we challenged ourselves to give generously as the widows in today’s scriptures?

But looking at the readings today from the book of Kings and Mark’s Gospel, I was struck by something else.

The readings are about giving, yes, and giving generously.

They are also about something unexpected.  They are about loss, and death.  The two women in these readings are widows.  Once, they loved someone, and depended upon him.  But death changed everything.  Their life has changed.  A widow’s life can be very difficult.  They are grieving.  Financially they are suffering significant hardships. 

And yet.

The widows we meet today at instead of hoarding their assets for themselves, and holding on to whatever they could.  They surrendered.  They gave of themselves, however they could, whatever they could.  A little cup of flour, a couple of small coins.  They held nothing back.

And they were blessed.

There is a lesson we all need to hear.  We may suffer losses that rob us of those we love.  We may grieve, and we may mourn, and we may ask ourselves “Why?”

But the way through loss, the way through death… is love.  Opening our hearts.  Giving ourselves.  Holding nothing back. 

The Scriptures give us a powerful message about grieving.  “Blessed are they who mourn; for they will be comforted.”  Jesus and his mother Mary have taught us how to grieve.  Yes, we are to be in touch with the loss we experience, the loved one we miss so deeply.  We certainly are not to sweep our feelings under the carpet and pretend to be brave. 

As did the widows in the scriptures today, the great lesson in grieving is to hold nothing back, to continue to serve, and most importantly, continue to trust in God.  “And the jar of flour will not run dry.”

Pope Francis has often told us that the poor have much to teach us.  Today’s scriptures are beautiful examples.  These widows had no one to speak on behalf of their needs.  It would be easy to take advantage of them.  Yet, what they teach is about faith.  When we trust in God, our lives are very much blessed.  These widows know a truth about the spiritual life that too often escapes us.

These widows through the loss and death of their husbands came to the profound realization of the faith journey.  The poverty of the poor opens their hearts to turn to trust in God as the source of all blessings.  As a result they can give to the stranger their lasts cup of flour or the last penny to their name.  God will not abandon them.

For ourselves, as we pray over the scriptures, are their parallels in our lives with the poor widows of the Scriptures?  Please God we have a ton of money.  Your response to that:  “Wait a minute, Father, money doesn’t grow on trees with our family.  We need to be very frugal with our resources.”  I really, really understand that, but it is also true we do not experience the poverty and hunger that so many hungry people experience around the world.  Comparatively speaking, we are very blessed.

Friday afternoon, I celebrated Mass with many widows at Penfield Place nursing home.  As you know, the lives of nursing home residents are very much simplified.  Their faith comes from this simple trust that we can do all things in whom who strengthens us.  Nursing home residents do not have the mobility that you and I enjoy, but these residents have much to teach us in their simple trust that God will provide for us and that our lives are very much blessed.

As Pope has said, the poor have much to teach us:

n  We are to give and to give generously.

n  When we give from our need, we simply trust in God’s unending love.

n  The way through loss and death is ---- to love.

Blessed are those who have to rely on God for every breath they take.

The blessedness of the beatitudes are for people who have invited Christ into their daily lives.    Their blessedness is an inner blessedness, an inner joy that comes from trusting and rejoicing and being grateful for God’s unending love for us.  In the beatitudes, we see the heart of God.   Saints are people who are aware of God’s great love for them, and are witnesses of the love of Jesus in the world.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the poor in spirit…The poor in spirit are those who know that stand in need of God’s redeeming love.  Our wealth doesn’t come from are material assets; our real wealth comes from in God’s healing love for us.  To tap into God’s unending love for us, we need first to recognize our need for God’s grace.  This is to say we need to recognize our poverty of spirit which moves us to find an inner blessedness that is God’s gift to us.  Blessed are those who have to rely on God for every breath they take.

The greatest spiritual deception of all is thinking we are self-righteousness; that our spiritual will power is the source of our holiness.  That is the biggest illusion of all.  The spiritual life begins with our need for God.  Left to ourselves, we are poor; we stand in need.  The grace of this situation is that it can lead us to trust not in ourselves, but to trust in God.

And so the beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy.

Reflecting on the beatitudes is a wonderful introduction to the Jubilee Year of Mercy that Pope Francis has announced for our Church.

In preparing for the day that I was ordained a priest, I had 12 years of seminary formation – four years of high school, four years of college, and four years of theology.  I spent a lot of time in the classroom.  When I think of the seminary formation of the first apostles, Jesus enrolled them in the school of mercy.  The disciples of Jesus found themselves in a continual classroom for learning how to be merciful.  They listened to Jesus preach about forgiveness.  They watched as Jesus healed the sick, expelled demons and forgave sinners.

Yet the deepest lessons for the disciples occurred when they themselves went through a heartbreaking baptism of mercy.  The Gospels tell of the disciples’ constant failure to understand Jesus and his mission.  They think they are on the way to power and greatness.  They are dismayed when Jesus predicts his suffering and rejection in Jerusalem. 

The whole story reveals that the disciples had to experience their own need for mercy so that they would be prepared to preach it to others.  For example, Peter, the leader, undergoes a profound failure, denying any relation with Jesus in his hour of need. 

St. Paul, like St. Peter, is prepared for his mission as Apostle to the Gentiles by his own wrenching experience of failure and conversion.  Again, it might seem strange that God would choose an enemy of  the church to be its greatest evangelist, until we realize that Paul’s conversion was essential to his conversion.

The baptism of mercy of Pete and Paul was to recognize the left to their own devices, they were on a sinking ship.  Conversion happened when they made the leap of faith in trusting in God for every breath they took.

It was so in the time of Jesus.  Her was welcomed by sinners but rejected by respectable people, especially religious leaders.  They saw Jesus as undermining morality by being too easy on sinners and lawbreakers.

In our day, Pope Francis has stated in his Apostolic Exhortation the Joy of the Gospel that this same resistance to mercy has in many ways come to characterize the institutional Church.  Pope Francis seeks to revitalize the Church by insisting we be a Church of Mercy;  we are to share the joy of the Gospel with one and all. 

Pope Francis is calling the whole church to a conversion that comes from our poverty of spirit.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Blessed are those whose wealth comes from their trust in the merciful love of Jesus.

Francis has preached the Gospel with his smile and his eagerness to embrace God’s people.  The pope has also preached the Gospel by making mercy our highest priority.  The leadership of Pope Francis helps us to discover the merciful love of Jesus.

The parables of Jesus are stories of mercy.   The Parable of the Prodigal Son identifies the deepest obstacle to mercy.  Those who feel they have never received mercy themselves find it hardest to let God give it to others.  This can be seen in the behavior of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.  He wasn’t able to celebrate with his younger brother because he was not aware of the father’s merciful love for him.

Mercy comes from mercy.  Our mercy to each other comes from God’s mercy to us.

What about ourselves?   What about our Church?  How aware are we that we are the generous recipients of God’s merciful love?  Are there ways we are reluctant to share the merciful love of Jesus with others?  You can be sure if we are reluctant to be a Church of mercy, a Church extravagant in witnessing to God’s unconditional for one and all,  we ourselves need to go back to the first beatitude.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Out of our poverty, out of our brokenness of spirit, may we experience the conversion of relying more fully on God’s grace.  May we receive the grace of experiencing more fully of God’s merciful love that is extended to us.  Blessed are they who rely on God for every breath they take.

"Lord, that I may see."

In the recent pilgrimage of Pope Francis to the United States, to Washington, NYC, and Philadelphia, we were all very conscious of the security guard that surrounded Pope Francis every step of the way.  Obviously, there were concerns about his safety.  He had a tight schedule and so on and so on.  I think we were touched when Pope Francis broke through security to kiss a baby or simply to be present to a person and to bless them.  His reaching out to be with people was a most touching memory we have of our beloved pope.

In today’s Gospel, the disciples were the security guard for Jesus as He was leaving Jericho.  To keep some order and to keep people from bothering Jesus, the disciples kept people like the blind Bartimaeus as a distance.  The disciples basically told the blind beggar to shut up.  He was disturbing the peace.

The irony of this Gospel passage is that it was the disciples who were blind.  They had a spiritual blindness to the healing, merciful mission of Jesus.  They simply did not get it.  They were very content to leave people with disabilities as unnoticed people on the side of the road.

I wonder if we faithful Church goers, starting with the pastor, sometimes act as the security guard for Jesus in the same way that the disciples did in the Gospel account.  Who are the people we tell to shut up and we want to keep at a distance from our faith community.

Perhaps it is people who we judge are not living a moral life -- people with a different sexual orientation, people who have experienced separation and divorce in their married life, people we judge not to be living a Christ-like life, people we think are phonies, people who are disruptive to the ways we pray.  Often we are unaware of the ways we can keep people from experiencing the merciful love of Jesus.

May the blind man Bartimaeus represent all the unnoticed people, all the forgotten, people with disabilities, and the people we try to shut up in very polite words.  May we witness to the merciful love of Jesus to all who are in need.

As we pray over today’s Gospel, be aware of the physical blindness of Bartimaeus, and be aware also of the spiritual blindness of the disciples.  As we pray in the Bartimaeus, “Lord that I may see.  We pray for both physical and spiritual sightedness to the ways Jesus is present and the ways Jesus wishes to be present to all who are in need.

In the first Scripture reading from the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet is promising restoration to a weary people, promising the Israelites a future full of hope, promising God’s people a new dawn of God’s merciful love in their lives.  When you are beaten as the Israelites, your vision becomes jaded and you have a hard time believing that your future is full of hope.  But the clear message is that the crosses of life, when we are anchored in Christ, lead to the dawn of a new day.

Bartimaeus never gave up.  He was persistent.  He made known his request to God.  He was a man of faith.  In this account, he understood the mission of Jesus far better that the disciples die.

May we with the persistence of Bartimaeus ask the Lord that I may see.  May we see and experience the truth of our lives.  God’s love for us is unending.  Whatever anxiety we experience, whatever struggle we are dealing with, whatever disabilities hold us down, we all are the recipients of the abundant merciful love of Jesus.  Lord, that I may see how you are present to me in my time of need.

This week’s Gospel invites us to place ourselves along the way with Bartimaeus to contemplate and admit our own blind spots.  This is   bit of a challenge for all of us because it is so easy to be unaware of our own blind spots.

A blind spot in our spiritual spot may be the blindness from experiencing the merciful healing of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  What is the last time we have experienced this sacrament?  What would it take for you to remove this spiritual blindness and know the forgiving love of Jesus in this beautiful sacrament?

Who are the unnoticed people on the side of the road that we so easily pass by?  How aware are we of the people near us in Church today?  What can we do to connect more fully with the people in our faith community?

Who is the person in our family life that we have built up a wall of blindness that makes it so difficult to reach out to.  Lord, that I may see how your grace can bring healing to this relationship?

The dialogue of Jesus with Bartimaeus is the dialogue Jesus has with us today.  The Lord is asking us:  What do you want me to do for you?  May we respond with Bartimaeus:  Lord, that I may see.  Let Bartimaeus be our guide.  He asks for the most important gift God can give.  May we see what is of real value in life.  May we know what is true.  May we judge rightly and walk confidently in the light of Christ. 

Notice in the account that the very first thing Bartimaeus sees when he is healed is the face of Christ.  To know Jesus is the key to the Christian life.   To know Jesus is to know God and our true self.

Bartimaeus’ prayer is answered.  Once he has seen Jesus face to face, there is no other life for him except to be with Jesus and to follow him.  He leaves behind his beggar’s cloak and joins Jesus and the other disciples on the way to Jerusalem.  Like a man in love, he has seen the face of his beloved, and there is no turning back.  May we too be cured of our blindness which keeps us from seeing the face of Jesus.  We seek the conversion that comes from encountering Christ.

The Francis Effect

This afternoon at St. Joseph's Church, we viewed a wonderful documentary witnessing to the spirituality and vision of Pope Francis.  With the guidance of the Holy Spirit in March of 2013, the College of Cardinals elected Jorge Bergoglio to be our Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth, the chief shepherd of the Church.

He chose the name Francis seeking the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi.  Who is Pope Francis?  In his own words, he is a sinner who asks for our prayer.  His beauty is that he is a simple, humble person of faith with a solidarity and and a great love for the poor.

Among his many memorable quotes was his response to a question about a person who is homosexual, Pope Francis simply said:  "Who am I to judge?"  With this quote and by his way of life, Pope Francis communicates the merciful love of Jesus.  In initiating the jubilee year of mercy, Pope Francis wants us to a Church of Mercy -- a field hospital for the wounded, rather than a tribunal that restricts people in need from experiencing the merciful love of God.

If you would like to join a six week small Christian community to further explore the spirituality of Pope Francis, call the Church office  -- 586-8089 -- or go on the parish website.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

I would be glad to have the rich young man in today’s Gospel account as a parishioner of St Joseph’s.  What we know about him he kept the commandments.  He was a good rule keeper.  He was in Church every Sunday.  He contributed to the support of the parish and to the CMA as well.  He probably would volunteer to serve on the parish council.  From a pastor’s point of view, what is there not to like about him?

He knelt before the Lord and asked the right question:  “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Hopefully that is our question to the Lord in prayer as well.  Jesus looked on him with great love and said there is one thing you lack.  “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor and then come, follow me.”  Wow!  Talk about being asked to get outside your comfort zone.

I invite you to see if you can make an honest connection with a couple of questions that are not so nearly demanding as the Lord was with the rich young man.

Could it be true that we prefer to watch an hour’s television rather than pray for ten minutes?  Do we sometimes find it easier to travel between cities to watch a football game than to travel a couple of miles to go to Church?  Do we easily spend $50 in a restaurant rather than putting $20 in the collection basket? 

 

In asking that, l certainly am not talking about bad people.  In all truth, I easily spend more time watching television and being on the internet than I am praying. I ask these questions because we are all searching for our right relationship with God.

We all need to ask the question the rich young man asked of Jesus.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?  The rich young man in the Gospel has a leg up on many of us as answered the Lord by saying he has kept all the commandments. I am very impressed by anyone who gets A plus in keeping the ten commandments.

How do we answer that question when the Lord tells us:  “You are lacking in one thing.  Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have a treasure in heaven, then come, follow me.”

This challenges us to ask our relationship with God.  What is the real treasure of your life?  What is the North Star for you that everything else is seen in relationship to it?

So what is your treasure?  We all have our treasures - what's yours? It's a serious question. What is your treasure? What do you give your time, your energy, your love to mostly?

Your treasure may your good reputation, your beautiful family, the job you are very successful at, your golf game, the buffalo bills or the fighting Irish of Notre Dame, your hard earned assets.

In the Gospel, the man with many possessions wasn’t able to let go of them in order to follow Jesus more completely.  I need to ask myself: what possessions do I cling to? 

What is my tipping point in terms of prayer?  What is my limit?  Is it the hour for Sunday Eucharist?  Does that happen 52 weeks a year?  How much time each day do I commit to prayer?

What is my tipping in sharing with those in need == whether in parish ministry or responding to people in need anywhere?  How much time am I willing to share to be of service to others?

What is my tipping in terms of treasure?  What percentage of income do I tithe?  What is my comfort zone in this regard? 

Does the use of our time, energy and resources indicate what are the important relationships of our lives?

The Gospel lesson is clear. Our relationship with God must be our greatest, our prime relationship, the one which gives meaning to all our other relationships. If it is not so for us we doom ourselves to go hungrily seeking for substitutes which invariably disappoint - a succession of dashed hopes and new infatuations, leaving us empty and cynical. When we come to think of it, our relationship with God is the one thing we take with us into the next life - all else will be left behind. Shouldn't we cultivate it while we can?

The invitation and challenge is clear. Jesus is asking each one of us to give priority to God in our lives and to get rid of all that we love more than him, everything which prevents us from saying yes to his wonderful invitation: and then: come follow me.

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