We are all sinners in the hands of a forgiving and loving God.

Sixteenth Sunday in OT  A  2020

If you reverence and respect all life,

If you can forgive and forget,

If you wish peace to all – to none harm,

If you do not judge, criticize or condemn,

You have God’s heart beating in your body.

In today’s Gospel parable, Jesus is suggesting that we let the weeds in the garden grow along with the wheat till harvest time.  When the question was asked:  Do you want us to go immediately to pull up the weeds?  The response was given: “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.  Let them grow together until the harvest.”

With this parable, Jesus is telling us clearly we are to be an inclusive church.  Since its earliest days, the Church has preferred to tolerate different levels of commitment and holiness.  I wonder if you can observe in your own family life different levels of commitment and holiness.   Even if this is true, are we not called to love and embrace each and every member of our family.

This attitude of acceptance is also in line with the revelation of God “as merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in kindness.”

An inclusive Church that is kind and lenient toward its own members and toward everyone else should be an inspiration to a divided world that has a tendency to judge harshly, to be quick to anger, and to uproot weeds even at the cost of damage to the good plants.  The Church is to stand forth as a sign that we are all brothers and sisters which allows honest dialogue and invigorates it.

A Church that is welcoming and has room for everyone, a Church that can forgive and forget, a Church that does not condemn, criticize or judge has God’s heart beating within the Church.

As I reflect on today’s Gospel of the parable of the weeds and the wheat, my conviction is we live in a very weedy world.  Isn’t it true, there is much too much violence, hatred, power-grabbing, self-centeredness in the world today?  We have to look no further than ourselves to recognize too much self-centeredness and not enough God-centeredness and other-centeredness.

Jesus tells us this parable to illustrate the patience of God in dealing with weeds.  Wait until the harvest.  The Church of Jesus is not to grow impatient with the weeds.

What weeds are we talking about?  Yes, the weeds of life are all about us.  We are all sinners.  We all have demons.  In terms of this parable, we all have weeds – the weeds of pride, the weeds of materialism, the weeds of anger, the weeds of lust, the weeds of self-centeredness, and the weeds of holding grudges.  Often enough, we are more aware of these weeds in the lives of others than ourselves.

There are significant weeds in the life of the Church – the weeds of sexual abuse, the weeds of power, and the weeds of not living out the Gospel that is preached.

What are we to do in the face of the weeds that are all about us?  The parable suggests that God is patient—much more patient than ourselves.  Matthew’s Gospel could be renamed the Gospel of Punishment postponed.

May we pray for the grace of the patience of God.  This does not mean passivity or helplessness or an attitude of giving up.  Does this mean we are to sit back and pick daisies while the innocent suffer?  It means we are to love ourselves who are sinners and who have weeds that disappoint us.  The truth of our lives is that we are all sinners whom the Lord has turned his gaze upon.

The evangelist Matthew is concerned that no punishment be meted out prematurely.  Beware of the overzealous volunteers, anxious to “weed out” undesirables, supremely sure of their ability to identify such undesirables with unfailing accuracy.  What looks like weeds to us may well be wheat.

What are we to make of the weediness of our Church that doesn’t always reflect the love of Jesus in the lives of people?  Do we look for a Church without weeds so that we can focus more fully on God?  As illustrated in the parable, as disillusioning as this may be, the weeds are going to be present till the harvest at the end of the world.  The Church will always be a Church of sinners.  Again, this doesn’t mean that we are to be passive recipients of evil as in sexual abuse.  We are to stand for the Gospel and hold ourselves and others to a Gospel way of living.  But at the same time, as long as people are people, there is going to be some weediness in our own hearts and in our world.

What are we to do?  What did Jesus do?  Recall the story that Jesus told of the Good Shepherd who left the 99 and went in sheep of the lost sheep that had gone astray.

Recall the story of the woman caught in adultery when Jesus said to her accusers: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And to the thief that was crucified along with Jesus: “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

I call your attention to the words of St. Paul in the second Scripture reading: “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness: for we do not pray as we ought.”  I have always taken great comfort in this reading from Paul to the Romans.  Even though I’m sure your prayer is always very focused, and you never get distracted, I confess that my mind is capable of wandering in prayer.  I am too capable of getting caught in the busyness of life and not focus on resting in the Lord Jesus.  But I am very comforted that the Holy Spirits brings my distracted and useless prayer to our loving God.  My “very weedy prayer,” so to speak, through the grace of the Holy Spirit deepens my union with Christ Jesus.  Thanks be to God.

To sum up the parable of the weeds and the wheat, at the end of the day, we are all sinners in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.

Have a Blessed Day.

Love Given Is Never Lost.

Fifteenth Sunday in OT  A  2020

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus shares the parable of the sower and the seed and the four different types of soil that receives the seed.  Jesus is the sower and the seed is the Word of God.  Sometimes this seed is thrown on the path; sometimes on rocky ground; sometimes the seed is choked among thorns; and then about 25 % of the time the seed falls on rich soil and bears fruit a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. 

We can imagine Jesus telling this parable in response to the disciples’ complaints, “We’re wasting our time”. “No one’s listening”.  The Gospel message is too demanding.

Maybe some parents can identify with the grumbling of the first disciples.  What about the experience of many parents who poured out all their love and faith into their children, taught them the Catholic faith, sent them to religious education classes or to Catholic schools, only to have them, as adults, leave our Church and go elsewhere.

Maybe the message of Jesus to the first disciples applies to us as well.  Jesus points to a sower sowing seed in a nearby field and answers them, “Let’s learn from him we that we have to continue sowing.”

When it comes to facing failures in life, the farmer in today’s gospel parable sounds a lot like many of us.  We work hard, and only sometimes succeed.  Most of what we want to plant in the lives of those around us doesn’t “take”; it doesn’t become rooted and permanently planted in their lives.

All of us must deal with failure, those areas where the best we’re given to others comes up lacking, falling short of our hopes, our dreams, and our great expectations.

Jesus himself knew the pain of failure:

·        He was born and raised in Nazareth and his hometown folks rejected Him.

·        His handpicked twelve apostles?  Well, one of them sold Him out for 30 pieces of silver and the others fled when he was crucified.

·        Peter wasn’t too swift to take His message to heart, Thomas was the doubter, and the others weren’t much better either.

Up to this point the homily sounds terribly dismal and discouraging.  But my message today is that we need to remember that Jesus did not let apparent failure stop him.  In His parable, Jesus went on to speak about a crop that yielded a harvest in successful amounts, some yields bringing spectacular results.  Today’s Gospel is not a dirge -- it is a celebration; it is a story of hope, not of despair.

It's amazing to see the sower – apparently how free and generous of spirit he is –  is not overly concerned that some of the seed will not produce crop but he continues to sow, trusting that eventually his seed will bear abundant fruit.

We can easily look at the big picture and say our world is a mess now.  Covid-19 has ravaged our entire planet.  We are hurting but we need to see that there is also an amazing amount of goodness in the lives of so many people.

Examples of the seed of God’s word falling on good soil:

·        On Friday afternoon here at St. joseph’s I presided over the wedding of Heidi Kelleher and John Costello.  They began their married life at the altar of God asking God’s blessing on their life together.

·        On Saturday morning, we celebrated a First Communion Mass for 18 of our First Communicants.  For our First Communicants and their families, this is the day the Lord has made and let us be glad and rejoice in it.

·        At our 10:00 Mass this morning, we are welcoming our RCIA candidates into the fullness of the sacramental life of the Church.  Our faith community rejoices in the beautiful journey of faith of our RCIA candidates.

The Gospel message calls to reflect on a profound Gospel message:   LOVE GIVEN IS NEVER LOST.   Part of life is trial and effort.  Jesus’ attitude was the same.  He threw our love like the sower throws out the seed.  He knows it may fall on hard ground, but he gives it anyway.  He gave love on Calvary to everyone.   God is like that.   The seed of our love may take years to flower but give it away.  In the words:  Do not be afraid.  Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Love given is never lost.

What about ourselves?  What kind of soil are we in receiving the Word of God into our hearts?  What are our demons, temptations, our sinfulness that keep the Word of God from being more deeply rooted in our hearts?  What are the areas of our lives in which Jesus is not yet Lord?

In these days of the coronavirus, we can easily be overwhelmed by the anxiety, the uncertainty, the stress of finding our way in the midst of this pandemic.

As a way of focusing our spiritual faith journey, may I suggest five simple seeds that the Gospel wishes to implant in the good soil of our hearts:

            God’s love is a gift.

             God loves changes us,

            God’s love is always with us.

            God’s love saves us.

            God’s love is to be shared.

Before our shortcomings get the best of us, it is comforting to know that there are millions of saints in heaven today, enjoying eternal happiness, who had some, of not all, of our present failings.  We, too, can be with them one day if we do what they did.  They humbly entrusted themselves to the forgiveness of our all loving God.  Please God, they and we are God’s forgiven sinners.

As we now transition into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, may we ask for the grace of letting the seeds that come God be rooted in the soil of our hearts.

We so need to be the good soil to receive God’s Word and God’s love within us.

 Again, five simple seeds of God’s grace that are abundantly given to us:

God’s love is a gift.

God’s love changes us.

God’s love is always with us.

God’s love saves us.

God’s love is to be shared.

Have a Blessed Day.

Our yoke is too heavy only when we try to carry our yoke alone.

Fourteenth Sunday in OT  A 2020

Fourth of July Weekend

On this Fourth of July weekend, we are thankful for the blessings we have as Americans.  Despite the struggles of wrestling in the midst of our pandemic crisis, we are thankful for what we have.  We call the Fourth of July our Independence Day – our Declaration of Independence.

As written in our Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

However, at times we lose track of the founding values of our nation’s beginnings.  Our sense of independence sometimes gets translated into I can do what I want.  When we are not acting out of our better angels, sometimes  we live as if we are even independent of God.  Rather than being free, we get caught up in the shackles of our own pride and selfishness.

The message of the Gospel says something else.  When we are dependent on God, then we find ourselves most independent.  It may seem strange but depending on God is where we find ourselves most independent.  It’s not necessarily the freedom to do what I want, but it is the true freedom to do what I ought.  It is the freedom to do what we’ve been shown by Jesus, the freedom to love others freely and without reservation.

We read in today’s Gospel:  “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.  For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

Jesus says:  Come to me.  To come to someone is to be willing to be united with that person.  It is to be open to Him, to let His will make a difference to what you yourself will and do.

Jesus says:  “Come to me and I will give you rest.”  The Lord is inviting us to rest in Him.  Is it like the Fourth of July which we had a cookout and fireworks?  Is it like taking a vacation in which we get a chance to relax and travel?  Is it like retirement when we can withdraw from a hectic schedule and enjoy leisure time?  Is it just taking a nap when we are feeling especially pressured and or exhausted?

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  To rest in Jesus is to rest purposely and actively in Him.  It is to drink deeply of the Spirit of Jesus.  It is not just an invitation to enjoy a restful time, but to rest in the presence of love.    St Augustine wrote of our need to rest in Jesus: “Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they come to rest in you.”

The rest that the Lord offers is not just taking a nap; the rest the Lord offers is to live in the presence of the God who is a God of love.  Jesus has asked us to make your home in me as I make mine in you.  The rest that the Lord offers us is that He Himself will sustain us and enliven our spirit by our making our home in Christ Jesus.

In our rest, we need to listen to the voice of Jesus summoning us to a deeper wisdom. 

Just as a tree cannot survive unless its roots are firmly planted in soil, we cannot grow in the spiritual life unless we take the time to rest in Christ Jesus.  This is prayer.   To pray is to take notice of the wonder and mystery of life.  Prayer is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live.  Prayer doesn’t light up the sky in a fireworks display, but it does open us up to the wisdom of God that is within us.

Prayer is our relationship, our encounter with the Lord.  In prayer, sometimes we use words, and sometimes words are not necessary.  Just as in the deep human relationships of our lives, words are beautiful and needed at times, but at other times it is simply enough to be in the presence of the one you love.  So, it is in the ways we encounter the Lord.

Jesus says:  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.  Is the yoke that the Lord is asking of us a heavy burden?  Do we feel overwhelmed by the crosses of our life?  Is the Lord asking too much of us?

The yoke the Lord is asking of us is the yoke of mission.  We are to share in the mission of Jesus.  The yoke the Lord is witnessing and living out is the law of love.  The yoke we are given is the mission of love, the great commandments. 

Our yoke is too heavy a burden only when we try to carry our yoke alone, when we try to be a lone ranger in the spiritual life.  This is such an important truth.  Our yoke is too heavy only when we try to carry our yoke alone.

It is so important for us to know and deeply believe that we are never alone.  Jesus is with us and Jesus carries our burden along with us.  The yoke we embrace is a vision that we are better together.  We do what we do only in Christ Jesus who strengthens us.   We’re met to be yoked with Jesus.  Then Jesus will give you His wise and understanding Father.

Jesus doesn’t do things for you; He does things with you.

The yoke the Lord calls us to is a vision of the Church that is rooted in Christ Jesus, in which we rest and are enlivened by the love of Jesus that is within us, and that we belong to a community of faith that is better together.  Often enough, it takes a trusting childlike trust to experience the merciful ways of God in our lives.  What has been hidden from the wise and the learned has been revealed to the little ones.

Would you believe that the deep secrets of life are hidden from the wise and the learned and are instead revealed to the childlike!  Why?  Children don’t have the luxury of self-sufficiency.  They need the help and love of their parents.

Despite our intelligence, as we are capable of being childlike, what a great comfort we find in the promises of Jesus to be with us; there is a place to go when death or loss or suffering descends upon us.

Everything depends upon how close you will let Jesus come to you.

Have a blessed day.

How would life be for us if we stop being afraid?

Twelfth Sunday in OT  A  2020

“Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?  Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.   Even all the hairs of your head are counted.  So, do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

How would life be for us if we stop being afraid?  In fact, “Do not be afraid” is perhaps the most often repeated statement in the Scriptures.

In the first Scripture reading, the Prophet Jeremiah needed to hear those words of Jesus: “Do not be afraid.”   He was the reluctant prophet.  He knew what it was to be afraid.  Indeed, Jeremiah’s prophetic career was riddled with countless fearsome experiences.  When called by God, he feared he was too young.  He feared he would not know what to say or how to speak to his contemporaries in God’s name.  He feared facing others with the truth of their sinfulness.  He feared to speak God’s Word.  He feared not to speak it as well, and when he spoke it, he feared its consequences.  In the Scripture reading today, his hearers wanted to denounce Jeremiah and to lay a trap for him.  You didn’t have to tell Jeremiah about fear.  He was an expert on the subject.

Are we in some ways like the prophet Jeremiah?  Is fear the background music of most of our lives?  Do we even the cost of doing the right things at timesZ?

To the first disciples, Jesus says: “Fear no one…What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light.  What you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops…Do not be afraid.” 

What does Jesus do after giving these awesome marching orders to his disciples?  Give them body cameras to wear.  Or perhaps sell them life insurance if things didn’t out so well.  Give them bullet-proof vests.  Teach them how to diffuse conflict.  No!  Jesus simply repeats: “Do not be afraid.” 

What about ourselves and our fears.  After all, the Scriptures were written before the pandemic crisis we are living with.  There is uncertainty and anxiety like we’ve never felt before.  We are conscious of the need for social distancing, wearing face masks and so on.  Coming to Church is a deliberate choice.  Many of us now have a built-in caution about what we can do.  Yet, Jesus is telling us: “God even knows every hair on your head.  So, stop being afraid.  You are of much more value than any sparrow.”

Isn’t that amazing?  God knows everything we go through and nothing that happens to us escapes the Father.  Even if we die, it doesn’t happen apart from God.  Even if we seem totally abandoned, even if our prayers don’t seem to be answered, even if everything seems hopeless, God knows and God cares.  If that’s the case, we can stop being afraid.

How can we really stop being afraid?   As we dig down deeper, there is an aspect of fear that is healthy for all of us.  For example, we should have a healthy fear of the corona virus.  Because to this grounded fear, it is important to wear masks and practice social distancing.  Common sense tells us at we should be cautious about our health and safety.

So, there is an aspect of fear that is built into us that seeks to keep us safe. 

However, the message of Jesus calls us in a deeper sense not to be afraid.   Is there something we can do to stop being afraid?  No.  The only way we can stop being afraid is if we trust in God’s promise to us.  The God who watches over even the commonest of birds will take care of us.   Our best response to God’s promise is simply to celebrate, rejoice, and give thanks.

Yes, but…Who can believe this?  Who can live without fear?  We are suspicious even of promises.  We are always hearing of promises that aren’t kept.  Our grandparents may promise to leave us the farm when they die, but who’s to say they won’t go bankrupt and lose the farm before that?  Even the promises made on one’s wedding are not always kept.  Regrettably the life experience of many of us have taught us to be suspicious of promises.

                                                                                                               

Yet Jesus made many incredible far-reaching promises:  not only about God knowing every hair on our heads and promising to care for us, but also remember some of the other promises of Jesus: “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”  “I go to prepare a place for you.”  “I am with you always.”  “I tell you, your sins are forgiven.”  From the Beatitudes:  those who mourn will be comforted; the meek will inherit the earth; the pure in heart will see God.”

Some of the first disciples believed that when Jesus was crucified, these promises seemed to be all cancelled out.  He had failed.  He was just a dreamer.  Even his disciples no longer followed.  In the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they are nowhere to be seen at the crucifixion.  All of them deserted and fled.  Pete denied even knowing Jesus.

Thanks be to God.  Jesus’ death was not the end of the story.  God raised Jesus.  God made sure that Jesus could keep his promises.  Even death will not keep Jesus from keeping the promises He has made to us, because if we die with Him and we will be raised with Him.  That’s a promise.  And it’s the basis for our hope in all the other promises.  Even the sparrows don’t fall to the ground apart from God the Father, and we are of greater value than many sparrows.

From the Gospel, Jesus says that “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”  That’s a promise.

In our spiritual journey given perhaps our old eyes of experience where we have been hurt, are we able to embrace the promises of the one who lived and died and rose again so that we no longer have to be afraid.

Yes we have fragile bodies, but as a people of faith, what would it take for us to live in the freedom of the children of God?

For us as the disciples of Jesus, fear is not an option.

Today that same crucified and risen Lord is in our midst, allowing us to stop being afraid because of the powerful love of God on which the promise is based:  “Even the hairs of your head are counted; you are of more value than many sparrows.”  The promise continues in the mystery of the Eucharist as we hear Jesus say that “this bread is my body, given for you,” and “this wine is my blood, shed for you.”  We receive Christ in the bread and wine because He promises to meet us there.  Whether we are participating online and are going to make a spiritual communion or whether we are present in this Church and are going to receive the Body of Christ:  the message is the same:  Do not be afraid; I am with you; even the hairs on your hear are counted; and you live in the midst of God’s unending love for you.

Have a Blessed Day.

"I have decided to stick with love; hate is too great a burden to bear."

Pentecost  A   2020

Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Pentecost arrived for the disciples after fifty days of uncertainty.  True, Jesus had risen.  Overjoyed, they had seen him, listened to his words and even shared a meal with him.  Yet they had not overcome their doubts and fears.  They still met behind locked doors.

On the Day of Pentecost those locked doors were thrown open; the fear in the disciples was replaced with a Spirit-filled courage and enthusiasm.  They were now fearless proclaimers of the Word of God.

What had changed for the disciples?  They received the Holy Spirit.

The great truth of Pentecost – for the first disciples and for us as well – is that the Holy Spirit has the power to enlarge and expand the human heart if we allow the Spirit of Jesus to grow and enliven us from within.

In today’s first Scripture reading, we hear how the Holy Spirit was given to the followers of Jesus.   Listen again: “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.  And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”

For the first disciples, the Holy Spirit did not make things easier for them, he didn’t work spectacular miracles, he didn’t take away their difficulties and their opponents.  Rather, the Spirit brought into the lives of the disciples a harmony, that had been lacking, his own harmony, for he is harmony.

The great meaning of Pentecost is that it was time for God to be born again not in one body that was Jesus, but this time in a body of believers who would receive the breath of life from their Lord and pass it to others.

We see how the growth of the Church took place with the influence of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles.  The Book of Acts is the story of the incredible growth of the first Christian communities.  The Acts of the Apostles is kind of like a Gospel of the Holy Spirit.  In the first four books of the New Testament we learn the Good news of what God did through Jesus Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  In the Book of Acts of the Apostles, we learn the Good News of what God did through the Holy Spirit.

The first and foremost attribute of the servant church is its daring openness to the Spirit.  It is our prayer that we the Church make room for the release of the Spirit in the life of the community and the courage to act when it does.  We are not to fall back into being the safe and self-absorbed church, but rather a place of miraculous hope and extravagant hospitality.

God chose a young virgin named Mary to bear God’s Son, and Jesus chose a bunch of Galilean fishermen to share in His ministry.   God chooses you and me to hear and witness to His message of hope and promise and love in this place and in our world this day.

We seek to experience Pentecost as the feast of locked doors.  Where are the locked doors in our lives?    For us, we are under extraordinary precaution to wear masks, to socially distance from one another.  We are potential threats to each other’s health.

But for me and for all of us, it is not a time to abandon trust in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives.  It is not a time to abandon our commitment to be a Church of brothers and sisters who stand for one another.  It is not a time for us not to be fearless proclaimers of the Gospel.  But yes, out of love of love for one another, we need to socially distance, wear masks and respect each other’s health.   We so much want to go forth to evangelize and serve but recently serving the greater good has meant doing nothing.  This seems to go against our Gospel DNA.

So, where does that leave us?  We are led to prayer:  Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. 

Now more than ever, we invoke the Holy Spirit to wipe away the darkness of anxiety allowing us to be guided by the light of Christ and to trust in God’s promise of new life.

Our Gospel today takes place on Easter evening.  On that first evening they were gathered in a house with the doors locked, because they were afraid – afraid of being killed, just as Jesus had been killed three days before.  But Jesus was among them and He said: “Peace be with you.”  To this scared group of former followers, the Risen Christ begins by bringing the peace of God.

  Filled with inner peace  that only God can give, our hearts are like a deep sea, which remains peaceful, even when its surface is swept by waves.

The Holy Spirit does not bring only harmony within us but also among us.  He makes us Church, building different parts into one harmonious edifice.  We need the Spirit of unity to regenerate us as Church, as God’s People, and as a human family.

There is always a temptation to build “nests,” to cling to our little group, to the things and the people we like, to resist all contamination.  The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, brings together those who were distant, unites those far off, brings home those who were scattered.

For us the faith communities of St Joseph’s and Holy Spirit, as we reflect on how we are called to collaborate and be for one another, our locked door may be our fear of losing a bit of who we are.   And  we all need to acknowledge all that keeps us from trusting in the grace and the blessings of spirit-filled collaboration.

On this day of Pentecost, as we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, can we trust in each other and in the grace of God that St. Joseph’s and Holy Spirit can be sister parishes that love and serve and support one another?

As the first disciples on the Day of Pentecost were transformed from fearful disciples who wanted to live behind locked doors to become fearless proclaimers of the Word of God, can we the faith communities of Holy Spirit and St. Joseph’s on this Day of Pentecost welcome the opportunity of having a sister parish that will help us live according to our better angels?

As we are well aware during these last few days, across the country protesters took to the streets to express anger over the death of George Floyd, a black man after a Minneapolis police officer kept his knee pressed to his neck for more than eight minutes.  Peaceful protests have at times turned to violence.  Racial tensions have exploded with the claim that promises of freedom and justice have not been met.

May we invoke the wisdom and prayer of Martin Luther King Jr who said:  “ I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

On this day of Pentecost, may we pray for healing and unity for our Church and our nation as we now come to the Table of the Lord in spiritual communion.  May we all commit ourselves to using our God-given giftedness in the service of one another.  To quote Martin Luther King again:  Life’s most urgent question is:  What are you doing for others?”

Have a Blessed Day.

What is the work (mission) God has given you to do today? How are you to make the Lord's name known?

Seventh Sunday of Easter A  2020

In today’s Gospel, we are entering upon very holy ground.  Throughout the Gospel of John, we see the compassionate heart of Jesus as He brings healing to sick people and food to the hungry.    In the Johannine Gospel, we find the love of God demonstrated and explained as nowhere else.  Then in John’s 17^th chapter, we are allowed to glimpse into Jesus’ very soul.

Perhaps we never get any closer to someone else than when we know about their prayer life.  As we eavesdrop on the prayer of Jesus in today’s Gospel, we are indeed entering holy ground.

The setting for this prayer of Jesus is the upper room on the eve of Jesus’s passion and death.  Jesus had just celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples and had washed their feet to give them an example of how they were to continue the mission of Jesus in the life of the Church.

Jesus’s impending death is not a disruption of God’s plan but part of God’s mysterious providence.  Jesus had accomplished His work, revealing the love of the Father for us.  Now it is the time to teach the meaning of that love by His willingness to lay down even His own life.  His dying is his greatest act of giving.

The Lord prayed for his disciples gathered around Him.  At the same time, he looked ahead to the community of disciples of all centuries.  In His prayer for disciples of all time, he saw us too, and he prayed for us.  He prayed that we be consecrated in truth.

“Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come.  Give glorify to your Son, so that your Son may glorify you…I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do…I have made your name known to those you have given me…They were yours and you gave them to me…Consecrate them in truth…I have made your name known to them so that the love with which you loved may be in them, and so that I may be in them.”

The prayer of Jesus to his heavenly Father was a prayer of gratitude that Jesus had finished the work that the Father had given Him to do.  He had made the Lord’s name known to His followers.

Jesus then prayed for us His disciples.  Jesus prayed that we would let God love us and live in us.  To do that, we need, first of all, to trust that God truly does love us.  As John says, we need to know and to believe in the love God has for us.  When we let the reality of God’s love for us sink deeply into who we are and what we believe, 

something dramatic happens.  We begin to love one another.  We become witnesses to God’s love by letting everyone else see what that love looks like when it is alive in a person’s life.   By being loved so deeply, we become lovers.  We become witnesses to the God whose love brings eternal life -- witnesses to the resurrection.

Jesus finished the work the Father had given Him to do.  What about us?  Do I have a sense of the work God has given me to do?  In other words, what is the purpose of my life.  As a parent, as a sibling, as a leader, as a parishioner, as a member of the community of the baptized, what is the work that God has given you to do.  We are very grounded in discipleship if we try to make the prayer of Jesus our own prayer.  This very evening, I invite you to reflect on the day and with a prayer of gratitude may we say in prayer that we have finished the work God has given us to do for this day.  If there is room for improvement, we ask for the Holy Spirit to be with us tomorrow.

Of course, it would be naïve to think that this is a simple process.  The first followers of Jesus knew all about the resistance to the extraordinary good news about God’s love that Jesus had brought to them.  They knew about the betrayal of Judas, about their own abandonment of Jesus, and about Jesus’ death on Calvary.  God created the world and everything in it good.  But in ways that are hard to understand, there is sometimes abandonment and betrayal of this goodness.  There is hostility and resistance in our world to the message of God’s love for us –  in the political warfare that takes place in the halls of our Congress, in the Church itself there can be hypocrisy and disillusionment, and in our personal and family relationships there can be too much brokenness.  We know all too well the demons we have within ourselves that keep us from witnessing to the forgiving love of God in all circumstances of life.

Jesus in His prayer to his heavenly Father prayed for us with the words:  This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

What is so important for us as we seek eternal life with God is that eternal life is not just for the future:  it a gift partly given now in our faith.  To be in touch with Jesus is to be in touch with a rich and full eternal life.  Something is given which will last forever – the mysterious life of God.  We touch into that life in prayer.  We are enlightened by Jesus, the light of the world.

Being a witness to the resurrection is not just telling people what they can hope for after death.  Yes, such hope is so very important.   God will raise us from death to live with God forever. God’s love is stronger than death.   But being a witness to the resurrection begins in the here and the now.  Being a witness to the resurrection means letting people see in our lives what it looks like when we live in the God who is love.  It means making visible what happens when the God who is love lives in us.

John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus prayed for His followers.  He prays that His Father consecrate them in truth.  The truth he refers to is the truth of God’s love.  To be consecrated in the truth means being consecrated or made holy in God’s love.    God’s love is like the air we breathe – all around us, giving us life, sustaining us.    When we do this, we may experience some of the resistance and hostility that Jesus experienced, but Jesus has promised that God’s Spirit will be with us and will never abandon us.  This will enable us to be witnesses to God’s love even in a sometimes-hostile world.  Let’s trust in that love as we come to the Table of the Lord in spiritual communion.

Have a Blessed Day.

All of us have a vocational story to discern.

Fourth Sunday of Easter A   2020

The fourth Sunday of the Easter Season is always Good Shepherd Sunday.  This is how Jesus identifies himself: “I am the Good Shepherd.”   As the Good Shepherd, Jesus comes to his sheep and is recognized by them.  The sheep recognize His voice as He calls them by name and they follow Him.

We seek to recognize the voice of Jesus as our Good Shepherd and to follow him.   Hearing and trusting and recognizing the voice of Jesus in our lives is our path of discipleship.  In our Catholic tradition, our vocation is our response to the call of God in our lives.  The root meeting of the word “vocation” goes back to the Latin word vocare which mean to call.  Responding to God’s call is our vocation.   This vocation we all have is never a solitary vocation; in some God-given way, we share in the mission of Jesus in leading others to become more aware of God’s love for them.

Good Shepherd Sunday is also the World Day of Prayer for vocations. In discerning one’s vocation as a disciple, my first message is that all of us have a vocational story to discern.  While I would like to consider how you discern God’s call in your life from the vantage point of three lenses, my hope is that you claim in one or more of these lenses your own vocational journey.

The first lens perhaps is the more familiar one when we pray for vocations.  We pray that young men will respond to the call of God in the vocation of an ordained priest.

I had the great privilege of serving in our diocese for ten years as the Director of Seminarians and for five years before that as the spiritual director and the rector of Becket Hall – our diocesan discernment house for candidates to the ordained priesthood.  It is very humbling to mentor young men in discerning whether God is calling them to serve in the Church as ordained priests.  This has been a treasured part of my ministry for many years.

May we as a faith community of Holy Spirit and St Joseph’s mentor, foster, pray, and encourage young men from our parishes to serve the Church as ordained priests.  This would be such a great blessing for our parish communities.  While I said young men, I should correct that.  God can call men of any age to consider the vocation to the ordained priest.  Praying for vocation needs to a consistent part of our prayer.

I also would invite us to look at this World Day of Prayer for vocations with a wider lens.  We are to pray that each and every one of us claim the vocation, the call we receive from God.  In our Baptism, God calls each of us to witness to His love in this world.  There are as many vocations in this parish as there are baptized parishioners.

The second vocational lens in ministry within the Church.  Our parish community is blessed with permanent deacons, vowed religious women, and lay ecclesial ministers.  These are valued and faith-filled ministers of the Gospel that breathe a Spirit-filled vibrancy to our parish ministries.  Following the example of these men and women, I would ask that you pray over God’s call in your life:  Is God calling you to make this kind of commitment in the service of the Church?  As we are grateful for our permanent deacons, our vowed religious men and women, and our lay ecclesial ministers, may they inspire others to serve in the ministry of the Church for generations to come.

In our parish life, we are grateful for parishioners who have responded to the call of God to be catechists, to be involved in youth ministry, to engage in liturgical ministry, music ministry, pastoral care, social outreach, and parish governance on our parish council, our finance council, and our stewardship council.  We are grateful for the young men and women who will soon celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation and then witness to their faith by the way they live their lives.

The same Eternal Word that became flesh in Jesus longs to become flesh in our lives—in our home, workplace, parish, global marketplace.  Indeed, there is no shortage of need for compassionate people who continue Jesus’ mission.

On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, we pray that the church may be provided with the leaders needed to its work of spreading the Gospel.   

Our third vocational lens is probably what we are now doing -- be it as spouses, parents, teachers, doctors, civil servants, running a business, salespersons… or whatever.

On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, each one of us should be asking ourselves today:

·        Is what I am spending my energies on every day my real vocation?

·        Is this what God wants me to be doing with my life?

·        How is what I am doing giving witness to my Christian faith?

·        What contribution am I offering to making this world a better place for people to live in?

·        To what extent am I a spreader of truth, of love, of justice, of freedom, of tolerance and acceptance…?

·         Is God calling me to greater service of my Church and my community?  Am I giving something through my life or am I just using society (and even the Church) to get what I want?

God is calling every single one of us to work for the Gospel.  For a small number it may be as a priest or religious – and that call can come at any time in one’s life. I asked you to pray for vocations to the ordained priesthood, but may your first prayer today be for the grace to discern your own vocational call. There are hundreds of other ways of serving the Church and helping to build up the Christian community.  Where is God calling me to make my own unique contribution based on the particular talents God has given me?

If every single one us were to answer that question sincerely and to act upon it, I am confident that our Church would have all the leadership it needs.  There would be a new Pentecost, a spiritual awakening that would be part of the life of the Church in the aftermath of Covid-19.  What do you think?

Have a Blessed Day.