Do the prayers we say lead us to love our neighbor, no exception?

 

Twenty Sixth Sunday in OT  A  2023

 

If you remember last week’s Gospel parable, it was rather shocking and seemingly unjust. The landowner sent workers to work in his vineyard at different hours of the day. The master then paid the workers who worked one hour the same pay as those who worked in the heat of the day all eight hours. It wasn’t fair. It is difficult, is it not, to give up the religion of merits and believe in the gratuitous love of God.

To repeat, it is difficult to give up the religion of merits and believe in the gratuitous love of God.

In today’s Gospel parable, a man had two sons whom he wished to send out to work in the vineyard. The first said initially no and later changed his mind and then went to work in the vineyard.  The second son said yes but did not go to work in the vineyard. Which of the two did his father’s will?

Today’s Gospel parable is a conversion story. A man said to his first son: ‘Son out and work in the vineyard today. He said in reply, ‘I will not go,’ but afterwards changed his mind and went. Saying yes to God means giving up one’s own thoughts and accepting His. Conversion happens in our lives when we open ourselves to God’s plan for our lives.

Conversion for ourselves is not a onetime happening in our lives but each and every day we are challenged in our discipleship of the Lord Jesus. On this day, are we opening ourselves up to God’s plan for our lives?

Where do we find ourselves in this Gospel parable?

The scribes and the Pharisees were ones who said yes to the kingdom of God as the religious elite. Their Achilles’ heel was their illusion of being saved by their pious religious practices, and yet Jesus in this parable is being very direct and confronting with the religious leaders of his day by saying the tax collectors and prostitutes were going to enter the kingdom of God first. The kingdom of God welcomes unexpected folks.

This parable challenges us as well:  what effect have our prayers and religious practices had on our daily life?

Are we motivated in our prayer to love our neighbor, no exceptions? Does our prayer enable us to let go our judgments and our negativity? Are we led to share more generous with people in need?

 

In the second Scripture reading, Paul begins his beautiful hymn to Christ by encouraging the Philippians to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. Paul writes: “Have in you the same attitude that was also in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; he humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross?”

What does it mean for you to have the same attitude as Jesus Christ? Are you in touch with your own conversion story? God calls us who are sinners, who have said no to God’s call in our sinfulness, but now may we open ourselves to the grace in our lives and trust more fully in the Lor Jesus.

In today’s Gospel parable, the father told his two sons to work in the vineyard today. As you pray over this gospel, into what vineyard is the Lord sending you today -- the vineyard of your family, of your neighborhood, of your parish? Into what vineyard is the Lord sending you to?

Indeed, the Lord sends us to the vineyard of supporting others in need throughout our 12-county diocese. We can do this by our generous support of the annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal.

This is the time of the year when we focus on the annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal --- CMA. The CMA reminds that we are all part of the bigger church…we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. We are called to a life of stewardship. We are to share what we have been given.

People are still poor, hungry in need of pastoral care, education, and employment. The faithful are in need of ministry and a vibrant parish life. Our youth and young adults are yearning to learn and grow in their relationship with Christ. The Church and our Diocese are in need of trained and educated seminarians, deacons, and pastoral leaders to our lead our Church into the future. We cannot close our eyes to these needs.

Our support of the CMA is part of our stewardship commitment to share our giftedness with people in need. I intend to increase my giving to the CMA this year. And I ask you to do the same if you are able.

We will never regret our generosity in supporting people in need.

Our parish goal this year is $87,000 to support the Catholic Ministries Appeal. Instead of this number as a mandate, may we see it as an opportunity to share what we have with those in need. Last year, we had 251 generous donors last year. Our goal this year is to exceed that number. Hopefully, you received a letter with a pledge from Bishop Matano and me this past week.  It would be great if you responded to the request in a timely manner. Or you can go to our parish website and give online or there are envelopes at the entrance of Church for your convenience.

May we all give in the spirit in which we have been blessed.  No amount is too large or too small.

Like the sons in the Gospel, are we saying yes or no to God’s way in our life? May a component of our conversion story be a desire to share, to share in supporting people in need in our diocese, in our commitment to building up the Church.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

Are you envious because I am generous?

 Twenty Fifth Sunday in  OT  A   2023

 

Today’s Gospel parable gives us a glimpse of God’s measuring yardstick of what it means to be a disciple – it is a yardstick of generosity and forgiveness. Jesus asks us the grumbling workers: “Are you envious because I am generous? Thus, the last will be first, and the first last.”

Now it is true that this parable of the “workers in the vineyard” can seem to be hard to understand. The parable deals with landowners and workers, wages and profits, and fair and unfair labor practices. But to understand the parable, we need to delve into what the kingdom of God is like.

After all, in our world, hard work generally pays off, at least that’s what we have been taught.   If you work hard, do well in school, and put all your energy into your work, then you will be rewarded.

From one perspective, is Jesus trying to upset us in telling this parable? Is all my hard work a waste of time? So, how are we to pray?

 Lord, for too many people, our modern culture is ruled by envy, not by generosity, and this is tearing our human family apart. Too many people think that life’s rewards should be calculated on the basis of work alone.

We must learn to measure by God’s yardstick -- one of generosity and forgiveness. Consider the ways God has been all-heart to us. We are the ones who at times have worked just one hour in the vineyard. Yet, we are a blessed people. We are a forgiven people. May we never forget that all is a gift of God. With God’s yardstick, we confess the times that in our smallness of spirit we thought that generosity is a sin.

Lord, we thank you for the times when you give us a glimpse of your kingdom, invite us to enter into your generosity and set us free from the bondage of envy. Forgive us when we grumble at you for the way you share out your blessings, for comparing ourselves with others who we think had things easier.

We thank you for the people of our lives who have taught us that the root of our problem is being calculating instead of welcoming life as your gift.  Lord, we pray that your church will be the presence of Jesus in the world showing us a vision of your kingdom marked by generosity, not envy. Help us to better understand that circumstances permit some people to work only one hour, and may we embrace that they deserve a full reward. Help us to embrace God’s grace in people’s lives.

The God we believe in is not a bookkeeper who dishes out what we deserve. Rather, God is a grace-filled benefactor who gives and gives and gives. Rather than being all-fair, God is all-heart,

Today’s reading is an invitation for us to go looking for God’s forgotten ones -- to treat them not with a human standard of fairness, but with a holy abandon of love, compassion, and un-earned generosity.

This is the time of the year when we focus on the annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal --- CMA. The CMA reminds that we are all part of the bigger church…we are citizens of the Kingdom of God. We are called to a life of stewardship. We are to share what we have been given.

People are still poor, hungry in need of pastoral care, education, and employment. The faithful are in need of ministry and a vibrant parish life. Our youth and young adults are yearning to learn and grow in their relationship with Christ. The Church and our Diocese are in need of trained and educated seminarians, deacons, and pastoral leaders to our lead our Church into the future. We cannot close our eyes to these needs.

Our support of the CMA is part of our stewardship commitment to share our giftedness with people in need. I intend to increase my giving to the CMA this year. And I ask you to do the same if you are able.

 

We will never regret our generosity in supporting people in need.

 

Today’s Gospel parable starts by inviting us to look on ourselves as workers hired to work in a vineyard. The image is valid. It is a touching way of understanding our vocation as parent, teacher, friend, priest, or member of this parish community. They are all forms of service and can be a heavy day’s work in all the heat. Similarly, the staggered hirings during the course of the day are a powerful symbol of how the same vocation turns out differently for different people,

Then as the gospel parable goes on, it takes a radically new turn which is the real message of the parable. We are not the landowners’ hired servants but his friends, free people, not hired by anyone. Look on God as a hirer of servants and we misunderstand him completely. So too, the rewards we receive for our service are not earnings but gifts we receive with humble gratitude,

By making the journey from God as hiring us as his servant to a God who is our friend or to a God who loves us, we then discover the wonder of love, human and divine. Lord, we thank you for the people in our lives who taught us that true love is always generous and helped us move beyond possessiveness and envy.

As we celebrate the generosity of God in this parable, God’s prodigal goodness can be an affront to our human sense of fairness. God’s love of sinners is an insult to the pious.

As we now transition into the mystery of the Eucharist, we assemble around the Lord’s table, and we thank God for His forgiveness, mercy, generosity, and love. He has sent us His Son to bring us pardon, to transform us from being isolated individuals into the community of His love, and He gives us the hope of everlasting life. So, as God’s holy people, we recall that God is merciful and forgiving; God is life-giving and generous; and that God is love.

Have a blessed day!

God asks us to forgive as He forgives us.

 

Twenty Fourth Sunday in OT  A  2023

 

In the Gospel, Peter wanted to know if he had to forgive seven times.  Jesus responds: “I say to you, not seven times, seventy-seven times.” Then Jesus tells the parable in which he insists that we have a forgiving spirit.  Forgiveness is a central characteristic of a Christian lifestyle.

 

Jesus’ mandate on forgiveness is followed by the parable of the unforgiving servant.  The tragedy of the parable is that the unforgiving servant never really experienced the forgiveness the king had granted him.  This servant never experienced in his heart what was given him and therefore he could never offer forgiveness to others.

 

The apostle Peter was shocked at the depth of forgiveness Jesus was asking of him.  We too can easily be shocked at the depth of forgiveness the Lord is asking us to extend to others.  I assure you that this Gospel sense of forgiveness will make sense only when we are grateful for the depth of the forgiveness that Jesus recklessly shares with each one of us.

 

The first Scripture from the Book of Sirach indicates that our willingness to forgive others renders us open to the healing forgiveness of God.  Our best insurance policy to receive God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others.  You have heard the old saw of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  Mohandas Gandhi, a Hindu, was once quoted as saying, “An eye for an eye and all the world goes blind!”  How true it is that we need to take the initiative in extending forgiveness and healing to people who stand in need.  When Mohandas Gandhi was shot three times in the heart by an assassin, he raised his arms in a gesture of forgiveness.  His last words before dying were Rama, rama, rama:  “I forgive you, I love you, I bless you

 

What about ourselves?  In what ways have you experienced forgiveness in your lives?  This is such an important question in the spiritual journey of each one of us.  Without any doubt, our salvation is not worked out by ourselves finally reaching a state of perfection.  While we seek to grow in living a Gospel way of life, we will always be sinners.  Our salvation is worked out by our experience of the healing forgiveness of God.  May we know the depth of God’s forgiveness in our lives.

The thought I invite you to think about and pray over is:  “When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.”  We ourselves need to forgive to experience inner healing and to witness God’s healing love of all people.

 

During this past week, I was the recipient of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  What a blessing for my life.  The experience of forgiveness leads us to a radical understanding of the doctrine of grace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We are saved not by finally getting it right, but by the love of Christ that redeems while we are getting it wrong.  Once more the grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation leads us to that deep awareness that we are saved not by finally getting it right, but by the love of Christ that redeems us while we are getting it wrong.

Followers of Jesus can never be minimalist in matters of justice, charity and even forgiveness.  God shares with us an abundance of love and forgiveness.  We are to do likewise – sharing love and forgiveness in abundance with one another. 

May we be a people who love generously and forgive easily.  The truth of our lives for all of us is we all need to forgive, and we all need forgiveness.  That is the message of today’s Scriptures.  This is such an important message.  The future of our nation, the future of our Church, the future of the streets of our city, the future of the world is in the hands of those who forgive.  There is no way of understating the need for forgiveness in life.

 

May we begin each day in the same way we begin each celebration of the Eucharist:  Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.  This is not to say that our lives have no value or goodness.  Rather, it is to say as God’s beloved sons and daughters, we stand under the waterfall of God’s mercy.  This then motivates to share what we have been given.

We are members of a covenanted community.  As God forgives us, we are to forgive others.  Today’s Gospel message is to remember God’s mercy on us.  We then become that memory for others.  By passing his mercy forward, we receive the same.  Revenge and hate have no place in our relationship with God and others.   Treating others with mercy gives us a peace grounded in divine grace.

 

As we seek to reduce racial tensions in the streets of our cities, today’s Gospel message of forgiveness must touch the hearts of us all.  We need to surrender our right to get even.   Meanness of spirit needs to be replaced with a generosity of spirit, the spirit of forgiveness that is permanent and unconditional.

Lord God have pity on the many countries, including our own country that are being torn apart by traditional hatreds.  Send them men and women who will show their compatriots that unless they forgive from their hearts they will forever tortured by hatred and the desire for revenge.

As we know from the Lord’s Prayer, our best insurance policy to receive God’s forgiveness is our willingness to forgive others.  When we celebrate the Eucharist, we bring to God’s Eucharistic table personal memories of our journey with God, our joys and our challenges.  We pray with good memories of grace as well as times of anxiety and fear when God seemed far from us in all these memories.  In the green pastures as well as the dark valleys of life, today’s Scripture message is simple and direct:   God asks us to forgive as He forgives us.

 

Have a Blessed day.

We are the Church.

 

TWENTY THIRD SUNDAY IN OT  A 2023

 

The mantra for our parish that is repeated with each celebration of the Eucharist is:  WE ARE THE CHURCH.  In the deepest sense, the building we are in is not the Church.  It is the building that houses the church.  The church is ourselves, the people of God, who gather to celebrate God’s presence in our midst.  This brings us together around the table of the Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist, and then the Lord sends us out to renew the face of the earth.

As a Church, the people of God, we belong to one another.  We are brothers and sisters to each other.  We are the community of the baptized.  There is no way of over-rating the importance of relationships and community.  The heart of our spirituality is to be found in the love, the forgiveness, the healing, the kindness that we share with one another.

We are not just isolated individuals who come to Mass so that I can deepen my relationship with God.  We are a community of brothers and sisters who are called to make a difference in each other’s lives.  We live Eucharistic lives when we affirm, the God-given dignity of our neighbor.  We are to love one another, no exceptions,

The God we worship is a Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relationship to one another.  The mystery of love that is found in God is also to be found in the Church in our relationships with each other.  There are millions of rules and regulations in our Church and in our society but the great commandment is love - love of God and love of neighbor.

Having said all this about the beauty and the value of our ourselves as the community of the baptized, the truth of our lives also means confessing that we are all sinners.  We can diminish our community life.

Jesus is very much aware of the frailty among his disciples and future followers.   We need help in acknowledging our faults and needed areas of improvement. 

And the clear Gospel message today is that part of being a community of disciples is that we as a community must involve efforts to correct our faults.

At first glance, today’s Gospel may look like a process to exclude the offending party.  “If your brother sins against you, go and tell his fault between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.  If he does not listen, take one or two witnesses along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church.”

In today’s reading, the entire community is given authority to hold its members to account and rectify wrongful acts.

What is crucial is understanding today’s Gospel is the process seeks not to exclude but to reconcile and restore the person to the community.  It is all about healing, forgiving, and reconciling.  Make no mistake about who we are as the community of the baptized, our mission is healing, forgiving, and reconciling.

The Gospel is an instruction by Jesus to the disciples about, not confrontation exactly, but about the sacredness of community.  The well-being of others – whether in your family, your workplace, your parish community or wherever – becomes the reason for prophetically attending to the faults of one of the community.

Now there is an abundance of therapy and workshops in conflict resolutions and the skills of mediation.  You may consider that Matthew’s Gospel may seem a little sketchy in resolving conflicts.  However, on a deeper level, conflict resolutions involve more than skill training in psycho-social skills.  The message of today’s Gospel is that reconciliation is a spiritual activity.  When our psycho-social skills are exercised from our spiritual center, they become all they can be. When the Spirit enters listening skills, the listening becomes deeper and more inclusive.  When the Spirit enters mediation skills, the skills become more respectful.    This presence of the Spirit within the skills signals that the skills are being used for the purpose of reconciliation.

We become better listeners to each other when we affirm the sacredness of our community life and the Gospel message calls us to be a healing, forgiving and reconciling community.

As seen in the Gospel, correcting the faults of another can be dangerous territory.  When I am the person being criticized, it can be devastating.  And yet, if we are to grow as a person, if we are to grow as a faith community, if your family is going to be enriched, criticism is important for our growth when the critique is motivated out of care and concern and love.  We all must acknowledge:  Be patient God isn’t finished with me yet.

In affirming the sacredness of community - in our family life, in our Church life, in the streets of our cities, and in all ways we come together with others -- we must learn to forgive, we must learn to care, we have to learn that strangers are no longer strangers, that we are brothers and sisters to each other.

What would like for us as Americans if Democrats and Republicans committed themselves to affirm the sacredness of our community life and sought to build up each other?  What would be like if on the streets of our cities, instead of racial violence, we affirmed the dignity and the sacredness of each other; what would it like in our Church life, if we all prayed together the prayer of Jesus, that they may be one in unity and love.

As we pay attention to our inner journey, we become aware that the spirit of God’s love and healing dwells deep in our hearts.  When we hear with the ears of our heart, we desire to share forgiveness and reconciliation and healing with all people.  When we hear with the ears of our heart, there is no place for pettiness, judgments, ill-will, prejudice, and hatred among us.

We can turn to the second reading today and be very clear:  it is all about love.  “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

As Jesus gazes across the centuries, how do you respond to the question: "Who do you say that I am?"

 

Twenty First Sunday in OT  A  2023

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus asked his disciples two questions:  The first was an informational discussion question: “Who did people say that I am?”  It was a warmup question.

The Lord’s second question was the real gut question Jesus was asking.  It was a heart question, a faith question: “Who do you that I am?”

 Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus said to him:  “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah…And so, I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”  In Peter’s answer, he was saying that his relationship with Jesus was the commitment that defined his life.

St. Peter is a paradoxical leader of the Church in that he exhibits both strength and weakness in his faith journey.  In next Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus is saying to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

And yet, Peter was chosen to be the first pope not by accident, but rather by divine design.  His very failure became his credential to be the foremost preacher of God’s limitless mercy.

Can you resonate with that powerful statement?  Where in your life are you most aware of your need for the merciful love of Jesus?  What weakness, failure, or sinfulness puts you most in touch with your need for God’s healing grace? St Paul proclaims that we have this treasure in earthen vessels.  God lives within us surrounded by the humanness of who we are.  Yet, God chooses to witness to his merciful love in the lives of others.

I know for myself when I am in touch with my own sinfulness, when I too quick to judgment on others, when I carry the weight of the world on my own shoulders, I am most challenged to trust in the limitless mercy of Jesus.

 

 

 

 

Going back to Peter, people would see in the face of Peter the look of one who knows the giving and forgiving God.  Peter would speak from his own experience: “Do not be afraid.”  God’s love has pursued Peter in his sin and found him and gave him a new life.  Peter was a sinner saved by the love of Jesus.   The Good News Peter would fearlessly proclaim is God’s love will pursue you in your sin and find you and give you new life. 

There is nothing you can do that is going to stop God from loving you.

We Catholics boldly speak of the primacy of the pope.  What of the primacy of our first Pope?  Peter has primacy because he is first in failure, first in suffering, first in his need for God’s mercy to serve the Church.  Somehow Jesus understands that Peter can only preach God’s reconciling love if he first experiences it himself.  It is because Peter will fail so completely and weep so bitterly over his denial of Jesus that, when he is finally reconciled with Jesus at the Sea of Tiberius, he will truly understand God’s message of mercy.

This realization in the life of Peter leads us to ask ourselves:  what are our credentials to proclaim the limitless mercy of God?  Perhaps it is our own failures and weaknesses that have been forgiven by God’s grace that leads us to share God’s merciful love with one another.

Pope Francis began his time as pope by acknowledging that he was a sinner and that God had first “mercied” him before choosing him.  He was chosen to be pope because he was well acquainted with the mercy and forgiveness of God.

In the penitential rite at the beginning of the celebration of the Eucharist, we acknowledge and celebrate our need for God’s merciful forgiveness.  Before receiving Communion, we say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; but say only the word and my soul shall be healed.”  The Eucharist is not a reward for the perfect.  The Eucharist is God’s gift of love to us who are not worthy, who are sinners, but are grateful for the merciful love of Jesus that is shared with us.

 

 

 

In the Gospel, Jesus said to Peter: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”  The first and the most important power that was given to Peter and his successors was the forgiveness of sins.

As you pray over this beautiful Gospel, may we discern that certain keys have been entrusted to each of us.   What keys has the Lord entrusted to you?    With the keys that have been given to us, we are to open the way to Jesus for others instead of locking those doors.  We should welcome more people that we turn away and serve more people than we refuse.  Jesus comes to give us Good News that we are to share with others.

As we look to receive the Eucharist in our liturgy, may the grace of Communion encourage us in those moments when we recognize and tend to the presence of Jesus in the poor.  The grace of Communion will enable us to speak out against injustice and translate our words into actions.  The grace of Communion will be there on those days when we give of ourselves to help, to listen, to serve, and to befriend.  Grace will inspire us to quiet ourselves, to pray and to allow the presence of God a place in our lives.  Grace will move us to put others and their need ahead of our own.

May the struggles of our life lead us to trust in Jesus as the source of our inner strength.    Deep within is the person God our Father dreams we can be.  May all of us commit ourselves to do what the Lord asks of us in the building of the Church.  We are to be merciful for God has shown us mercy.

As Jesus gazes across the centuries to today, how might you respond to the question: “Who do you say that I am?”

 

Have a Blessed Day.

"Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid."

 

Nineteenth Sunday in  OT  A  2023

 

“Take courage.  It is I.  Do not be afraid.”   These hope-filled words were spoken by Jesus to his frightened disciples as they were being blown around by the storminess on the Sea of Galilee.  As we engage today’s Gospel of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, we are in the midst of an angry sea, in a boat that seems fragile, and there are howling winds and enormous waves that threaten to capsize the disciples.

Today’s Scripture readings invite us to reflect over the ways we encounter the Lord in our lives – the ways we become in touch with God’s presence.  There is much to be learned from the first disciples on the Sea of Galilee.

At some point in time, the storminess on the Sea of Galilee may describe anyone’s life – one’s parish or school; one’s business or neighborhood or family; one’s personal life as our employer tells us that our job is downsized or outsourced, or our doctor explains our test results.   This storminess has been the life of the community of the Church many times since Jesus walked on water, and it is what today’s Gospel account is all about.   When we focus on the power of the winds and the depths of the waves and how wet and how cold we are, then we panic and grasp and clutch and…sink.  When we give our life over to Jesus, when we trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we save our life.

This message is straightforward and easy to understand but so hard to live out when we are gripped by our fears.    The grace we seek from today’s Scriptures is to cultivate faith in Jesus that is greater than our fears.  Faith over fear. The words of Jesus that are spoken to us again and again are: “It is I; do not be afraid.”  We aren’t being asked to walk on water, but to act like we believe that God’s love for us is more powerful than chaos, evil and apathy. 

The storminess on the Sea of Galilee describes very well the quality of life of high school girls who live in the poverty of the country of Tanzania in Africa.  I would like to describe to you the missionary outreach our parish provides for St. Mary’s School, a Catholic high school for girls in Mazinde Ju in Tanzania. This school is a beacon of hope for high school girls that gives them a life-changing experience to get out of the web of poverty that diminishes their quality of life.

On three occasions dating back more than ten years ago, parishioners from St Joseph’s have gone on pilgrimage to St Mary’s School in Tanzania.  I have the privilege of going with a group of parishioners in 2018.  This has been a life changing experience for me as well as all from St Joe’s who have had the opportunity to be a part of this Christ-like school that provides a spiritual and academic opportunity for high school girls who otherwise would be without educational opportunities.

Over these last several years, St Joseph’s has been a major benefactor to this school – contributing as much as $50,000 in a given year.  There are several of us, myself included, who contribute $1,000 per year to provide scholarships for deserving students.

My mantra is you never regret being generous to people in need.

What is so inspiring to me in my visit to Tanzania, is that St. Mary’s School is so much more than a quality classroom experience.  This is a residential school that is for me is an experience of Church in which everyone has their fixed on the Lord.  The spiritual leader of this community is a priest from the Diocese of Rochester, Fr Damien Milliken, a Benedictine priest who has served his priestly ministry for over 50 years in Africa.  This wonderful community of faith has an abundance of consecrated women, the religious sisters of Usumbara, who are teachers for these high school students.  All in this school community live out the Gospel values of love and service and friendship with one another.

I regard it as a privilege for us as a parish community to be benefactors of this Christlike school community of faith.  I invite your generosity in the second collection.

 

As a priest of 55 blessed years, I have the opportunity to celebrate Mass in many sacred places including at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome when St John Paul II ordained my nephew Jason a priest.  That was a wow experience for me.

But I tell you, my most mystical celebration of the Eucharist was in the school chapel of St Mary’s at 6:00 am on an ordinary school day.  Looking out from the altar, I was in the presence of 1,000 high school girls in full Catholic school uniform singing the opening hymn with angelic and enthusiastic voices accompanied only by one high school girl in the choir loft striking a well-worm drum.  The joy in their hearts was unmistakable.

What I would emphasize is that this wasn’t a special feast for Our Lady, this liturgy happens each and every school day at 6:00 am in the morning with the same kind energy and prayerfulness.

The holiness of this liturgy remains with me five years later.

What is so amazing is to be aware of how the graduates of St Mary’s have gone to leadership positions in the legal area, in the medical area and in business and government.  These graduates hold leadership positions improving the quality of life in Tanzania.

 

My prayer is that you will shower these deserving high school girls with the same love, generosity, and prayer as you would your own daughters.  As we are mindful that these young women are God’s beloved daughters, we are called to share from our giftedness in our generosity for these high schoolers.

We have it right in our ministry here at St Joseph’s Church when both St Joseph’s School and St Mary’s School in Mazindu Ju, in Tanzania are recipients of our prayer and our generosity.

 

May God bless you with the gift of generosity.

 

 

"This is my beloved Son. Listen to HIm,"

 

TRANSFIGURATION  2023

 

 

Today the Gospel presents the Transfiguration.  Jesus “took with him Peter and James and John his brother and led them up a high mountain apart” (Mt 17:1). The mountain in the Bible represents a place close to God and an intimate encounter with Him, a place of prayer where one stands in the presence of the Lord. There up on the mount, Jesus is revealed to the three disciples as transfigured, luminescent, and most beautiful. And then Moses and Elijah appear and converse with Him. His face is so resplendent and his robes so white that Peter, awe-struck, wishes to stay there, as if to stop time. Suddenly from on high the voice of the Father resounds proclaiming Jesus to be his most beloved Son, saying “listen to him” (v. 5). This word is important! Our Father said this to these Apostles and says it to us as well: “listen to Jesus, because he is my beloved Son.”

The ‘brightness’ which characterizes this extraordinary event symbolizes its purpose: to enlighten the minds and hearts of the disciples so that they may clearly understand who their Teacher is. It is a flash of light which suddenly opens onto the mystery of Jesus and illuminates his whole person and his whole story.

 

By now decisively headed toward Jerusalem, where he will be sentenced to death by crucifixion, Jesus wanted to prepare his own for this scandal — the scandal of the Cross — this scandal which is too intense for their faith and, at the same time, to foretell his Resurrection by manifesting himself as the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus was preparing them for that sad and very painful moment.

 

 

Going back to the Gospel account, Jesus appeared to Peter, James and John in his risen glory. They then heard a voice from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

 

What does it mean to be beloved of the Father for Jesus? You might think Jesus would have a permanent mountaintop experience? Not so! The transfiguration was a preparation for his final entry into Jerusalem where he was to suffer and to die on the cross…. Still, he certainly was the Father’s beloved.

 

You would think that as the beloved of the Father life would be a bit more extravagant for Jesus. The best of everything -- a vacation in the high rent district of the Sea of Galilee, or an unlimited checking account or something.

 

Yet, his transfiguration was not far removed from the cost of discipleship. This Jesus who was the beloved of the Father would empty himself, suffer and die on the cross.

 

In fact, Jesus was already revealing himself as a Messiah different from their expectations, from how they imagined the Messiah, how the Messiah would be: not a powerful and glorious king, but a humble and unarmed servant; not a lord of great wealth, a sign of blessing, but a poor man with nowhere to rest his head; not a patriarch with many descendants, but a celibate man without home or nest.  And the most bewildering sign of this scandalous overturning is the cross. But it is through the Cross that Jesus will reach the glorious Resurrection, which will be definitive, not like this Transfiguration which lasted a moment, an instant.

Transfigured on Mount Tabor, Jesus wanted to show his disciples his glory, not for them to circumvent the Cross, but to show where the Cross leads. Those who die with Jesus, shall rise again with Jesus. The Cross is the door to Resurrection. Whoever struggles alongside him will triumph with him.

 

Jesus was God’s beloved Son. God’s plan for his beloved Son included the scandal of the cross – his suffering and death. In Baptism, we too are God’s beloved. But like Jesus, this does not mean we get a free pass from suffering and the cross. God’s love is unending but like Jesus God’s love for us includes the scandal of the cross.

For us to trust in God’s love for us in the crosses of life, we need transfiguration moments that sustains our faith in our journey that leads to the cross as our entrance way to sharing in the risen life of Jesus. Our transfiguration moments occur in times of prayer. Our prayer can come in many forms. This past week, I experienced a prayerful transfiguration moment in experiencing the beauty of sunset over Lake Ontario. Another moment was spending time with my sister during a game of golf.

These blessed transfiguration moments sustain my trust that Jesus is with me in all experiences of life.

 

From the event of the Transfiguration, I would like to take two significant elements that can be summed up in two words: ascent and descent. We all need to go apart, to ascend the mountain in a space of silence, to find ourselves and better perceive the voice of the Lord. This we do in prayer.

 

But we cannot stay there! Encounter with God in prayer inspires us anew to “descend the mountain” and return to the plain where we meet many brothers and sisters weighed down by fatigue, sickness, injustice, ignorance, poverty both material and spiritual. To these brothers and sisters in difficulty, we are called to bear the fruit of that experience with God, by sharing the grace we have received.

 

And this is curious. When we hear the Word of Jesus, when we listen to the Word of Jesus and carry it in our heart, this Word grows. Do you know how it grows? By giving it to the other! The Word of Christ grows in us when we proclaim it, when we give it to others! And this is what Christian life is. It is a mission for the whole Church, for all the baptized, for us all: listen to Jesus and offer him to others. Do not forget: this week listen to Jesus!

 

As we ponder the meaning of the Transfiguration Gospel, know that we are God’s beloved. May we listen to how the Lord speaks to us in our prayer. May we recognize many prayerful experiences throughout the day. May we know that we then are missioned to come down the mountain and to share the love of Jesus with one and all.

 

Have a Blessed day.