Today we journey in the company of the blind man. What spiritual blindness of yours needs to be removed by the healing of Jesus?

The fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Laetare Sunday – Rejoice Sunday – marking that we are more than halfway through our Lenten journey and so we begin to anticipate the joy of the Risen Lord on Easter.  We wear rose vestments not to celebrate a birthday, but to celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord beginning to invade the Lenten season as we have passed the halfway point in our journey to Easter.

Today we journey in the company of the blind man.  It is the long, often painful, journey of a person who is called to see life in a new way and as a result makes a new commitment.  As his blindness was removed, the man could now see.  The gift of sight is a most precious gift.  But the real message of this Gospel is greater than the gift of sight is the gift of faith.  Jesus bestows not merely sight but a faith-filled insight.  The man born blind eventually sees Jesus, but – a greater gift – he comes to see who Jesus really is. 

The man born blind is symbolic of the human condition.  We need the continuing creation of God, spreading mud on our eyes and washing in the waters of the pool of Siloam. 

Again and again in the course of our spiritual journey, God’s saving work, symbolically opening our eyes, but really opening our hearts, happens through the One who is sent, Jesus Christ.   In the second Scripture reading from the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul challenges us to make this miracle our own:   “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light.”

As we listen to the story of the man born blind, pray for the discernment of how each one of us is able to have our eyes opened to see the saving power of God calling us to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  As the man born blind witnessed to “that man they call Jesus”, we are to witness to a spiritual sightedness that was not from birth, but one that we have learned through life experience.

The Scriptures invite us to reflect how has the season of Lent has revealed to you your “blindness” and your need for Christ’s light, Christ’s reconciliation?

As hopefully I advance in wisdom, age and grace, I can recall experiences in my journey of life where a blindness has been removed, and I can see more clearly the light of Christ.

In preparation for ordination to the priesthood, I spent 12 years in the seminary from age 14 to 26.  In those days, seminary formation was on the rigid side.  Discipline was a high priority.  In my seminary formation, I don’t recall any faculty member asking if I have experienced the love of Jesus or the love of another human being.  My seminary training was invaluable in learning some significant life values but the relational side of life and spirituality wasn’t a high priority.  The emphasis was on obedience and discipline and rule-keeping.

It took some years of priestly ministry to come to the experience of letting myself be loved and really valuing the relational side of prayer and ministry.  Being loved in healthy ways opened my eyes to experiencing God’s love for me.

In your own journey of faith, how much have you opened   yourself up to being loved?  The spiritual sightedness we seek is to know the depth of God’s love for us, how Jesus embraces us with open arms.  I suggest we will not know the depth of God’s unending love for us if we do not let ourselves be loved by others.

There is no way to over-emphasize the priority of knowing we are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  This is the spiritual sightedness that the man born blind came to.

The real darkness in my life and in yours is not knowing how much we are God’s beloved.

Another ongoing blindness that we can wrestle with is control and telling God how we want our future planned, rather than opening up ourselves to the sightedness of God’s plan for our life.  Yes, God’s plan for your life and mine does not include a free pass from the challenges of life.   In some form or fashion, the cross is going to be a part of your life and mine.   When we can trust in God’s love for us while we are experiencing the cross the in our life,  we come to know the sightedness of the man born blind in the Gospel.  The question is how much of our life plans can we let go of, trusting not just another person but trusting the unseen mystery of God’s unending love for us? 

Trusting another is a most precious quality of the friendships of our life.  Even more so, trusting in God’s unending love for us is the sightedness that overcomes much blindness in our lives.

Trusting in God is easy to talk about, but it is a blindness we struggle with in the face of the crosses of life that turn our life upside down.

Another source of blindness can be in our in ability to find our own voice, the courage to follow our own intuition, like the Samaritan woman in last Sunday’s Gospel who went from being an outcast, an outsider to being the person who invited others to come to know Jesus.

We have within ourselves the wellspring of eternal life.  May we have the sightedness to tap into our inner voice, our inner strength.  This past week I had the privilege of sharing with some of our 15 year old Confirmation candidates.  It filled my heart with considerable joy to listen to these teenage parishioners speak of their desire to serve and to help others in visiting a nursing home and in using their gift of music to bring prayer and joy into the lives of others.  They are beautiful witnesses of God’s love that flows from deep within their spirit.

In our parish life, there were many more examples of people finding their inner voice that comes from their journey of faith.   But  yes, we need to be patient.  God isn’t finished with us yet.  There is still blindness in the eyes and hearts of each of us. 

May the grace of this Lenten season continue to go with us as we journey from spiritual blindness to living in the light and joy of the Risen Lord.

Have a blessed day.

May we find our story in the story of the samaritan woman.

The intriguing account of the Samaritan’s woman encounter with the Lord is a most beautiful story of an outcast, an outsider, a Samaritan woman, someone who has endured the school of hard knocks, one who is even cynical and sarcastic and suspicious even when someone is trying to be kind to her.  And yet, through her encounter with Jesus at this well in Samaria, she is transformed from being an outsider to becoming an enthusiastic evangelizer inviting other people in town to come to know Jesus.

Jesus,  the Son of God, the Savior of the world, wasn’t too busy to listen patiently and dialogue with and affirm with considerable love this outcast of society.  If we are to follow the way of Jesus in our ministry, may we take the time to listen and to affirm the beauty of people in their time of need.

This is a most dramatic conversion story.

As we pray over this Gospel, may we find our story in the story of the Samaritan woman.  Imagine a situation in your life in which you felt like an outsider, an outcast – maybe you did get not the promotion you were hoping for, maybe you had to deal with the after effects of a relationship that has gone wrong in your life, maybe you are being misunderstood by someone you love, maybe the
Church you love is making you feel like an outsider, maybe the nation you are so proud of is turning upside down --  whatever it is.  My hunch is that all of us at one time or another or maybe several times,  have felt like the outsider.

May we observe closely the dialogue of Jesus with the Samaritan in three stages:

1.      In the first stage, the Samaritan woman displays her mistrust, her sarcasm, and the hurt she has felt over a long period.  She says:  “What you a Jew asking me, a Samaritan, for a drink.”  Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans; men don’t talk to strange women.  Are you trying to make a fool of me?

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But in this encounter, Jesus was breaking previously drawn lines in the sand and listened to her anger and hurt with great hope in the dialogue.  Jesus saw much more beauty in the Samaritan woman than she saw in herself.  He listened to her with kindness and believing in her dignity.

The beginning of the conversion story for the Samaritan woman was that she was listened with much compassion and understanding and affirmation of her inner dignity.

I have counted a great blessing to my life when I am listened to and filled with hope when I wasn’t able to see a way forward.  The way forward was revealed through the listening heart of another.

May we know that the dialogue Jesus has with the Samaritan woman is the dialogue the Lord wishes to have with each one of us,  especially when we are feeling fragile or vulnerable.  This is the real message of the Gospel.

In the second stage, 

2    because she felt affirmed in her dialogue with Jesus, when she then was confronted by Jesus in saying that indeed the person you are living with is not your husband -- Indeed you have had five previous husbands – she did not become defensive as many times I have become defensive when confronted or criticized.  Why was she able to listen with openness to Jesus?  The answer is simple in some ways.  Jesus had first listened to her and affirmed her as a person of worth and dignity.  Even when confronted, she was confronted with great love in the heart of Jesus.

When we know that we are loved and affirmed, an inner lock is released within us and we are able to listen to critique that invites our growth.  Is it not true we can listen better to others when we know that we are understood and loved.   In the spiritual life, it is a conversion in our lives when we know how much we are loved and affirmed by Jesus.

3.       Finally, Jesus reveals to the woman at the well that he is the living water, the anointed one, the Savior.  Jesus was calling her to a life that she cannot imagine for herself.  Please note that Jesus did not send her away, admonishing her to avoid further sin.  Instead Christ makes her an evangelist, sending her out to call others to him.

The woman at the well has a complicated and tragic past but becomes a wellspring of hope for her village.

How is her story our story?   It is not God’s plan for us to be trapped in the darkness of sin.  It is not God’s plan for us to be the outsider.  Rather the Lord wished to affirm us that we are loved and forgiven and we too are called to be a wellspring of hope for others.  In God’s plan, the greatest sinners are often enough those whom the Lord calls to lead others to him.

The church provides us this Gospel during the Lenten Gospel because it is only in opening ourselves to God’s plan for our lives, by our openness to embracing even the crosses of life, by opening ourselves to dialogue and pray with Jesus that we genuinely encounter the Lord in a way that transforms our lives.  Indeed this beautiful Gospel prepares us to share in the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus, prepares us to share in the joy of the Risen Lord.

Have a blessed day.

 ,;/,

The cost of discipleship challenges us to move out of our comfort zone.

From the first Scripture reading in the Book of Genesis:  “The Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you.’”

What was asked of Abram sets the stage for us to reflect on our own cost of discipleship.  The detachment that was asked of Abram is this:  Abram is commanded to leave his country, his kinfolk, and finally his father’s house, that is, what we would call his entire support system, material and psychological, the whole deal, and depend on God alone.

Does this not challenge us to reflect on our cost of discipleship during this Lenten season?   Lent’s call to stark honesty compels us to ask if our discipleship of Jesus is too comfortable.  Our Lenten conversion process requires some measure of detachment from and attachment to values and lifestyle, priorities and preferences that may be counter-cultural.

The call of Abram who was later named Abraham was to leave home and settle in a foreign land.  God asked and so Abram went.  He had trust and hope.  How do we respond when asks us to move beyond our comfort zone and to more fully trust in the plan of God for us?  We are all used to what we are used to.  There is the tendency in all of us to say my way or the highway.  But if our call to discipleship is any way similar to God’s call of Abram, we will need to revisit that old wisdom.  In some way, the Lord asks of you and the Lord asks of me to let go of some of my comfort zone and to trust more fully in God’s plan for us.

As I reflect on the ministries I have had as a priest over the last 49 years, the assignments I have had are not my doing or my suggestions but I deeply believe they are God’s plan for me.   I have always thought that God has a sense of humor in His plan for my life.  My hunch is that all of us have had curve balls thrown at us that are not of our doing and in fact we may have resisted what was being asked of us.  The truth is nothing happens my accident.  Our call to discipleship, our cost of discipleship means we need to trust and hope in God’s plan as did Abram.

The call of Abram is the scriptural set-up for the call of the disciples – Peter, James and John – in this Transfiguration gospel.  Like Abram’s call, the apostles are being called to go forth from the comfort of their preconceived notions of Messiahship – and the powerful prestige they imagine will be theirs in Jesus’ kingdom – to a new vision of the kind of Messiah Jesus is and therefore what it means to be his disciples.  Peter, James and John the same three who glimpse on Mt Tabor their Master’s transfigured glory will witness in Gethsemane his most abject suffering.

From the Gospel, as the apostles experienced the transfigured glory of Jesus, Peter says:  “Lord, it is good that we are here.”  While he was still speaking. Behold, then from a cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him.”

Notice these three simple words spoken by God the Father to the disciples of Jesus:  Listen to Him.

To this point, the apostles have been unable to understand Jesus’ predictions about his upcoming suffering, death and resurrection. They have not listened.  In fact, there was no need to listen because they already knew what they wanted the Savior to be like – a successful, prestigious, powerful Messiah.  Now the voice of God commands them to listen.

Jesus message is that his disciples must be willing to join Him in His passion and death as well.  We too have difficulty listening to Jesus when our discipleship involved dealing with the crosses of life – the cross of sickness, the cross of the death of a loved one, the cross of coping with a relationship that has gone wrong.

The apostles were given the vision of the transfigured Lord to overcome their resistance to listening to Jesus in moments of suffering.  What the apostles experienced in this beautiful Transfiguration experience was like the end of the story appearing in the middle.  Why?  The apostles needed their faith to be strengthened to have a faith and hope in accepting their Savior as one who was going to be crucified in his journey to resurrection and new life. The apostles had balked at the future Jesus was insisting upon.  The privilege of witnessing Jesus’ Transfiguration was for the purpose of confirming Jesus as someone to whom they must listen to.  They have, as of yet, not understood the mission of Jesus.  They must open themselves up to what Jesus is saying about his suffering, death, and resurrection.

The real action of discipleship is not just on the mountaintop but in the upcoming events of death and resurrection in Jerusalem.  As we pray over this Transfiguration Gospel, know that the message for us is not just the identity of Jesus in his transfigured glory but it is a story for us to reflect on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  In the words of the Father:  Listen to him.   As with the first disciples, we need to let go of old notions of discipleship that get in the way of listening to the message of Jesus.  We need to accept the cross in our own lives and to trust more fully in God’s plan for our lives.

Please God we all can identify with Transfiguration events that put us in touch with the glory of the Lord.  For me the glory is revealed in the sacredness of the ocean as well as on the mountaintop.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in the friendships of my life that are so life giving and I so deeply treasure and need.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in sacred moments of ministry.  Recently I vividly recall being in the hospital room at Strong and praying with patient who was about to go home to the Lord.  I was praying with his wife and son as well.  It was apparent to all that God was with us and all will be well.

We all need those treasured moments of faith to strengthen us for the times we will be vulnerable and fragile and wonder why God is asking to embrace this cross in our life.  The crosses in life we will experience as individuals, as families, as the faith community of the Church of the Holy Spirit, and as a nation.  There will be no dimension of our lives in which we get a free pass from the cross.

May our journey of faith have those beautiful Transfiguration in which we say with the apostle:  “Lord, it is good we are here.” And may we be able to listen to the call of God in our journey of faith when we need to lead go of our familiar comfort zones and embrace the cross and Gethsemane in our lives.

Have a blessed day.

As was Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, how is it for us when we have been led by the Spirit of God's love into the wilderness?

I call your attention to the first sentence in today’s Gospel:  “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.”  Jesus finding himself in the desert being tempted by the devil was not the result of bad luck or being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sometimes we can find ourselves in the desert of disappointment or failure, not led by the Spirit of God’s love but rather they are the result of bad choices we have made.  Our desire for pleasure, power, or greed can sometimes get the best of us and lead us into the wilderness.  In fact, none of us want to be judged just on the basis of the dumbest choices we have made in life.

But with Jesus, he is being led by the Spirit of God’s love into the desert to be tempted by the devil to use his power in ways that are not in God’s plan.  The devil was tempting Jesus to become the Messiah without the cross.  The devil was tempting Jesus to take the short cut to achieve his power as the Messiah.

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be humbled, to be tested and tempted, to struggle with the forces of evil and thereby fully trust in God’s plan for His life.  The Lenten journey of Jesus was for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert wrestling with the forces of darkness.

My question for you and for me is what desert have we been led by the Spirit of God’s love to be humbled, to be tested and tempted to validate our faith and trust in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives?

As you have grieved the loss of someone you dearly love, as you have dealt with illness in your life and the in the life of a dear family member, as you have been hurt and your confidence has been betrayed, as you have had to deal with more than your fair share of challenges, can you see these experiences as being led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.  Can these life wrenching experiences be example of how you are being led by the Spirit into the desert?

This I know:  God’s loves you with an everlasting love.  You are precious and glorious in the sight of God.  Yet, as with Jesus himself, the cross and the desert are a part of your life and mine.

A fundamental temptation for us is forgetting the Lord and the ways He has blessed us.  All of us wrestle with the Lord a bit on our spiritual journey.  In one moment, we turn our lives over to the Lord.  In the next moment, we are tempted by food or power or recognition.  We can too easily lose our spiritual footing.

The way the tempter dealt with Jesus is how the tempter deals with us – offering us discipleship of the Lord Jesus minus the cross in our life.  The cross is part of who Jesus is, and it is an enduring sign of His unconditional love for us.  The Lenten season invites us to recognize the cross in our spiritual journey.

The Stations of the Cross describe the stages of the suffering and death of Jesus.  As we experience the stations of the cross of illness, of death, of brokenness in our own stories, may we too get the help of Simon of Cyrene and be strengthened by the love of Mary our mother.  As for Jesus, our own stations of the cross are our way of discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Lord God, it is risky to let ourselves be led by the Spirit.  We make an act of trust in you today, letting ourselves be guided by you, confident the devil will eventually leave us and angels will appear to look after us.

Lord, our faith community of St Joseph’s also is led into the desert to be tempted by the devil.  We would like see more people in the pews each and every Sunday; we would like to have more robust social justice initiatives; we would like our youth to be more involved in our faith formation initiatives, and so forth and so forth. 

We would like simple solutions to each of these challenges – perhaps just a simple resolution of the parish council -- preferably without the cross and the accompanying struggle.  May we always remember that we are led by the Spirit into the desert.  There is a method to the divine madness.  As with Jesus, we need to trust in God’s plan even when we lose a bit of control in the outcome.

You may ask why in the world need we to choose spiritual disciplines in the Lenten season as our life circumstances provide us with enough desert experiences that are not of our choosing. 

The Lenten journey of our choosing is a quiet, humble, simple journey that was begun with ashes being placed on our foreheads. 

These Lenten disciplines help us to encounter Christ and to live our lives trusting in God’s plan for us.  Discipline and discipleship go together as surely night follows day.  May we value each of the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. 

As disciples of Jesus, our prayer is our conversation.  It is being in the presence of our God.  It is the gratitude we express for the blessings of life we enjoy.  May your Lenten prayer include a desert solitude – simply slowing down, being quiet, being still in God’s presence, and prayer without words.  May our Lenten prayer include the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which we return to the Lord our God.

May we embrace the discipline of fasting to simplify our lives in some way – through fasting from food or fasting from some activity – in order to more fully rely on Jesus being the nourishment that we seek and the moral compass of our lives.

May we embrace the discipline of almsgiving to share what we have been given with those in need. Our discipleship of Jesus can never be divorced from the needs of God’s poor.

For the desert experience that we choose in this Lenten season and for the desert experience that has been chosen for us, may we be led by the Spirit of God’s love to trust more fully in God’s plan for our lives.

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Have a blessed day.

The Gospel asks the question: "why worry?" Jesus responds with a new commandment: Thou shalt not worry.

The Gospel asks the great question of “why worry?”  The wildflowers don’t worry.  The birds don’t worry.   Why should we?  If God cares for them, why would God not equally care for us who are made in the image and likeness of God?  The Isaiah text from the first Scripture reading speaks of God’s tenderness as like that of a mother towards an infant. 

Why worry?  The answer to this is easier said than done?  Parents worry about their children making good choices in life.  We worry about our own health and the health of the people we love.   We worry and wonder about our country and the politics of our country.  Young people worry about career choices and who they are going to live their life with.

I worry when so many people tell me:  “Father. I am not spiritual but not religious.”  What does that mean?  I believe in God but this Church doesn’t touch my soul.  Can you really be spiritual without belonging to a community of faith with all its messiness but with many people who love you and seek to be loved by you and so discover God’s presence in our midst?

Another worry is what many of us have what is called “tragedy fatigue.”  We can’t even remember the latest horrific event given how frequently these tragedies occur.  The sad outcome is this:  we forget the awesome tenderness of God towards us.

The commandment that Jesus gives us today is:  Thou shalt not worry.  If we take this commandment of Jesus to heart, what happens to your anxiety about your children, your anxiety that you will not get what you need for yourself and for your family, your worry about a sick relative, your worry about what the future holds for you?

The Scriptures invite us to ask the question:  what worries do you need Jesus to take from you?  Can you identify a particular worry that is close to your heart that, with God’s grace,  you can turn it over to the merciful love of Jesus?

Again, from the first Scripture reading:  “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?  Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

As we reflect on that basic Gospel question:  “Why worry?”   We also ask:   What kind of God is God?  What do we expect God to do for us?

I am puzzled and dismayed by preachers who project God as vengeful, full of anger, and ever ready to punish at every opportunity.  Now I was born at night but not last night.  I have come to recognize that we can find whatever version of God we want to find in the Bible.  The devil can quote Scriptures for his own purposes.  But this I know:  Jesus did not come down from heaven to reveal a vengeful God.  God did not make us for his wrath.  He made us for His love.  God cares for what God creates – the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, and, most of all, you and I.  This is the God who is the true North Star of our lives.

An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is an expression that was found in the cultures surrounding the Jews in the time of Jesus.   This kind of retribution is not in God’s thinking.  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is clearly not found in the heart of Jesus.  He is interested, very interested, in finding that we treasure His love in our hearts and that we are willing to forego the attractions of this world in order to secure “the pearl of great price.”

Yes, repentance and reconciliation are many times necessary for us to return to union with God in our hearts and souls.  This is the profound meaning of the Lenten journey of encountering Christ.  But when it comes to repenting, we need not fear.  His heart calls to our heart,   “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb?  Even if she should forget, I, God declares, will never forget you.”

Yes, we need to make good choices and seek first the kingdom of God.  Jesus tells us that spiritually multi-tasking is not a good idea.  The Lord wants our undivided hearts free of the daily preoccupations  of life that cause to lose our centeredness in God.

How easy it is to become a slave of what we own -- even if is only a cell phone.  We are all caught up in the devious attraction of spiritual multi-tasking.  Our hearts desire to be faithful to seeking first the kingdom of God but the lure of the good life of success, of pleasure, of power, and prestige entice us.  You will notice that after proclaiming the Gospel telling us not to worry about what we are to wear and what are to eat, that God will provide us,  I did not then suggest we skip the collection this week.

Yes, we live in a material world but we are not to become slaves we what we own.  What we have been given, we have given to share.  But we all are tempted to make idols out of the mammon of this world.  We like to be comfortable, don’t you know, and we all are capable of becoming a slave to what we own.

The season of Lent provides us with the opportunity to do a spiritual inventory of what are the important values of our life.  We need to honestly ask the question:  What is God’s plan for my life?  What does God expect of us?

To draw a focus on how to answer the big questions of life.  I invite you to meditate on the faith journey of St John of the Cross.  After he struggled with the Dark Night of the Soul in his writings and in his life, he profoundly said:    “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.

Have a blessed day.

Is Jesus a law-breaker or a law-keeper?

Is Jesus a law breaker or a law keeper?

From the perspective of the critique of Jesus against the legalism of the Scribes and Pharisees, in Jesus extending the merciful love of God to sinners, you can say that Jesus dismisses the preoccupation of law- keeping and emphasizes the mercy and the love and the compassion of God.

On the other hand, Jesus is clear in today’s Gospel in saying:  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”

The real message of Jesus in today’s Gospel is yes we need to live very ethically and have a deep respect for the rule of law.  The commandments are not just suggestions or guidelines.  We are to obey the commandments.  But Jesus is also saying very clearly that rule keeping is not the end of the story; we are called to be disciples in which we seek to encounter Jesus in prayer and in daily life.

Discipleship of Jesus is deeper than obedience to the law.  Jesus fulfills the law by demanding more in the way of love.  Discipleship demands conversion of heart.

It should not surprise us that Jesus goes beyond the requirements of the laws of the Old Testament, even while saying they need to be observed.  In this section of Matthew’s gospel Jesus fleshes out a deeper meaning and intent of the commandments.  For example, when he speaks of the sin of murder, the taking of another’s life, he speaks of it as including the diminishment of a person’s life by harsh words or actions.

We can keep all the rules but if our hearts are not filled with the joy of the Gospel in the words of Pope Francis, we haven’t experienced the conversion of our hearts.

For example, in living out the Sacrament of Marriage, it is not just a legal contract of an eye for an eye and not committing adultery.  Marriage is a lifelong covenant of love in which two people are called to love and honor each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health for all the days of their lives. 

Today’s Gospel calls us the vision of discipleship that while detail and discipline can train us in keeping the rules, we can only discover how to love through forgiving those who have hurt us irrespective of whether they ask for forgiveness or not,  or are repentant or not.  We can only discover how to love by helping those in need, whether they deserve help or not.  We can only discover how to love by standing with those who are oppressed even if it is dangerous for us.  Yes, we live in complex times in which we wonder about the morality of issues of immigration, of homeland security and the like.  The Lord calls to welcome and to stand people who are in need.  We can only discover how to love by asking the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds with wisdom.

Discipleship of the Lord Jesus is not taking the easy road of lax morality; rather our discipleship leads us to follow the example of the one who laid down his life for our salvation and out of love for each and every one of us.

We are called to more than just keeping the rules.  We are called to love deeply.  May our prayerful question be not just about rule-keeping but how do I discern to say YES to the plan of God for my life. 

Jesus offers a much more challenging ethic than legalism because we are not able to say we’ve met our obligation as long as anyone goes hungry or suffers oppression or is abandoned and alone.  This ethic requires endless charity. 

Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount presents Jesus as the new Moses, not as a lawgiver but as a guide who shows us a life full of blessing, of joy, and service to people in need.

For me as a priest confessor in the beautiful sacrament of reconciliation, the priest is not meant just to  be a spiritual attorney general determining whether the law has been broken or not, or whether a particular action is a sin or not, rather, the primary ministry of the priest is to communicate the healing, forgiving, merciful love of Jesus.  Yes, the priest can provide needed counsel, but more importantly the priest is to share the merciful love of Jesus with the penitent.

As we celebrate the Eucharist, may we be mindful of today’s Gospel:  “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go and first be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

The lesson for us clear.  This is how seriously God views our human relationships.  We cannot hate our neighbor – no matter who he or she is, no matter whether they deserve it or not – and then say we love God.  For whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to Christ himself.

To give a preview to next Sunday’s Gospel, we are to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.

In the words of Pope Francis, “my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving.   Jesus does not tire of saying to us:  Give them something to eat.”

In the Gospel, we hear no ordinary rabbi interpreting the Torah but One whom we already know to be God’s beloved Son not “going light” on the law and the prophets but going deeper and challenging us to reach beyond the letter of the law to the fulfillment realized only in self-sacrificing live.

May all of us have a blessed day as disciples of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus did not call the best and the brightest. He has called and continues to call people like us out of darkness into the light of His love.

Today we hear the story of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry:  he came proclaiming the Good News; he came healing the sick; and he came and called people by name to be his followers.  If we were to put this in a brief twitter, we would begin with the three words:  “proclaiming, healing, calling.”

What did Jesus proclaim?  The Good News of the Gospel.  We believe that the first gift of our faith is the love of God, the humble God who became one of us in love.  In our faith we need to touch into the love and the call of God.   May we never lose touch of the beautiful reality that the first gift of our faith, the first gift of the proclamation of Jesus is the love of God.

Who first proclaimed to you the love of God – the first gift of faith?

Who are the people in your life who proclaim to you the love of God – the first gift of faith?

Do we in the faith community proclaim to each other the love of God?  Shame on us if we do not.

In proclaiming the love of God, we are not to shy away from the Lord’s message of repentance for our sins.  Jesus challenges us to turn away from the darkness of sin so that we can live in the light of God’s loving presence.   Sin alienates us from the kingdom of heaven.   Repentance demands humility and fundamental change of heart.  Otherwise we cannot truly be Jesus’s disciples.

The Scriptures today call us to move from darkness to light, from the darkness of our sinfulness to the light of Christ.  From Isaiah in the first Scripture reading, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.”

In the second Scripture reading, Paul speaks of the reality of the human condition as it was reported to him about the rivalries in the Christian community of Corinth.  Paul writes:  “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.

On Friday we celebrated the inauguration of our 45^th president of the United States, President Donald Trump.  Part of the genius of our democracy is the peaceful transition of power from President Obama to President Trump.  That being said, there have been far too many rivalries, too much division, too much mean-spiritedness among Republicans and Democrats. 

As St Paul writes in the second Scripture reading, there is considerable division in the Corinthian community.  Paul’s prayer for the Corinthians is our prayer for our government leaders that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that there be no divisions among you, but you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.

Paul knows well the reality of the human condition.  Sin is in all of us.  That includes power, greed, and self-centeredness.  But our prayer and our hope and our trust needs to be focused in our lives, in our Church, and in our government that we need to work together.  We need to collaborate with each other in discovering our better angels and how best to serve each other and how best to serve those most in need.

The coming of Jesus brings forgiveness, healing, renewal, and wholeness.  He calls on us to change lives and minds, and he brings us God’s pardon.  He invites us to a new life, and he empowers us to set out to live that new life.  The God who is close is the God who is gentle and forgiving.

As we reflect on the call of the first apostles in the Gospel account, when Jesus sees Peter and Andrew, he looks them in the eye and says, “Follow me.”  He needs help in gathering the people.

Jesus’ inaugural address to the apostles was rather brief:  “Follow me.”

In choosing Peter and Andrew and James and John, Jesus wasn’t choosing the best and the brightest, but Jesus was developing a team, a team that he would collaborate with.  The first apostles trusted completely in the Lord and were willing to leave everything to follow Jesus.

As we reflect on the call of the first apostles, this leads us to pray over the call each of us receives to be a disciple of Jesus.  In asking ourselves what is our level of commitment to follow Jesus, I share Pope Francis' dream. I dream that we will give Jesus first place in our lives. That we will hear him say, "Follow me." And that we will do our part in gathering God’s people together as the faith community of St. Joseph’s: including those who have become discouraged, those who have drifted from the faith, families with small children, high school students and young adults.

We have tough competition - a consumer society that promises fulfillment apart from God. Because of that false promise, people drift away from active engagement in our faith community.

You and I are called to gather people in the faith community of St Joseph’s; we have a role to play in the big story of the Catholic Church. If we take time for prayer, if we repent and allow Jesus work through us, then by his power we can gather people. Jesus is the light for those living in darkness. Today Jesus still says: "Follow me."

I know of a beautiful story of a woman who had a rough childhood – considerable family issues and some abuse. This person was student at St. Joseph’s School in her childhood.   In her own telling of her story, the way she made it through her difficult childhood was that each morning on the way to school, when she turned the corner, she saw her classroom light on.  Then she knew all would be well.  She experienced at St.  Joseph’s School the strength, the faith and the love that helped her become the woman she is today.  Please God this is who we are as a church and as a school. 

I’ve heard it said that it’s a long winding road from the head to the heart.  As we reflect on the Lord’s call in our lives, “Follow me.” The Lord’s invitation to us calls for a conversion of our heart -- the kingdom of God is not just a promised reality; it is a present reality.  We are called to be a Church of service and love to one another -- not just a hierarchy or a building but we need the repentance that brings real change of heart on the inside.    Lord, we thank you that Jesus is still preaching a message of love and forgiveness. 

Have a blessed day.