Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter
"Daddy, look at me! Look at me, Daddy!" These are words that I often in hear as my children try to fight through my preoccupations. Whether it is my preoccupation with weeding the garden, doing the dishes, responding to a text, or changing a diaper. Just as I can miss moments with one of my children because of preoccupations, whether necessary or not, we can miss the Lord's prompting because of our own preoccupations.
Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter
I think sometimes people treat church like it is mainly a social outlet - a place to see friends and "be seen." Church is seen as just that thing most people do for an hour on Sunday rather than as a whole way of life meant to affect everything we do. Today's scriptures remind us of the reason for church and for this Christian way of life.
Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter
I’ve started reading Robert Barron’s And Now I See…, which has sparked my own reflections on how my ego has become a dominant factor in my life, hindering my ability to put my trust in God and embrace my role as a disciple. It’s challenged me to think of the many ways that I think of myself first when I should be thinking of others. Most of all its motivated me to reflect on the ways I might be able to acknowledge God with me on my journey and in my everyday experiences instead of allowing my ego to take over and ignore God’s grace in action. I will admit these reflections aren’t easy because they call me to dwell on the times when I fall short because of my humanity. However, I believe my faith calls me to engage in these reflections so I might embrace God more fully and allow myself to live a faith-filled and joyful life. My hope is that these reflections and the pursuit to embrace God more fully help me to bear witness to my faith and allows it to bear fruit in my life and our world.
Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Today’s readings continue to speak to us of Easter joy especially as we prepare for Pentecost. Joy can be fragile; so both Paul and Jesus today encourage the flock to be protective of their faith. Indeed, both of them are speaking about the near future when they will no longer be physically present to the community that they have founded and nourished until now. In this context they “consecrate” their communities to God as an act of faith.
Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
One of the reasons that the Lord’s Prayer is so powerful and so beloved is that it is the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. He wanted us to pray like that—acknowledging who God is, asking that God’s kingdom would come, that God’s will (not ours) would be done, that we would have the bread that we need each day, that our trespasses would be forgiven, that we would forgive others, and that we would be spared encounters with evil.
Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle
Today’s gospel reading for the feast of St. Matthias is the same as this past Sunday (John 15: 9-11). It is rich and beautiful and, I think, worth hearing again. Jesus is speaking to his disciples about his love for them, the invitation to “remain” in that love, and the joy that comes as a result. As followers of Jesus, we are called to remain in his love as well. And to keep his commandment, which is stated twice in this reading, and is simply this: “love one another.” How are we to love one another? Jesus says, “…as I love you.” Simple, yet challenging. For we are reminded that “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. And isn’t that exactly how Jesus demonstrated his love for us? We are commanded to love one another in the same way.
The Ascension of the Lord
Today is the Feast of the Ascension. On the one hand, this feast is the culmination of Christ’s life. Jesus came from the Father and now he returns to the Father. However, I would like to approach the feast from the perspective of the disciples. As I see it, this feast is also a celebration of God’s enduring trust in humanity. Let me explain. Think about one time in your life when you were in total awe of something that happened to you. Perhaps it was walking down the aisle with your just-married spouse, or holding your first-born for the first time, or holding the diploma after graduation, or receiving the appointment letter to a job you really wanted. I am thinking of my ordination my ordination. I remember having just been anointed by the bishop. A very strange feeling overcame me. It was the feeling of an awesome sense of privilege, unworthiness, and immense responsibility all the same time. I saw my Ordination both as God anointing me and God putting God’s trust in me. I wonder if this is how the disciples felt at Ascension.
Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter
There are some things that I don’t like. I don’t like being woken up too quickly, being tailgated, lukewarm coffee, or the feel of cotton balls (yes my wife picks on me about this one). The thing I probably hate the most, though, is being corrected. There is nothing worse than the mental gymnastics that take place as I try to dodge the bullet of being, God forbid, wrong. This is why the first reading is so important to me today.
Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
For many people (myself often included), life happens on a very short-term time scale. My days are cluttered with brief Facebook announcements, quick news tidbits and hurried hellos to friends as I rush to the next activity. My thoughts and feelings are equally as short-term: how I feel about my life, my appearance, my job, politics, religion and so on are easily affected by a friend's Facebook post, or a sales clerk's mean words, or any number of other short, day-to-day interactions. I can feel despair if someone doesn't smile at me, wondering all day why they didn't smile, what I did wrong, how I could fix it for next time. My feelings about these short day-to-day interactions can last a long time, paradoxically.
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter
As the cliché says, our lives are quickly changing. In the first reading, we see Paul failing to convince his own people that Jesus was the Messiah, and so he moves on to Plan B, the Gentiles. And in our Gospel, Jesus is once again speaking in cryptic language about his death and resurrection that will happen ‘in a little while.’
Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Good story tellers can have you on the edge of your seat and have you hanging on their every word. They are so good at emphasizing the right words changing their voice so that they draw us into the story. There is one more part to it that St. Paul clearly understands, by making the story connect directly into the lives of his audience.
Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
We live in a time, so we hear almost incessantly, of great divisions. We are divided along party affiliations. We are divided by geographical regions. We are divided by our religious identifications. And it doesn’t help that folks who have stuff to sell—like product brands and news outlets—make the most of such divisions. For them, each division (and with them each identity marker) represents another market niche.
Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
In today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul and his companions, on their travels through Macedonia, encounter a group of women, including Lydia who is described as ‘a worshiper of God’. While they were speaking with the women Scripture tells us, “Lydia listened and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying." By the power of the Holy Spirit, Lydia was granted the ability to understand God's message through Paul. The passage from the Gospel of John demonstrates that, although the disciples have been with Jesus for three years, they fail to comprehend his message. Jesus warns them of the coming hatred of them. He promises to send ‘The Advocate’ to help them but, despite their 'listening', they do not understand what it means for them. Even through our best human efforts we are incapable of the depth of understanding only granted by the Spirit of God. We can only pray constantly for this unique blessing.
Sixth Sunday of Easter
My homily today is very simple, because the readings for today's Mass are very simple. John says, “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love" (1 Jn 4:8).”
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
There are some things people say we shouldn’t talk about at the dinner table. Religion and politics are commonly found on that list. For many people, I think circumcision might be on that list as well. It is not a conversation piece that normally accompanies, “Please pass the bread”. Interestingly enough, in today’s passage from Acts, Timothy is circumcised so that religion can be dinner table conversation.
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Evangelist Billy Graham once said, "Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion - it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ." I think he's got it right - I find I'm constantly being converted and I'm never done converting. One of the ways I'm being converted is in how I understand love. I think I'm learning, over a lifetime, what it means to love other people and to be loved by other people and of course, scriptures like the ones we've read today help in that conversion.
Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles
Today in the midst of this Easter season we celebrate the feast of two of the twelve apostles – Philip and James. These apostles experienced Jesus first-hand; they lived alongside him. For us, living so many years after Christ, we might rightly envy their proximity to Jesus. But at the same time, we might also note that being close to Jesus did not always make things as easy for the apostles as we would assume.
Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Spring is now in full bloom and summer is around the bend. Watching the new growth appear has been awesome, but it feels like in the blink of an eye this new growth has become over-abundant, over growth if you will. So much so that it seems time to trim the bushes even earlier than usual. Trimming the many plants helps shape their new growth and ultimately it will call forth new life. We see this also in the flowers like geraniums that we must dead-head in order to have more flowers come forth.
Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
One of my favorite moments in the mass is when we are invited to give to one another a sign of peace. In that moment, we all turn our attention from what has been unfolding in front of us to the people gathered around us. People often start by passing the peace to those nearest to them. Couples kiss one another. Folks extend a hand to those in front of them or behind them. People take a few steps along the length of their pews and say to one another, “peace be with you.” Adults here and there bend down to reach the hand of a child. Doing this mass after mass has delightful effects as we come to anticipate seeing the folks we’ve “passed the peace” with many times.
Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter
I often comment, “I wish I knew what God wanted me to do!” There seems to be so many possible options of chores that need to be done, or good works that could be accomplished, or ways that I could enjoy my day. All of these possibilities are good options, but what is the next best thing I should do? Part of the issue with this dilemma is the fact that I sometimes feel completely alone and unsupported in my decision making. In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that we are not alone. Jesus and the Father will dwell with us, and the Holy Spirit will teach us everything we need to know to live our lives with purpose and joy.