Wednesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Every person is made in the image and likeness of God. Every person has been given a set of gifts that are given to them for the benefit of the others. So why is it then that we sometimes think we have a right to block others from using their God given gifts? Have you ever heard someone say to another disciple, do not minister in that manner? There are of course many valid reasons to draw limits. However, the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.
Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time
“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” This is an incredible and even a seemingly scandalous phrase from the first reading today. What other religion believes in a god that will draw near to them? But James also gives us a condition. We see a both-and relationship of us and God and the work we put forth. There are two really big takeaways from this little phrase.
Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Our lives are filled with so many decisions- what will I eat for lunch? Where will I live? What job will I take? Every second of the day we are deciding what we will do next. Some of these choices are simple and do not require much thought, but others are life altering. At times, all of the options we have may seem overwhelming, but as Christians we can turn to God and ask for His wisdom to guide us on our way. When we act and speak from the place of God’s wisdom, then we can be assured that we will find His peace, mercy and love as a confirmation of choosing what God desires for us and His world.
Pentecost Sunday
Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. The feast of the Pentecost as a ritual originated after the Exodus of the Hebrew people from slavery to freedom. Yet, this feast takes us to Babel in the book of Genesis. Genesis 11: 1 tells us, “The whole world had the same language and the same words.” The people then built the tower of Babel, saying, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a name for ourselves….” They were afraid that they would be scattered all over the earth and get lost. It seems strange that God responded by confusing the people with many languages. However, this is scripture’s way of saying that humanity had begun to trust less and less in God and more and more in designing their own destiny. In other words, the confusion at Babel is a consequence of human arrogance and pride.
Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle
Matthias is my confirmation name, so imagine my surprise when I sat down to write today’s reflection and found that it is the feast of St. Matthias. Even as a pubescent know-it-all I had some decent reasons to choose Matthias’ name. Sure, it caught my eye at first because it was the name of the hero in Brian Jacques’ award-winning Redwall novel. However, I truly chose him because I related to how Matthias was stepping into the rank apostle, and even though the others could be dunderheads at times, he had big shoes to fill. A feeling I can relate to as I admire the accomplishments and character of my three older siblings. But there is more to Matthias than I had ever considered. That is the direction I’d like to take the rest of this reflection.
Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter
So many people do not REALLY have faith in Christ or in his resurrection. They see Jesus as a nice guy who said good things like "Love each other" but the idea that Jesus rose bodily from the dead seems both a figment of imagination as well as an unnecessary part of the gospel story. Today's scriptures ask us to reconsider the significance of Jesus' bodily resurrection, though.
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
Have you even needed to leave a project behind before it felt ‘finished?’ One of the realities of being mortal and finite human beings is that we do not always control when we have to leave a job or a volunteer position, or even our life here on Earth. Perhaps it seems too soon when your child is headed off to her first day of school, or away to college. Maybe you need to move before you finished all the projects you had in mind for your house. Sometimes, we just have to go.
Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter
As human beings, every single one of us must deal with fear. Some of us may not identify with this, but it is the truth. The Scriptures today present us with this issue...how can I live my life as a follower of Jesus while I am faced each and every day with fear. This is a foundational test of our faith in our Savior. In many ways, it is where the rubber meets the road.
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension. The danger of a feast like the feast of the Ascension is precisely this – that with Christ’s ascension into heaven we may think of God being up there, unconnected to the world here below. After all, didn’t the disciples stand there looking into the sky? (Act 1:11) So I began writing this homily by asking myself the question. ‘What significance does the ascension of Jesus hold for me’? ‘What relevance can Ascension have for us today’?
And here is my answer. I would like to discuss this in three points.
Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter
“After [Paul’s] arrival he gave great assistance to those who had come to believe through grace. He vigorously refuted the Jews in public, establishing from the Scriptures that the Christ is Jesus” (Acts 18:27b-28). Those are the closing words of our first reading today. It captures nicely what this whole section of Acts is all about. Paul, invigorated by the Holy Spirit, is supporting, nurturing, growing, and defending the primitive church and the disciples it is composed of. And why do this? Why does he face persecution, arrest, and beatings? Why does he stand for people he has never met, even former gentiles? Why does he stand against his own people? It really is a tense question.
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
When I read today’s gospel passage, I chuckled a little because it appears as if Jesus is setting the disciples up. He is being purposefully vague and illusive, with the intention that they will need to ask him for more. I know I've done this with my own kids at times - told them just enough to get them curious but not enough to give them all of the information. When they are ready and want to know more, they have to come to me, asking the questions.
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.
Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles
“Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?’” (Jn 14:9a)
Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
I always feel I need to work on improving my listening skills. More often than not, when I look back over my day I nearly always recognize some interaction or conversation where I was not the best listener; if I had been truly listening instead of thinking what I was going to say next, I may have allowed an extra measure of grace or acceptance to transpire. I find this is also true with Scripture. It can be tempting to be less than fully present when reading or hearing the Word proclaimed, particularly with very familiar passages. It slips my mind that the ‘Living Word’ can only come alive for me when I truly listen. Basically, I just need to get out of the way and focus on attending to precisely what is placed before me at a given moment.
Sixth Sunday of Easter
As I read passages like today’s gospel, something within me craves for the simplicity that they express. For that matter, the entire gospel is rather simple. They are about simple things accomplished simply. ‘If you love me,” Jesus says in today’s gospel, “You will keep my word.” It is as simple as that. There is a possibility that you may not like his words and do not want to keep it. And that is OK. But if you do love him and keep his word, Christ offers a new world. Today’s homily is a “back to the basic” kind of homily. Based on today’s gospel, Christianity is about three simple things: Love, Relationship, and Peace.
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.
Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena
I often get asked, "Why is Christianity so legalistic? Why are there so many rules?" This seems intuitively wrong to many, especially when they read that Jesus himself broke laws. For instance, Jesus broke the Sabbath in order to heal people (see Mark 3). He favors mercy over legalisms and love over obeying a rule that doesn't lead to more love.