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.
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter
I’ll make a bit of a leap and say that it is inherent in our human nature that we are caring individuals. For some it may take more work to emulate Jesus by caring more for others rather than ourselves, but I do believe that, since we are created in the image of God, we are created to care for and love others. I often fall short of this love. Instead, I get caught focusing on my own well-being or caring too much for others rather than letting them grow instead of holding my hand. I’ve learned that in order to love others we must put our faith in God, that our ability to love transcends our own humanity and involves trust to allow God to work through us.
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
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
Our first reading today sounds familiar; nearly the same passage was read this past Sunday. There must be something there worth repeating! It’s a very historical reading. Paul travelled here, did this, and then he went there, met with these people, etc. But between the itinerary, we read that Paul was thrown out of the city and stoned, but got up as the disciples gathered around him, and went right back into the city! This is a person without fear! Paul goes on to tell the disciples that “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” This is what strikes me in the first reading. Paul and the disciples are not delivered from hardships and persecutions, but they are freed from the power that such coercive acts have over normal people.
Feast of Saint Mark, Evangelist
Humility is not an attribute that people in our culture find appealing. And yet, I believe that humility is an essential part of being a disciple of Jesus. Some people think that being humble entails feeling worthless or being self-effacing, but I do not think that this is humility, and behaving this way is not what God desires. In order to be humble in the eyes of God, we must recognize that who we are and everything we have are gifts from Him. We do not deny our goodness or blessings, but give credit to God who showers us with His grace. When we are able to openly accept that we are nothing without Him, then He is able to use us completely to do His works as we help to build His kingdom.
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Prince died this week. This musical legend who is somewhat of a mystery, has fans spanning decades. Listening to a coverage of him on NPR, I was intrigued by one commentator talking about Prince’s song, “Purple Rain.” There are as many explanations about the meaning of the song as there are websites about him. The commentator understood “Purple Rain” as a love song in which Prince sings about his devotion to a girl. When “Purple Rain” was released, the commentator said, he could not wait for his heart to be broken just so he could sing “Purple Rain.” Now, that’s devotion!
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
I don’t like sin. I think that is a good thing. However, what I really don’t like is owning up to my own sinfulness. It is a piece of cake to hate sin in another person’s life, but difficult to hate my own sins.
Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Recently, I read a book called Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren Winner. Winner describes a mid-faith crisis as the realization that the newness, excitement and joy of faith has worn off and that the end goal of spiritual life (that is, life in God) seems quite far off. How do you make it through the middle of faith, when God seems far off, and nothing ever seems to change? Winner describes the slow, sometimes painful process of going through a mid-faith crisis - from her vantage point, it involves a lot of prayer (even when sometimes you're not sure that God is there), a lot of discussions with trusted spiritual friends, and a lot of simply being in the loneliness that a mid-faith crisis sometimes involves.
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
In both today's first reading and the Gospel I was struck by the presence of feet. Paul speaks of John's pronouncement of Christ's coming, that John would not be worthy to untie the sandals of Christ's feet. And Jesus speaks his words after washing the disciples' feet. In both readings (as is often true in life) the feet seem inconsequential but bear great weight.
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
So much of our life is driven by growth. As children we grow physically as our bodies mature. Our minds expand as we learn both academically and from experience. As adults we seek growth temporally through careers and employment, and personally through our interpersonal relationships. Most of this growth is something we can see and measure.
Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
In the recent daily scripture readings, we have been working through the book of Acts. This book has always intrigued me. It is full of lively accounts of the activities of the first Christians and their attempts to live out the gospel. It also recounts the astonishing ways that the Christian faith spread through the action of the Holy Spirit. Although I find this book fascinating, I also sometimes wonder what this book can have to say to us in our times, since our world is very different than the world which Jesus’ apostles and early disciples inhabited. It seems to me that the scripture readings for today provide an answer to this question.
Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter
We are now one month past Easter and Scripture is keeping us fully involved in the daily lives of the Apostles. Amidst all the controversies and persecution we are privileged to have Luke’s insight as witness to the fledgling Christian community. There are disagreements. There are opposing views. It is not an easy trek, even amongst the leaders such as Peter and Paul. Their personal experiences and the power of the Holy Spirit compel them to proclaim the Lord Jesus and lead the early Church. All they speak and feel and express is founded upon their personal experiences of Jesus...they recognize of the voice of their ‘Shepherd’.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Pope Francis was in Lesbos, Greece, yesterday. He went there to visit the migrants who are now in camps as their flow into Europe has slowed down. Many of these migrants are now being sent back to Turkey, which in turn sends them back to Syria. The Pope visited the migrants there to show his solidarity with them. His visit is more than a symbolic visit. It is his hope that world leaders will follow his example and work diligently to come to the aid of the migrants. Yesterday he tweeted, “Refugees are not numbers, they are people who have faces, names, stories, and need to be treated as such.” The Pope went one step further. On his way back, he took twelve migrants back with him to the Vatican on the same plane that he was returning.
Saturday of the Third Week of Easter
St. Peter gets a lot of credit in today’s scene from the Gospel for his response to Jesus’ question about whether the Apostles are leaving or not him. He said, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” The irony in Peter’s confession though is that despite his great faith now, he will find himself tested aswell, because all of us have room to grow.
Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Today’s scriptures cause me to reflect on the fact that Christianity is quite a bit strange. What we celebrate during the Easter season – Jesus’ resurrection – is odd in itself, but then add in everything else we believe: the virgin birth, the ragtag band of followers that wander around Judea, the disciples that proclaim Jesus in the face of persecution and death, all the various permutations of Christianity that exist in our world today. In the words of one of my students, “Christianity is entirely weird” and that is sometimes a stumbling block for people who find the weirdness to be anti-rational. But perhaps it is also the very weirdness of the Christian story that can cause us to have faith, as well.
Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
April showers… I’m sure all know the saying. As spring begins to surface I always get anxious to get out into the garden and begin preparing and planting vegetables. Amidst this excitement, I always have to give myself a reality check and make sure that everything is timed correctly. Compost needs to be laid out early enough that it can settle and be completely broken down. Tomatoes can’t go in too early or they won’t survive the chilly nights. Planting needs to be spaced out so that veggies are come to harvest at different times. On top of all this, one of the biggest reality checks is waiting to fill the rain barrels so that in the drier summer months we have a good supply of rain water to nourish the plants. Fill the barrels too early and the pipes could freeze, start them too late and we’ll be playing catch up once planting does happen.
Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter
Losing someone you love is difficult at best even if it might have been expected. Everyone grieves differently and that is okay. Occasionally, in both the person dying and in their family there is a level of what almost seems unusual acceptance. Faith often is the reason for their peace. I have seen dying patients look up as if they were seeing heaven and reach their open arms to the heavens. It is as if, like Stephen, these people could see Christ welcoming them home. For those left behind there is still a process of letting go. We may not feel it, but these times are when the Lord is trying even harder to remind us of his desire to feed us and lead us to from death to new life.