Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Last December we had a very special parish council meeting. We invited three people who left the Catholic Church and three people who joined the Catholic Church to share their experience. We wanted to know why people make the decisions they make about belonging to a particular faith tradition. I soon realized that discussion like these are complex as well. I received two letters apart from the people who were present at the meeting; one from a young lesbian who feels unwelcomed in a Catholic environment and the other from a young mother who recently became Catholic but then could not reconcile her conscience with the church’s teaching on contraception. Those who were present at the meeting also shared their stories. Later when the parish council reflected on all their stories there were common strands we could identify. For one, we realized that those who had left the Catholic Church and those who joined her, were all very sincere people. Their choice was made out of a genuine conviction. But then, there is one trend that I found directly related to the three scripture readings today – a powerful experience of God. The Catholics who left the church did so because the Church could not give them what they were searching for – a God who was close and real. They found the church too rigid and ritualistic. On the other hand, each one of those people who joined the church did so because it was in the Church, particularly in the Eucharist, that they experienced God in a tangible way.
Saturday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
“Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while,” Jesus says to his apostles in today’s gospel reading (Mk 6:31). The apostles, we are told, have returned from healing the sick, expelling demons, and preaching the kingdom of God. Further, they have all, presumably, just heard the news of John the Baptist’s beheading by Herod. This is a lot!
Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
This is the time of year when I have to turn in my evaluations at work. I know it is good to do this, but it is also hard to read peoples’ criticisms and figure out how to change for the better.
Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Upon first reading of today’s gospel passage (Mark 6: 7-13), one might reflect on how we, as Jesus’ disciples, are also called, like the first Twelve, to go out into the world to preach the Good News and heal those in need of healing. And this is true, at least in our own way, in our own walk of life. Today, however, I would like to reflect on how sometimes we are the ones in need of hearing Jesus’ words, and the ones in need of healing. In Mark’s gospel Jesus instructs the disciples to stay in a house that welcomes them until they are ready to leave that area, and to “leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony again them” in whatever place does not welcome the disciples or listen to them.
Memorial of Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs
Shortly before John Paul the Second’s death, there was a conversation in the church about the suffering that the pontiff was enduring as part of his illness. This conversation was in large part because of the Terri Schiavo case that had captivated the world the month before. I recall one of the last messages from John Paul. The message was of gratitude for the prayers of the people and it shared that he offered his pain as connected to the pain that Christ endured on our behalf.
Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr
The theme of the scriptures for today is faith. Faith can sometimes have a negative connotation. Sometimes it can seem like a commitment to something that goes well beyond common sense. At other times, faith can even seem off-putting to others who do not share our commitments. Faith can even lead us to live in ways that other people find to be strange. As St Paul says, faith seems like foolishness to those who pride themselves on their wisdom (1 Corinthians 1: 27). For these and many other reasons it is difficult to live a life of faith.
Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
The lives of the great Catholic Saints always seem so remarkable to me, and for good reason. By the inspiration of their example, the witness of their faith, and through the grace of Christ made available through their prayers, we are able to grow in our own discipleship of Christ and all that that includes. Nevertheless, we may look at the lives of the saints and still feel discouraged, thinking to ourselves, "I could never do that" or "I'm so far from being a saint." It's easy to subconsciously confuse the saints as being superhuman. But in reality, they are actually the most human, because to be human is to be in union with God. All of us are called to sainthood, to dwell with God forever in this life and in the next, even if the cause of our beatification or canonization is never taken up. We are husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters. By many standards, perhaps even our own, our lives may not seem extraordinary. But because we are first disciples of Jesus, we have been called to live ordinary lives in extraordinary ways.
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Please note that this reflection is from three years ago as Father Satish is currently at a conference in India.
You know that I look forward to every trip home to be with my parents. However, in this very traditionalist part of India, there is something I do not look forward to – being the kind of priest that I am. Many of my relatives do not want a jeans-clad, long-haired “hippy priest.” Even when I am at home they expect to see me dressed in my collar, constantly exercising my priestly duties, perhaps, on my knees in prayer. Yet, when I raise some of the social issues that plague our society, like the dowry system or caste system, they think I should just be a priest and not a rebel. My own home town is the most difficult place for me to be a priest. I usually do not worry about these things but I hate for my parents to hear anything negative said about me. I think they hurt for me.
Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
I think sometimes passages like today's first reading (Hebrews 10:32-39) are used to make people feel like they should suffer in silence, because this letter's author suggests that we should be "joyful about confiscation of property" because we know that we have a "better and lasting reward." Passages like this one can get used to promote spiritual passivity - an acceptance of the status quo and especially of great and terrible wrongs like physical suffering and abuse at the hands of a variety of authority figures - because God has something better in mind for us in a vague future, and we should think about that future instead.
Memorial of Saint John Bosco, Priest
Recently, circulating on email, I saw some amazing photographs of animals camouflaged in their natural surroundings so that if I didn’t know what I was looking for in the photograph I would not have seen it. I had to look carefully for a while, really study the picture, and even then I didn’t always see it until I read the caption to know what animal I was looking for. Even a giraffe was hard to spot, it was so well camouflaged. But once I knew what I was looking for, it stood out and suddenly became very clear.
Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
Hearing is a sense most of us take for granted. As we get older some of us realize that the music or the power tools we have used over the years has begun to take a toll on this ability. Fortunately, technology provides some aids to help us recover this sense. Yet, while hearing is important, it is our response to what we hear that more significant.
Tuesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time
Sisters and Brothers. These are probably not new words to us. If we come from a large family, they are part of our identity. Equally, if we have had a close friendship, it is as though the friendship is shaped into a bond just as strong as family; our friends become our brothers and sisters. Perhaps, even more importantly, these words are at the heart of our identity as part of the Church Catholic. We are more than a social group, more than people with common interests: we are a community of brothers and sisters, a family that is the Body of Christ.
Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
This day the Church celebrates the Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Dominican theologian and doctor of the Church. St Thomas’s influence on theology, philosophy, and Christian doctrine is unequaled in the history of the Church. When he was five years old, Thomas was sent to Monte Cassino to begin his training with the Benedictine Monks. Prayerful and studious and highly inquisitive, one of his teachers noted his young charge would repeatedly ask the same question: “What is God?” The voluminous works produced by St. Thomas, including the Summa Theologica, testify to his lifelong passion to answer this question, not only for himself, but for the whole Church.
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Last Monday was the presidential inauguration. In these divided times, there were those who were thrilled and others who were completely disillusioned. Over the years, the elected leader lays out his vision for the nation at the inauguration. I read the significance of the inauguration from a different perspective. Here was a white chief justice John Roberts administering the oath of office to an African-American president and a Latino woman chief justice Sonia Sotomayor administering the oath of office to a white vice-president. All this on Martin Luther King Day. America has come a long way since the “I have a dream,” speech of Aug 28, 1963. Ironically, the day after the inauguration was observed by the Church as the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. It just goes to show that the dream has not yet reached everybody. This week the church has prayed that it will. Also, as the Catholic Bishop’s website says, January is also “poverty awareness month.” Yes, the American dream is still only a dream for many people.
Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, bishops
Today’s Gospel strikes firmly and in brief. We are left with the words of Jesus’ relatives, “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21).
Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle
Do we believe people can change? A recent Harvard study of 19,000 people <http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/01/your-elusive-future-self.html> suggests the answer is "yes and no." Researchers asked questions about peoples' current preferences and how they'd describe themselves now. Then the researchers asked them to answer as they think they would have a decade ago, and as they think they would answer 10 years from now.
Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Today the Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (1567-1622). In reading about Francis de Sales in Robert Ellsberg’s book All Saints, I learned that he became well known for the publication of his book An Introduction to the Devout Life, which was translated into many languages at that time and is said to remain one of the classics of Christian spirituality. Apparently what was significant about Francis’s book was that it addressed Christians in any state of life, whereas most other such handbooks at that time had been addressed to clerics or members of religious orders. Francis taught that the path to holiness could be pursued in the world, not just in the cloister. According to Ellsberg, Francis wrote that “the practice of devotion has to be adapted to the strength, life-situation, and duties of each individual.”
Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Silence can be a sound that speaks volumes. One famous philosopher said it in a different way. “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.” Silence can send many messages depending on the context. In today’s gospel silence has the power of almost adding another character to the narrative.
Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time — Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children
Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and an opportunity for Catholics to pray for the legal protection of unborn children. It is also a chance to think more deeply about what Catholics believe about the dignity of being human, for this is at the center of Catholic teaching against abortion (as well as all the other crimes against humanity that Catholic teaching says is evil - things like rape, and genocide, and forced labor).