Ordained a priest of Jesus Christ!

Saturday was an incredible day of God’s grace and love outpoured to overflowing. Hard to put the experience into words. May attempt to do so in the days to come but for now:

Thank you!!!

I thank all of you who came to witness my ordination or Mass of Thanksgiving or both in person or online. I also thank those of you who shared cards and gifts, none of which I have had a chance to unwrap or open yet!

If you did not get a chance to come or view online, would like to or see again, here are the YouTube links to do so:

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Photo: My prayer card. Please pray for me that I may be like a pencil in God’s hand. Be assured of my prayers for you. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Where heaven and earth meet

The Mass is where heaven and earth meet. This is especially true at the Holy sacrifice of the Eucharist where the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Baptism is the entrance sacrament in which we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ. My baptism was one of the first steps that started me on the path that will lead to my total surrender when I will lie face down with my seminarian brother Dcn. Joshua before the altar in the sanctuary of St. Ignatius this Saturday.

Hoping to experience the closeness of those who left this world for the next, like my godparents, both holding me in this picture, as well as JoAnn, my aunt Patty who just died this morning, other family members and those I hold close to my heart as I am being ordained and celebrate my first Mass with one foot on earth and the other in heaven.

“Love one another, as I love you.”

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (Jn 15:12).

God created us to be loved, and to love. The love that Jesus is talking about is unconditional and not just relegated to those closest to us, although, hopefully, in our families and friendships is where we first experienced being loved and learned to love in return.

The love that Jesus commands of us as his followers, is a going out from, a giving of ourselves to one another. We are not to seek in return but are to empty and give ourselves away. The return we get is from experiencing the infinite wellspring and source of the Holy Spirit that rises up within us. The more we hold back, the less we receive, the more we give, the more we experience. We are to resist withdrawing our love and assuming a selfish posture that leads to us becoming more like a stagnant pool. Instead, we are to remain open so that we allow the living stream of God’s infinite love to flow through us.

The love Jesus commands is not selective. Love is accepting the interruption and choosing to be present. Love means stopping, setting aside our agendas, and accompanying another. Love is also not coercion and manipulation, it is accepting another as they are and where they are, inviting them to experience God’s love and healing. Love is sharing the journey of life together. St Thomas Aquinas has written it best: Love is to will the good of the other as other. This is more than mere emotion, feeling, or sentiment but seeking the best for someone else and to rejoice in their becoming fully alive. We are also not a doormat. We hold people accountable – for to love is also to be clear about respecting our and another’s dignity.

This practice of love is also not exclusive but universal. Yes, we are to love those in our family, community, place of worship, tribe, political party, and nation, while at the same time we must be willing to go out from our comfort zones and protected bubbles to risk opening ourselves up to those who we feel are different, those who do not see the world as we see it, and even those we consider our enemies. This does not mean we have to agree or even like someone else, but we are commanded to love, to respect the dignity of the person as our starting point.

A dialogue grounded in love means that we state clearly our beliefs, our thoughts, and dreams, but also allow others to do the same. In this way, though we may differ in our points of view, we can see how we are much more alike than we are different. When we talk at and over one another, demean, belittle, or are condescending, we dehumanize. In an open dialogue, we begin to encounter the person and the prejudicial caricature we carry begins to dissolve. Instead of keeping each other at arm’s length, we can instead learn to embrace and grow from one another. From a place of mutual, loving dialogue, we can recognize and remember again who we are, friends, brothers and sisters, children of God all on this journey we call life.

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Photo: Jesus’ greatest act of love for each of us, his life that we might have life and have it to the full. Sanctuary of Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center, North Palm Beach, FL.

Mass readings for Thursday, May 2, 2024

Praying the Our Father helps us to stay connected and close to Jesus!

Today we return to Jesus’ teaching that he is the vine, and we are the branches. The key points of this teaching are that apart from Jesus we can do nothing, and all things are possible when we stay connected to him!

The goal for us then as disciples of Jesus is to stay connected to Jesus. One way that can help is the Our Father or Lord’s prayer. This is the prayer that Jesus taught his apostles when they asked him to teach them to pray, and since that day when he taught them, generation after generation, up to and including this moment, this prayer has been prayed!

Rote prayers are powerful, but they can also lose their punch if we are not attentive to what we are saying. One helpful way to revisit the Lord’s Prayer is to do so from the perspective of allowing it to help us to see how these words can come alive in our meditation and help us to grow in our relationship with Jesus and stay connected to him.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…

These first words help us to get in touch with the reality that God is God, and we are not. We are his created beings. God is completely transcendent and beyond us while at the same time intimately close in that we can have a relationship with him. This happens not because of anything we can do, for God is so beyond our comprehension that we will never be able to comprehend him. We can grow our relationship with God because he has made us in his image and likeness, he comes close to us, most especially in the sending of his Son to be human with us so that we can be divine like him. God is so far beyond us as infinite, yet as St. Augustine taught, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

We remain close to Jesus and so with our Father and experience the love of the Holy Spirit as we grow in relationship with him, trust him, and follow his guidance. We need to resist the temptation of going it alone, thinking we know better than God, and not including him in our discernment. His kingdom is made more present when we collaborate with him, when we follow his will so that what is practiced in heaven, intimacy with God, will happen on earth. In following the will of God to love as Jesus loves us, we take care of one another, empower and challenge one another, and will each other’s good.

Give us this day our daily bread…

When we trust God, he will not only provide for our needs, but he will also provide himself in the Eucharist. We can get no closer than consuming his Son whom he sent. We are divinized, made like God as we consume the Body and Blood of Jesus. Our regular participation in the Mass transforms us, strengthens us, and unites us. Heaven and earth become one during the celebration of the Mass!

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…

Forgiveness we do not do well, but it is a powerful way to unite, a powerful way to heal and grow in our relationship with God and one another. When we have the humility to seek forgiveness and forgive, we experience healing and maturation. We free ourselves from hate and division because we resist the temptation of curving in upon ourselves and perpetuating the hurt that has been committed. We can choose instead to trust in God and collaborate with him to bring about healing and transformation.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil…

God does not tempt us, but he does allow us to be tempted. He loves us so much that he is willing to risk that we will choose someone or something over him. Our closeness and intimacy with Jesus grow, when we trust and choose to be with him of our own free will. Each yes to Jesus, each moment we devote to him increases the love we receive and experience such that we will better see the lies, the false illusions, and the temptations of the enemy that lead us away from our Father.

The father of lies tempts us and condemns us when we fall. Our Father leads us gently with tender chords of love, forgives us even when we reject him, and never tires of forgiving us. He invites us to turn back to him, time and again, no matter how far we think that we have turned away. When we turn back to him, we will become aware that he is right there with his arms wide open waiting for us, to embrace us and love us more than we can ever imagine!

As we meditate on each part of the Our Father in this way, Jesus will offer each of us our own unique ways of remaining connected to him as a branch is to the vine, and so with trusting in Jesus, all things are possible.

Amen!

Photo: Praying in the adoration chapel of Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, Los Angeles, CA back in 2019.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Jesus offers us peace, are we willing to receive his peace and put it into practice?

Have you ever wondered why there is so much violence? How many countries, including our own, were founded on taking of lands by force and oppression of aboriginal peoples? Has there ever been a time without war? How many of our youth and citizens die from gun violence and mass murders? So many examples of road rage, domestic abuse, human trafficking, terrorism – foreign and domestic, and the myriad of random acts of violence that occur everyday?

We often hear goodwill speeches, petitions, and intercessions ringing from our pulpits and prayer groups, participate and see people march, and vote for change. There are those working in the trenches, putting their own lives at risk, matching their words and their deeds, yet do any of these efforts make a difference?

Amidst our own experiences, directly and indirectly, and with the constant temptation of cynicism and despair biting at our heels, the words of Jesus are proclaimed in today’s Gospel from John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27).

The peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that is not of this world, has been and continues to be offered to us as a gift. Many have indeed said, “If there is a God, well then, why doesn’t he do anything?” He has. The reality is, the peace that God shares through his Son, is one person at a time. This is why when he rose from the dead, he only appeared to those he chose and not the whole world. Even if he had, these experiences, in time, would have been attributed to mere myth and legend. Jesus must be encountered personally, and his relationship is built with each person in each generation. What we pass on as disciples are our experiences of our relationships with him. Our accounts and presence provide for others the opportunity to open their hearts and minds to receive and enter into their own encounter and relationship with Jesus, to accept the gift of his grace and peace.

This peace that Jesus offers is not some abstract formula and the command to love is not some pie in the sky universal love for all. The acts of peace and love Jesus shares throughout the Gospel are very concrete, individual, and personal. Jesus interacts with people as people, not as numbers. He interacts and directs us to do the same, by encountering, accompanying, and loving a person. The real question is not why isn’t God doing anything? The real question is why have we left the gift of his peace that he has given us unwrapped?

If we want peace, our heart and mind must be open to receive it, to embrace it, and to live it in the most minute of details. Having the room to receive it means that we must be willing to let go of our own weapons of hate, prejudice, cynicism, racism, paternalism, and the like. God created us as beings who are interconnected, which means that what one does affects all, for the sun rises and sets on the good and the bad alike.

If we want peace, we need to be more aware and mindful of our thoughts, words, actions, and even the expressions on our faces. The thoughts that we feed are the ones that bear fruit in our words and deeds. Figuratively and literally, we need to be willing to “beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks” (cf. Isaiah 2:4).

This verse becomes real in our lives when we disagree with someone and resist being disagreeable and respectful of the person. When we make a mistake, we resist beating ourselves up and instead look to learn from our missteps and begin again. We also need to be willing to offer the same understanding and patience to someone who speaks or acts in a way that gets under our skin.

Can we really bring about world peace? In some abstract form, for all people, for all time, no. What we can do, is make a choice to respect the dignity of each person we encounter. We can offer a smile, a random act of kindness, an encouraging ear or word, we can be patient and understanding, even with someone who we have kept at a distance. What we need to decide today, is whether or not we really want to receive the peace that Jesus offers and to put it into practice, person to person as he did.

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Photo: With Fr. Ed O’Brien during a moment of stillness before my ordination as a permanent deacon, September 7, 2013. Seeking to be an instrument of his peace as his priest in a few more days.

Link for the Mass reading for Tuesday, April 30, 2024

God’s commandments are invitations to grow in love.

Two points jump out of the Gospel of John today: commandments and love. How is each one of these related to living life as a disciple of Jesus? Often, many who hear the word commandments, often react, and are immediately put off. “There goes the Church again telling me what I can and cannot do.” Yet what Jesus is doing showing how the following of his commandments is a true expression of loving him.

Love is another word that evokes reactions. One reason is that, even though the English language has a plethora of words to utilize and choose from, there is only one word for love, and it is interpreted in many ways. In Ancient Greek, there are four words that are used to connote love. There is eros, which has to do with attraction. It is the beginning stage of love because we are drawn out of ourselves as we are attracted to another. The next word for love is philios, which has to do with friendship. This is the love between friends. If our love matures it moves from attraction or infatuation to friendship. The third word is storge or the deeper love shared with family members. The fourth word is agape, which is unconditional love.

When Jesus shares that we are to follow the commandments, he is not demanding that we do so as a tyrant. He is providing the boundaries and parameters for us to grow and mature as people who love, who, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, will the good of the other as other. As humans, we are social beings. We want to belong, to be accepted, and to be a part of. We seek meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. This is best done through cooperation and collaboration with God and one another, striving for agape, to love unconditionally.

If we operate from a self-centered posture in which we are only turned in upon ourselves, and we only seek to manipulate and get from others, instead of working together and sharing a common vision with others, we will ultimately be empty with the exchange on any level, because we will be left wanting more. This is true because once the immediacy of the stimulation, whether material or sensual, ends, so does the experience of the feeling. Some happiness may linger from the effect, but we will never be filled or satisfied with anything finite. We will continue to seek more and more until the pursuit of instant and constant gratification ensnares us and we are entangled in a web of addiction.

The commandments, grounded in love, are meant to provide boundaries for us, training wheels, and to keep us free from enslavement to sin, while at the same time help us to be persons who move away from being self-centered to maturing as other-centered instead. Discipline in this way is meant to be a means of freedom for excellence such that we can become who God calls us to be and who we truly desire to be. Ultimately, we are to love God as he loves us and love our neighbor as ourselves in our own unique way. God is not in competition with us. He is our biggest fan. As St Irenaeus wrote, the glory of God is the human being fully alive!

Commandments and morality imposed, is a bludgeon. Love and mercy without accountability and justice can be enabling. Jesus provides the blueprint for a balanced both/and approach of invitation and shepherding. May we surrender to his loving guidance and correction, align ourselves with the Holy Spirit, who is the Love expressed and shared between the Father and the Son. May we seek ways to improve our lives, to be more honest with our weaknesses, so Jesus can be our strength, and to seek God when we are tempted to choose him so he can lead us away from the enticement to sin, and seek his forgiveness when we have fallen.

As we journey in this life, we do not do so alone. As we seek to follow Jesus’ lead, as we grow and mature, we do so while in the midst of encountering and forming relationships with others. Conformed by following the commandments, we are to reach out in love to each other as Jesus has done with us. As we form and deepen our relationships, new and old, may we encourage, support, and love one another while at the same time, challenge and hold each other accountable as we strive to be who Jesus invites us to be.
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Photo: The discipline of nightly Rosary walks over these past two years has been a blessing! St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, April 29, 2024

Staying connected to the vine our source.

In today’s Gospel reading, we experience the imagery of the vine and the branches. As the branch of the vine matures, it begins to look more like the vine itself. As it remains connected, is sustained by the nourishment provided, and protected by the vine grower, the branches become more and more conformed to the vine. This is also true in the event that a branch not originally attached to the vine is grafted to it. Over time, the branches are almost indistinguishable from the vine itself.

Our hope, as disciples of Jesus, no matter what our background, culture, gender, ethnicity, or race will be the same. We are to be one as the Son and the Father are one. As St Paul has written to the Churches in Galatia and Collosse: In Christ there is neither Jew or Greek, circumcision or uncircumcision, male or female, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free because we are all one in Christ (cf. Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11).

We are not to be automatons, cyborg, ants, mindless followers. Being a Christian means the opposite, the more we are conformed to Jesus, the more we come to know him and also to really come to know the uniqueness of ourselves. We begin to let go of the pressures to conform to that which stunts our growth and begin to embrace who we are, the truth of our reality and dignity. That sense of being fully who we are that sometimes just wants to burst out is allowed to be free when we die to our false selves and live in Christ.

We must resist the temptation of turning in upon ourselves, for when we do, we disconnect ourselves from the vine, from the very source of our life. Just as the body will suffer without water regularly, so our soul will suffer if we are separated from the living spring of our sustenance. Remaining connected to Jesus, our true vine, means that we will mature and live our life to the full, with joy that reaches out beyond ourselves to serving the needs of others, thus bearing fruit to share.

There are unique interests and desires that each of us have that have been placed in our heart by God that when we identify them and put them into practice we thrive and bring about opportunities of healing and growth for others. There are also thoughts and temptations offered by the enemy that leads us away from the Lord, disconnecting us from the source of the vine. If we don’t discern well and correct that disconnection, it leads to spiritual weakening and death. The key is to discern correctly and identify prudently between that which separates and leads to death and that which unifies and gives us life in Jesus. Taking a breath, lifting our heart and mind to God, getting in touch with what we experience in each of our decisions, and daily examining our day will help us to sharpen our discernment and strengthen our connection with the True Vine.

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Photo: Jesus our Vine. Rosary Garden, St Peter Catholic Church, Jupiter, FL

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, April 28, 2024

We are to be “carriers of God’s love to everyone.”

When Philip asks Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus responds: “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). Even though Philip had lived with Jesus, experienced the authority of his teachings, witnessed his works of healing and exorcism, witnessed to the inclusiveness of his ministry, he, as we, struggled with comprehending what Jesus was talking about regarding the unity between his Father and himself.

One of the reasons is that God is God, and we are not. God is not one being among many, he is not even the Supreme Being, nor is God even in the genus of being. God so transcends our reality and sphere of understanding that any words we say about him are going to be limited. God is Infinite Act, God simply is. We are finite. At the same time, this does not mean that God is an impersonal force. God transcends all of his creation, time, and space, is the source and foundation of all that exists, and yet he is closer to us than we are to ourselves, each and every one of us.

God came closer still when, in the Person of his Son, he came to dwell among us. This is what Jesus meant when he said to Philip that when he saw him, he saw God. Each person, God the Father and God the Son are distinct but because of their infinite essence they are also, as we say in the Nicene Creed each Sunday, consubstantial, they are of one and the same substance.

The Son became one with us while remaining fully divine and in full communion with his Father, so we can become one with him and experience the intimate relationship that they share. We participate in the life of Jesus because he became human, and as human beings, God created each of us as being interconnected with one another. So, what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

Through our Baptism and participation in the sacraments, we participate and become conformed to the Body of Christ so to encounter Jesus in an ever deeper intimacy and share in the divine Communion between God the Father and God the Son, as well as the Love that is shared between them who is God the Holy Spirit.

The wonderful gift of participating in the relational communion with the Holy Trinity, is not just for us alone as some treasure to sit on, as some secret knowledge to be shared with only a chosen few. This is a universal message to be shared with all. As we grow in our relationship and participation with God, we are to make him known to others. We do so through our participation in the life of Jesus. As Jesus said to Philip, “[W]hoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father” (Jn 14:12). Jesus seeks to work, love, and serve through us as the Father did through him.

Each of us is given a particular charism, a ministry of service to build up the kingdom of God. The key is to believe in Jesus and seek his guidance so that he can help us to discern how best we can serve him and build up his Body. Those we call saints were those who came to know that one thing that God called them to do. They then surrendered all to their vocation.

This is not just for clergy or religious, this is for each and every person on this planet. The only requirement is that we are willing to follow Jesus, say yes to the invitation to experience the love of the Holy Spirit he freely offers, and be willing to be sent to allow God to happen in our interactions with one another. As St. Mother Teresa said we are to “become the carriers of God’s love to everyone.”

Let us embrace today the reality that the God of all creation loves each and every one of us more than we can ever imagine. Embrace the unique relationship he calls us to participate in, which is a share in his Trinitarian Communion. Embrace this unique blessing so that we can open our hearts and minds to the service and ministry he calls us to through our participation in the life of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, through the Love of the Holy Spirit.

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Photo Credit: Photo I took of St Mother Teresa in Massachusetts in the early 90’s. No zoom either, that’s how close I was blessed to be!

Link for the Mass reading for Saturday, April 27, 2024

Slow down, breath, stop, and trust in Jesus.

Our days are so full of activities, conflicts, health issues, technological stimulation, 24/7 news cycles, social media interaction, and the mix of our own personal unique daily challenges. If we do not have the proper foundation and orientation, we can feel stretched, hollow, and/or fatigued at best. One day can seem to blend into another, and another, and another. The image of being on a hamster wheel or an unending treadmill can fall afresh in our mind’s eye when we actually do take a minute to breathe. Anxiety, worry, stress, fear, prescriptions, and addictions all appear to be on the rise and swirling out of control.

Is there an answer to this hyper pace or are we doomed to just keep going until the wheels fall off? The opening verse in today’s reading provides an antidote when we are feeling any or all of the above.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me” (Jn 14:1).

We are invited to place our trust in God through his Son, Jesus. By putting them first does not mean that the externals to our life will take an abrupt turn for the better, but what it does mean is that we will have support and divine assistance. It means that we are not alone in our struggles. The disciples found this out when in the midst of a sudden sea squall. Their boat was taking on water as the waves grew higher they were terrified and so, called to a sleeping Jesus. Jesus awoke and with a word, he calmed the sea (cf. Mk 4:35-41).

Jesus may or may not calm the sea of our trials and tribulations, but what he will do is be present with us through our storms in life and we can trust in him that he will guide us through. As we grow more confident in our trust in Jesus we will come to be assured that no matter who or what comes at us, he will be there to assist us. We will experience more peace and calm within ourselves. The ultimate assurance that Jesus provides is that when we surrender our life to him, we belong to him, we are not alone or orphaned. He gave his life for us, to redeem and save us so that we can be assured of our home for eternity.

If we are struggling at any level and are seeking to build our trust and faith in Jesus, we do need to realize that this takes time. We need to remember to daily ask Jesus for help, seek his discernment about where we can make changes in our life, and make periodic efforts to stop in our day to be still. This time does not need to be lengthy, three to five minutes to start can do wonders. On the surface level, by stopping for five minutes to pray and breathe more deeply and consciously, we get off the wheel, we step out of survival and reaction mode, so we can then make more intentional decisions, and we can come to see that we truly have options, but more importantly, we begin to develop a relationship and intimacy with Jesus so to begin to recognize his voice that is calling out to guide us.

Author Wanda E. Brunstetter, wrote, “If you are too busy to pray, you are busier than God wants you to be.” There is a lot of truth in her statement. I have had busy days, weeks, and months, where I have wondered if taking the time to pray and meditate was really the most sensible choice. Time and again it has been. At the beginning of these two years of seminary when my workload was larger than I anticipated, I barely prayed much for a few days and realized that was a mistake. Making time for consistent prayer each day became my priority and doing so has made a tremendous difference.

Daily Mass, praying with the Liturgy of the Hours, reading and meditating on passages of the Bible, reciting the Rosary are great tried and true practices from our tradition that I find helpful. If any seem too much, especially if you are just starting, begin with Night Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours each night before bed, or a couple of verses each day from the Bible or one decade. One slowly and well said Our Father and some quiet time to listen or just a few minutes of breathing slowly and opening our heart to Jesus can be transformative.

Consistent moments of stopping and being still and intentionally lifting our hearts and minds to God each day is a tremendous gift to help our hearts to learn to rest and trust in Jesus. Each of these practices offer us a few of the many ways to stop the madness, to slow down, simplify, and connect with the power, the love, and the grace that Jesus yearns to share with us such that no matter the external or internal upheaval, and even if life is going pretty well, we will experience his peace and security which is what we all truly long for.

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Photo: Quiet time before the Blessed Sacrament this past Tuesday while on silent retreat at Casa San Carlos, Delray Beach, FL. 

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, April 26, 2024