Spend some quiet time with Jesus.
Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him (Jn 6 3-5).
People were approaching Jesus because of the signs they saw him perform. Jesus raised his eyes and saw the large crowd coming, but he also saw their need. He could see that they were tired, they were wounded, they were hungry. Jesus would provide for the vast multitude from the meager five barley loaves and one fish that a young boy had with him. The people sought Jesus, he recognized their need, came down from the mountain and met them on their level, and provided for their need.
The same is true today. Though Jesus has ascended from our three dimensional plane of existence, he has not left us orphaned. Just as Jesus went up on the mountain in today’s reading, Jesus ascended to a greater height, a higher plane or pitch of existence in his ascendance, so to better see us and to see our need.
How often do we find ourselves hungry for we know not what; how often may we feel adrift, confused, not quite sure of the direction we ought to take? How often are we hurting or ill, know of someone else who is in pain, suffering, or dealing with a chronic physical or mental situation? How often do we feel alone, misunderstood, anxious, or afraid? If you are feeling any of the above or something else not listed, may we, like the people in today’s Gospel come to Jesus.
How do we do that? How do we come to him? Because of the fact that Jesus has ascended, he has greater accessibility to us now than he did the day he fed the multitude. One way Jesus is present to us is in the sacraments. For just as he received the loaves and fish and multiplied them for those reclining on the grass, in the Mass through the priest he receives the matter, bread and wine, and he offers the prayer to his Father, the form, or words of institution. In each sacrament, there is a particular matter and form, such that Jesus is present. He raises his eyes to see us when we come to participate in the sacraments of the Eucharist, Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders.
We can also come to Jesus when we read the scriptures prayerfully and place ourselves in his word through our imagination, meditation, and contemplation; we can come to Jesus in our service and acts of love and generosity offered; any time we open our hearts and mind to Jesus in prayer individually, in a small group, or during our worship as a community of faith, Jesus is in our midst. We can come to Jesus in the wonders of creation, on a mountaintop, at the ocean, sitting in a tree, or watching a sunrise or sunset.
There are so many ways to experience Jesus in our lives. We just need to come to him and as we draw near, he will raise his eyes and see us approaching. We can rest assured that he will welcome us, be present, and accompany us in our need. One of the simplest of encounters that best exemplifies how we can experience Jesus was told by St. John Vianney (1786-1859), also known as the Curé de Ars, French for the Pastor of Ars, a small village in France.
St. John would come into the church sanctuary early each day to prepare for Mass, and each day he witnessed a man sitting in the front pew gazing at the tabernacle. After some days of observing this daily practice, the Curé de Ars approached the man and asked him what he was doing so early in the church each day. The man replied that he was sitting, looking at Jesus, while Jesus was looking at him.
Let us do likewise, approach Jesus today in the way that suits us best, thank him for the gift of his presence in our lives, share with him our needs, and allow him to help us to make our burdens a little lighter. As we go through our day, may we carry Jesus within us and be open for opportunities to share him with others.
Photo: Side altar, St Ignatius Church, University of San Francisco, 2019 visit.
Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, July 25, 2021
Aligning ourselves with God’s will and supporting one another, we can mature to who we are called to be.
“’Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest” (Mt 13:27-30).
One of my favorite trees is the Maple. When JoAnn, the kids, and I moved to Florida over twenty years ago, the thought did not cross my mind that Maples grew in Southern Florida. A few years after we moved into our home, I was walking in our backyard and thought I saw a maple leaf. I squatted down for a closer look and found that not only was it a maple leaf but a sapling with three leaves! I carefully cleared some of the weeds and grass growing among and around it, but otherwise let it be because it was so fragile. As it grew I cleared more around it. Today it is a fully mature Swamp Maple!
About a year ago, I saw a new Maple sapling emerging, though this time, some poison ivy was growing around it. I sprayed poison ivy killer, thinking I was carefully avoiding the Maple. Unfortunately, I must have gotten some of the poison spray on the Maple leaves because the sapling also shriveled up and died.
I can relate to Jesus’ parable from today’s Gospel. The master warned his servants to let the wheat and weeds grow together until they were more mature at the time of the harvest, so as not to pull up the wheat with the weeds. Weeds in this verse is translated from the original “Greek [as] zizanion [which] refers to a noxious weed that in its early stages closely resembles wheat and cannot be readily distinguished from it” (Harrington 2007, 204). Both, in their immature state, were indistinguishable.
Jesus is calling us to resist the temptation of judging one another. Even when there are those who commit heinous acts of evil, we may feel justified in our judgment and condemnation. Jesus says no. We may convict the person of their action and we are certainly to hold each other accountable, but judge and condemn, no. The Father is the ultimate arbiter and judge.
All of humanity has been created in the image and likeness of God, each of us are a unique gift to this world. We have been created good, yet all of us fall short of the glory and grace of God and because of our fallen nature our image and likeness to God has dimmed. God the Father will judge at the end of time between the wheat and the weeds and only he knows the time or the hour. Let us leave the judgment to God, and let us instead be about following the teachings of Jesus, repenting, and encouraging each other in the maturation process which can include, convicting others when needed, yes, but also encouraging and supporting.
We are to resist the temptation to spread the poison of judgment, gossip and condemnation, otherwise we are promoting division and a culture of death. We are to instead welcome, nurture and care for one another, promoting unity while respecting diversity of person and thought so to support a culture of life.
May we pray for patience, understanding, and the ability to seek forgiveness in our interactions, as well as be willing to forgive each other. Life, even when going well, is hard. We need the encouragement and support of each other if we are to mature and actualize the fullness of who God calls us to be and strive through God’s grace to restore our image and likeness to God. “Encourage each other while it is still today” (Hebrews 3:13).
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Photo: Our Maple tree today with morning rainbow, much more mature than the little sapling I discovered about twenty years ago.
Mass readings for Saturday, July 24, 2021
Harrington SJ, Daniel J. “The Gospel of Matthew”. In vol. 1, Sacra Pagina Series, edited by Daniel J. Harrington. Minnesota, Liturgical Press, 2007.
Worldly anxiety and the lure of riches will not choke us when we are grounded in Christ.
In the Gospel today, Jesus explains to his followers his Parable of the Sower. I see many Christians experiencing the third category: “The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit” (Mt 13:22). Jesus is a part of our life, we may be growing in our faith, but our discipline and maturation is stunted, and so the bearing of mature fruit is diminished. We are limited because Jesus is only a part of our life, not the core foundation. This is because we look to the world and its false promises to be our security and support.
Pope Francis questioned in his apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel: “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality” (Francis 2013, 53). How often is it that the top voting issue in our national elections have to do with the state of and concern for the economy?
If we are placing our hope and focus, if our primary source of building for ourselves a secure foundation is in the political and economic realm, we are going to be consistently anxious and stressed. Our faith is going to be choked, and worse our politics will be shaping the Gospel instead of the Gospel shaping our politics. We will justify and rationalize behaviors from our leaders that are contrary to living our life aligned with the teachings of Jesus as long as the economy is going well.
These vines of false security also promote a privatization of our faith. If we seek to counter and challenge injustice, if we call for an awareness of those who are vulnerable and suffering, if we call out actions that are immoral, speaking out for the rights of the unborn, we can face the backlash of being accused of stamping on an individual’s personal rights; being called a socialist or a leftist, by seeking to keep migrant families together, to provide safe haven for asylum seekers or refugees. Taking the risk to be “God’s microphone”, to speak the Gospel publicly, is challenging today because: “The process of secularization tends to reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of the private and personal” (Francis 2013, 64).
To live our faith is not just a hobby. If we are going to mature as disciples of Jesus, we are going to need to resist the false lures of riches and material security, we are going to need to be willing to face the anxieties of criticism and hostility for speaking the truth of our faith. The unfortunate part is that we may face a lot of push back from those of our brothers and sisters even within our own churches, the Body of Christ. Disagreement and division has certainly been on the rise, but we need to remember it has been within the Church since the Apostles. We are human and fallen at that, so we need to continually give our selves over to God by surrendering our wills to God’s will.
We can do so and mature as disciples when we are willing to commit daily to reading the Bible, hearing his Word proclaimed and receiving his Body and Blood each Sunday or more often when we can, seeking resources to better understand his word, praying and meditating, pondering and struggling with the teachings of Jesus, and so better have the eyes to see and ears to hear his Word and guidance. As we build our foundation on Jesus and his teachings, put them into action in our everyday lives, build a support group, we can share with others the trials and successes of our journey of faith. These small acts will make a tremendous difference.
Courage is a mark of feeling the fear, not denying it or fighting it but embracing it and saying and doing what we are inspired by God to do. Calling on the name of Jesus when we are tempted to place our trust in anything other than God grants us access to divine support. Calling on the love of the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts to receive the words to speak and the actions to impart with understanding and kindness when we find ourselves in the midst of unjust, disrespectful, or dehumanizing words or actions.
Jesus calls us as he did his first disciples to deepen our relationship with God and each other. We are to invite others, within and without of our faith tradition, to join us as we walk the road ahead. There will be pain and suffering, there will be trials and loss, but we are to resist the temptation to bury our heads in the sand or to turn away from God. Trusting in our interconnectedness with God and one another, we will become more mature in our faith.
Apparent goods and false senses of material security are the vines of riches that will lull us into excessive comfort, complacency, hyper self-sufficiency, and indifference to the needs of others. Curving in upon ourselves will choke and cut us off from each other, leading to an increase in our stress. Instead of allowing anxious thoughts to overwhelm and keep us indecisive and unresponsive we need to seek God’s will and engage in guidance from others we trust. God heals us but also calls us to step out beyond our comfort zones. This happens when we are willing to love and serve others in need. Difficult? Yes. Yet, we can trust that God will also give us the means to accomplish the task at hand.
We need to remember that we will not to face any trial, tribulation, or challenge alone. When we turn toward and trust in Jesus and reach out to our brothers and sisters in faith and good will, we cut away the vines and thorns, all that is not of God, that attempt to impale and choke us. As the vines are uprooted, our soil will be aerated. The Love of the Holy Spirit will have more room to grow and increase in our hearts, minds, and souls. We will begin to see others through God’s eyes, become more human, and bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control.
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Photo: Plant in our backyard, a symbol for us who place our trust and are rooted in God, growing and maturing despite the vines that attempt to choke us.
Pope Francis. Evanglelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel. Frederick, MD: The Word Among Us, 2013. Link for online access:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html
Link for Mass readings for, Friday, July 23, 2021
Jesus comforts us in our time of pain and sorrow as he did with Mary.
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he told her (John 20:18).
Mary is the Apostle to the Apostles! Though before she announces this proclamation, the foundation of our faith that Jesus has risen, we find Mary weeping outside the tomb. She is crushed by the death of her teacher and his body appeared to have been taken away. Peter and John, following Mary’s initial lead, ran to the tomb, saw it empty, and “then the disciples returned home” (Jn 20:10).
Mary stayed, she remained still, experiencing her doubt and growing despair.
How many times have our hopes been obliterated, what pain have we or do we endure, what horrors do we continue to witness in our lives, throughout our communities, country, and the world? When Jesus first speaks to Mary, she does not recognize his voice, thinking him to be the gardener. Are we like Mary, that we are so weighed down by our sorrow that we are unable to recognize Jesus in our midst?
Mary was willing to weep, to experience and not run from her sorrow, and deep down held on to hope. Even after seeing the tomb empty, even after Peter and John had left, she still looked in the tomb again. Despite a growing doubt and despair, even after encountering two angels, she did not leave the empty tomb. In the midst of her disillusion, Mary recognizes the risen Jesus when he calls her by name!
May we also not lose the ability to weep and to also hold on to hope. Both are part of our humanity. To lose our capacity to weep is to risk the slide into the temptation of indifference to our own pain and the agony of others. Hope is one of the foundational stones of our faith. Jesus is present in the midst of our woundedness. When we are willing to be still and experience our emotions, resist the temptation to run away from them, while at the same time embracing hope, we too will encounter Jesus.
Jesus is present in the midst of our trials and/or sorrows, even in the agony we experience in the loss of our loved ones. Jesus is also present in our joys, as he is with the full range of our emotions. After we encounter Jesus, like Mary, may we go boldly forth with joy, to proclaim what he tells us! May we share the stories of our encounters with Jesus so as to be a living Bible to others. Our stories shared may be the only Bible someone else ever reads.
Mary of Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, pray for us!!!
Painting: The Resurrection by Peter Adams, 2018 – hanging in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, CA
Mass readings for Monday, July 22, 2021
Jesus seeks to find the cracks in our hardened soil to plant his seed of love.
“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up” (Mt 13:4). With these words Jesus begins his Parable of the Sower. We read later in verse 19 Jesus’ explanation that: “The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what is sown in his heart.”
The kingdom of Heaven begins small like a seed. God invites us to participate in his life. God meets us in our present moments and experiences, but the key is are we aware? There are many times in our life that we pass off a synchronistic occurence as mere coincidence. It is quite possible that God is at work, planting a seed and yet our minds and hearts are closed such that we do not allow that seed to be received. The moment passes and the seed is stolen by the evil one.
A path is a worn area of land not suitable for growth because it is hardened by much foot traffic. When we are hardened to life such that we cannot weep, cannot feel our emotions, the seed, who is Jesus, has no place to germinate in our life. We often do not feel compassion toward others because we would rather hold onto our pride and bear a grudge; we would rather be unforgiving because we would rather be right or avenged; we may have been abused, betrayed, wounded, and/or suffered a deep loss and we are afraid to take the risk of being hurt again.
In allowing our hearts to be hardened, we close ourselves off from the source of our life, our very being, and we allow the evil one to steal the gift of life that God offers. God the Father has sent his Son to come close and to dwell among us. He seeks the cracks and places that have not been hardened, where there is some loose soil, the places in our being that are still open to faith, hope, and love.
Jesus, may the seed of your Word come into our lives today to reveal your truth so that we may understand who we are and who your Father calls us to be. Send your Holy Spirit to dwell deep within our hearts and take root in every aspect of our lives such that we can begin to heal; to feel compassion; to hope; to have faith, and to love.
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Photo by Gelgas Airlangga from Pexels
Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, July 21, 2021
To deepen our relationship with our family, put God first.
What Jesus proposes is not an either/or statement, but is meant to be a both/and statement. The end goal of our life is to be in communion with God. To attain that goal, we need to not only acknowledge that God exists but also come to know and follow God’s will. As Jesus said, “For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mt 12:50). The challenge is that there is so much that pulls at us for our attention, so much that reaches out to divert us. People, activities, material pursuits are all vying for first place for our minds, hearts, and souls.
The challenge and demands of family life are tremendous. We often read, hear, and experience ourselves, how much the family is being challenged in our modern age. Many of us strive to put family first in our lives. That ought to and needs to be a priority as healthy relationships require commitment, love, sacrifice, and persistence. What Jesus offers then seems to be counter-intuitive to that reality.
Jesus is approached, in the midst of is teaching, and told that his mother and brothers were there wanting to see him. We would think he would say, “Great! Bring them right in, I have a place reserved for them here, front and center!” Yet, I am sure that his comment, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers” (Mt 12:49), raised a few eyebrows and hackles.
Jesus was not choosing his disciples over his family, he was clarifying that the primacy of place of God his Father is to be first and foremost. “For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt 12:50). Families come in many different shapes and sizes, one size indeed does not fit all. Building our relationship with our heavenly Father is the foundation toward striving toward healthier relationships.
As we deepen our relationship with God, our ego and self-centeredness become less of a focus. This is no overnight or easy process, but as we do so each day we will begin to experience God’s love a little more. As the relationship of God becomes foremost in our life instead of ourselves, we will begin to change. We will start to become more patient, understanding, less reactive, and more present. These qualities are very helpful in improving our relationships.
As we continue to mature in our spiritual life, we will also begin to experience the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which St. Paul shared to be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (cf. Galatians 5:22-23). by putting these gifts into practice, we will be more available to others and better able to foster deeper relationships with our own family members, while at the same time coming to experience a larger extended family, those beyond blood.
Who was the closest relationship Jesus had? Mary. Not because she gave birth to him, but because who better than Mary followed the will of his Father? If life with some family members is a little bumpy right now or you just want to deepen your familial bonds, might I suggest that we assume the posture of Mary and say often, “May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
Photo: Leaning on God and each other two years ago in Los Angeles!
Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Healing, love, and mercy is available when we are willing to come close.
“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet” (Mt 12:39).
Jonah is the prophet best known as the one who spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale, great fish, or sea monster, depending on your scriptural translation. Jonah ended up in that predicament because he refused to follow God’s direction to speak his message of forgiveness to the sworn enemies of Israel, the Ninevites. It would be like God asking one of us to fly out to the Middle East to meet with members of ISIS or Al-Qaeda and invite them to repent. Not only would we not believe they would want to repent, would we want them to even if they would? Also, whether they did or didn’t, would we be able to return from such a meeting with our heads intact?
These were probably some of the issues running through Jonah’s mind when he refused to follow God’s will. After swimming to shore, Jonah overcame his resistance and followed the command of the Lord, kept his head on his shoulders, and the people of Nineveh repented. Happy, happy, joy, joy! Not exactly. At the repentance of his enemies and God’s expression of mercy and forgiveness, Jonah said to God, “This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish” (Jonah 4:2)”. Jonah shows his hardness of heart in that he did not want to go to Nineveh because he did not want his enemies to receive God’s forgiveness!
The scribes and the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign and the sign of Jonah is what he gives them: The Ninevites, Gentiles, non-Jews, were willing to repent at the word of Jonah, and those scribes and Pharisees questioning Jesus, God’s chosen, were not willing to repent at the urging of one greater than Jonah, the Son of God, who was in their midst.
Jesus announced his ministry, as recorded in Mark 1:15, with the words: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” That is again our invitation today, to examine our conscience by asking God to help us to recognize his presence among us, then reflect on what good God has done in our lives and give him thanks. Review the last day or two to see where God has called us to act. Where did we answer his call, where did we, like Jonah resist or refuse?
Someone greater than Jonah is in our midst today, he is Jesus the Christ. May we be willing to allow his love, mercy, and forgiveness to fill us and to soften our hardness of hearts. Pope Francis shared that, “God’s mercy is understood only when it has been poured out onto us, onto our sins, onto our miseries”. Once we are willing to repent and be healed we will be more willing to allow his love and mercy to flow through us to all those we meet in person and online. Even, and especially, those for whom we would rather not: those who get under our skin, grate on our nerves, and/or those who mirror to us our own biases and prejudices.
Suffering is a very concrete and harsh reality. That is something we all agree on whether we believe in God or not. The question is how to we respond to suffering. We can often fall into the response of denial, despair, covering our suffering with temporary, apparent goods or pushing forward to fix our situations or wish our problems away, but none of these work very well for the long term. Jonah found that out very well.
The answer Jesus gives us is the Cross. We enter into the suffering. Jesus did not heal everyone, nor does he do so today, but what he did, does, and calls us to do, is to draw close. True healing comes from the journey into and through suffering to the other side. There is no resurrection without the Cross. When we enter into our suffering we will not be alone. We will find Jesus waiting for us with his arms wide open to embrace us and journey with us. This is what we are to offer others as well, not an answer to their suffering or a silver bullet fix all, but our love and our presence to remain side by side and walk together. This is where God’s healing and mercy happen.
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Pope Francis blesses a prisoner during his 2015 visit to Philadelphia – Photo credit – CNS photo/Paul Haring
Link for Pope Francis homily, October 6, 2015
Link for the Mass readings for, Monday, July 19, 2021
Our Shepherd walks among us.
“Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the LORD… You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them” (Jer 23:1-2).
The shepherds that Jeremiah spoke about in our first reading were the five kings that Jeremiah consistently called to task during the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Each of these leaders were more corrupt than the next. More and more they looked after their own interests and welfare and less and less they sought to provide care and support for their people.
Jeremiah not only spoke truth to power he also prophesied:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David” (Jer 23:5).
As Christians, we believe that Jesus is that righteous shoot. He is the Shepherd that has been caring for his sheep for generations up to this day. Jesus is also the one who the Psalmist sings of:
“Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side with your rod and your staff that give me courage” (Psalm 23:4).
In today’s Gospel from Mark, Jesus gathered his apostles together and lead them off to a quiet place for rest, but once they arrived at their location and disembarked from their boat, Jesus “saw the vast crowd, [and] his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mk 6:34).
I invite you to imagine for a moment, that Jesus disembarks today on the shores of America. If he is allowed to enter, who does he encounter? Unfortunately, he will meet two thousand plus unborn whose lives have been cut short today, almost a hundred citizens killed by gun violence today, an unknown number of immigrant children who still have not been reunited with their families. He will also walk among thousands affected by human trafficking, domestic violence, discrimination, racism, sexism, and addiction, hundreds of thousands of homeless, millions without access to healthcare and gainful employment. Jesus weeps because of the level of indifference and rationalization, the widening gap between the rich and poor, and his heart aches as he witnesses the gathering darkness of polarization and division.
May we too have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the suffering of our brothers and sisters. It is time for us as Christians to remember who we are. We are an Alleluia people, we are a people of hope and joy because we are members of the Body of Christ, the Church. We just need to remember who our Shepherd is.
St. Paul knew his shepherd and wrote to the Church at Ephesus and he speaks to us right now:
Jesus is our peace, he who made both ONE and broke down the dividing wall of enmity.
Our starting place is to acknowledge where we contribute to building walls of enmity or hatred between ourselves and others. Instead of projecting our fears, anxieties, biases, and prejudices out toward one another, Jesus shines a light for us, to help us to see within our own darkness, to identify the roots of our sin growing deep within us, so that we can confess them to God and one another and uproot them.
Jesus commands us to love, to will the good of the other as other. We are better able to do so when we are willing to die to our own ego, our own self-centered, fallen nature and instead collaborate with Jesus in his work of redemption, to establish peace, and with God, in one body, through the cross, tear down the walls of division that have been suffocating us.
Christianity is not a private club for the select few. Jesus’ message of the Gospel is an invitation for ALL PEOPLE to share in the oneness of a relationship with the Trinitarian communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God, in giving us life, has created us each unique and we as the Church are at our best when we embrace the gift of our diversity.
The challenges of a culture of death and division that poison our country and world can be countered, if all of us are willing to work together. How do we meet the myriad of challenges that are before us?
The best way we can begin to bring about effective change, is that we first, need to resist making ourselves, our family, groups, political affiliations, president, the flag, and/or nation into our idols. For when we place our identity solely in anything other than God we will go astray. When we put God first, develop and deepen our relationship with him, learn about and live his teachings in our daily lives, we will begin again to see each other through God’s eyes, so to see people not as other, but as human beings created in his image and likeness.
When we are less governed by protecting the group and seeing the dignity of the person, we will be less apt to belittle, demean, dehumanize, and demonize those who are different as well as those who have opposing views and perspectives. We can be more open to engage in dialogue, instead of shouting at or over each other. We can be more open to share our diverse ideas, talents, cultures, and perspectives, so to learn from one another, stand up for and empower one another.
Second, we must make the time to pray and be still so to discern what is the gift that God has given each of us to contribute to building up his kingdom. Each one of us, has something to bring to the table, because each of us are loved by God more than we can ever imagine. When we engage ourselves in whatever challenge we face, no matter the situation in which we are called to serve, we are to bring the love that we have received in our own unique way and allow God to be God through us.
Third, we need to trust in Jesus. When anxieties and fears arise, it is a barometer that we are not trusting in the love and power of God.
I understand this very well. Much preferring to stay in my own world, I have struggled often with the fear of going out from myself. Speaking publicly in my youth was not even an option. When I was a child my father introduced me once as, “This is my son, he doesn’t talk.” The first time I read from the ambo as a lector, my legs shook the whole time. I have felt the urge, too many times, to reach out and help another, was instead indecisive and the moment passed where I did nothing. Each day I seek God’s help to do better, to not give in to my fears, but instead trust in the Good Shepherd who has remained by my side and who has led me to be a husband, father, teacher, and deacon and even now a widower and recoverer from Covid/pneumonia.
Finally, we need to, in the words of Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero, “be God’s microphone”. We are called to speak truth to power, to speak and act on behalf of the dignity of those for whom we witness being belittled, demeaned, disrespected, or dehumanized in any way.
As followers of Jesus the Christ we need to be willing to stand up for one another, for God’s creatures and his creation. When we begin to act and speak as God’s microphone, and the first experiences of anxiety and fear attempt to silence us, we need to call on the power of the Holy Spirit and he will give us the courage and the words to speak. Even if Satan himself stands before us, the weakest Christian is stronger. For all we need to say is, “In the name of Jesus, get behind me Satan.” And through the power of his name, the devil must flee.
Jesus walks among us as our Shepherd and preaches peace to us who are far off, who are polarized, and divided. He promises that through him we all have access to the love of his Father. May we remember who we are called to be by remaining open, minds and hearts, to the love of the Holy Spirit moving through us and refuse to contribute to building walls of hatred and division and instead commit our lives to put God first by praying and discerning how best we will serve him and each other.
May we trust that Jesus is with us to comfort and heal us even in our darkest moments. May our focus also be drawn outward beyond ourselves to seek the courage of the Holy Spirit to be God’s microphone, speaking and acting on behalf of a consistent ethic of life for all of humanity at every stage of life and for all of God’s creation. This will be done in our own unique way and in our own corner of the world, person to person.
We are good shepherds when we are open and aware of how and when we can be light in the darkness of division; hope for those in despair; offer a smile of acceptance and welcome; provide for someone’s basic needs, an understanding ear to hear, a kind word of encouragement, and a loving shoulder to lean on for someone in need today.
Photo: Jesus in the Breadline, woodcut by Fritz Eichenberg
Link for the readings of the Mass for Sunday, July 18, 2021
Spiritual Stepping Stones 