The comfort of God can lift us up out of our despair.
At some point in our lives, we experience the death of someone we love. If we live a long enough life, we will experience even more of the pain of losing those close to us. I remember my maternal grandfather sharing with me when he was around ninety that he had outlived most of his siblings and friends. Unfortunately, for many, death is a daily event through violence in all its forms. Grief during time of loss is a natural human response. It is certainly not an emotion to be suppressed.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus shared: “But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts” (Jn 16:6). Jesus was preparing his disciples for his suffering and death, but also letting them know that they would not be left alone. He would send the Holy Spirit to be with them. The Apostles were not able to understand what Jesus was talking about. Who can blame them? They had no point of reference for someone dying and rising again, let alone that he would ascend to the right hand of the Father and send the Third Person of the Trinity to be with them.
The Apostles would not only feel the grief of the loss of Jesus they would also experience the fear of the same persecution that took him as well as experience the fear of anticipating their own deaths. They betrayed Jesus, abandoned him, yet, except for Judas, because he had taken his own life, Jesus came to them again after his Resurrection and forgave them. Jesus would in a short time ascend, and the disciples, with Mary, would experience the love and grace of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, they faced what was before them head-on, even to experience their own violent deaths, except for John. The fear of death had no more power over them, their grief and their fear were turned into joy from their encounter with the Risen Jesus and the Love of the Holy Spirit they experienced first hand.
For us, as with the Apostles, grief is real, because death is a loss, it is a change in our present reality. Yet, we celebrate this Easter Season for fifty days for a reason. Death has lost its sting because Jesus has died, entered into the fullness of everything that death threw at him, and he conquered it. Jesus died for each one of us so that we can also rise with him, and be with him and our loved ones again for all eternity.
We can believe in our minds that death does not have the final answer, yet we will still feel the grief, the pain of loss. We need to be honest with our emotions, and not stifle them, thinking by showing grief that we are in some way less faithful. In allowing ourselves to enter into our pain, we will experience the Risen Christ who is waiting to embrace us. I still experience the pain of JoAnn’s death, while at the same time, I have also felt God’s comfort.
To experience our grief and allow it to rise up when it comes is healthy and necessary but we do need to be careful that it does not define and overwhelm us. I had a two day period when I first returned home from California where the weight of my grief was crushing, and I was beginning to sink into a dark place. Fortunately, I received a phone call from Terry, who was still our vice principal at the time. She invited me to a diocesan event. I didn’t want to go but fortunately said yes. Terry was a messenger of the Holy Spirit. She invited me to leave the despair and come up for some air. I still have moments of sadness since then but also times of laughter again.
The time of grief is different for each person. “There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). Jesus has welcomed JoAnn and our loved ones home. Our time will come too. This is not morbid. Pondering our own death helps us to live the time we have better. In doing so, we can appreciate those still with us more and experience the tender care of the Holy Spirit. When our hearts and minds are open, there will be snippets in which there is a glimmer, a feeling of peace and joy from our encounter with God the Father’s comfort, where even for a brief moment we know that death really does not have the final answer. The loving embrace of Jesus does.
Photo credit: Flo Maderebner from Pexels
Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Jesus has not left us orphans.
What is common to all of us is that we experience some expression of loneliness to varying degrees consciously or often unconsciously. We are social beings, we want to belong, to be part of, and this is why we are communal. We may do, say, or turn a blind eye to behaviors that go against our conscience just to be accepted, acknowledged, or noticed. This behavior further feeds our loneliness, because though we may be accepted for a time, we become more alienated from our true self.
At the core of our being, what we all seek is to be loved, and to love. We strive from the moment of our conception not only to exist but to actualize the fullness of our potential. Through our time of gestation, we are not potential human beings, we are human beings actualizing our potential. A difference between me who is typing this now and when I was in my mother’s womb is that before and after my birth, I was smaller and more vulnerable.
We as human beings are a living, craving hunger and desire to be in communion with God and one another from the moment of our conception and during each stage of our development until our natural death and continuing on into eternity. This is true to the believer and the atheist alike. Until we embrace this deepest of needs and desires, we will be restless, anxious, and unfulfilled. We can feel isolated and alone, even in the midst of a hundred people or daily likes on social media.
God has made us for himself and constantly invites us to be in relationship with him and with each other because he is the foundation and source of our being. Sin is the turning away from that invitation, a curving, or caving in upon oneself away from God and others. It is also the unwillingness to bother or care, to reach out toward another in need. For what we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to God. We are not just to be pro-birth, we are to be pro-life, and we are invited to promote a consistent ethic of life.
Jesus became human through his Incarnation to show the importance of the dignity of the person and that it is grounded in our relationship with God our Father, meaning we are all brothers and sisters. Jesus was not plan B, but he has always been the primary plan. In the fullness of time, when God so willed, he sent his Son to become one with us so that we can become one with him. Jesus is the face, hands, and body of God. He came that we might see and experience God. Jesus experienced all we experience except for sin because he never in any act rejected or said no to his Father. His whole life was a yes to the will of God. Jesus is the bridge, coming close to love us so that we can love, God and each other authentically.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues his farewell discourse. He prepares his disciples for the reality that he will be returning to the Father, and yet at the same time, letting them know that he will not leave them or us alone. He will be with us for all ages. This is so because as the Son of God made man, in his Ascension, returned to the Father not just in his divinity but also in his humanity. God created all of humanity and his creation in such a way that we are all interconnected, and because of that, we all experience this transcendent act of the Ascension of Jesus.
Jesus shared with his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (Jn 15:26-27). Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the infinite Love experienced and shared between the Father and the Son. We become sharers in this divine love and communion of the Holy Trinity through our participation in the life of Jesus.
As we experience and enter into the love of God and develop a relationship with him, we begin to heal and to experience what it means to be alive. This is because we have experienced the love we have been made for. We have experienced being loved for who we are and as we are. We no longer have to say, do, or accept those actions that we don’t agree with that go against our conscience to belong. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman has stated that our conscience is the “Aboriginal Vicar of Christ”. Jesus dwells within us, to guide and lead us. He encourages us to say yes to his Father as he has and continues to.
This Trinitarian love that we share because of our participation in the life of Jesus, this great gift, will continue to grow as we testify to this love and share it with others by giving it away. The more we give, the more we will receive. We share the love of God by accompanying one another. That does not mean fixing others or their problems. We are called to be present, to accompany, and journey with others, meeting them as Jesus does, as they are. We are to laugh, cry along, encourage, empower, and support, but above all to be present, to allow God to happen through us.
Jesus has not left us as orphans. His return to the Father through his Ascension that we are getting ready to celebrate has given us a greater and more intimate access to the Holy Spirit, the love shared between the Father and the Son. By saying yes and trusting in his love, we free ourselves from the tendrils of fear and anxiety. As we do so, we continue to actualize the fullness of our potential, we become who we were created to be, and we become truer to ourselves. We experience that peace that surpasses all understanding and develop relationships with others based on authenticity and integrity, regardless of external pressures and experiences. We are not alone because we are loved and we love in return, which is what we all seek, which is who we are called to be.
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Photo credit: luizclas from Pexels
Link for the Mass readings for Monday, May 23, 2022
Despite the external circumstances, Jesus offers us his peace.
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). The peace that Jesus is talking about, the peace that he gives us is a peace the surpasses all understanding, because it does not come from this world but from the overflowing and eternal love of the Trinity.
God is an infinite communion of Love. There are three Persons, yet one God, because of their infinite nature. There is a complete, perfect and infinite giving and receiving between the Father and the Son and the Love that is shared between them, the Holy Spirit. We experience this peace because of Jesus, because in his becoming one with us in our humanity, we become one with him in his divinity. This reality grants us access to the Love of the Holy Spirit. This peace is not just an absence of stress, anxiety, violence, and war, but a resting, abiding, and sharing in his trinitarian communion.
We abide in God as we continually develop our relationship with his Son and each other, so as to experience the Love he shares with the Father. Jesus does not promise with his bestowal of his peace that we will now have an easy time of it. We still live in a wounded, dark, and fallen world and there will be trials, tribulations, and tragedy, yet through all matter of what we are dealing with, we can tap into the infinite well spring of the love of God. He is present and accompanies us in the midst of any and every situation we invite him into, such that there may be chaos all around, but as we turn to Jesus and trust in him, we will experience his peace.
When we were given the news of JoAnn’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer on the Wednesday of Holy Week in 2019, our lives entered a whirlwind and flurry of activity. Since our adult children lived in California, JoAnn wanted to be closer to them and access the treatment plan offered at USC. Physically, we were both straight out getting everything in order, yet all the pieces fell into their proper places for the move and our stay in California.
Even during JoAnn’s steady decline, making preparations for, transportation back to Florida for JoAnn’s funeral as well as the weeks, months, and two and a half years of grief to follow, each step of the way, we and I felt Jesus directly, as well as through the tremendous outpouring of love, support, and prayer from so many.
Jesus knocks on each of our doors, seeking to come into our lives and develop a relationship with us. This is why we are an alleluia people. We are called to live our life to the full and with joy no matter the circumstances. Even the midst of our pain. When we bring it to Jesus, he is present even if we don’t feel him. Jesus knocks at the door. I encourage you to let him in so you may experience his peace, that peace that surpasses all understanding.
Photo: Two bright lights shining in the darkness! JoAnn with Christy on her arrival to California. JoAnn stayed with Christy until our apartment opened up.
Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, May 22, 2022
Jesus can help us to react less and love more!

When Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first”, Jesus was not proposing an-us-verses them mentality. It can be easily taken that way and certainly has been lived out in many ways in our society and world. Yet, an-us-verses them mentality is usually a defensive posture assumed by those who feel or are actuality being persecuted. It is an understandable posture. It is just not the stance that Jesus proposes us to take. We are to love our enemies, we are to love those who hate us. Impossible? Only on our own will power alone, for apart from Jesus we can do nothing, but with him all things are possible.
Jesus is making it plain to his disciples that they need to be prepared, that what is coming is the same that has been happening to him. They will be persecuted, mocked, imprisoned, and give their lives just as Jesus did. The gospel message is a challenge. We are challenged to have a change of mind and heart, to be conformed to the love of Jesus the Christ. This means that our focus must shift from that of self first and foremost to God who is to have the primary sense of place in our lives.
We know we are putting God first instead of our fallen nature when we react less and love more. Reactions are based on an-us-verses them mentality. They are responsible for the state I am in, they are taking my jobs, they are not allowing me to worship or speak in the way I want to, it is all their fault, they made me do it. These are all reactive thoughts that lead to uglier statements and actions. Jesus invites us to assume the disposition of mindful action not reaction.
The way we can be less reactive is to be people of prayer, meditation, and contemplation. Much of our reaction comes from our harried pace, keeping us from being in touch with our deep-seated fears and prejudices. We run from the mirror Jesus holds up to us. Instead is will be more helpful for us to stop and pray regularly.
When we do so, the light of Jesus reveals the sin in our hearts so we can admit it, let it go, and go to Jesus for healing and confession. A way to begin to turn away is by taking some deep breaths, asking Jesus to be present in our lives, asking him to show us what we have hidden, so we can bring that which needs to be healed to the surface, so we can be forgiven and set free.
We can then be in a better place to ask for the healing to continue, for Jesus to help us to be more patient, understanding, truer to who he calls us to be, which is people of love, willing the other’s good, accepting and encountering each other as fellow brothers and sisters on our journey together, recognizing that the common denominator for each of us is that we are all imperfect, we make mistakes, experience loneliness, and just want to belong.
The ongoing effects of Covid-19, have helped us to see that: “The pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected we all are. If we do not take care of each other, starting with the least — those who are most affected, including creation — we cannot heal the world” (Pope Francis, August 202).
In following Pope Francis, let us act more consciously and pray with people of all faith traditions and people of good-will, to renew and continue to conform our lives to the One who gave his life that we might be free from the grip of our own sins, prejudices, and darkness. May we allow the love of the Holy Spirit to guide and flow through us, so as to dissolve walls of hate and division, and instead build bridges of dialogue and healing. Instead of a tit for tat approach to contempt, hate, and dehumanization, we can choose instead to pause, breath, and turn again and again to Jesus for the strength to resist the easy and impulsive reaction so as to not act in kind but instead respond with acts of understanding, empowerment, and love.
I will leave you today with two quotes from those who lived this truth not only between individuals but spurred on social movements that still inspire us today. Please take good care of yourselves and each other.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The nectar of Love alone can destroy the poison of hate.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi
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Newman grads willing to put God first!
Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 21, 2022: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052122.cfm
We are capable of loving each other because Jesus loved us first.

Jesus said to his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (Jn 15:12). This verse is foundational to our faith as we seek to live as disciples of Jesus. Love is what Jesus lived, modeled, taught, and commanded, but even more so, Love is who, as the second person of the Trinity, Jesus embodies because he is Love. By becoming human as one of us, embracing the Paschal Mystery: his suffering, crucifixion, death, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, the Son of God opened up the reality that we can participate in the very same love he shares with his Father.
We are capable of loving others because Jesus has loved us first. How did he love us? We are blessed in that Jesus gave his life for you and me, each and every person, for those who believe in him and those who do not. He gave his life for the good and the bad alike, the sinner and the saint. Jesus was willing to suffer the scourging, agony of his procession and crucifixion, and death. He was not just going through the motions, his divine Person was not somehow hovering over his body. Jesus felt the rejection, the betrayal, the physical torment of the nails, because, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13).
Some of us may have heard this verse so many times that we do not fully embrace the impact of it. The gift of the liturgical seasons is that the readings of Scripture are offered again and again so we can experience the telling again and again. May we sit with and breath in the reality of this passage, so that it becomes the living Word of God, not just a dead letter. May we resist taking our life for granted, the life we have been given at such great cost. In coming to realize the gift that Jesus gave for us, and meditating on that reality, hopefully we can see others in our life who we may have taken for granted. Those who have loved us, have been there for us, have been there maybe when no one else has been.
What is our response to the love of Jesus that we have been blessed with? Jesus answers: “This I command you: love one another” (Jn 15:17). Jesus ends today’s Gospel reading as recorded by John where he began at the beginning: he invites us to love. Jesus loves us more than our worst mistakes or our most grievous of sins, he loves us more than we can ever hope or imagine, and we are to love others as well in the same fashion. May we spend some time in prayer today opening our hearts and minds, meditating on the gift we have been given, the highest love imaginable, the life of Jesus, given for us. Let us savor and appreciate the fullness of this act that calls us to relationship with God and one another.
With open hearts and minds, we can be moved by Jesus, appreciate and be grateful for his sacrificial love. By embracing his invitation of friendship and with our hearts more full of gratitude, maybe just maybe, we can love others a little more today than we did yesterday, and a little more tomorrow than today. Love is not a willingness to love each other only when everything is going well. Love is a willingness to love one another one conflict at a time, one interruption at a time, one inconvenience at a time, one heartbreak and even one betrayal at a time. We are able to truly love, when we are willing to see each other as Jesus sees us, as friends: to see the person before us, the human being endowed with dignity. When we are willing to do so, we are ready to love, to will the good of the other, one moment, one person at a time.
Photo: Willing each other’s good through two intense years!
Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 20, 2022: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052022.cfm
As the Father loves Jesus, so he loves us, and we are to love one another.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you” (Jn 15:9).
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 that we are to participate in 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 the 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 as to allow the living stream of God’s infinite love to flow through us.
The love Jesus commands cannot be done on the fly. 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. Love is sharing the journey of life together. St Thomas Aquinas has written it well: Love is to will the good of the other as other. This is more than mere emotion, feeling, or sentiment but actually wanting 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’s and another’s dignity and boundaries.
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 are to 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 to one another, 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 then 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 on this journey we call life.
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Photo: Wolf Den Pow Wow, with my hunka father, Fire Hawk, in late 80’s. He lived and loved life to the full.
Link for Mass readings for May 19, 2022: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051922.cfm