Reflections on the Gospel Reading for the Day

Slowing down will help us to be one as Jesus and his Father are one.

“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one” (Jn 17:11).

Jesus is well aware of the temptations of the world, recognizes that the disciples will need the protection of his intercession, that they will remain faithful only if they remain in his love and in relationship with him. The unity that the Father and Son share is an eternal and infinite communion. Jesus, as the Son of God, continued to be one with his Father, while fully experiencing his humanity. As a human being, Jesus faced the same temptations present in this world that we face. The difference is that with each choice that he made, as a human being with a free human will, he chose to be faithful to his Father at each and every opportunity, and so his unity of his humanity remained intact and deepened.

Jesus sought the same unity that he shares with his Father for his disciples and he seeks the same for us today. His hope is that we may be one as he and the Father are one. Yet, he is not going to pull us out of the world for that to happen. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One” (Jn 17:15). The disciples then and us today, are to do as Jesus did. We are to welcome the invitation to be in a relationship  with God, come to know his will, and share it with those we encounter in our realm of influence. We are not to be transformed by the world, but we are to allow God to transform us by the renewal of our minds and hearts. As we do so, we can also bring Jesus’ light into the darkness as God works through us one person at a time.

Following the will of God is not easy. Many distractions, diversions, and temptations pull at us and attempt to draw us away from being faithful and true to God, ourselves, and who God calls us to be. Many times these distractions not only appear to be, but are good. The challenge is not whether we are good or evil, we are being good or doing good, but are we doing God’s will, are we doing what God is calling us to do?

Being able to stop, be still, quiet our mind, and just breathe for a sustained period of time can help us to learn to recollect. Often when we attempt to spend time in prayer, we finish at the moment we are really just getting ready to begin and wonder why nothing is happening! Making time to recollect grants us the opportunity to transition from the busy to making friends with silence.

We can deepen our relationship with Jesus and his Father when we slow down our pace, become still within, because we are better able to hear his voice. We are also in a better place to receive the gifts that the Holy Spirit seeks to impart, his guidance to discern his direction, as well as the courage to follow his will. If any fear or anxiety arises, we just need to remind ourselves to trust that God will provide the means and support we need, for we are not meant to do what he calls us to do on our own.

St. Mother Teresa taught that, “in the silence of the heart, God speaks.” We are better able to recognize God’s voice and the people he places in our lives to help us when we embrace consistent moments of stillness. We are better able to identify the temptations and pitfalls along path when we go slower. We grow in discipline, persistence, and dedication when we allow ourselves to be nourished by God’s love and encouragement. When we are willing to change, to be transformed, to grow, and take the risk to trust in Jesus, we, like the disciples, will experience the love and oneness Jesus and his Father seek to share with us.

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Photo: Meditating on the Glorious Mysteries (back in April before the newest renovations).

Link for the Mass for Wednesday, June 4, 2025

May we experience the love of God, so we can know him and each other better.

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn 17:3).

This is our goal, to know God. Eternal life, or heaven, is not only experienced when we die. Through experiencing the life of Jesus we can have a foretaste of heaven now. We can experience this as the joy that rises up from within, that is not merely pleasure, which is a response from the stimulation of our senses and which dissipates once the experience ends. Nor is joy even happiness which comes from the lasting memories of these pleasurable experiences. The experience of joy is not based on external situations and sensations, joy comes from an encounter with the living God who is present to us, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

We often first experience this joy, this closeness to God when we experience love exchanged between ourselves and another. Even a love that begins in infatuation is a drawing out of ourselves toward another. The hope is that this love matures and develops into a friendship.

This maturation happens when we spend time getting to know each other’s interests, goals, and dreams. We experience another as a person, and with time and continued trust, we begin to risk and allow our masks to be taken off. Inevitably, when relationships begin to mature, they will go through times of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and conflict. The relationship will come to a crossroads, but this does not mean that the relationship will come to an end. If the relationship devolves into abuse, dehumanization, and self-gratification alone, the relationship will end. But if there is a willingness to forgive, to work together, to meet each other with humility and seek mutual understanding, relationships will grow stronger and deeper. This is the fertile soil where love grows.

Our first experience of developing relationships is in our families. None of us are perfect, so none of us have had a perfect family life. Familial relationships develop in a similar fashion as listed above. We all go through ups and downs. The more that we can be present to one another, support one another, communicate and love one another, the more likely our familial relationships and friendships will also mature and grow.

Many of us hope to attain a place within where we can accept and love ourselves and develop mature relationships with a core group of family and friends. Most of us could be quite happy with that. Even as Jesus invites and guides us to reach this point of development, he continues to press us to strive to love beyond family, friends, and tribe. All of us are ultimately called to an unconditional love that sees in others a brother and sister seeking to be better stewards of God’s creation. This is not some utopian philosophy. Love happens through one concrete encounter, one person at a time. As we love God and one another, we lift all of humanity and creation up.

This will not happen through our own will power or discipline alone. Placing self over God and others, isolates and disconnects us from the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. God is not some transcendent, impersonal force, nor is God an omnipotent, tyrannical overlord. The God of Jesus Christ is a God of love, for “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Jesus invites us into a relationship with him and his Father to experience the love of the Holy Sprit. When we assent to this invitation, we come to know and experience a foretaste of heaven on earth.

Jesus, please help us to experience the love of God by coming to know you, and in truly knowing you come to better know each other. May we see each other as God our Father sees us, as a unique gift that has never been nor ever will be again. Help us resist reacting to the rough edges and exterior projections of our inner wounds and instead guide us to be more compassionate and understanding, and willing to see the truth and fullness of the potential of each person. Help us to allow God to love others through us today, one person and one encounter at a time.

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Photo: “The Father does not love us any less than he loves his only-begotten Son. In other words, with an infinite love” – Pope Leo from his Sunday, June 1, 2025 homily. (credit fromDaniel Ibáñez/CNA/ EWTN accessed from ncregister.com).

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, June 3, 2025

We are never alone, the Father is always with us.

The disciples are beginning to have a better understanding that Jesus is who he says he is, that “he came from God.” Jesus does not rest on or savor this insight and affirmation, but shares with them how, they still do not fully comprehend. He lets them know how each will leave him alone in his most desperate hour. They will do just that. Those he takes with him into the Garden of Gethsemane will fall asleep. When Jesus asks them to watch and pray with him, to be a support for him as he receives the crushing will of the Father that leads him to the cross, they fall asleep multiple times. When the guards come to arrest Jesus, led by Judas, the disciples would flee. Peter will then betray him three times.

What is interesting is that just as Jesus shares with them, that even though they, his most intimate followers, his closest friends would betray him, he says: “I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” 

These words are words of comfort and hope. Comfort and hope for his disciples then as well as for us today! No matter if we betray or are betrayed ourselves, we let others down or are let down, we see and experience the devastating effects of our fallen world and fallen human nature, from without and within; no matter what conflict, challenges, or tribulations rise up before us, we do not need to succumb to cynicism, hopelessness, and despair.

What is important is that we resist the temptation to curve in upon ourselves and drink from the poison of shame. In doing so, we cut ourselves off from the very source of our life and being. Having the humility to acknowledge where and when we have caused harm in any form requires embracing a healthy sense of guilt which is good. Then, instead of beating ourselves up, we are to seek forgiveness and reconciliation as well as be understanding and willing to forgive.

We also need to remember that in those times when we feel misunderstood, betrayed, or are facing the unbearable in life, we are not alone! Jesus, who experienced the same. reveals to us the way to his Father because Jesus is the Way! Seeking affirmation from the culture or the world is not the way. Our priority instead is build our relationship with Jesus, who will lead us to the Father so to experience the Love of the Holy Spirit!

Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, and he will not be overcome by it, for he has conquered death, and has overcome the world. We are an Alleluia people because through our participation in the life of Jesus the Christ we will overcome as well when we trust in and experience the love of the Father. As an Alleluia people, we are to resist being shaped by the culture and the world, and are to instead evangelize it by authentically living out the Gospel and will of our Father as Jesus did; by sharing the light, joy, peace, and love of Christ we have received in each our interactions with one another.

Photo: The more we slow down and breathe, receive, rest, and abide in the love of God, we will know no matter what we are experiencing, we are not alone.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, June 2, 2025

Jesus ascended up but not away! He is now closer to us than we are to ourselves.

For many of us, when we hear about the Ascension of Jesus we can be just as confused as the disciples who as recorded in the Book of Acts were standing around, looking at the sky. Also, depending on where we live, will depend on when we celebrate this solemnity. If you live in the ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia you already celebrated Ascension Thursday on its traditional day, this past Thursday. For the rest of the country, as we do here in Florida, it is a holy day of obligation celebrated today, on Sunday. The reason for Ascension Thursday is that the Ascension of Jesus took place 40 days since the Resurrection and 10 days before Pentecost.

The Ascension is just as significant as is Jesus’ suffering and death that we remember during Lent and his Resurrection that we have been recalling during this Easter Season. Regarding what the Ascension of Jesus is, sometimes, we can understand a term better by saying what it is not. The Ascension was not an event where Jesus went up, up, and away in a beautiful balloon, or Superman zipping away to destroy an asteroid hurtling toward the earth.

The Ascension is the culminating event of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. Jesus who as the Son of God became a human being like us in the Incarnation, lived among us, experienced the joys and sufferings of life like all of us in all things but sin. Yet, Jesus took our sins upon himself on the cross. Jesus died, entered into the utter godforsakeness of death and conquered death. He rose again through the power of the Love of the Holy Spirit, not as a ghost or a spirit, but still fully God and fully man, yet his body was transfigured. In his glorified body, Jesus became the first born of the new creation.

For forty days after his Resurrection, Jesus spent time with his disciples. “Forty days (or the number forty in general) always symbolizes a time of transition, a time of purification and a time of preparation for a new stage” (Pitre). This is evident in the Noah flood account. God cleansed the world from sin and established a new covenant with Noah and his family setting the stage for a new beginning. Moses spent 40 forty days meditating with the Lord to give the people new commandments and a new covenant charting a new course for those that God had freed them from slavery in Egypt. Jesus himself spent 40 days in the desert, a transition time after his baptism and before beginning his public ministry, preparation to face the devil, and resist his temptations.

Jesus also spent forty days with his disciples after his Resurrection, to prepare them, to help them to understand the truth of the kind of Messiah he was. Not a political and military leader, but the suffering servant of Isaiah. The Son of God was sent by his Father to defeat Satan, undo his strongholds, and free us from our slavery to sin by giving his life and conquering death. He commissioned his apostles to go out to do as he had done, to cast out demons, to heal, to preach with authority, to preach repentance, and to forgive sins. They were to be martyrs, witnesses by their life, teaching to the Jews first but as well to all nations, and even giving their lives as Jesus had done to promote the faith Jesus passed on to them.

Then at the appointed time, just as Jesus descended from his Father in heaven, he would return. This time though he would ascend fully divine as well as fully human. Jesus led his followers “out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven” (Luke 24:50-51).

This was no simple goodbye gesture. Jesus revealed in this action his role as high priest. He blessed his followers as the high priest, Aaron, blessed the people after he had made the sacrificial offerings for their sins (cf. Leviticus 9:22). With this blessing offered, Jesus “parted from them and was taken up to heaven” (Luke 24:51). As Bishop Robert Barron explains: “The Ascension is the translation of this earthly reality into a heavenly reality.”

Jesus is no longer limited by the time and space of our present three dimensional realm. He transcends our recognized dimension and now exists at a higher pitch of existence. Just as Jesus passed through the locked door to bestow peace on his disciples, Jesus ascended to offer himself to his Father in the heavenly Temple. As we heard in the letter to the Hebrews: “Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24).

Jesus gave himself as an offering for our sins and did so once for all and for all time. This is why Jesus is present to us at every Mass on Thursday or Sunday or any time that the Mass is celebrated anywhere in the world. Jesus is present to us where two or more are gathered in his name and he is present when we proclaim, read and pray with the words of the Bible. Jesus is present to all of us everywhere because we are united as one in his abiding love!

Through the event of the Ascension, Jesus brings something of our humanity to heaven and at Pentecost, which we will celebrate next week, he sent something of heaven to us in the descent of the Holy Spirit. And who is the Holy Spirit, but the Love that is breathed, that is shared between the Father and the Son.

What the Ascension means for us is that we are no longer separated from the reality of heaven. St Irenaeus wrote that, “Jesus opened up heaven for us in the humanity he assumed.” Our relationship with God our Father is made possible again because of the Ascension of Jesus. The biblical images foretell this great event, as the sky was torn open at the baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:10), as the veil was torn in two outside the Holy of Holies (Matthew 27:51) in the temple at the moment of his crucifixion, and as Jesus ascended in the fullness of his glorified body, with our humanity, to return to the right hand of the Father.

Heaven and earth have been wedded. We become part of the Church, the bride of Christ through our Baptism, we are nourished in receiving the Eucharist, and empowered in Confirmation. Through our baptism we are grafted, conformed to, and become an organic part of the Mystical Body of Christ. We are transformed, divinized, participate in the life of God through our participation in the life of Jesus. We are made holy, our image to God is restored. Jesus blesses through the priest at the end of every Mass and sends us as he did his apostles and the saints of each successive generation “to go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

Having heard this Good News of the Ascension, let us not, as the two angels said about the disciples, just “stand around looking at the sky” (Acts 1:11) but go forth and share the love of his very being that we receive in the Eucharist and invite all to participate on earth what is celebrated in heaven, the love of the communion between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen! Alleluia!!!

Photo: View as I walked out of the sanctuary of St. Mark the Evangelist after celebrating my first public Mass in Spanish for the vigil of the Ascension.

Brant Pitre’s commentary on the Ascension

The Mass readings for the Sunday readings of the Ascension, June 1, 2025

Life is a fragile and precious gift to be respected and celebrated.

Mary “traveled to the hill country in haste” (Lk 1:39) and as she drew close and called out to announce her arrival: Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, [and] the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Lk 1:41-42). This is an encounter of joy. Elizabeth’s response is a confirmation to Mary’s, “Yes”, to the angel Gabriel, that she has indeed conceived in her womb the Son of God who was taking on flesh and becoming one of us, a human being, as she traveled to the hill country. Elizabeth’s son recognized him, and in leaping with joy, helped to get the celebration started!

The encounter and interaction between Mary and Elizabeth, Jesus and John, at the Visitation is a model for us of discipleship. Touched by the Holy Spirit we are to go out to share the Good News that God our Father loved us so much that he sent his Son to be one with us. He was willing to enter into our humanity. Some of the earliest heresies in the Church, which are still perpetuated today, were birthed because of an unwillingness to accept this gift, that God entered into and embraced our humanity, that God would become human was and is still for too many, inconceivable.

Yes, we have been wounded by sin, but we have not been destroyed and completely undone. The coming of the Son of God as one of us is an opportunity to be healed, to be born again from above, and this can happen through the same love of the Holy Spirit that inspired John to leap in Elizabeth’s womb and for her to rejoice.

May we resist the mind noise from within, and without from other people who tell us overtly and/or covertly that we are worthless or nothing. Not true! Through our very being, we are created in the image and likeness of God, we have been created by love, to receive and to share love. We are a living craving hunger and desire to be in communion with God and one another. This is true for the atheist and the believer alike. We are called to will the good of the other as other as they are, unconditionally. If we have fallen short, a little or a lot, in the way we have been treating ourselves and/or others lately, today is a new day to take Jesus’ hand and begin anew. Let us celebrate with Jesus, Mary, Elizabeth and John.

We are celebrating that Jesus was born for us, he lived that we might not only be shown a better way, but know that he is the Way. Jesus became vulnerable for us, a key ingredient in unconditional love: to be willing to risk being authentic to who God called him to be, even to being willing to be rejected, even if that meant that all might walk away from him. May we be willing to be vulnerable, to risk, to share with others who we are, free of masks and pretense. May we be present to, and also walk and accompany one another. Being there for our family and friends is important, and if we take our Christianity seriously, we must come to acknowledge, in concrete ways, person to person, that we are all brothers and sisters, that in Christ we are all related.

Just as the sun shines on the good and the bad alike, Jesus died for each and every human being, all of us. After his resurrection and ascension into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit, the love shared between the Father and the Son, to empower us to live as he did, in communion with his Father, so to better actualize our communion with one another.

An invitation for the transformation of all humanity and creation happened at the Galilean hill side when two simple women said yes to God and embraced with joy. They came to embrace not only each other, but their vocation. May we join them in saying, “Yes”, to God, follow his will with joy as Mary and Elizabeth did and with them, celebrate the gift of life, because as each of these mothers would experience all too soon, life can be taken quicker than they could or we can ever imagine.

We do not know the time or the hour, so let us like Mary go in haste to tell those we care about that we love them. Let us make that call, send that card, email, or text, and/or invite that person for a walk, to sit down and visit. Especially amidst the expansion of divisive and polarizing darkness, may we be a light to all we encounter. Empowered by the love and joy of Jesus, may we encourage, empower, and lift one another up so as to treat each other with dignity, respect, kindness, and understanding. The easiest way to start is when you catch the eye of another, smile. In that simple gesture, we say to the other person that we care enough to make the time to acknowledge their dignity, their worth, and to let them know that they exist and have meaning.

On this feast day of the Visitation, may Mary and Elizabeth intercede on our behalf that we may honor all life from the moment of conception, through each stage until natural death. We start simply by appreciating and respecting the dignity of each other a bit more today than we did yesterday. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” (Gandalf said to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien). Let our choice be to build a culture of life.

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“The value of the person from the moment of conception is celebrated in the meeting between the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, and between the two children whom they are carrying in the womb” (St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 45, in Gadenz, Pablo T. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018). Photo credit: OSV News photo/Giancarlo Giuliani, CPP

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 31, 2025

May we be instruments of joy!

“But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you” (Jn 16:22). Jesus continues to prepare his disciples for his horrific death by offering hope that he will see them again. That he will see them again is not a typo. We can read about the exchanges between Jesus and his risen disciples. Jesus appeared to Mary of Magdalene at the tomb, he appeared to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, and he appeared to the ten and then the eleven with Thomas. Jesus sought out those he commissioned to proclaim his Gospel message after his resurrection, just as he had done during his ministry before his crucifixion.

When Jesus did appear to them again, at the moment of recognition, there was wonder and great joy! It is hard for us to even imagine these early resurrection accounts. The disciples witnessed his brutal death, lived in fear because of the very real possibility of their own persecution and similar death, and then, they encountered the risen Jesus. St Paul would also shortly thereafter encounter Jesus on a different road, the one to Damascus en route to continue his persecution of the followers of Jesus. All of their hearts rejoiced and it was this joy that they proclaimed with boldness. The Apostles, like Jesus, led with joy and love to embark on their evangelical missions. They lived a difficult and challenging life that for many ended in their own brutal deaths, yet their joy carried them through their suffering, death, and into eternity.

Life is hard, even in the best of circumstances. There is evil present in this world, not of God’s creation, because all that he has created is good. Through the enemy’s corruption of the good that God has created, bad things happen to good people, and good people do bad things. Suffering, disease, violence, natural disasters, division, corruption, hatred, and dehumanization abound. It can be easy to succumb to the overwhelming tide of negativity and assume a mindset of cynicism, detachment, denial, defensiveness, and/or indifference. Yet this is not the response Jesus modeled nor has infused his followers through the ages with.

Our response to the evil and darkness of this world is to be bearers of the joy of Jesus! We are to be as lights shining in the darkness, providing hope for those in despair, accompanying those in their struggles, and being willing to receive help when we ourselves are in need. We cannot do any of this alone and on our own but it can be done in participation with Jesus and each other. The Apostles, disciples, and saints, who have gone before us, have shown us that it is possible to be beacons of hope in very dark places.

Pope Francis reminds us about our mission in The Joy of the Gospel (276): “However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed. Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power.”

With each breath, we are invited to trust that Jesus is with us, closer than we are to ourselves, filling us with his love and joy. No one can take this joy away from us, except us, if we are unwilling to share it. Let us choose to allow the light and the joy of the Holy Spirit’s love to radiate through us, no matter how small or insignificant an act of kindness it may seem. When we do so, the darkness in our realm of influence will begin to fade away.

Photo: With my brothers in our final days of seminary. Please pray for us that we may continue to live, speak, and spread the joy of the Gospel!

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 30, 2025

Knowing Jesus helps us to experience our grief and our grief will become joy!

Jesus continues his farewell discourse and appears to be speaking in riddles: “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me” (Jn 16:16). We who know what is coming for Jesus understand what Jesus is talking about, but for the disciples, not so much. Jesus will be crucified and rise again from the dead. Jesus then goes on to explain further that: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy” (Jn 16:20). Jesus is speaking about the same two points of reference, his Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Yet, his “explanation”, would not help to clarify for his disciples. This clarification would only come when the Comforter comes, when the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus would come to reveal to them the truth of Jesus after they experienced his resurrection, time with them, and then ascension. First, they would all have to endure with Jesus his passion, suffering, and death on the cross.

The most brutal sign of oppression during the reign of the Roman Empire was the cross. It was a weapon of terror, torture, an extreme case of punitive justice or capital punishment, and in actuality state-sanctioned terrorism. The person would be stripped of all their clothing, would be nailed by the wrists, or palms, and wrists tied, nailed by the feet, and then lifted up for public display. Then would begin their humiliation, dehumanization, and long agonizing death; a sign for anyone to think twice about challenging the authority of Rome.

The disciples wept and mourned, their hopes dashed, they were stunned, ashamed, and demoralized, while others rejoiced as Jesus and the two others beside him were lifted up. The centurions flaunted their authority and prowess. Others gathered around and jeered at who they believed to be another false prophet dying on Golgotha, the hill of the skull, where so many had gone before. Where other hopes and dreams had been crushed under Roman dominance and oppression.

Jesus was sometimes described as being hung on a tree in some letters of the New Testament because writing the word, cross, was still too raw and vivid in people’s minds. This is also why there are no depictions of Jesus on the cross before the year 200 AD, and the earliest known believed to be the Alexamenos graffito was a mocking not complementary etching of Jesus on the cross. Yet, this was not the final chapter. The grief of the Apostles would turn to joy when Jesus conquered death and rose again. The cross, this symbol of torture, would become a sign of victory over death and the grave.

Yet, one centurion got it right: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mk 15:39)! For many Christians today, the Crucifix and Cross are no longer a sign of oppression and fear but are displayed as a sign of the triumph and victory that Jesus has won for us. They are not magic talismans, but they are sacramental signs, concrete objects that are tangible, that we can see, wear, and hold on to. Not because of some macabre fascination with death but for the purpose of reminding us that we have a God who understands our humanity because he lived life as we do. He suffered with us in our suffering and experienced pain as we do.

Jesus cried as we cry, he laughed as we laugh, and he enjoyed table fellowship with friends as well as those on the peripheries. Jesus faced rejection, misunderstanding, trials, and tribulations, he overcame conflict and rejection, he died as we will die, yet his death was not the end. Jesus conquered death, so that through our participation in his life and resurrection we have the opportunity to rise again in Christ as well.

We are still in the Easter Season, and are drawing closer to celebrating the Solemnity of the Ascension when Jesus returns to the Father. It may seem odd, but meditating upon a crucifix is a good practice not just In Lent but anytime, even in Easter, because we are reminded of what Jesus went through and what he overcame. When we are going through a particularly rough patch, we can hold the crucifix, feel the wood, allow our gaze to fall upon the face and wounded body of our Lord. When we allow him, Jesus will embrace us with his arms outstretched to ease our suffering and pain, and also help us to overcome as he did.

Jesus is and continues to be present with us, closer even than the crucifix we hold or look upon. Even if we do not feel Jesus present, he is! Even when we pray daily and feel nothing is happening, Jesus is close, closer to us than we are to ourselves. The apostles experienced the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, their time together after the resurrection and up to his ascension, and then his leaving them again. It was not until the Holy Spirit was sent to them though that they truly got it, and saw the truth of who Jesus is. Then looking back they were able to connect the dots. Their grief became joy, and so can our’s.

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Photo: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 29, 2025

The Holy Spirit will help us to continually embrace wonder and experience truth.

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.” Most of us may fall somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, we are less foolish and moving more along to path of gaining wisdom. Jesus continues his best efforts in today’s Gospel to offer guidance and assurance to his disciples that the Holy Spirit will continue to be their guide after his departure. “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (Jn 16:12-13a).

Surely, Jesus could see the dimming lamps in the eyes of his disciples. As discussed yesterday, comprehending the death of the Messiah, his Resurrection, and return to the Father was a bit much to digest. Also, there was only so much that they could grasp with their finite intellect. Until they experienced the infused contemplative insights given to them by the Holy Spirit, there was only so much the apostles were going to be able to digest of what Jesus was sharing with them about the inner life of the Trinity, the divine communion of love between he Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Yet, Jesus, though, still needed to share what his Father gave him to share, and the disciples were to take in what they could. Jesus’ death and Ascension were not to put an end to their learning, deepening of their understanding, or further developing their relationship with Jesus and his Father. The Holy Spirit would continue what Jesus started, and would to lead them to all truth, the fullness of the foundational relationship that is the source of all that exists, the Holy Trinity.

Anyone involved in teaching anyone anything or learning something for one self will know, that just telling someone something does not mean that learning has happened. There is a process of introduction, integration, practice, review, mistakes, corrections, and adjustments until some proficiency is achieved. With the disciples, this is the same. Jesus did not just present things once and move on to the next order of business. That is why John declared at the end of his Gospel that: “There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written” (Jn 21:25).

I am sure a part of what John was talking about here were the lessons, corrections, and guidance Jesus offered. Just as Joseph modeled for and guided Jesus in his trade in carpentry, so Jesus learned from him through observation, practice, mistakes, adjustments, and corrections. Jesus guided his disciples in the same way, as a mentor with his apprentices. He was now assuring them that even though he would be leaving them, the guidance and leading would continue with the support of the Holy Spirit.

The lessons about the immanence of God, God within himself as a Trinitarian communion, that Jesus taught were not as concrete as sawing, hammering, and planing wooden beams though. God is not a being, not even a supreme being, meaning that he transcends our ability to comprehend the fullness of his reality. We will never fully comprehend God or exhaust the richness and the depth of our relationship with God. What the apostles and the saints to follow and we can still experience today is God’s grace building on his nature. When we read, pray, and meditate with these sacred texts, the Holy Spirit will communicate with us and grant us insights beyond any intellectual endeavor.

On the human level, we are guilty of malpractice in our relationships when we assume that we know everything there is to know about someone else. The gift of the person, the human being, is that we are ever-developing and growing in the mystery and wonder of who we are and who we are called to be. We can always surprise each other. If this is true for us in our relationships with each other, it is much more so in our relationship with God. Once we get to one level of understanding, we plateau for a time, but that is not the end of the journey, that is only a time to savor, to ponder, and contemplate until we are ready to go ever deeper into the truth that the Holy Spirit will reveal to us.

Our tradition teaches us that the fullness of God has been revealed in Jesus Christ, which is true, yet to comprehend that revelation will take a lifetime and continue on into eternity just to scratch the surface. St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a Dominican Friar, who is considered the Angelic Doctor of the Church, was one of the top theological influences during the Scholastic Period, yet close to the end of his life he had a deep and intimate encounter with God in which he came to realize that all of his intellectual achievement, all that he had written, mattered no more than a pile of straw compared to that which God had revealed to him in a single moment of infused contemplation.

Arguably one of the wisest persons of his time, and some would say one of the most brilliant minds ever, was also one who was steeped in daily prayer and continued to be open to the majestic wonder of the glory of God. May we too continue to embrace the gift of wonder, the gift of learning, and never settle, rest and savor yes, but continue to learn and grow, to seek and hunger for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, to continually have our hearts and minds open to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us “to all truth”!

Photo: A momentary pause during my Rosary walk to observe the interplay between some mangrove stems and barnacles. Many invitations to experience God’s wonder when we get out and about!

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, May 28, 2025

The Holy Spirit will help us to heal from the grief that fills our hearts.

At some point in our lives, we experience the death of someone we love. If we live a long 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 too many in our world, 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 on the cross, but also letting them know that they would not be left alone. Even after his death, his resurrection and again time with his disciples, he would then at his ascension return to the Father. And better for his disciples that he would return to his Father. The Father will transform Jesus through his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus will assume his glorified body and the Holy Spirit will proceed from the Father and the Son to empower the apostles. They too will be transformed. No longer afraid, no more falling short of the glory of God but fulfilling and actualizing who Jesus called them to be from the beginning.

Of course, 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 Father and send the Third Person of the Holy Trinity to be with them. The Apostles would not only feel the grief of the loss of Jesus they would also experience the fear that the same persecution that took him would take them. Jesus predicted no less. To be his follower, they would need to be willing to give their own lives as Jesus was about to do.

They did not get off to a great start. Even though Jesus foretold them of what was to happen, in Jesus’ final hour, they betrayed and abandoned him. And yet, except for Judas, because he had taken his own life, Jesus came to them again after his resurrection. He did not condemn but forgave them. Jesus would in a short time ascend back to the Father as we will celebrate next Sunday, 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 and everyone 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 a person of faith. Jesus himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. In allowing ourselves to enter into our pain, we will experience the Risen Christ who is waiting to embrace us and help us to heal. The key is to allow ourselves to experience and feel our grief, but just not to stay there.

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. After seven months of caring and accompanying JoAnn to her death, visiting with family and friends through Thanksgiving and Christmas, I returned home, and had some time alone for the first time. I had a two day period where I was able to experience the weight of my grief and was hit pretty hard. I was beginning to sink into a dark place. Fortunately, I received a phone call from my friend, Theresa Frettered, and she invited me to a diocesan event. I didn’t want to go, but said yes. Terry was a messenger of the Holy Spirit. She invited me to leave the despair and come up for some air.

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). We place our hope in Jesus, the first born of the new creation, and pray that those we remembered yesterday for Memorial Day, all those we hold close to our hearts in this moment, and those who have no one to pray for them, who have left this life, are now experiencing the gift of eternal life that Jesus won for us on the cross. Our time will come too.

This is not a morbid thought. Pondering our own death helps us to not take the time we have left for granted and choose to live our lives more intentionally, with greater purpose. In doing so, we can experience a foretaste of heaven, God’s tender care for us, even on this side of heaven. When our hearts and minds are open to slow down, to invite the Holy Spirit to come close so that we may experience his love for us. For a brief moment we will get a glimpse, that death really does not have the final answer. The loving embrace of Jesus does.

Photo credit: Losing someone we love is like experiencing an amputation. We will live, but it will never be the same. Allowing the Holy Spirit to accompany and heal us will help us to learn to fly again!

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 27, 2025

As we participate in the life of Jesus we experience the love of the Holy Spirit.

What is common to all of us is that we experience some expression of loneliness to varying degrees consciously, or mostly 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, and/or noticed. This behavior further feeds our loneliness, because though we may be “accepted”, we become more alienated from our true self. We are not be accepted for who we are but who we portray ourselves to be.

At the core of our being, what we all seek is to be loved, and to love in return. We strive from the moment of our conception not only to exist but to actualize the fullness of who God is calling us to be. Through our time of gestation, we are not potential human beings, we are human beings actualizing out potential. A difference between me 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 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. As St. Augustine shared in the introduction to his autobiography, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

God has made us for himself and constantly invites us to be in a 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 Jesus. We are not just to be pro-birth though, we as Catholics are to be pro-life, and we are invited to promote a consistent ethic of life.

Jesus became human in his Incarnation. He too, as we did, developed in the womb of Mary to show the importance of the dignity of the person and that our dignity is grounded in our relationship with God our Father, meaning we are all brothers and sisters. We are his beloved daughters and sons, just by who we are not by what we do. Jesus was not a plan B, but he was always the primary plan. In the fullness of time, when God so willed, he sent his Son to become one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity. 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 thought, word, or deed rejected or said no to his Father. His whole life was a, “Yes” to the will of God. Jesus is the bridge, the way to love and be loved, 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, he will not leave us alone. He will be with us for all ages. This is so because as the Son of God made man, in his Ascension, he returned to the Father not just in his divinity as the Son, but also in his humanity. God created all of humanity and his creation as interconnected, and because of that, we all experience this transcendent act of the Ascension when Jesus returned to the Father in his glorified, human body.

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 the love of the Holy Spirit and develop a relationship with him we begin to feel alive, we begin to heal and to feel whole, 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, to help us to develop a well formed conscience. He encourages us to also say, “Yes” to his Father as he has and continues to do.

We share in the trinitarian love when we grow our relationship and participate in the life of Jesus. This great gift of grace will continue to grow as we testify to this love and share it with others. The greatest gift of God, his love that he gives us, expands as we give his love away. The more we give, the more we will receive. 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 met others and meets us, as and where we are. We are to laugh with, to cry along, to encourage, empower, and support, but above all to be present, to allow the love of the Holy Spirit to happen through us.

Jesus has not left us as orphans. His return to the Father through his Ascension has given us a greater and more intimate access to the Holy Spirit. By trusting in his love, we free ourselves from the tendrils of fear and anxiety. We are not alone when we say, “Yes”, to God’s will and develop our relationship with him. As we do so, we continue to actualize the fullness of our potential, become truer to ourselves, and who we are created to be. 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 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: Some quiet time and prayer during priest convocation May 7.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, May 26, 2025