“It was because the LORD loved you and because of his fidelity to the oath he had sworn your fathers, that he brought you out with his strong hand from the place of slavery, from the hand of pharaoh, King of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:8).

God hears the cry of the poor. He sends Moses to free his chosen people. Not because they are the best and brightest, the strongest or having the most potential. He is doing so because of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs. He is doing so because he loves his children, those enslaved, but also all of humanity and creation. The chosen people are chosen not so they can keep God all to themselves but so that they can reveal him to all peoples.

All that has been created has come to be out of the outpouring of his love. We and everything that is, exists because God willed and loved us into reality, to be loved and to love him and each other in return. 

God still comes close today, he still hears the cry of the poor. The poor are each of us in the depths of our souls crying out to him. We who are thirsting and starving for his love and communion. The pharaohs today are not just those who overtly oppress others but the fallen aspects of each one of our egos that enslave our authentic and true selves. 

God has sent another Moses to free us: “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him” (I John 4:9).

Jesus comes close, he shines the light of love into our darkness, our sins, our traumas, our fears. He gently invites us to come into the light of his love, to be embraced, forgiven, and restored as the beloved children that we already are, but have forgotten.

Each day and moments during the day, remember that you are the beloved daughter or son of the creator of all that exists. He made you and formed you as an expression of his love. There has never nor will there ever be again someone like you. You are loved as you are right now as you are and you need do nothing but receive the love God offers to you. 

Listen quietly for the beating of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and allow your heart to align in rhythm with his heart, such that Heart speaks to heart. Receiving the love of the Father through Jesus is the key to our freedom. No self-help program or three-point strategic plan needed (counseling does have its place and time). Just a simple, “Yes” to your loving God and Father, as Mary said, “May it be done to me according to your word.” As Jesus said, “Not my will but yours.” A simple slowing down and returning throughout the day and each day to an opening of your heart to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a good start. The Holy Spirit will take care of the rest so that you may experience life to the full! 

Photo: On retreat at Marywood Retreat Center this past January

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, June 16, 2023

“Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Freedom for what?

Freedom to receive and give love, to be loved, receive and experience, savor it and love in return. This is what all of us seek, deep down. The only one that can fill and satisfy this deep hunger and thirst is God. The interesting thing is that even though he is infinite, completely self-sufficient, and does not need us at all, he hungers and thirsts for us as well. He reaches out for us, invites us into his eternal embrace to be one with him so that he can be one with us. 

Love is a free giving and receiving exchange. Authentic love is not coerced or manipulated. This is true for us and for God. We are to receive his love in his time and on his terms and not our own. For God sees the fullness of who we are as well as our sins, wounds, and weaknesses. He knows what and how much we can receive at any given time. He does not want us to merely exist or survive. God’s greatest joy is to see us fully alive and free to live and experience the life he has given us. But he begins small, where we are, and invites us as a father invites in infant to walk. Encouraging us and there to catch us when we fall.

What wounds this free exchange is when we put ourselves first before God. We make the mistake of Adam and Eve whenever we grasp at what God is willing and seeking to give us freely. We can become impatient, seek control, buy into lies and temptations that appear to be good but in fact are not coming from the love God wants to share with us. When we experience anxieties, fear, pain, and suffering it is a barometer revealing something is off kilter, off center in our lives. In their proper place, these emotions are protective and instructive to help us to avoid that which is not in our best interest or for our highest hope and good and protect us from harm. Even our suffering can be a time of healing in the experience of loss, which is also an expression of love. 

The problem arises when we allow our minds to run away with misperceptions and this comes more readily when we place ourselves first instead of trusting in God. When we place our security in the finite and material instead of trusting in God’s eternal care. From seeking stability, in the material and in ourselves and our choices alone, we then want to be in control, we want what we want when we want it, we want to know what’s going on and right now. 

These self-centered practices increase our suffering, and since we run from suffering, we seek to be more in control rather than being willing to surrender all to God. “What really hurts is not so much suffering itself as the fear of suffering. If welcomed trustingly and peacefully, suffering makes us grow. It matures and trains us, purifies us, teaches us to love unselfishly, makes us poor in heart, humble, gentle, and compassionates toward our neighbor” (Jacques Philippe). 

Jesus is inviting us to let go and loosen our clenched fists and tendencies to grasp. He himself, the Son of God “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped” (See – Philippians 2:6).  Instead, he is inviting us to do as he has always done, which is to trust in and receive from God our Father what we most need, his love.

Photo: Evening rosary walk back in December at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, June 15, 2023.

But the one who gives us security with you in Christ and who anointed us is God; he has also put his seal upon us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment (2 Corinthians 1:22-23).

We seek security in so many ways, things, and others. We have insurance policies for our health, car, home, retirement, we may place our trust in family and friends, we may feel if we have enough in our savings, all will be well. None of these, in and of themselves are untrue. We are willing to invest our time and treasure in relationships, insurance policies and savings, but are we willing to invest the time in building a relationship with our ultimate reality and security – God? 

Life is fragile, fluid, and ever changing. What seems stable and a firm foundation at one moment reveals itself to be sand in the next. This is true with anything in the material realm, anything on earth, the solar system, or galaxies far, far, away.

God seeks the best for us, and we may have even felt a desire to get closer to him, yet can buy into the lie that he will ask something of us or ask us to do something that we really don’t want to. The reality is that he knows better than we do what we desire and seek in the depth of our souls. He knows us better than we know ourselves because he sees us as we truly are. He sees the fullness of who we are and who he calls us to be. He sees under, over, and through our doubts, anxieties, fears, selfishness, and human foibles of our fallen nature. He also sees the deep wounds, traumas, and hurts and wants to heal us and lead us to wholeness.

We can only see so far. We are limited by any, all, or different limitations than the above. We see only an aspect or glimmer of who we truly are. Many of us get confused early on and may feel better at times because we have accumulated what we may believe to be apparent goods, and we in deed may experience some actual and true goods. Good family, friends, meaningful work, and all seems to be going well. But then something can happen, and quickly, a job loss, an illness, an argument or major conflict, a death. If there is no ground beyond the human relationships and material comfort, where do we turn?

Also, even when all goes well, it can be perfected. Life can be better, because none of us are and life is far from perfect in this fallen world. Slowly, steadily moving in the direction of putting God first, acknowledging that he is God and we are not, and receiving the gift of him and his love as our foundation and true security does not mean life will be perfect, but it does mean that when the unpredictable events and storms of life arrive, we are not alone. God will accompany us through because we are his beloved children and he loves us. And that is a good place to start no matter where we are on the journey.

Photo: Going away party at St. John Fisher Catholic Church back in April where I was blessed to serve this past year.

Mass readings for Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51).

Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven. He is to be our nourishment, source of refreshment, and very life. Like a tree that is planted near the streams of living water (see Psalm 1:3) we are refreshed in all seasons, when all is tranquil as well as when we are immersed in our challenges and struggles, as long as our roots remain tapped into the well spring of the life of Jesus.

We are to look to the things of heaven for our foundation, not the things of this earth. For the things of this earth are passing away as many of us know all too well. This does not mean we aren’t to enjoy the blessings that God has given us. All that God has created is good and to be enjoyed as a gift of his grace. It is more a matter of perspective. 

We are not to be attached to the things of this world, even to those closest to us, because we are finite and imperfect and so we will never be fully satisfied because we seek the eternal. With God as our center and our refuge, we have a stability that is not only unshakable but eternal so cannot be exhausted. We know that no matter what, we are accepted, we belong, and we are loved. We renew, heal, and grow in wholeness as we receive him especially and most concretely in the Eucharist, the bread from heaven, but also in resting in him, his creation, spending time with good friends and family as well as those he calls us to serve.

And we can do this more authentically and purely when nothing or no one else, including ourselves, but Jesus is the center of our lives. Letting go of our attachments takes time and effort but is well worth it because when we ask Jesus to reveal to us that which we place before the Father he will do so.

When we are willing to collaborate with him to let go, this practice leads to a freedom and peace that we would otherwise not experience. We will still encounter the pain of loss but it will not be as debilitating. In putting God first and deepening our relationship with him, we receive his love, we start to see ourselves as he sees us, and grow in his wholeness which overflows into our relationships because we are better able to be ourselves. 

As we experience God’s love, we will slowly and surely come to identify ourselves not by what we do, who we think we are, who we think others think we are supposed to be, and/or others tell us to be, but rest instead in the truth and identity of being his beloved daughter or son. Our anxieties and fears will have less power over us, we will become less insecure and more confident, pride will weaken because we no longer place ourselves first. As we heal and grow, we also begin to experience the maturing of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We become more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and able to practice more self-control. 

During this Corpus Christi Sunday then, may we recommit to the truth and reality that Jesus is with us in a special and unique way. He is the “bread of life” that will nourish and lead us more intimately into a deeper relationship with his Father through the love of the Holy Spirit so that our healing and those in our realm of influence can go deeper and continue through this life and into the next.

Photo: Tabernacle in the chapel at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, where I spent a lot of time in prayer, meditation, contemplation, and worship this past year and getting to know Jesus a lot better!

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, June 11, 2023

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him and we will come to him” (John 14:23).

St the beginning of the Book of Tobit, both Tobit and Sarah are at such a point of despair that they seek death. Instead of following through on that option, they implore to God to take their lives. God hears their prayers, does not answer them in they way they are seeking though. He helps them through their trials to experience the joy of a life of meaning and fulfillment.

As St. Irenaeus taught, the joy of God is the human being fully alive. God seeks our fulfillment, he loves us, and wants the best for us. He does not want us to merely exist, go through the motions until we die, but to live a life of freedom, wholeness, and joy. This is why he sent his Son.

More from St. Irenaeus – Jesus became one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity. In so doing, he opened up heaven for us in the humanity that he assumed. – Jesus has come to restore our relationship with God the Father and in this way we can experience the love shared between them the Holy Spirit. This is a reality and truth for all of humanity. The God of all creation loves each and every one of us intimately and personally because he created all of us unique while at the same time interconnected. 

So when the Son became human, his divinity entered into our humanity. We can choose to accept this divine gift or reject it, but God has created us as a living, craving, hunger and desire to be one with him and each other (Thomas Aquinas). Our deepest hunger is to be one with God and each other, to love God and one another. We desire to belong, to be accepted, to be loved. Nothing or no one will fulfill this deepest hunger in the depths of our being other than developing a relationship with God through his Son Jesus such that we may experience the love of the Holy Spirit. 

As our relationship with Jesus grows, we begin to recognize his voice. As we make time to listen to him in the silence of our hearts (St. Mother Teresa), begin to trust, and act upon his guidance, our relationship with him continues to grow and our life begins to change as we become more and more conformed and transformed by his love. Every, “Yes,” to Jesus is a willingness to say yes to receiving his love. As our relationship with Jesus grows, so we begin to heal and our human relationships heal, improve, and become healthier and transformed as well. This happens when we no longer look to others first to fill that yearning, and instead put first in our lives the one who can fill our deepest longings and desires. 

God has you carved each and every one of us in the palm of his hand, he holds us close  – for each of us are his beloved daughters and sons in which he takes great delight. He will continue to accompany, care for, and provide for us no matter what. He has been with us through every moment of our lives. Jesus invites us to turn to him with our whole heart, mind, and soul today and often throughout our day and days. Trust in him because he is already there just waiting for each one of us to ask for his help. 

The biggest challenge is patience. God works on his time table and not our own. This is actually a gift though, because in our willingness to be patient, we grow in our trust and faith, as well as our our confidence in him and ourselves. Even when we lose our patience and take things into our own hands, he loves us more than we can ever mess up, and welcomes us back again and again. 

No matter what we might be dealing with today, we will get through moment by moment no matter what. If any anxiety or nerves begin to rumble, something unexpected arises, breathe slowly and speak Jesus’ name. As you continue to do so, you will feel a peace that surpasses all understanding begin to quiet your mind and the joy and love of God will rise in your soul.

Photo: Spending some time in adoration last Friday, St. Peter Catholic Church, Jupiter, FL.

Mass readings for Friday, June 9, 2023

“May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call” (Ephesians 1:17-18).

There are so many decisions we make in a day on so many levels, from the very simple and mundane to the serious and life altering. For those times we don’t know, we may need more time or be confident to make the best decision we can with the information we have in the moment. 

With each decision, no matter how small or large, may we turn to God and seek his counsel and guidance, may we have minds and hearts open to follow what he reveals to us, and trust in him. Even if we have made a mistake, misjudged what we believed to be God’s guidance, we can adjust our direction and change course. 

On another level, the Holy Spirit will, when we allow ourselves to be quiet and still, help us to get in touch with those decisions that run deep within our soul. The place where our authentic desires, dreams, and hopes dwell. 

God does not want us to merely exist and survive. His greatest joy is for us to be fully alive! God loves each and every one of you reading these words. He doesn’t want you to merely exist or settle but to strive for a life of fulfillment, meaning, and joy. 

Praying for you today and all the decisions you will make. Also, I pray that you will give yourself some time to slow down, to breathe, quiet your mind and be still, so as to allow yourself time to be led by the Holy Spirit to get in touch with what you truly desire from the depths of your soul. May you make some time each day to dream and no matter the circumstances, allow yourself to continue to hope in and praise God who is always with us.

Picture: Evening prayer during silent retreat this past January.

Mass Readings for Tuesday, June 6, 2023

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).

God the Father loves each of us who, have existed, exists, and will exist with an infinite love, an unconditional love. He loves us not because of what we do, there is nothing we can do to earn his love. He loves us even in our faults and sins, even when we choose so many things over and/or instead of him. 

He has shown that love most powerfully in sending his Son to become one with us in our humanity to accompany us, not just in one point in history and time but now in this moment as I write these words and, in your moment, when you read them. He has become one with us so that we can become one with him in his divinity. 

The gift of Jesus entering into our human reality is that he reveals to us the wonderful glory of the Trinity. In the fullness of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery, his incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, we are invited into the fullness of the divine communion of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In ascending to the Father, still fully divine and now fully human, he opened the door for us to experience the infinite love shared by these three infinite persons. 

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are present with and for us, each in their own unique ways, to lead and guide us to our true purpose which is to be loved by them, to receive their love, and to love others as we have been loved. 

One simple way to accept the gift of this trinitarian love is inviting Jesus into our present moment. Sit in a quiet place, make the sign of the cross, take a few deep breaths, and then simply say or think the name of Jesus on each inhalation. 

Breathing deeply, slowly, and calling upon the name of Jesus is no mere psychological trick. When we call on the name of Jesus, invite the Son of God to be one with us and we express the humility that without God we can do nothing. We accept that Jesus is the Son of God and we are not, that Jesus came to save us and restore us to our rightful relationship with the Father so that we may intimately experience the love between them, the Holy Spirit. 

Praying in this way, when all is going well, is a good way to express thanksgiving for all that God gives us. Making this practice a consistent habit provides the foundation for those times when life gets bumpy. When we start to experience fear, doubt, anxiety, indecision, or whatever mental negativity comes our way, no matter where we are, we can close our eyes, breathe, call on the name of Jesus, bring up his image to our mind’s eye, and gaze upon his face. In this way, we will rise above any negative mental waves which seek to undo us and drag us down, and like Peter, we too will walk on water!

Picture: Taken while walking this evening and praying the rosary.

Mass readings from Sunday, June 4, 2023

“In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen” (Act 1:1-2).

Theophilus, who Luke addresses at the beginning of the Book of Acts, is a name in Greek that can either mean, friend of God, loved of God, loved by God, as well as other similar translations. The key take away is that it is a name of relationship between a human being and God. And the highest form of relationship is to love and to be loved. This is who God has created us to be.

Yet, how do we know this?

We know because Jesus taught his disciples the truth and that message has been spread to the four corners of the earth generation after generation. This truth is that God sent his divine Son to be one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity such that we share the same infinite love that is shared between the Father and the Son who is the Holy Spirit. This is possible for us because Jesus was willing to experience not only death, but conquer death, rise again, and ascend to the right hand of the Father, still fully human and fully divine. Which means, we who participate in the life of Jesus participate in his divine relationship now and into eternity.

God loves us so much that he wanted to dwell among us in the person of his Son, to experience all that we experience and to invite us time and again to participate in the fullness of relationship with him, now and forever. In the Ascension, Jesus did not leave us orphans. He did not fly up, up, up, and away to leave us to fend for ourselves.

Jesus continues to experience the fullness of his humanity such that it transcends space and time as we know it. This is how he can be present to us at each Mass. Not only in the Eucharist, the bread and wine that becomes his Body and Blood, but in the word that is preached, in each of us gathered in his name, and in the priest who celebrates the Mass. This Mass that we celebrate here on earth is at the same time being celebrated in heaven!

Jesus came to us in our humanity to restore us to our original purpose, to be one with God and one another. These are beautiful truths, but we, like the Apostles at the end of our Gospel reading of Matthew, may not only believe and worship Jesus, as they did, but we also may doubt, as they did. How can they and how can we worship and yet doubt at the same time? How can we say we believe, and yet doubt?

We are finite beings seeking understanding of an infinite reality we call God. We are called into the fullness of an intimate relationship with the God of all creation, yet we hesitate to give him all our heart, mind, and soul. There is a part of us that holds back; maybe because we don’t fully trust, we don’t fully believe, and so there is some doubt. We have limitations, we have experienced our own wounds, traumas, temptations, and diversions that promise, we believe, something better than what God offers. Thus, we remain at a certain distance and thus experience a restlessness.

And yet, God continues to love us. He continues to be faithful. He quietly, gently, and lovingly, invites us to close this gap. He invites us to come closer, encouraging each one of us to take a step toward him, deeper into trust, deeper into truth, deeper into greater intimacy, and deeper into love with him so that we may become whole.

We are loved by God, we are his beloved sons and daughters. Yes, we may doubt at times, we are not perfect, we sin and fall short of the glory of God. Yet we are infinitely loved by God and invited each day to begin again.

I invite you now and to continue this week to open your hearts and minds to receive and ponder the love God wants to share, to respond to the invitation that he offers, so that you may experience a deeper relationship with him and live life to the full as he intended us to live. One thing we need never doubt is God’s love for each and every one of us.

Photo: Praying my holy hour on the St. John’s river during my silent retreat January 11. “God speaks in the silence of the heart.” – St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, May 21, 2023

“Word of God, come down on earth,

Living rain from heav’n descending;

Touch our hearts and bring to birth

Faith and hope and love unending.

Word almighty, we revere you;

Word may flesh, we long to hear you.”

These words are the first line from the hymn, “Word of God, Come Down to Earth” that we sang at Mass this morning. The words and song lifted my heart and aligned with a scene I saw last night while walking and praying the Rosary (the photo I shared).

There is much beauty and goodness in the world. It has not been crushed and stamped out. May we seek for God who is always present with us, may we seek out the gifts of the Holy Spirit he offers to us in our everyday moments.

As we seek, may we also embrace the truth that the God of all creation has sent his Son to seek an encounter and relationship with each and every one of us (cf. Luke 19:10). May we accept Jesus’ loving invitation, spend time with him in the quiet of our hearts, so as to be touched by his loving embrace. In our experience with our savior, our hearts will be expanded, we will be healed and transformed, and led to share what we have experienced with others.

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Photo: from grounds of St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL

First verse of “Word of God, Come Down to Earth”: James Quinn, SJ, 1919-2010, copyright 1969 from Selah Publishing Co, Inc.

YouTube link to hear song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSR8Hgk_IDY

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” The author of this quote, Thomas Edison, is the man who made the light bulb commercially successful after 2,774 failed attempts.

Have there been times we have given up? Times when we just could not continue. pause

Have there been times when we have continued and overcame obstacles as well as failures to reach our desired goal? pause

The one thing that Thomas Edison and we who have reached some of our goals have in common with our biblical accounts today is perseverance. Perseverance is a gift that we keep believing, hoping, and trusting no matter what. We keep on keepin’ on.

Moses does just that. We heard how he and his two assistants Aaron and Hur climbed a hill. In actuality, scripture scholars believe that with a closer reading of the Hebrew, the more accurate translation is that Moses climbed a mountain. Moses was getting along in years, so climbing a mountain would take more perseverance than a hill.

Once he reached the summit, he stood. As long as he held his staff and kept his arms up, Joshua and the Israelites “had the better of the fight.” When he lowered his arms, they started to lose ground.

Moses had the will, but no longer the stamina of his youth, so he accepted a little help from his friends. Aaron and Hur set up a rock seat and held his arms up, on until sundown. The Israelites persevered.

Now you may be wondering, as I did for a long time. Great story of perseverance, but how was Moses holding up his arms helpful to the winning or losing of a battle. Holding his arms up was a posture of prayer for ancient Israelites. This was not only a feat of physical perseverance for Moses but an exercise in prayerful perseverance. Moses was interceding on behalf of his Israelite warriors, and he persevered, even when he was no longer physically able. Moses, Aaron, Hur, and the Israelite soldiers faced their challenges, trusted in God, and God helped them to win the battle.

Luke’s Gospel gives us another account of perseverance with the unjust judge and the persistent widow. We can tell the judge is both unjust and does not fear God because devout Jews recognized that God commanded that they take care of the vulnerable among them like, widows, orphans, and refugees because they were the most vulnerable.

The judge refused to give the woman the time of day. The widow is only asking for a just decision. She is not trying to bend or twist the law to her advantage. She just wants a fair hearing.

What finally moves him to hear her plea also reveals the wickedness of his heart. Because of her persistence, the judge fears that she will at some point lose it and strike him, or as a more literal rendering of the text reads, give him a black eye!

Her persistence wins out, not because his conscience is moved, but his own unjust nature projects what he might do in the same situation!

Jesus sums up his parable by stating that, “Will not God then not secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out day and night?”

Then he finishes with this zinger, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth.”

Will his disciples give up too soon in their prayers? Will they give up when he fails to return. Will they not persevere? In the first century, many believed Jesus’ second coming was imminent.

The good news is that two thousand years later, we are still here. In each generation, there have been those who have been faithful and persistent despite the many distractions, diversion, trials and tribulations that have arisen. We who gather together tonight continue to say yes to God and continue to come to say thank you as we celebrate the Eucharist yet again.

What might be a goal you have or a struggle that you have been tangling with? Don’t give up. If you can’t do it alone, you have friends and family like Aaron and Hur who can pray with you and help where needed.

God is also with us. He has not abandoned us in our moment of trial. Even if he has not answered our prayers in the way we had hoped, he is with us. Let us keep our eyes on Jesus and not the wind and the waves of the storm that threaten to undo us.

Don’t look left or right. Know without a doubt that we are not alone, that Jesus will give us the strength to persevere as he did on the Cross. He suffered and died for us that we might have life and life to the full. He died for us so that he could be with us at this exact moment in time to lead us forward to victory. The battle has already been won. We just need to keep trusting in Jesus, keep praying, and keep on, keepin’ on.

Photo: St. Vincent de Paul Chapel, St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL

Link for the Mass readings from Sunday, October 16, 2022