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Reflections on the Gospel Reading for the Day
The love of Jesus received, helps us to heal and love others as we have been loved.
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you” (Jn 15:12).
God created us from the abundance and outpouring of his trinitarian love to be loved, and to love him in return. 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, and a willingness to sacrifice for one another. We are not to seek in return, but are to empty and give ourselves away. The return we get is from experiencing the infinite wellspring and source of the Holy Spirit that rises up within us. The more we hold back, the less we receive, the more we give, the more we experience. We are to resist withdrawing our love and assuming a selfish posture that leads to us becoming more like a stagnant pool. Instead, we are to remain open so 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 best: 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 rejoicing in their becoming fully alive. Nor does this mean that we become doormats or enablers of dysfunctional or abusive behavior. We hold people accountable – for to love is also to be clear about respecting our’s and another’s dignity.
This practice of love is also not exclusive but universal. Yes, we are to love those in our family, community, place of worship, tribe, political party, and nation, while at the same time we must be willing to go out from our comfort zones and protected bubbles to risk opening ourselves up to those who we feel are different, those who do not see the world as we see it, and even those we consider our enemies. This does not mean we have to agree or even like someone else. Jesus commands us to love, to respect the dignity of the person as our starting point. This is the love he offers us and calls us to do the same.
Speaking and listening with a heart and mind open to the love of God is also a good way to participate in the divine communion of love that is shared between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Authentic communication happens when we state clearly our beliefs, our thoughts, and dreams, and also allow others to do the same. Even though we may differ in our points of view, we can still grow together in love. What may prevent us from doing so is our own wounds. These wounds can lead to reacting and talking at and over one another, demeaning, belittling, disdaining, and/or are condescending one another.
Receiving Jesus’ love regularly can help our healing process begin, and it will increase the more we share his love with others. Pope Leo has invited us to be “a Church that builds bridges and encourages dialogue, a Church ever open to welcoming”. We are welcoming and build such bridges of dialogue when we are willing to identify our own wounds, allow Jesus to love us there, and lead us to love as we have been loved. From that starting point we are better able to encounter the person and free ourselves from prejudicial caricatures and labels that hopefully will dissolve through our interaction and respectfully engaging with one another.
Instead of keeping each other at arm’s length, when we are willing to love as Jesus loves us, we will better be able to listen with patience and understanding. We will learn to embrace and grow from one another. Yet, there will be those that are not willing to respect us nor dialogue. We can still love them and respect their position. We can hope for an opening and seek for a movement of mutual, loving dialogue. Even if not, we at least can resist adding fuel to the fire. Let our starting point be to recognize and remember who we are, beloved daughters and sons of God our Father, seek to approach each other in love and in our engagement, and let God happen.
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Photo: Quiet time to be with Jesus before our communal Mass here at our annual priest convocation.
Pope Leo XIV quote from his May 8 Ubi et Orbi message
Remaining attached to the vine, Jesus, our source, we will bear rich fruit.
As the branch of the vine matures, it begins to look more like the vine itself. As the branch remains connected to the vine, as it is sustained by the nourishment provided, and protected by the vine grower, the branches become more and more conformed to the vine. This is also true in the event that a branch not originally attached to the vine is grafted to it. Over time, the branches are almost indistinguishable from the vine itself. The blessing of the vine does not stop there. A healthy and mature branch will also bear fruit.
Our hope, as disciples of Jesus, no matter what our background, culture, gender, ethnicity, or race will be the same. We are to be one as the Son and the Father are one. As St Paul has written to the Churches in Galatia and Collosse: “In Christ there is neither Jew or Greek, circumcision or uncircumcision, male or female, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free because we are all one in Christ” (cf. Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11).
Being a disciple of Jesus is not being a mindless follower of his. Quite the opposite! The more we are conformed to Jesus, the more we come to know him and also come to experience the unique gift of ourselves. We begin to let go of the pressures to conform to the pressures of the world, that which stunts our growth, and begin to embrace the freedom and truth of who we are. That freedom that just wants to burst out is allowed to be free when we die to our false selves and live in the love of Christ.
We will experience the freedom of being fully alive when we accept the invitation of Jesus to enter the divine communion of love between himself and his Father. We remain connected to him as the vine when we also “obey Jesus and love one another with God’s radical, self-giving love” (Martin and Wright, 254). Focusing solely and turning in upon ourselves disconnects us from the vine, from the very source of our lives. Just as the body will suffer without water and food, so our soul will suffer if we are separated from the living spring of our sustenance. Remaining attached to Jesus, the vine, means that we will mature and bear the fruit of joy that expands out beyond ourselves to engage others.
A good measure of our ripe harvest is when we: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful” (Colossians 3:12-15).
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Photo: Accessed from Coravin Wine
Martin, Francis and Wright, IV, William M. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.
Jesus radiates the light of peace to dissolve the clouds of division, violence and war.
Why so much violence? So many countries are and have been consistently embroiled by the ravages of war. Many countries, including our own, were founded on the taking of lands by force and oppression of aboriginal peoples. Too many of our youth and citizens die from gun violence and mass murders. So many examples of road rage, domestic abuse, human trafficking, terrorism – foreign and domestic, and the myriad of random acts of violence that continue daily.
We may hear goodwill speeches shared after each atrocity, participate in the petitions and intercessions ringing from our ambos and pulpits in our places of worship, and pray personally and in prayer groups, participate and/or witness demonstrations, marches, and votes for change. All the while, there are those working in the trenches of communities throughout the world, putting their own lives at risk, matching their words and prayers with their deeds. And yet, do any of these efforts make a difference?
There is a constant temptation of cynicism and despair biting at our heels, but let us never give in. There is a light the shines in the darkness of our fallen world. There is hope for a better day. We can experience both light and hope when we read and/or hear, pray with and rest, in the words of Jesus: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27).
This peace that Jesus promises to leave with his apostles is a peace that is not of this world, a peace that surpasses all understanding (cf. Philippians 4:7), and this peace has been and continues to be offered to us as a gift. Many have indeed said, “If there is a God, well then, why doesn’t he do anything?” God did and continues to. God sent his Son, the King of kings and the Prince of Peace. The peace that God shares through his Son and the love of the Holy Spirit is offered to one person at a time. This is why when Jesus rose he only appeared to those he chose and not the whole world.
Jesus is to be encountered and his relationship is built one person at a time in each generation. Each of us have the invitation to accept or reject his invitation to believe in him, but so much more. Jesus invites us to be his disciples. This means more than just putting into practice his teachings, as did the original apostles and saints who in each generation have done just that. We will experience his peace when we come to know Jesus. We do this best when we surrender our minds and hearts and the very depths of our souls to the love and peace that Jesus offers and teaches and allow him into the places of poverty, pain, and suffering where we are most in need.
Our world will not change until we change, until we allow ourselves to spend time each day breathing, receiving, resting, and abiding in God’s love. Until we are willing to be loved, until we are willing to confess our sins, and until we are willing to admit we need God’s help, we will continue to slip into survival mode and engage more in reaction and retaliation. When we do allow Jesus in, to be loved, forgiven, and accept his help, we will begin to heal will begin to see each other not as enemies but as brothers and sisters, hurting and in need of help.
The peace of God that the risen Jesus offers is not some abstract formula. His command to love is not some pie in the sky universal love for all. The teachings and acts of peace and love that Jesus shares throughout the Gospels are very concrete, individual, and personal. Jesus interacts with people as people, not as numbers. He engages and directs us to do the same, by encountering, accompanying, and loving one person at a time. The real question is not why isn’t God doing anything? The real question is why have we left the gift of God’s peace offered to us unwrapped?
If we want peace in our world or even our corner of the world, our hearts and minds must be open to receive God’s love. We must be still and receive, savor, and embrace the love he wants to give and then share with others what we have received and as he directs. To receive and embrace the peace of Jesus, we must be willing to let go of our own weapons of hate, prejudice, cynicism, racism, division, selfishness, and the like. God created us as beings who are interconnected, which means that what one does affects all, for the sun rises and sets on the good and the bad alike.
If we want peace, as I believe all of us really do, we need to be more aware of and choose more intentionally our thoughts, words, actions, and even the expressions on our faces. The thoughts that we feed are the ones that bear fruit in our words and deeds. Figuratively and literally, we need to be willing to “beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks” (cf. Isaiah 2:4).
This verse becomes real in our lives when we choose to resist the temptation to react and choose instead to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the concrete, we can choose to disagree with someone without being disagreeable or disrespectful. When we make a mistake, let us resist beating ourselves up over the process and instead learn from our misstep, and begin again. We also do so when we are willing to seek and offer forgiveness, acknowledge we need to be healed, and be more patient and understanding. We can’t do any of this alone and that is why we need a Savior, to heal us, save us, and lead us from our own darkness into his light.
Can we really counter the violence, wars, and division, really bring about world peace? In some abstract form, for all people, for all time, no. What we can do is make a daily commitment to spend time with Jesus, receive, rest, and abide in his love. Study, pray, meditate with and learn from him. As we love, follow the way of Jesus and practice his truth, we will begin to live a life of peace that counters the division, violence, and hatred of a weary and worn world. Will that make a difference? Absolutely, for you and for me, and those within the realm of our influence. May we begin in our own little way, and bring a little light and love to our corner of the world today.
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Photo: Jesus is the light that reveals the way, the truth, and the life to experience lasting peace and unconditional love.
Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 5, 2026
The commandments of Jesus do not constrict but expand our freedom to be loved and to love.
“Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me” (John 14:21).
Especially in our modern, western mind set, the idea or mere mention of following commandments may cause a bristling. Mostly this is because of the witnessing weakness of our fallen nature expressed in egregious ways through the abuse of power, abuse in relationships, and a weakening of trust in secular and religious institutions.
Jesus though is offering more of a challenge as he draws the following of commandments and love together. He is sharing with his apostles in the beginning stages of his farewell discourse, and before his crucifixion, what he feels is most important to share. His testament that he not only wants to give, but these final words he wants to impart upon them in such a way that they continue to learn and receive his teachings, put them into practice, allow themselves to be transformed by and so perpetuate them.
Just as commandments can lead one to bristle, love has many more superficial meanings than what Jesus means. One reason is that, even though the English language has a plethora of words to utilize and choose from, there is only one word for love and it is interpreted and used in many ways. In Ancient Greek, there are four words that are used to connote love. There is eros, which has to do with attraction. It is the beginning stage of love because we are drawn out of ourselves as we are attracted to another. The next word for love is philia, which aligns with friendship, a wanting to be together, to share between friends. If our love matures it moves from attraction or infatuation to friendship. The third word, storge, is the deeper love shared with family members which can be through blood or a deepening of friendship. The fourth word is agape, which is unconditional love, a sacrificial love.
When Jesus shares that we are to follow the commandments, he is not demanding that we do so as a tyrant would. He is providing boundaries, guard rail, parameters for us to grow and mature as people who love, who, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, will the good of the other as other. As humans, we are social beings. We want to belong, to be accepted, and to be a part of. We seek meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in our lives. This is best done through cooperation and collaboration with God and with one another, striving to love unconditionally, agape. We desire to belong, to be loved, and to love in return. Yet, we need to ground our love in God first or our pursuit of love and belonging will be disordered.
As a good son of St. Augustine, Pope Leo XIV quoted Augustine in his inaugural Mass as Pope last year: “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you (Confessions, I: 1,1).” We are made by God to be loved and to love in return. Nothing we seek in this world will satisfy this deepest hunger that we all have in our soul besides the love God has for us. Unfortunately, we succumb to many disordered affections in pursuit of the love we seek. We are led astray by apparent goods that leave us hungry, thirsty, and wanting for more.
If we operate from a self-centered posture in which we are only turned in upon our self, and we only seek to manipulate and get from others, or worse, objectify others. Instead of working for consensus and sharing a common vision, we will ultimately be empty with the exchange on any level, because even in our relationships as with material things, we will be left wanting more. This is true because once the immediacy of the stimulation, whether material, emotional, or sensual, ends, so does the experience of the feeling. Some happiness may linger from the effect, but we will never be filled or satisfied with that which is finite. We will continue to seek more and more until the pursuit of instant and constant gratification ensnares us and we are entangled in a web of addiction.
God’s commandments, grounded in love, are meant to provide boundaries for us, training wheels, and to keep us free from enslavement to sin. The commandments point us to that which is not apparently but truly good for a wholesome and whole life. At the same time God’s commandments and the teachings of Jesus help us to mature as persons moving away from a posture of being self-centered to becoming disciples that love as Jesus loves.
Discipline in this way is meant to be a means of freedom for excellence such that we can become who God calls us to be and who we truly desire to be. God is not in competition with us. He is our biggest fan. As St Irenaeus wrote, the glory of God is the human being fully alive! When we can rest in the truth that God loves us as we are, even in our sin, when we can stop, breathe, receive, rest, and abide in his love, we can begin to settle and feel safe. Our restlessness can slow, the grasping can release, and we can just be, be loved, be ourselves, and experience peace.
Commandments and morality imposed indiscriminately, without reason or an end goal is a bludgeon. Love and mercy without accountability and justice can be enabling. Jesus’ invites us to receive and observe his commandments so that we may be freed from disordered affections and so properly order and discipline our desires and passions to be free to love authentically. Jesus knows what will truly fulfill and give us deeper meaning. May we trust in and learn from the deposit of faith passed on from Jesus to the Apostles, to each successive generation, as well as the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate that the Father sent in his name (John 14:26).
Pope Leo XIV, the vicar of Christ, implored us about a year ago: “Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters.” We are brothers and sisters, disciples of Jesus, when we receive and put into practice Jesus’s commandments, when we love him and his Father, we are given the discernment to reveal the lies of the enemy, we grow, and mature in our spiritual lives. The “heart of the gospel” Pope Leo preached in his inaugural address echoed again in his Sunday Regina Caeli address, May 3, 2026.
Having faith in God and Jesus “frees our hearts from the anxiety of possessing and acquiring, and from the illusion that we must pursue a position of prestige to have worth. Each person already has infinite worth in the mystery of God, which is the true reality. By loving one another as Jesus has loved us, we impart this awareness to one another… through love, amidst a multitude of brothers and sisters, each one discovers that they are uniquely made.”
Let us allow and continue to allow the tender chords of the Holy Spirit’s love to draw us deeper into intimacy with Jesus so that we can be transformed, forgiven, and healed by his love, and so freed from the false lures and promises that seek to divert us from being the beloved daughters and sons of God our Father that he has uniquely created us to be.
Photo: Pope Leo Regina Caeli address (Vatican Media)
Quotes above from Pope Leo XIV Inauguration Mass, May 18, 2025: Transcript of Pope Leo XIV’s Homily
When we love, we reveal Jesus and his Father to others.
Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip” (Jn 14:8-9)?
Again we see the Apostles struggling to understand that Jesus and the Father are one, that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus attempts to explain again to Philip that whoever sees him sees the Father.
The challenge here is that Philip and Jesus are using the same language but talking from different points of view. When Philip is asking Jesus to show him the Father through physical eyes, he is asking to see God along the lines of what we might perceive from Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of God. Jesus has been revealing the Father through the spiritual eyes of his works. Or: “He might be looking for a grand theophany, because his request of Jesus, Show us the Father, recalls Moses’ request of the Lord at Mount Sinai: ‘Let me see your glory!” (Exodus 33:18).” (Martin and Wright, 246).
God is not finite, he is not a being like we are. He is neither male nor female. We use the term Father because Jesus used it often to speak of him, and thus why we use the pronoun him. Jesus used analogous language to create a bridge of understanding for us who are finite, human beings to help us understand better that we can have a relationship with our God who is Infinite Act. God’s essence and his existence is one and the same. Even though God is beyond any genus of being, beyond any way for us to classify him, we can still know and experience God.
Jesus shared with Philip that “The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves” (Jn 14:11).
When Jesus heals, exorcises demons, speaks on his own authority, associates with those on the peripheries, these are some of the ways he is revealing the Father. In these very acts, he is loving those in his midst, he is willing their good. When Philip and the Apostles believed in Jesus and acted in his name they revealed Jesus and so his Father to others. When we love one another as Jesus loves us, live and act from the love we have received from Jesus, we also will reveal Jesus and the Father to others!
Photo: Jesus helps us to remember that we are each beloved daughters and sons of his Father, to be loved by him, to breathe, receive, rest and abide in his love for us and to love in return.
Martin, Francis and William M. Wright IV. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.
Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, May 3, 2026
Jesus Christ, God from God, light from light, true God from true God.
Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9).
Philip was one of the first of the apostles called by Jesus in Galilee (see John 1:43), and so had been with Jesus from the very beginning of his public ministry. He lived, learned, and traveled with Jesus. He experienced the power of his teaching with authority, the exorcisms, healings, and ways that Jesus interacted with him, the apostles, and others. Yet, he still had much to learn, as do we all about the core reality of who Jesus is.
Jesus, fully human, is also at the same time, fully divine. The struggle to understand this truth is on full display throughout the gospels. Those who believe in Jesus and have followed him, like Andrew and Philip, as well as the other disciples, are seeking to understand, but as we see with Philip in today’s account, they still fall short of the depth of the truth regarding who Jesus really is. Which is understandable, because to understand that Jesus is who he says he is, “I and the Father are one” (See John 10:30), is beyond our rational comprehension.
This is why so many within the leadership of the scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Sanhedrin (The Jewish High Council) are so vehement about crushing the rise of Jesus and his popularity. They understand Jesus very clearly, that by his very words and actions, he is declaring himself to be God. To them, that a human being could be God is blasphemous. So they seek to obliterate this heresy.
Along with the apostles, there were others who saw Jesus differently. They expressed faith and trust in Jesus. Their hearts and minds were open that there was something more to Jesus. They did not feel threatened, but something in the depths of their souls was moved to follow and stay close. Peter and Martha remained close and in time experienced deeper, spiritual insights. Peter, when Jesus asked the apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (see Mt. 16:15). During the exchange between Martha and Jesus regarding her brother Lazarus’ death, when Jesus asked her if she believed that he was “the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live… Do you believe this?” Martha said, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (see John 11:17-27).
Even with these insights, Peter and Martha, still did not comprehend the fullness of who Jesus taught and revealed himself to be. As the apostles and other disciples would trust and grow in their understanding of Jesus so would the Church in the succeeding generations seek to understand and develop the truth of who Jesus is as well. From the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) we received this line about the identity of Jesus in the Creed that each one of us affirms each Sunday: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God form true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father”.
This statement clearly affirms Jesus’ teaching that he and the Father are one. One God, while at the same time distinct in person and operation as Father and Son. Who Jesus is in relation to his human nature also was further understood as the hypostatic union. This is the dogmatic teaching that Jesus is one divine person, subsisting in two natures, fully human and fully divine. The incarnation is that historical event in which through the full ascent of Mary’s, “Yes,” the Son of God through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, entered the womb of Mary and took on flesh. The Son of God became human.
The Council of Chalcedon (451) helped to clarify this point of the two natures of Jesus subsisting in one divine person. Jesus has “two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation – the difference of the natures being by no means taken away because of the union, but rather the distinctive character of each nature being preserved, and [each] combining in one person and hyspostasis – not divided or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God, Logos, Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets of old and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us about him, and the symbol of the fathers has handed down to us” (Pelikan, 264).
Jesus’ characteristics and natures of the divine and human are distinct. There is no co-mingling, no mixing of the divine and human. Jesus is not a stew or smoothie of the divine and the human. Nor are there two distinct persons in Jesus. Jesus is one divine person. He remained the Son, fully divine at the moment he took on flesh, and in that moment became fully human. St. Irenaeus offered this description: “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did through His transcendent love, become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what He is himself” (Against the Heresies).
What God the Father did in time and space, as an outpouring of his love for us, was to send his Son to become one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity. Jesus, fully human and divine, showed the face of his Father to Philip, the apostles, and all those who met him. He still does so with us today. In instituting the sacraments, especially in his Body and Blood, present in the Eucharist, he gave us a way to grow in greater intimacy with himself and his Father so that we can also experience the love they share between them, the Holy Spirit.
This truth, to be affirmed in each of us will not come about through just an intellectual pursuit or exercise. We come to know Jesus as one divine Person subsisting in two natures, the human and divine, not by memorizing this fact. We come to know the fullness and truth of who Jesus is by knowing him. A simple way we can begin, is to begin each day, before doing anything else, by being still and breathing, slowly and deeply. We listen and become a friend with silence for God speaks in the silence of our hearts.
Then think back over the last 24 and recall at least three people or things we are grateful for, no matter how small. Then make an intentional act to dedicate this day to Jesus by asking for his guidance to improve upon one thing in our lives as well as one way that we can help someone in a simple and concrete way. These simple choices of slowing down to be silent, pondering who and by what we have been blessed, and opening ourselves up to Jesus’ guidance and will, will help us to know Jesus a little more today than we did yesterday and we will not only grow closer in intimacy with Jesus but with those in our lives as well.
Painting: “Christ Divine” by Jorge Cocco accessed from Altus Fine Art blog.
Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 2, 2026
Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1971.
When we trust and have faith in Jesus, we will experience his help in times of trouble.
Our days are so full of activities, conflicts, health issues, technological stimulation, 24/7 news cycles, social media interaction, challenges, polarization, as well as good and healthy activities, pursuits, interactions, recreation, and engagements which can all contribute to our emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual weariness. If we do not have the proper foundation and orientation, we can feel stretched, hollowed out, and/or fatigued at best. One day can seem to blend into another, and another, and another. The image of being on a hamster wheel or an unending treadmill can fall afresh in our mind’s eye when we actually do take a minute to breathe. Anxiety, worry, stress, fear, prescriptions, and addictions all appear to be on the rise and swirling out of control.
Is there an answer to this hyper pace or are we doomed to just keep going until the wheels fall off? The opening verse in today’s reading provides an antidote when we are feeling any or all of the above. As well as a bell going off if we are riding along at this pace unaware the lug nuts are even loosening!
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me” (Jn 14:1).
Jesus spoke specifically to his disciples after he had talked to him about leaving them. He was going back to the Father through the way of the cross. No matter what challenges we are experiencing, what is knocking on the door of our minds as we are reading these words, we are invited to breathe, identify them, seek the discernment of the Holy Spirit and renounce any thoughts that are not of his will, allow any emotions to be experienced and released, and seek clarification on any issues that we need to discern. We can trust Jesus with helping us to discern how best to deal with the external challenges as well as the internal, menacing thoughts. Putting God first does not mean that the externals to our life will immediately take an abrupt turn for the better, nor does it mean that we will feel a peace within from our mental maelstroms.
What establishing a foundational relationship with Jesus does mean is that we will have support and divine assistance. We will come to know and experience that we are not alone in our struggles. The disciples found this out when in the midst of a sudden sea squall. Their boat was taking on water as the waves grew higher such that they were terrified and so, called to a sleeping Jesus. Jesus awoke and with a word, he calmed the sea (cf. Mk 4:35-41).
Jesus may or may not calm the sea of our trials and tribulations, but what he will do is be present with us through our storms in life and we can trust in him that he will guide us through. As we grow more confident in our trust in Jesus, as we feel safer that he has our back, we will be assured that no matter who or what comes at us, he will be there by our side to assist us. We will experience a peace that surpasses all understanding and calm within ourselves. The ultimate assurance that Jesus provides is that when we surrender our life to him, we belong to him, we are not alone nor orphaned. He gave his life for us, to redeem and save us so that we can be assured of our home for eternity. “I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be” (John 14:3).
Jesus has not so much saved us from our sin as he has saved us for eternity. Jesus promises that he will come back for us at the hour of our death. He is preparing a place for us in the heavenly kingdom. We do not have to just wait for him to come back though. By growing in our relationship with him now, we enter into and participate in his life and so experience his relationship with his Father and experience the love of the Holy Spirit. Jesus grants us a participation in the life of the Trinity. Even though these moments of grace are fleeting, they are very powerful and consoling and last.
If we are struggling at any level and are seeking to build our trust and faith in Jesus, it is important to proceed patiently. God works slowly and this goes against the instant gratification culture we are swimming in. God is building a foundation in us which is meant to last not only for the moment, or even this life alone, but to lead us into the next. When we make time to sit at the feet of Jesus, slow down and breathe, ask for his help, seek his discernment about where we can make changes in our life, he will lead us. We just need to trust him and be willing to follow his lead.
This time does not need to be lengthy, three to five minutes a day to start can do wonders. On the surface level, by stopping for five minutes to pray and breathe more deeply and consciously, we get off the wheel, we step out of survival and reaction mode, so that we can then make more intentional and insightful decisions, and we can come to see that we truly have options, but more importantly, we begin to develop a relationship and intimacy with Jesus so to begin to recognize his voice in our stillness and in our activity. When we show up, God will happen. When we show up, breathe a few deep breaths, allow the shoulders to come out of our ears, we can begin to experience God’s love as well. Once slowing down, then there are some practices that can help us to grow in our relationship with God.
The Liturgy of the Hours, and the daily readings of the Mass, meditating, praying, and contemplating the word of God have been foundational for me and my transformation, healing, and growth. Over my two years at the seminary, I was also introduced to practicing a holy hour of prayer, often before the Blessed Sacrament daily. Each of these practices have become foundational and non-negotiable anchors in my day. My schedule has gotten even busier in my second year of priesthood, and St. Francis de Sales wise words remind me, “It is important to set aside thirty minutes a day to pray, and if busy, one hour.” Seems counter intuitive. But if we hold firm to the half or full hour, other activities of the day must go. Then we discern what not have been there in the first place.
Having set times to stop to meditate and pray throughout the day has been helpful, especially on those days when my schedule is full to overflowing. Author Wanda E. Brunstetter, wrote, “If you are too busy to pray, you are busier than God wants you to be.” There is a lot of truth in her statement. I have had busy days, weeks and months, where I have wondered if taking the time to pray and meditate was really the most sensible choice. Time and again doing so has made an incredible difference and has now been helping me better reevaluate what I schedule into each day.
The Rosary is another great way to get into God’s word by meditating on the mysteries of the life of Jesus and Mary. If you are not able to pray the whole Rosary in one sitting, start with one decade a day. Read for a few minutes from the Bible once in the morning and then return to meditate on the same verse or verses that touch or challenge you throughout the day. You can also read the daily Mass readings and place your self in the scene and allow the account to open up before you as if were actually there – your own version of the Chosen.
A wonderful invitation given by St. Teresa of Avila is when we are reading and feel the sense to close our eyes and just be still, to do so. Each of these practices offer us a few of the many ways to stop the madness, to slow down, simplify, and connect with the power, the love, and the grace that Jesus yearns to share with us such that no matter the external or internal upheaval, we may experience his peace, that peace that surpasses all understanding (cf. Philippians 4:7).
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Photo: Tuesday afternoons with Jesus, refreshing and renewing time!
Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 1, 2026
Jesus has come to serve, not to be served. How about us?
Today’s Gospel from John begins as Jesus had just finished washing the feet of his disciples. Jesus then said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him” (Jn 13:16). Jesus not only taught the truth that God the Father sent his Son to serve and not be served, he modeled this practice consistently.
From his conception, gestation, and birth, the Son of God developed as a human being in the very simplest of conditions and endured the hardships of those on the margins. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were most likely ostracized because of the circumstances of Jesus’ conception. The census was a good opportunity to get of Nazareth. And then when the time came there was no room or hospitality so Jesus was born in a cave. Very soon after his birth, the young family was forced to flee from Bethlehem to Egypt. When Herod the Great died they returned to Nazareth, and other than the incident when he remained in the Temple while Jospeh and Mary left him, we hear nothing about the life of Jesus until he begins his public ministry. The most likely reason for this was that there was nothing to tell. Jesus most likely apprenticed with Joseph, in the trade of a simple tektōn, a woodworker, which was pretty low on the rung of the social ladder.
Through the short time of his ministry, Jesus modeled for his disciples what a follower was and what it meant to be one of his successors. To follow in his footsteps they would need to participate in servant leadership, which is really authentic leadership as Jesus lived it. He not only taught them but lived and modeled that there is no task too menial that we can’t roll up our sleeves and dive in and help. There is no person too other that we can’t assist when they are in need.
In this act of washing the feet, Jesus also revealed something deeper. The depth of his love for the apostles and each of us. The Son was willing to come close, to become one with us in our humanity, to be in solidarity with us even in our sin by participating in John’s baptism of repentance, even though he was free of sin. He then took upon himself the sin of the world on the cross. In the washing of the apostle’s feet, he also showed the depth of his love in caring for them in such a menial way. Another foreshadowing of the depths of his love in his willingness to give his life in a humiliating and horrific way for all of humanity in willing to be crucified.
Jesus, fully divine, did not grasp at his divinity or lord it over anyone. He was willing to be baptized even though he was free of sin, washed the feet of his apostles even though he was their master and teacher, and he was willing to experience crucifixion and death even as the Messiah. In each of these acts, Jesus reveals the full gift of himself, holding nothing back. Jesus encouraged his apostles and is encouraging us with every breath, thought, word, and action to love each other as he has loved us.
A good prayer and meditation for us today is to ask Jesus to reveal for us how we have resisted his urgings in the past regarding serving and loving others as well as when we have refused to interact or treat someone with anything less than the basic human dignity which they deserved which is to love each other, to will each other’s good. Have we ever thought that what he was asking of us was beneath us? Have there been people we have kept at arm’s length or refused to reach out to? For those ways in which we have withdrawn within ourselves and refused to be of help may we ask for his forgiveness.
Are we willing to allow Jesus to wash our feet, to heal our wounds, and forgive our sins? If so, then having been washed, healed, forgiven and loved, may we be more willing to share what we have received from Jesus. May we be more open to each of the people and/or tasks that God asks us to engage in, the discernment to know his will, and the clarity and courage to act as his servant with humility, with love, and without hesitation.
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Painting: “The washing of the disciples’ feet” by Ghislaine Howard
Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, April 30, 2026
Spiritual Stepping Stones 