christianity
Let’s vote and then be about the work of healing, reconciling, and loving one another.
When all the votes are in and counted, may each of us be ready, willing, and able to read and ponder today’s words from St. Paul. At least in the Church, may we commit again to seek God first. May we be “of the same mind” believing in Our Father who art in heaven and that his named is hallowed. May we recognize each other as his beloved children, brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ.
May we let go of the temptation to demonize and dehumanize one another and instead be willing to greet each other “with the same love” and be “united in heart, thinking one thing.”To love, is to will the good of the other. If we can start there with a willingness to, instead of seeking the worst, respect one other as human beings, seek the best for, speak and listen to, and spend time with one another, we might grow again to like one another.
Instead of placing ourselves first and foremost before God and everyone else, let’s place God first, seek to follow his will, and see each other from his eyes. Instead of tearing each other down, may we make a commitment to respect and be more understanding. We can accomplish this when we are willing to: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory;” and “rather, humbly regard others as more important than ourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also everyone for those of others” (Philippians 2:2-4).
No matter who is elected, may we: be willing to work together to promote the common good, seek healing and reconciliation, respect the dignity of each person from he moment of conception until natural death, love each other by willing each other’s good, so we can help God’s kingdom to come, and his will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Photo: E pluribus unum, out of many one.
Link for the Mass readings for Monday, November 4, 2024
Loving one another can start with a smile.
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12:29-31).
How do we actually live out this great commandment given to us by Jesus? How do we love God that we cannot see?
Our first step is to understand better the love that Jesus is talking about. St Thomas Aquinas teaches us that to love, is to will the good of the other. This is more than an emotion, mere sentiment, or a feeling. To love means to accompany, encourage, and be present to one another. The love that God offers us is unconditional, it is about service and sacrifice.
Jesus doesn’t just want us to maintain the Church, our family, our friends, or our ourselves, he has always called us to be a missionary Church, to go out from ourselves and love others as he loves us. The greatest joy of God is that his creation, his human beings are fully alive!
Many inside and outside of the Church have been wounded, yet her heartbeat is strong, because the lifeblood that flows through her veins comes from her Son, Jesus the Christ. So many of our brothers and sisters are walking away from the Church, but her children still hunger to be loved and to love, they still hunger to belong, to be a part of who God has created them to be. They have a curiosity and desire to learn and they want to know, to have their questions answered, and to find meaning and fulfillment.
If we are to be of help, we start by saying yes to the invitation of Jesus to receive the love of his Father. We are to kneel in his presence, sit at his feet, and allow the transforming love of the Holy Spirit to conform and shape us, to sculpt us in love. At the same time, we are called to learn and know our faith, recognizing that our belief is grounded in both faith and reason, so that we can share who we are as a child of God, and share what we have learned with others, with love, with joy, even in the midst of scandal and crisis. This is not a time to run away, but to stand up for what we believe in, to show, through our own life and commitment, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus Christ is the center of the Church. He is present in the Word proclaimed, in his Body and his Blood that we receive, in the Sacraments, and he is present in each and every one of us. If we are struggling to see or experience God, the best way to begin is to reach out toward another in love.
We are brothers and sisters in Jesus. We hunger and crave to belong to God and one another, whether we are aware of this hunger and thirst consciously or unconsciously, and this is true for the atheist as well as the mystic alike. Jesus invites us to be his disciples and we do so by loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and by loving our neighbor as ourself.
Being a disciple of Jesus is about surrendering ourselves to the love of God, receiving, embracing and being shaped by his loving hands. We are then to share his love and joy with others through invitation, hospitality, welcome; meeting our brothers and sisters where they are, as they are, with understanding, convicting when necessary although never condemning, being patient, and present. “Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired” (St. Mother Teresa).
God loves us more than we can ever mess up. God helps us to see and know that we are not defined by our worst choices or mistakes. God loves us more than we can ever imagine. When we make the time to breathe deeply and slowly, we can receive, rest, and abide in his love. Allowing ourselves to be loved by God allows us to begin again and again.
Each person that we meet today, we will then have something to share; the love we have received. Not sure how or where to start? The easiest way I learned from Mother Teresa is that when you catch the eye of another, share a smile. In that very simple act, we say to another you matter to me, you have dignity, worth, value, you are important, and I love you.
Photo: St. Mother Teresa not only loved through her smile, but in her words and actions. We can be like her not by doing great things, but little things with great love.
Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, November 3, 2024
“Everyone who seeks the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who seeks the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (Jn 6:40).
This is our hope and what we believe, that we who encounter Jesus and believe in him shall have eternal life. God’s will, what he created all of us for, is to be in communion with him and one another in this life and the next. A word of assurance that I often lean on is from the book of Wisdom from our first reading today, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us utter destruction. But they are in peace” (Wisdom 3:1-3).
The miracle of Jesus raising the daughter of the Roman official, Jairus, embodies these verses from Wisdom. As Jesus entered the home of the official many were “making a commotion” and Jesus dismissed them stating: “Go away! the girl is not dead but sleeping.” He was ridiculed by the crowd but paid them no heed. He went to the girl, took her hand, “and the little girl arose” (cf. Mt 9:18-26).
Jesus assured his followers as he assures us today that the will of his Father is that all will be saved. Experiences like the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the son of the widow from Nain, and Lazarus, were not only seeds of hope planting the promise of his resurrection to come but a foretaste of the raising of humanity on the last day. His disciples witnessed Jesus’ actions and words, and not only kept these experiences in their hearts but shared them.
Through the Gospels we are able to enter into and experience the encounters Jesus experienced with others again and again. We also experience Jesus each time we pray, participate in the sacraments, communal worship, and in our willingness to love one another. In each of these moments, we are conformed and shaped into who we have been created and called by God to be in this life and the next.
This All Souls Day we celebrate the gift that Jesus was victorious over sin and death, not only for himself but for all of us. Unlike those he raised from the dead and died again: “We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him” (Romans 6:9). The difference between All Saints yesterday, and the commemoration of all souls today, is that we pray for those who have died still in need of the purifying fire of God’s love. Just as “gold in the furnace” (Wisdom 3:6) is purified, so God purifies those in purgatory. Let us pray for them today that they may be freed from any stain of sin so to also join the communion of Saints!
“Merciful Father, hear our prayers and console us. As we renew our faith in your Son, whom you raised from the dead, strengthen our hope that all our departed brothers and sisters will share in his resurrection, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever” (Prayer for All Souls, from the Liturgy of the Hours).
Photo: Rosary walk a few weeks back, Riverside Park, Vero Beach, FL.
Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, November 2, 2024
May we, like the saints, take the hand of Jesus and Mary and allow them to lead us through this life and into the next.
“Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4).
From a theological reference point, we might suggest that Jesus shared these words from the perspective of the eschatological event, his second coming at the end of time. We can rely on the hope that Jesus died for us all and we will rise with him on the last day. The saints are those who will rise with him.
This is certainly our hope and for those of our loved ones who have died, our hope is that this is true. I also believe that Jesus was also speaking about our day to day experiences as well. Jesus said, as is recorded in Mark 1:15, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” Jesus, is the kingdom at hand, just an outstretched arm away. Those of us who mourn will be blessed, will find comfort when we resist running away, or denying the agony and pain that threatens to overwhelm us and instead allow ourselves to experience the grief and the suffering of our loss. It is in the very embracing of our pain and suffering that we come to encounter Jesus with his arms wide open.
By experiencing the depth of our sorrow and allowing ourselves to grieve and mourn in the loving embrace of Jesus, we can release this unbearable weight and begin to heal. If we ask God or anyone near us why someone dies we may not receive a sufficient answer. His Son though, who suffered the agony, loss, pain, and hurt as we do, understands what we are feeling. His presence and closeness will be the strength we need to guide us through the many ups and downs, fits and starts, of our emotional roller coaster. Just like having a surgical amputation, our life will never be the same, but we will heal and be able to live again.
On this solemnity of the Communion of All Saints, we celebrate all those for whom we believe are now in heaven. This observance began with the holy martyrs who were willing to give their lives for Jesus. There are also those saints throughout the ages who witnessed their faith openly, lived their lives courageously, and to the full. Both have gone before us to the true land of promise, our heavenly home. There are also those unnamed saints who day in and day out quietly lived their faith.
They are all now where we one day seek to be and from there they cheer us on, encourage, and intercede for us that we will one day be with them! The saints are our inspiration, guides, and untiring support. We, like the saints, need not fear death because through our life in Jesus, death no longer has any power over us. Yes, we mourn the loss of those who are no longer with us in this reality, yet we also rejoice in their new life in Christ.
This is the tension. Let us not run from but enter into our pain, grief, and sorrow. Let us allow ourselves to mourn so that we may experience God’s comfort, peace, healing, and yes, even blessing and happiness that will come. At the same time, let us remember and celebrate the lives of those we hold close to our hearts and have gone before us. The veil between heaven and earth is very thin, especially during the Mass where Jesus is made present again. This is the time of fulfillment, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Let us reach out our hands to Jesus and Mary, each of them who daily said, “Yes.” to the Father, and allow them to lead us to repentance and a holy life that will ultimately lead us to heaven to enjoy eternity with all the saints!
Photo: JoAnn shared that she was just changing her address. May it now be 144 All Saints Way, Heaven!
Link for the Mass readings for Friday, November 1, 2024
Saying, “Yes.” to the will of God helps our little faith to increase.
Some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “Go away, leave this area because Herod wants to kill you” (Lk 13:31).
Even with this warning, from some Pharisees no less, Jesus continued to teach openly and publicly as well as performed healings and cast out demons. He did not fear the threat of retribution even from the likes of Herod who had killed John the Baptist. He willingly surrendered all to his Father.
The courage of Jesus makes him a very dangerous man because he cannot be controlled, threatened, or coerced. Jesus is sure of what God has sent him to do and he is going to follow through with his Father’s plan even to the point of giving his life.
Many, even those who didn’t believe like the centurion who ran his spear through his side, admired his courage, coming to believe that he was the Messiah (cf. Mark 16:39). Many of the first-century martyrs who followed Jesus to their own deaths were a big reason for those who came to believe and also became followers of this One who died on a Cross. Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, living from 155 – 220 AD, went so far as to say that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
We are all called by God to be martyrs, not necessarily by shedding our blood. Martyr literally means witness. Each one of us is called by Jesus to bear witness to what we believe. Faith is a gift. If we feel that we are weak in our faith, we are in good company, because Jesus said on more than one occasion to his Apostles, the ones he would send out as his witnesses, “Oh, you of little faith.”
The Apostles continued with the little faith they had. They trusted in Jesus and continued to move forward. If we feel like our faith could use a little shoring up, let us not choose the path of Judas who isolated himself from the forgiveness of God. Let us instead ask God to increase our faith, to allow the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and transform us, and be open to opportunities to be more understanding, kind, and patient with ourselves and each other.
Jesus, please help us to be still and hear the Father calling us, challenging us, to resist indifference and be his witnesses in our everyday lives and to be more open with each stirring of the Holy Spirit to be better witnesses. Each time we say yes to the will of God, our faith increases.
Photo: Mary’s, “Yes.” opened the way for our, “Yes.” Praying in front of an icon of Mary in the chapel at Bethany Retreat Center, in Lutz, FL while on my canonical retreat this time last year.
Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, October 30, 2024
Love is the narrow gate that we enter to grow closer to Jesus and one another.
He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough” (Lk 13:24).
Jesus offered this answer to the person who asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” Jesus’ parables about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (cf Mt 19:24) and the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31) also reveal to us that what we say and do in our lives regarding the welfare of others matter. Are we building walls or bridges regarding our relationship with God and one another, are we including or excluding?
There are many distractions, diversions, and temptations that pull at us. When we give in to them, we can strain or even break our relationships. Jesus said many will not be strong enough, and on our own he is right. St Paul also realized this, for he wrote, “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil that I do not want” (Romans 7:19). How many of us could say the same?
Relationships are not easy in the best of circumstances, this is true on the human level as well as the spiritual. St Teresa of Avila, the 16th-century Spanish saint and doctor of the Church, shared openly and honestly with Jesus once after being thrown from a carriage into a mud puddle, “If you treat your friends so poorly, it is no wonder that you have so few!” I relate to the honesty of this quote. My maternal grandparents had the same kind of open, unfiltered relationship with each other. To an outsider looking in, they would have missed the depth of love they had developed for one another for over sixty years and which continued to grow into their last days.
Authentic relationships demand that we go through the narrow gate of love. Love is more than mere sentiment, emotions, or feelings. We must grow in our willingness to sacrifice, be committed, understanding and forgiving, present, patient, willing to risk being vulnerable, honest, to respect boundaries, and share who we truly are with one another, free of any pretense or masks. On our own, we are not strong enough to persevere, but with God, we will remain faithful.
My grandmother told me to take the time we needed to get to know each other, but once we knew, not to wait too long. We didn’t. JoAnn and I were married six months after we started dating. Each of us brought our own baggage, wounds, and made plenty of mistakes, to our relationship, yet each year was better than the one before because we remained committed to God and to each other. We became more patient and understanding, we empowered and were there for each other. At each of the crossroads that arose over our twenty-three years, we chose the narrow gate. We loved Jesus and each other and that made all the difference.
Jesus is the relationship we need to develop first and foremost and he will then help us to properly order our relationships as well as all aspects of our lives. He will be our foundation and strength as challenges arise. Jesus continually invites us with his tender chords of love to draw closer into relationship with him so better to grow closer into relationship with one another.
Photo: Jesus at the center of our relationship may all the difference.
Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, October 30, 2024
God is in our midst!
“You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time” (Lk 12:56).
Reading this verse brought two memories from my childhood. The first one is from when my friend Steve and I as kids were interested in reading the natural signs and weather patterns, and we enjoyed watching our local weatherman, Hilton Kaderli, forecasting the weather each night. Another memory was with my cousin Danny. We were at my Uncle Pierre and Aunt Claudette’s house one afternoon and we saw a storm rising. We headed to the road and started running as fast as we could in the opposite direction to see how far we could get before the storm caught us, and when it did we walked home, sucking in air, being pelted by the rain, and enjoyed a good soaking. Steve, Danny, and I read the signs of the earth and the sky, but we didn’t pay all that much attention to the things of the spirit at that time.
Not only through his teachings, but also through his public actions, Jesus revealed some powerful signs that God was in their midst. Jesus taught and preached on his own authority, he cast out demons, forgave sins, healed people, met and ate with sinners and women. These were amazing signs that the Messiah came to dwell among them, yet some did not or would not see. They rationalized away that he could not be who he showed himself to be.
Some did see and believe and some two thousand years later because of their faithfulness, Jesus speaks to us again today. The stories and encounters of Jesus have been preserved, passed on generation after generation. They are not just a dead letter, nor is the sacred deposit of our faith some inanimate object passed on blindly generation after generation. We are invited time and again to be aware, to look for how Jesus still works in our lives today. He is not a mere historical figure. Jesus conquered death, rose again and became the first born of the new creation. The good news is that he invites us to read the signs of his presence in our lives in our times.
Do we see coincidences or God-incidences? Do we see God’s presence working in our lives? If not, could it be because our lives are so busy and fast-paced? If so, we need to schedule some time each day to stop and reflect, even if for only five to ten minutes to take some deep breaths, and ask God to help us review the past twenty-four hours with the express purpose of noticing how he has been involved and engaged in our lives.
It is often by reflecting and looking back over the course of a day, a week, or a month, that we will recall some God-incidents no matter how small. Being thankful for this growing awareness and asking God for greater insight each day will help us to grow in our awareness of how much he has been accompanying us all along in our daily experiences.
For those times that we have refused or failed to recognize this closeness to Jesus, especially in his presence coming to us through others seeking our help, we can ask for forgiveness and for Jesus to assist us in being more aware and more intentional in following the stirring of the Holy Spirit going forward. Opening our hearts and minds to God will help us to better read the signs that the kingdom of heaven is indeed at hand, in our very midst. Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear?
A moment to pause at another of God’s masterpieces as I begin my Rosary walk earlier this evening.
Link for the Mass readings for Friday, October 25, 2024
May God’s word enkindle a flame in our hearts and transform us.
Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing” (Lk 12:49)!
What has been burned does not remain the same. What fire touches, it transforms. Jesus wants us to be consumed so as to be transformed by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Encountering Jesus affects a change in us. When we are open to allow the Holy Spirit to breathe on the embers in the depths of our souls they are fanned like tinder and ignite. We continue to fuel the fire by getting in touch with what God has called us to do in our place and in our time.
We are not to be a Christian in name alone but in thought, word, and deed. Pope Francis, in his exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, wrote: “THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept this offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness, and loneliness” (Francis 2013, 9). Joy is a gift, a holy flame, that is given to us by the Holy Spirit, it wells up within, and rises up and out to be shared with others. It is different than pleasure which has its source in the stimulation of the senses being aroused but fades once the external stimulus has ended.
Happiness is also external and fleeting. It lasts longer than pleasure in that the memory of the experience will linger on but it too will also fade away. Joy wells up from within, as it is imparted to us by God and can be present even when the external experiences are stressful or chaotic. I experienced this when I was still teaching 5th and 6th Grade Religion and acting as the dean of students at Rosarian Academy. At the same time, I was also immersed in family and parish life, as well as my studies and formation activities for the permanent diaconate.
One particular morning I woke up exhausted. When the alarm went off my first response was to skip my morning prayer and hit the snooze button to get an extra twenty minutes before rising. Instead, I literally crawled to my small chapel area, lit the candles, and opened my breviary. When I read the words in Psalm 42: “Hope in God; I will praise him still, my savior and my God”, something ignited within. I felt an energy well up within me that I cannot to this day describe. I felt an inexpressible joy. Not only did the experience carry me into the day but lasted throughout the whole week.
God is the foundation of our lives and seeks to transform us with the fire of his love, and even when we are at our lowest, such that in our soul there are only smoldering embers, we need to resist the temptations of indifference and complacency and remember to turn to Jesus. Instead of brooding over what we don’t have, we will encounter him when we are thankful for that which he has given to us and for those he has placed in our lives. We will experience him in his Word, in prayer and worship, and in serving one another. We need to keep showing up, even if sometimes we have to crawl to get there, and allow God to fan the embers within our soul to set us ablaze.
This flame St. Paul experienced and shared in today’s first reading from his letter to the Church in Ephesus and he invites us to experience this gift of grace as well. May we, “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). To know the love of Jesus is more than knowing about him. We don’t read and study the Bible as we study a history text, but to experience the love of the Holy Spirit bringing alive the word into our hearts. In meditating, pondering, and praying with Sacred Scripture, we experience, breathe, rest, and receive his love and so become filled with the fullness of God.
Nothing else in this world can satisfy us as much as experiencing and being transformed by the love of God! When we seek God first, we resist the temptation of being attached to finite things. When we trust Jesus and align our will with his, we know him and experience his love for us and then our relationships and possessions are properly ordered. Knowing his love we can then experience fullness of his Father, we will no longer seek substitutes to place before God. We will experience fulfillment and better enjoy our relationships and those goods in our lives that God has blessed us with.
Photo: Rosary walk at sunset on Veteran’s Memorial Island, Vero Beach. Great way to ponder and mediate upon the mysteries of Jesus and his life.
Pope Francis. Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel. Frederick, MD: The Word Among Us Press, 2013.
Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, October 24, 2024
Spiritual Stepping Stones 