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Perfect as his Heavenly Father? When we trust Jesus, yes, he will take us to new heights!

How many times have we looked to others instead of staying focused on what we need to do or be doing? How many times do we compare ourselves, assessing what we or others have or don’t have, how others are more or less confident, more or less better looking, more or less intelligent, how others lives are altogether or a catastrophe, and even, how our faith life is worse or better?

We get a taste of these questions and what our response ought to be from Jesus in today’s Gospel. The background of today’s reading is a continuation from yesterday’s, in which the author described how Jesus forgave Peter for denying him by asking him not only if Peter loved him, but how he was to put that love into action by feeding his lambs, taking care of and feeding his sheep. Jesus also had just let Peter know that Peter was going to die in his service to him.

Today, we read that upon hearing the news of his eventual death, that Peter shifts the direction away from himself.  When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me” (Jn 21:21-22). Jesus does not definitively say what is or is not going to happen to the beloved disciple. Jesus is clear with Peter that his focus is not to be on what is going to happen to the beloved or any other disciple, but to direct his attention to following him and his will.

Our orientation as disciples of Jesus is to follow Jesus, to focus on his will for our lives and to expend our energy in such a way that promotes his will. We are to slowly transform each thought, word, and action such that each is to be aligned with God’s will. A good way to start that change is to spend less time comparing ourselves to others. The temptation to compare is a slippery slope that can lead us to the devastating sins of gossip, pride, and envy. If we are to compare ourselves to anyone, let it be to Jesus.

Jesus calls us to be perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect, which is an impossible task if we seek to go it alone. Yet, we can become perfected through our participation in the life of Jesus the Christ. We begin when we ask for Jesus to help us make a commitment to resist the temptation to compare ourselves to others. Then when the first instant of a comparative thought arises, we can replace it with a prayer of blessing directed toward another and follow up with some pondering about what we are grateful for.

Moment by moment, we just need to remember that we are not alone, that we walk with Jesus. One thought, one action, one interaction at a time, we are called to surrender our will to the love of God. By taking these steps to counter the influences of a focus on self first as well as resist the comparative and/or seeking to follow a cult of personality, we can begin to shift the momentum away from increasing divisiveness, defensiveness, and mistrust, and instead strive toward supporting, encouraging, and uplifting one another.

As we allow Jesus to love us in places we feel unlovable, our thoughts, prayers, and actions will change. We will become more understanding, patient, willing to engage in conflict resolution, and dialogue. To allow Jesus to love and forgive us, and take the time to savor and experience both, helps us to begin to lessen the intensity of fear, prejudice, biases, and chronic stress. As we are able to then experience his peace, let our shoulders come out of our ears, we become less defensive and willing to see each other through God’s eyes, as beloved daughters and sons with whom he is well pleased.

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Photo: When we follow Jesus where he leads, we will be able to rise above our sins, wounds, and resistance because when we trust in Jesus forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation is possible.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 23, 2026

Jesus gently reveals to us where we have missed the mark, and invites us to begin again.

When we spend time reading the Gospels, we will encounter in them that the God of Jesus Christ is a God of justice, yes, but a justice that is tempered with mercy and love, a restorative justice, not a punitive justice. God invites us to be in communion with him and one another, and to answer that call requires a transformation, a change of heart and mind. Jesus meets people where they are, accepts them as they are, while at the same time holding a mirror up to them to show how what they are doing is keeping them from the very reality of communion with his Father that they seek.

One example can be seen when Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well and he asked her for a drink. What followed from that simple, while at the same time profound request, led to her humble confession that she did not have a husband to which Jesus responded: “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” Jesus spoke to a woman and a Samaritan in public, two things that were not done in his time as it was against societal norms.

Jesus recognized the distinction, but saw instead and foremost, a human being, a woman isolated, possibly being ostracized from her own community, for who else would come by themselves to fetch water in the full heat of the day? What he shared with her was respect, as he spoke to her as a person. Because of her honesty, humility, and courage, what transpired over the course of the conversation was not only her transformation but the redemption of her and her whole community. This transpired because, with joy and courage, she proclaimed the Good News even to those that had kept her at arm’s leg, and on the margins (cf. Jn 4:1-12).

Another encounter happened with Saul who was present and oversaw the stoning of St Stephen and continued his zealous persecution of the followers of Jesus. On the road to Damascus, Saul encountered the risen Jesus, who met him with the words: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me” (Acts 9:4)? Again, as with the woman at the well, Jesus greeted Saul with a simple but profound question which had a tremendous effect on him. Saul was transformed from a persecutor of the Way to a follower of the Word. He would not only change his name to Paul and proclaim the Gospel to a community but to the Mediterranean world.

In today’s Gospel, Peter, who had betrayed Jesus three times, encountered Jesus who also posed a question, but this time asking it three times: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” (cf. Jn 21:15-19). With these simple questions and Peter’s affirmative responses of yes, Jesus forgave Peter for betraying him. Peter went forward to proclaim boldly the life of Jesus at the feast of Pentecost, and three thousand were moved by his words and sought to become part of the Way of Jesus.

Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman, Paul, and Peter, and met each of them, not with condemnation, but with love and mercy. He met them on their level and then offered them a look in the mirror by asking a simple question. Jesus sought to draw them out of their own false senses of self and sin, and into the love of God. Jesus provided another way. Each person answered with truth and humility, and willingly looked at their life, turned away from what Jesus revealed and accepted his invitation to change their hearts and minds.

The justice of God is not about condemnation and shame, about rubbing our noses in our own mistakes and misjudgments. Yet, if we choose our own sin over the love of God’s healing transformation, it may feel punitive, because God will allow us to feel the effects of our decisions. God gives us another choice. He has sent his Son to show us the path of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Jesus echoes Hosea 6:6 when he is recorded as saying, “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners” (Mt 9:13). Jesus comes to us, as he came to the Samaritan woman, Paul, and Peter.

As we make some time for prayer, enter into any of these biblical accounts, and spend some time in silence today, let us allow ourselves to see Jesus approaching us or sitting with us. What simple, yet transformative question does he ask that reveals in what way or areas we are keeping God distant? In what way(s) do we need to change our hearts and minds? When we choose to leave behind our false self, our pride, and our ego, and instead respond with humility and contrition, true sorrow for our sins, as did the Samaritan woman, Paul, and Peter, we will be healed, transformed, and empowered to go forth to share the Good News of the love and mercy we have experienced with God.

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Photo: Each breath, each moment, each temptation, is an opportunity to choose to follow Jesus and a new beginning.

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 22, 2026

“I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

Jesus bestowed his love and his grace upon his Apostles as a gift. The fundamental option, our ultimate end goal, that which we seek from the very depths and core of our being, is to experience the same love that the Apostles experienced. The Creator of all that exists, who so transcends our comprehension, who is so beyond our ability to comprehend fully, has come close to us, become one with us in the person of his Son, and loves us more than we can ever imagine, more than we can ever mess up. He loves us when we feel unlovable, afraid, and in the depths of despair.

This reality, the core of the deposit of faith that they received, was not to be hoarded, buried away, or to be shared with a select few. This living gift of grace was to be shared by the Apostles, the ones who Jesus called by name, who he hand-picked to receive his message and then sent them forth to proclaim his word. They were to protect it for the purpose of transmitting it accurately to their successors so that it would then be passed on to each successive generation who would then receive and make it relevant for their own time.

Jesus said to his Father in his farewell discourse that we have been going through these past days: “I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them” (Jn 17:26). 

Let that sink in. If you wanted to stop reading this post and just wrote down, and then meditate upon them, feel free to do so: “the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.” 

Jesus came to impart the love of the Father he has received from before time was, before anything existed, into us. We receive and continue to receive his love through the sacraments, reading his word, in time of quiet, prayer, meditation, through his creation, and a myriad of ways. In receiving, and slowing down enough to experience his love, in our joys as well as our struggles, and through our participation in the love of Christ, we come to realize that we are not as alone as we feel deep down. 

The Trinity is at the heart of the Gospel, the Good News. The Trinity is a divine communion of three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have been created with a burning hunger and desire to experience this same communion. Jesus invites us to share in the depth of the same love he experiences. When we don’t accept his invitation, we feel a deep loneliness and restlessness…

Yet, why don’t we say yes to this joyous invitation? St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, or Summa, outlines four substitutes or temptations that we may put in place of, before, our highest hope and good; these are wealth, honor, pleasure, and power. In and of themselves, these are not unhealthy desires, as long as God is first and we orient ourselves to them from God’s perspective.

When we assume the posture of pride, believing that we are the center of our lives and we seek wealth, power, pleasure, and/or honor for our own sake and self-aggrandizement, each will be distorted and leave us empty, or worse lead us into the crippling slavery of addiction because in and of themselves they are finite pursuits. How many times have there been reports of someone who has amassed most or all of these four, and then come to a place of such despair and emptiness that they have taken their own life?

Through a properly ordered sense of power grounded in love, defined by St Thomas, as willing the good of the other, those in positions of power and privilege are called to be a voice for those who otherwise would not have a voice. Those with access to wealth, are to recognize that this is a gift from God, and they are to be good stewards of what they have received to help and support others, not only in the limited stance of a hand-out but as a primary means to provide a hand up. To accompany and shepherd those who do not have access such that they can arrive at the point where they can be provided with access, skills, and means to participate in the dignity of meaningful work and gainful employment.

The ultimate goal of pleasure is to embrace the Beautiful, the gift that God provides in which we can have access and enjoy the wonderous array of his creation. At the same time, we can be participants in the expression of creativity through the arts as well as our everyday actions by finding joy in our interactions with one another and engaging in our vocations. If honor, fame, and glory arise in the faithful, they arise not for their own sake or as to heighten the focus on self. This attention comes with the responsibility to further radiate the light and love of God so to evangelize and draw others to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, as did Peter when he preached and three thousand came to accept the love of Christ.

When Pope Francis visited the U.S. back in 2015, the news for a week was filled with joy and hope. When St Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, she began her speech by saying, “As we have gathered here together to thank God for the Nobel Peace Prize” and ended with the words, “God bless you!”, Mother began and ended not with the focus on her self but on God. Each are examples of God being the source and focus to bring about the proper alignment and use of wealth, power, pleasure, and fame.

Jesus has, continues to reveal, and share the love with which his Father has bestowed. He invites each and every one of us to receive and live in the love that he shares with his Father such that we may experience the very presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. When we experience God’s love and know we are loved, that we are his beloved daughters and sons and for a consistent period of time and through the ups and downs of life, we can begin to rest and abide there in his love for us.

Wealth, power, pleasure, and honor, will no longer be distractions or diversions to our embracing the love of God. They will no longer be substitutes and apparent goods that we seek to satisfy our loneliness and restlessness. They will become instead a means to radiate his light and to provide a greater witness to share the source of our joy!

When we choose to put God first in our lives before all else, we will experience his love within us and we will begin to radiate his presence to others. In this way, we are sent out to accompany others, to share with those in need of hope, his presence, and his healing. In serving as well as respecting, standing up for and speaking on behalf of the dignity of each person that God places before us, we will also experience and help others to encounter the love of the Holy Spirit as we have. Our corner of the world will then be a little better today than it was yesterday and a little better tomorrow than today.

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Photo: So many ways that God reaches out to us with his love!

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 21, 2026

Jesus leads us to slow down so we can experience the love and presence of his Father.

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

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

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

Following the will of God is simple but not easy and hard work to undo dysfunctional neural pathways, habits, that we have built over years and decades. We are bombarded by distractions, diversions, and temptations that attempt to wear us down and draw us away from being faithful and true to God, ourselves, and who God calls us to be. Many times, these distractions not only appear to be, but are good. The challenge is not whether we are good or evil, even are we being good or doing good, but are we doing God’s will, what God is calling us to do?

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

We can deepen our relationship with Jesus and his Father and experience the love of the Holy Spirit when we slow down our pace and become still. We are also in a better place to receive the gifts that the Holy Spirit seeks to impart, his guidance to discern his direction, as well as the courage to follow his will. Resting in silence, we may also experience emotions, some that have been buried. And that is good, because we are now feeling safe enough to experience them and with God release them and begin to heal. 

St. Mother Teresa taught that, “in the silence of the heart, God speaks.” We are better able to recognize God’s voice, experience his healing, and guidance when we embrace daily moments of stillness. We are better able to identify the temptations and pitfalls, dysfunctional patterns, and sins that prevent us from healing when we go slower. We grow in discipline, persistence, and dedication when we allow ourselves to be nourished by God’s love and affirmation. 

A new way of life is available for us when we are willing to change, to be transformed, and grow beyond the comfort zone of the dysfunction we know. We can trust Jesus, such that even through the growing pains, we will experience the love and oneness Jesus shares with his Father. We are not alone.

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Photo: “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39). When we are willing to slow down, Jesus offers us his peace.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Our response to the darkness is the light, love, and joy of Jesus.

“But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you” (Jn 16:22). 

Jesus continues to prepare his disciples for his horrific death by offering hope that he will see them again. That he will see them again is not a typo. We can read about the exchanges between Jesus and his risen disciples. Jesus appeared to Mary of Magdalene at the tomb, he appeared to Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, and he appeared to the ten and then the eleven with Thomas. Jesus sought out those he commissioned to proclaim his Gospel message after his Resurrection, just as he had done during his ministry before his crucifixion.

When Jesus did appear to them again, at the moment of recognition, there was wonder and great joy! It is hard for us to even imagine these early Resurrection accounts. Although, this is a wonderful meditative practice! The disciples witnessed his brutal death, lived in fear because of the very real possibility of their own persecution and similar death, and then, they encountered the risen Jesus. St Paul would also shortly thereafter encounter Jesus on a different road, the one to Damascus en route to continue his persecution of the followers of Jesus. 

All of their hearts rejoiced when they experienced the risen Jesus, and it was this joy that they proclaimed with boldness. The Apostles, like Jesus, led with joy and love to embark on their evangelical mission. They lived a difficult and challenging life that for many ended in their own brutal deaths, yet their joy carried them through and into eternity.

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

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

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

No matter how bumpy our lives get or how much we are tossed about, we can trust that Jesus is with us, closer than we can ever imagine. He readily offers us his love and joy. Are we willing to receive each? May seem like a silly question, but we can refuse to receive the joy and love of Jesus when our hearts are constricted or closed. 

When we choose to allow his light to enter and dwell within us, even though the light may reveal some darkness and deep suffering, we can experience forgiveness and healing. Once experiencing his healing and love — joy! And when the joy wells up and radiates through us and outward, no matter how small or insignificant, the darkness in our realm of influence will begin to fade away. For, within or without, darkness cannot remain in the presence of the light of Christ.

Photo: May the light of Jesus shine through us for others to see!

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 15, 2026

When we allow our grieving heart to touch Jesus’ Sacred Heart, we will experience healing.

At some point in our lives, we experience the death of someone we love. If we live a long life, we will experience even more of the pain of losing those close to us. I remember my maternal grandfather sharing with me when he was around ninety that he had outlived most of his siblings and friends. Unfortunately, for too many in our world, death is a daily event through violence in all its forms. Grief during time of loss is a natural human response. It is certainly not an emotion to be suppressed.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus shared: “But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts” (Jn 16:6). Jesus was preparing his disciples for his suffering and death on the cross while at the same time also letting them know that they would not be left alone. Even after his death, his resurrection and again time with his disciples, he would then at his ascension return to the Father. And better for his disciples that he would return to his Father. The Father will transform Jesus through his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus will assume his glorified body and the Holy Spirit will proceed from the Father and the Son to empower the apostles. They too will be transformed. No longer afraid, no more falling short of the glory of God but fulfilling and actualizing who Jesus called them to be from the beginning. 

We can see the apostles living out who Jesus had chosen them to be on full display in our reading of the Book of Acts during the Easter Season. 

Of course, the Apostles could not understand what Jesus was talking about at the moment. Who can blame them? They had no point of reference for someone dying and rising again, let alone that he would ascend to the Father and send the Third Person of the Holy Trinity to be with them. The Apostles would not only feel the grief of the loss of Jesus they would also experience the fear that the same persecution that took him would take them. Jesus predicted no less. To be his follower, they would need to be willing to give their own lives, as Jesus was about to do.

They did not get off to a great start. Even though Jesus foretold them of what was to happen, in Jesus’ final hour, they betrayed and abandoned him. And yet, except for Judas, because he had taken his own life, Jesus came to them again after his resurrection. He did not condemn but forgave them. Jesus would in a short time ascend back to the Father as we will celebrate this Sunday, and the disciples, with Mary, would experience the love and grace of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which we will celebrate a week from Sunday.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, they faced what was before them head-on, even to experience their own violent deaths, except for John. The fear of death had no more power over them, their grief and their fear were turned into joy from their encounter with the Risen Jesus and the love of the Holy Spirit they experienced first-hand.

For us, as with the Apostles, grief is real, because death is a loss, it is a change in our present reality. Yet, we celebrate the Easter Season for fifty days for a reason. Death has lost its sting because Jesus has died, entered into the fullness of everything that death threw at him, and he conquered it. Jesus died for each and every one of us so that we can also rise with him, and be with him and our loved ones again for all eternity.

We can believe in our minds that death does not have the final answer, yet we will still feel the grief, the pain of loss. We need to be honest with our emotions, and not stifle them, thinking by showing grief that we are in some way less a person of faith. Jesus himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. In allowing ourselves to experience our pain, we will experience the Risen Christ who is waiting to embrace us and help us to heal. 

The key is to allow ourselves to experience and feel our grief, to allow our hearts to expand with the pain we are able to feel. As our heart expands with pain, Jesus’ heart expands with his love and comfort. At the point where we have felt enough, Jesus receives our pain there. We, in experiencing, instead of denying our pain, can offer our suffering to Jesus. In receiving our grief, we can then receive his compassion, his consolation, healing, and love. Heart speaks to heart.

To experience our grief and allow it to expand in our hearts when it comes is healthy and necessary, but we do need to be careful that it does not define and overwhelm us. We just enter the ebb and flow as outlined above. 

After seven months of caring and accompanying JoAnn to her death, visiting with family and friends through Thanksgiving and Christmas, I returned home to Florida, and for the first time, had some time alone. I had a two-day period where I was able to experience the weight of my grief and my heart was pierced with the suppressed grief. Fortunately, I received a phone call from my friend, Theresa Frettered, and she invited me to a diocesan event. I didn’t want to go but said yes. Terry was a messenger of the Holy Spirit. She invited me to leave the despair and come up for some air. Experiencing the grief, but then not staying there, was the first steps that led to years of healing, that still continue.

The time of grief is different for each person. “There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). When we experience the full range of our emotions and bring them to Jesus, the first born of the new creation, and pray for all those who have died that we hold close to our pierced hearts in this moment, those who have no one to pray for them, as well as those who are in purgatory, we heal a little more. We also with these moments of heart to heart with Jesus, begin to realize we too will die.

This is not morbid. Pondering our own death helps us to resist taking the time we have left for granted and choose to live our lives more intentionally, with greater purpose. Just as the jailer in today’s first reading turned from committing suicide to asking Paul and Silas: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved” (Acts 16:30-31).

As we experience the ebb and flow of grief with Jesus, as we entrust our lives more to him, we will experience his tender care for us. We will begin to heal and so help others to heal. When we believe in Jesus, we and our household will be saved. Maybe not in this instant and moment, but in God’s gentle pace and timing. Death really does not have the final answer. The loving embrace of Jesus does.

Photo: As I learned from CS Lewis, losing someone we love is like experiencing an amputation. We will live, but it will never be the same. What I learned from Jesus is that we can also experience healing and joy again.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Jesus has sent us the Holy Spirit to lead us to experience rest and peace grounded in his love.

What is common to all of us is that we experience some expression of loneliness to varying degrees, sometimes consciously but mostly unconsciously. We are social beings, we want to belong, to be part of, and this is why we are communal. We may do, say, or turn a blind eye to behaviors that go against our conscience just to be accepted, acknowledged, and/or noticed. This behavior further feeds our loneliness, because though we may be “accepted”, we become more alienated from our true self. We are not accepted for who we are but who we portray ourselves to be.

At the core of our being, what we all seek is to be loved, and to love in return. We strive from the moment of our conception not only to exist but to actualize the fullness of who God is calling us to be. Through our time of gestation, we are not potential human beings, we are human beings actualizing out potential. A difference between me typing this now and when I was in my mother’s womb is that before my birth, I was smaller and more vulnerable.

We as human beings are a living, craving hunger and desire to be in communion with God and one another from the moment of our conception until our natural death and continuing on into eternity. This is true to the believer and the atheist alike. Until we embrace this deepest of needs and desires, we will be restless, anxious, and unfulfilled. We can feel isolated and alone, even in the midst of a hundred people or daily likes on social media. St. Augustine in the introduction to his autobiography said it best: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

God has made us for himself and constantly invites us to be in a relationship with him and with each other because he is the foundation and source of our being. Sin is the turning away from that invitation, a curving, or caving in upon oneself away from God and others. It is also the unwillingness to bother or to care, to reach out toward another in need. For what we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to Jesus. We are not just to be pro-birth though, we as Catholics are to be pro-life, and we are invited to promote a consistent ethic of life.

Jesus became human in his Incarnation. He too, as we did, developed in the womb of Mary to show the importance of the dignity of the person and that our dignity is grounded in our relationship with God our Father, meaning we are all brothers and sisters. We are his beloved daughters and sons, just by who we are not by what we do. Jesus was not a plan B, but he was always the primary plan. In the fullness of time, when God so willed, he sent his Son to become one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity. 

Jesus is the face, hands, and body of God. He came that we might see and experience God. Jesus experienced all we experience except for sin because he never, in any thought, word, or deed, rejected or said no to his Father. His whole life was a, “Yes” to the will of God. Jesus is the bridge, the way to love and be loved, authentically.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues preparing his disciples for the reality that he will be returning to the Father. Though he will ascend to the Father, he will not his apostles nor has he left us alone. He has and will continue to be with us for all ages. This is so because as the Son of God made man, in his Ascension, he returned to the Father not just in his divinity as the Son, but also in his humanity. God created all of humanity and his creation as interconnected, and because of that, we all experience this transcendent act of the Ascension when Jesus returned to the Father in his glorified, human body.

Jesus shared with his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning”(Jn 15:26-27). Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the infinite Love experienced and shared between the Father and the Son. We become sharers in this divine love and communion of the Holy Trinity through our participation in the life of Jesus.

As we experience the love of the Holy Spirit, develop a relationship with him, we begin to feel alive, we begin to heal and to feel whole, because we have experienced the love we have been made for. We have experienced being loved for who we are and as we are. We no longer have to say, do, or accept those actions that we don’t agree with or that go against our conscience, to belong. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman has stated that our conscience is the “Aboriginal Vicar of Christ”. Jesus dwells within us, to guide and lead us, to help us to develop a well-formed conscience. He encourages us to also say, “Yes” to his Father as he has and continues to do.

We share in the trinitarian love when we grow our relationship and participate in the life of Jesus. This great gift of grace will continue to grow as we testify to this love and share it with others. The greatest gift of God, the love that he gives us, expands as we receive and give his love away. The more we give, the more we will receive. That does not mean fixing others or their problems. We are called to be present, to accompany, and journey with others, meeting them as Jesus met others and meets us, as and where we are. We are to laugh with, cry along, encourage, empower, and support, but above all to be present, to allow the love of the Holy Spirit to happen through us.

Jesus has not left us as orphans. Jesus cares, even if we believe or feel like he is not listening. His return to the Father through his Ascension has given us a greater and more intimate access to the Holy Spirit. By trusting in his love, we will begin to heal from and free ourselves from the tendrils of doubt, fear, and anxiety.

We are not alone. We will heal, and expand when we say, “Yes”, to God’s will and allow ourselves to be drawn in by the tender chords of his love to grow in our relationship with him. Allowing ourselves to experience and receive more of God’s love, helps us to slow down more so that we will better listen, be more aware of and present to our needs and the needs of each other. Once identified, we can choose with the guidance of the Holy Spirit how best to proceed.

As we strive to actualize and become truer to ourselves, and who God us has created us to be, and then rest there, we will experience that peace that surpasses all understanding and develop relationships with others based on authenticity and integrity, regardless of external pressures and internal stirrings. To know we are loved and to love in return, which is what we all seek, is an unbreakable foundation. A foundation upon which we can find the rest we have been created for, in God, in ourselves, and we can just be.

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Photo: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love!!!

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, May 11, 2026

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

Pope Leo XIV Regina Caeli, Sunday May 3

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, May 4, 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