god

“Peace be with you all!”

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, and there is hope that we can pray with and rest in from  Jesus’ Gospel from John: “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?” He did and he has. 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 resurrected 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. Learning from and putting into practice his teachings, as did the original apostles and saints who in each generation have done just that, is the way we are to follow. 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.

Pope Leo XIV chose to do continue to offer our war worn and weary world Jesus’ peace with his first words as Pope: “Peace be with you all!” This “is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. A peace that comes from God, the God who loves us all, unconditionally.”

This peace of God that the risen Jesus offers is not some abstract formula and the 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 a person. 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 for give and then share with others what we have received and as he directs us to give. 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 of 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 and 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, are willing to be more patient and understanding and we can do none of these alone. We need a Savior, to heal us, save us, and lead us from our own darkness into his light.

Can we 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 spending time with Jesus to receive his love, study, pray, meditate with and learn from him. Then we can begin to put into practice what we have learned and received. We can share the love and peace of Jesus with each other one person at a time.

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Photo: Pope Leo XVI’s first appearance praying for the Church and the world that we may receive and share the peace of the risen Christ. Credit: Dylan Martinez from Reuters 

Quotes of Pope Leo from full Urbi et Orbi message.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Jesus commands us to love. We can begin to do so by being a little more patient and kind with one another.

“I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).

All of creation is an expression and an outpouring of the divine love and communion of the Trinitarian love. Love, if it is true, goes out from the self to be there for the other. St. Paul wrote that love is patient and kind (1 Cor 13:4). These are virtues that flow out of our willing the good of the other as other.

When we act with patience, we love because we resist the temptation to react and strike out. We do not seek to protect our ego, but seek to understand and be present to the person. We are willing to see beyond their brokenness, we resist fueling and feeding their frustrations by not giving in to our own impatient responses, and thereby help to dissipate any growing negativity. We love when we make an act of our will to allow Jesus to love the person through us. A helpful way to do so practically is when we first feel any sense of reaction, we breathe. We slow down. We listen and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us on how best to respond.

When we are kind, we do so because we resist returning hurtful acts with acts of love, seeking nothing in return. We are kind because this is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We are not kind in the hope that people are kind in return. We are kind because that is the foundation of who God has created us to be.

So often we do not know what another is going through. When someone cuts us off in the course of our travel, we do not have to react in frustration, anger, or rage, but can choose instead to send a blessing, that the driver may find peace of mind, slow down, and have a safe trip. We can pray that all those driving may drive mindfully so all may be safe on the road.

When someone is short or curt with us, instead of reacting by being sharp or snarky in return, we can take a breath, and ask Jesus in that moment to be present in us and minister through us to the person in our midst. We can choose to be open to loving the person as Jesus loves us, accepting them as they are in that moment, and being willing to allow the Holy Spirit to be present in our encounter with them.

Some good beginning steps to love another is to be patient and kind in the moment, to smile, and offer a hand in greeting, and be available to listen. These very simple acts do have a cost in that our ego and focus on self becomes less, but what we gain in return is that Jesus becomes more and we see each other as human beings. In these simple acts we say to the other, even before we have said anything with our words, that they are important to us, they have worth and dignity, because we are willing to make the time to acknowledge and respect their presence, not reacting to and defining them by their weakness and brokenness in that moment.

“This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35). Let us make a commitment for today to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

Photo: Came upon this mosaic on a walk after the first few days that I arrived here at Holy Cross. Blessed to have continually been welcomed by so many kind people here this past year!

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, May 18, 2025

Jesus has come to show us his Father and ourselves.

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 height 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 crush this heresy.

like the apostles, there are others who saw Jesus differently. They expressed faith and trust in Jesus. Their hearts and minds were open that there was something about 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, while experiencing 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. As St. Irenaeus wrote, “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 our relationship will not only grow with him but as well, with those in our lives.

Painting: “Christ Divine” by Jorge Cocco accessed from Altus Fine Art blog.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 17, 2025

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1971.

Accepting Jesus’ invitation to slow down can help us to grow in our relationship with him and experience more peace.

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, interaction, 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, hollow, 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.

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 was speaking 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 the challenges that we face, even death, our own or a loved ones, we are invited to place our trust in God through his Son, Jesus. By putting God first does not mean that the externals to our life will immediately take an abrupt turn for the better. What establishing a foundational relationship with Jesus does mean is that we will have support and divine assistance. 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, we will be assured that no matter who or what comes at us, he will be there 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 or 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 promised 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 the loving relationship Jesus shares with his Father and experience the love of the Holy Spirit.

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 our seeking of instant gratification. God is building a foundation in us which is meant to last not only in this life but in 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.

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. Setting the time aside with my busy daily schedule has been a challenge over my first year of priesthood, but doing so has helped me to better prioritize my time and seek the guidance of Jesus to guide me.

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.

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: Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) . Let us trust him, take his hand, and follow his lead.

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 16, 2025

Baptism, foot washing, and crucifixion show the depth of Jesus’ love for 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 political refugees 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 of his entailed and what it meant to be one of his successors. To follow in his footsteps they would need to participate in servant leadership. 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 to help. There is no person too other that we can’t assist when they are in a need.

In this act of washing the feet, Jesus is also revealing 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, so that he could take the sin of the world upon himself first at his baptism and then upon the cross. In the washing of the feet, he is also showing the depth of his love in caring for them in such a menial way, that is 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.

Jesus, as fully divine, did not grasp at his divinity or lord it over anyone. He was willing to be baptized even though he is free of sin, to wash the feet of his apostles in the most menial of tasks even as master and teacher, and was willing to experience crucifixion and death as the Messiah. In each of these acts, Jesus reveals the full giving of himself and holding nothing back of himself from us. Jesus is encouraging his apostles and 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.

Being willing to allow Jesus to shed some light on our lack of embracing opportunities to be loved and to love in return is a good place to begin. Then renewed with his forgiveness, mercy, healing touch, and having been loved, may we be more willing to be bearers of the love, mercy, and understanding that we have received. May we be more open to each of the people and/or tasks that God will place before us, 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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Photo: Are we willing to reveal our needs to Jesus, to allow him wash our feet, to allow him to address our needs, and then be willing to serve the needs of others?

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 15, 2025

When we are willing to die to our selfishness, we will love as God loves us.

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete” (John 15:11).

What is this referring too? “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

And what is his commandment? “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”

Even when life appears pretty dark and division and suffering seem to be waiting around every corner, we need not give up or fall into despair. God wants us to experience fulfillment, meaning, and joy despite our experiences and not through being lemmings or slaves but as Jesus said, his “friends”. The friends of Jesus are those who hear the word he has received and shared from his Father which are his commandments, the greatest of these is the commandment to love as Jesus and the Father have loved us.

If we truly want to be happy, fulfilled, and have meaning in our lives, Jesus invites us to align our wills with the will of God who is Love. St. Irenaeus taught that the joy of God is the human being fully alive. For us to be fully alive, we need to allow ourselves to be loved by and then love as God loves us. God knows what will fulfill us. Many of us do not experience the fullness of this joy because we are distracted and diverted by apparent goods, instead of striving for what actually is good. Time and discernment with the guidance of the Holy Spirit can help us to distinguish the difference.

Neither will we experience fulfillment and joy through denying, covering over, or being so busy that we don’t face the sufferings in our or other’s lives. We ease suffering by entering into it and receiving God’s loving embrace. He will heal us when we are willing to experience our pain. When we experience our pain with him, we receive his mercy and love, and experience healing at the root. As we heal, as we experience God’s love, we can then help to alleviate some of the sufferings of those around us.

“To love as God does, we must be constantly dying to our own sinfulness and selfishness and living for God. And we live for God by obeying the Father’s will and loving one another” (Martin and Wright, 260). Each day we are invited to choose to curl up in our shell of selfish concern or allow ourselves to be loved and to love in return, to come out of our shell, to risk, and become agents of healing and love. As agents of God’s love and mercy we can help to make our corner of the world a little better.

Photo: With JoAnn, who taught me how to come out of my shell, to live, and to love.

Martin, Francis and Wright IV, William M. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.

Mass readings for Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Jesus is the “bread from Heaven” and “the Holy One of God”. Are we convinced?

Even though Jesus had fed the five thousand and they were satisfied and there was plenty more where this gift of grace came from, even though they traveled by boat and followed him to Capernaum seeking a sign, the discourse regarding eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood was just too far of a stretch for most of the disciples to take. In fact: Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it” (Jn 6:60)?

Many of his disciples walked away from Jesus at that point and returned to their former ways of life. They could not believe because they did not fully appreciate who Jesus was, the One from above, who was sent by the Father. They had not developed a deep enough relationship with him such that they could trust him and that what he said was true, they could not believe in the One whom God had sent.

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6:67-69). Peter’s response is one of belief, trust, and love. Peter probably had the same doubts as those disciples who left Jesus but he trusted Jesus enough that even though his teaching was hard, even inconceivable, he stayed and believed that Jesus would make sense of it for them.

May this be our response as well. When we find some of Jesus’ teachings hard to digest, let us resist the temptation to walk away. Instead, may we follow Mary’s model of pondering, as she did when Gabriel shared she would bear the Savior of the world. Mary did not understand, but trusted God, and said, “Yes.” May we also follow Peter, who most likely dealt with mixed emotions and doubts, and yet, remained firm in his belief in Jesus. Peter trusted that Jesus was the “Holy One of God”. Peter had experienced that Jesus had known what he was saying and doing before, and he would continue to trust him this time as well.

More than a good model to follow, Jesus is so much more! Jesus did not want to die, but he was willing to submit his human will to his Father because he trusted him and knew he would bring about a greater good. Jesus gave his life and in so doing he conquered death, transcending the time and space of our present dimension so that he could be present to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Jesus lives, he is the firstborn of the new creation, and he wants to not only lead us to eternal life, but impart his life within us, in such an intimate way that we may consume him, that we may be one with him in this life and for all eternity! May we with Peter come to believe and be convinced, that Jesus is the Holy One of God!

“Amen. Amen.
I’m alive, I’m alive,
Because he lives.
Amen. Amen.
Let my song join the One that never ends.
Because he lives.”
The verse from Matt Maher’s song, “Because He Lives (Amen)”.

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Photo: Accessed from Pinterest.

Link for video: Because He Lives (Amen), Matt Maher, from cd: Saints and Sinners, 2015

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 10, 2025

When we eat the Body and drink the Blood of Christ we have eternal life.

All that Jesus has been building up to is now coming to a climax. Any silent shock of disbelief or quiet murmuring has now escalated. The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat” (Jn 6:52)? Jesus hears the growing concern and disbelief. If he was speaking in a figurative or symbolic way, this would be the moment to clarify his point.

Jesus does speak, but he does not walk back or qualify his comments. Jesus doubles down: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you” (Jn 6:53). Jesus does not only repeat that his disciples are to eat his Flesh but he also insists that they are to drink his Blood. Drinking or even eating meat with the blood of an animal was inconceivable for devout Jews. Also, the Greek used here in John’s Gospel for eat is trogein, which is used to describe how an animal eats, by gnawing and tearing at the flesh. The imagery that Jesus is using here is more graphic than the customary use of phagein, which would be used for chewing, as a human would chew their food.

Jesus continues to make his point that whoever does eat his Flesh and drink his Blood, will not only remain in him, but also Jesus will remain in them, and they will have eternal life. A wonderful end goal, but would any be able to make the leap of faith to get there? In tomorrow’s Gospel reading we will be able to see the response to Jesus’ claims.

Almost two thousand years later, we continue to have the opportunity to celebrate daily the person of Jesus in our midst. This happens through participating in “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324), the Mass. Our hearts have the opportunity to be set on fire as we hear the word proclaimed during the Liturgy of the Word, and then Jesus is made known to us in the breaking of the bread in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. We are invited to experience an intimate encounter with the Son of God, as we consume him, Body, Soul, and Divinity.

That we eat the Flesh and Blood of Jesus may sound just as bizarre as it did to Jesus’ followers. The term we have for this miraculous transformation of bread and wine is transubstantiation. What happens at the calling down of the Holy Spirit and the words of institution which are invoked by the priest is that the substance, the reality, of the bread and wine is transfigured into the Body and Blood of Jesus, while the accidental form or appearance remains the same. So we consume Jesus’ unbloody, acceptable sacrifice. We consume his glorified body that has transcended the three dimensional realm as we know it.

Jesus is giving all of who he is corporally, holding nothing back of himself so that we receive all of him – Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. The miracle does not stop there because in the receiving of Jesus’ fullness in the appearance of bread and wine, we also become divinized through our participation in his life as he permeates our whole being. We receive eternal life! This takes the saying, we are what we eat, to a whole new level.

This gift we get to then share. We are dismissed at the end of the Mass to go, like Mary, to bear Jesus Christ, to love others as Jesus loved us. In seeing and receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, we better see him in each other and are then inspired to serve one another. For what we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to Jesus (cf. Mt 25:40). Jesus is risen, he has risen indeed, and he has not left us orphans but remains with us now and for all ages most intimately in the Eucharist! We are alive and given eternal life, because the Bread of Life lives within and among us! Amen. Alleluia!

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Photo: “Christ with the Host”, by Paolo de San Leocadio

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 9, 2025

“The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world”

Those in the crowd who Jesus is speaking are those who experienced his multiplication of the loaves and fish. Step by systematic and deliberate step, Jesus is setting the stage for today’s insertion into his presentation.

Jesus begins slowly, but with each successive addition in his presentation, he is not willing to be tamed. He, as the One from above, the One who has seen and has been sent by the Father, is fully divine, as well as fully human, is speaking among those who have come to him. He has responded to the people’s request regarding how they were to “accomplish the works of God” (see John 6:28-29) and his response is that they are to believe in him, he who had been sent by God. They were to “work for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give” (John 6:27). Jesus with the multiplication of the loaves and fish provided for those who were hungry in the moment. He provided physical nourishment. He is now moving from satisfying physical needs, to how he will provide food that will endure for eternal life. Jesus shared that he is this food, the bread from heaven, that will give life to the world.

What Jesus has shared thus far and what he shares in today’s Gospel message has been given to him to say from his Father and is for everyone who is willing to accept his invitation: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:51). We have an advantage, that those listening to Jesus, did not have. We just experienced Lent and we can certainly draw a line to how Jesus certainly does give his very life, his Flesh, that is sacrificed and hung on the cross. Jesus died and experienced utter God forsakenness by giving his very life for the life the world.

But for those in the crowd who only the day before sought to unanimously make him their Messiah by popular acclamation are, with each word expressed by Jesus, growing a bit uncomfortable. This discourse is moving away from what might have initially appeared to be a figurative discussion to a more dramatic and concrete presentation with horrific implications. After an initial gasp or two, some murmuring started to circulate, maybe centering around such questions as:

“Did Jesus really just say he would give his flesh?”

“Jesus is equating himself with the bread from heaven, and the bread he is offering is his flesh?”

“Is Jesus saying what I think he is saying?”

Yes! The Jesus is stating clearly that he is the Bread of Life, and this Bread is his very Flesh. The Father has given all that he is, holding nothing back, emptying himself into the Son. The Son has received all that the Father is and returns himself, giving all that he is, holding nothing back, to the Father. This eternal giving and receiving, this eternal communion of Love shared between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. Jesus is offering his listeners and continues to offer us today participation in this perichoresis, this divine dance of infinite communion. Jesus offers all that he is to be consumed. He is holding nothing back in his offer to us of his very Body.

Just as he gave all of himself on the cross, he gives all of himself, holding nothing back in his glorified Body present in the Eucharist. We are invited not only to receive all that Jesus is, we are also invited to give ourselves away in return. As we receive, we become who we eat. We are transformed by the love of Jesus’ presence in our being as we consume him so that we to, as Jesus did, give of ourselves to serve others.
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Photo: Newly generated AI image of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 8, 2025

“I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”

“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me” (Jn 6:37-38).

Jesus does not reject us when we seek him out and when we come to him. He accepts us because he knows that we come because we have on some level listened to his Father and allowed our hearts and minds to be moved by his love. Jesus has come to do his Father’s will which is to lead us all to salvation, to be redeemed and restored to the proper order of freedom from our enslavement to sin. Even when we turn away, are diverted by distractions, misled by our sin, or misunderstandings, Jesus will seek us out. In the depths of our souls, we all seek the love of God that we have been created for.

This is why Jesus met Cleopas and the other disciple on the road to Emmaus. Even though they were walking the wrong way, Jesus did not tell them that. He came upon them, walked among them, and opened up the Scriptures to them. In doing so, the fire that had been dimmed by the despair of Jesus’ death, was rekindled in Jesus’ breaking open the word for them, in sharing salvation history for them, such that when Jesus moved to continue on, they invited him to stay with them. Then, in the breaking of the bread, they recognized Jesus who they thought they lost. They experienced in their presence and were nourished by “the bread of life” (John 6:35).

It was through sharing a meal with them that they recognized him. How many meals had they shared together before his death? A close reading of Sacred Scripture shows how important table fellowship is for Jesus and his followers before his death and after his Resurrection. True, Jesus eating with his disciples after his Resurrection shows that he is no ghost, he is human, but also he is reestablishing the cornerstone of his ministry, table fellowship.

Not only are the basic needs of sustenance met, but also in sharing his time and conversation with anyone willing to eat with him, no matter their level of ritual purity, they were touched at the deepest hunger within their hearts, which is to belong, to be accepted for who we are. The majority of the crowd that Jesus spoke to has continued to come to him because he fed them with only a few loaves and some fish. In the miraculous multiplication, Jesus provided for their bodily nourishment, but also was also inviting them to experience the deeper spiritual nourishment of the soul which can only be nourished by his Body and Blood.

Jesus loves us, he wills the best for us. Many resist this truth for different reasons. It could be the callouses, scars, and growing cynicism as a result of wounds inflicted by others, those who did not fulfill expectations, betrayal. Each of us could have experience the same and have also been let down by those we have looked up to and trusted. If we are involved in a relationship long enough, we will experience disappointment or worse. This is because sooner or later, when we draw close the masks will come down and who we truly are, the fullness of our wounds and our gifts will come to the fore. Conflicts will arise because we are finite and imperfect, human beings. We are still a work in progress.

None of us are perfect. We are all on a journey. On our own, we will consistently fall short of our goal. That is why we need a savior. We need someone that we can trust that will be there for us when we are let down and when we fall down face-first into the mud. Someone who, when that happens, will lay down in the mud with us, look us in the eye, and smile.

Even if we are not able to look past the predicament, or smile in return, we might just be able to catch his eyes looking at us and then we will see him offer us his hand. We can then rise together, and stand again. That is how Jesus shows his mercy and love for us. He enters into our chaos and meets us in the midst of the muck and mire of our mistakes, wounds, and sins. He loves us there, and when we are ready to accept his offer of love, he invites us to get up, and begin to walk again.

As our relationship grows and deepens and as our trust strengthens, we begin to believe that we belong and have dignity. We begin to heal and realize that we are a part of something greater than ourselves. Then with wobbly steps, begin to offer attempts of the same mercy, forgiveness, and unconditional love to others that we have received. This is the path of discipleship. This is the road we are on, together. This is not a hundred-yard dash but a long and winding road. Let us be willing to: persist, be led, love, be there for, and accompany one another as we take the hand of Jesus and allow him to lead us on the Way. Jesus will not reject any of us who walk with him. May we help others as Jesus helps us when we fall to rise up and begin again.

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Painting: Figure of Christ by Heinrich Hofmann

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, May 7, 2025