love

“Follow me.”

“While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples” (MT 9:10).

We as the Church, followers of Jesus, still have much to learn from Jesus. Today’s reading provides another wonderful example. Once Jesus begins his public ministry he is constantly on the go. Going where? Meeting people in the midst of their daily lives as he did with Matthew. And what is the response to Jesus calling Matthew, a tax collector, and then partaking in table fellowship with other tax collectors and sinners?

Matthew accepts his invitation to follow. The Pharisees question the disciples about his practice and curious onlookers follow at a distance. But to those who have, maybe for the first time in their lives, been respected as fellow human beings, their response is hope. A hope that there actually may be a path leading in from the peripheries. A hope that they no longer have to be on the outside looking in. A hope that they, for the first time in their lives might finally belong.

Jesus is shown time and again encountering the person as they are in their present circumstances and the chaos of their lives. He welcomes, is present, and embraces each person as they are. Yet he doesn’t want them to stay where they are. He invites people to be part of something greater than their self-absorbed posture, their self-imposed and/or externally imposed limitations and instead to actualize their potential and embrace a life of meaning and purpose. The only requirement is that they are willing to: repent, be forgiven, be healed, be loved, be human, be free, and once experiencing this encounter with Jesus, share what they have received with others.

When we are willing to hear Jesus say, “Follow me.”, then follow, and become Jesus’ disciples as Matthew did, then we can experience the same hope for a new beginning. To follow, we must have the humility to recognize our sinfulness and our wounds. We need to recognize our need to repent, need for healing, our dependence on and need for God as well as his love, more than anyone or anything else. When we do so, healing begins. We are then able to let go of the apparent goods that we thought brought us happiness but instead led us astray. We will renounce disordered affections and false hopes so our desires may be properly ordered.

Only in God alone will we find our fulfillment, hope, and security. Jesus invites us to experience: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). This is the promise and fulfillment that no other pursuit or person can bring. God is the foundation and source of all, and at the same time he knows each and every one us better than we know ourselves. God invites us to grow in our relationship so that we can know, love, and serve him.

The Son, was sent by the Father, not to condemn, but to save us by revealing the lies and showing us the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus draws close to us as he did with Matthew, he experiences the chaos of our lives, and loves us in the range of the fullness of our humanity and invites us to experience something better. He calls us too to follow him. When willing, we will experience mercy, forgiveness, healing, and transformation as Matthew did. Jesus not only calls us be also sends us to be beacons of light, hope, and love for those in need of the Father’s forgiveness, healing, peace, and rest.

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Painting: Close up of “The Calling of St. Matthew”, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1600. Jesus calls us to follow him as well. Will we respond as Matthew did?

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, September 21, 2026

Trust in Jesus, enter into the pain of our sins and wounds, and we will be forgiven and healed.

Logistically, to our modern minds, the setting of this verse may appear confusing. How could this “sinful” woman be standing behind Jesus such that her tears would fall on his feet? When we think of someone sitting and eating, we imagine them doing so by sitting in a chair. Thus, the feet would be under the chair or toward the front of the person.

During the time period and cultural setting in which Jesus lived, a customary practice when eating was not to sit at all but to recline for the tables were set lower. From this position of reclining then it would make sense that she, “stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears” (Luke 7:38). The woman next knelt down, dried his feet with her hair, and then anointed Jesus’ feet with the ointment she brought for him.

She did not rationalize, deny, ignore, or come grudgingly nor wait for Jesus to call her out, she came not asking for healing but with true contrition for her sins. Hopefully, we can be like this woman, and come to Jesus with the same open heart to his love so that we too will experience his compassion and have our hearts pierced with our own sorrow for the hurt we have caused others through our sinful actions. To cry tears to the point of “bathing his feet with her tears” showed the depth of this woman’s sorrow for her sin as well as the gratefulness of Jesus’ forgiveness.

Those quick to point the finger at other’s sins, like Simon, who judged this woman, are less apt to be aware of the depth of their own sin and thus “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little” (Lk 7:47). We are not forgiven less because God is not willing to forgive but because God will not go against our free will. Hiding, being in denial of, rationalizing, or justifying our sins, curving in upon ourselves or listening to the father of lies keeps us at a distance. If we are unaware or unwilling to bring our sins forward with true sorrow, repentance, and a willingness through God’s grace to change, we are cutting ourselves off from the healing and forgiveness God wants so much to share.

When we follow the lead of the woman by expressing the same trust and faith, willing to bear our soul with humility and sorrow, with our deepest and darkest sins, we will not only be forgiven but experience a deeper outpouring of our Father’s extravagant love. The one who confesses truthfully, fully, and contritely is forgiven more, loved more, and thus will love and forgive more.

We may not want to face our sins or our wounds. It is true that as we open our hearts and minds to the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit we will experience pain. Just as we will not physically heal without experiencing the pain of broken bones mending or skin growing back together to make a scar, we won’t heal deep, emotional wounds or be forgiven of corrosive sins left in the dark. Jesus experienced the excruciating pain of dying on the Cross. No Resurrection was possible until Jesus experienced his death.

When we are contrite, confess, and atone for our sins, when we face our deepest hurts, there will be pain, but Jesus will receive and meet us in our anguish and anxiety. Jesus will love us even where we feel the shame and are most wounded. To be loved and forgiven there, frees us from the lies and fears that have kept us isolated. Bringing all to the light in humility, having the courage to go where we allowed no one entry before, Jesus embraces us. As we allow him to hold us there, we will feel safe, the tears of sorrow and pain will then flow, and they will turn into tears of gratitude. For having been seen at our worst, our deepest anguish, our most vulnerable, we will find that we have not been rejected but instead forgiven, accepted, and loved.

Photo: The more we have faith and trust in Jesus the deeper we go, and the greater forgiveness and healing we well experience!

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, September 17, 2026

May we trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit when he is inviting us to embrace change.

“To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit In the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep'” (Lk 7:31-32).

Jesus convicted those who held a narrow view of who was a true follower of God by sharing the image of a flute being played and no one was dancing, thus in times of joy, there was no celebration. When the funeral dirge was sung, they did not weep, they did not mourn. Jesus then tied the analogy to his present condition regarding those who did not accept the ascetical practices of fasting and the call to repentance from John the Baptist, nor did they accept the inclusive and festive table fellowship of Jesus.

In our own time, we have encountered those that are not pleased beyond their own narrow focus and who suffer from a hypersensitive, tunnel vision. Anything that hints at even a slight variation of change sends tremors of discontent. If we are honest, we all have some resistance to change, but if we are to authentically live the Gospel, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman’s quote is an apt barometer: “To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

My wife, JoAnn, embraced change much more easily than I. She consistently helped me, even when I didn’t feel it was helpful in the moment, to resist getting too comfortable. She did so again in “changing her address” seven years ago already to a heavenly zip code. Working through the reality of her death, the adventure of two years of seminary, and adjusting to the blessings of completing now two years as a priest, have continued to present opportunities to embrace change.

It would have been easier to seek an early retirement and live a quieter life, which was what I thought was the prudent move at the time, but God had another plan. When most my age are thinking of or beginning an early retirement, I instead trusted in the Father’s guidance and embraced the invitation to change again and embark on a new adventure. Though not easy, I am very happy that I did.

I have enjoyed very much my time serving at Holy Cross. I have been blessed by a wonderful community. I have learned a lot and continue to adjust. And before I could get too settled, Bishop Manuel has invited me to be the director of vocations, seminarians and our new discernment house, while remaining here as parochial vicar. Change continues!

The Church, at her best, is a balance between the rock, solid foundation of our core beliefs, such as is outlined in the Nicene Creed, which provides stability, assuredness, and identity. While at the same time, she is open to the life-giving inspiration of each nudge from the Holy Spirit. When we in each generation follow the lead of the Holy Spirit the Gospel will continue to be relevant.

As we remain grounded in what we believe, it is important that, at the same time, we allow ourselves to be flexible and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us. In this way, we can avoid molding the Church into our image, and instead be conformed and transformed into the image and likeness of Jesus, who is the embodiment of Love, the Trinitarian communion of which we profess in the Creed.

We can live a life of joy when we resist the temptation to hold on too tightly. Nothing and no one in this world lasts because all is finite. When it is time to mourn, let us weep, and if we do so well, when it is time to embrace life we can do so with the fullness of joy and we can dance and live again. What lasts, even eternally, as St. Paul wrote, is love. God is love and God created us out of an abundance of his love. When we are willing to surrender our wills to the Father, our hearts and minds to the Son, and allow our souls to be led by the Holy Spirit, we will better embrace change and live a life of inner freedom and joy!

Photo: Rosary walk at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception. Here for a week for the NCDVD, National Conference for Diocesan Vocation Directors. Learning a lot! Recommitting to the priority of prayer.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, September 16, 2026

There is wonderful peace to experience when we are forgiven and when we forgive.

“So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart” (Mt 18:35)

Unfortunately for many of us, we do not do forgiveness well, yet, Jesus is very clear with this parable that we need to. Our salvation depends on it! Go ahead, click the link below for today’s reading and read the full parable. We are to forgive because God has forgiven us, over and over again, and he will continue to over and over again. If we repent and are contrite, showing genuine sorrow for our sin, God will forgive us. As I learned from Pastor Barry Johnson when he was still the pastor at Jupiter First Church: “God loves us more than we can ever mess up.”

Jesus is clear throughout the Gospels and in today’s parable that God will forgive us, the issue at hand though is that we need to also forgive as God has forgiven us. The servant in this parable was forgiven his massive debt by the king. Shortly thereafter this same servant had the opportunity to forgive someone who owed him a much smaller debt, a no brainer that the servant would act in kind, yet, he did no such thing. He strangled his debtor, and when asked to be patient, he offered none and had the man placed in prison.

He couldn’t even use the excuse that he was so demanding because he wanted to pay his master back, because his master had forgiven his whole debt. Instead of being grateful and sharing the same grace he received, he did the opposite.

Our lives are emblematic of this parable. God has not only had compassion on us, he offers to forgive us, over and over. Pope Francs shared often that God never tires of forgiving us, we tire of asking for forgiveness. More amazing is that his Son, Jesus, gave his life to atone for our sins and to unleash the power of the sacraments including the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We are the recipients of his infinite mercy, grace, and forgiveness which we will never fully grasp and comprehend. Jesus’ forgiveness knows no bounds and is an unlimited, infinite wellspring that we can draw from again and again.

Waking up each day with gratitude for the gift of our life is a good start, yet, how many of us actually take the time to be thankful for the life we have been given? The freedom to breathe freely and deeply? Do we even practice the gift of intentionally and deeply breathing? Jesus reminds us that we show our thankfulness best when we forgive as we have been forgiven. We are to be patient with one another, we are to assume a stance of understanding and support, not one of condemnation and hardness of heart.

We don’t do forgiveness well, but we can improve. Maybe we don’t do so well because we do not avail ourselves of the wonderful gift we have been given. Let us breathe a little more intentionally, slow down, resist staying mired in our own self-guilt or pity, staying too busy to be aware, or we compare – I am not as bad as…

Wallowing in our guilt is not what Jesus asks of us. He calls us to humility and a healthy awareness of when we miss the mark of living a life of service and following the will of God. We are to examine our conscience daily to acknowledge what we have done and what we have failed to do, confess, commit to do better and begin again. For those who have access to the Sacrament of Reconciliation – which is a gift of mercy, not a dress down, there is great healing available.

There have been times when I have walked out of the confessional feeling as if a massive weight has been lifted. A comparison I can think of is when I had an asthma attack that was not being relieved by my normal inhalation of the inhaler. After receiving a shot of adrenaline from the doctor, within minutes I felt such relief and peace. Confession is wonderful medicine and antidote to self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and pride. Once a month is a good practice.

When we begin to experience God’s forgiveness more then we might be better able to offer more understanding and forgiveness. There is a lightness and a peace when we let go of a grudge or hurt we have held onto, especially those we have held onto for a long time. One small action that can help us to better forgive is to change the habit of saying, “That’s alright” when someone does apologize, and say instead, “I forgive you.”

If you are wondering now, as did Peter, how much are we to forgive? The answer is the same for us, “Seventy-seven times” or “Seventy-seven times seven”, meaning every opportunity we are given. Hopefully, we will begin to let go of the tight grip we have on our reactions, prejudices, and grudges and, unlike the wicked servant, recognize that in heaven and under heaven we are all brothers and sisters sharing the same invitation to receive and share the love of our God and Father. Will we receive his forgiveness and love, and will we share his forgiveness and love?

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Photo credit: The road to forgiveness and peace begins when we allow God to love and forgive us.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, September 13, 2026

The light of Jesus is a properly ordered response to any darkness we experience.

“A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Lk 6:45).

We can experience hardships, trials, and suffering. We may have experienced recurring anxieties, insecurities, fears, traumas, and even come face to face with evil. Yet, we are not evil because of what happens to us, nor how we are tempted. Neither are we defined by any trauma, suffering, or abuse. We have been created good by our loving God and Father.

Negativity, sin, hate, and even evil, can be seductive, can lure us to rationalize and decide that what we may think of as good in the moment, is in reality, just an apparent good, a disordered good, or not good at all. To encounter or experience a word or act of unkindness, negativity, or even violence, we may feel justified in retaliation, yet if we speak or act in this way, we perpetuate the negativity or evil we seek to stand up against. In The Strength to Love, a collection of Dr. Martin Luther King’s sermons he wrote:

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”

At the moment we can identify a thought in our mind, let us breathe and decide where and from whom this thought is coming from. Let us bring the thought to the Lord. Often times our emotions arise from unidentified thoughts. Once we are blessed to be identify the thought, then we decided with God what to do. Many thoughts come from ourselves. They arise from the past experiences as well as the anticipation of the future. Others come from external experiences, observations, and/or concupiscence – our tendency to sin, and yes even some from demonic influences.

What we listen to, read, and/or watch on a regular basis has more influence on us than we might believe. Discerning each thought or influence that comes our way is important. Being more attentive to what we are feeding on, literally and figuratively, honestly assessing our thoughts before we speak and act, thinking through and deciding on what we will say and do is different and more helpful than immediately or impulsively reacting.

Consuming the things of this world will lead to a different way of life than meditating and pondering on the things from above (cf. Colossians 3:1). Spending time in prayer and following Jesus’ commands will help us to bear the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”(Galatians 5:22-23). Honestly examining our conscience daily will help us to be purified from that which is deadening and renew and heal us.

Violence and the worst of our humanity continue through multiple media outlets, also, they horrifically materialize in real time, and ad nauseam on 24/7 cable coverage. One way to counter evil is to resist bringing it into our homes, resist returning evil for evil even with thoughts, and instead learning and putting into practice Jesus’ teachings, which will help to expose the darkness in our own hearts. We will see more precisely how to clear out the spiritual, plaque buildup of our own fears, wounds, frustrations, disruptions, and disordered affections. Doing so will allow more room for the love of the Holy Spirit to flow. With our hearts flowing with love, we will react less, listen, think, and speak better, and choose to act in ways that promote healing, understanding, forgiveness, reconciliation, and love.

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Photo: Main chapel at the Retreat and Conference Center of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, NY.

Link for the Mass readings for September 12, 2026

Willing the good of those who are enemies, who hate and curse us is possible with the love of Jesus as our foundation.

Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28).

If we thought the beatitudes and the woes that we experienced yesterday were a challenge, buckle up! Today, Jesus takes things up a notch. The Prince of Peace is inviting us to walk along the path to peace. The peace that Jesus invites us to engage in is not just an absence of violence but a peace that is grounded in mutual respect and unity. No matter where we might look, there are very few examples or models for us to see this Gospel being put into practice. We instead see a consistent engagement in rhetoric, language, and outright hostility that promotes dehumanization, division, contempt, hatred, and vileness. These voices not only rise in our secular and political discourse but also there is a growing din within the Church as well.

Jesus is also leading us away from the temptation to swing the pendulum the other way, such that what we think, say, and do has the substance of milk toast. We become so careful not to offend that we don’t share our ideas or what we truly believe to avoid conflict. Staying away from hot button issues and the taboos of talking religion and politics is not a way to bring about peaceful coexistence nor solve important issues.

Neither an overly aggressive nor a bland tolerance of engagement is what Jesus is presenting in today’s Gospel. Jesus is inviting us to allow ourselves to be healed and transformed from the survival mentality of fight or flight or being paralyzed by trauma. To move beyond our primal, reactive instincts, we need to feel safe. By breathing and allowing ourselves to be loved by God through meditation on and praying with his word and listening to him and his guidance in silence each day, we can move beyond placing anyone and anything else before God. As we grow in relationship with God, he becomes our rock foundation.

With God as our foundation, we can begin to open up to the reality of what Jesus offers in today’s Gospel. Who of us would agree with his teaching to love our enemies, those who hate, curse, and mistreat us? Jesus is calling us to love one another as he loves each and every one of us. This love is more than the emotional or sentimental surface level of love we are used to. Jesus calls us to a higher love, to have a sincere intent to will the good of each other, even and especially when we feel or think there is nothing to like about a person. This is how we can love even an enemy, by willing their good, wanting the best for them, which also is best for us.

If we want to see a change in our divisive and polarized time, we need to begin with ourselves, receive the message of Jesus, and begin, little by little, to put his teachings into practice. We will do so when we encounter one another, one person at a time, sit down, talk, and listen, resist reacting, give the benefit o of the doubt, and love one another. Easy, no, possible, yes, when we allow God to open our hearts and minds to the love God wants to share with and through each of us. As we breathe, receive, rest, and abide in God’s love there is a better chance we will love one another.

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Photo: Storm clouds will threaten, but the light and love of Christ will always overcome.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, September 10, 2026

Let us trust in God. His greatest joy is that we will be free to experience his love and joy!

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man” (Lk 6:22).

Feel like this statement is a little counter to our sensibilities? Who of us seeks to be hated? Do we wake up each morning and say to ourselves, “Self, I hope I receive a good deal of hate from those closest to me today.” No. We want to be affirmed and loved and that is a good. The important point is that we are to have our desire to be loved properly ordered by first allowing God to love us before anyone else. Knowing the love of God helps us to then not be left unbalanced like someone just pulled the rug out from under us when they are a bit short or snarky with us.

If we read the statement a bit closer, we see Jesus is going deeper than just the normal everyday conflicts that we experience. He is not asking us to seek to be hated. He is saying that we will be blessed when we are authentically living our faith and then we receive disdain or hatred. Jesus received it from those of his own hometown when he began his public ministry. We don’t live our faith with the goal of being liked or loved by the world, we live our faith as we have been loved by God, and then share what he gives us to share. In the words of St. Bernadette of Soubirous, our “job is to inform not to convince.”

The Beatitudes are contrary to much of what too many of us are tempted by when seek our satisfaction, security, and fulfillment. Much of us are lured in some form or fashion, by power, fame, wealth, pleasure, and celebrity. What is more, how many of us who proclaim to be people of faith resist Jesus’ teachings because of self-centered reasons? We hold on to things that keep us from God, that really do not make us happy. We do so because we do want to be loved and belong. The challenge is we are “looking for love in all the wrong places” as sung by Johnny Lee.

In today’s Gospel account from Luke, Jesus began to teach his disciples on this deeper level. He had just chosen the twelve by name and that number would not have slipped by them. Their thoughts were more than likely moving closer to the realization that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised heir of David. Would he be gathering them together to restore the twelve tribes of Israel and overthrow the occupying power of Rome? Yes, but not in the way they were thinking.

Jesus’ presentation was not about taking up military or physical armaments, but spiritual ones of attaining the  kingdom through four blessings and dashing the common hope with four woes. Jesus’ message is a universal message, an invitation to and for all who have ears to hear as well as hearts and minds open to receive. Jesus spoke not only to his twelve newly hand picked followers as wells as those from “Judea and Jerusalem” but also those from the “coastal region of Tyre and Sidon” (Luke 6:17). That Jesus did not dismiss but was teaching those from Tyre and Sidon would not have been missed either. They were from Gentile territory.

Jesus’ teachings challenged all present and they challenge us today to evaluate where we are placing our trust and security. If we are placing our trust in the things of this world, the four woes section is for us, for that which is finite and material are fleeting and passing. By placing our trust in Jesus, his Father and the love shared between them, the Holy Spirit, the beatitudes will lead us to experience joy, peace, and love.

Being poor, hungry, in mourning, hated, excluded, insulted and denounced as evil will bring us happiness? Yes. When we are faithful to God, each of them counter the typical substitutes that we can put in place before our relationship with God. Each of the beatitudes that Jesus offers are invitations to experience true, deep and abiding joy. We just need to be willing to relinquish putting self first and seeking pursuits counter to God and his will.

When we rely more on God and less on material things, even relationships; when we depend more on God alone, our relationships and our pursuits will be more properly ordered. With God first, we will experience order and peace and… that all elusive rest of the soul! That rest is so fleeting to so many of us because we are looking to so many other things but God to find rest and love. To be serious about being Jesus’ disciple, we are to look to the things of heaven and not of this world. Learning and living the beatitudes is just such a move. No easy task but when we look at each one and begin to detach from the attachments they allude to, “we will rejoice and leap for joy” (Lk 6:23)!

Joy because we will no longer be ensured by the things of this world and instead experience the inner freedom to enjoy the good things that God gives. We will be fueled not by the advancement or aggrandizement of self, but by the emptying of our ego. We will have room in our hearts to receive the love of Jesus, the source of our joy, which wells up from within and never runs dry! Jesus is the kingdom of Heaven that is at hand and he will lead us, if we are willing to follow, to the ultimate desire and deepest craving and hunger of our being, to be in communion with God and one another.

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Photo: EnJOYed another beautiful sunset painted on God’s canvas of creation last evening. Lightning strikes in the central smaller cloud, not visible. May you experience a taste of the joy God is seeking to bring you today!

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, September 9, 2026

When choosing the love of God, we will resist reaction and help to foster reconciliation.

Oppressive clouds and destructive winds of division, polarization, tribalism, nationalism, racial unrest, violence, and war continue to swirl and can wear down and weary us. If we stay focused on the chaos, we can rip ourselves apart, especially when we engage in reacting to the lack of respect in kind. Then instead of being a healing salve, we contribute to our and other’s unrest. Our Gospel today offers some hope.

The opening and close of today’s Gospel reading is very telling: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone’ ” (Mt 18:15) and “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). Jesus provides for us a model and he himself is the source for engaging with conflict with the goal of healing and reconciliation.

Jesus offered the steps for coming together to resolve disharmony. First one to one, then three two one, then if the person still does not see their error, bringing in the elders and leaders of the Church. Each is an appeal to the conscience of the individual who has offended, who has sinned, who has caused harm, and at the foundation of each attempt is the intent to not bring a brother or sister back, not to knock them down with condemnation but appeal to them through conviction. Jesus insists that we resist the temptations of gossip, character assassination, and dehumanization. In this way, we can work to hold each other accountable in love, and invite a movement toward reconciliation and mutual respect.

Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, as God has loved us. We are to embrace the gift and grace of our own God given dignity and diversity. Each one of us are a unique gift and expression of our loving God and Father that no one has nor ever will again express. Yet, we will not attain the harmony and peace of Jesus’ call for unity if we keep making decisions rooted in our fear and prejudices, if we continue to crouch and operate from a defensive posture and feed our insecurities.

On our own initiative, from a posture of I am right and you are wrong, and even with the best of intentions, we will fall short, for “with human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Mt. 19:26). As we deal with conflict and division, we need to resist reacting, give another the benefit of the doubt, and see each other as human beings first and foremost. With two or more, not enter into gossip and slander, but instead be willing to pray with and for one another, knowing and trusting that Jesus will be with us. Jesus, who spoke and stilled the storm, can speak in and through us to quiet the storms of our own chaos within as well as the winds of chaos without.

When we are willing to unite in prayer, to accompany one another, to seek reconciliation, and to work together to resolve our conflicts, there will be a clear path toward peace. St Paul in his willingness to be transformed by Jesus got this. We are to love our neighbor as ourself, for “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:9-10). Even though the darkness and gathering gloom of division, dehumanization, polarization, and prejudice appears to be growing, let us place our standard in the love of Christ. Let us meet hate with love, division with reconciliation, and see each other as beloved daughters and sons of God.

Photo: “[T]he light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, September 6, 2026

“You have to let her go.”

Sometime in mid-December of 2022 in the chapel of St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, I knelt in the pew during my holy hour. I asked Jesus why I could not feel the love toward him that I felt for JoAnn. He said gently, “You have to let her go.” Then I sobbed.

Jesus was not saying I needed to forget JoAnn, or the memories of our twenty-three years together. I needed to let go of my attachment, of holding on to who she was, so that I could experience her as she is now with Jesus. She had died September 2, 2019, so just three years and a few months before that moment. As I type these words, it has been seven years since JoAnn’s death. In following the guidance of Jesus, slowly, I have been letting her go.

What has been priceless is that I still have the gift of wonderful memories, but also now the gift of short, but grace filled moments where she feels close. As I have grown closer to Jesus since then, as he becomes more primary in my life, I have experienced more of his love, and I have also felt closer to JoAnn as she is now.

To honor JoAnn’s seventh anniversary in heaven (I hope), I offer the words of Pope Benedict XVI that have provided me comfort. May they provide comfort for you too.

“Dear friends, the Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of all the faithful departed tells us that only those who can recognize a great hope in death, can live a life based on hope. If we reduce man exclusively to his horizontal dimension, to that which can be perceived empirically, life itself loses its profound meaning. Man needs eternity for every other hope is too brief, too limited for him. Man can be explained only if there is a Love which overcomes every isolation, even that of death, in a totality which also transcends time and space. Man can be explained, he finds his deepest meaning, only if there is God. And we know that God left his distance for us and made himself close. He entered into our life and tells us: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26).”

Photo: My heart still soars when I see your smile! Happy anniversary, my heart and my love!!!

Full address of Pope Benedict XVI General Audience Wednesday, 2 November 2011

Jesus faced rejection, ridicule, and death and was undeterred because he trusted his Father without hesitation in every situation.

“They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away” (Lk 4:29-30).

“They” were those from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. They could not accept that he was anything but a carpenter’s son. He did not help his case any as the crowd became a bit more restless. Not only did he say that the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in their hearing – implying that he is the Messiah, but that the Year of Jubilee prophesied was not only for the Jews, the Chosen of God, but also the Gentiles as well.

Referring to Elijah working a miracle through Zarephath and her son, and Elisha, through Naaman the Syrian presented them as God reaching out to those that were on the outside and that they received the prophet’s message and believed in God. Jesus’ own did not take to kindly to Jesus poking the bear. What followed next is our humanity at its worst when it rises to a mob mentality. They moved as one to lead him out of town and hurl him headlong down the side of a hill.

In praying with this verse, I imagined myself with Jesus in his synagogue in Nazareth, listening to him teaching the people. I watched how the people were first listening to every letter of his message mesmerized and moved by them. But was then astonished as their disposition changed. Their eyes of wonder were clouded over like a once clear, blue sky, that was filled by approaching storm clouds.

The voices of rebuke reached a fever pitch after Jesus shared how God blessed the widow and Naaman, then their bodies rose as one, and they moved in on Jesus. My and Jesus’ eyes met and he mouthed for me to stay close to him. I attempted to do so as the crowd grasped at Jesus and pushed him toward the exit.

I squirmed through the swarming bodies to get outside quickly, and then slipped from the weight and movement of the crowd. Keeping pace, I kept my eyes on Jesus while keep at a safe distance so as not to be trampled. The energy of the crowd was electrified as if a lightning strike was about to unleash. Outside, the bodies did not spread further apart but instead closed into a tighter unit. It was harder for me to see Jesus, I quickened my pace and ran to the right of the converging crowd which now hummed and looked more like a swarm of angry bees as they drew closer to the brow of the hill.

A roar then erupted from the front as arms with clenched fists were raised. Then a sweeping force of pushed ahead like a wave. To my right I spied a man walking away at a clam, yet steady pace. I dashed to the hill side in time to see three or four bodies tumbling down the hill. People were jeering and shouting. I looked again to the back of the man who had now put a good distance between us.

I chose not to run down the hill but toward the man, who I recognized as Jesus walking away. As I closed the gap, I chanced a glance back over my shoulder and saw that the crowd was still fixated down the hill. More shouts echoed but no one looked toward or followed us. I turned back and realized I had fallen behind. I sprinted to catch Jesus.

Panting as I settled into Jesus’ pace, I glanced at Jesus as he walked. Then I saw his face. He radiated a smile of joy. Jesus kept his pace but turned to meet my look of wonder. His smile only increased when I imagined he saw my look of amazement.

“Jesus, the people of your own hometown just rose up to hurl you over the hill. How can you be smiling?”

Jesus breathed deeply, as he kept his steady pace. After a few more strides he said, “I am saddened that their hearts were so closed, their hearts so hardened, but I feel joy in knowing that I did my Father’s will. Even though my own rejected me, even though they had no faith in me, I was faithful to what my Father sent me to do.”

I stumbled then, tripped, and fell. I rolled to sit up. Jesus, stopped and turned to look at me. “The same will be so, when I am raised up on the Cross.”

Our eyes met and we held each other’s gaze. Jesus then smiled again and reached out his hand. I looked at it for a moment and held my breath. I looked up at him again. There was no judgment on his face, but there was a clear, unspoken invitation. I then took a deep breath and placed my hand in his. Without hesitation his strong, calloused, carpenter’s hand grasped mine and he lifted me up like a feather.

Jesus faced his suffering with joy. The people of his hometown not only did not understand him, they rejected him, betrayed, and sought to cast him out. He knew without a hesitation or doubt that he was doing his Father’s will and that his Father loved him. Jesus was like the eye of a storm in the hurricane of his experiences because he was anchored by the bond of love that was unbreakable between him and his Father. That love was iron clad because he always said, “Yes”, without hesitation to his Father’s will. Even to the Cross.

Jesus invites us today to take his hand and allow him to lift us up beyond any anxiety, fear, insecurities, sin, darkness, distraction, or diversion. He is inviting us to let go of anything that is not of his Father’s will. Are we worthy? No. Capable? No. Are we willing? If yes, Jesus will provide the rest! Let us place our hand in Jesus’, let him lift us up. As we take one breath, one step with Jesus today, just one, we begin an amazing journey of healing and wholeness with the Father through the love of the Holy Spirit !!!

Photo: Christ Carrying the Cross — El Greco

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, August 31, 2026