love

We will experience joy and fulfillment with friendships grounded in the love of Jesus.

Jesus continued with his next antithesis in today’s account to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28).

Too many people today believe that our sexual urge is too powerful to channel and direct in chaste ways. In fact, to even attempt to do so, some would say is damaging. The Church has confused the matter a bit more because of those within her number who have not only abused children sexually but also those who have turned a blind eye to warning signs and/or covered up the abuse.

Yet, even these horrific acts by a few do not change the fact that Jesus calls us to practice chastity. Our sexuality is a powerful gift that when properly ordered in the marital embrace enhances intimacy and unity as well as offers the potential to bring life into the world. This is a wonderful gift. But the enemy seeks to distort and destroy all that God has created good. Twisting and manipulating the gift of our sexuality such that it can be used for mere physical gratification and objectification of another.

The normalization of lust, pornography, objectification of another must be countered with healthier and chaste ways of living. We figuratively tear out an eye or cut off a hand that leads us to sin by recognizing, identifying, and renouncing any disordered practices or variations. We also need to resist the opposite pull to the puritanical, opposite extreme, and identify our sexuality and all things human as bad. Suppressing our sexuality is not what Jesus is guiding us to engage in. God created humanity good, and our sexuality is good when we integrate it into the wholeness of the physical and spiritual aspects of our humanity.

This is a hard lesson to grasp if the majority of what we read, listen to, watch, think and fantasize about, are erotic and evocative. Living in a culture that is hyper-sexualized, condones enticing advertisements on TV, the computer, and billboards; normalizes pornography, acting out sexually at a younger and younger age, and the like, will make being and living a chaste life seem impossible. Jesus offers us a better way that will lead us to more authentic love and joy. We just need to be willing to allow him to transform our hearts and minds.

Self discipline and the dignity of human beings are true and authentic goods. Unbridled passions do not lead to happiness but instead to slavery and addiction. Seeing each other as objects for our own personal gratification demeans and reduces us to the bestial. Human beings are not merely objects and there is much more depth to our beingness beyond mere sensuality. As St. Pope John Paul II stated, “There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”

There is a greater intimacy that can be experienced when we engage in a wider range of personal engagement. Chaste friendships are a wonderful gift that is becoming a lost art. We all seek to belong, to be a part of, and to be loved. Making the time to have in depth conversations where we can speak and listen, share common interests, experience activities; work through challenges, conflicts, and accomplish goals together; as well as being able to take the risk to be ourselves, take off our masks, share our fears, insecurities, hopes, and dreams, and be heard, accepted, and loved, are ways we grow in intimacy and deep friendship.

Lust is too often linked with love. The sole pursuit of lust is to objectify another for our own self-gratification. The sole pursuit of the unconditional love that Jesus calls us to, is to will the good of the other as other, to seek their best. Jesus lived a chaste life full of love, joy, and meaning. He invites us to settle for nothing less. Jesus invites us experience the love of God, who fills our deepest longing. As we experience God’s love, we realize we don’t have to settle for counterfeit relationships. Our friendships can be properly formed such that we don’t see each other as objects for our pleasure, but instead friends to experience and grow in relationship with.

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Photo: Blessed by Jesus to be friends for decades!

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, June 13, 2025

“…whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin…”

As was presented yesterday, Jesus made it clear that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but he came to fulfill them. In his Sermon on the Mount as recorded by Matthew, Jesus offered practical ways in which we can find fulfillment and happiness. In today’s account, he introduces the first of six antitheses. With these apparent contrasting statements, beginning with, “You have heard that it was said” followed by, “But I say to you”, Jesus provided for his disciples the way to avoid the trap that some of the religious leaders of his time fell into: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20).

The scribes and Pharisees that Jesus pointed out were those who believed that they were following the letter of the law, but their hearts were not changed. They may have been adhering to the external provisions of the law, but there was no transformation, their hearts were hardened, they were focused more on their own access to honor and power. They were also imposing strict adherence to the law without providing the support or means for others to achieve what the law imposed. The law became more important than the dignity or value of the person. Jesus recognized the law, but also realized that it was in place to help to provide guidance and discipline so one could better resist the temptations of our fallen nature. The law was to be a foundation to be built upon, not the end goal in and of itself.

Just as children need clear boundaries and structures in place to provide a clear path toward healthy development, this is also true for those of us growing and maturing spiritually. We need to learn to crawl, to build strength and balance before we can take those first wobbly steps. With continued support, we are then able to walk and soon run. Jesus is not only providing the means to go through each of these stages in our faith life, figuratively teaching each of his disciples and us today to not only crawl, walk, and run but to also be able to fly as we seek to reach the heights that Jesus is willing to raise us to!

The Beatitudes and six antitheses are challenging because each one of them goes counter to much of the way the structure of our fallen world has been governed for centuries. If we are to catch the fire that Jesus has come to set, we need not only to read, pray, meditate, and contemplate upon on the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, we need to also see their relevance and practicality to our time and place today, and begin to put them into practice. As Christians, our faith ought not to be shaped and informed by our culture, but we are to be shaped and conformed by the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, so to shape and inform our culture.

Today we start with the first antithesis: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna (Mt 5:21-22). The seeds of anger begin to sprout in our mind from our knee jerk reactions to a perceived or actual threat, from our hearts hardened by prejudgments, prejudices, and/or a reflection of our level of spiritual immaturity.

Jesus addresses the known provision against murder. He then builds a hedge around the Torah. If one does not want to break the law, another is imposed so as to protect one from even getting close to breaking the first. If we can resist the temptation to react and instead step back for a moment, take some deep breaths, pray, and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will be less likely to criticize, judge, demean or dehumanize another, and then there is much less chance for our anger to grow into wrath, that left unbridled could lead to murdering someone.

Jesus is also saying that our words matter, that they have the power to destroy or to create. Calling someone Raqa, Aramaic for a block-head or idiot, and then calling someone a fool, would “be liable to fiery Gehenna” (Mt 5:22). How much more egregious are we today? How polarized we have become inside and outside of the Church because of the level of demeaning words, tone, and language that is spoken, condoned, and justified? This has a ripple effect that poisons our family, relationships, and spreads to the wider culture, politics, and the Church with growing hateful rhetoric, overt expressions of prejudice, and violence.

Instead of settling for two dimensional caricatures of one another, we can go deeper when we are willing to spend time with and get to know each other. Jesus challenges us to slow down and see the person before us with dignity and respect. When we resist reacting, giving in to our biases, and prejudgments, and instead recognize the value and dignity of each person, we will have a better chance of building relationships. We will also be more apt to reform policies and structures that respect the dignity of each person in the womb, after birth, and at each stage and condition of life until natural death.

May we all take some time today to reflect on Jesus’ teaching about how we think, speak to and about, and act toward one another. May we examine our conscience and seek forgiveness for those times we have thought, condoned, or justified thoughts, words, and/or actions that have been belittling, dehumanizing, and demeaning directly or while with others, we approved by our manner or our silence.

Jesus, please impart within us your infusing power of justice, love, and mercy so that we will be more inspired to live out your teachings in our daily lives. Help us to strive to encounter each other grounded in mutual respect and understanding as our brothers and sisters, no matter our race, ethnicity, creed, and/or gender, and to commit to building a culture of life and dignity for all, not in some abstract utopian way, but in the concrete moments of our everyday experiences, one person and one encounter at a time.

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Photo: Let us listen to Jesus and do whatever he tells us.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, June 12, 2025

The love of Jesus will heal us and help us to heal others.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). Jesus was a devout Jew, he was taught how to live out the law and the prophets in his daily life by Joseph, Mary, and his Father. Jesus grew up not only practicing but embodying a deep understanding of the law and the prophetic tradition. We see evidence of that when, at twelve, he is found by his parents among the teachers and scholars discussing the law with understanding and wisdom. Jesus, in his public ministry, very much spoke with authority, as God, calling the people of Israel back to the law, both those who have turned away from God as well as those who used the law as a bludgeon and for building a wall to keep others out.

Jesus also showed time and again that being true to Torah was more than just following the law but obedience to God and allowing God to transform each person from within was the point. The law was about building relationships with God and others. Jesus extended his hand, person to person, offering an invitation of welcome for people to come to know him and his Father intimately. He called out many religious leaders who taught the truth but lived another way. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, Jesus forgave sins, Jesus touched lepers and he ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, those on the peripheries, not because he was being willy-nilly with the law, but because he was showing the deeper interiorization of how to live out God’s commands by his lived example that the greatest commandment of the law was and is to love God with all his mind, heart, and strength and to love his neighbor as himself.

This practice goes right to the foundation of who God created us to be. All of humanity has been created in God’s image and likeness. Each of us is endowed with dignity by the very fact that we exist as a daughter and son of God. Yet, it is in our choices to sin, that we lose our likeness to God. Jesus calls us to repent, to turn away from our sinful attitudes and ways, and to turn back to receive the love of God.

In Jesus, we see that the highest observance of the law of God is to love. Jesus met each person where they were and accompanied them. That also meant calling out those who misused the law by keeping others at arm’s length. Jesus did the opposite. As the Son of God, Jesus became one with us in our humanity, so that we can become one with him in his divinity. Jesus offered others his arms extended outward, inviting others to enter into his loving embrace. He showed this in a graphic and powerful way on the cross, where he opened his arms wide to embrace all peoples of every race, ethnicity, and gender, even in our deepest sins.

Jesus built on the law and the prophets, because he was the fulfillment of them, and in doing so, he gave the law its greater context. The foundation of the law and the prophets were founded in love, meaning its highest expression, which is to will the good of the other as other. This means that the law is not like a stagnant pool, where we grasp onto the law and tradition for its own sake, but the divine law of God is rather like a running stream, it is always fresh and being renewed by the Holy Spirit.

What Jesus ushered in, was the reign of God, which was possible through the foundations laid by those who had gone before him: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the judges and prophets, David, and those who answered the call of God to serve in his name. From a person, Abraham, to a clan, a loose gathering of twelve tribes and then a nation, Israel, God called a people to himself to shine the light of his will to others. Then at the appointed time, he sent his Son, to be one with the people he called to draw all nations to himself so that all were and continue to be invited to come to be one with him, the God of all creation.

Our joy and fulfillment take shape most meaningfully as we are transformed by the love of God. As we build on the traditions of our faith that give us a solid foundation, we must resist holding on to them so tightly that they strangle and suck the life out of us. That which leads us to encounter and renew our relationship with Jesus in love is what we are to embrace and share. That which has become stagnant and no longer is an avenue for affirming life must be purified.

The love and mercy of God put into practice through Jesus was not a watering down of the law and the prophets. Jesus not only fulfilled both expressions, but he also raised the bar even higher when he taught his disciples to move beyond seeking an eye for an eye, to not resisting an evil person (see Mt 5:38-39), and challenged them further in requiring them to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them (see Mt 5:44). To accept and put into practice these impressive expressions of love is only possible, by allowing God to love us in our weakness and frailty, by being willing to be transformed by his love, so that we can in turn will love others unconditionally with the same radical love we have received from Jesus.

God’s love invites us to identify the darkness of our own sins and idolatry not so that we become over zealous moralizers. We are not to lead with the law but with love. We do so best when we are willing to be humble enough to trust in the purifying fire and convicting movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives, are willing to confess with contrition our sins, and become less drawn to protecting our false and fallen selves. Emptying ourselves in this way, we are then open to drink from the living stream of Jesus’ love, we become more comfortable in our own skin, are true to ourselves, and who God calls us to be. Hurt people, hurt people. Let us be healed people who radiate joy, hope, and love to those seeking to be healed.

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Painting: by Melody Owens – The original painting is 11″x14″ gouache.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Jesus offers us a better Way.

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 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 the punitive measure, 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: Close up of Heinrich Hoffman’s Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, 1889

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, June 6, 2025

Jesus invites us to share in the love he and his Father share.

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, the One who so transcends our comprehension, that 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.

This reality, the core of the deposit of faith that they received, was not to be hoarded, buried, 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 receive and make it relevant for their own time.

Jesus said to his Father in his farewell discourse, as recorded by John that: “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). Through our participation in the love of Christ, we are perfected and conformed by his will such that we too can experience and share in the love of the Father.

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. Why do we resist saying, “Yes” or more fully embracing this joyous invitation? St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, or Summa, outlines four substitutes or temptations that we may put in place of 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. Then they will be properly ordered by God’s direction and will.

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 disordered. These finite pursuits will leave us empty, or worse lead us into the crippling slavery of addiction. 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 had taken their own lives?

Through a properly ordered sense of power grounded in love, defined by St Thomas, as the 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 experience and enjoy the wonders 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. If honor, fame, and glory arise in the faithful, they arise not for their own sake or as to heighten the focus on themselves. 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 United States 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!” These are all examples of God being the source and focus to bring about the proper alignment and use of wealth, power, pleasure, and fame.

Jesus revealed the love with which his Father loves him and sent him to share with us. 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. May wealth, power, pleasure, and honor, not be distractions or diversions to our embracing the love of God, but a means to radiate his light and love, and to provide opportunities and access for others who otherwise would not have any access.

“Humanity’s participation in the divine communion is the goal of the Father’s saving plan, indeed, the goal of the whole of human history” (Martin and Wright). Relationship with God is to be our fundamental option, our ultimate goal, such that we strive to open our hearts and minds daily to breathe, receive, rest, and abide in his love, be filled with, and experience his joy, and radiate his presence through thought, word, and deed. In this way, we are sent to accompany others, to share God’s presence and love with those who are in need of hope.

In respecting, serving, standing up for the goodness and dignity of each person; in teaching and guiding others to experience the truth; and above all to help others to encounter the beauty and love of the Holy Spirit; we provide others the opportunity to experience the transforming love of the Trinity. As disciples, may we turn away from sin and all that divides, and share our witness and testimony of love and service as led by the Holy Spirit. As we do so, we will help us to make our corner of the world a little bit better today than it was yesterday and to take one step closer toward helping others to realize the salvation and unity that Jesus gave his life for.

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Photo: Accessed from Roman Missal. p. 497. Jesus showed his love for us in giving us all of himself on the cross, holding nothing back.

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

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 5, 2025

May we experience the love of God, so we can know him and each other better.

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn 17:3).

This is our goal, to know God. Eternal life, or heaven, is not only experienced when we die. Through experiencing the life of Jesus we can have a foretaste of heaven now. We can experience this as the joy that rises up from within, that is not merely pleasure, which is a response from the stimulation of our senses and which dissipates once the experience ends. Nor is joy even happiness which comes from the lasting memories of these pleasurable experiences. The experience of joy is not based on external situations and sensations, joy comes from an encounter with the living God who is present to us, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

We often first experience this joy, this closeness to God when we experience love exchanged between ourselves and another. Even a love that begins in infatuation is a drawing out of ourselves toward another. The hope is that this love matures and develops into a friendship.

This maturation happens when we spend time getting to know each other’s interests, goals, and dreams. We experience another as a person, and with time and continued trust, we begin to risk and allow our masks to be taken off. Inevitably, when relationships begin to mature, they will go through times of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and conflict. The relationship will come to a crossroads, but this does not mean that the relationship will come to an end. If the relationship devolves into abuse, dehumanization, and self-gratification alone, the relationship will end. But if there is a willingness to forgive, to work together, to meet each other with humility and seek mutual understanding, relationships will grow stronger and deeper. This is the fertile soil where love grows.

Our first experience of developing relationships is in our families. None of us are perfect, so none of us have had a perfect family life. Familial relationships develop in a similar fashion as listed above. We all go through ups and downs. The more that we can be present to one another, support one another, communicate and love one another, the more likely our familial relationships and friendships will also mature and grow.

Many of us hope to attain a place within where we can accept and love ourselves and develop mature relationships with a core group of family and friends. Most of us could be quite happy with that. Even as Jesus invites and guides us to reach this point of development, he continues to press us to strive to love beyond family, friends, and tribe. All of us are ultimately called to an unconditional love that sees in others a brother and sister seeking to be better stewards of God’s creation. This is not some utopian philosophy. Love happens through one concrete encounter, one person at a time. As we love God and one another, we lift all of humanity and creation up.

This will not happen through our own will power or discipline alone. Placing self over God and others, isolates and disconnects us from the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. God is not some transcendent, impersonal force, nor is God an omnipotent, tyrannical overlord. The God of Jesus Christ is a God of love, for “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Jesus invites us into a relationship with him and his Father to experience the love of the Holy Sprit. When we assent to this invitation, we come to know and experience a foretaste of heaven on earth.

Jesus, please help us to experience the love of God by coming to know you, and in truly knowing you come to better know each other. May we see each other as God our Father sees us, as a unique gift that has never been nor ever will be again. Help us resist reacting to the rough edges and exterior projections of our inner wounds and instead guide us to be more compassionate and understanding, and willing to see the truth and fullness of the potential of each person. Help us to allow God to love others through us today, one person and one encounter at a time.

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Photo: “The Father does not love us any less than he loves his only-begotten Son. In other words, with an infinite love” – Pope Leo from his Sunday, June 1, 2025 homily. (credit fromDaniel Ibáñez/CNA/ EWTN accessed from ncregister.com).

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, June 3, 2025

We are never alone, the Father is always with us.

The disciples are beginning to have a better understanding that Jesus is who he says he is, that “he came from God.” Jesus does not rest on or savor this insight and affirmation, but shares with them how, they still do not fully comprehend. He lets them know how each will leave him alone in his most desperate hour. They will do just that. Those he takes with him into the Garden of Gethsemane will fall asleep. When Jesus asks them to watch and pray with him, to be a support for him as he receives the crushing will of the Father that leads him to the cross, they fall asleep multiple times. When the guards come to arrest Jesus, led by Judas, the disciples would flee. Peter will then betray him three times.

What is interesting is that just as Jesus shares with them, that even though they, his most intimate followers, his closest friends would betray him, he says: “I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” 

These words are words of comfort and hope. Comfort and hope for his disciples then as well as for us today! No matter if we betray or are betrayed ourselves, we let others down or are let down, we see and experience the devastating effects of our fallen world and fallen human nature, from without and within; no matter what conflict, challenges, or tribulations rise up before us, we do not need to succumb to cynicism, hopelessness, and despair.

What is important is that we resist the temptation to curve in upon ourselves and drink from the poison of shame. In doing so, we cut ourselves off from the very source of our life and being. Having the humility to acknowledge where and when we have caused harm in any form requires embracing a healthy sense of guilt which is good. Then, instead of beating ourselves up, we are to seek forgiveness and reconciliation as well as be understanding and willing to forgive.

We also need to remember that in those times when we feel misunderstood, betrayed, or are facing the unbearable in life, we are not alone! Jesus, who experienced the same. reveals to us the way to his Father because Jesus is the Way! Seeking affirmation from the culture or the world is not the way. Our priority instead is build our relationship with Jesus, who will lead us to the Father so to experience the Love of the Holy Spirit!

Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, and he will not be overcome by it, for he has conquered death, and has overcome the world. We are an Alleluia people because through our participation in the life of Jesus the Christ we will overcome as well when we trust in and experience the love of the Father. As an Alleluia people, we are to resist being shaped by the culture and the world, and are to instead evangelize it by authentically living out the Gospel and will of our Father as Jesus did; by sharing the light, joy, peace, and love of Christ we have received in each our interactions with one another.

Photo: The more we slow down and breathe, receive, rest, and abide in the love of God, we will know no matter what we are experiencing, we are not alone.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, June 2, 2025

The Holy Spirit will help us to heal from the grief that fills our hearts.

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, but 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.

Of course, the Apostles were not able to understand what Jesus was talking about. 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 next Sunday, and the disciples, with Mary, would experience the love and grace of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

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 this 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 everyone 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 enter into 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, but just not to stay there.

To experience our grief and allow it to rise up when it comes is healthy and necessary but we do need to be careful that it does not define and overwhelm us. After seven months of caring and accompanying JoAnn to her death, visiting with family and friends through Thanksgiving and Christmas, I returned home, and had some time alone for the first time. I had a two day period where I was able to experience the weight of my grief and was hit pretty hard. I was beginning to sink into a dark place. 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.

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). We place our hope in Jesus, the first born of the new creation, and pray that those we remembered yesterday for Memorial Day, all those we hold close to our hearts in this moment, and those who have no one to pray for them, who have left this life, are now experiencing the gift of eternal life that Jesus won for us on the cross. Our time will come too.

This is not a morbid thought. Pondering our own death helps us to not take the time we have left for granted and choose to live our lives more intentionally, with greater purpose. In doing so, we can experience a foretaste of heaven, God’s tender care for us, even on this side of heaven. When our hearts and minds are open to slow down, to invite the Holy Spirit to come close so that we may experience his love for us. For a brief moment we will get a glimpse, that death really does not have the final answer. The loving embrace of Jesus does.

Photo credit: Losing someone we love is like experiencing an amputation. We will live, but it will never be the same. Allowing the Holy Spirit to accompany and heal us will help us to learn to fly again!

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 27, 2025

As we participate in the life of Jesus we experience the love of the Holy Spirit.

What is common to all of us is that we experience some expression of loneliness to varying degrees consciously, or 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 be 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 and after 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. As St. Augustine shared in the introduction to his autobiography, “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 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 his farewell discourse. He prepares his disciples for the reality that he will be returning to the Father, and yet at the same time, he will not leave us alone. He will 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 and 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 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, his love that he gives us, expands as we 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, to cry along, to 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. 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 free ourselves from the tendrils of fear and anxiety. We are not alone when we say, “Yes”, to God’s will and develop our relationship with him. As we do so, we continue to actualize the fullness of our potential, become truer to ourselves, and who we are created to be. We experience that peace that surpasses all understanding and develop relationships with others based on authenticity and integrity, regardless of external pressures and experiences. We are loved and we love in return, which is what we all seek, which is who we are called to be.

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Photo credit: Some quiet time and prayer during priest convocation May 7.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, May 26, 2025

We can experience Jesus’ peace even in our greatest challenges.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). The peace that Jesus is talking about, the peace that he gives us is a peace the surpasses all understanding, because it does not come from this world but from the love of the Trinity. This peace Jesus can give because he has received this peace from the relationship that he has with his Father. “It is a supernatural peace that arises from a total love for the Father” (Martin and Wright, 252).

God is an infinite communion of Love. There are three Persons, yet one God, because of their infinite nature. There is a complete, perfect, and infinite giving and receiving between the Father and the Son and the love that is shared between them who is the Holy Spirit. We experience this peace because of Jesus, in his becoming one with us in our humanity, we become one with him in his divinity. Because of our union with Jesus, we too then share in the love of the Holy Spirit and experience also the peace of the Holy Spirit. This peace is not just an absence of stress, anxiety, violence, and war, but a receiving, resting, abiding, and sharing in his trinitarian communion of love. Jesus seeks to share the love and peace he has received from his Father with each of us.

Jesus does not promise with the bestowal of his peace a life of perfection and peace. We still live in a wounded, dark, and fallen world and there will be challenges, trials, tribulations, and tragedy, yet through all matter of what we encounter, we can tap into the infinite well spring of the love of the Holy Spirit. He is present and accompanies us in the midst of any and every situation we invite him into. There may be chaos all around, but as we turn to Jesus and trust in him, we will experience his peace.

Today, would have been JoAnn and my 29th anniversary. I can still remember the day we received the news of JoAnn’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer during the Wednesday of Holy Week. From that moment, our life entered a non-stop whirlwind and flurry of activity. There was so much we had to prepare and plan for even beyond dealing with the diagnosis. Despite everything, there was a peace that was consistently present for both of us. Jesus sustained us through every step leading up to her death, the time of grieving and mourning that followed, and learning how to live again without her.

Nothing this side of heaven is permanent. At best, all God has created is good, but finite. The one constant we can place our hope and trust in is Jesus’ love and support for each one of us. This is why we are an alleluia people because even death does not have the final say, Jesus does. The veil between heaven and earth is so thin at Mass because Jesus is present with us in his word proclaimed, in his Body and Blood, in each of us who gather on earth as the angels and saints gather in heaven. Jesus seeks to enter our lives and to share with us his love and peace in every situation, are we willing to open the door and let him in?

Photo: Thanks for 23 blessed years and for your help and intercession these past five and a half years. Happy 29th my heart and my love!

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

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, May 25, 2025