prayer

God loves us, hears our prayers, and guides us to healing and wholeness.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Lk 11:9).

In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues to teach his disciples and us about prayer. The key point he is emphasizing is to be persistent in our prayer and to trust in God. He is our Father who cares for us more than any human can. He cares and will provide for us more than our own earthly parents or friends.

Yet, we can be frustrated in prayer because when we do make the time to pray, we may feel or think that nothing is happening or has happened. We may pray for a specific petition for our self, or for a particular intention for another and felt, or thought, that there was not an answer from God. One may pray a sincere, seemingly selfless prayer for a loved one, a child, a spouse, a friend, to be healed from a particular painful emotional situation, a conflict to be resolved, or someone ill and dying, and yet, the situation continues, the conflict may not get better but may worsen, and/or the person still dies.

The one petitioning may feel deeply hurt because they did what Jesus said; they asked, they pleaded and begged, but felt they did not receive the ending of pain, the resolution, or healing they sought for themselves or others; that which they pleaded, was not given and, instead what they found was nothing but pain and heartache; they knocked until their knuckles were raw and experienced no one on the other side.

Our attitude and orientation to prayer matters. When we sincerely turn our hearts and minds to God in prayer, something happens between us and God, though it may be beyond our cognitive grasp to understand or our sensory awareness to experience. There may indeed be emotional highs and consolations experienced in prayer, but if seeking those is the primary motivation for prayer we will find ourselves more frustrated than not. There may also be lows in prayer, dryness, even desolations, and even feeling God’s absence. Emotions are fleeting and not a good barometer when measuring the effectiveness of prayer.

Another big misconception is that we pray to God as if he were a gumball machine. It may seem a silly analogy but how many of us really do pray and worse, only pray that way, and when we do not receive the specific thing we asked for, at the time specified, when we wanted and as we wanted, we brood and think God doesn’t care or does not, in fact, even exist. We may even slip into the barter posture. God if you grant me this, I will do that. If we are only open to receive what we want on our terms, again we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.

The very desire to pray is the beginning of our awareness, for God is the one who reaches out and invites us to pray. The answer to what or who we ask, seek, and knock is found at the end of the Gospel reading for today: “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Lk 11:13)?

God knows what is best for us, he sees our potential, he wants us to experience joy and be fulfilled. How can we best live our lives in this world to attain that reality? We do so by asking for the Holy Spirit. Who is the Holy Spirit? The infinite, communal love expressed between God the Father and God the Son. Our goal in prayer is to enter into God’s reality, the infinite communion of Love.

We pray first and foremost to help us to grow in relationship with God. This happens through our participation and conformation to the life of Jesus. When we take time to learn, meditate, pray with, and put into practice Jesus’ teachings as his disciples did, we will start to see as he sees, we will come to see the truth of empty promises, apparent goods, substitutes to fill our emptiness and faulty defense and coping mechanisms that we have been utilizing as guideposts to merely survive and get through life.

When we stay consistent in an authentic life of prayer, God won’t bend to our will, but we will change. Instead of God becoming smaller to our demands, he expands our hearts and minds to be capable to receive his love. As we mature, we will begin to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (cf. Galatians 5:22-23)?

Why may God not appear to answer prayers for healing of a relationships, resolutions to conflicts, physical healings for a loved one with a chronic condition or one who is dying? I do not know. God though does not wave a magic wand and poof all is wonderful. If we genuinely seek healing for ourselves and others, that will take time, for God seeks healing for the long term, and that means helping us to build firmer foundations through trusting him and receiving his love.

When we trust God there is less disappointment, because we can be more patient to receive God’s outcome, than grasp for our intended outcome. We trust that God knows better than us. Sometimes what we ask for we receive in the way we asked, and sometimes we receive what we asked for in a different way than we expected.

We need to resist running from the pain and be willing to trust that God has not abandoned us but is with us. The tears that arise from our suffering can then become a healing salve, a doorway into the open arms and embrace of Jesus who awaits us in the depths of our frustration, grief, and pain. Even our loved ones who have died have not come to an end but have experienced a new beginning. JoAnn often would say in her last few weeks that she was just changing her address. God answered our prayers for JoAnn’s healing, just not the way we had intended.

Ultimately, what we ask, what we seek, and what we knock for when we pray is to be loved, to belong, to be a part of someone and something greater than ourselves. We have been created as a living, craving hunger, and desire to be one with God and each other. This is true for the atheist and the mystic alike. We have been created to be loved and to love. God’s love is present to us no matter the internal or external turmoil within ourselves or those we love.

The Holy Spirit is the gift of prayer that is open to us all. He is the love shared between the Father and the Son, that we too can experience. This is why he is the answer to our prayer, though sometimes to be aware of his presence takes perseverance. It may not be that God is not answering, but that we are not patient enough to receive the answer. We need to be patient enough to be still and know God. Prayer is about building a relationship and like any other relationship, that takes consistent time and work.

To mature in our relationship with God not only takes perseverance, we also need to trust him. One of the enemy’s chief tactics is to sow the seeds of doubt and mistrust. Trust in God’s love for you. Trust that he hears every prayer. Continue to show up each day and pray. Even if you feel nothing is happening, God is working within you, fighting for you, helping you to feel safe, to heal and grow in trust. It is also important to spend regular time in quiet, for God’s primary language is silence.

God provides an answer to every prayer. May we be willing to seek his truth, trust in him that he knows best and will guide us well so that we may follow the path that he lights before us. “Leave it all to God and leave your interests in His hands. He knows what is fitting for us… No matter: tell Him honestly, candidly, and ask Him to help you trust Him.” – St. Teresa of Avila

Photo: No matter how dark, and even when there appears to be no way, trust in Jesus, he will hear our prayer and show us the way.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, October 8, 2026

“Father, Hallowed be your name.”

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray and he shared with them the prayer we know as the “Our Father” or “The Lord’s Prayer”. This version from Luke is a bit different than the version from Matthew that we are used to. Praying with different words can help us to be more attentive and mindful. We also need to be careful when we pray to resist the temptation to only say words and forget that the words we are praying are directed to a Person, in this case, Our Father.

This very prayer was given to the Apostles, who passed it on, and it has continued to be prayed and passed on generation after generation such that we have received the “Our Father” again in this moment!

God’s word is alive. It touches our hearts and minds, and reaches each of us in our own unique moments of sorrow, challenges, and desolations, as well as our successes, joys, and consolations. Another good point to remember when approaching prayer is to resist the temptation to change God. Instead, let us allow him to transform us by his loving embrace.

The Lord’s Prayer is wonderful on its own when we meditate upon each of the words. While at the same time it is also a model of prayer. In the very opening line, Jesus invites us to begin each prayer in praise and thanksgiving. Beginning any prayer in gratitude leads us to experience joy and communion with our Father. When we are grateful, we are less apt to dwell on what we don’t have.

Each of the following lines are lines of petition and intercession. We are asking God for our needs, physical as well as spiritual. The daily bread points back to how our Father took care of the Hebrews in the desert with bread from heaven, the manna. And points forward to the institution of the Eucharist. The most powerful petition we can pray, and the most transformative and healing petition is to ask for and offer forgiveness.

Having been forgiven and making time to savor being forgiven, we will be hopefully, more apt to forgive others. Through the lens of forgiveness, we can then also see better what our lives look like with God and without him. We can then more clearly decide to give our lives to God more fully and resist temptations more consistently by asking for his help. Just as God protected Jesus in the desert from the temptation of Satan, so he will protect us when we to nourish ourselves daily by reading, studying, meditating and praying with his sacred word.

I invite you to give yourself some time now to slowly and prayerfully pray this prayer again. Pay attention to each word, meditate upon them, direct them to, and spend some quiet time with our Father.

“Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test” (Luke 11:2-4).

Photo: Let us resist the Kentucky Derby version of the recitation of the Rosary and instead, slowly recite and ponder upon the wonderful prayers and Mysteries on this feast day of our Lady of the Rosary. Painting by Charles B. Chambers.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, October 7, 2026

May we bring any anxiety to Jesus and receive his love and consolation in exchange.

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her” (Lk 10:41-42).

My wife, JoAnn, and I used to have more than a few spirited discussions on this Gospel passage each time that it arose because, at first reading, it appears that Jesus does not show any empathy or regard for Martha’s gift of hospitality nor for all the work that she is doing, she who was “burdened with much serving”. All the men are sitting around listening to Jesus, and Mary… she is doing the same, and who is left to do all the work? Martha.

Blessed to serve as a permanent deacon for ten years, I saw my own, as well as other deacon’s wives, carry extra weight and burdens in support on the home front to allow their husbands the time to serve. Many of us also still held full time jobs. Not only deacon’s wives, this reality is also true for many wives who are full-time homemakers, run in-home businesses, or carry a job outside the home, as well as care for the children, overseeing the bills, the day to day grind. They too may find themselves, feeling under-appreciated, undervalued, not respected for all they do, and “burdened with much serving”.

Husbands can do a better job of being present, more patient, respectful, and attentive to their wives and be more of an equal partner on the journey. There are challenges of being overwhelmed being single as well. Not having someone to help out to share the load, especially as we age. Our mortality, married or single, is a little closer on the horizon.

The point Jesus is making, that he makes throughout the Gospels, is to put God first, then family, work, and our unique vocation. The expression of that is going to be different for each station in life. There will be more time constraints for parents of infants. No matter how little time we may have, setting time aside to pray daily, to allow time to as Mary did, sit at the feet of Jesus and receive his nourishing word, rest and receive his love, and confer with him our challenges to receive his guidance is so important. Doing so, will then help us to properly order the chaos of our day as well as feel peace even in the mundane. The more we can “choose the better part”, we will find that time we did not think we had and Jesus will help our lives to be properly ordered.

This short account acknowledges the reality of how much we all juggle with in all ages. There is much to do and much to be done. Jesus was not disregarding Martha’s hospitality. Especially in the Gospel of Luke, there are many instances in which Jesus empowers women so far beyond the cultural reality of his time. We read this as we do any biblical account from our twenty-first-century mindset. Contextually, the men sitting at the teacher’s feet in a different room, the women cooking, and most times eating separately were commonplace for those in the ancient near east of the first century AD. Mary was the only person out of step with the times.

The interpretive key to understanding this account is what Jesus said. He pointed out that Martha was “anxious and worried about many things.” Mary could have been one of those worries, and not so much that Mary wasn’t helping in the kitchen, but because she was breaking the social norm of sitting with the men. When Martha calls Jesus to redirect Mary, she probably expects him to support her plea. Yet, Jesus acknowledges that: “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her” (Luke 10:42).

Mary, sitting and having her primary focus on Jesus was the posture of a disciple. Jesus was not only allowing her to do so, he was commending her for doing so. I can visualize Martha being taken aback at first, but then slowly feeling the muscles in her face relax as the lightbulb went on. We don’t know. But could Martha in that moment have experienced peace, that peace that surpasses all understanding, such that the anxiety and worry left her? Feeling the peace instead of fear, she too like Mary approached Jesus as Mary had done. Did Martha then take her apron off, throw it to the side, and sit down next to her sister and also become his disciple?

There is biblical evidence that beyond the Twelve, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, were Jesus’ friends. When Jesus came four days after the death of Lazarus, as soon as Martha heard Jesus was outside, she, not Mary, came immediately out to Jesus, and in that exchange, it was Martha who made the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God (cf Jn 11:27). Would she have had this insight, the same as Peter, if she was still holding a grudge from this encounter?

Our modern reaction and push back to this Martha and Mary account in Luke may not so much be a reflection on Jesus but how poorly men have treated women over the generations and how poorly women continue to be treated even today. No matter their ages, young, old, and everywhere in between, women are human beings created in the image of God. No one has the right to abuse, demean, disparage, devalue, or exploit any woman. Women are to be appreciated, heard, respected, cherished, and valued. Jesus showed that truth time and again, especially in the Gospel of Luke.

God has given each of us gifts to participate in his Father’s plan. May we resist the temptation to fear coming close to Jesus and taking time out to sit at his feet, to engage in mental maelstroms, to be “anxious and worried about many things.” Instead, when we experience the beginning tremors of any stress or strain, catch the effective movement, stop, breathe, be still and rest in Jesus’ presence as Mary, and hopefully Martha, did.

In Jesus’ presence, we will feel safe and can then share with him what is going on and hopefully be able to identify the source of the anxiety, share it with him and receive his love and consolation. Entering into this dance with Jesus of bringing him all that comes our way from within and without will help us to better know Jesus, his voice, and his teaching, know and follow his will, love others as he loves us, and live our lives respecting, encouraging, and supporting one another with the gifts and guidance that God has given us.

When we choose the better part of sitting at Jesus’ feet before making a decision, we can experience less chaos and more of his peace and guidance. Instead of living in a perpetual state of chronic stress and anxiety, being “worried and anxious about many things”,we can instead choose to breathe, rest, receive and abide in God’s love. Then from that place of stillness, like Mary, and I believe Martha, instead of reacting, we can make a choice based on God’s guidance.

Photo: Mary, Jesus’ mother, was the premier disciple for she “pondered” the mysteries she experienced with Jesus “in her heart” (Luke 2:19) and “heard the word of God and observed it” (Luke 11:28).

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, October 6, 2026

God invites us to work in his vineyard. Will we say yes or no, will we follow through or not?

“Which of the two did his father’s will?” They answered, “The first” (Mt 21:31).

The first son followed his father’s request to go out into the vineyard and work after having first said no. Jesus does not elaborate on why the son denied the request but certainly emphasizes that what was important was that the son, in the end, did follow through on his father’s will. Another point that is clear in the parable is that both sons heard clearly the command of the Father. Would that we could hear the direction of God so clearly! God is family, our Father in heaven, and he has also invited us to work in his vineyard.

The challenge is discernment. How are we able to know what God is calling us to do? I can look back through my life and see those spiritual stepping stones, the foundational experiences along the path on my journey thus far. Sometimes with hindsight, God’s leadings are clearer now than they were in the past. Each of us have moments of encounter in our life with God that we may or may not have recognized.

We each have different ways that help us to discern God’s will better. God speaks to us through our dreams and desires. It is good to ponder them when they do arise. We also need to take time to meditate and pray in silence, step out of our busyness to be still. As St Mother Teresa has said, “God speaks in the silence of the heart.” Our Father also speaks through his word proclaimed at Mass, our reading of the Bible, spiritual books, on our own through personal study, and prayer.

Author, speaker, and founder of Dynamic Catholic, Matthew Kelly, suggests that reading a minimum of five to ten minutes a day will make a huge difference in our coming to know God’s will. “Our lives change when our habits change.” God speaks to us in so many ways, through music, creation, our relationships, as well as all aspects of our lives. The key is opening our hearts and minds to the movement of the Holy Spirit in everything and with every thought, word, and deed. God reveals himself and his will to us through our intellect, through our senses, experiences, and through the depths of our soul.

Karl Rahner, in Hearer of the Word, wrote: “As spirit, we stand before the living, free God, the God who speaks or the God who keeps silent” (72,73). “[W]e stand” means we come to a stop. Once we do hear his word or his silence, we need to then be willing to take the risk to act upon his will. You may be thinking right now about something that has been coming to you and wondering if it is God’s will for you. Follow through on the leading and see what happens.

Another key step is to speak to someone about your insights. Speak to those you know and trust, those with experience in the area where you may be feeling led, get information and continue your research. This is where spiritual direction can be very helpful. Continue to pray about the desire, then step out in faith. If you find you have made a mistake, you can change course, reassess, and learn from the process.

What is not helpful is indifference. We need to take the time to actively engage in discernment and once we believe God is leading, act. There is much work to be done in the vineyard of the Lord, and we have a key part to play in the kingdom. God will inspire, lead, and provide the means for us to accomplish what he has called us to. Let us be willing to hear and follow our loving God and Father’s invitation, then let us go and announce the Gospel of the Lord, in our own unique way and expression!

Photo: Grateful to have returned to my evening Rosary walks and spending time with our loving God and Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Mary.

Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, September 26, 2026

Let us like Mary, hear and embrace God’s word “with a generous and good heart”.

A person can go on a walk and hear the beautiful sound of a bird and think to themselves, that is a very nice sound, enjoy it, and keep walking on. Another person may hear the bird song, actually stop, and listen for a time and then move on. Still, another person may not only hear the sound, stop, and listen, but also look in the tree to see what type of bird is making that sound, identify it as a cardinal and then walk on.

Each person experienced the bird on different levels. Even the one who stopped to appreciate its song and take the time to identify it as a cardinal, still limited him or herself from experiencing the deeper wonder and uniqueness of this particular cardinal. God knows though. He knows this bird intimately, as he does with the entirety of his creation, including knowing each of us better than we know ourselves.

We may hear or read Jesus begin with these words of his parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed” (Luke 8:5), and then our eyes glaze over and our minds may go immediately to, “Oh, I know this parable well,” identify it like the person identifying the cardinal, and may even appreciate the parable, but then tune out because we have heard it before or many times before. We too would then miss the greater depth and wonder of what God wants to share with us.

Jesus helps his disciples to understand the parable when he tells them, “The seed is the word of God,” and then identifies how different people hear, and then act or don’t act on the word they have received. Those on the path of hard, traveled ground, the word is stolen by the devil; those representing rocky ground which has some soil “receive the word with joy” but since there is no depth in which to root, “they believe for only a time and fall away”; and the seed that fell among thorns was choked by the anxieties, riches, and pleasures of life. The final resting place was the best, the “rich soil” symbolizing “those who embrace the word with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance” (See Luke 8:4-15).

God knows each of us, knows our deepest and authentic desires, our deepest wounds, our sins, and our greatest promise. He loves us, wants the best for us, and so shares his seed, his word, with us in many ways.

Are we willing to open our hearts and minds to receiving the wonder of Jesus’ guiding and leading, or are we hardened and allow the devil to steal our Father’s word away for us? Are we willing to be patient to not only receive and savor his word, but also put it into practice? Are we willing to place his word in a place of prominence within our minds and hearts so that the many diversions, anxieties, stresses, and strains don’t choke its life? Are we willing to be persistent and daily call to mind this wonderful gift God has given to us, the gift of his living word, and allow it to take firm root, to nourish and water it, allow it to grow and flourish in our lives?

More than anything else, one of the most important practices that we can engage in each day is meditation and prayer upon the seed of God’s word. Not just saying prayerful words and moving on, not just a functional practice that we check off our list, but receiving God’s word as he wants to give it and allowing it to germinate in our hearts and minds so that we may be transformed. The enemy will seek to steal, distract, divert, and dissuade us from receiving and nourishing the gift of his word.

We need to resist these temptations, renounce them, pull them out as we would weeds and repeat the word or phrase we have received. We can meditate upon the words, “A sower went out to sow his seed” for some time and imagine what kind of soil God finds in us. Not in condemnation, but in gentle honesty. When we find areas where the soil is anything but rich, we attend to it. Tilling to soil of our soul with the hoe of a simple phrase like, “Jesus, I Trust in You” can do wonders. Turning this phrase over regularly in our minds breaks through hardened soil. Our hearts soften, our minds are more open, and there the seed of God’s word can begin to germinate and take root.

When we regularly identify and turn over those areas of hardened soil, more and more what we think, speak, and do is nourished by the eternal spring of the Holy Spirit. Even when temptation arises, trials and tribulations threaten, any thorns will remain undeveloped, they will have no bite or choking strength. We will doubt less and no longer choked by anxiety when we anchor our trust in Jesus and his love for us. We will persevere through challenging times, as well as be grateful in tranquil times when we allow God’s word to be rooted more firmly and to stretch more deeply into the depth of our souls.

Photo: Mary through her practice of pondering and trusting in God provided the rich soil needed such that through the power of the Holy Spirit conceived the Word in her womb and he took on flesh.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, September 19, 2026

Praying with Jesus and Mary helps us to embrace our suffering and experience God’s healing.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home (Jn 19:26-27).

During the summer of 1991, I joined the Franciscans of Holy Name Province for my pre-novitiate year and was stationed at the Holy Cross Friary in the Bronx. My ministry for that year was working in the adjoining parish of Holy Cross. Shortly after entering, one of the friars, Br. Paul Goldie, died. He had been serving at the friary since 1953 and had been a friar for 54 years. Myself and my cohort were blessed to have gotten to know him a bit. A practice among the friars was to pass on personal items to those in the community when one of their own passed away.

I was honored to have been given a picture of St. Francis and a rosary of Br. Paul’s. The picture I have carried with me all these years since and hangs in my room in the rectory of another Holy Cross, now in Vero Beach, Florida.

When I first looked at the Rosary, it was clearly worn with use. It was very well made and durable. It was also different from others that I had seen before. I didn’t ask any of the friars, most likely because I already felt self conscious about how little I knew about Catholicism at the time I entered. Instead of a crucifix it had a Miraculous Medal, instead of five beads there were three beads leading to the decades of beads, and instead of five decades of beads, there were seven groupings of seven beads. In between each of the series of seven beads there was a small medal. On one side was a picture of Mary pierced in the heart seven times, and on the back of each medal was a different scene.

I would find out some time later that this was a Rosary of Our Lady of Sorrows. The depictions on the back of the seven medals represented Mary’s seven sorrows: Simeon announces the suffering destiny of Jesus, Mary escapes into Egypt with Jesus and Joseph, Mary seeks Jesus lost in Jerusalem, Mary meets Jesus as He carries his Cross to Calvary, Mary stands near the Cross of her Son Jesus, Mary receives into her arms the body of Jesus taken down from the Cross, and Mary helps place the body of Jesus in the tomb.

The fifth mystery, Mary stands near the Cross of her Son Jesus, is from our Gospel reading today. For Mary to witness her son dying such an agonizing death, it must have been the most sorrowful of the seven. Yet, Mary did not run from the pain, she embraced his and her own pain. The piercing of the lance must have pierced her own heart, into the depths of her own soul. Mary, though free of sin, was not free of the pain of a fallen world. In fact, Mary, like Jesus, felt it more deeply.

When we are willing to love, we risk experiencing and entering into the pain of those we love. So many times we run from love, because we do not want to experience the pain relationships entail. We are finite and fragile beings, and so we will let each other down, we will make mistakes, say the wrong things, do hurtful things, we will get sick or deal with chronic illness and need care, we will lose patience, we will sin, and those we care about will die. Jesus though calls us, like he did with Mary and John present at the Cross, to remain present to one another. We are not to walk away when life gets hard, we are to love, to provide comfort and support, and as we do so, we will experience the fruit of a deeper relationship which is grounded in the unimaginable love that God the Father has for us.

Love is the bond of communion that gives us the strength to move through the crossroads and upheavals of life. Love is the bond of commitment that draws us out from our selfishness, and allowing God to love us in our weakness and anxieties, will help us to grow stronger together, and to be present to one another. Where there is an authentic relationship, there is love at its foundation. When we love one another, we participate in the communion of the Holy Trinity, we participate in the very same divine communion of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Is there risk of rejection in loving another? Yes. Is there pain in love? Yes. Is there conflict in relationship? Yes. Yet to be fulfilled, to be fully alive, for love to be real, we must be willing to take the risk to love and be rejected, just as God does with us. As we enter relationships or strive for better authenticity in our present relationships, Jesus calls us to love, to commit, be present, to sacrifice and share our pain and experience another’s pain. Jesus strengthens us, when we turn to him, to stand by each other in our imperfections as well as be humble and willing to offer and seek forgiveness and reconciliation.

We cannot come close to imagining what Mary and John experienced with Jesus at the climax of his crucifixion. Each of them embraced horrific pain and sorrow at the foot of the cross, yet they remained, and so they were able to mourn, heal, and experience the full joy of the Resurrection. At the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they also experienced the divine communion of love between the Father and the Son and shared that same love and commitment with the community of Jesus’ followers and those who had never met him.

Br. Paul’s Rosary of the Seven Sorrows, is a reminder for me of the brotherhood I shared with the friars for the year and a half that I was with them. It is also a reminder that there will be pain and struggles in this life but that I am not alone. Mourning JoAnn’s death from 2019 and recovering from Covid and double pneumonia in 2021 are realities that I am continuing to heal and learn from. Not running away from those challenges, but like Mary and John, seeking strength and guidance by following Jesus’ guidance.

We can trust Jesus and Mary, as well as John and the apostles, and turn to them when we are faced with challenges and suffering. Praying with the mysteries of the Rosary or the Seven Sorrows can be of great help. When we resist merely reciting but instead slowly praying and pondering the mysteries, we can experience with Jesus and Mary how they were able to face their suffering. They in turn will gently guide us to experience and face our own and provide comfort, healing, and direction through.

Photo: Br. Paul’s Seven Sorrows Rosary.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Mary was “preserved immune from the corruption of the tomb” – Pope Pius XII

There was no one on this earth closer to Jesus than Mary. He was conceived in her womb, she bore him, nursed him, raised him, initiated his public ministry, held him in her arms as he was taken down from the cross, and she was with the Apostles in the upper room when the Holy Spirit descended upon them. Mary from her own beginning, received an incredible grace from God and thus was given the title Immaculate Conception. Even with all that what allowed Mary to experience more intimacy with Jesus was that she “heard the word of God and put it into practice” (Luke 11:28). When her time came to leave this life, who better than Mary to have experienced the “singular participation in her Son’s resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1997, 966)?

Today we celebrate the official dogmatic constitution issued by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the Assumption of Mary, acknowledging what the Church has recognized from the beginning, the special grace she received from her Son. Jesus is the promise and Mary is the hope that we will live eternally with our heavenly Father. Mary is now where we all hope to one day be, body and soul.

Jesus and Mary have undone the sin of Adam and Eve. They, in their continual faithful life of saying yes to the will of God, opened up heaven for us. In our darkest trials, when the storm clouds of injustice, racism, violence, division, and polarization gather, when a situation or conflict does not appear to be getting any better, when death may be imminent, and/or when a loved one has died, even then, death does not have the last word because we are not alone.

St. Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth, “Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Jesus is the first born of the new creation. We are invited to join Jesus in participating in his new Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, preparing ourselves in this life for eternity in the next. How? By doing what Jesus and Mary did. We are to open our hearts and minds to God, hear and observe his word, and put into practice what we receive.

Mary was not blessed so much because she gave birth to the Son of God, not because he nursed at her breasts, but because she heard the word of God, pondered it in her heart, obeyed, and put it into practice. This is why the Church calls Mary the model of discipleship. Just as the moon does not radiate because of its own light but reflects the light from the Sun, so Mary reflects the light of her Son.

Mary radiates the light of Jesus in her thoughts, words, and deeds and we are to do the same such that when people look at us they no longer see us but the love of Jesus radiating from us. How do we radiate Christ to others? We become deified, our likeness to God is being restored through our participation in the life of Jesus. This happens when we make a daily commitment to meditate, pray, and contemplate the words that God has given to us in Sacred Scripture, so as to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us by the holy fire of his love.

A simple way to begin is to commit to a time and place every day to ponder the mysteries of Jesus as Mary did. One beautiful way is to practice the Rosary which embodies all three of the traditional forms of Catholic prayer, vocal, meditative, and contemplative. You may feel that praying a Rosary in one setting is too much of a task to undertake, then start with one mystery. Make the Sign of the Cross, take in three, deep breathes for each Person of the Trinity, announce the mystery and begin to ponder the mystery you have chosen, slowly.

Ponder the beautiful mystery of the Assumption. The Lord’s Prayer helps to quiet our minds and rest. Each Hail Mary, like background noise in a movie, helps our minds to resist distraction. Even if thoughts come, bring them to Mary and Jesus and share with them. If we remain focused with them, we are still praying. As our mind stills, we can stop the vocal part of the prayer and just imagine Mary’s final hours, maybe with the Apostle John by her side. We can imagine ourselves experiencing the peace of not only her passing but of her Assumption into heaven, body and soul. We can contemplatively rest in God’s peace that we have received from our time with Mary and the promise that she is where we hope to one day. We can remember who we are, beloved daughters and sons of our loving God and Father.

Photo: “… by her Assumption, she goes ahead like her son to prepare a way for us.” – From The World’s First Love, by Fulton J. Sheen.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, August 15, 2026

In spending time with God in silence, we come to know him and his will.

[H]e went up on the mountain by himself to pray (Mt 14:23).

Jesus sent his disciples ahead of him and went further up the mountain to pray by himself. There is a consistent record of Jesus praying in the Gospels and beyond this written record I am sure that Jesus practiced this one on one time with God often.

The goal of Jesus spending time in prayer was not to amass enough spiritual energy so that he could do miraculous things like walking on the water. Spending silent time in prayer was an example of Jesus answering the invitation of his Father to spend time with him. Jesus knew the will of his Father because of this consistent time they spent together. Jesus knew the will of his Father because he knew his Father.

If we are to come to not just know about God, or worse, have some vague image of God as an idea, it is important that we spend time with and then we will truly know him and his will for our lives. It is imperative to make consistent time, to be still and open our minds and hearts to be present with God. True, God doesn’t only speak to us in our quiet and still moments. God engages with us in our everyday activities. When we are spending consistent time with him in quiet we will be more aware of and attuned to his presence. Otherwise, we can often miss or dismiss daily happenings with God.

Setting consistent, daily time, ideally the same time each day, will help us to slow down our pace. The first thing in the morning is best. We can slow down before we even get started. Start with five or ten minutes. If this is new, even those few minutes of breathing slow and sitting still can be a challenge. Just continue to show up!

As we begin to slow down more consistently, turn off the automatic pilot, set aside the gadgets, and step away from our harried pace, we will begin to discern and come to know God’s voice which he speaks in the silence of our hearts.

God invites us to move beyond our mere survival instinct and disposition of defense and reactions or settling into a comfortable and protected cocoon. God encourages us to be fully alive and to be engaged in the lives of others. How this takes shape will be different for each of us. We each have a particular and unique role to play in our collaboration with God, which we will come to know when we set aside and show up for some consistent time to pray just as Jesus did, by himself and in the quiet.

Photo: Experiencing God’s invitation to be still and rest awhile.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Spending time with God in quiet meditation and prayer can help us to grow in our faith and life.

“Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it” (Mt 13:7).

God wants all of us to be in relationship with him. His love for us in unconditional. He is willing to risk that we will say, “No” to his invitation of relationship rather than force us to love him, which is not love at all. God also wants the best for us, he knows the deepest desires of our hearts beyond our even knowing for he sees the fullness of time, while we only see from our finite and limited perspective and experience just a small part of the greater reality around us.

Jesus came to share the seed of his Father’s word through the teachings, healings, and exorcisms that he offered. We are recipients of each through the deposit of faith passed on generation after generation. One area that prevents us from allowing his seeds to germinate and bear fruit in our lives is when we allow the diversions, distractions, anxieties, insecurities, and worries to fill our mind such that they choke out the good that Jesus seeks to have develop within us.

On a physiological level, what we pay attention to fires neurons in our brains that form neural pathways. When we think about and then act upon them they become stronger. Each time we are attentive a new pathway is formed. After time, this is how our habits form and why when after we do something consistently and are disciplined, the act is easier to do. It is also why a habit is hard to change in the beginning because we need to rewire those pathways. This is true for vices as well as virtues.

To prevent the growth of our spiritual life from being choked out we need to practice each day stillness and focusing on God’s word. As we consistently sit in the same place each day, spend some time breathing and then focusing on reading a passage of scripture, meditating, praying, and pondering what God may be sharing with us. For that time we do so with intention, we are to focus on Jesus alone. As thoughts and diversions to the contrary arise, we just bring ourselves back to Jesus and God’s word. If the thoughts persist, we can then bring them to Jesus and talk to him about the situation to seek his guidance.

In time, with consistent, daily practice, we will begin to feel safe, we will experience God’s love and presence, his insights and guidance, healing will begin, rewiring of our neural pathways will also improve such that it becomes easier to pray than not. The thorns lose their sting, the distractions, temptations, and diversions find a better resolution, worry, anxiety, and fears are transformed, and we begin to recognize God’s voice and experienced being consoled and loved by his presence.

Turning around unhealthy, vices, disordered affections, and sinful habits is not easy. When we decide to make time to spend time with God each day, while together we are attentive only to him for that time and return to him as soon as we notice we are distracted, or bring the distraction to him to seek guidance, the weeds will whither, the thorns will be uprooted, his seed will sprout and flourish. Even when we feel like nothing is happening, God is happening, and we are growing, healing, and maturing.

Photo: From the smallest of seeds, with the proper nurturing and support, can grow the tallest of trees.

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, July 24, 2026

When we breathe intentionally and “focus on the indwelling presence of Jesus”, he will guide us in our prayer and life.

Prayer is not so much about bending God’s will to our will, but it is about being willing to be transformed and conformed to God’s will. Surrendering ourselves to God in prayer helps us to realize that life is not all about us and we can begin the shift away from placing our sole focus on ourselves as the center of the universe. The world actually does not revolve around us. Accepting these truths is freeing. As we shift the focus away from ourselves alone and accept the invitation to grow in our relationship with the One who is the creator and sustainer of all that exists, we experience the peace and rest in our souls that we all seek.

Jesus guides his disciples on this point when he teaches them how to pray. Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Mt 6:7-8). The babbling Jesus is referring about is how some of the pagan cultures of the time believed that if they performed the proper incantations, said the proper words, they could bend the gods to their will.

A great example of this is to read the account of Elijah in 1 Kings 20-40. Elijah while on Mount Carmel faced off against 450 of the prophets of Baal. He challenged them to call down fire from Baal to consume the sacrifice they laid out. They spent hours chanting and calling out to their god, dancing and even slashing at their flesh and there was no response. Elijah was heard with a simple petition and God responded by sending his fire to consume the entire sacrifice.

Jesus is teaching us not just that God is all powerful but that he is personal. Our Father knows what we need before we even ask. He really knows what is the deepest yearnings of our hearts even when we often don’t because we are distracted, diverted, and anxious about many things. Our minds and hearts are tempted and misled by so much noise and glitter. We are invited to slow down, breathe slowly and rest with the Lord and sit at his feet. Then we can get in touch with what we are truly experiencing and share with God what we honestly feel, whether that be deep pain, sorrow, or grief, contrition for sin, imploring for guidance, or expressing thanksgiving for his love and presence. Formulaic expressions and the mere volume of words mean very little compared to a few words said with clear intent, focus, and in a mindful and heart filled way.

Jesus helps us to understand that the form prayer takes or the actual words used do not so much matter as understanding why we pray. We pray to deepen and develop our relationship with the Trinitarian communion of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The very desire to pray is a prayer in itself because we are hearing the invitation of God to be one with him. The first step is to acknowledge this invitation and then to turn our hearts and minds to God. Fr. Thomas Dubay, in his book, Fire Within, paraphrases St. Teresa of Avila, the 16th-century doctor of the Church, in saying that “one vocal prayer, even so little as one petition of the Our Father, if well said, is better than many recited thoughtlessly or hurriedly” (Dubay 1989, 76).

Reciting the Our Father, or Lord’s Prayer, that Jesus shared with his disciples in today’s Gospel of Matthew, can be a struggle, because the biggest challenge to a life of prayer is taming, what some Buddhists call, the “monkey mind”. Our thoughts can be actively engaged, random, distracting, and even anxiety inducing within one minute. To overcome the challenge of an unsettled mind we can return to St. Teresa again. When we begin to pray, St. Teresa of Avila suggests that we begin “with self-examination and the sign of the Cross” (Dubay 1989, 77).

In making the Sign of the Cross, we can then breathe deeply and slowly, one inhalation and exhalation for each person of the Trinity. Then continue to breathe and rest in the loving group hug of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Breathing, receiving, resting, and abiding in God’s love is a great way to recollect, to prepare our hearts and minds to enter into a time of prayer. When we pray, we often come from whatever physical or mental activity and then start to pray, even something as easy as the Lord’s Prayer. We may then wonder why there is so much mental noise. Recollecting before we pray, allows us to experience a time of transition from the busy to the quiet.

Making friends with silence, we can bring to awareness some issues, struggles, temptations, and sins that we have been dealing with. We can settle into, instead of run away from or deny them and seek God’s help for guidance, healing, and reconciliation. In making the sign of the Cross, and taking one slow deep inhalation and exhalation for each Person of the Trinity, we bring our self, as we are, into the presence of the Trinity and invite him to dwell within us. We receive and experience the love, acceptance, and mercy of God and recognize that we are loved as we are and that we are not alone because we belong to and are a part of this infinite community of love. In this simple gesture, we are also uniting our body, mind, and soul with the One who will lead us in our prayer.

The next step is to imagine that Jesus is with us to guide us in our prayer. “Imagine that this Lord Himself is at your side and see how lovingly and how humbly he is teaching you” (Dubay 1989, 77). By mindfully engaging with our breath and our body, we slow down and allow ourselves to become still.

Finally, we can imagine Jesus teaching us the Our Father as if for the first time, as he did his disciples. Going slowly, one word, one verse at a time, allow Jesus to not only share his words, but pause and add our own. By doing so, we begin to discipline the focus of our mind, move from the beginning of a rote prayer, move into a dialogue with God, and receive the blessing of his mercy and love. “Focusing on the indwelling presence, says Teresa, is for wandering minds ‘one of the best ways of concentrating the mind’ in prayer” (Dubay 1989, 77).

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Photo: On our way, we can already begin to breathe and quiet our minds to ready ourselves for our time of prayer.

Dubay, S.M., Thomas. Fire Within: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel on Prayer. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, June 18, 2026