respect

Let us say only the good things people need to hear.

Gossip is a seductive and enticing poison. Many of us fall for its lure and its intoxication. There are many different reasons we engage in gossip. We may think we feel better about ourselves by putting someone else down, we may be jealous of what another has, envious because we wish someone ill, maybe someone just rubs us the wrong way, or there is a sense of intimacy with another in the commonality of talking about someone else. We may even feel justified to do so when someone has hurt, offended, or wronged us or someone close to us in some way. Even in that instance, we observe Jesus offering a different approach in today’s Gospel.

Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Mt 18:15). Jesus is drawing on his Jewish heritage. Leviticus 19:17 warns against holding hate in your heart and instead encourages seeking to reason with your brother. Jesus is redirecting us from disparaging, gossipping, adding fuel to the fire by seeking revenge or stewing in our own hurt, which will build resentment and hate. Instead, he is inviting us to seek reconciliation.

Pope Francis, in his September 9, 2016, General Audience was very clear: “[G]ossip is a ‘terrorist’ who throws a grenade – chatter – in order to destroy,” he added. “Please, fight against division, because it is one of the weapons that the devil uses to destroy the local Church and the universal Church.” Let us refuse to be a weapon of the devil in his plot to divide us with our thoughts or our words, but instead, seek to be a disciple of Jesus by advocating for forgiveness and reconciliation.

St. Paul guides us to let no evil talk pass our lips and say only the good things people need to hear (see Ephesians 4:29). May we meditate upon and pray with this verse as well as put it into practice. With our words, we can cut, wound, and destroy, or we can convict, reconcile, and heal. We can commit to being more discerning with our thoughts and tongue, and choose to lift up and empower one another.

Pope Leo XIV encouraged the youth at Rate Field in Chicago on June 14: “To share that message of hope with one another – in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place – gives true life to all of us, and is a sign of hope for the whole world.” We can share messages of hope and make our world a better place when we discern well in our minds what we are going to say before letting the words fly.

Yes, it is easier to grumble about someone than to approach them in love and work for reconciliation. But this only perpetuates division. It is worth the time and energy to be more intentional with our words. When needing to hold another accountable, it is important to do so directly and with respect. It is also helpful to step out of reactive mode, by taking some breaths, seeking the help of the Holy Spirit, and thinking before we speak. If we just aren’t there yet, maybe we can start with a slow breath and a simple smile. We will all be better for the effort.

Photo: With my seminarian brother, now Dcn. Carlos, on our 30-day silent retreat back in July of 2023. A good fast from words and making friends with silence can help us better discern what to think and speak.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, August 13, 2025

In conversation and dialogue, may God be our guide.

The question raised by “the chief priests and the elders of the people” regarding what authority Jesus was teaching was not an uncommon question. Rabbis and teachers often began their presentations by sharing with their listeners who was their teacher. It would be comparable today to say what university we received our degree from.

Jesus did not do so for his authority came directly from God. Those questioning Jesus knew this and wanted Jesus to say it publicly so as to charge him with blasphemy by putting himself on the same level as God. Jesus did not give them the satisfaction. Instead of answering their question, Jesus asked one of his own. “Where was John’s baptism from? Was it of heavenly or of human origin” (Mt: 21:24)?

The answer given by the chief priests and elders to the question posed by Jesus showed further their unwillingness to accept who Jesus is. They were the shepherds of the people of Israel, yet they would not speak the truth. Instead, they offered an answer that was calculated and weighed out by taking a quick opinion poll among themselves. Their answer was lukewarm, “We do not know.”

In answering this way, their authority as leaders was diminished. For if they were the religious guardians and guides, why could they not answer the simple question regarding the origin of John’s baptism?

How about us? Do we weigh our answers solely on a perceived response or do we speak the truth? We want to be liked, respected, to belong and to fit in, to be affirmed and accepted, which is healthy and natural, but at what cost? Sometimes we feel uncomfortable speaking what we believe because we fear another’s reactions. This is even more challenging these days because a simple response can affect a harsh reaction.

Yet, to be people of integrity, to live out our baptismal call as prophets, there will be times that we need to resist the perceived and real pressures we feel, lean into the conflicts that arise, and speak what God would have us say in the moment.

As we do so, we need to remember to speak from a place of understanding and love. It is better to engage in a dialogue, not just mutually imposed monologues. A good reminder is to follow the lead of Jesus and ask more questions rather than offer ultimatums and pronouncements. Our goal in any encounter is not to impress or prove we are right and so the other is wrong, but to express what we believe and allow others to do the same. We can grow from one another when we are willing to listen.

Sometimes, God may be inviting us to be silent. We can actually move from talking past or shouting over one another, or going to the other extreme of avoiding talking altogether, when we are willing to listen first and respect another person even when we disagree.

Jesus, please forgive us for the times when we have not spoken as you have led us or when we have refused to listen and hear the perspective of another. In each moment help us to remember to breathe, to have ears to hear your guidance, to be understanding and respectful in every exchange. Give us the courage and words to speak with charity and help us to know when to be silent and to listen. Above all, with each encounter help us to love.

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Photo: Quiet times with God help us to listen more and speak less when in conversation.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, December 16, 2024

Let us turn over our anxiety to and receive from Jesus his peace.

“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, 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 she is doing. All the men are sitting around listening to Jesus with Mary doing the same, and who is left to do all the work? Martha.

It is not only deacon’s wives who carry extra weight and burdens in support on the home front to allow their husbands the time to serve, (While JoAnn was still alive, the time it took me to write these daily posts was less time I spent with JoAnn or less time to devote to the needs of our home) but many wives who are full-time homemakers, run in-home businesses or carry a job outside the home, as well as caring for the children, overseeing the bills, the day to day grind, find themselves at times, rightly so, underappreciated, undervalued, and not respected for all they do.

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. All of us, female or male, could also be better served when we follow this pattern of attention and priority: For those married as well as single put God first, then family, work, and our unique vocation.

With all the above as a prelude, I do not believe that Jesus was disregarding Martha. 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.

Jesus said that Martha was 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 “Mary has chosen the better part” of sitting and having her primary focus be on him. I can visualize Martha being taken aback at first, but then slowly feeling the muscles in her face relax as the lightbulb went on, she chooses to let go of her anxiety, take her apron off, throw it to the side, and sit down next to Mary.

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?

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 and likeness 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.

God has given each of us gifts and ways to participate in his Father’s plan. May we seek to be still and rest in Jesus’ presence as Mary, and hopefully Martha, did. In this way, our anxiety can begin to reside as we experience feeling safe and we will come to know and experience his love. Doing so 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.

Photo: One of the ways that I sit at Jesus’ feet and experience his peace, Rosary walks on our campus here at Holy Cross, Vero Beach. Praying for the west coast of Florida and all in the path of Milton.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Loving our enemy is possible if we are willing to love each other as God loves us.

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

Certainly, this is as hard of a teaching as any of us have ever heard, yet this is the path to peace. Peace that is not just an absence of violence but a peace that is grounded in mutual respect, unity, and dignity of the human person. There are not enough examples or models in our present day and age for us to see this Gospel being put into practice. There is a consistent engagement in rhetoric, language, and outright hostility that promotes dehumanization, division, contempt, hatred, and vileness. These voices are not only on the rise in our secular and political discourse but also have become a growing din within the Church as well.

Nor do I believe in the temptation of the pendulum swing that would threaten to counter and go the other way, where what we think and say has the substance of milk toast, meaning, that we are so careful not to offend that we don’t share our ideas or what we truly believe to avoid conflict. Staying away from hot button issues and the taboos of talking religion and politics is not a way to bring about peaceful coexistence nor solve important issues either.

Neither an overly aggressive nor a bland tolerance of engagement is what Jesus is presenting in today’s Gospel. Jesus is inviting us to proclaim what we think and believe but in our interactions with one another, the primary starting point is respecting the dignity of the other person. We can dialogue and disagree without it devolving into disparaging, demeaning, belittling attacks, and shouting at and over people. We can agree to disagree, while still stating clearly what we believe, even boldly and passionately, while at the same time being willing to listen and allow others do the same. In this way, we each can be heard, we can exchange ideas, and quite possibly learn and grow from our encounter with one another, and work together for the common good.

We need to learn again that it is truly possible to engage in a constructive argument. We begin to do so when we are willing to recognize our interconnectedness and our common dignity. We can love our “enemy” by choosing no longer to make another person into a monster.

Jesus offers a different way in today’s Gospel, a hard teaching and difficult one to follow. In inviting us to love our enemy, Jesus is calling us to love one another as he loves each and every one of us, without condition. Love is no mere emotion or sentiment but an intent to will the good of each other, even and especially when there is some attribute(s) that we do not like about a person.

If we want to see a change in our divisive and polarized time, we need to be willing to resist dismissing the other person as our starting point, we need to resist labeling them as other. We are asked to encounter one another, one person at a time, to sit down, talk, and listen, and love one another. We can each share what we believe openly and honestly, without watering down what we believe while allowing another to do the same.

Easy, no; possible, yes; more so when we are willing to allow God to open our hearts and minds to see each other as he sees us: as his beloved children.

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Photo: Peace can bloom if we are willing to be transformed by God’s love. Saw this flower with leaves shaped as hearts a last week on my Rosary walk.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, September 12, 2024

Can we disagree and still listen to and respect one another? Yeap!

Jesus affirms who he is and whose he is in today’s Gospel of John. Despite those who do not believe that he is the Messiah, Jesus again makes his point very clear: “I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me” (Jn 7:28-29). Jesus is the Son of God made man and he belongs to the One who sent him, God the Father.

As Jesus was challenged in his time, he continues to be challenged today. That level of challenge has increased even to the degree that his human existence is even dismissed in some circles as a mere legend. Even as a historical figure, some speculate that Jesus did not walk the roads of Galilee and Judea. This need not be a reason for alarm. Though it is a reason to know our Tradition, the deposit of faith that has been preserved and passed on from Jesus to his Apostles and disciples, and to those early Church Fathers and Mothers named and unnamed and passed on up to this day in an unbroken apostolic succession. It is important to read the Bible, immerse ourselves in the sacred texts, pray with and meditate upon these words, and allow Jesus to speak to us again and again.

It is important to know what we believe, who we believe in, and whose we belong to. In this way when we are challenged by others, we do not need to stoop into a defensive crouch, but instead listen to the person’s points, their critiques, and ask questions of what they believe and why they believe what they believe. We can share our position while at the same time being open to understanding where our questioners are coming from. We can then respond with an open mind and heart of surrender to allow the Holy Spirit to be present through us.

When we are anxious, defensive, seeking to be right, or fearing to be wrong, we limit what Jesus can do through us. God is not about numbers and quotas, he is about building relationships, one person at a time. It is more important to build relationships than to win arguments! We can learn much from St. Bernadette of Soubirous who after her visions with the Blessed Virgin Mary was challenged time and again regarding the validity of her experiences. She simply responded, “My job is to inform, not convince.”

Social media platforms can be good platforms to exchange ideas as well as horrific experiences of the worst of our humanity. It is important that we remain respectful face to face and remember that screen to screen there is another human being on the other end. All of us are on a journey in this life. We can learn much from each other when we are willing to share our experiences while remaining committed to engaging in a spirit of charity and dialogue.

All of us seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Especially during times of uncertainty and instability, it is important to respect and love those who have differing perspectives outside of and within the Church and be open to the reality that we can learn from one other. We do better when we are willing to listen to and allow God to guide each of us through our common challenges.

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Photo: Making time for quiet and quieting our minds, we can better listen to others. Rosary walk, St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary, Boynton Beach, FL.

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, March 14, 2024