Today’s Thoughts: On the day in Capernaum, which we hear about in today's Gospel, (Mark 1: 21-28), Jesus taught as one having authority, in fact he taught every day that way. Perhaps that is the problem today that often those teaching really do not teach with authority. They think they do but they don't.
Authority comes from living an authentic life. We cannot say one thing and then do another and expect to have authority. We cannot say life is important and then only value life at the time of birth. We cannot say children, women and men are created in the image and likeness of God and then protect people who hurt them. We cannot talk about freedom and then limit it for certain people. We cannot talk about shepherding and service then live as one who is privileged and entitled. We cannot say human life is most important and then treat inanimate objects with more reverence than people. We cannot say community is important and then restrict the participation of the community. In the Gospel we are reminded that Jesus lived an authentic life. A life focused on others, a life of authority! We long for teaching with authority today but everywhere we turn it seems to be missing. Jesus knew what he was talking about. He knew that people were more important than things. He knew that boundaries could be crossed if it meant life. He knew that people were more important than ritual, dress and mystery. Jesus offered all who listened to him the chance to allow God to change and shape their hearts into a new way of life. If we listen to Jesus and follow his way we will come to know true authority, we will come to live an authentic life! Have a blessed and holy Tuesday everyone.
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Today’s Thoughts: We have closed the Christmas Season with yesterday's celebration of the Baptism of the Lord and today we enter Ordinary Time. We get a chance to take a breath and relax a little before entering the Season of Lent, or do we?
Sometimes I think when it comes to our relationship with God, there is no relaxing, there is no taking a breath, it is always full steam ahead. There is always a new challenge, a new way to live life. We certainly see that in the Gospel today! The fishermen from Galilee get no chance to rest, a new life awaits them. They think they are settled into their ordinary life, but Jesus has something else planned for them. They think this is just another ordinary day, but Jesus makes it special. In the Gospel today, (Mark 1: 14-20), we witness the beginning of some wonderful friendships. Simon, soon to be called Peter, his brother Andrew, James and his brother John, the two sons of Zebedee, all begin the journey of friendship, discipleship, with Jesus today. They each receives a simple invitation to "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of [people]." To follow Jesus will change their life. The change is not simply going from fishers of fish to fishers of people; the change is to become a friend of Jesus, which will always change life. Each morning we arise, whether in ordinary or special time we are offered the same invitation to friendship with Jesus that Simon, Andrew, James and John are offered. We are offered the same opportunity to change our life. The question is like Simon, Andrew, James and John are we willing to accept it? Have a blessed and holy Monday everyone. Today’s Thoughts: Today we bring the season of Christmas to a close with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. As I prayed with the Gospel today, I found myself focusing on God proclaiming Jesus as beloved. In growing up I was a middle child, not a true middle child because I only had an older sister and younger brother and supposedly you need two older and two younger siblings to be a true middle child. However, I have proclaimed myself a middle child. I never got any attention! I was neglected! Mom and Dad always like them best. – Not really!
For most of my childhood I sought the attention of my parents and I guess I was not really good in sharing it with my sister and brother. I was also a "pleaser." I wanted everything to be affirmed by my parents, I didn't want to do anything that displeased them, believe me it was an impossible task. Now my parents were not the most demonstrative people in the world. They had grown up through the Great Depression, World War II and where serious people. Sure, they could have fun and enjoy themselves, but they certainly did not gush over anyone or anything. My father worked long hours at times and my mother was a stay at home mom. It was not until I went to high school that we got a second car. My parents were busy about many things, work, their faith, their family and could not always be present at the things we, the children, were involved in. They rarely came to my baseball games, my swimming meets, my basketball games. I was in one play during high school and they didn't make any of the performances. I ran cross-country and track my junior and senior year, but they never saw me run. At the time it seemed like a big deal to me, I wondered if I was really a good son? If they really loved me? Now let me say my parents were great people, the best parents and they loved me very much but as we all know parents seems so "dumb" when we are in our teens, but they get very smart when we get to our 20's. As I look back now my parents were always present at the most significant moments of my life. They were always there at times when it really mattered. I have two images that will always stay with me. One of my father at my profession of vows. He sat with my mother in one of the first two pews and a friend took a picture of him as I was professing my vows, the look on his face was priceless and you can even see a few tears running down his face. If I could have heard his heart at that moment, I am sure I would have heard, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am pleased!" My father died four months after I took my vows. The second image is of my mother at my ordination. The day before my ordination as my mother was traveling to New York, she fell and broke her arm. My brother took her to the hospital and the doctor suggested that she have surgery. As my brother tells it, my mother said, "No way, just set it, my son is being ordained tomorrow and I have to be there!" The doctor set her arm and by the afternoon she continued on her way to New York. She was in a lot of pain for the next week or so, but she was there. In her presence that day I heard the words, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am pleased!" We all have these moments when our parent’s presence speaks volumes to us, when their presence proclaims us as beloved daughters and sons. That is what we celebrate on this Monday honoring the Baptism of the Lord. Today we remember that important moment when the Father and the Spirit needed to be there for Jesus. This moment sends Jesus on his way. This moment sends Jesus into his ministry. This moment sends Jesus to the Cross and the Resurrection. It is a moment that gets played our over and over again in our important moments of faith through our parents, families, friends and faith community, God proclaims us as beloved daughters and sons. Moments like Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, any sacramental moment in our life. God claims us as a daughter or son who is beloved and sends us on our way. Let us pray for our mothers, our fathers, our families, our friends and to our God today so that when we next receive communion, we might hear those words in our heart, "You are my beloved daughter, you are my beloved son, I am so profoundly pleased!" Have a blessed and holy Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I have always been struck by John the Baptist’s words in the last line in today's Gospel, "He must increase; I must decrease." What a meditation on faith! When you think about it, are not John’s words our challenge each day and perhaps our hardest challenge?
The world around us tells us every day to increase. Increase what we have, what we want, what we desire, what we need, who we are! Our economy is built on increasing, increase spending so we can increase building, producing, creating and thus increase profits. When we finally leave home all we want to do is increase because the world tells us we are defined by what we have, what we have achieved, what we own, what we have accumulated. As is often quoted, "The one with the most toys wins!" Yet, what John is telling us in the Gospel today is that for us to be people of faith, we must decrease so that Jesus, so that God, can increase in our lives. It is not about being the greatest, the best, the biggest, the most powerful, or the most important. It is about God. John had it all. He was liked, he was loved, he was important, he was powerful, and he had all the attention. However, for him, all of this was not as important as his relationship with God. He knew what he was about. He knew his mission and it was time for God to be the most important focus and all John could do was rejoice! Sometimes we think God is not present, God is always present, at home, at school, at work, in the government, everywhere. The problem is not where is God – but that we have made ourselves too big, so we and others cannot see God! Can we let go of the world, let go of what the world says is important and let God? Can we recognize our mission, our ministry, our relationship and let God be the focus? Can we decrease and let God increase in our life and in the world? Tough questions for tough times, but if we are willing the end result is great joy! Have a holy and blessed Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: "Lord if you wish, you can make me clean. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I do will it. Be made clean. And the leprosy left him immediately." I think the key elements of this story are the person's faith in Jesus, the willingness of Jesus to heal and Jesus' touch. Maybe the most important element is Jesus' touch, his willingness to be connected with someone who is unclean by the standards of culture, society and religion.
Today whether we are talking about our culture, society or even our church the usual response is to disconnect ourselves from someone defined as unclean. Yet, Jesus sought to be connected. He did not want to push them away from the community but to bring them into the community. The Feast of the Epiphany which we celebrated last Sunday was about the universal nature of Christ's presence in the world. Jesus confirms that nature today by reaching out to one who has been pushed out of the community. It is a profound moment, it is a challenge to all of us who proclaim we believe. Do we wish, do we will that all belong to the community no matter what? Jesus does, and was willing to step across a boundary to make sure that it happens. Are we? Perhaps like Jesus it is a commitment to prayer that will help us to, wish it and will it. It is through prayer, our conversation with God, that we will find the strength to walk with Jesus across the boundaries imposed and bring others to the community, to friendship with God! Have a blessed and holy Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Today’s Gospel (Luke 4:14-22a) presents us with a moment in Jesus' early ministry when he returns home perhaps for a weekend visit. This story whenever I read it always seems to paint two pictures for me, one of a moment in the life of Jesus and the other a moment in our own lives.
The moment in Jesus' life is straight forward he returns home and like a good young man honors his faith by going to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He is now a wise young man with a reputation as a preacher, so he is honored by being asked to do the reading. So, he stands up and is handed the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah but not to one of the usual sabbath readings but to Isaiah 61 and proceeds to read the passage where Isaiah says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..." This a very familiar passage to us and the community gathered for prayer that day. After the reading Jesus just sits down but everyone there is in awe of him and all eyes are focused on Jesus. After what probably was just a few moments of awkward silence, Jesus simple says, "Today this Scripture passage if fulfilled in your hearing." Perhaps in other words, "Folks, this is what my life is going to be about, today my ministry starts and you are going to be a part of it" With those words all present are even more amazed! A pretty straightforward picture wouldn't you say? Now as for the second picture of us – every one of us have had a moment like Jesus. We have been in our own parish church perhaps for a sacrament, baptism, confirmation, first communion, marriage and a community has gathered. At some point during that sacrament all eyes are on us, watching us receive baptism, receive communion, take our vows, be anointed with oil. After the mass or the service people have come up to us and congratulated us and have spoken highly of us because of this special moment in our lives. The difference between Jesus' picture and ours is that we know the end of Jesus' story. We know he did fulfill the words of Isaiah by the way he lived, died and rose from the dead. However, we don't know the end of our story! Will we fulfill the words of our baptism, our confirmation, our marriage, our priesthood, our religious life, our Eucharist? Today we are asked once again to love in our first reading from St. John and in doing so to live that love as best we can by bringing the gift and presence of God to the world. We are asked to stand up and proclaim the Good News with our life and let that proclamation be fulfilled in the way we live our faith! So, my friends, stand tall, love richly and live fully today and always! Have a holy and blessed Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: After listening to and praying with today’s readings the question that I asked myself is, "What do I most fear?" In answering this question, I came up with many examples of things that at time cause me to be afraid. Sometimes I fear the future because of the state of the world, all the anger, hate, discontent, violence and the everyday possibility of war that seems to make up our everyday life. I sometimes fear the future of our Church because of all the things that have happened over the last 15 or 20 years. As a priest and a religious I am afraid of the future of religious life and priesthood. These are just some of the things that I fear there are many others that I will not mention in this short reflection.
However, the question that I asked is what do I fear most at this moment of my life? As I said this question is based on the readings today, they both deal with fear. In the first reading, (1 John 4:11-18), John talks about perfect love casting out fear, in the Gospel, (Mark 6:45-52), Jesus tells the disciples to have courage and not fear. Yet fear always seems to be a part of life. I know for myself, fear has always raised its ugly head. I remember my mother talking about her life just before I was born. She said that it was a time when she struggled with fear. My mother, father and sister had just move back to the Pittsburgh area into a new home. It was in a new subdivision about 15 miles outside of Pittsburgh, only a few homes were built and there were very few people in the neighborhood. Mom had no phone for a while, no car and spent a good portion of the day lone with my sister who was about 5 years old. Mom always said it was a fearful time in her life. I have often wondered if, as a baby in her womb that I was affected by her struggle with fear, because once I came into the world it seemed I was afraid of everything including my own shadow. "What am I most afraid of?" In my life I could still say many things as an answer to this question. But I have come to believe that I am most afraid of love, not being loved, not finding love. I think it is because I realize that with love fear would not be a problem, yet fear is a problem for me. I think it is because I struggle with love. Both Jesus and John tell us that today, if we love, if we allow ourselves to be loved, especially by God then fear will never hurt us, because love casts out fear. With love there is no room for fear without love fear takes up all the room. No matter what life throws at us, no matter what changes take place in religious life, the church, culture, society, no matter what we lose or struggle with in life, if we let love in, if we value the presence of love, if we let ourselves love and be loved fear has no chance, no room! Have a blessed and holy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Our readings today offer us a challenge. In the first reading (1 John 4:7-10) John continues his emphasis on love as the key element for knowing God. Without love we are lost. The way we find love, experience love is through God, because God so loved us that he gave us his only son, God teaches us about love.
The Gospel (Mark 6:34-44) echoes John's reflections but in a different way. Jesus becomes the picture of love that John is talking about in the first reading. Jesus lives out the love that John in speaking about. In the Gospel, Jesus challenges us to focus beyond ourselves, to have love for others. He is moved with pity at the vast crowd, he wants to help them spiritually but also physically. They need to eat; they need to be nourished. The disciples want Jesus to send them home, to get rid of them. Let them take care of themselves! Not Jesus, he cares not just about himself, his disciples, but about everyone. God so loves all of us. Now for me the interesting part of the Gospel is how Jesus goes about teaching here. Now before I go any further, I need to say that I truly believe a miracle took place here. Jesus did take the five loaves and the two fish and feed the five thousand. It was a miracle, but he also taught his disciples and us a valuable lesson, he taught us to share. If we look around at what we have, we can make it work for ourselves and others. Yes, a miracle fed the five thousand but a teaching about sharing what we have out of love for the other was also an objective. Jesus did not feed the five thousand from nothing, he asked what was available and from what people had he fed the crowd. It was not magic it was a miracle! Sometimes we get caught up in what we need, and we forget the person beside us. All of us have more than we need and sometimes what we have can help others. What we have put together with what others have brings about a miracle. Love needs to be share for its true value to be experienced! Have a blessed and holy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: St. John in the first reading today makes it sound so simple. If we believe we will know what is of God and what is not. Sure when someone speaks against Jesus it is a sure sign that we should not follow in that direction, however there are many voices, many spirits out there that claim to be followers of Jesus yet I am not always sure their way is the way to go.
John reminds us we need to believe in the name of Jesus and love one another, yet often the very people who ask us to believe in the name of Jesus do not seem to love others. What should we think? What should we believe? It doesn't always seem clear cut. Certainly, John did not live in this age of mass communication, of social media. The challenge of today is how to believe; how do we test the spirits to see whether they belong to God? To be honest with you I do not have an answer, for me it is a work in progress. I listen, I digest, I compare, pray and hope that I make the right choice, the right decision. I pray and hope that I am walking with God. One of my criteria for testing the spirits of today comes from the Gospel today, from the life of Jesus. The criteria that I place on today's spirits is how compassionate are they. Jesus' life was about compassion for others. I test the spirits of today with a sense of how compassionate are they? How caring for others are they? How willing are they to provide hope in a troubled world? How willing are they to unite not divide people? It is not always easy to make the call, to know for sure, but the spirits of today must past the Jesus test, they must be spirits that proclaim the "Good News!" Have a blessed and holy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I have always liked the short story by Henry van Dyke call The Other Wise Man. It was made into a movie starring Martin Sheen called The Fourth Wise Man. The premise of the story is that there were not three wise men, magi, from the east but four, the fourth one's name was Artaban. Now Artaban was late to the meeting place from which the magi were to start their journey of following the star so he was always playing catch-up to the other three magi. He never catches up to them and so he does not meet the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. By the time he gets there the others are gone and so is the Holy Family.
Artaban is determined to meet the Christ so from Bethlehem he sets out on a journey to catch up, to meet the Christ. He wants to give him some rare stones, jewels, that he has brought along however Artaban is late for every opportunity to meet Jesus because he is always stopping to help someone in need. He finally ends his journey after many, many years in Jerusalem. He is old and tired, and he has given all his precious stones away to help others. He is dejected because he now has nothing to give Jesus if he meets him. Artaban finally does meet Jesus as Jesus is carrying his Cross to Calvary. Jesus tells Artaban that he is thankful for his many gifts. Artaban doesn't understand because he thinks he has no gift to give. Jesus tells Artaban that his life has been his gift. Every time he stopped to help someone it was a gift and Jesus is very pleased with the gift, in fact it is the best gift! I always think of this story on the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, because I think Artaban represents all of us. At birth we all begin a journey to meet the Lord it is called life. We have many opportunities to encounter Jesus. Sometimes we miss him and sometimes we don't. Our gift is our life and how we live it. Each time we help others we add to our gift, each time we help others encounter Jesus we add to our gift, each time we live life to the best of our ability we add to our gift! We find ourselves in the midst of a world that often does not recognize Christ and does not give the gifts we have been entrusted with. We live in a world that often does not see the needs of others around us. We live in a world that often disrespects the gift of life. We live in a world that often fails to see people in need because we have our backs turn and we think only of ourselves! The Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord reminds us that Christ's presence and message is universal, Jesus came for all. Again, let me repeat that – Christ’s came for all of us! Our challenge is to bring that message to the world for Jesus by not turning our backs, by not holding on to our gifts but by sharing our gifts with whomever we meet! Let's continue our journey to find the Christ today, let's live our lives, let’s give our gifts! Happy Epiphany everyone and have a blessed and holy Sunday! |
Fr. Paul R. Fagan, C.P. "Preacher on the Run"Just a few thoughts to help you on your journey through life...let me know from time to time what you think... Archives
April 2024
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