Today’s Thoughts: Early thoughts today because it is a Sunday Mass Taping Day...
In our Gospel, today, we encounter a scene in which a crowd brings to Jesus a person who cannot hear, who also has a speech impediment, probably because he cannot hear. They ask Jesus to lay his hand on the person. But rather than doing it in front of the crowd Jesus focuses in on the person. He takes him aside and makes the moment a personal, one on one, encounter. It is a moment of sensitivity, care and compassion. Jesus takes the man off by himself and he uses a gentle touch and then prays asking for his ears and mouth to be opened. The Gospel actually says that Jesus, “Looked up to heaven and groaned and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (that is ‘Be opened!)” Jesus’ healings are never mass healings. He always looks to encounter people individually. He wants to know the person. It is not just about healing it is about faith. It is about a relationship. It is about forgiveness and growing. Jesus treats and heals the whole person not just what seems to be the problem. This person was deaf and had a speak impediment, so Jesus touches his ears as well as his tongue, and prays. The Gospel notes that immediately the person’s ears were opened and his speech impediment removed. In Jesus’ encounters with others the basic question always seems to be – What does this person need? What will help them to be part of the community again? What will help them to feel like and be a child of God? The challenge of this Gospel is to ask ourselves how often do we look beyond ourselves to the people we encounter in life? What do they need to be and feel like a child of God? How can we help them? As members of the Body of Christ we are asked to be Christ’s presence in the world. As St. Teresa of Avila put it, we are Christ’s hands, eyes and feet in our world today. God depends on us to encounter, touch and help others as Jesus did. As we journey through this day let us be thankful for each and every opportunity to be Christ’s eyes and hands and feet in this world for others. Have a great Friday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: The wind is blowing; the snow is coming down. It is a snow day here in New York. I hope the weather is better where you are.
Where is your heart? This might be the question that we can ponder from our Gospel story today (Mark 7:24-30). In the Gospel, even though the woman is a Greek, a Syrophoenician, by birth her heart is with God. In placing her heart with God her daughter is healed. The focus of today’s Gospel reminds me of a verse in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 6: 21) “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, what we find important, what we place value in, what our focus is in life – there is where we will find our heart. Perhaps another way to consider our Gospel today is in the words of Thomas Merton - “Ask me not where I live or what I like to eat . . . Ask me what I am living for and what I think is keeping me from living fully that.” The Syrophoenician woman is living for God. She puts God at the center of her life thus that is where her heart is and she is blessed with the healing of her daughter. Perhaps our questions for today are – What are we living for? What is keeping us from living fully? What is important to us? Where is our heart? Is it with God? Have a great Thursday everyone! "There is a saying among us which goes 'tell me how you pray, and I will tell you how you live; tell me how you live and I will tell you how you pray. Because showing me how you pray, I will learn to find the God for Whom you live, and showing me how you live, I will learn to believe in the God to Whom you pray.' For our life speaks of prayer and prayer speaks of our life; praying is something learned, just as we learn to walk, to speak, to listen. The school of prayer is the school of life and in the school of life we progress in the school of prayer." (Pope Francis)
Today’s Thoughts: Our first reading (Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17) focuses us on the story of creation and the beginning of our relationship with Gods. Our Gospel (Mark 7:14-23) focuses us today, like yesterday on the essentials and the non-essentials. What is essential for a person of faith is how they live from their heart. In other words, the essence of a person is what is in their heart.
Thomas Merton once wrote that “You can tell a saint by the way he [or she] sits and stands, by the way he [or she] picks things up and hold them in his [or her] hands.” I think Merton was getting at what Jesus was talking about in the Gospel today that being what we are on the outside is determined from what we hold in our hearts. Our challenge today is to be people of the heart. It is to ground our life in our relationship with God. The world around us cannot hurt us if we are grounded in and live by the Spirit of God. Have a great Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I find the scripture readings today rather interesting and contrasting. On the one hand, we have the second half of the creation story which we began yesterday and in the Gospel, we find Jesus at odds with the religious leadership over traditions, rules, regulations and rituals.
I always find the ending of the sixth day of creation rather comforting, "God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good," a change from the previous five days when God found everything "good." There seems to be a little something extra to the work of the sixth day the creation of humankind, a creation that forms us in the image and likeness of God. There is a specialness to this sixth day of creation that ends with the proclamation "very good." It might seem prideful or conceited to think of ourselves as very good yet that is how God found us at the time of creation. The sad part though is does God find us that way now? I would answer, "Yes." There is a very goodness in all of us the problem is many of us have covered it over with junk, buried it and neglected it in search of something greater or more self-fulfilling, something that will gratify us for the moment. All of us carry around within us the image and likeness of God which makes us special and important the trick is to find it, to believe it and to live it. That brings me to the Gospel, Jesus' struggle with the religious leaders continues event to this day. I have often struggle myself with the way we as an institutional Church have put more emphasis on traditions, objects, rules, regulations and rituals rather than on people. Do not get me wrong, traditions, rules, regulations, and rituals are all important but not at the expense of people. One of my biggest struggles is that at times we treat inanimate object far better than we treat people. Jesus' mission, his message, his ministry, his living of life was about people. He did not disregard traditions, rules, regulations and rituals but he put them in their proper place as helps, as guides not as the be all and end all. He never valued traditions, rules, regulations and rituals over people. He never made them (rules, regulations, rituals) the faith of the community. He never let them hide the image and likeness of God. I think if we want to be honest with ourselves we need to be challenged by today's Gospel. We need to take a long hard look at what we do with traditions, rules, regulations, rituals in our faith life. We need to realize that perhaps at time we are just like Scribes, Pharisees and religious leaders in the Gospel today, tradition, rules, regulations and rituals get in the way of faith, get in the way of people, get in the way of God! Have a great Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I guess most if not all of you watched the Super Bowl last night and in reading reports this morning it sounds like it lived up to its super name. I guess except if you were rooting for the Falcons. I heard the half time show very good also! As for me I did a workout at the gym, had dinner and enjoy a movie on Netflix. It was a perfect evening from my point of view. I hope your team won or at least you had the right numbers in the pool!
Today's Gospel (Mark 6: 53-56) focuses on the sick coming to Jesus and the first reading from the Book of Genesis (Genesis 1:1-19) begins to tell us the story of creation. It is through God’s loving creative act that we become community and when we can recognize God’s presence in the community then healing can take place. When we know or feel God’s presence sometimes all it takes is touching the tassel on Jesus' cloak and healing takes place and the living of life gets better. God's goodness is never absent we can encounter it each and every day of our lives but it takes work because there is so much "non-goodness" out there! If we believe in the presence of God, if we believe that Jesus is always in our midst, walking by in people around us – then we always have an opportunity to touch a tassel on his cloak and encounter his goodness. Let us pray today for the gift of God's Goodness in our lives. Let us pray for the wisdom to recognize those moments when Jesus is near and the courage to reach out and touch his tassel. Let us live in the hope today that God's creation is still at work and that God will look at us at the end of the day and say "Very Good!" Have a great Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: In our Gospel, today, Jesus uses the simple images of salt and light in asking the disciples, in asking us, to reflect on our lives. I have often preached on this Gospel using the image not of the Sermon on the Mount but of Jesus talking with his disciples one evening as they rested at an inn. They have traveled with him and Jerusalem in not far away and Jesus isn’t sure that they are ready for what is ahead, he isn’t sure their answer is “yes.” How can he help them trust in their relationship?
Then an idea comes to mind. He calls them together. Before he speaks he looks at each one of them and then says, “You are the salt of the earth! But what if salt loses it flavor? What is then good for?” Then he looks at each of them intently again and says. “You are the light of the world! People don’t put a lamp under a bushel basket, they put it on a stand so that it gives light to the whole room. In the same way, your light must shine, your flavor must be tasted!” Now I know I am being a bit free and easy with Jesus’ words but the point is that in order for us to say “yes” to God we need to trust in the gifts and talents God has given us. We need to realize that we have something to offer no matter how ordinary our gifts, abilities and talents seem. Salt and light were everyday staples of life, yet as Jesus tells us they were also very valuable and so are we. It is up to us. We can hide our light, we can lose our flavor or we can give our light and add our flavor to life! Perhaps the first place to start is to begin our day asking God to let our faith not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God so that our flavor isn’t lost and our light shines! Have a great Sunday everyone and may your team win or if you don’t have a team just numbers may your numbers win! Today’s Thoughts: The Gospel provides us with an insight into the life of Jesus and his disciples. Jesus knew that his time was short and his message was important. He knew that it was vital that his message should be spread as swiftly as possible. However, Jesus knew it was also important to take time away from proclaiming the Good News. He knew it was important to rest. Even Jesus himself took time to rest and pray. It was in these moments of rest and prayer that Jesus found the inspiration and wisdom to continue his journey to Calvary.
The message of our Gospel today is clear. We need to remember that we journey through this life with God’s blessing and we need to remind ourselves of this blessing each and every day and the best way to be reminded of God’s blessings in our life is to pause from the busyness of life – to take some time of rest and prayer. In other words, we can discover the blessings of God when we spend some time in prayerful silence. If we don’t we can become overwhelmed by the busyness of life, the busyness of the world and miss the helping presence of God in our lives. We are all well aware of how life can often overwhelm us. We have many responsibilities, family, friend, work, ministry, shopping, preparing meals; getting places we need to be through traffic, bad weather. We face many pressures each and every day and sometimes they can be more than we bargained for. Our Gospel today reminds us to pause in the midst of the busyness of our lives and take a break, rest a little, pray a little and stay connected with God. This can make all the difference! Try and have a restful Saturday everyone! “Without realizing, we have generated a lay elite, believing that committed laypeople are only those who work in relation "priests' matters", and we have forgotten and neglected the believer who very often exhausts his or her hope in the daily struggle to live the faith.” (Pope Francis)
Today’s Thoughts: We celebrated a familiar feast today that of St. Blaise a bishop and martyr in the early fourth century. Legend has it that he cured a boy who was choking on a fish bone. St. Blaise has long been linked cures of ailments of the throat. In fact many will have their throats blessed today through the intercession of St. Blaise. The legend of St. Blaise’s power to heal flows from his faith as a church leader and a martyr. So just in case you were not able to get your throat blessed today - Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every disease of the throat and from every other illness: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now don’t you feel better?
The readings today are interesting on the one hand we have the famous story of Herod and John the Baptist. It is a rather gruesome story, it is hard sometimes to think of a young girl being presented with some one's head and then turning and giving it to her mother. Yet, I guess gruesome things happen in life every day, thankfully not in my life. I am always struck in this story with the fact that Herod is moved by John, that he likes to listen to him, yet he gives in to the worldly pressure around him. I get the feeling Herod knows that John is right, but his power, his self-importance; his ego will not let him say yes. Herod has surrounded himself with people who push him in the wrong direction. We might say that he gives in to the peer pressure of his time! There is a great line in the Letter to the Hebrews that says, "Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels." It is great advice! Perhaps it is advice that Herod should have heard or heeded. He certainly had one of God's angels, John the Baptist in his presence. We need to be aware that God can come to us, be present to us in many ways. We need to trust that God is with us always. We need to remember that we are a community of faith not just individuals and we need to always be aware of the struggles and joys of others because they can often bring God into our midst. Let us today live by the phrase – God is my light and my salvation, whom should we fear? Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever! Have a great Friday everyone! |
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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