Today’s Thoughts: “Characters welcome,” use to be the calling card of the USA network. But as I reflect on the stories of the early Church as they come to us through the Acts of the Apostles I am reminded that our Church, our community of faith is made up of characters, faith characters. Some very familiar to us like Peter and Paul, others not so familiar just names or people who appear for a moment yet they played a role in the development of the early Church.
What is it that makes a “character of faith?” Well, I think our answer is in today’s Gospel. Jesus has just washed the feet of the disciples and he reminds them that “no slave is greater than his master and no messenger is greater than the one who sent him.” Thus, a “character of faith” is someone who follows the words and actions of Jesus. A “character of faith” has faith in God and faith in Jesus. A “character of faith” follows Jesus and believes that in following Jesus they will make their way to the gift of eternal life. One thing is for sure because we are “characters of faith” we will not live life the same way and every once in a while we will need to stop and listen for the voice of God in our life. We will need to receive those whom God sends into our life. But as a faith character we take comfort and have hope that Jesus will always take the time to point us in the right direction. The sad thing is that like in the early Church, like during the time of Jesus, characters are not always welcome. We have all been gifted by being created in the image and likeness of God. Each of us are different, each of us are unique and special. And as we will learn a little later in John’s Gospel Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. There are many dwelling place in the eternal home thus there is room for every character! Have a blessed Thursday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: Once again we are privy to the life of the early Church. In today’s first reading Barnabas and Saul set apart from the others and the Holy Spirit comes upon them, sending them on their ministry to the Gentles. We meet Mark and other characters in the story of the early Church. We begin to see how the faith communities identified people alive in God’s Spirit and called them forth to proclaim the Good News.
We might say that this little section from the Acts of the Apostles is a practical example of what Jesus speaks about in John’s Gospel today. Jesus continues to remind us of how important his relationship is with the Father. He reminds us that we need to listen for the words of God as they come from Jesus and as they come from those who the Spirit sends. The Good News comes from God, it is alive with God’s Spirit, and it is the light that will guide us on our journey of faith. The challenge is always our willingness to hear and see the gift of God in our life. The challenge is to be open each day to the many ways in which God becomes present to us. The challenge is to take the Word we hear and the Light we see and make it known to the world. The challenge is to be the voice and light of God in our world today! Have a blessed Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: It is always interesting to me to hear the stories of the early Church as they are presented in the Acts of the Apostles. We hear about the struggling and the joyous moments of the early Church. We meet the people who made up the early Church and helped it to move forward. We hear about the wonderful faith filled moments and the dark moments of persecution and challenge.
Each time I hear the stories of the early Church I am reminded that as much as things change they also remain the same. The characters are different, the events are different but the struggles and joys are the same. Today we face many if not all of the same challenges of the early Church. We have communities of great faith; we have preachers on fire with the Good News. We have challenges inside and outside the Church and at times we have persecutions. Our faith is constantly in question, challenged, and often under attack. We are faced with change, differences within and a changing, struggling world around us. Like the early Church we are a community of believers listening for the voice of the Good Shepherd. Sometimes we hear it and sometimes the noise of the world around us tries to out shout it. Our challenge is to hear the Good Shepherd’s voice, to recognize it in the midst of all the other voices and to have faith, to trust and to believe that the Good Shepherd will always be with us and will never leave us to face our perils alone! Have a great Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: These words of Pope Francis seem to capture the spirit of today's Gospel. "Every Christian, and especially you and I, is called to be a bearer of this message of hope that gives serenity and joy: God's consolation, his tenderness toward all. But if we first experience the joy of being consoled by him, of being loved by him, then we can bring that joy to others. This is important if our mission is to be fruitful: to feel God's consolation and to pass it on to others!"
Jesus offers us a relationship with himself and the Father. Jesus offers us the consolation and tenderness of the Good Shepherd. Jesus brings God’s joy to us. All we have to do is accept it and offer it to others! Have a great Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.” These are but a few of the words spoken by the Good Shepherd in today Gospel (John 10: 1-10). There are probably many people in life that I could image as the Good Shepherd. People who have impacted my life in profound ways. But as I sit here reflecting on our Gospel my thoughts turned to mothers. Perhaps it is because I have begun to think about Mother’s Day next Sunday that I make the connection between mothers and the Good Shepherd. I am sure there are theologians and scholars out there who would cringe at the thought of connecting the image of mothers with the image of the Good Shepherd.
But it makes sense to me and that is all that is necessary as I offer you a few thoughts and musings on this Fourth Sunday of Easter. My own mother is not far from my thoughts as I prepare for another Mother’s Day without her. She has been gone now for well over five years. I do miss her but I know that she is in a much better place and enjoying the gifts of God’s joy, peace and love abundantly now. But I still miss her! Mothers are often the Good Shepherds of our lives, standing guard at the gate, especially early on in our life, protecting, nurturing, feeding and loving us. They are the first shepherds of our life yet even after we leave the sheep fold for what we think are greener pastures they are still with us, standing guard, nurturing, protecting, feeding and loving us. They don’t do it perfectly, mothers are human and have their flaws, but the vast majority of the time they are Good Shepherds! A few years ago a professional basketball player, Kevin Durant received the Most Valuable Player Award for the NBA season and unlike most other professional athletes he chose not to honor himself or his teammates but to honor his mother. For Mr. Durant, his mother was the Good Shepherd of his life, the person who made all his achievements possible. Yes, that is what a Good Shepherd does, he makes possible all our achievements, and the Good Shepherd makes possible our life. The Good Shepherd came into the world that we might have life and have it more abundantly. That is what mothers do to. They give us life and by their care, their nurturing, their protection, their wisdom, their joy and their love we get to have life and have it more abundantly. If we were coming up on Father’s Day I would say the same thing about fathers, but next Sunday is Mother’s Day and if you have a hard time seeing the Good Shepherd, Jesus, in all mothers, I am sorry. However, each time I think of my mother, each time I encounter the many mothers in my life there is an image that I see and the image of Jesus, as the Good Shepherd. May the Good Shepherd, bless and be with all of us today. May Jesus, the Good Shepherd stand at the gate of life so that all of us may continue to have life and have it more abundantly! Happy Good Shepherd Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: For a little more than a week now we have been making our way through the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. This chapter is central to John’s revelation of the mystery of the Eucharist.
In yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus declares that his flesh and blood is in the Eucharist. Today, the disciples remark that Jesus’ words are a “hard saying.” Jesus does not soften his words because he is looking for faith. Faith is trusting when we do not understand. The basis of faith is not belief in a mystery but belief in the person of Jesus. We are faced with the same challenge as the disciples. Theological mysteries have been revealed to us which we do not intellectually understand but which we accept because we trust the person of Jesus. There may be circumstances and situations in our lives which we cannot understand and for which trust in Jesus is also necessary. Just as Jesus was moving the disciples to another level of faith, so are we invited to grow in faith. In order to do so we need to ask ourselves a question. “Are we willing to trust in Jesus to take us to the next level? Jesus’ questioning of the disciples about staying or going also applies to us. Perhaps, Peter speaks for all of us, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Are we willing to stay and let Jesus gives ultimate meaning to our lives? Have a great Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Today is a travel day for me and it will be a long one. I will be leaving the Passionist Retreat House here in Detroit, where I have been since last Sunday, for New York. I have to make the drive all in one day as I have a program in Queens tomorrow morning. So I offer you a few random thoughts from others in the hope that they will just give you a little food for thought…
"We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace." (Pope Francis) “Everywhere I looked, hope existed - but only as some kind of green shoot in the midst of struggle. It was a theological concept, not a spiritual practice. Hope, I began to realize, was not a state of life. It was at best a gift of life.” (Sr. Joan D. Chittister, O.S.B.) "To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others." (St. John Paul II) “Totally love Him who gave Himself totally out of love for you.” (St. Clare of Assisi) "Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it." (St. John Paul II) “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.” (Dorothy Day) "Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do." (St. John XXIII) “Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant ones, count as nothing.” (St. Thérèse de Lisieux) "See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little." (St. John XXIII) Have a great Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I have a few thoughts from our readings today. First of all, we might say that the Easter Season is a time of remembering, that it is a time of re-encountering, re-engaging, and re-understanding the resurrection of Jesus. Every year we are given and hopefully take this time to unravel this mystery of Christ’s resurrection once again. It is a time to be on the Emmaus road with our heart burning again What a special gift!
In our first reading today, we find Luke concerned the future of the Church. A central characteristic of Luke’s gospel is to make sure that his Gentile believers, and all future believers as well, make profound connections with the tradition, especially with Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. So, Philip’s encounter with the eunuch (a Gentile) demonstrates that concern. The eunuch refers to a passage that Jesus probably quoted on the Emmaus road when he was lighting the fire in the hearts of the two disciples as to “why the Christ had to suffer and die and so enter into his glory.” This is still our question in our time, isn’t it? Why? Why did this happen? Perhaps, the question is not only why did it happen, but why not tell us what you told the eunuch… the disciples on the way to Emmaus? Our journey through Holy Week lead us in and out of the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection answering the question ritually, liturgically, scripturally, but… is the question why ever fully answered? We might marvel at the belief of the eunuch, but let us also seek to know Jesus more deeply and find the answer in our lives… why do we have to suffer? We also might wonder, question Jesus’ words in the Gospel today, “this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.” Our response might be the same as the woman at the well, “Give us some of this bread Lord that we may never be hungry again!” This bread is a share in this same Christ who died and rose for us. How do Jesus’ words today speak to our gut? What is the Risen Christ sharing with us this season and always? Have a great Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “I am the way and the truth and the life…. If you know me, then you also know my Father.” These are familiar words of Jesus spoken to Thomas and found in today Gospel (John 14: 6-14) on this the feast of Sts. Philip and James. They are words that remind us that our Christian faith is a very profound experience; only those who have faith come to know that God, the creator of the universe, chose to enter our life, to be part of human history and in doing so reveal a profound love to all creation.
Jesus seems to be responding to the age old question, is there a God, and if so what is this God like? Jesus’ answer is look at me, know me, because if you see and know me then you see and know my Father. As we find earlier in John’ Gospel, “God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16) So if we take a good look at Jesus, if we get to know Jesus then we will know God, we will know the Father, the God who so loves the world! In coming to know God it always comes down to a relationship, a relationship with Jesus, a relationship with the Father, a relationship with the Spirit. Relationships take work, relationship can be difficult and demanding, relationship demand time and investment. Yet in the end a relationship is the only way we can come to know the love, mercy, joy and faithfulness of God! Happy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: The story of St. Stephen’s death in the Acts of the Apostles make me think about what often happens in our world every day. Stephen is just being a good and faith filled person and a crazy mob comes along and stones him to death. A mob of people not thinking about life, about goodness, about being positive but a mob of people only thinking about themselves. A mob of people focused on selfishness, on fear, on evil. Stephen remained the “bigger person” through his struggle, Stephen remained the faith filled person, Stephen remained the person of life not death.
In our world there are many people about life, about hope, about joy, and about all that is good in our culture and our society and like Stephen they often pay the price. Some with their lives, some with the burdens of life and all with what anger, terror and violence can take away from our bodies, our spirits and our souls. Sometimes it is not a mob, it is just one or two miss guided, angry people, who are more about themselves than life, who are about negativity, fear, death and evil. They often think they are about what is good, that they are doing God’s work however they are doing the work of evil and unfortunately as good people we are often reminded by the misguided of how much evil is still present in our world. But like Stephen we need to remain the “bigger person” in the midst of a world of anger, violence and terror. We need to remain faith filled people, we need to remain people of life and not death. We need to remain people of light not darkness. We need to remain people of trust and freedom not fear. We need to remained people of hope not despair. As we journey through this day may we continue to be remained of and to live on the Bread of Life, Jesus who is always in our midst. Have a great Tuesday 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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