Today’s Thoughts: “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.” – “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.” Perhaps these are two of the hardest statements in the scripture to trust. They come to us today from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 18: 9-18) and John’s Gospel (John 16: 20-23). The first the Lord speaks to St. Paul one night in Corinth and the other Jesus speaks to his disciples.
How often have we asked God for something and yet it doesn’t happen, we don’t get it, we have to settle for life as it is not as we want it to be? How often are we called to speak or we feel compelled to speak because of our faith but the words just will not come out because we are afraid of the consequences? Living by faith is no easy task, it wasn’t in Paul’s time, and it wasn’t in Jesus’ time. The world is often a cruel place, a place where words and actions can cause us pain, sorrow and problems even if they are not true or right. The feelings and emotions of the mob are usually what rules. The Gospel message is not for the weak or the fearful. Our faith tells us that God is with us. That whatever we ask in Jesus’ name we will be given, then why is there so much sickness, death, pain and sorrow in the world? Wars and violence happen every day. Did no one ask for the violence to stop in Jesus’ name? It is easy to say that we are Christian and call ourselves Catholic but living out our faith is never easy. In some ways God is always there, God always responds to us, God always gives us what we need, God always stands beside us when we speak the truth. However, the world always makes it hard to hear, feel, see and know God’s presence in our life. As we live today, as we wonder through this life trying to believe, trying to speak, trying to trust in God remember love casts out fear. It makes us able to speak even in the most difficult times and it makes present the most profound gifts that God gives to us! Have a blessed, holy, safe and healthy Friday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: I know for many of you this is just an ordinary Thursday but for those of us in the eastern part of the United States it is the Feast of the Ascension. This is one of those days when I truly wish the US bishops would get their act together! Decide on either Thursday or Sunday for the whole country rather than some of the people celebrating one day and others celebrating another. For those of you who celebrate the Feast of the Ascension on Sunday you can save my reflections for today until Sunday!
“Men Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” I have always liked this little phase at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. For me it sets the stage for everything that Luke is going to tell Theophilus about Jesus and this community call Church. Perhaps this question directed at Jesus’ followers just after he ascended into heaven sits at the center of our life as Church. Sometimes as a Church I think we are standing there look up at the sky. We are looking at the past. We are looking at what use to be and not what is. We are looking back hoping the past will be the present and the future. The angel’s question to the disciples perhaps was not just a question but a challenge. Are you going to continue to stand here and just look up at the sky? Are you going to live in the past, put your hope in the past? Or are you going to get busy and be about the ministry Jesus has entrusted you with, are you going to get busy about living of life. In the movie the Shawshank Redemption Andy at one point tells Red, “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” Perhaps that is what the angel is asking Jesus’ disciples the day of the Ascension. What are they now going to do with the mission, the ministry that Jesus has entrusted them with? Their choices are to stand here and keep looking up at the sky, waiting for Jesus to return, thinking of the past or they can get busy living the life, the faith, the hope, the love that Jesus has entrusted to them. We might say that this celebration of the Feast of the Ascension challenges us in the same way. Are we as a Church just going to stand around looking, waiting for Jesus, are we going to stand in the midst of the past and wait or are we as a people of faith going to get busy living out our faith through the gifts of the Spirit? Have a blessed Feast of the Ascension and Thursday everyone! Today’s Thought: “In [God] we live and move and have our being.” A simple phrase that Paul uses as he speaks to the crowd in Athens, it seems to have been a phrase use by a poet that Paul applies to our relationship with God.
Paul is right this phrase very simply reflects our life as a people of faith. If we believe then our life is in God and from our relationship with God, we live, we move and have our very being. I have often imaged faith as being the breath we take every second of our life in order to live. We cannot do anything without that breath, nothing. Whether we are resting, running, alone or with people we need to breathe in order to live. From my perspective that is what faith is all about. I think that is what Paul was trying to tell the people of Athens. I think that is what Jesus was reminding his disciples of in the Gospel today. As people of faith, we breathe in the presence of God, the Spirit of God, with and in that presence, that spirit, we live, we move and we become our very self, we have our being, our life, our purpose, our meaning. Today let us let our faith, the breath of God, enlivens us, strengthens us, inspires us and guides us on our journey through life. Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: We always need to remember that God has the power to transform our losses into gladness and our sorrows into joy. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles today the jailor finds himself at a moment of decision. He thinks that all the prisoners have escaped. He considers taking his own life because it would be quicker and less painful then the death he would have to endure for such a folly under his watch. However, he finds that his worst fears are unfounded, and that God has given him and opportunity through Paul and Silas to change his life. Thus, rather than death the jailor and his family experience new life!
In moments of tragedy, struggle, disappointment, sadness, and even viruses we get an opportunity to grow, to see life in a different way, to change. It is not easy, it can be challenging and perhaps our first thought is to not even try, to just continue to feel what we feel. Yet, God is waiting for us to step up and bring the presence of God to each moment of our life, moving beyond worry, fear, anger, resentment and sadness to the Spirit of God. Several years ago, Pope Francis wandered into a very tense part of the world and broke the tension by simply treating people with respect, love and joy. He put smiles on people’s faces and by his simple actions of prayer gave people pause to think. Did anything profoundly change? Probably not, but perhaps Pope Francis provided the opportunity like Paul and Silas for something new to happen. My hope is always that we as people, as nations, as Christians, Jews, Muslims, will at some point grasp the moment like the jailor in the reading today, perhaps even this moment of a virus, and allow God to transform our lives from fear and hate into peace and hope! Have a blessed, holy, safe and healthy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: There is a quote from St. Bede the Venerable that goes like this, “Let us speak the truth in our hearts and not practice treachery with our tongues, so that by pouring forth charity more and more in our hearts, the Spirit of truth may teach us recognition of all truth.” In this day and age, I might add a little something to what St. Bede said, “…and not practice treachery with our tongues and our fingers!” It is not only the treachery of the spoken word today; it is also the treachery of the written word today. You find it on Twitter, Facebook and in all social media today.
It amazes me how negative, hurtful, bigoted and sinful we can be with the words we write about others. We call ourselves Christian yet the pictures we post, the cartoons and videos we send around, the ideas we put forth sometimes are anything but Christian. I guess it is easy to sit in our homes or offices or be walking down the street and attack a person, an organization, a political party, a public servant, someone in leadership. It is even easy for a president to do these things! The people attacked get no chance to defend themselves and our words don’t have to be true. From the comfort of our own electronic device we can post whatever we want and often there are no consequences to our actions whether we are right or wrong. Remember it is a free country and certainly free social media! In the readings from mass today we are reminded about the importance of truth. Jesus (John 15:26 – 16:4a) reminds us that he is sending us the truth through the Holy Spirit from the Father, not Fox News or MSNBC or any other news organization that we agree with. Truth is most often not found in the media sources of today’s world it is found in the hearts of people who journey through life as friends of God. Lydia, whom we meet in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 16:11-15) today, went to the river to pray and her life was changed through the preaching and the presence of Paul. Paul spoke the truth and Lydia allowed it to enter her heart. She came to believe. She invited the truth into her home and into her heart. We need to trust the Spirit in our life not 24-hour news. We need to speak truth about ourselves and others. We need to be friends of God who build up not tear down. There are always going to be those who bring deceitfulness to the living of life may we always be people who bring truth! A couple of years ago I was wondering through the social media, Twitter to be exact and I came upon two tweets from Fr. James Martin, S.J. that I wrote down and I think they speaks to our scriptures today. Fr. Martin was talking about Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land. “To those who doubted that Pope Francis could do anything valuable in the Holy Land, or could find grace among warring factions, I say...that you've forgotten about the Holy Spirit again. Nothing is impossible with God.” Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: The readings today certainly focus on the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are reminded that the Spirit is always with us even when we struggle and feel alone or abandoned. What makes the Spirit possible in our life is following Jesus’ commandment to love one another.
A thought that came to me regarding our readings today is something I read and have been praying with this week. I ran across this statement, “Jesus loved the world enough to die for it, but not so much as to be seduced by it.” The person who wrote this attributed it to G. K. Chesterton. I did a little searching myself but I could not find it among Chesterton’s quotes or anyone else for that matter. It was a quote that stuck with me, I think because it is at the heart of what Jesus is talking about in John’s Gospel. Jesus does love us and always will. All he asks of us is to be faithful to the relationship and that faithfulness becomes present when we love one another. In other words, when we do not get sidetracked, when we do not get seduced by the world. When we do not buy into the bright lights, the must see, the must have. Trust in God’s presence as Father, Son and Spirit comes to life when we live in love. In the opening prayer at mass today we are reminded that in celebrating the Eucharist we are to live each day in remembrance so that we may always hold on to it in what we do. Hopefully, our remembrance of God’s love for us will be made present in the living of our life and our love for one another! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: In some ways the image created by John in his Gospel today can be a bit confusing. In today’s Gospel Jesus talks about “the world.” He says. “If the world hates you, realize that it hates me first.” We might be led to believe by this statement that “the world” is bad, that there is nothing good about “the world.”
If we look at Jesus’ statements about “the world” in this section of John’s Gospel in this way then how do we reconcile this image of “the world” with Genesis 1:31, which tells us that God created our world good or John 3:16, which tells us that God so loved the world. “The world” that Jesus speaks about in the Gospel today are those people who have rejected Jesus. In Jesus’ time and in our time, there is good and bad in “the world,” there is life and death, there is blessing and curse, there is good and evil. There are some in “the world” who will and do hate us. Rejection of Jesus and his message is alive and well today. There are people who reject the Gospel, who reject Jesus, who reject faith. They are “the world” that Jesus warned us about. Just because it has been over 2,000 years since Jesus it does not mean that rejection and hate have gone away. It does not mean that we are immune from the hate and persecution that Jesus encountered. We might not have to carry a wooden cross through city streets and die on it, but we will be hated and persecuted because we believe. The question might be how do we deal with this? I think Pope Francis has given us a clue, he says that our “weapons” of self-defense are the Gospel, humility and meekness. In other words, we are not to be like those in “the world” who hate, persecute, those who sling mud, criticize and judge. We are to be people of the Gospel, people of compassion, forgiveness and love. We are to be Gospel people in humility and meekness. You might say these “weapons” go against every human instinct. When challenged, when persecuted our instinct is to strike back but that is not Jesus’ way and as people of faith it is not our way. If we truly know Jesus, if we truly believe then hate and persecution does not matter what does is bringing life to the presence of God through forgiveness, compassion and love! Have a blessed, holy, safe and healthy Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: As I was reflecting on today’s Gospel these two thoughts came to mind.
The first was a quote that I have always liked from Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ. – “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, [humankind] will have discovered fire.” And the second is a prayer written by St. Ignatius of Loyola, SJ. – “Take Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given all to me. To you, O Lord, I return it. All is yours, dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, for this is enough for me.” In the Gospel Jesus tells us to love one another and in doing so he uses the example of his own love for us. He tells us that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends and we are his friends. Yes, Jesus is talking to his disciples some 2,000 plus years ago but if we believe the scriptures are alive then Jesus is also talking to us. As we are told in John’s Gospel – God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son and all we have to do is believe. Well Jesus with his words today puts an exclamation point on God’s love for us. Our job, our task, our command is simply to follow the example of Christ and to discover fire, to discover the energies of love in each other! Love is only realized, only understood in terms of action. Jesus so loved us that he gave his life for us. How we love determines the power and presence of God in our life. If we love God then we are called to live that love, we are called share it with one another. Jesus reminds us today to discover the fire of love in our lives and in the world and to turn over everything to God because God’s love for us is always enough. Have a blessed, holy, safe and healthy Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: It is the feast of St. Matthias today. Matthias was the person chosen after the Resurrection to take Judas’ place among the twelve. So, we first call upon Matthias’ spirit of faith in the Risen Lord to guide and direct us today.
“You are my friends…It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.” Two reflections by Jesus in John’s Gospel (John 15:9-17) this morning that I have always given me pause for thought. On the one hand there is something comforting about being a friend of Jesus. Yes, this friendship demands a lot and is not always easy but being identified as a friend of Jesus often helps me to know that I am never alone. When you think about it someone who is willing to and did lay down his life for me is not going to walk away from me. The only person who can walk away from this relationship is me! The second reflection by Jesus is a little more of a struggle. I guess I would prefer to think that I am in control, that I am the one doing the choosing and to a certain extent I have chosen God. However, when I look back over my life, I can see the signs of God’s hand, of Jesus’ invitation. I can see God’s plan at work in the story of my life. I am who I am today not because I chose God but because God chose me! I have come to believe that it is God who does the choosing, extending the invitation to be friends. After all we can put Jesus’ words together with Psalm 139. “O God you probe me and you know…You formed my inmost being: you knit me in my mother’s womb.” Yes, God did the choosing long ago. God chose to create me, and Jesus chose me as a friend. God so loves the world that each of us are fearfully, wonderfully made so as we live this day let us trust in our friendship with God and live the gift that God has created us to be! Happy feast of St. Matthias everyone and have a blessed, holy, safe and healthy Thursday! Today’s Thoughts: There are two things that strike me in today’s readings. First in the Acts of the Apostles we encounter a moment of struggle within the early Church. Some want to keep things as they are. They don’t want to break with tradition, while others see no need for past tradition. The struggle focuses on past Jewish traditions and the emerging new Church into which gentles are entering. Paul and Barnabas decide to go to Jerusalem and talk about the problem. What a novel idea, sitting down and talking about issues, problems, struggles and differing views of Church. Perhaps Pope Francis has taken a page from the Acts of the Apostles over the last six years!
My second thought comes from the Gospel. Not too long-ago Jesus offered us the image of the Good Shepherd – God as the shepherd always watching out for us, always taking care of us, always walking with us. It is a comforting image of God’s presence in our life. Today the image is of God as the life-giving vine extending out into the world through us the branches. God becomes the vine running through our life offering us grace by which we grow into the person we have been created be so that we can produce the fruit of God’s presence and love in the world. As a branch of God’s presence and love in the world we don’t have to know everything. We are a branch running from the Vine. It is the Vine that offers us everything that we need as long as we stay attached. We cannot do it on our own we must depend on the Vine – God’s presence, grace, love, mercy, forgiveness and joy to produce good fruit. Jesus through the image of the vine and the branches reminds us today that the more we are connected to God, the more we lean on God, and the more we learn from God and experience God’s presence in the world around us, the better we will be at living life – the more fruit we will produce! In a note today is the Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima. Through her intercession we pray - O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy. Amen! Have a blessed, holy, safe and healthy Wednesday 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
May 2023
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