Today’s Thoughts: “Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: ‘I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their words….’” There is comfort for us in today’s Gospel (John 17:20-26). While we still find ourselves listening to Jesus talk about his and our relationship with the Father as we have been for most of the Easter Season, today Jesus lets us know that his prayer is not only for his disciples but for us, those who believe because we have heard.
Jesus looks ahead with his prayer today, ahead to all those who will come after him and somehow, in some way, come to believe. Jesus prays for people like you and me who have listened to the words of parents, relatives, teachers, preachers and come to know and believe in Jesus. St. Paul in the first reading (Acts 22:30; 23:6-11) is an example of the power of Jesus’ prayer. Paul knows human nature and he used it to his advantage today so that he can continue to proclaim the Good News. St. Paul is a witness to the presence of God in the world and because of his witness we to have a chance to believe. As we journey through this day let us be thankful for Jesus’ prayer that we too might be included in God’s love if we have the courage to believe in the Good News that we hear! Have a blessed, holy, and healthy Thursday everyone!
0 Comments
Today’s Thoughts: I have to say that I will be glad when Sunday comes and goes, and we are no longer in the Easter Season. I say this not out of disrespect or because I don’t like the Easter Season, I love it but by this point we have heard the Gospel of John especially chapters 14-17 so much that it is a little hard to focus. Throughout these chapters John goes around and around about Jesus’ relationship with the Father and our relationship with him and the Father. Sometimes I just want to say, “Ok, I get it!” I also think John may have been reincarnated in the people who wrote and translated the Roman Missal. If it is not John, then it must be somebody who studied under him or a distant relative of him.
However, with my frustrations stated I was thinking as I spent time in prayer preparing for all that I have to do today that perhaps these chapters in John are really the words of a person in love. There have been several times in my life when I thought that I was in love or when I was in love. Obviously, they did not work out, but I can still remember the women and how I felt. I can also remember that it was hard to explain my feelings to myself and others. It was hard to talk about my feelings; the words would get all jumbled up. I would repeat them over and over again until I am sure my friends were tired of listening to me. When I would speak about my feelings to the one, I loved or tried to explain them to my friends often I did not seem to be making much sense. Perhaps that is my struggle with the words of Jesus in John that we have been listening to throughout the Easter Season. Yes, they are Jesus’ words, but it is John who is trying to communicate them to us. It is John in the writing of the Gospel who is now the person in love. He is a man in love with the Father, a man in love with Jesus, a man in love with us. Both Jesus and John are trying to explain this love. Jesus to his disciples and John is trying to explain this love to us but in both cases, words do not always come out that clear. They explain this love repeatedly, hoping we will understand and hoping that we too will fall in love! Have a blessed, holy, and healthy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “I pray for them.” The words of Jesus from today’s Gospel (John 17: 1-11a). Throughout these closing days of the Easter season we hear repeatedly Jesus’ desire for us to continue his mission and ministry in the world. He knows that it will not be easy, so he prays to the Father that we might be taken care of just as the Father has taken care of him.
In the first reading (Acts 20: 17-27) St. Paul reflects on what lies ahead for him because he has taken up the mission of Jesus. He talks about being martyred. His time is short, and he realizes it. He like Jesus, in the Gospel, is sending a message to his followers. He has done his best; he has proclaimed the Gospel now they must carry on. The message for us in these last days of Easter is to trust in the Spirit as we continue the ministry and mission of Jesus in our lives. The message is to do our best and to always know that Jesus is with us. He has offered us a relationship, a friendship with God. It is that friendship that St. Paul draws upon in living his life, in being challenged by the world around him and in staying faithful to his call. We are asked to do the same. As we have often heard through these days of Easter God so loves the world that he has so fearfully, wonderfully made us so that as we live this day let us trust in our friendship with God and live the gift that God has created us to be! Have a blessed, holy, and healthy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” The last sentence of today’s Gospel from John (John 16:29-33). reminds us that being a person of faith is not easy, that we will find ourselves struggling with many things about the world, culture and society. In fact, we will struggle with many things within our own faith community because as an institution it is part of the world and run by human beings who are imperfect. Living this life will give us trouble from all sides and we know this all too well these days.
However, we are not to fear because Jesus has conquered the world. He has made this life only part of the journey. There is more to life than this world; there is more to life than what we face each day. There is an eternal life where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, no more viruses, no more death just the eternal presence of God. As people of faith that is where we are headed but there is still this life, this world to navigate through. Each day we need to look for the Spirit. We need to look for those people like St. Paul who can help us connect with the Spirit, because it is the Holy Spirit who will guide us through the troubles of this world. It is the Holy Spirit who will bring to life the gift of God within us. So be on the lookout today for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can come to us in many different ways, through creation, through the people we meet, through the people we love and yes, the Holy Spirit can even come to us through ourselves. Let us be the breath, the life, the Spirit of God today! Have a blessed, holy, and healthy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: For those of you celebrating the Feast of the Ascension today you can see my reflections from Thursday May 10, 2018. However, for those celebrating the Seventh Sunday of Easter today my reflections follow…
In the first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles we get a glimpse of how the early Church put profound trust in the Spirit. They decide to fulfil the vacancy left by Judas. There is only two qualifications for the job - “It is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection.” These are the only two qualifications and from here they let the Holy Spirit do his work. The simply, cast lots between these two men. There was no campaigning, no party affiliations to consider, no lengthy lists of qualifications to consider. They leave it up to casting lots. Total trust in the presence of the Spirit. The Gospel passage today is taken from the Last Supper discourse in John’s Gospel. You might say that this is the last meal, the last class, the last prayer-service and the last conversation that the disciples had with Jesus before his death. We could say that it is Jesus’ good-bye speech to them. Within today’s passage Jesus prays. Often when we think of Jesus and prayer, we think of the Our Father. However, today Jesus offers his own prayer. He prays for unity, not uniformity, but unity. Uniformity mean the state or quality of being uniform; overall sameness, homogeneity, or regularity. In other words, everyone is the same. We wear the same thing, we eat the same food, we do everything the same. It is hard to tell one person from the other. Whereas unity means the state of being united or joined as a whole. These two words are different. Jesus wants us to be united like he and the Father. He wants us to share in their relationship to have our focus on the ultimate goal of eternal life. We may have a different understanding of how to get there. We may use our own unique gifts and talents to make the journey, but we are united with Jesus, the Father and the Spirit. Jesus and the Father did not always see eye to eye. Jesus like us had to deal with his humanness. In the garden after the Last Supper, Jesus prays that the cup might pass him by, but in the end, he is one with the Father. On the Cross Jesus cries out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” But in the end Jesus is one with the Father. This is the relationship that Jesus invites us into know that we too must deal with our humanness. We are invited to trust and to come to know God’s vision. The world will present us with many visions but if we trust in our relationship with Jesus, the Father and the Spirit we will be able to see beyond what the world presents to the presence of God in our life trusting always in the Spirit. Have a blessed Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Dorothy Day once said, “One must constantly recall the necessity to grow in confidence in God.…Trust that prayers will be answered. Maybe not as we want but as others need it to be.” Perhaps in other words our faith is not always about ourselves and God, but about others and God.
In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles today (Acts 18:23-28) Apollos is pulled aside and helped by Priscilla, Aquila, and others in his ministry. Yes, he is an eloquent speaker but a stronger relationship with God is necessary so that he can help others with his gifts. Jesus in the Gospel today (John 16:23b-28) continues to remind us of the need to ask in his name. In other words, pray in his name so that what is needed, what is desire, will be received. But what does it mean to ask in Jesus’ name? It means to pray like Jesus. Jesus prayed always looking beyond himself to others. Jesus prayed not for his own will but for the Father’s will. Our prayer, our relationship with God must always look beyond ourselves to others. We need to be about God’s will not our own. Perhaps in the spirit of Dorothy Day, our challenge today is to grow in our relationship with God, trust that relationship and realize that our prayers will be answered not always as we want but as others need them to be! Have a blessed, holy, and healthy Saturday 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, and healthy Friday! 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, 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, and healthy 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
May 2023
Categories |