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. Along with listening Jesus also reminds us that he is the Light sent by the Father. A light that illuminates the presence of God in our life. We might say that the story we hear in Acts is also about light. Those called by God, set apart in the community of faith are lights of God’s presence also. Perhaps, the focus of the readings today is to remind us that we are the light of God’s presence in the world today! The challenge is always our willingness to hear, to see and to be the gift of God in the world as we live 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 and holy Wednesday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: Friends in Faith, I am sorry for being absent the last few days. As I mentioned on Friday, after the Sunday Mass Taping Day I headed to St. Louis for my grandniece’s Frist Communion. It was a great day on Saturday, and it was an honor to give my grandniece her first communion and celebrate the day with her and her family. It was also a wonderful weekend with a portion of my family, and we got to celebrate a home mass on Sunday praying with and for all mothers.
When I arrived in St. Louis Friday night, I would take the weekend off from my computer and the internet, and I did not open my computer until I returned from St. Louis last evening. So, for those who were looking for my reflections all weekend, again, I am sorry. I am back and once again trying to get back into the swing of thing! 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 and certain some new ones especially our struggle with the coronavirus. 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 blessed and holy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I am often struck when reading our faith story how God seems to select the most unusual, undeserving or unique people to proclaim his message. Think of the Samaritan Woman at the well or Saul from our first reading today. These are two people you would not expect God to choose. The Samaritan woman seems to have her own problems with relationships and fitting in while Saul is breathing murderous threats. No people I would pick to proclaim the Good News, but God does!
It seems every time Jesus is encountered by someone they are sent on a mission to proclaim the Good News. Jesus chooses the Samaritan woman to proclaim his message to the town folks and he chooses Saul, who becomes Paul, to proclaim his message to the Gentile world. Encountering Jesus means being missioned, being sent. . Often in a less spectacular way we too encounter Jesus daily. Think of going to mass, of receiving communion. We encounter the Risen Christ. Perhaps not in the way that the Samaritan woman or Paul did but we do encounter the Risen Christ and are sent into the world to proclaim the Good News. We are to do it our own way, using our own gifts and talents. But we do encounter Jesus and we are sent. Our every daily encounter with Jesus, which takes place differently from day to day and from person to person, are our opportunities of being missioned just like Paul was, as the Samaritan woman was. Yes, not in a spectacular way, but rather while we are “minding our own business,” as Paul and the Samaritan woman were “minding their own business”. Our journey through the Easter Season reminds us that the Risen Lord is always looking for us, always waiting to encounter us in our daily lives. We can be “minding our own business” but Jesus especially through the Eucharist will walk into our life and send us forth to proclaim the Good News! Have a blessed and holy Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Our readings today identify Jesus as the fulfillment of salvation history.
In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we hear how Philip brings understanding of Scripture to the Ethiopian. In the Gospel Jesus continues to remind us that he is the Bread of Life. It follows the stories of the miracles of the multiplication of the loaves and of Jesus walking on water. All of these passages are focused on bringing clarification to Jesus’ mission. In our Psalm today, we are called to give thanksgiving for deliverance at the hands of God. If you are like me, you are often left with a sense of turmoil and anxiety at the end of the day, because our civil discourse is often, if not always, about conflict, anger, untruth and threats. I often dream of a world where God’s activity would be easily identifiable, even if we are not looking for it. However, at the current moment this is hardly the case at least from my perspective. I dream of living in a world where I can have an unwavering trust in God’s Divine Providence. A place where prayers are routinely answered in a way that I can see. When I pray for a couple to be blessed with the gift of life, I want to see them become pregnant. When I pray for peace, I want it to happen. I want to live in a culture, a world, of truth, trust and respect. I want to journey through life knowing that when my faith weakens it will be quickly restored. I guess what I want is to always see God right in front of me, perhaps I want things to be easy. This imperfect world in which I/we live seems in many ways to find similarities in the world of that first Easter Church. There always seems to be hope when faith is strong and there is doubt when it is not. The time between the first Easter and Pentecost was a time when the followers of Jesus suffered with fear and questioning until they had a set of clear-cut signs, the signs I seem to be looking for, when Jesus was with them. However, these signs were not enough because often they did not recognize Jesus at first. The worries and concerns about the events that had transpired in the world in which they lived held them back from seeing the presence of Jesus. The Easter season is often portrayed as the time of salvation and renewal. For me, and for many of those in the early Church, I do not think this is (or was) the necessarily case. When I am able to recognize God’s hand in what is happening, I find moments of great consolation, but this is a faith that is subject to my view of life and my struggles. Like those in the early Church I continue to look for a spirit filled moment to change my perspective. I continue to look for the gift of Pentecost in my life and in the life of the world. I look for the opportunity to better recognize and hold in my heart that which the Easter season brings, but it is not easy! The Easter season is a journey, life is a journey through the struggles, difficulties, fears and challenges of life to better recognize the gift and presence of God in our life. Have a holy and blessed Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Because of the Feast of Sts. Philip and James, we missed the account in Acts of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. So today we must remember St. Stephen has been martyred as we read the accounts in Acts about the things that happened after St. Stephen’s death. When I read today’s accounts, I am always caught by the fact that even though Saul was hell bent on destroying the Church, but God was able to change his heart and lead him to become the great Apostle Paul. It gives me hope that someone so focused on the negative, so wanting to destroy, so against the presence of some people in the world was able to become a person of joy, of peace, of love and of hope.
God did not fight Saul’s attack on his Church with vengeance, with force, with power, with war. God did not seek to destroy Saul. God did not seek to judge Saul. No God dealt with Saul’s attack through truth, compassion, love and with an invitation to be a part of the community. Somehow with words of kindness, with words of compassion, with words and gestures of love God turned Saul’s heart and created someone new Paul. Often as we encounter our world and all its problems we think we must fight, we think that we must eliminate our enemies. We think that making fun of them, that degrading them with our words, that attacking them with half-truths, cartoons and witty jokes we will overcome them. We think that pointing to their faults and failings, that being hurtful we are doing God’s will and that we will win the battle and the war. Yet, God has always showed us that power, vengeance and war never works. These are not the solutions to our problems or the avenues to peace. In Saul’s case God invited him to become part of the community. God invited Saul to see God in his life in a different way. God invited Saul to choose life not death. God invited Saul to a change of heart. God invited Saul to be a man of hope and love. God turn Saul’s energy of violence and hate into an energy of love, compassion, hope, mercy, joy and peace. If we truly want our world, our culture, our society to change then perhaps rather than waging war, rather than fearing those we see as enemies, rather than attacking, rather than dismissing or making fun of those we don’t like, we should invite them into the conversation. We should extend the hand of friendship. We should invite them to be part of the community. We should show them the value of faith, hope and love. We should help them to see the light of life! Have a blessed, and holy Wednesday 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! Have a blessed and holy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Today’s readings are preludes to tomorrow stories, the martyrdom of Stephen and Jesus’ discourse on the “Bread of Life.” In some ways we can say that today’s readings are about seeing, and hearing and we learn that some people only see and hear what they want to see and hear. When we live life this way we open ourselves to the possibility of missing the gift, the presence of God in our life.
The religious leaders surrounding Stephen today only see and hear what they want to see and hear. They miss the very gift from God that Stephen brings to them, the very gift of God that Stephen is. They miss a chance to grow, to see and hear thing differently. They have already decided who and what Stephen is thus God has no chance. The people following Jesus in today’s Gospel are caught up in the miracles that Jesus has performed. They are not listening to his words, they are not open to the presence of God, they want more miraculous things. Jesus reminds them that in order for good things to happen they have to be open to the gift and presence of God in their lives. They are challenged to believe not in what they see and hear but in the presence of Jesus in their lives! Another way of thinking about today’s readings is in what do we invest in life. Do we invest in our faith, our relationship with God or do we invest in the things of the world, the things we think we need to have in order to be successful and important? Do we invest in things that satisfy us for a moment, things that order life and make us comfortable or do we invest in the presence of God that often asks us to step outside our comfort zone? Often, we only see, hear and invest in what we want, what we like, what makes life easy and comfortable. God can be speaking to us, calling us down a new path but we miss it. Today let us open our eyes, our ears and our hearts to the many different ways that God can be present in our lives especially those ways beyond what we want to see and hear! Have a blessed and holy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “A Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst; it is born from knowing that with him we alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! And in this moment, the enemy, the devil, comes, often disguised as an angel, and slyly speaks his word to us. Do not listen to him! Let us follow Jesus!” (Pope Francis)
In our First Reading today we encounter the jealous religious leaders confronting Peter and the others with their being disobedient to the previous orders to be silent. After reviewing how Jesus had been silenced by being hanged on a cross at the hands of these very leaders, Peter and the others leave in high spirits, because they have been proven worthy by being treated in almost the same way as Jesus. In other words, they know they are on the right path. The Gospel today provides us with a touching scene. Peter and his companions decide to return to the life from which Jesus had called them, fishing. Now Jesus, who had told them at the washing of their feet that apart from him they could do nothing, so it is nothing that they do. They fish all night and catch nothing. Dawn comes and the Great Fisherman appears and with him they catch a boat load of fish. In this Resurrection encounter we have one of John’s favorite themes, bad things happen at night and Jesus the light does great things during the daylight. They come to the realization that it is the Lord and the catch becomes secondary, at least for a while. As the scene continues, we encounter their reunion with Jesus at the breakfast. Peter who warmed himself by a charcoal fire while betraying Jesus, is now invited to bring some of his catch to be cooked on the charcoal fire where Jesus was already cooking fish and bread. The scene is thick with tension as Peter and the others are not sure how to act or what to say. Jesus breaks the tension by distributing the bread and fish to them. Earlier in their relationship, Jesus had taken loaves and fish to distribute to them and many others. This scene ends with that symbolic gesture of reconciliation. They know who he is in the sharing of the bread. Finally, our Gospel scene focuses in on the recommitment of Peter and his missioning by Jesus. Peter is invited to follow Jesus once more and this time for keeps. Our scene ends with Peter's following Jesus to a life which will imitate that of Jesus even to the manner of his death. Jesus had a challenging habit of meeting people where they would rather not be met. A person who has been fishing does not want anybody to ask, “How many fish?” When none have been caught, when the nets are empty. Jesus meets his friends today fishless. After the Resurrection, Jesus went about connecting with his friends, both women and men, in the social and spiritually awkward settings. He continues doing the same thing in our lives. He wants to know what is going on inside of us. He does not check what we have but where our lives are empty. He emptied himself by living his whole life even to his last breath. He emptied his tomb to fill our emptiness through the gift of his Eucharistic presences. Let us not forget that May 1st is traditionally the Feast of St. Joseph the Work and even though Sunday takes precedent over this feast it does mean that we cannot pause for a moment and let the spirit of St. Joseph under his title of The Worker touch our lives in a rich and faith filled way as we journey through this Sunday. Have a blessed and holy Sunday 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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