Today’s Thoughts: “Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.” (Thomas Merton)
Perhaps this is what Jesus is getting at as he answers the scholar of the law in today’s Gospel (Matt. 22:34-40). Love sits at the heart of any relationship, of any friendship and the first mark of a good relationship, is benevolence. Actively, seeking and finding the good in another. In today’s Gospel Jesus reminds us that we are to love God and love others and love ourselves. In order to do this, we must find the good in the ones we love, God, others and self. As Merton says if we can do this the gift of love will be our reward! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Friday everyone.
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Today’s Thoughts: I have used this quote often recently, “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, man will have discovered fire.” (Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.)
I have always liked this quote from Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. and I think it ties into the thinking of Jesus in today’s Gospel (Matt. 22: 1-14). The story in the Gospel today is about the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is about the end time. Who will accept God’s invitation? Who will be ready? Everyone is invited but do we accept the invitation? Are we ready to enter the banquet of eternal life? The invited guests get caught up in the things of the world that they think are more important. One is not prepared, not ready. We to sometime get caught up in all the things the world defines as important and we lose sight of what God finds important. We think there is always tomorrow to get ready. If we think this way we will find ourselves just like the invited guests and the person not appropriately dressed, outside. However, if we can tap into God’s energy, if we can accept God’s invitation and be ready to enter the Kingdom. we will not find ourselves outside in the end when it comes! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: We are confronted with an unsettling parable from Jesus’ again. Where is the justice? Where are the workers’ rights? How could the owner of the vineyard, how could Jesus be so uncaring? What does it all mean?
There are some of the typical questions and/or response I hear when this parable of the vineyard owner and the workers comes around (Matthew 20: 1-16). I always say to people this is not about worker rights, fair pay or justice. This parable is about compassion, mercy, generosity and love. This parable is about gratitude and letting God be God! The line that always strikes me in this parable is, “Are you envious because I am generous?” I believe this is a struggle we all have with God. We are so programed to do the right thing and in doing so we receive what is do us, but that is not how God operates. I often think about the Good Thief when this parable rolls around, it was just before his last breath that he connected with God. We talk about him stealing heaven. He is the very point of this Gospel today. The door to the Kingdom is always open, never closed and we are probably going to be surprised when we get there to see who is waiting to greet us, because God is a generous God, a merciful God, a loving God. The human rules of this life don’t apply to God and many of us will be thankful that God doesn’t operate by human rules and concerns when we reach the door of the Kingdom because without God’s mercy, compassion and generosity we might find ourselves outside! Be thankful not envious or judgmental today for our God is a generous God. Have a Blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: In today’s Gospel the disciples listen to Jesus and then wonder, “Who can be saved?” Jesus says, “For [humankind] this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Peter still worried about himself and asks, “If I follow you, what's in it for me?” Perhaps, the answer is not what’s in it for me but what can I do to help to make things possible? I/we can have a sense of gratitude for all God has graced us with. I/we can let go of our own need to control and live with gratitude and gratefulness toward God because it just might make all the difference.
Thomas Merton says it better than I… “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: A sad moment in the Gospel (Matt. 19: 16-22), the young man just cannot let go of the world. He could not respond to Jesus’ call, Jesus’ invitation. There was too much to lose.
Thomas Merton talked about call, vocation in this way, “Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice out there calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice in here calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.” Perhaps the young man could not hear the voice within. Perhaps he was too focused on a prize outside himself. Perhaps he really did not know his true self, the treasure that he was. Two questions for each of us today. Do we know our true self? Do we know and accept the treasure that we are? Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: One of the wonderful things about Sacred Scripture is that every once in a while, you can encounter a passage that is rich with many levels and certain our Gospel passage today from Matthew is one of those kinds of passages. We might consider the Canaanite Woman’s faith and the healing of her daughter as our central theme today. Certainly, any story about a person’s faith can be of great help to us.
However, given all that is going on in our world today especially around division, mistrust, racism, prejudice, hate, and misconceptions I think there is another level or layer to our Gospel story that can be helpful. Matthew wrote is Gospel for basically a Jewish Christian community. A community that was steeped in tradition and one we might say had one foot in their Jewish roots and one in their new Christian tradition. Like us they lived also in a world of change. In our second reading today from St. Paul we hear St. Paul challenge his Jewish roots with the presence of the Gentles, a presence that is here to stay. Two communities, different traditions, different paths of getting to this point in time. Many notions, ideas, views of life coming together and not always smoothy. Derogatory terms used to describe one another, “dogs” – “swine”, and I am sure a host of others. Mistrust and demands that things be done a certain way all being stirred into the pot of life and the faith community. Throughout Matthew’s Gospel there are moments, scenes that touch on this struggle of the developing Christian community and today’s story is one of those moments. Jesus seems overly harsh with the Canaanite woman. He is there only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You cannot give food that is meant for the children to the dogs! Yet, the persistence and the faith of the woman change the scene. Healing takes place. Jesus is not about a certain few, an elite, privileged few. Jesus has come for everyone. Matthew reminds his community throughout his Gospel of this fact. He works at helping them see beyond their own small little world to a large one. Change is never easy, but it is necessary. We all struggle with change. We all struggle with new ways of looking at life. We all struggle with traditions changing when we want everything to stay the same. Faith becomes the key ingredient to helping us overcome our prejudices, our hate, our misconceptions, and our fears. Faith helps us to let go and let God heal and love! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Six years ago, at this time I had just returned from a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Recently I have thought a lot about that journey and how it changed my relationship with Mary. She was very present during my travels six years ago especially during my time in Lourdes. While some might wonder why we pray through Mary to Jesus or the Father, or the Holy Spirit, it became very evident to me while in Lourdes that Mary has played and continues to play a very important role in my relationship with God and in all our relationships with God. The richness of her life, her presence and her place in the Body of Christ, in the Church and in the living of everyday life is very important. She is a touch stone to the presence of God in our life. I am glad to celebrate the gift of her love for us today on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.
As we celebrate today I turn to some words by Benedict our Pope Emeritus in offering you some faith food for the journey of life today… “Mary is a woman who loves. How could it be otherwise? As a believer who in faith thinks with God's thoughts and wills with God's will, she cannot fail to be a woman who loves. We sense this in her quiet gestures, as recounted by the infancy narratives in the Gospel. We see it in the delicacy with which she recognizes the need of the spouses at Cana and makes it known to Jesus. We see it in the humility with which she recedes into the background during Jesus' public life, knowing that the Son must establish a new family and that the Mother's hour will come only with the Cross, which will be Jesus' true hour (cf. John 2:4; 13:1). When the disciples flee, Mary will remain beneath the Cross (cf. John 19:25-27); later, at the hour of Pentecost, it will be they who gather around her as they wait for the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14).” (Pope Benedict XVI) Happy Feast of the Assumption of Mary everyone and may the spirit of Mary enliven your journey of faith! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Saturday. Today’s Thoughts: “The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven, and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.” (Pope Francis)
I thought of these words by Pope Francis as I read today’s Gospel (Matt. 19: 3-12). In recent years there has been a lot of discussion within the Church about family life, marriage and the divorced and separated and I would guess that many who lean toward a more traditional or legalistic view of the Church might point toward today’s Gospel as a reference point in saying that we should not change our stance on marriage especially in terms of the divorced and separated. Yet, I often wonder if that is what Jesus had in mind when he spoke these words. Now to be sure there is no way to know what Jesus meant or was thinking when he challenged the Pharisees and his disciples with the words found in today’s Gospel however, if we consider the whole of his life and ministry we might point to the words of Pope Francis as a way to look at Jesus’ words today. I am certain that Jesus’ words highlight the sacredness and importance of marriage. Making a lifelong commitment speaks volumes about two people’s love. Jesus’ life was a lifelong commitment of love for us. However, Jesus’ life was also about mercy, forgiveness and encouragement. Think about his conversation with the woman at the well. Did he tell her to go, get her life in order then come back and see him about the “living water?” No, he looked past her struggles, her relationships and welcomed her into the mercy of God and as the story goes it made all the difference. We all make mistakes, some small and some big. At times we think we are in love when we really aren’t. We believe we have found the right person and yet we haven’t. We try to do our best and sometimes no matter how hard we try it just isn’t our best. We say forever and sometimes it isn’t. We work hard at relationships but sometimes they are beyond our control because the other person walks away. Don’t you think God, who knows all these things, is still willing to sit and talk with us at the wells of our life? You better believe he is! So why aren’t we as a Church just as willing? The Eucharist is an altar of sacrifice and a table of forgiveness. The Eucharist is a place of welcome for everyone who believes. The Church is Eucharist thus we need to be a community where God’s mercy is freely given where all are welcome, forgiven, loved and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Friday everyone. Today’s Thoughts: “God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.” (Pope Francis) These words from Pope Francis come to mind as I consider the Gospel for today (Matt. 18:21 – 19:1). Peter wants to how many times he must forgive a brother who has sin against him and Jesus’ answer is always. God never tires of forgiving us so why should we tire of forgiving our sisters and brothers.
This is not easy our human nature seems to always push us in the direction of not forgiving. We think we will feel better if we can extract our pound of flesh, if we can get back at the person, if we can inflict an equal amount of pain and suffering. Yet time and time again it doesn’t work, it doesn’t satisfy and often we feel even worse. Even though we don’t understand it God’s way is better. Mercy, forgiveness, joy and love are the essentials elements of a satisfying life. They help us to not get stuck but to move on so that we can enjoy all the moments of our life. Remember God never tires of forgiving us. Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18:20) Perhaps said a little differently by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Where a people prays, there is the church; and where the church is; there is never loneliness.”
The focus of the Gospel today is church. It is a community gathered in God’s presence. In that presence, we can seek help, we can deal with struggles, we can get to the truth. In that presence, we can morn and celebrate. In that presence, we are never alone. While some might hear the word church and think building or institution, church is really people, Church is community. Church is the presence of God made visible by the gathering of two or three in God’s name! 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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