Remembering the 17th Anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says above there is nothing that can be said or done that replaces the loss of someone dear to us. But hopefully Bonhoeffer’s words can help to give comfort to all who lost loved ones fourteen years ago in Lower Manhattan, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. Perhaps, Bonhoeffer’s words can help all of us deal with what we as a city, a country and a world lost thirteen years ago. May his words give us pause to be grateful for the silent joy that all who gave their lives continue to give us. May those who lost their lives continue to be a hidden treasure for all of us, a treasure that we can always count on. “In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) To the people who gave their lives, to the families who gave their loved ones, to those who continue to give their lives because of the after effects of this day even these many years later, to all of you I say thank you! Prayers and blessings this day!
0 Comments
Today’s Thoughts: “I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than destroy it?” (Luke 6:9) This is perhaps an important question for us to consider today as a nation and as a world. What are we about? Doing good, saving life or doing evil and destroying life? Some might say it is all in how you look at it.
Yet in the Gospel today that is exactly what Jesus is getting at. How do you look at life? Do you look at life with an open mind or a closed mind? Do you look at life through the lens of possibilities or through the lens of only one possibility? The scribes and Pharisees had only one lens through which they looked at life, the law. They could see no other possibilities. I have always admired people who walk into a situation open to seeing whatever the possibilities are. They might have their opinions, but they are also open to what others say and do. They have their own lenses, yet they can see other perspectives. Would that we all could see and live life this way! The scribes and Pharisees only looked through one lens. Jesus was open to all possibilities especially when the possibilities meant life. We pray today that we too with the grace of God will always be open to the possibilities that produce life. Have a great Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Throughout the scriptures we encounter many things that seem to go against what the world tells us is important. We must lose to gain. We must die in to live. We must be lost to be found. We must be last to be first and our readings today take us even further by telling us that we must be poor to be rich, we must be blind to see, deaf to hear and lame to walk. In other words, repeatedly we are reminded that our way is not God’s way.
How can we understand these perplexing paradoxes that the scripture presents to us? Well perhaps by understanding one simple position in scripture – life is God’s gift. Unless we are grounded, focuses and invested in God’s way we don’t have life. This is not a solitary journey. It is a relationship, a friendship and if we choose to walk alone then we will be blind, deaf and lame. Everything comes from God, especially the gift of life that is why we value it so much. Throughout his ministry Jesus worked at restoring God’s gift of life by teaching us how to gain by losing, how to die to live, how to be lost in order to be found. Jesus made sure that the blind could see, the deaf could hear and the lame could walk so that all could encounter the gift of God’s presence, life, grace and love. Jesus lived Isaiah’s proclamation in our first reading, “Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong; fear not! Here is your God.” And yet not all heard, saw or walked toward the presence of God in their life. They remained blind, deaf and lame because they thought they could do it all by themselves. They placed value and importance on worldly things that would not last. They forgot that all of life is from God. I know I use this phrase often, but it seems to sit at the heart of our scriptures today because they are asking us to “Let go and let God.” They are asking us to die with Christ in order to live with Christ. They are asking us to place ourselves in God’s loving hands so that we can see, hear and walk in the presence of God. Have a blessed and holy Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: As we celebrate the feast of the Nativity of Mary we are reminded in the Gospel (Matthew 1: 1-16, 18-23), that Mary, Joseph and Jesus are part of the great human family. A human family made up of saints and sinners and everything in between. It might seem tedious to read the long list of names at the beginning of the Gospel many of whom we know nothing about. As I began my ministry many years ago I would get so nervous when the genealogy of Matthew or Luke would appear as the Gospel. However, over the years I have become comfortable with them and now I even look forward to proclaiming either genealogy. I guess I have grown familiar with the cast of characters and what they remind me of concerning my faith.
Isn’t that what life is about – remembering the stories of life, honoring those stories and growing accustom to life. Seeing people and things differently, telling the stories that remind us who we are and from where we have come. Remembering the characters good and bad that have made up our lives and molded us into the people we are today. Today we remember Mary’s birth into this world. We remember Joseph’s “yes” to God that kept the story going. We remember two faith filled people who celebrated and honored the gift of family and made it possible for all of us to be people of faith today. When we read or hear the genealogy of Christ whether from Matthew or Luke we are reminded that even though Jesus is God, he is also human, also part of this great human family and the characters, the women and men, who believed, who struggled, said yes and sometimes no, who embraced a relationship with God and sometimes didn’t, who lived life making it possible for Jesus to come into this world to embrace us with his love. Here’s to the characters in all of our lives. Here’s to the characters of the human family. Here’s to Mary as we remember her birthday. Here’s to Joseph and Mary the central characters of our story today who said “yes” that we might celebrate Jesus the Christ! Have a great Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: At times when I look at the Church I think we are always trying to pour new wine into old wine skins or we are trying to sow a new piece of cloth on an old piece of clothing and the results are not so good. We seem to spend a lot of time looking back at how things were, “the good old days” – “the golden age.” Then we try and hold the present moment in these “days gone by” skins.
Perhaps it is a human condition that we all are afflicted with, that desire to hold on to what we think was good, pure and without problems. People often refer to the “good old days” with a sense of longing and a memory that has forgotten many, if not all, of the struggles, difficulties and problems. We long to put this moment, this time of life back into those “good old days” but it never works. In the Gospel today, Jesus reminds us the new wine needs to go into new skins, in other words we need to be about this moment, this time not the past. We need to patch old with old and new with new. We need to be in the present moment in order to encounter the presence of God in our life today. Jesus is not negating the old for the new or vice versa. He is just reminding us to always be in the present moment. The Church is alive, it is a living structure and if something is living it needs to grow. If it doesn’t grow it is dead. There is a famous quote from the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, when Andy says to Red, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Perhaps that is Jesus’ challenge for us today. So, friends let’s get busy living and have a great Friday. Today’s Thoughts: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” I am not sure how many times I have uttered these words in my own mind over the last 38 plus years. It seemed very simple 38 years ago, I got rid of most of my possessions and packed up what was left in my little orange Chevy Vega and headed east from St. Louis to Philadelphia to begin my journey into religious life and priesthood. At the time it seemed freeing, liberating. Yet not long after arriving in Philadelphia did the doubts and struggles started, the challenges of letting go of people, possessions and a way of life.
And to make matters more challenging throughout these 38 plus years there have been amazing moments when I have paused and said, “Why am I here? Depart from me, Lord, I don’t deserve this, I am a sinful man!” It is the ebb and flow of life that makes who I am, who any person of faith is a challenge. One moment we are in the midst of everyday life, doing what is expected, doing what we always do and then God seems to step in, in a profound way and we feel humbled, we feel undeserving. I had one of those moments few summers ago when I was the responsible adult for my three grand nieces, who at the time were 9, 5 and 1 years old. They were my responsibility for about 30 hours. Encountering the gift of life, of creation, the gift of love and the gift of family that these three little women offered me was a humbling experience. The 30 hours with them was a challenging and at times a struggling experience for someone like me who usually only experience this kind of love and family life from a distance. But then you get the opportunity to be with three wonderful little women and you recognize the profound presence of God just like Peter did. And you think to yourself “I don’t deserve this, I am a sinful man!” However even though undeserving like Peter and the rest of the crew on the seashore that day each morning I rise and follow Jesus once again. If you happened to encounter God in a profound way today and have that feeling that you don’t deserve it remember you are in good company! Have a great Thursday everyone. Today’s Thoughts: “We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, [of sisterhood,] the violence that wills us to beat weapons into sickles for work.” (Blessed Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love)
St. Paul and Jesus in our readings today (1 Corinthians 3: 1-9 and Luke 4:38-44) tell us that they have come to proclaim the Good News. St. Paul does it indirectly and Jesus does it directly. Their goal is to bring the Good News to whomever they meet, whether it is the community of believers at Corinth or the people in Capernaum or the many towns beyond. The Good News that Jesus and Paul bring is the same Good News brought by Bishop Oscar Romero many centuries later. It is the Good News of love. It is the Good News of the Cross. It is the Good News of community. It is the Good News of no more war! I believe there comes a point in a believer’s life when we need to say enough. Enough violence! Enough war! Enough hate! Enough abuse! Enough disrespect for life! Enough bullying! Enough negativity! If we are truly a great silent majority, if we truly want a world based on peace then it is time to say enough with one great voice! It is time to proclaim and live the Good News. Have a great Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.” (Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.)
This quote by the great philosopher, scientist, theologian, Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. came to mind as I was praying with our Gospel for today (Luke 4:31-37). Jesus in the Gospel today is helping people to experience the gift of God in their lives. His teaching has power and authority. But what gives Jesus’ teaching so much power and authority? We might say it is because he is the Son of God and we would not be wrong. However, we might also say that Jesus’ teaching has power and authority because of how he treated people. In the Gospel today, he expels a demon spirit so that a man can get on with his life. Throughout the Gospels Jesus takes people where they are and helps them to grow, to recognize the grace and presence of God in their lives. Jesus knows that limits to our ability do not exist, because anything is possible with God. So, let’s live this day in God’s presence. Let’s look beyond what appear to be our limits and let’s work with God to make a better world. Let’s be collaborators with God to bring about peace! Have a great Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I have always liked our Gospel reading for today (Luke 4:16-30) though I have spent most of my time with the first half of the story rather than the second half.
I have done a lot of Confirmation retreats over my 32 plus years as a priest and if the retreat ended with the celebration of mass I almost always used the first half of today’s Gospel. In my homily I tell those who have made the retreat that the Gospel calls to mind two pictures and if I include the second half of today’s Gospel I might as well say three pictures. The first is a day in the life of Jesus. He has returned home, perhaps for a long weekend, and like a good young Jewish man he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath to pray. Because he has gained some importance as he has begun his pubic ministry he is asked by the leader of the synagogue to do the reading. Jesus stands up, takes the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and reads those now familiar words to us, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…” The after finishing the reading he sits down, and everyone is focused on him. Perhaps feeling uncomfortable, perhaps feeling inspired Jesus then tells all those gather that “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” In other words, this is what my life from this moment forward in going to be about. This is reason why I have come into the world, this is my mission! Now in painting my first picture on a Confirmation retreat day this where I would stop however today there is a little more to the picture. Yes, everyone is excited and amazed at Jesus’ words but doubt quickly becomes part of the picture. How can this be? We know him he is Joseph’s son, a simple carpenter. We know his family. We watched him grow up. How can he be this smart, this wise, this self-assured? They have put Jesus into a box and all he can do is challenge their perception of him which only makes them mad. So, a day, a picture that started out so well becomes a day, a picture that has Jesus’ leaving town because people think they know better. The second picture painted by these words is a day in our life. Perhaps our Confirmation Day or our Wedding Day, or our Ordination Day, or the day we took vows in religious life or some other important day in our life of faith. We like good women and men of faith gathered with others for a celebration of faith and when the celebration ends people spoke highly of us. It was a day like Jesus’ day when we began our journey of faith by choosing a path, a mission, a vocation, a ministry that we would fulfill by the living of our life like Jesus. The only difference between these two pictures is that we know the end of Jesus’ story. He did fulfill all that he read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah that day by the living of his life, however we don’t know the end of our story it is not complete. What words will we fulfill in the living of our life? How will we make God’s presence known to the world? The third and final picture is that in the living of our life we will have moments when doubt, preconceived ideas, notions and perceptions of us will make the journey difficult. We will encounter people who doubt our gifts, our abilities, our faithfulness. We will encounter people who see us as nothing special and refuse to accept the grace, the blessing, the gift of God that we bring to that moment of life. So, the question is how will we respond to these moments of challenge, disappointment and disrespect? Will we give up or trust in the presence of God? Have a great Labor Day everyone. Today’s Thoughts: Pope Francis during one of his Sunday Angelus reflections a few years ago spoke about our Gospel today. At that time and today I find his words to be refreshing and challenging. In today’s Gospel Jesus does not look at what the person does on the outside. It is what is in a person’s heart that is the true test of faith. Pope Francis says pretty much the same thing.
Pope Francis in his Angelus talk strongly criticized Catholics who brag that they are perfect followers of the church's teachings but then criticize or speak ill of others in their faith communities, saying they cause scandal and even offer a "counter-witness" to Jesus. In today’s Gospel from Mark, Jesus is questioned by Pharisees about why his disciples did not follow Jewish law regarding the cleansing of hands before eating. Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites, quoting the prophet Isaiah and saying they honor God with their lips but not their hearts. Jesus' response to the Pharisees, the Pope said, "has the force of a prophetic pronouncement." They are words that might fill us with admiration for our teacher, for Jesus. "We feel that in him there is the truth and that his wisdom liberates us from prejudices." But then Pope went on to sharply warned that Jesus words apply also to us today. “Caution! With these words, Jesus also wants to put us, today, on guard against considering that the exterior observance of the law may be sufficient to be good Christians." "As it was for the Pharisees, there also exists for us the danger of considering our place as better than others for the only fact of observing the rules or customs, even if we do not love our neighbor, [even if] we are hard of heart or prideful." In other words, the observance of the rules is something antiseptic if it does not change our hearts and is not translated into concrete attitudes. Opening yourself up to an encounter with God and God's word in prayer, searching for justice and peace, giving help to the poor, the weak and the oppressed. These are the actions that give purpose and meaning to our observances of the law. Exterior attitudes are determined by what's in our hearts. May our hearts always be about the presence of God! Have a great 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
Categories |