Today’s Thoughts: Today’s scripture readings present some challenging standards by which we are called to live. At first hearing, they are not very reassuring. In fact, we might say they are downright discouraging.
In our first reading, St. Paul, talking about the dietary laws of his time, says to eat whatever you want… as long as it doesn’t cause your neighbor to stumble. In other words, we need to look at the actions of our life and determine what example they give. Life is not black and white, even though we would like it to be. Even choosing what we eat can be a grey area. The psalmist proclaims, "O Lord, you have probed me and you know me." So, there are no secrets from God. There is nowhere to hide. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says; “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” These challenges along with the rest of what Jesus asks in the Gospel are seemingly impossible commands. Tall orders for the living of a faith life. Each of our Scripture readings today in their own way are asking us to do everything for the glory of God. If we can keep this in front of us, then our actions and our words will ring true. We are always challenged to reflect on our motives for doing things especially when our feelings are hurt for being ignored. A question always in front of us is, are we about serving God as we journey through life? Are our words and actions about the glory of God? If we can say yes to these questions, then we know we are on the right path. We will never do it perfectly because at times we step off the path because we are hurt temporarily by the insult or carelessness of the world around us. However, if God is our focus then we can refocus on the true purpose of our life, reminding ourselves that God knows our names and what we are doing always. A life of faith is not about “Me,” it is about serving God with gratitude and love! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Thursday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: In Luke’s Gospel today, we experience several of the Beatitudes and we are encouraged to feel the “blessings” that come with our poverty and reliance on God. If we feel content and complete with all our earthly wealth and success how can we improve our dependence and reliance on God? How does one strengthen and enrich a relationship if there is no need for the other person in our life? If one is so independent, as to not need another person’s help, council, ideas, or support, how does a non-relationship with another enrich us?
Our Gospel is suggesting that, if we “hunger” or “weep,” if we have need for others and need for God, then we will experience a fulfilling life, we will find direction and come to appreciate our need for others and our need for God. When we experience poverty, sorrow, hunger or insults, and find that we can overcome these struggles in life, through our dependence on God, we then will find true joy, appreciation and satisfaction in life. Otherwise it will be a woeful life! Have a blessed and holy Wednesday 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.
Is not 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 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 blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Tuesday everyone! 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 blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Monday and Labor Day everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Today’s word for our Sunday readings might be forgiveness or reconciliation or compassion or even responsibility. After all God laid a pretty good guilt trip on Ezekiel today in the first reading. However, my word for the day is family, gathering, assembly or community or church. Take your pick.
How so you might ask? Well, I think what Jesus, what the Prophet Ezekiel, and what St. Paul are getting at today is that we cannot make this faith journey alone. The assembly, the community, the church is very necessary, profoundly important. In the first reading, yes, God seems to muster up some pretty good guilt. It is the leader of the assembly who first and foremost needs to be faithful. If he or she is not the consequences not only rest with the community but all with the leader. If Ezekiel the prophet, the leader, does not get the Word out. If the assembly doesn’t repent, live faithfully then it is on him. However, if Ezekiel is faithful and the assembly is not it is on them. St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans reminds us what being a family, an assembly, a community, a church is all about the commandment of Love. Love of God, love of neighbor surpasses all other commandments. Love of neighbor is profoundly important and is necessary for the life of a family, an assembly, a community, a church. And this is where Jesus comes in. Living within a family, an assembly, a community of faith, a church isn’t easy. Let’s face it, where two or three are gathered, yes Jesus is present but so are disagreements, differing opinions, conflicts, hurts and judgmentalness. Jesus today lays out a roadmap for how to live with others. He presents to us various levels of interaction, various levels of intervention to solve the differing opinion, conflicts, arguments that arise within any family, assembly and community of faith. The challenge is always making this roadmap work – not easy! For me on of the interesting lines in the Gospel is – “If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentle or tax collector. One scripture scholar I read this week said that he thinks Matthew had a smile on his face when he wrote this line because how did Jesus teach us to deal with Gentles and tax collectors? With compassion, mercy, forgiveness and love! My friends as a family, an assembly, a community of faith, as a church we cannot get away from it. The primary virtue by which we need to live is love! As St. Paul says elsewhere in his writings “love is the greatest.” To not love, to not forgive, to not have mercy places the onus on us just like it did for Ezekiel. We are the prophets of our day. It is difficult and sometimes downright impossible yet repeatedly we are called to love and forgive. Jesus give us ways, steps but it isn’t easy! “Again, amen, I say to you if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” Remember when we gather together as family, as assembly, as community, as church to pray we are asked to pray “forgive us our trespasses and we forgive those who trespass against us! Perhaps that is why our prayers don’t often seem answered because it always comes down to love and forgiveness! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Today's gospel story is an illustration of what happens when we pay attention to accidentals rather than the essentials. The Pharisees profess to not violating a single part of the law, but they are lacking in the heart of the spirit of what the law is there to support. They judge but are lacking in compassion and mercy.
Jesus asks us to be merciful. He is not looking beyond the law and tradition. Jesus' whole life and ministry was an example of how to respond to sin. The religious leadership, some of whom we meet in the Gospel today, were upset because Jesus often spent time eating and drinking with sinners. They were angry because Jesus enjoyed the presence of sinners. The scribes and Pharisees argued that Jesus should shun sinners and that his compassion for them seemed to condone their life styles. These religious leaders didn't seem to understand that love heals; that love forgives and that love builds a community of faith, hope and love. Pope Francis constantly calls us to be a community that offers mercy and forgiveness. He asks us to build bridges rather than walls, because this is what Jesus has taught us through his words and deeds. We might think that following the letter of the law defines a good religious person yet paying attention to the accidentals does not mean that we have invested in the essentials. Pope Francis asks us to hear Jesus' message that being a good religious means people who are merciful and compassionate. Pope Francis, like Jesus, reminds us that mercy proclaims the presence of God. Being merciful shares the good news of God's mercy. It helps us to lives out our faith and become a friend of God. Our acts of mercy help to make God present to the world. As we journey through this day let us give thanks for the mercy and love of God who has reconciled each of us, and remains our help and sustains our lives. Let us share God’s love and mercy, freely, generously and with compassion. Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy 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 blessed, holy, safe and healthy Friday. Today’s Thoughts: I have a couple of thoughts from today’s readings – “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool, so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: God catches the wise in their own ruses, and again: The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.” (1 Cor. 3:18-20) These opening words from St. Paul seem fitting for our time as well as his. We have many who are deceiving themselves in this age and their wisdom is vain and a ruse. Let us trust in God’s wisdom that they see as foolish!
My second thought, perhaps a more positive one, comes from our Gospel today. “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 40 plus years. It seemed very simple 40 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 40 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 a 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 holy, blessed, safe, and healthy 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 selfishness and inequality! 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 racism, Enough negativity! Enough selfishness! Enough inequality! 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 blessed, holy, safe, and healthy 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 blessed, holy, safe, 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
April 2024
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