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, and healthy Wednesday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: “Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.” (Mother Teresa)
Jesus spends the night in prayer. Jesus places himself in the Father’s hands, at the Father’s disposition and listens to the Father’s voice in the depth of his own heart and look at what happens. Twelve close friends are gathered and people from everywhere are healed! In the Gospel today (Luke 6:12-19), Jesus shows us the power of prayer. It is not just a prayer of asking for help, though I am sure Jesus asked the Father for help from time to time. For Jesus and for us prayer is the placing of oneself in the hands of God. Yes, prayer is a conversation with God but prayer is often more listening then speaking. Jesus prayed often and not only when he faced major events in life. Jesus throughout the Gospel takes time for prayer. He takes time to hear the Father’s voice in his heart so that graced things could happen on his journey through life. So today let’s not forget that prayer needs to be a part of our lives. Let’s take at least a little time to put ourselves in God’s loving hands and hear God’s voice in our hearts. Let’s put ourselves at the disposal of God. The outcome for us just might be more good friends and healing for life’s struggles! Remember nothing is impossible with God. “Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.” (Kathleen Norris) Have a great 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, and healthy Monday and Labor Day everyone and my Jewish sisters and brothers Blessed Rosh Hashanah! 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 in order to gain. We must die in order to live. We must be lost in order to be found. We must be last in order to be first and our readings today take us even further by telling us that we must be poor in order to be rich, we must be blind in order to see, deaf in order to hear and lame in order 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 are not living 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: 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, 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, and healthy Friday. Today’s Thoughts: Sorry for being a bit late this morning but it was a long night and a very early morning dealing with and cleaning up water in the house...
“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 41 plus years. It seemed very simple 41 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 41 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, 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.” (St. Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love)
St. Paul and Jesus in our readings today (Colossians 1:1-8 and Luke 4:38-44) tell us that they have come to proclaim the Good News. They do it in different ways, but their goal is always to bring the Good News to whomever they meet, whether it is the community of believers at Colossae 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 St. Oscar Romero many years 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, the Good News of peace! I believe there comes a point in a believer’s life when we need to say enough. Enough violence! Enough war! Enough hate! 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, 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
April 2024
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