Today’s Thoughts: In Luke’s Gospel today, Jesus uses images from nature to talk about how our actions reflect who and what we are. Jesus says that “every tree is known by its own fruit.” He encourages us to look at what is in our mind and heart and then compare it with our actions. Actions are the fruits of our thoughts and desires, motivations and interests, joys, pains, and hurts.
However, Jesus goes further. He also challenges us to compare what is in our mind and in our heart with his Word. Jesus invites us to listen to him and allow his word to transform our hearts and minds. Perhaps said a little differently, in our Gospel today Jesus outlines a strategy for us. First, he asks us to listen to his Word. Next, Jesus challenges us, to be transformed by his Word. Finally, Jesus challenges us to act, to live in friendship with his Word. If and when we follow this blueprint, we can be sure that our lives will bear plentiful fruit that can be enjoyed by everyone who wanders into our life. Let us live today having built our faith on solid ground and bearing good fruit! Have a holy and blessed Saturday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: “No one can grow if he [or she] does not accept his [or her] smallness.” (Pope Francis) With this thought Pope Francis seems to get at the heart of what Jesus is saying in the Gospel today. If we don’t deal with our own faults and failings, if we cannot see our own humanness how are we ever going to be able to grow into the person God has created us to be and help others.
We cannot just look at other people’s faults and failings we need to start with our own. If we do, we will have a better, more compassionate understanding and view of the world. We will truly be able to help not hurt others. The starting point for looking at and dealing with the problems, struggles and sinfulness of the world is always ourselves. When we can proclaim our faults, failings and our need for help, our need for forgiveness we are on our way to being able to help and forgive others. St. Augustine perhaps put the focus of our Gospel today a little differently when he said, “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.” So, let’s put down what fills up our hands in this world, anger, resentment, the faults and failings of others and receive the grace that God offers us and live in the joy and love of God today! Have a holy and blessed Friday 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, and healthy Thursday everyone! 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: “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 blessed and holy 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 and holy Monday and Labor Day everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Our Gospel today is the conclusion to a major section of Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ teachings about who belongs in the Kingdom or who will be Jesus’ disciples. Just before our Gospel today Jesus tells a parable about wedding feast. The people invited do not come, so the doors were opened to the outcasts, the physically challenged and the poor. When Jesus finishes the story someone at table said that the ones who eat at the heavenly banquet will certainly be blest. What we hear in today’s Gospel is Jesus’ reply.
It is a challenging reply because Jesus’ very first statement seems to call us to hate the very people we love. We are to “hate” our father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters, even our very self or we cannot be a disciple. And if this is not enough if we truly want to be a disciple, we must carry our own crosses. With conditions such as these, my question is, “Why be a disciple?” Jesus then offers us two short parables to finish off the discussion. If you are going to build a tower, you’d better have enough materials to finish or else. If you are going to enter a battle, then you’d better have enough soldiers to win, or else. Luke finishes this chapter with two verses that are not included in today’s Gospel. Jesus talks about salt losing its flavor and when it does it gets thrown out. He ends by reminding all who have ears, they better be listening. Hating those we love and carrying our crosses are not attractive qualities to strive for from my perspective. Does Jesus really say to “hate?” It seems so. “Hating” is the exact Greek word Luke uses. Throughout the Gospels Jesus puts a lot of emphasis on loving and being loved. Next Sunday’s Gospel will relate a great story about family love. So why the focus on “hating” today? The Kingdom, the Banquet, the discipleship that we are invited to by Jesus is the wisdom that we hear about in our first reading today from the Book of Wisdom. All relationships of love are gifts from God, and they are not meant to make gods out of those whom we love. How are we ever going to build our relationship with Jesus? Well, – by loving God above all other relationships and also carrying our crosses. It will not be easy, but God needs to be first. How are we going to build a tower successfully or be on the victorious side of a battle when we feel insufficient? The challenge Jesus puts before us today is to trust in the generosity and mercy of God. The challenge is to not lose our flavor, our purpose, our meaning and to listen, hear and have faith in our relationship with God. Our crosses are many, but Jesus is there to carry them with us. Our family relationships are important and life giving but only when God sits at the center of them. In facing the overwhelming challenges, the struggles, the crosses of life – we need to ask ourselves; do we have enough, do enough, and pray enough! Or put another way who is first in our life. There is a wonderful story from the life of the great Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers that I have always liked. In his autobiography, I Am Third, Sayers tells the story and the reason for this title. When he was at the University of Kanas his track coach Bill Easton had a little sign on his desk that said, I am third. One day Sayers asked his coach what it meant. Coach Easton said, “the Lord is first, my friends are second and I am third.” Sayers decided to make the saying his philosophy of life. When he got to the NFL, he had a gold medal made with the words I Am Third engraved on it. He wears the medal around his neck. Sayers says that “I try to live by the saying on the medal. I don’t always succeed but having the saying around my neck keeps me from straying from it too fay.” Perhaps Gale Sayers is on to what Jesus is saying in our Gospel today. Who is first in our life? Hopefully it is 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 holy and blessed 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 and holy 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 41 plus years. It seemed very simple 42 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 42 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 many 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 and blessed Thursday 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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