Today’s Thoughts: “What is the Kingdom of God like? To what can [we] compare it?” We might say that these questions have been asked repeatedly down through history. We are always trying to figure out what the Kingdom of God is like. What is Heaven like? How might we describe it? What image or images would we use?
We are always trying to compare it to what we know. Even Jesus does it today in the Gospel (Luke 13: 18-21). Jesus uses two images out of nature to teach us about the Kingdom of God. He compares the Kingdom to a mustard seed and yeast not exactly what I might compare the Kingdom to, but Jesus has a reason for picking these two examples. He compares the Kingdom to a mustard seed and yeast because they are things in nature that are alive. They are growing, ever changing. The Kingdom of God is ever alive growing and changing. St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans today, images God’s Kingdom as “hope”. It is something that we cannot see, and we wait for it with patient endurance. Our challenge today is to look around at the people, places and things of God’s creation that are a part of our lives and be thankful for them. When we ask the question what is the Kingdom of God like, to what can we compare it? All we need to do is look around because the Kingdom of God in alive in our life. Perhaps Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ said it well when he wrote: “By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers” Or maybe Thomas Merton said it a little differently when he wrote: “When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance [a glimpse of the Kingdom].” Have a blessed and holy Tuesday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: Reflecting on our readings today a rather famous line in a Robert Frost poem came to mind – “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
It has been said that Robert Frost intended the poem as a gentle mocking of indecision, particularly the indecision that Edward Thomas had shown on their many walks together in England. Frost later expressed chagrin that most audiences took the poem more seriously than he had intended. However, those last few lines of the poem which I began this reflection with have over the years come to reflect for many the challenge of living life whether Frost meant it that way or not. Both Jesus and St. Paul are confronted by two roads, two paths to travel in our readings today. For Jesus it is to heal or not to heal on the Sabbath. For St. Paul it is to live according to the flesh or to live according to the Spirit. We might say that they both choose the road, the path less traveled and for us that has made all the difference. Our scriptures challenge us to look at the decisions we make in living our life of faith and how often the choice of the road, the path that is less traveled can make all the difference. Like our world today, St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans, encountered the road of materialism, power, influence, “life is about me,” and all the other things that make up our world of instant gratification or as St. Paul might put it, the world of the flesh. They were as present then as they are now and St. Paul askes his community and us to consider another road, the road of the Spirit. It is often the road less traveled, but it is the road that can make all the difference in our journey of faith, in our relationship with God. Jesus is confronted with a woman who has been crippled by a spirit for many years. Jesus responds to her with mercy and compassion and moves to heal her. The only problem is that it is the Sabbath. Yet for Jesus it is the road of healing, mercy and compassion that he takes and that makes all the difference for the woman, for those watching, for the religious leaders and for us. If we truly believe the response of our responsorial psalm today – Our God is the God of salvation – then when we are often confronted with two roads on our journey of faith, do we have the courage to take the one less travel because most often it will make all the difference? It will be the road where we will find God, ready to heal, ready to help and that certainly will make all the difference! Have a blessed and holy Monday everyone! 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. The first mark of a good relationship, a good friendship, is benevolence. Benevolence is actively, seeking and finding the good in another. In the first reading from the Book of Exodus (Exodus 22:20-26) God reminds the Israelites that they are to care for people, not like themselves. They are to care for immigrants, aliens. They are to care for widows and orphans, those less fortunate than themselves. Because – we have all been immigrants and aliens at one point in our family history; we all have the potential of struggling and needing assistance. Care, concern, mercy and compassion are the hallmarks of a friend of God. We find ourselves in the midst of a great debate these days about immigrants and those who are poor. Pope Francis constantly challenges us to care for these people with compassion, understanding and love. In our first reading today, God challenges not just the Israelites but all of us to care for the aliens, the immigrants, the poor! In the Gospel Jesus reminds us that we are to love God and love others and also love ourselves. In order to do this, we must find the good in God, others and ourselves. We must desire good for God, others and ourselves. As Merton says if we can do this the gift of love will be our reward! We see the effects of a lack of love every day in our culture, our society and even our church. Lack of love starts with the inability to find God’s love within ourselves, and this inability produces violence, suffering, injustice, selfishness, self-centeredness and judgmentalness. The lack of love creates divisions, alienates and isolates people. The power of God’s word challenges us to be loving people today not just to those we like or those we find easy to love but we are asked to extend the embrace of love to all, including ourselves. If we can find the love that God has created within us, then it is much easier to look beyond ourselves to love God and others! Have a blessed and holy Sunday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: As we celebrate the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude today, two apostles, two friends of Jesus, the thoughts I would like to offer you today come from one of my favorite authors, Barbara Brown Taylor. Barbara writes about what it means to be a priest. Her thoughts have given me food for thought recently and so I offer them to you today.
“...a priest is someone willing to stand between a God and a people who are longing for one another's love, turning back and forth between them with no hope of tending either as well as each deserves. To be a priest is to serve a God who never stops calling people to do more justice and love more mercy, and simultaneously to serve people who nine times out of ten are just looking for a safe place to rest. To be a priest is to know that things are not as they should be and yet to care for them the way they are.” We might say that St. Simon and St. Jude were members of a group of people who stood between God and his people. They certainly were people who knew that things were not the way they should be and yet cared for them the way they were. Thanks to their journey with Jesus. I hope I live up to what it means to be a priest most of the time. I know at times I do fail and I pray that my failures do not hurt others or keep them from God. I do know that things are not as they should be and I hope and pray that I do care for all the way they are! Have a holy and blessed Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: As I read today’s Gospel (Luke 12:54-59) as I prepared to live life this day I could not help but think of one of my favorite sayings by Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J – “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.”
Jesus seems to be saying the same thing. As human beings we seem to get caught up, become fascinated, with the things around us and in doing so we often miss the most important. We know what will happen when the wind blows out of a certain direction. For example, sometimes here in the east we will have wind out of the northeast meaning it will blow in off the ocean, so we will most likely have a nor’easter rainstorm or snowstorm. Now there is nothing wrong with knowing and understanding how nature works however, Jesus’ and Fr. Teilhard de Chardin’s points are that there is something greater, something more important, something more valuable to life and because we are busy about other things, we miss it. If as a Church, a nation, a culture, a society, a world we would put our efforts into harnessing the energies of God’s love we would discover fire for a second time in history and how important was it the first time! The energies of God’s love are all around us, but we are so busy with other seemingly important things that we most often miss the chance to encounter God’s love. We miss the opportunity to make God’s love part of our lives. My suggestion this Friday to all is that we take some time today to pause and look around ourselves. Look past the obvious, the usual, the everyday. Look for the gift of God in our lives as it comes to us in so many different and life-giving ways. Discover it. Acknowledge it. Breathe it in. Embrace it. Celebrate it. Be thankful for it. And share it! Have a blessed and holy Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Jesus tells us in the Gospel today (Luke 12:49-53) that there will be divisions, conflicts and struggles because of his presence, message, ministry and call. He tells us that he has come to set the earth on fire. He is telling us of his deep feelings, emotions, and mission.
Down through the centuries the divisions and divisiveness Jesus speaks of is exactly what has happened from time to time. There is no reason to believe that it will stop anytime soon unless God has other plans. As long as there are two people on this earth there will be disagreements, struggles and challenges. Unfortunately, in today’s world, with all the social media and 24-hour news stations this divisiveness gets exaggerated and intensified. It is hard to tune it out. We can begin to feel like everything is falling apart. Who can we trust? Even our faith gets shaken. There are disagreements within the highest levels of the Church. Cardinals, bishops, priests challenging the Pope because of the current Synod or because of things he has said. People picking sides. Fear of change. Even a disciplined priest calling the Pope the devil! When I hear these kinds of things, I think back to a few football seasons ago when the Green Bay Packers got off to a bad start at the beginning of the season and sports talk and the fans were on them. The Packers quarterback at the time, Aaron Rodgers simply told the media and the fans – “Relax!” It is a long season. Life is a work in progress, yes, it can be messy, yes, there will be fights, disagreements and divisions but let’s all have some faith in God’s Holy Spirit. Let’s all have some faith in the living of life. Let’s all believe in the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ love! Have a holy and blessed Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” This is a demanding and challenging reflection by Jesus in today’s Gospel (Luke 12: 39-48). Each time I hear this Gospel especially these words from Jesus I always pause in thought. Am I using the gifts and talents that I have been entrusted with to the best of my ability? Perhaps more importantly, am I using the gifts and talents that I have been entrusted with to further the Kingdom of God? Am I using them not only for myself but for others?
If I am honest with myself then at times my answer to these questions is no! I have been graced, honored and entrusted with many gifts and I have to say at times I do not use them to the best of my ability. Sometimes I am selfish in my approach to life and in sharing what I have been given. At times the challenge of the Gospel especially the challenge in today’s Gospel weighs heavy on me. I want to be the best person of faith I can be, and I want that to be reflected in how I live my life and how I use my gifts. I was reading a reflection a while ago that said, “If we have been given a keen mind, we must think. If we are filled with compassion, we must serve. If we receive a voice, we must sing. God will not ask the impossible but will expect our talents to be used.” Perhaps the question for all of us today is what are our gifts and talents? Are they being used to make present the Kingdom of God? Have a blessed and holy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Throughout the scriptures Jesus often uses the image of master and servant to make a point and describe our relationship with God. In most cases God is the master, and we are the servants, and the relationship is as any master and servant relationship would be in Jesus’ world.
However, in today’s Gospel (Luke 12: 35-38) the relationship between master and servant between God and us is turned upside down. God does the waiting on us today and this profound reversal of roles is the very spirit of the Gospel message. It is the very spirit of what Pope Francis has challenged his cardinals, bishops and priest to be as ministers, the very essence of what he has challenged us to be as Christians. If we look at our relationship with God, we come to know that God not only loves us and cares for us but in the person of Jesus God has taken on our human nature in order to redeem us. Many of those who listened to Jesus’ preaching probably found his image of God as one who serves difficult if not impossible to accept. Most masters of that time or anytime for that matter just are not seen or experienced as people who are willing to serve. Yet, for Jesus that is exactly what God has done in sending his own Son into the world. To continue this gift, we are asked to be servers of God’s grace to the world, a grace, as St. Paul puts it in the first reading to the Roman, a grace that is overflowing even in the midst of sin. A question for today might be how do we make God presence known through service to others? How do we let God’s grace overflow though us? Have a holy and blessed Tuesday everyone. Today’s Thoughts: We often think when we hear stories like the one about the “Rich Fool” in today’s Gospel (Luke 12: 13-21) that Jesus doesn’t like those who are rich and that is not true. When Jesus talks about wealth, possessions, status and power it is not to condemn them but merely to challenge all who find themselves in possession of them. Jesus wants to know what we are going to do with what we possess. Do we use wealth, possessions, status and power to make ourselves comfortable or do we use them to help others? What we do with what we have is always the question.
As Jesus points out today, we cannot take it with us. As a friend of mine always says, “You never see a U-Haul behind a hearse!" In other words, you cannot take it with you so what are you going to do with it? Pope Francis is constantly challenging us to care about the poor, the needy, the less fortunate, the immigrants and the struggling. This challenge is nothing new it has been part of our faith from the beginning. Care and concern for the poor flows out of the Gospel. It is the same message that Jesus presents today. In the early Church the question of those in need was always part of the Church's focus. Pope Francis is just reminding us of what Jesus has said all along. As Passionists, St. Paul of the Cross wanted us to be called “The Poor of Jesus.” He wanted us to seek out all those struggling in the Passion of Jesus. Our Rule, our Constitutions of Life, talk about our option for the poor. They should be our first concern, especially those who encounter the Passion of Jesus in their life today. Wealth, power, possessions and status are not evil. They are not counter to the Gospel; unless we fail to share, unless we only think of ourselves, unless we let injustice and poverty go unchallenged. Do we use the gifts, talents, possessions, wealth and power to make the world for all people a better place? In other words, by living our life are we rich in what matters to God? Have a blessed and holy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Our readings today, especially our first reading from the Book of Isaiah and our Gospel from Matthew, give us two thoughts to consider as we journey through our Sunday.
In the first reading from Isaiah, God makes it a point to name Cyrus. Naming Cyrus, gave him status, credence, power and importance even though he was not part of the faith community. It was Cyrus, an outsider, who would lead the Israelite back to Jerusalem and establish them as God’s chosen people again after many years of exile. Being named by God grounds someone in the story of faith. Remember your baptism? What was the first thing the priest did? He asked your parents, “What name have you given to your child?” And then he traced the sign of the cross on your forehead and claimed you for God. As a person of faith, we are named and claimed by God as we begin our journey of life and faith. We have a place in the story of faith and we have a responsibility for living the life that God has called and created us to live. This leads to our second point in today’s readings. Our Gospel from Matthew has a very familiar phrase – “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs today God.” We all know what the first half of the statement means. Whether we like it or not we all pay taxes. We all must give to Caesar for the good of the community. Whether we are talking about our nation, our state, or our local community. For a nation, a state, a local municipality to survive, to provide services taxes in many forms must be paid. They are usually paid with money. We all know this. Perhaps we grumble about it. We look for loopholes or ways to get out of paying taxes with our hard earn money, but in the end for society to prosper we need to pay our share to “Caesar.” The more important part of Jesus’ statement in Matthew’s Gospel today is “Repay to God what belongs to God.” What belongs to God is the 54,000-dollar question! Well everything belongs to God! Let start with life. We exist because of God. The life of our earth, the life of the world, our life is a gift from God. We owe God big time. In naming us at baptism we are called to respect life in all its forms. We are called to respect the earth, to respect the unborn and the born. We are called to respect the gifted and the non-gifted. We are called to respect the perfect and the non-perfect. We are called to respect and value everything and everyone! In doing this we repay God what is God’s. October is Respect Life Month. As faithful members of God’s community we are called to respect all life from the moment of conception to the last breath taken. In repaying God what is God’s we are to honor life! Have a blessed and holy 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
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