Today’s Thoughts: Today we celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. It is the Pope’s local parish church as bishop of Rome. It is considered “the mother and head of all churches of the city of Rome and the whole world.” It has with stood barbarian attacks, earthquakes and fire. It is a physical sign of the presence of God not only in buildings but throughout the world.
In our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12), we hear about the Israelites struggles in exile. It is the experience of lifelessness, it is the experience of earth where nothing will grow. It is the experience of being without their own land, their own homes, their own Temple. The prophet Ezekiel has this vision of the new Temple. It is a spring welling up, flows East, transforming the desolate land of the Arabah region (like a new garden of Eden), and it enters the Dead Sea, purifying it. This spring of water brings life and healing. In our Gospel today (John 2:13-22), we encounter the famous story of Jesus overturning tables, making a whip out of cords and driving out all those who are making his Father’s house a marketplace. The moneychangers and sellers, who became rich at the cost of the poor, are driven out. In answer to the religious leaders request for a sign, Jesus says: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” They do not understand him. His disciples, however, remember these words when Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. In our middle reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:9c-11, 16-17), St. Paul preaches the good news of Jesus and baptized them in Christ so that each could become God’s “building,” with God’s Spirit dwelling in them. Perhaps as we reflect on our readings today on feast of the Lateran Basilica, we might take the time to remember that Christ dwells in each one of us, that he gives us the courage to overcome our weaknesses and become holy temples of God. We might find ourselves parched, struggling, and lifeless at times, but with God’s grace flowing like a stream through us, we are challenged to give life to the presence of God wherever we go and to whomever we meet. Have a holy and blessed Monday everyone.
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Today’s Thoughts: Our Gospel parable today is about waiting and watching but perhaps more so about actively living our faith. The parable presents us with five wise and five foolish young women who are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive.
The five foolish young women do not have enough oil to keep their lamps burning and the groom arrives and the “short sighted” ones ask the “well prepared” ones for help. Now given what Jesus often challenges us to be and do you might ask, “Why don’t the five who have give to the five who don’t have?” It would seem that is what Jesus would want us to do. He often asks us to share! Doesn’t Jesus say that all are welcome, the haves and the have nots? Perhaps, this parable is meant to scare us all into behaving lest we get caught short. From scripture point of view the images that the parable provides for us are clear, the groom is the Christ. The young women are the Church, the believers. The oil is faith. All of us are gifted, graced with faith. So, the next question might be, the five who do not have enough oil, what or who do they represent? Well, faith is a virtue, a grace, a gift, but it is strengthened by action. Faith cannot be passive, it must be active. Faith is not enough just to have, it must be lived. Faith-watching, faith-waiting, faith living is always active, lively, expressive of the relationship, a friendship with Jesus. Those who ask for more oil, in our parable, have not been exercising, living out the light of their faith. The reason the five wise women cannot give their oil is that God alone gives faith. I cannot give faith to anybody, only the gift of how I live out my faith as it influences my life and my living. The five did not spend the watching, waiting, living of life well and they ran out of oil, they ran out of time. About a week ago I was reading an article on line about how Pope Francis sided with Pope Benedict in one aspect of the liturgical wars that always go on within our Church. This specific issue goes back to the present translation of the Roman Missal. Now you might not be aware of it but during the institution narrative of the Blood of Christ, under the current translation, the priest prayers, “For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and the many…” The previous translation was, “For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for all…” Now since the new translation has come out there has been an ongoing debate between translators, liturgists, theologians and many others. Up until a week or so ago, I took the side of those that said, “for all.” Jesus died for all. I truly believe that, however, Pope Francis has cause me to pause and look at things differently. Pope Francis said; “The ‘many’ who will rise for eternal life are to be understood as the ‘many’ for whom the blood of Christ was shed.” He added that “for many” better expresses the idea that people have a choice to make in this life – whether to be for God or against Him. In other words, faith must be lived. Yes, Jesus died for all but not everyone lives their faith, not everyone chose Christ. Jesus poured out his blood for those who live their faith. So, we wait, watch, listen, but we do these things actively. We will be found when we live expecting to be found. Waiting involves living actively by faith so that our oil increases and the light of our lamps enlightens our hearts and souls. So, it is not just saying “Lord, Lord”, but it is about living our faith brightly in a world that is often dark, ready and waiting of Christ and the feast to come. Christ are worth the wait, but as we find out today, waiting is more than just standing around. Have a blessed and holy Sunday everyone and don’t forget to give God a little time today! Today’s Thoughts: “No servant can serve two masters.” (Luke 16:13) No we cannot divide our focus when it comes to living life, when it comes to our faith. And so, offer the following reflection so that we might focus on what really matters today…
Celebrate each moment as it comes to you…with faith, trust and gratitude. Because all that happens in our life has God’s mark on it. Each day offer a simple fiat…It can be as simple as taking a breath, or the beat of our heart, but let it say thanks God! Seek God each day, not in some far-off place, not in the trappings of history but in the world around us. God is always right here, in this place, in our hearts. God is right here, where we stand, where we walk, where we run, where we sit, where we lie down, in everything we do. God is right here, in our family, in our friends, even in strangers we meet. God is in our workplace, our homes, our yards, our living rooms, our family rooms, our bed rooms. Because these are all places, altars where we offer and receive love and thankfully God is there! Celebrate life; celebrate life with gratitude and thankfulness today and always! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: The Gospel for today (Luke 16:1-8), always seems to be a confusing one. What exactly is Jesus saying? It seems that Jesus is praising the unfaithful steward just because he figures out a way to land on his feet after being fired. Perhaps the key word for Gospel today is “prudence” or maybe a better word might be “cleverness.”
Jesus says the steward is prudent, that he is shrewd, pragmatic and has foresight. However, as I said above, we might also say that the steward is clever, meaning he is shrewd, ingenious, crafty, and skillful. Prudence and cleverness share some of the same meanings and in some instances, could be used to say the same thing. As prayed with our readings last night I had these thoughts about the prudent and clever steward and what Jesus might be getting at in the Gospel… In our world there are many prudent and clever people. Often as a world, a culture, a society we put our cleverness to work in many ways. We invent machines and systems that can protect us and destroy our enemies. We have invented the internet, cellphones and computers that help us communicate better, work fast and be more productive. We invent sophisticated systems to warn us of impending disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis and other nature made events. We invent systems to spy on one another, to hack computers and disrupt communications. We invent instruments of war some of which that can destroy the world. We are very clever people. Yet up to this point in history we have not been able to figure out how to feed everyone, how to cloth everyone or how to give everyone shelter. Perhaps this gets at the point that Jesus’ is making with his parable. The people of the world are very clever but sometimes people of faith are not. We put our prudence, our cleverness, our shrewdness, our foresightedness, our skillfulness to work for ourselves, but as people of faith, it might be time to put it to work for others. We can learn from the cleverness of the world but only if our cleverness leads us to bringing God to the world. I think Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ said it best when he wrote, “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, [humankind] will have discovered fire.” Let us be clever people of faith and discover for the world God’s love once again. Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Perhaps these three quotes help us understand our two parables this morning from Luke’s Gospel. Parables that speak to us of the mercy of God…
“The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. ... And you have to start from the ground up.” (Pope Francis) “A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” (Abigail Van Buren) “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” (Pope Francis) “God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.” (Pope Francis) God never stops searching for us no matter how much we have struggled in our life. Our readings today speak to us of hope, mercy and God’s great love for us. This is something the scribes and Pharisees never seem to understand. It seems like at times even today religious leaders do not understand. The question is do we? Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Thursday everyone. Today’s Thoughts: In our first reading today from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, Paul reminds us that the living of a life of faith is through joy not by grumbling or questioning. Joy enables us to do what is good for others and ourselves. If we live our life through joy, then no matter where life take us, we rejoice and share the gift of joy with everyone we meet.
In our Gospel from Luke today, Jesus seems to speak counter to what Paul is saying to the Romans. Paul speaks of rejoicing and joy and Jesus speaks about hating. Jesus asks us to hate our family, to even hate ourselves. How does this fit into what Paul is saying? Well, Jesus is not really asking us to hate but to put God first. The more we focus on God, the more we live out of love the more we will do, say and live what is right. Jesus took up his cross not out of hate, but out of love and he ask us to do the same. Jesus uses many examples of how we need to prepare for the Kingdom. He’s calling us to follow Him. Jesus says that no one would construct a tower without sitting down and calculating the cost to see if there was enough for completion. If we are not able to finish much above the foundation, we will be laughed at and ridiculed. The same holds true when planning our lives as we work towards the Kingdom. We are being called to follow Jesus so calculate, plan, be deliberate about our actions. If they don’t help us accomplish the goal, if they are not grounded in love, they might not be worth doing. We don’t want to run out of time and not have your tower built. On that day, with the crowds following, Jesus said to do whatever you have to do to follow him, in other words to always choose God. He asks us to carry our own cross; we all have one, some heavier than others. Jesus asks us to renounce our possessions, so that we can hold on to him, love him and be his disciple. The less meaning our possessions have, the more we’ll be able to focus on our friendship with the Lord and the joy that comes from it. Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.” These words are the end of an early Christian hymn that St. Paul offers to the Philippians and us today. They are also a prayer that we Passionists pray at least twice every day. It is the prayer we pray to begin every communal gathering of prayer. It is a prayer that brings us together as a community and focuses our life of prayer. Thomas Merton captures the essence of this prayer from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians when he says, “This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is an act of love for this unseen person, who, in the very gift of love by which we surrender ourselves to his reality also makes his presence known to us.” Perhaps said differently, each time Passionists come together through this prayer what we are doing is surrendering ourselves to the profound love of Jesus and with that surrender Jesus makes his presence known to us through prayer, through community, through ministry and through the living of life. Why not try it for yourself, any time you pause to pray surrender yourself to Jesus by beginning your prayer with St. Paul’s beautiful words, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Then let Jesus make his presence known to you! Have a holy, blessed safe, and healthy Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I have always liked our first reading today from the Book of Wisdom (Wisdom 3:1-9) especially the line, “But they are at peace.” This reading is often used at funerals, moments when people are remembering a loved one, a friend, someone who has been important in their life, who has passed on. In the midst of grief, it can often be helpful to think of the person finally being at peace even if because of their passing we are not.
The Feast of All Souls is a day of remembrance. It gives us an opportunity to pause and remember the important people in our lives who have passed on. People who have left us physically, people whom we now hope are at peace now with God. It is a day when we remember them in a formal way at Eucharist and informally through stories and moments of prayer thankful for their presence in our lives. I have always felt that the Feast of All Souls is really the second half of the Feast of All Saints. Yesterday we celebrated the people formally named saints by the Church because of their faith filled lives, people who during their lives stepped out of the ordinary into the extraordinary and became examples, inspirations and role models within the Universal Church. Today we remember, we celebrate, all those ordinary people who perhaps did not step into the extraordinary except in our lives, people who gave us life, who taught us, nurtured us, protected us, and guided us. We remember, we celebrate, today people who were with us from the beginning or who stepped into our lives for a brief moment that made a difference. These are people who are not honored by the Church as saints in a formal way but whom we perhaps honor in our own special way, as saints with a little “s” because we are thankful for their presence, inspiration and love. We remember, and we pray today for all who journeyed through this life with the sure and certain hope that God has found them worthy because he is the Good Shepherd with an overflowing cup that has brought them to peace! Have a blessed, holy, safe, and healthy Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I have a few disjoined thoughts for you today…
“To become saints, only one thing is necessary: to accept the grace which the Father gives us in Jesus Christ.” (Pope Francis) Today, we remember, we honor, and we say thank you to all the women and men whom the Church calls saints, but also whom we call saints. People who have touched our lives down through the centuries. People who shared their faith and perhaps more importantly lived their faith so that we might encounter the presence of God, so that we might grow into the people God created us to be, so that we might believe. They were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, friends, teachers, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, strangers, companions on the journey, ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives of faith. Pope Francis talks about the saints in our lives this way; “I see the holiness in the patience of the people of God: a woman who is raising children, a man who works to bring home the bread, the sick, the elderly priests who have so many wounds but have a smile on their faces because they served the Lord, the sisters who work hard and live a hidden sanctity. This is for me the common sanctity. I often associate sanctity with patience: not only patience as hypomoné [See note], taking charge of the events and circumstances of life, but also as a constancy in going forward, day by day. This is the sanctity of the militant church also mentioned by St. Ignatius. This was the sanctity of my parents: my dad, my mom, my grandmother Rosa who loved me so much. In my breviary I have the last will of my grandmother Rosa, and I read it often. For me it is like a prayer. She is a saint who has suffered so much, also spiritually, and yet always went forward with courage.” Note: (Hypomoné is a New Testament Greek word meaning – the capacity to endure under difficult circumstances; bearing everyday tasks, contradictions, tribulations.) Pope Francis also says that – “We need saints without cassocks, without veils - we need saints with jeans and tennis shoes. We need saints that go to the movies that listen to music that hang out with their friends.... We need saints that drink Coca-Cola, that eat hot dogs, that surf the internet and that listen to their iPods. We need saints that love the Eucharist, that are not afraid or embarrassed to eat a pizza or drink a beer with their friends. We need saints who love the movies, dance, sports, and theatre. We need saints that are open, sociable, normal, happy companions. We need saints who are in this world and who know how to enjoy the best in this world without being callous or mundane. We need saints.” One last thought from Pope Francis on this All Saints Day. Today’s Gospel is the passage of the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. During his homily a few years ago at an All Saints Mass in Sweden Pope Francis proposed six new beatitudes for the modern era: "Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart; "Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized, and show them their closeness; "Blessed are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover him; "Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home; "Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others; "Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians." So, to all those who lived these beatitudes and touched us with sanctity and helped us to be the people we are today…we say thank you! Have a blessed and holy Sunday everyone! And don’t forget to give God a little time today after all it is the Lord’s Day. |
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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