Today’s Thoughts: “How does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Words uttered by Elizabeth in today’s Gospel (Luke 1:39-45). Yet I think they are also words uttered by us at times when we recognize Mary’s presence in our life.
Yes, I firmly believe that I have been visited by Mary at moments in my life. Mary has come to me at times when I needed a mother’s presence either to comfort me or put me back on the straight and narrow. Times when I needed that hug or when I needed a stern but loving word to set me straight. Mary has come at times when the gift of family was strong and ever present and when I was alone and need to know that family was still there. Mary walks into our lives often and like Elizabeth we often recognize her presence and God’s presence at once because something inside us leaps for joy. However, there are other times when it takes us a little longer to recognize her presence and the presence of God. Sometimes it is long after they have visited us that we are able to acknowledge their presence. Mary reminds us today that mothers are so important. They not only give us life. They carry us until we can face the world. They protect us. They nurture us. They teach us and they make Mary and Christ present to us throughout our lives! Perhaps like Elizabeth today as we think of our own mothers, as we think about pregnant mothers, as we think about all mothers, we should remember how gifted we are that the mother of our Lord should come to us. We celebrate this day in gratitude for all the mothers! Have a great Friday everyone!
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Today’s Thoughts: In these last days until Christmas we are reminded over and over how the Christmas story came to be. Yesterday we heard about Joseph’s dream and today the Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel. Each story is a snap shot of the greater story of God’s human presence in the world. In today’s Gospel (Luke 1:26-38) we are reminded that Mary was truly a believer. Even though she did not know the full extent of her “yes” she proclaimed it anyway. She trusted in God. She had faith and she staked her life in the promise of God something Ahaz, in our first reading (Isaiah 7:10-14) was unwilling to do.
Not having a clear vision of the road ahead is not always an easy way to live. It demands trust, it demands faith, and it demands a sense of hope in all that one does. Mary certain defines this way of living. She did not know the implications of her “yes” but she had trust, faith and lived by an unrelenting hope. A few times this Advent I have used this quote by Calvin Miller. It is from his book The Christ of Christmas: Readings for Advent. I find it a wonderful way to think of the gift of Mary in our life and so I share it with you again today – “We must look to Mary's example to know how to deal with the glorious impossibilities of God. Look how she turned the world upside down by making one simple statement.” Mary’s one simple statement was “yes” to God. Today we remember another moment from the Christmas story. It is a moment that reminds us that if we trust, if we believe, if we live by hope we will encounter God most often when we least expect it but always when we are most in need! Have a great Thursday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I had a little sadness in pondering the readings today. Two stories of hope about women who were unable to have children and God blessed them, especially Elizabeth in her advanced years. We have two wonderful stories today alive with the theme that anything is possible with God.
My sadness comes from thinking about all the women who would love to have children but cannot. Perhaps they do not struggle with cultural shame like Samson's mother and Elizabeth, women of their time who were married and without children bore a heavy burden of embarrassment and shame, but I think women of today do struggle with a personal sadness, a personal burden, a personal loss, a personal grief. My own sadness comes from the fact that so many women today who don't want children look to end their pregnancy when so many others would give anything for the chance to bring a child into the world. Perhaps it would be a wonderful miracle from God, the making of something impossible, possible if all who do not want children and become pregnant would just carry the child to birth and offer the child to those who cannot have children but truly want them. What a beautiful story, what a wonderful story of hope that would be. Through the intercession of Samson's mother and Elizabeth today I pray for all women who want to be mothers and all women who do not want to be mother that they might help each other make the life of children possible! Have a great Wednesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: The point of Advent and of Christmas in many ways comes down to being reminded that “God is with us!” Sure, we might say that is the point of every day, but during Advent and Christmas – Emmanuel – become a special focus, a special refrain. The great Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart gave a Christmas homily in which he said that Christ is born three times. Christ was first born over 2,000 years ago. Second, Christ will be born at some point in the future when he comes again and thirdly Christ is born every day in our hearts.
Yes, each day we have the opportunity to give birth to Christ. We have opportunity to bring to the world like Mary and Joseph, Emmanuel, God with us! We do it by following in Mary and Joseph’s footsteps, by say yes to God’s invitation to be part of this journey of faith called life. We do it by living our lives to the fullest, by sharing the image and likeness of God in which we have been created with the world. We do it by trusting in God’s love and by living in hope. My friends today is a new day so let us give birth to Emmanuel today through the hopeful living of our lives. Have a great Tuesday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: In today’s Gospel (Matthew 1: 1-17), we are reminded that Jesus was part of the great human family. A family made up of saints and sinners and everything in between. It might seem tedious to read this long list of names many of whom we know nothing about and some that seem very familiar. I used to get so nervous when Matthew or Luke’s genealogy would appear as the Gospel, but over the years I began to feel comfortable with it and now I even look forward to proclaiming this Gospel. I guess I have grown familiar with the case of characters!
Isn’t that what life is about growing accustom to life. Seeing people and things differently, telling the stories that reminds us who we are and from where we have come. Remembering the characters good and bad that make up our lives and molded us into the people we are 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 Joseph and Mary the last characters in our Gospel story today who said yes that we might celebrate Jesus the Christ! Have a great Monday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: I ran across a story a few years ago day about a boy who stumbles across a butterfly trying to emerge from the cocoon. The boy watches the butterfly struggle. At one point the butterfly seems stuck. Concerned that the butterfly might be in trouble the boy runs into the house and gets a small knife from the kitchen and returns and carefully cuts away the cocoon. The butterfly’s body was swollen, and its wings were all shriveled. The boy waited and watched, he expected at any moment the wings would begin to expand and the butterfly would take flight. But it never happened.
Why, because a butterfly needs to struggle through the restrictive cocoon because the struggle forces fluid into the wings, giving them stability and strength so that the butterfly is ready to fly. The boy did not realize that the butterfly's freedom and flight are only possible because of the struggle and hardship it must undergo! This little story made a lot of sense to me considering this season of Advent and our journey of faith. We are all very much aware of the pitfalls of getting things easily in life. When we do not have to work for something while the initial feeling is good it often wears off quickly and has less meaning in our life. When we truly work for something it stays with us. When struggle, difficulty and work is involved it becomes a source of strength we draw upon at other moments. It becomes part of our story of life. The great prophets like John the Baptist and Zephaniah, the great apostles like Paul understood the need to struggle, to work, to build a life. Their messages today talk about hope and life but also the struggle that is needed to maintain hope and life in the face of our everyday world. They tell us it is not easy but possible. The only way we are be able to Hope in God's Promises, to Rejoice in God's Love is to work, to struggle, to live our relationship with God. It is never easy. There are always challenges, struggles, expectations, disappointments, actions of the world that make no sense or have no meaning, but God is still with us. Entering the struggle to make the presence of God known will give us stability and strength so that we can live the gift of this life and proclaim good news! Remember as Emily Dickinson wrote, "hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings a tune without the words and never stop at all." Perhaps at no other time do we need to be like the butterfly and put everything into the living of life so that we can release the beautiful gift of hope to a saddened and struggling world. It will not be easy, but we have the Spirit in our souls that will never stop singing! Have a blessed Sunday everyone and don’t forget to give God a little time today! Today’s Thoughts: There is a very challenging quote from St. Oscar Romero that might help us reflect on our Advent readings today. St. Oscar Romero said, "Those who want to bear the mark of the Spirit and the fire that Christ baptizes with must take the risk of renouncing everything and seeking only God's reign and justice." Do we truly want to bear the marks of being a Christian people? Do we want to bear the marks of Elijah, John the Baptist and Jesus from our readings today? Do we want to be a people of Life?
Both of today’s readings seem to highlight the prophet Elijah – the first emphasizing his miraculous deeds, and the second (in the person of John the Baptist), his murder by the powers that run the world. This might seem a strange emphasis just 10 days shy of Christmas, so it’s helpful to recognize that, like Elijah, Jesus was a prophet – in fact the last and the greatest of the prophets. We’ve called Him many things, “Savior”, “teacher”, “Son-of-man”, “Messiah”, but St. Luke, particularly, stresses that Jesus was first and foremost a prophet, the last in a line of individual prophets. Some describe a biblical prophet as, “one who comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.” We can be comforted by the words of Elijah John the Baptist and Jesus today, but they can also be disturbing words when put into the context of the words of Oscar Romero. Are we ready to bear their marks? Are we ready to live by their word? Have a great Saturday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Each time I read today's Gospel I think of the phrase, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time!" I can also hear Jesus say, "But can I just please somebody!"
The fact is Jesus did please people, but his mission wasn't about pleasing people it was about helping, challenging, enlivening and gracing people. Sometimes these values of faith don't please in the way we expect. Life remains a struggle however if we come through the struggle – freedom and God's Love is waiting. There will always be people in life who don't like anything. We have met them, nothing that gets done or is suggested is ever right. We say black, they say white. Perhaps the challenge of today's readings is to not become one of these people. The voice of God comes to us in many different ways. Sometimes it is the voice of John calling for repentance and forgiveness, other times it is the voice of Jesus offering acceptance, compassion and love. The challenge is to let God's wisdom guide and direct us so that we hear God's voice when God speaks and act so that it transforms our lives! Have a great Friday everyone! Today’s Thoughts: Isaiah's words are challenging but also hope filled. While Jesus' words seem to have a sting to them today. Isaiah reminds us that God is in control. No matter how bad it gets in this life God is always going to be there. God is always going to keep his promise even if we do not. Jacob can turn into a worm and Israel can become a maggot, but God will still be faithful. These certainly are comforting words but also words that should challenge us to be faithful.
Jesus reminds us today that no matter how great we become in this life it still pales in comparison to what awaits us in eternal life. John the Baptist was the greatest of all prophets; perhaps the greatest of all people yet the least person in the Kingdom of Heaven at that moment was greater than John. These are hard words to hear yet Jesus asks us to hear! We like to think of ourselves as in control. We like to think of ourselves as important. Yet the scriptures remind us today that we are not, in control or important. You might say the Word for today is "remember it is not about us, it is about God." God who is always faithful! And isn't that a hopeful message to take with us and proclaim today! Have a great Thursday everyone – one filled with Advent hope! Today’s Thoughts: Today’s Gospel (Luke 1:39-47) reminds us that Mary was truly a believer. Even though she did not know the full extent of her “yes” she proclaimed it anyway. She trusted in God. It was a trust that could be seen. Elizabeth saw it as Mary entered her home. For Elizabeth, Mary was blessed among women and her voice proclaimed the presence of God even to the baby in Elizabeth’s womb. Our God is not only a God of sight but also of sound.
Not having a clear vision of the road ahead is not always an easy way to live life. It demands trust, it demands faith, and it demands a sense of hope in all that one does. Mary certain defines this way of living. She did not know the implications of her “yes” but she had trust, faith and lived by an unrelenting hope. As Calvin Miller puts it in his book The Christ of Christmas: Readings for Advent – “We must look to Mary's example to know how to deal with the glorious impossibilities of God. Look how she turned the world upside down by making one simple statement.” Today we remember that Mary turned the New World upside down when she appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec Indian convert, as a beautiful young woman on Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City on December 9, 1531. Just another reminder that if we trust, if we believe, if we live by hope we will encounter God most often when we least expect it but always when we are most in need! Have a great 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
May 2023
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