In today’s Gospel Jesus raises his good friend, Lazarus, from the dead. The retelling of this event is meant to show forth the power Jesus has, even over death. Embedded in the story is also a story of love, Jesus’ love for Martha, Mary and Lazarus. This is not an amorphous love…a wishy-washy love of all people… but a particular love of particular persons. Perhaps it is meant to try and tell us of the particular love that God has for us…each one of us…a love which is uniquely for us individually. God knows us as individuals and loves us just as we are! Even in the midst of our brokenness, even in the midst of our sinfulness…God loves us! And it is that love for us that holds the power to raise us from the death of sin to new life.

As much as Lent is a penitential time, so too it is meant to be a time of healing…a time of preparation for our own resurrection. What will my resurrection story be this Easter? From what, is the love of God trying to raise me up? In the Gospel Jesus asked the people to “roll away the stone” so Lazarus could come out from his tomb, what stone am I being called to “roll away” so others may come out from their “tombs”? In the midst of the horror of this coronavirus pandemic how can I show God’s love and care for others? How can I reach out to those who may be lonely and fearful? How might I be a loving and hopeful presence to them?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr. Tim

This Sunday’s Gospel tells the story of the man born blind…familiar enough to most of us. But have we heard it so often that we miss the underlying themes, the story between the lines of the text? We could focus on the miracle of “new sight” in the physical sense but could go deeper and explore Jesus’ insistence that sin has nothing to do with physical sickness, disability or human tragedy…and in fact, that it is in the midst of tragedy and human suffering that God is present. In the very midst of this global human tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic God is present with us!

Jesus’ words and actions help us to see what the blind man saw…the presence of the Living God! And in that presence we can find HOPE! It is easy enough to just “see” the physical blindness of the man in the Gospel and “lose sight” of the spiritual darkness of his parents who, because of fear, fail to speak the truth on their son’s behalf. Fear of speaking out and failure to stand up for truth and justice makes us blind and keeps us in spiritual darkness, as individuals and as a nation.

In the midst of wars, famine, the pandemic and international and national crises for refugees and immigrants, we are called to be a people who look, and see, who do not turn away from the suffering of our sisters and brothers especially now in this time of such uncertainty and fear. When I look at the world around me, at all the suffering, can I see God’s presence too? Am I called to be there to be used by God like the “man born blind” to show forth God’s glory in the midst of a suffering world? When have I felt God’s presence in the midst of worry and suffering of the coronavirus outbreak? Do I have “blind spots” in my life where I need to ask Jesus for sight, so I may see more clearly my sisters and brothers, as God sees them?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr. Tim 

This Sunday we hear Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration of Jesus…right before the eyes of three of the disciples, Jesus’ true identity bursts forth and in one brief luminous moment , Peter, James and John are themselves forever changed….”transfigured” with a growing awareness of who Jesus really is! I believe that each one of us has our own “moments of transfiguration”….moments in which we see or feel the very presence of God. They are moments when, deep inside, we come to know that God is present….that God is real. These moments of awareness hold the potential to transfigure our lives into something new…something wonderful.

The challenge is to learn “to live out of” these moments… keeping these moments alive in our hearts and minds allowing them to continually transfigure us more and more into the image and likeness of God. As we reach out to the poor and the marginalized, the immigrant and the refugee, we are transfigured by the experience as well. For in “the encounter of the other, we encounter God” and we are changed! As Jesus’ true identity shown forth on the side of that mountain, so may ours burst forth during this Lenten sojourn into the desert. What “transfiguration moments” have I recently experienced? Where have I seen the face of God reveled? Where is God calling me to this Lent?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr Tim