This weekend we celebrate “The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ”. The Body and Blood of Christ are not only something we “receive” at every celebration of the Eucharist…it is what we become!

We believe in the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist and while we will never fully understand how this is, we gather each Sunday, around the “the table of the Lord” to be nourished…and to be change -- changed, ever more fully, into the Body of Christ.

Through our receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, Christ lives in us and we live in Christ and thus we become the Body of Christ. This “indwelling” of Christ in us, both as individuals and as community, has enormous implications for our lives…individually and communally.

We become “the Body of Christ” present in the world and we are called to be the visible compassion and love of Christ reaching out to the immigrant, the refugee, to those discriminated against and treated unjustly because of the color of their skin or their gender or their abilities. We are called “to be for” all those who suffer, for all those who are marginalized and who are in need.

As Christ was “for the world” so too we are to be “for the world”. Our daily actions, our work, our relationships in all of these realities we are called to reflect Christ. Even our relationship with the earth itself should reflect that we are the Body of Christ!

We are called to be living witnesses to the words and actions of Jesus Christ. We are called to live our lives in such a way that we become visible, tangible signs of God’s love for the earth and all its peoples. And, the Eucharist emboldens and strengthens us to be able to do this.

So we need to ask ourselves how does my life reflect my being part of the Body of Christ? When I leave Mass what do I take with me into the world? What am I being called to “pick up” or “lay down” in my life that I might, more fully, live a life of witness to the words and actions of Jesus Christ?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

​Most every year as we celebrate the feast of The Most Holy Trinity my mind returns to an 8th grade classroom and a tall red-haired nun, in a modified black habit with a short veil -- Sister Mary Janelle. I recall her patiently helping my classmates and myself as we wrestled with the concept of the Holy Trinity: three Persons who were at the same time separate, yet one.

As she went through theological gymnastics trying to help us understand, ultimately, she conceded that it was a mystery…a mystery with a capital “M”. At the time my classmates and I felt it was a bit of a “cop-out” on her part…but now 50 years later I have come to see her wisdom, and have come to be comfortable with, and truly enjoy the concept of resting in the “Mystery” which is The Triune God.

We live in a society that demands to know all things, to have concrete explanations for everything, and to have it right now! All we have to do is “Google it”! But the reality is that ultimately God is beyond the fullness of our understanding. Today I realize that I am part of a religious tradition that has passed on a faith…a faith filled with mystery and awe in our God. There is a consensus of our ancestors that holds sacred “revealed truths” that are essentials of our faith that will always lie just beyond our capacity to fully understand them.

At the core of the reality of the Holy Trinity is the concept of relationship, of interconnectedness. It teaches us about the relationship of the three Persons of the Trinity; not just in their interconnectedness, but also in The Trinity’s relationship to us and our relationship to one another, in and through this Triune God.

Remember in the Gospel of John the indwelling nature between the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are key elements of John’s theology. In the Gospel Jesus says, I am in the Father and the Father is in me…and we will send an Advocate, and this Advocate, the Holy Spirit is from them and in them. It is this same Holy Spirit whom we receive at Baptism and Confirmation. And so, we need to remember that This Divine indwelling goes beyond just the Holy Spirit, for as Jesus proclaims that “I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you.” (John 14: 20).

The Holy Spirit has been sent into our hearts to lead us headlong into The Mystery…to live out in concrete terms what we say we believe even though we do not fully understand.

Our lack of understanding has no impact on The Mystery itself. The Mystery -- God desires us and loves us just as we are…conflicted and wrestling with our faith.

One of the most important realities is that we remain engaged…wrestling with our faith… engaged with God and engaged with each other, “all others”!

Remaining engaged in the struggle for understanding and keeping open hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit -- the bringer of wisdom -- ultimately brings us closer to God and closer to one another.

And what wisdom and understanding is the Holy Spirit trying to bring us today in the midst of the light that is being shined on the darkness, of the sin of the systemic racism and bigotry that is woven into the very fabric of our nation? What wisdom and insight is the Holy Spirit trying to impart to us as to how to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Palestine, in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas? What wisdom is the Holy Spirit seeking to impart to us on how we might grow closer to the Triune God through putting Jesus’ commandment to love one another into action in our daily lives with ALL our sisters and brothers, even with those with whom we disagree?

May the blessings of our Triune God be upon you all,
Fr. Tim 

Happy birthday to the Church, to this parish community of Our Lady Queen of Peace and to the Spiritan Community. We are thankful for the Holy Spirit’s coming upon Mary and the other disciples on that amazing and shocking Pentecost so many centuries ago. An event that unleashed a religious revolution that has, down through the centuries, in one way or another impacted the whole world.

We are thankful for our courageous Black Catholic sisters and brothers who, filled with the Holy Spirit, went to Richmond to meet with the bishop and ask for a parish of their own where they could worship in dignity and be treated with love and respect. And we are thankful for the Spiritan Congregation who responded to the call from the Bishop of Richmond to come to Arlington and work with the first Black Catholic Families to start a new Black Catholic parish community. We are thankful to all my brother Spiritans who have shepherded this parish community for 79 years. We offer a prayer of gratitude for all the parishioners and clergy who have gone before us, filled with the Holy Spirit and labored to create this wonderful parish community. And we are grateful for all of you today who make up this amazing parish community. Thank you for all you do to make OLQP what it is today! Happy 79th anniversary to Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish Community!

St. Augustine said that the Spirit blows where the Spirit wills…not exactly comforting if you are someone who likes things neat and orderly or if you prefer to have life all figured out and neatly packaged. Most of us would prefer to see life’s decisions as right or wrong, good or bad…as if everything in life were black and white. The problem with life is that most of the time we are living in the grey; everything is not black and white! This is where the Holy Spirit offers counsel -- the challenge is to be open to the Spirit’s counsel! The Holy Spirit blows where it wills and inspires and guides whomever it chooses, whenever and wherever it chooses.

Most of us get use to a particular routine and we find comfort in doing things in particular ways and we find discomfort when our routine gets changed by outside influences or when we are forced to do things in a different or new way. It is no different in the church. We all get comfortable in the way we worship, in the way we pray, in the way we sing, in what we sing, and then when change comes we suddenly are set off center and we feel “off balance” at the change or new ways.

This reality has probably never been clearer or truer than during these past few years of the COVID pandemic. First the closing of masses to the public and then reopening but with restrictions on how many could come to church and how we could reassemble! All this without any certainty on when we would be able to return to something that looked like it used to look and feel.

But we did return as it got safer for everyone, and we once more began to raise our voices in full song, most without masks, and we can once again greet our sisters and brothers with a sign of the peace of Christ! And we can all come forward to the Table of the Lord!

I am sure that many in the church today see the Pope’s challenge to live a radically gospel centered life as a change from what they were used to -- a change in what they thought it meant to be a Catholic and it throws them off balance.

In answering the Gospel’s call, Pope Francis has called us out of the church building and into the streets to be a “field hospital” where binding up the wounds of the poor and brokenhearted is a priority.

The Pope is following the radical call of Christ, who calls us to be a welcoming presence to immigrants and refugees, to seek out the lost and forsaken and to “be” the word of peace in the presence of war, to “be” the word of love spoken to the lonely and marginalized of the world, to “be” the word of justice and equality spoken in the midst of racial injustice and exclusion.

As well, we are called to be care takers of creation, to take responsibility for the way we live on the planet: personally, communally, nationally and internationally.

While all of this can seem overwhelming, we need to remember that we are not called to do all this by ourselves but rather as a community filled with, and guided by, the Holy Spirit. It is in and through the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit within us and around us that we are able to do all good things!

As we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost let each of us ask ourselves to where and to what is the Holy Spirit calling me in my life?

​Happy 79th anniversary Our Lady Queen of Peace! Amen.

As we celebrate “the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord” I cannot help but reflect on the many ideas and concepts that swirl around this feast…some with unintended consequences! The word “ascension” itself congers up images of Jesus rising up into the clouds to join the Father and the Holy Spirit somewhere “up there”…far, far away. The problem with this is it can lead us to believe that heaven is “up there” and we are “down here” and that God is far off and distant from us and from our lives.

This stands in stark contrast to the heart and soul of the meaning and significance of the incarnation. The truth of our God having become “incarnate” (in the flesh) in Jesus, meaning that God is with us…and not off somewhere, watching us from afar. We need to recall Jesus’ promise “I am with you until the end of time”! These simple words are some of most profound encountered in all the Gospels! There is no need for us to stand gawking skyward with our jaws hanging open, looking for the Risen Christ. The physical presence of Jesus Christ as a singular human and divine presence no longer walks the earth as before…but Christ is here, as close to us as our own breath, keeping us alive to be his presence in our world. He told his disciples that he was in the Father and the Father was in him and he was in them. This is the Divine indwelling of Christ in us!

As we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus let us celebrate the presence of the Risen One in our midst! Before his ascension Jesus gave a clear command and mission to his disciples…to us. We are charged with preaching the “Good News” of Jesus Christ and to be that healing, loving and welcoming presence in a world filled with sickness, hatred, and exclusion.

Filled with the “real presence we are sent forth to stand up and be the voice of the voiceless, to speak out on behalf of those who are silenced or ignored, to make sure that hatred, racism, and misogyny are not left unchecked. Filled with the Spirit we speak the truth of the Gospel to power, whether convenient or inconvenient, whether garnering us friends or marginalizing us, it is our call as disciples of Jesus Christ!

And we are able to do this precisely because “in God we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Filled with the very presence of Christ himself we are empowered and emboldened to go forth and proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ even to the ends of the earth -- not just with words but with actions -- by the manner in which we live our lives.

And so let us ask ourselves: how am I a “healing, loving and welcoming presence” to the immigrant, the refugee and to those who experience discrimination, racism and misogyny? How do I share the Good News with my family and friends, and with my coworkers. And how do I take the Gospel values of inherent universal human dignity and the call to love unconditionally, and preach it to those in political power? How and where do I experience the presence of God in my life?
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Easter Blessings,

​Fr. Tim

On this sixth Sunday of Easter we hear one of the foundational beliefs of our Christian faith: Jesus proclaims to his disciples that just as the Father has loved him so he loves them and that there is no greater love than for someone to lay down their life for a friend…which of course is exactly what he is about to do!

In the second reading St. John tells us clearly that God is love itself! And Jesus calls us to abide in this love, to dwell in it…to live from it!

During this Easter season we are invited to reflect on this amazing deep and passionate love that God has for each one of us; to reflect on the reality that we are loved even in the midst of our brokenness and sinfulness. Jesus was willing to lay down his life to show us that boundless love of which he spoke to his disciples. This deep and passionate love that God has for us is for all people and even St. Peter comes to realize this – in the first reading we hear him recognize that God shows no partiality.

And we are called to love one another as Christ loves us. We are empowered to do this in and through the grace of the Eucharist which not only empowers us but emboldens us to reach out to embrace “the other,” especially those most in need, those most despised and dejected, and those marginalized by ourselves and by the broader society.

Just as St. Peter came to recognize that God’s love stretched beyond the people of Israel so too we are called to see that God’s amazing and transformative love is for all peoples, and allow it to change our hearts and minds that we might draw near to all those who suffer and are in need, that we might draw near to those to whom racial justice is denied and to those whom others dehumanize and distance themselves from.

This Divine love holds the power to shape and impact our world view and how we see other people, other cultures and other countries. It helps us understand how we are called, as disciples, to interact with others, and to reach out to them in love.

Reaching out and embracing “the other” -- the one who is different -- can be difficult but it is precisely what we are called to do as Jesus’ disciples. So this radical love shapes questions like: how do we as a country appropriately respond to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the war between Israel and Hamas, based on this radical call to love, what is our moral and ethical response to be?
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Because of this radical way of love, we no longer see the residents of other countries as “others” but as sisters and brothers in need. This radical Divine love transforms us and reshapes how we live with one another and how we live in the world around us. So the question it raises for me is: What can I do to better accept God’s love for me in my life that I might share it with others? And to whom is God’s love calling me to love and accept in my family, in my school, in my community, in my country, in the world?

Easter Blessings,
​Fr. Tim