In today’s Gospel we encounter Jesus preaching to great crowds when suddenly a man interrupts and approaches, begging him to save his daughter’s life. Jesus immediately leaves to go to the bedside of the young girl who is near death but is interrupted along the way yet again. This time he is interrupted by a woman who has suffered for twelve years with a hemorrhage. She, who is an interruption, becomes the center of his attention. Jesus stops, knowing the little girl lies dying, to attend to the woman’s needs. We see a pattern in the ministry of Jesus, a pattern of “interruptions” that time and time again become moments of healing, moments of the Reign of God bursting forth because Jesus takes the “interruption” and turns it into an encounter with The Divine!

​Henri Nouwen, famously once said that he used to get annoyed with all the interruptions in his ministry, until he realized that the interruptions were his ministry. What an incredibly challenging way to look at interruptions! We all know we must get things done! But the truth is that too often we can miss occasions to minister to a sister or brother in need because they arrive as we are busy about other things. They appear to be interruptions, but perhaps they are “opportunities”! Opportunities for us to become the love of Christ present in the world through our response to another’s moment of need. In the midst of this woman’s darkness she recognized Jesus as a beacon of Hope, in the midst of our present darkness we are being called to be beacons of hope for others! When was the last time God interrupted my life in the form of someone in need? How did I respond? How is God interrupting my life today?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

Today we celebrate the feast of John the Baptist…a strange and wild biblical figure who “outs” Jesus as the “Messiah”…”the long awaited one” whose sandal straps he is not worthy to untie. While we see John as the herald of Jesus there are many contrasts between them. Scripture scholar Albert Nolan argues that difference: "Conversion, for John the Baptist, meant fasting and doing penance. For Jesus it was more like accepting an invitation to a feast, or discovering a treasure or priceless pearl for which one happily sacrificed everything else. For John, forgiveness was a future possibility, dependent on baptism; Jesus preached forgiveness was a present reality, and baptism in the Jordan was no longer necessary. Conversion is a radical reorientation of one's life. It declares a life of no compromise and no half-measures."

What I find so interesting is that scripture is clear that while in prison John sends two of his disciples to ask Jesus who he really is…through their encounter they come to believe and become disciples of Jesus. But it seems, according to scripture, that John never makes the final leap himself to become a disciple of Jesus. Some scholars have argued that John's "pre-understanding" of the Messiah prevented him from making the final leap of faith and becoming a disciple of Jesus. Perhaps then John the Baptist can be seen as “the patron saint of seekers”… perhaps he can be an example for those of us who are still "on the Way", still seeking answers, still asking questions, continuing the search, hoping for the grace of enlightening and the enlightenment of “Grace.”

Who is Jesus for me? How does being a disciple of Jesus impact the way I live my daily life? Am I open to “Grace”? Am I still seeking...or have I settled? With all that has come to light and continues to come to light about the dreadful and inhumane treatment of the immigrants -- babies, toddlers, children, young adults, adults and families crossing into the US -- let us continue to keep them in our prayers, let us continue to put pressure on Congress and the President to make compassionate and meaningful immigration legislation reform. Let us keep pressure on our political leaders to act in the right and just manner to reunite separated families and end these family’s nightmares!

This is our Christian duty to our immigrant and migrant sisters and brothers. Let us not let them down; let us not turn away in shame. Rather, let us be emboldened by the Holy Spirit to stand up, to stand together and to stand with them in their time of suffering! Please visit www.justiceforimmigrants.org, a website sponsored by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for information on how you can get involved and how you stay informed on this humanitarian crisis. Other websites such as the Media Center at Catholic Charities USA have information as well on what is being done and how you can help. How I choose to, or choose not to, respond to this humanitarian crisis is at its core a matter of living out my discipleship…it is nothing less than responding to Jesus’ words; “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”!

Blessing,
 Fr. Tim

Once again this week Jesus speaks to us in parables… multifaceted gems that once tumbled around in our hearts and ruminated upon, yield unbelievable insights into the Reign of God. While the disciples certainly preferred straightforward answers…Jesus obviously preferred parables.

Of the comparisons of the reign of God to a field, a mustard seed or the leaven in bread…I have always liked the comparison of the mustard seed to the Reign of God. This tiny, tiny little seed grows into a great bush…so large that the birds of the air make their nests in it. If you take the parable at its face value it all seems quite lovely. However there is a dark side that farmers know well: the mustard bush is an invasive plant, it grows wildly and rapidly, quickly overtaking a garden, ruining the plants that had been planted with care and reducing their yield, if not completely choking them out. Mustard bushes are uncontrollable and rapidly spread across a farm if not quickly uprooted before going to seed. Surely this reality was not lost on Jesus…nor on those who heard him tell the parable. It seems that perhaps Jesus is presenting an image of the expansion of the Reign of God as something uncontrollable, invasive and fast growing!

Looking through the lens of this image…the Reign of God is not something that can be domesticated or controlled…by its very nature it grows uncontrollably and burst forth offering refuge. I believe that most of us though would prefer something that we could contain and control…domesticate! But the truth is that the Reign of God is just that…”God’s Reign”…not ours. We are part of it by our baptism and we are called to help water it so that it continues to grow and “invade” every crevice and furrow of this earth…but we don’t get to tame it.

Two thousand years ago Jesus’ vision of the bursting forth of the Reign of God was nothing less than radical ….and it still is today. We are called to be part of that radical vision…to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, to welcome the stranger -- to love one another as Christ loves us and to reach out and to care for “the other”, to proclaim the deep and passionate love of God for all peoples! And wasn’t it just this radical vision of the reign of God that Jesus preached that got him crucified? As his disciple, just how radical of a life am I willing live?

In a world that proclaims a “gospel of personal prosperity”…tax cuts for the rich at the cost of healthcare cuts for the poor, in a nation where overt acts of racism and discrimination are on display daily across the country, in a nation that legally allows babies and young children to be snatched from the arms of their parents who are seeking asylum or immigrating looking for a better life and puts them into detention centers…to what lengths am I willing to go in building up this radical vision of the Reign of God that Jesus preached? What concrete action can I take today to “water” the Reign of God? Where and how do I see the Reign of God bursting forth in imaginative and radical ways?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

In this Sunday’s Gospel we hear that Jesus’ family come looking for him, and it would seem that they are concerned about his mental health while scribes accuse him of being possessed by the devil! It is a common technique of Mark to “sandwich” two stories or events in the telling of an event in the life of Jesus. There are often multiple things going on around Jesus in Mark’s Gospel -- Jesus is always presented as harried and hurried, moving from place to place at breakneck speed, leaving the reader almost breathless. Jesus is so bound up in preaching the Reign of God, in healing the sick, in reaching out to the poor and the marginalized, in making the sinner and the outcast know that they are the beloved of God that even his own family wonders if he has “lost his mind”! And yet he preaches with such authority that the people’s hearts are transformed and some come to believe in him as the Messiah, the long awaited One! But others refuse to see the signs and wonders, their eyes and hearts closed to the living grace of God that stood before them. And Jesus proclaims that “his family” was made up of all those who do the will of God!

In the first reading from Genesis, we have the story of the origin of sin. And as misogynistic as this story can be, almost all cultures have stories that seek to explain how sin and evil got into the world. Handed down from one generation to the next these stories were meant to help explain the human condition, to tell us something about God and our relationship to God and how we’ve ended up where we are today. The story of the apple is a story of scapegoating, blaming the other for our own poor choices or inaction. We see it all the time in our politicians, they scapegoat “the other party” and/or blame it on “the devil”. The lack of ability to take responsibility for one’s actions and decisions is truly a sign of our times.

But following Jesus’ example is the cure for our times! Opening up our eyes and our hearts to his presence in our midst, in our lives, has the ability to transform us just as it did his first disciples. Where do I see Jesus in my life? What action is my faith calling me to today? Am I worried about what others might think about me as I live out my faith and proclaim the Gospel through my words and actions?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Body and Blood of Christ are not only something we “get” 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 changed…changed, ever more fully, into the Body of Christ.

Through our receiving the Body and Blood of Christ…Christ lives in us and we 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…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, “to be for” all those who suffer, are marginalized and who are in need. As Christ was “for the world” so too we are to be “for the world”. Our daily action, our work, our relationships all of them must 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.

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