Blog Archives

6/27/2021

6/25/2021

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 hemorrhages. She, who is an interruption, becomes the center of his attention. Jesus stops, knowing the little girl lay 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 a brother in need because they arrive as we are busy about other things. They appear to be interruptions, but perhaps they are “opportunities”!

These “interruptions” could be 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, in the midst of this pandemic, in the midst of this tidal wave of demand for racial justice, 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

June 20, 2021

6/18/2021

For over fourteen months we have found ourselves in the midst of a great storm, being tossed about like a small boat in the midst of a great sea. We have lived through great loss, pain and suffering and many of us turned to Jesus and said “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?” Some of us turned to Jesus and flung our arms around him as a life jacket and are riding out this great storm with him as our solace and security. But in the midst of all of the fear, loss and grief we have reached out to one another and to “the stranger”, knowing them to be “sisters and brothers” in need. Even though you feared for yourself, for your family and for your loved ones, you sought to help those in need! Your generosity of heart, in the midst of a great storm, has been and continues to be amazing!

In todays Gospel, Jesus and the disciples are heading to the “other side” of the sea of Galilee, moving from the mainly Jewish enclave to a more Gentile region. This shows a widening of Jesus’ ministry, he is moving beyond preaching the “Good News” to the people of Israel and is reaching out to non-Jews, to those “outside” his cultural and religious group. He’s expanding his ministry to include “the other”!

The disciples show great fear because their boat is about to capsize, and Jesus is slumbering away! Terrified they awaken him seeking his help and he rebukes the wind and the waves and they become clam. Jesus asks “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” And the disciples are amazed and ask “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” Jesus ties their fear to a lack of faith, basically saying, “do you not yet know who I am, so why are you surprised at what I do?”

The disciples have already seen Jesus perform many miracles and cure many people, the man with the withered hand, Simon’s mother-in-law, the man with the unclean spirit and the cleansing the leper as well as many others. So who did they think he was at this point in their journey with Jesus? Jesus had already appointed “the twelve” and had sent them out to preach “the message”! What were they missing?

I must admit there is something comforting in their humanness, in their lack of fully comprehending who Jesus was -- it puts me a bit at ease! Each of us on our journey with Jesus must pass through howling winds and raging seas and must rely on Jesus to help us make it through the storms of our lives. And remember eventual- ly they do “get it”, they leave the security of the “locked” upper room and risk their lives preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ! How am I being called to leave the security of my “upper room,” to go out into the world and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ by what I say and by what I do?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

June 13, 2021

6/11/2021

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. Maybe Jesus preferred parables because they are less “black and white” and more open to interpretation, much like our experiences of life!

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 and 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...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...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.

So it seems to me 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 im- age...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 to- day. 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.” We are called 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 “Christian churches” proclaim 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 are on dis- play daily across the country, in a nation that our congress does not have backbone to pass far reaching legislation that would have huge positive impacts on the poor and middle class. We live in a nation where our government blocks and arrests the poor seeking asylum or immigrating looking for a better life, and puts them into detention centers, a government that has violently dispersed peaceful demonstrations for racial justice... to what lengths am I willing to go in building up this radical vision of the Reign of God that Jesus preached, where all people are “seen and valued”? 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

June 6, 2021

6/4/2021

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 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 these realities 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.

And so we 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

6/27/2021

June 20, 2021

June 13, 2021

June 6, 2021

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