In today’s Gospel, Jesus asks for total loyalty from his disciples! But, total allegiance to what end? As we celebrate the birth of our nation we naturally think of things like the “pledge of allegiance,” the oath we make to our nation to defend her and to stand by her. And, we recall the many brave women and men, down thorough almost two and a half centuries, who have risked and given their lives so that we may enjoy the freedoms that we do.

Jesus was clear that he expected his followers to “be all in” -- to choose him over their mothers and fathers, over their sisters and brothers and even over their daughters and sons. This must have sounded absurd! Given the culture they lived in, they must have asked, who could do this?

To choose Jesus over your family was to make a choice that would mean that you would lose your identity, as your identity was rooted in your family, and you would lose the ones who would care for you in old age, or in the event of illness. Choosing Jesus over your family would mean your future would immediately become much more precarious!

What was Jesus asking of his followers? It seems, give the larger context of the Gospel, that Jesus was asking his disciples to put him at the center of their lives and from this center to move outward to others. These words of Jesus taken in the context of the fullness of his message ‘to love God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves’ gives us insight into what he is suggesting.

If indeed we are able to place Christ at the center of our lives, we will be less self-absorbed, less harsh towards others and more kind and accepting, more generous and loving.

By consciously and reflectively living Christ centered lives we become more and more rooted in our relationship with Christ and ultimately, our relationships with our sisters and brothers then blossom and become fuller and deeper; they can become more authentic human encounters with “the other,” loving them and accepting them as we find them, just as God does.

By placing Christ at the center of my life I prioritize my life in such a way that the priorities of the Gospel become the priorities of my life. In this way, the Gospel values of justice, peace and the integrity of creation are no longer simply “nice ideals to work for” but rather “fundamental imperatives” around which I build my life, create family, and live out my relationship with God and others.

So, this week, let us ask ourselves…am I putting anything or anyone ahead of Christ and my relationship with God that I need to reconsider so as to live a more Christ centered life? How does my relationship with God impact my relationship with my family and with others? How might strengthening and deepening my relationship with God positively impact my relationship with my family and others?

​Blessings,
Fr Tim

In this weekend’s Gospel, Jesus warns against fear and tells us to fear no one. Fear, and in particular, “fear of the other” has been the cause of the destruction of entire peoples and cultures, the cause of one war after another and still we have not learned just how disastrous for humanity fearmongering and the hatred of those who are different can be.

Poets, philosophers, and mystics alike all have warned that fear ultimately leads to the deadening of the soul and disconnection from the human family. Several years ago, Pope Francis warned that wherever there is fear, there will always be someone who will manipulate it to their own good. "Because fear, besides being good business for merchants of weapons and death, weakens and destabilizes us, destroying our psychological and spiritual defenses, anesthetizing us to the suffering of others and, in the end, making us cruel."

We find ourselves in the midst of a fear-ridden country with some people shouting of the coming calamity (because of the calls for racial justice and equality, because of increased immigration) and other societal changes that are happening do to our changing demographics, and yet Jesus who found himself in a not too dissimilar geopolitical situation (think the Roman occupation of his native country) called his followers not to fear but to have faith; to not to give into fear!

We too are called to not allow ourselves to be ruled by fear and allow it to turn us into cruel people who think of ourselves first and only, and leave the less fortunate to fend for themselves and to exclude them from our democratic debate and seek to exclude them from our communities, our schools, our churches and our public spaces. Pope Francis has said that mercy is the “best antidote” to fear! And in the same speech, he called for us to partner that mercy with courage.

We need courage to do the right thing in the face of fear which causes communities to want to build walls to keep people out instead of bridges, and fear makes peoples choose open conflict rather than embrace and welcome the differences of others.

In a very real way we are called to “walk towards our fears” and not run from them. Walking towards our fears takes courage, but we must not forget that we do not walk that journey alone -- we walk with Christ!

Our discipleship calls us to be courageous in these difficult and divisive times, and as Pope Francis has recently said, we are to “be a sign of mercy!” So let us be living signs of mercy to all those who are targeted or mistreated or threatened because of the color of their skin, their ethnicity, their gender or because of where they were born or who they love or what their social status is or what their nationality is. These realities cause fear in some people who are unable and unwilling to accept people who do not look like them, people who are “other than themselves.” They cannot accept that each and every human being is made in the image and likeness of God and is deeply and passionately loved by God just as they are!

And as disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to stand up and fight against those persons and movements that espouse social, political or religious ideologies and principles that deny or demean the God given human dignity of every woman, man and child on this planet.

Not until we have done this will we have truly lived the great commandment of Jesus, to love our neighbor as ourselves. We must ask ourselves, what personal biases am I being called to walk towards or to sit with and name? Let me pray to draw courage in facing my own biases, with the Holy Spirit guiding me. May each one of us “be a sign of mercy” for those in need.

May the mercy of God be upon you all. Amen.

Blessings,
Fr Tim

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and to all the men who mentor, raise, care for, teach and love us. Thank you for all you do!

Each of us has been named and called by God! Each of us has been chosen by God, to play a role in God’s plan for the world. We may shrink back at the thought of having “a role in God’s plan for the world!,” but I strongly believe that God does indeed have a dream for each of our lives, and these dreams — these plans and visions for our lives — are interwoven like a great tapestry that wraps the earth.

The first reading from Exodus laid out the story of how God chose the people of Israel as his special possession. He saved them from slavery in Egypt and entered into a special covenant with them, making them His people and Him their god. He had plans for them and for their future.

And many centuries later Jesus gathered a people unto himself — his disciples — and he too had plans for them and the role they would play in God’s plan for the future of the world.

We see that Jesus, believing in the faith that his disciples possessed, sent them out to share that gift of faith that had been given to them, with others. He sent them out to proclaim the gospel; the good news that the Kingdom of God was at hand. And they would demonstrate this by performing mighty works that would astonish the people and manifest what they preached.

And you and I, we too, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are called to do the same. To preach the Good News, and to be a healing presence in the midst of a wounded world. We are called to be the peacemakers in the midst of conflict and war. Our discipleship calls us to actively work for racial equity and an end to all forms of systemic racism and bigotry in all of our institutions, large and small.

Our discipleship calls us to work to alleviate the suffering of the poor and marginalized, to work to reform our broken immigration and refugee policies and respond in a compassionate and meaningful way to the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.

Let us not be afraid of “the other”, but rather let us imitate Jesus and seek them out, embrace them as our sisters and brothers, as the beloved children of God they indeed are. Let us open our hearts and our minds to God’s dreams and plans for our lives and how we might be of best use to God’s dream and plans for the world!

Happy Juneteenth Day to you all! And let us celebrate and value the lives of all of our Black sisters and brothers, not just this weekend…but ALWAYS!

Blessings,
​Fr Tim

The Body and Blood of Christ are not only something we “get” when we go to Mass…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 “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 both individually and communally.

We become “the Body of Christ” present in the world and 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, their gender or where they came from. We are called “to be for” all those who suffer 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, all of them must reflect the Divine indwelling. Our lives should be a living witness to the words, actions, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And by no means do I miss the point that this is a tall order. It is called “the great commission.” It is the very core of what true discipleship of Jesus Christ is: to live and to love as Jesus lived and loved!

We are called to live our lives in such a way that we become visible, tangible signs of God’s amazing and passionate love for all people -- to stand up to the systemic racism that pervades our society, that has been woven through the fabric of our country over the last 400 years.

I believe that to refuse to sit in the discomfort of confronting the reality of racism in our country and our own white privilege is to deny the primary message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- God’s deep and passionate love for ALL people…just as they are…just as he created them: as the beloved of God!

When we embrace that all who are “other” from us are the “BELOVED” of God then there is no place in our hearts or in our lives for racism, bigotry or “otherness”.

And so, let us ask ourselves a few questions: How does my life reflect my being part of the Body of Christ? When I leave Mass after having received Eucharist, what do I take with me out into the world? What is the Eucharist calling me to “pick up” or “lay down” in my life that I might, more fully, live as an engaged and active member of the Body of Christ working to bring an end to racism and bigotry and all forms of marginalization of an exclusion of people, and thus help to build up the Reign of God in the here and now?

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, named Sister Mary Janelle. I recall her patiently helping my classmates and myself as we wrestled with the concept of the 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 almost 50 years later I have come to see her wisdom, and have come to be comfortable with, and truly enjoy the concept of 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, 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.

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 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”!

When all is said and done what is most important is that we remain engaged in the struggle for understanding and we open our hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit, the bringer of wisdom.

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 of immigrants and asylum seekers at our southern boarder, and of all of the refugees walking the world seeking a place to call home? 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?

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

Fr. Tim