This Sunday’s second reading from James reminds us of our responsibility to care for the vulnerable populations in our society. In first century Palestine, widows and the orphans were some of the most vulnerable; the poorest of the poor. They had no one to watch out for them and care for their needs, and both the Law and the Prophets commanded that it was the responsibility of the rest of the community of Israel to care for them. And today the Psalmist reminds us that, “the one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.” And of course, the implication here is that the unjust will not live in the presence of the Lord!

In the Gospel, Jesus chastises the Pharisees and the Scribes for adhering to the “letter of the Law” and not living the “Spirit of the Law”. He turns their world upside down and confronts them with the truth that what is in a person’s heart is more important than simply adhering only to the external precepts of the law. He points out how they have substituted human conventions for God’s laws. He accuses them of a disconnection between their outward pious practices and the true motivations of their hearts.

The prophet Micha, warned that rather than massive sacrifices of animals or even the offering of one’s first born, what God truly desired was “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”. Our practices should flow from our identity as the beloved children of God, returning to God that love that has been showered so freely upon us. Jesus commands us to love one another as he loves us and to do as he did, to treat each other with respect and dignity.

The message of God’s Word challenges us to “do justice”, to allow the Holy Spirit, that dwells within us, to transform our hearts from deep within.

Jesus challenges each one of us to become new creations and soar beyond the smallness and stinginess of our human societies and join in building up the Reign of God, a place where all people are valued, loved and cared for as sisters and brothers.

Join me this week as I reflect on: How am I actively doing justice in my daily life? Who are the poor and vulnerable in the world that I am called to care for? What do I need to do in order to let the Holy Spirit take a stronger lead in my life that I might live more justly, and live out my discipleship more authentically?

​Blessings,
Fr. Tim

“And some of them found his words too hard and just walked away”! Can you imagine it? There you are following Jesus all around Judea, watching him do astounding things -- raising the dead, restoring sight to the blind, healing the sick. He’s preaching the coming of the Reign of God, you’re hanging on his every word filled with a deep sense that somehow the whole world is about to change...and then he says something that is so strange, so totally out of bounds that even having seen him perform miracles, you just can’t be a part of it anymore and so you walk away from him and return to your former way of life!

That is what today’s Gospel says happened to some of Jesus’ disciples. What words could be so powerful? How disappointed they must have been thinking they had found the Messiah, having personally witnessed Jesus’ astounding power, having been mesmerized by his words and vision of the Reign of God...until he told them they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood; that he was the “bread of life come down from heaven.” It was just too much!

When I reflect on this Gospel reading I can’t help but think of all the times and ways in which “I have just walked away”; when I felt that it was all just too much! I have a sense that I am not alone in my walking away.

But the wonder of it is that when I have felt that way, Jesus always called me back! He’s not willing to let me be, and just walk away. And curiously enough, given the context of this Gospel, it is usually Eucharist that calls me back!

And it’s not just me, I hear it over and over again from people who have tried to walk away...but just can’t break loose from the “pull” of the Eucharist.

While we are free to walk away...God never just lets us go...God continues to follow after us...hunting us down like the “The Hound of Heaven”. I think it is also interesting to note that this total gift of self, by Jesus in the Eucharist, was precisely what caused some disciples to walk away -- they left at Jesus’ total gift of himself to them! It was just too much for them to be able to comprehend and to accept that we are so loved by God that God’s very self is made food for us. And it is that same God who searches us out when we walk away...bringing us back home.

And today in the midst of all the suffering, injustice and pain in the world, God is here with us right this moment, weeping
with us for all those who are sick and those who are suffering.

In the midst of wars and famine God is with them in the midst of their sorrow and suffering. And God touches our hearts to
reach out to them in their misery, to help them, to speak out on their behalf when and where their voices are silenced or
ignored!

As we are so fortunate to be able to gather around the table of the Lord, to be nourished by Christ’s very body, let us not
“walk away.” For filled by this Divine presence within us, we are emboldened to go forth from here and fight for all those
who suffer and are burdened; for that is our call as disciples of Jesus Christ! To do as Christ did!

​Blessings,
Fr. Tim

Have you ever seen the movie “Groundhog’s Day”? It’s a comedy; the story of a man who wakes up every day to the same day and the exact same set of events in the exact same sequence. Well… welcome to “groundhog’s day” -- at first it appears that we are hearing the same Gospel that we heard last Sunday and the Sunday before that! So, we find ourselves over halfway through our five week journey of reflecting on the gift of the Eucharist.

In Jesus’ world, the people with whom you ate were just as important as what you ate. Dietary restrictions defined membership in the Hebrew camps and daily life. Not only was what or how you ate important, but who you sat down to dinner with -- you ate with family. You ate with people who embraced your religious laws and customs.

If you invited a stranger to your table, you were implicitly offering not only a meal but shelter, and possibly protection, and extended-family status, and once you did, it was more or less, in perpetuity. Sharing a meal with someone could be a powerful sign of relationships.

Yet in the Gospels, Jesus freely feeds and eats with a variety of sometimes rather “unsavory” people. His table was open to all who were hungry…much like the figure of Lady Wisdom found in the first reading. We hear Lady Wisdom calling out in the streets: Anybody hungry? Come and eat!

She sets her table in advance of a guest list. She anticipates multitudes, sight unseen. The only requirement is that her guests come wanting what she has prepared…which is wisdom and understanding.

Yet one of the most difficult realities of the Eucharist is “understanding” … because it is a mystery beyond our grasp. While some Christians say it is just a symbol of Jesus’ presence and love among us, Roman Catholics believe in the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist we share each time we gather around the table of the Lord. Just as Jesus proclaimed to his disciples.

As I mentioned last week, the Catholic author, Flannery O’Connor, wrote that the Eucharist “is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

This profound statement of the centrality of the Eucharist in her life speaks to the importance that Jesus placed on it in today’s Gospel.

The meaning of the Eucharist refuses to be reduced to a mere statement of faith. The Eucharist is not an abstract idea. It is an experience of mystery that will always be beyond our struggle to articulate it.

As I have said before, the Eucharist is a raw and unmediated encounter with the very presence of Jesus Christ!

Just as it shocked the disciples, so too we should allow it to shock us…to wake us up to just how deeply and passionately we are loved by Jesus, who is willing to feed us with his very self that we might have eternal life.

If we are truly disciples of Jesus then we too are called to “feed” others…to respond to their hungers…not just for physical food…but to their hunger for justice, for peace, for respect of their human dignity! And we are able to do this precisely because of the indwelling of Jesus Christ within each one of us, which Jesus promises us in today’s Gospel!

At the end of our Eucharistic celebration, as Christ abides in me, how will this Divine indwelling impact my relationship with others?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

This Sunday we reflect on the Eucharist as we hear Jesus proclaim that what God asks of us is to believe in Jesus whom he sent into the world.

Jesus promises that the bread he provides does so much more than just satisfy our physical hunger — it satisfies our deepest human hungers. Jesus makes a clear connection between believing in him, as the one sent by the Father, and believing in his real presence in this “bread sent down from heaven” that we receive each time we gather around the table of the Lord.

Jesus wants the people to understand that this bread that he is offering is no ordinary bread. But rather “divine food” given because of God’s amazing love for them, God’s amazing love for us!

Over two thousand years later we still struggle to comprehend this mystery…Jesus’ real living presence in this bread, blessed, broken and shared. As a Eucharistic Community our gathering focuses on Jesus’ real presence in our midst…as we are gathered by his love.

Jesus’ extravagant gift of himself to us is not just for us…but for the sake of the world — for this suffering world caught up in the midst of wars, unimaginable poverty and famine, with millions of lives at risk because of climate change and political turmoil. But there is hope in the midst of all this distress, and the hope is the amazing transformative power of the love of God!

We are called to be the real manifestations of hope for all those people in our lives who are fearful, lonely and sick, to reach out to them, to be the “real presence” for them and to them.

The real challenge for us is to understand that as we gather for Eucharist. It is not just for our personal salvation…but that we are commissioned and sent forth to take that real presence of Jesus Christ out into a wounded world. We are called to be “Christ-bearers” bringing the healing presence of Jesus Christ to all those we meet but especially to those most in need: the marginalized, the immigrant and migrant, the disenfranchised minorities subjected to systemic racism, bigotry, misogyny and intolerance. We are emboldened to speak truth to power, both secular and religious — we are called to speak out against the sins of our nation and of our church.

This “real presence” within us emboldens us to be true disciples of Christ in action in the world building up the Reign of God through acts of kindness and generosity so the world might be, not as people in their brokenness have made it, but as God has dreamt it to be — a world of peace and justice, a world of equity and harmony where all people’s dignity is honored and respected!

And where the earth itself is respected and cared for! And so I believe we need to ask ourselves: for whom have I recently been “the real presence” of Jesus through acts of kindness and generosity? How do I share this “real presence” with my family and friends? To whom in my life is God calling me to be “the real presence” to, so that they might know how deeply and passionately they are loved by God?
​
Blessings,
Fr. Tim

This Sunday we reflect on the Eucharist as we hear Jesus proclaim that what God asks of us is to believe in Jesus whom he sent into the world.

Jesus promises that the bread he provides does so much more than just satisfy our physical hunger — it satisfies our deepest human hungers. Jesus makes a clear connection between believing in him, as the one sent by the Father, and believing in his real presence in this “bread sent down from heaven” that we receive each time we gather around the table of the Lord.

Jesus wants the people to understand that this bread that he is offering is no ordinary bread. But rather “divine food” given
because of God’s amazing love for them, God’s amazing love for us!

Over two thousand years later we still struggle to comprehend this mystery…Jesus’ real living presence in this bread, blessed, broken and shared. As a Eucharistic Community our gathering focuses on Jesus’ real presence in our midst…as we are gathered by his love.

Jesus’ extravagant gift of himself to us is not just for us…but for the sake of the world — for this suffering world caught up in the midst of wars, unimaginable poverty and famine, with millions of lives at risk because of climate change and political turmoil. But there is hope in the midst of all this distress, and the hope is the amazing transformative power of the love of God!

We are called to be the real manifestations of hope for all those people in our lives who are fearful, lonely and sick, to reach out to them, to be the “real presence” for them and to them.

The real challenge for us is to understand that as we gather for Eucharist. It is not just for our personal salvation…but that we are commissioned and sent forth to take that real presence of Jesus Christ out into a wounded world. We are called to be “Christ-bearers” bringing the healing presence of Jesus Christ to all those we meet but especially to those most in need: the marginalized, the immigrant and migrant, the disenfranchised minorities subjected to systemic racism, bigotry, misogyny and intolerance. We are emboldened to speak truth to power, both secular and religious — we are called to speak out against the sins of our nation and of our church.

This “real presence” within us emboldens us to be true disciples of Christ in action in the world building up the Reign of God through acts of kindness and generosity so the world might be, not as people in their brokenness have made it, but as God has dreamt it to be — a world of peace and justice, a world of equity and harmony where all people’s dignity is honored and respected!

And where the earth itself is respected and cared for! And so I believe we need to ask ourselves: for whom have I recently been “the real presence” of Jesus through acts of kindness and generosity? How do I share this “real presence” with my family and friends? To whom in my life is God calling me to be “the real presence” to, so that they might know how deeply and passionately they are loved by God?

​Blessings,
Fr. Tim