Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church - Arlington, VA
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October 30, 2022

10/28/2022

 
Have you ever noticed how in the Gospels Jesus seeks out social outsiders and religious exiles? Zacchaeus is despised by his neighbors because he has cozied up with the Roman occupiers and was extracting excessive taxes from his own people.

Roman tax collectors were not paid a salary so in order to make a living they had to extort money out of the people. They raised the official tax rate, they paid to Rome what was due to Cesar and kept the rest for themselves. Zacchaeus was not a popular man in town.

But Zacchaeus was not beyond being saved! Beneath all his greed, beneath all his sinfulness... Zacchaeus was open to the presence of God when God walked by!

While the Pharisees and town’s people had “written him off”...God had not! God came to his house! Think about that for just a minute...God sought out this sinner and offered him a new life...and Zacchaeus took it!

It is so easy to write people off...because of what they do or have done... the country they come from....how they look...the color of their skin... or who they love. There are all kinds of reasons we “write people off”...but God does not write people off!

There is always, always another chance with God. There is always another chance to come home, into the open loving arms of God. Welcomed back like the prodigal son or daughter!

This is a powerful Gospel about how God seeks us out, even when we are not at out best. Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house before Zacchaeus decided to turn his life around...Jesus took him as he was and decided to spend time with him “in the midst of his sinfulness”!

With God, all are welcomed, all are loved and forgiven, embraced and made whole by God’s love and mercy that is so freely poured out upon us, all we have to do is open up our hearts and accept it and allow its power to transform us into new creations, just like Zacchaeus was transformed in and through his encounter with Jesus.

Who have I “written off”...and why? What do I need to do to forgive them? When was the last time I climbed a tree to get a better look at God?
​

Blessings,
Fr Tim 

October 23, 2022

10/21/2022

 
When I was little kid we had two elderly, rather eccentric, “aunts”, who loved to buy my sisters and brothers and me gifts for all sorts of occasions. One Christmas they came over to our house with an absolutely huge box of Whitman Chocolates. And being kids...we tore into the elegantly wrapped box of confectionary delights with the greatest of joy...only to discover that the “legend” had been removed from the lid of the box...so we had no way of knowing what was inside each of the smooth shiny milk chocolate squares.

Our “aunts” howled with laughter at our consternation. (We had a “house rule” that no one was allowed to “punch holes’ in the bottom of chocolates to find out what kind of filling was inside and you always had to eat whatever piece you took.) As we hovered over the huge box of chocolates trying to decide which piece we would risk trying...my little brother Kevin, who was only about five years old, gleefully said...“it’s like hunting for treasure...you don’t know what you’ll get until you bite into it...and then you’ll get surprised!”

Jesus’ parables are a bit like eating from a box of chocolates without a legend...you never really know what you’re going to get and by the time you discover what it is, it’s too late to refuse it.

Jesus’ parables draw comparisons between what we know and what we don’t know...conventional understanding up against gospel insight. First we say...oh yeah...I know this... and then a sharp corner is turned, and we swallow hard, and we see that the story has a “surprise filling”...not quite what we were expecting.

In today’s parable the Pharisee is supposed to be the righteous one and the tax collector is supposed to be the bad guy...but things are not always as we think they are supposed to be. The message is: we need to be careful about judging others. The fact is that we don’t know what is in someone else’s heart...only God knows. In the Gospels Jesus gives us a different set of rules for judging things to be acceptable or unacceptable...it is a different set of lenses through which we are called to view the world. These Gospel lenses “see” the poor, the immigrant and the marginalized as the beloved of God rather than “a drain on the system” or “foreigners” whom we should fear and send “back home”!

Looking at the world through “Gospel lenses” reveals a whole new way of seeing “the other” and seeing the world around us. What do “Gospel lenses” let me see about our current social and political debate on issues of systemic racism, immigration, refugees, and on issues of gender and misogyny and economic inequality, poverty and ecology. In what light do “Gospel lenses” let me see my sister and brother, Muslims and people of other faiths and political beliefs?

What challenges are presented to me by looking at the burning issues of the world around me, through “Gospel lenses”? And how deeply does that “Gospel view” impact my response to those issues?
​

Blessings,
Fr Tim 

October 16, 2022

10/14/2022

 
Prayer has been “reverently” described as wasting time with God. I like to think of it as a “blessed” waste of time. Our Scripture this weekend offers us an opportunity to think about “prayer”; to think about our relationship with God.

Some folks are a bit hesitant to talk about their prayer life. Some think you need a degree in theology to talk about prayer. But I beg to differ…some of the most profound insights I ever heard about prayer and God’s action in our lives didn’t come from theologians or professional religious, they have come from ordinary people. Folks in the trenches of life who at times have found themselves lost in a dark wood only to encounter a light in the midst of the darkness. I have learned far more from people like you about prayer than from all the books I’ve read and the courses I’ve taken…and as well, from what I’ve learned from my own journey with God.

One thing I have come to believe is that God desperately desires us to engage with Him. God loves us deeply and passionately, just the way we are, and desires us -- for we are “God’s beloved”!

And because we are God’s beloved, God wants to communicate to us, to commune with us…and this communication and communing, we call prayer.

Prayer happens when we are willing to open our hearts and my minds to God’s presence right in the midst of the ordinariness of our daily lives. God seeks us out, but we have to stop running. We need to sit down and just “waste time” with God.

We must engage in the mystery of the Divine indwelling -- the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, within each one of us! Think about that. Sit with that sacred reality: that God is very truly within each one of us, as we are the temples of the Holy Spirit! How does that truth shape my life, shape my relationships with others? How does it shape my relationship with God, and with how I see and understand myself?

How much time have I “wasted” with God lately? What could I do to deepen my prayer life? How does God most often speak to me…through the celebration of the Eucharist, through listening to music, through nature, perhaps through a loving relationship I experience God’s love, maybe in and through caring for others, or simply by sitting in the silence?

Jesus exhorts us to “pray always, without becoming weary.” Can I fit 5 minutes, 3 times a day into my busy schedule to acknowledge God’s presence within me?

As we think about praying throughout the day, often people will say, my day is so full and it just gets away from me. One suggestion I have is to schedule it on your smart phone, just like you would schedule a meeting, or dinner or lunch with friends.

One way to pray throughout the day is to set an alarm on your phone or put a post it note in a place that you will see often throughout the day that reminds you to “take five”.

To take five minutes to acknowledge God’s presence within you and around you. A few minutes to ask for help if you need it, to reflect on what you are grateful for in your life in that day and to say “thank you” to God. It is about taking a few minutes to connect with God. It is a way of keeping God at the center of your day and at the center of your life. It can have an amazing impact on the quality of your relationship with God and with others.

Blessings,
Fr Tim

October 9, 2022

10/7/2022

 
Today’s readings deal with the theme of gratitude…of giving thanks. The word “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word for “the act of giving thanks”. Our Eucharist is first and foremost an action of giving thanks to our God.

The readings portray two remarkable foreigners. In the first reading we meet Naaman, a foreigner, a powerful commander of one of Israel’s enemy’s armies.

In the Gospel we meet a leper -- an outcast not only because of his leprosy but because he is a Samaritan, a foreigner. And not just any foreigner, a Samaritan! We have been over this many times. The Samaritans were considered to be almost “sub-humans,” out-siders not part of the House of Israel!

The actions of gratitude of the two foreigners are truly admirable, but the most remarkable lesson may quite possibly be found in the character of God. In the healing of both foreigners, complete “outsiders”, we see the universal scope of God’s salvation.

In both instances, we are shown that God’s love and salvation have no ethnic or racial boundaries or borders. God’s love is universal and without limits.

The only fitting response to God’s wondrous love for us is joyful thanksgiving and a willingness to emulate this love and healing by following Jesus’ example and command to love our neighbor as our sleves.

Jesus calls us to reach out to the leper, to the lost, the lonely, the outcast and the immigrant and the refugee… all those denied justice and whom the world despises.

We are called to embrace them all -- to be the loving arms of our God present in the midst of hatred, violence, racism and marginalization.

As we continue to reflect on this weekend’s readings, let us ask ourselves: What am I grateful for in my life? Who are the lepers, the outcasts, the marginalized in my life that I am called to open up my arms and embrace? And how can I embrace them?

Blessings,
Fr Tim

    Author

    Fr. Tim Hickey, C.S.Sp.

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Our Lady Queen of Peace
2700 South 19th Street
Arlington, Virginia, 22204, USA
703-979-5580 Office
703-979-5590 Fax
office@ourladyqueenofpeace.org
Office hours: Mon-Fri, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm (closed on federal holidays)
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Weekend Mass Schedule
Saturday: Vigil Mass at 5:30 pm
Sunday: 8 am, 9:30 am, 11:15 am, 1 pm (Spanish),
​6 pm (young adult)

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