REPENT! Prepare the way of the Lord! These words of John the Baptist echo down through the centuries and are as pertinent to us as they were to those who first heard them. John came from the desert crying out to the people, calling them to a moment of metanoia”…literally “a turning around”. The Voice of John the Baptist cries out to us in the midst of the rush and chaos of the Advent season, calling us to a conversion of heart. He announces the breaking forth of the Reign of God in our very midst. But can we hear him amid the cacophony and the clamor of our busy and overscheduled lives? I think not…not unless we are willing to step back, to sit down and to spend a moment reflecting on our lives and our relationships. We need to ask ourselves if we are “living” our discipleship.

The Scriptures for this Sunday speak of a new time for the people of Israel, a time of great hope…a new reign that is breaking forth. In this new world, mercy and justice will flourish and the wicked and unjust ones will be banished forever. But as we look around it seems as if we are a long way off from the “peaceable kingdom”. Wars rage and political unrest swirl around us like the biting winds of a cold December night. Millions of our sisters and brothers desperately seek refuge with no home in sight. Terrorists strike the innocent and fill us with fear…it all seems so bleak.

Where is the Reign of God bursting forth? It is waiting to burst forth from within each one of us! The Reign of God bursts forth every time we respond to a person or a situation in a Christ-like manner. Are we brave enough to “turn around” to answer the call of John the Baptist…to allow the love of God to soften our hearts and enlighten our minds? As Christians are we willing to really “live” the Reign of God through our daily actions? What would that look like…what would I have to change in my life for me to be a living sign to others of the bursting forth of the Reign of God, bringing love, mercy and forgiveness into a world so full of anger, violence and fear?

Advent Blessings, 
Fr Tim

Happy New Year! ...no, I’ve not lost it…today we celebrate the First Sunday of Advent…the beginning of the church’s liturgical year. Advent is truly a “wonder-filled” season. We look to the deep blue night sky…shimmering with a billion stars, each one a reminder of the dawn of creation… of the promise of the long awaited savior. There is something about staring up at the night sky… something awe inspiring and spiritual in nature, it calls us to look beyond ourselves.

Advent is a time to “make time”…in the midst of all the commercialism, in the midst of all of chaos that we call “the holiday rush”, we are called to slow down, to stand back and to reflect… to take time to allow the wonder of the Great Christmas Event to settle into our souls…to shake us loose from the ordinariness of our daily lives and allow ourselves to be wrapped up in the awe and wonder of the Incarnation…the fact that our God so deeply loves us and that God’s very self became human to prove that love to us. That love is for you…just as you are! This amazing love is for all of God’s creation, for all peoples and for the earth itself!

This Advent we find ourselves in the midst of a huge humanitarian crisis as our sisters and brothers flee war, violence and terror, they wander the earth in search of a home. As we reflect on the wonder and awe of God’s amazing love for the earth and all humanity let us raise our voices and our hands to make sure that these refugees, and all who wander the earth in search of finding “home”, be taken in. Let us not allow fear to rule our lives, but rather the love of Christ!

Just as the Holy Family was made refugees by the tyrant Herod, so too these sisters and brothers of ours stand at our southern border, they flee violence and war, let us work to make sure they find a “home” too! Let us not allow the immensity of the crisis to paralyze us and convince us we can do nothing for in Christ we can do all things. What can I do this Advent to help in the midst of this humanitarian crisis?

Advent Blessings,
Fr Tim

​Since 1969, the end of the liturgical year is punctuated by the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (previously known as “the Feast of Christ the King”). The raising of its status to a “Solemnity” and the expansion of the title point to a deepening of the understanding of the cosmic nature of the “Christ Event” and its impact in not only human history but of its impact on all created reality! Perhaps “Sovereign of the Universe” would be a less patriarchal title and convey the same reality.

Today throughout the church we focus not just on Christ’s sovereignty over all creation but on Christ’s love for each of us and indeed God’s love for all creation. The second reading helps to hone the true image of “this Sovereign”…the glory is to be given to the one who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his very life. And if we listen, we can hear the echo of the Good Shepherd in Jesus’ final words in today’s Gospel…“everyone who belongs to the Truth listens to my voice.” And so we listen to Christ’s voice in our lives and make Christ the sovereign of our lives. Not as one who lords it over us but as the One who came that we might have eternal life….the One who remains in us and we in Christ…who was, who is, and who is yet to come!

This understanding of Christ as Sovereign of the Universe holds the power to draw us into the enormity of the mystery of the Divine act of creation itself, a holy and selfless act of Love…and we are the progeny of this ever expanding, creating Love. In a world with far too many despots and tyrants who rule by force and fear, we are called to build up the Reign of God, that all creation might flourish and blossom, a Reign built on love and mercy. So in the midst of reflecting on the sovereignty of Christ in our lives let us pray for and work towards solutions that help to end war and violence, and open our hearts to their victims, thus building up the Reign of God. Let us not be ruled by fear or violence but rather let us be ruled by the “Sovereign of the Universe”, Love, itself!

Blessings,
Fr Tim

The liturgical year is coming to an end and so we start to ponder the reality that one day the world will end and Christ will return…but when? Some Christians routinely (and wrongly) announce the return of Christ…they seem to forget that Jesus clearly said that no one, not even “He” knew when the world would end! And yet they continue to claim to know the date and time. Remember the “Jesus is coming on May 21st” billboards that dotted the highways a few years ago?

Today’s Gospel is not about “knowing” when Christ will come…but rather about being ready when Christ does come! Am I ready? At the center of the readings is a message of total reliance upon the mercy and love of God. It is about keeping our hearts and minds open to God’s presence in our daily lives and in the world around us! The psalmist reminds us that God is our portion and cup, our inherence and therefore our hearts are glad and our souls rejoice…for we are God’s beloved!

By keeping God at the center of our daily lives we indeed will be ready if the world were to end in our time. Because of the love and mercy of our God we need not fear “the end” for we will be transformed into beings that shine like the stars in the heavens! Through Christ we have inherited eternal life and each of us is a part of “the great cloud of witnesses” who give glory to God. When and where was the last time I felt the presence of God in my life? How do I actively engage in keeping God at the center of my life? How do I give glory to God in my life?

Blessings,
Fr Tim

The women in our readings today, the widow of Zarephath and the widow in the temple treasury, gave not from their surplus but from their want…each one gave all that she had. That fact that they are widows living in a patriarchal society with no male relatives mentioned points towards an understanding that they were on their own with no one to guard them or provide for their needs. Widows had little or no social standing in the patriarchal society they lived in. Widows and orphans were the most vulnerable class of people in this society and there were scriptural edicts that they were to be protected, but obviously their poverty and dire situations proved that these edicts were not followed.

The Widow of Zarephath is blessed by God for her generosity with a flour jar and an oil jug that never runs out and she and her son survive the drought. And the widow at the temple, unaware that she is being watched, is hailed by Jesus as a woman with the most generous heart, unlike those who were rich and made a scene of their gifts. And Jesus diminishes the value of their gifts because of the size of their wealth. So the lowly widow, who gave from her want, becomes the heroine of the story.

There are so many examples of people in our world today who give like the women in today’s scripture, not just money but their time and talent. They see a need and they respond to that need…foster parents, hospice and healthcare workers, firefighters, police officers, military women and men, teachers, parents who sacrifice so much for their children to have a safe and good life. The list goes on and on, and includes YOU, each time you reach out in kindness to help someone in need, each time you think of the other instead of yourself, each time you seek to feed the stranger with your last bit of flour and oil you are that widow, each time you offer more than you have to really offer to aid someone in need or to a good cause you are that widow with the most generous heart that Jesus pointed out to his disciples in the temple. When was the last time I “acted as the widows did”?

Blessings,
Fr Tim

So what is the greatest commandment…loving God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself…which Jesus says is worth more than all burnt offerings and all sacrifices! A very powerful statement to be sure…but it seems we still haven’t got it! We still put all kinds of rules and regulations and pious practices ahead of this “one”, clearly stated, commandment. Even though Jesus was so very clear about it, it seems that we still insist on putting all these other “things” ahead of this one straight forward commandment.

Imagine if we were to order our lives around this singular commandment, imagine how the world might be…imagine if we focused on truly loving God and our neighbor…if that was the singular organizing principle of our lives, of our church, of our world! Our whole world view would change…we would see migrants and immigrants not as strangers and threats, but as sisters and brothers. We would see the poor, the needy and vulnerable not as taxing on our resources, but family in need, and respond out of love. Our primary motivation no longer focuses on just ‘what I can get or do for myself’ but looks to God and to my neighbor. Suddenly the wellbeing and safety of “the other” takes on a whole new significance in my life in “the Kingdom of God”!

So my stance on issues like just war theory, euthanasia, abortion, equal access to education, just wages, affordable housing, equal access to healthcare, compassionate care of the elderly, infirmed and mentally ill and the list goes on...all these issues are viewed through the lens of this one commandment of loving God with our whole being and our neighbor as ourselves. It would call me to learn to let go of all my biases.  Imagine the social and political impact it would have in our country and around the world if all Christians or even if just a majority of Christians began to work towards building up Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God!

And of course imagine the impact it would have on the church itself, if all the priests, deacons, nuns, brothers, bishops and cardinals used this commandment as their primary lens through which they exercised every aspect of their ministry, it would be transformative! Clericalism and careerism would be replaced with servant leadership which would bring about an end to the ongoing leadership scandal in the church.

Within our country all our political discourse would radically change, poverty, racism, the marginalization of others, would all be things of the past…imagine! Jesus did...no he commanded that it be so! This is his vision of “the Kingdom of God”, and it is the challenge that Jesus places before us as his disciples…for us to put love of God and love of neighbor first!

What would my life look like if I set aside all my resentments and grudges and pettiness and chose to accept and love people just the way they are regardless of how wrong I believe them to be? What do I need to let go of in my life so that God and neighbor can be first? How do I best show my love of God? How do I best show my love of neighbor? What might I need to change in my life to make Jesus’ commandment more fully the standard by which I live?

Blessings,
Fr Tim

​In this Sunday’s Gospel the blind man, Bartimaeus, sitting on the edge of the road begging, recognizes and “sees” who Jesus is and cries out to him “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Because, through the eyes of faith, Bartimaeus has seen who Jesus is and he is able to ask to be healed …“Lord I want to see”!

Those words could very well be our cry for clarity in the way we “see” the world around us…those words may well be the exclamation of our deep desire to live more fully in Christ and to see as Jesus saw. We want to believe more, we want to see more…but we are hindered by our individual and collective blindness and it can hold us back from following Christ with complete and utter abandon. The Word we hear today is meant to stir us in our discipleship, to rouse our “Gospel sight” that we might see the world as God sees it…. that we might have our blindness removed and truly see the poor and marginalized as our sisters and brothers and reach out to them.

Let us pray that our church leaders may receive “Gospel sight”; that they might move definitively to end the coverup of the abuse scandal in our church and bring justice for all the victims. Let us pray for “Gospel eyes” that help us “to see” solutions to war and poverty, solutions for the hunger and suffering of immigrants, migrants and refugees sojourning around the globe searching for freedom and justice… searching for home. Let us pray “to see” solutions to end the racism and bigotry that divide our nation that we might live in peace and harmony, seeing each “other” as sister and brother.

Blessings,
Fr Tim

I am amazed at the audacity of James and John in this Sunday’s Gospel…asking…no telling Jesus that they want him to “do for us whatever we ask”! Who do they think they are? Better yet, who do they think Jesus is? The audacity to demand that Jesus do whatever they ask of him is unbelievable. And of course it ignites the ire of other disciples, most likely because the others thought that James and John might be getting something more than they would get.

Jesus calls them all together and explains, once again, that to be a leader in the Reign of God is to be a servant…it is to make oneself available to the other. He says that the one who wishes to be the greatest among you must be a servant for the rest and the one who wishes to be first must be slave to all. This image turns our vision of the world on its head, the most important among us is to act as the least and to serve the others. In Jesus’ world, as in ours’ today, servants were considered to be at the bottom of the ladder of society. They are the invisible ones, the expendable ones. Yet in the Reign of God, the servants are the truly special ones. By their service to others they follow Jesus Christ, and through their actions proclaim their citizenship in the Reign of God.

So let us reflect this week on our own place in the world and in the Reign of God. To whom am I called to serve? Who serves me and how do I treat them?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

In today’s Gospel Jesus warns us about becoming too complacent and comfortable in our faith. He warns that “some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last”. Note that he does not say that all who are last will be first nor will all who are first be last. Jesus exclaims that the “gate to the Kingdom of heaven is narrow”… he compares the size of the gate of heaven to “the eye of the needle”. Jesus says that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. So what chance do I have of passing through this gate?

n reality “the eye of the needle” refers to a small door built into the huge gates to the entrance of the walled city of old Jerusalem. The truth is that a person could easily pass through the “eye of the needle”...but a camel could only pass through if all of the supplies it was carrying were first “off-loaded”. It would be difficult, but the camel, stooping low, with saddle and supplies removed, could in fact enter through the “eye of the needle” and into the walled city.

I believe the point being made is that we need to “off-load” our stuff…to be willing to set down “things” that keep us from being about the work of the Kingdom of God. And so I ask myself…what things do I need to “off-load” in my life in order to better put my discipleship into action?

Blessings,
Fr Tim

Both the first reading and the Gospel warn against spiritual jealousy! In the first reading Joshua is upset that two men, who were not present when the Lord sent the Holy Spirit upon a group gathered in the tent to make them prophets, were out and about prophesying. What he didn’t know was that the Holy Spirit had come to rest on them as well. Moses was not worried at all and told Joshua to clam down and that he wished that all the people of Israel were prophets of God!

Similarly, in the Gospel the disciples run into a stranger who is casting out demons in the name of Jesus and they try to stop him because he is not one of their group. But Jesus warns them to leave the man alone and tells them that those who are not against them are with them. The truth is that the healing, the driving out of the demons, was through the power of Jesus. The disciples did not have the corner on using the name of Jesus to cast out demons! That was probably a tough lesson for them to learn, they were insiders, they were Jesus’ best and closest friends and here was an outsider, a stranger wielding the same power. But the truth is that it was God at work in that man, just like in them!

We can be that way too, limiting God’s grace to be when and where we think it should be and active in only whom we think it should be active. We forget that, like God’s mercy, it falls down from heaven like a gentle rain, upon the sinner and the saint. But we prefer most of the time to believe it's just for our “tribe”, just for us, the “insiders” and the “outsiders” are just that, left out! But we forget it’s God’s work, God’s desire that all creation be saved…”For God so loved the world…”.

At a time when we find our nation in such a fractious and divided state it might be good to reflect upon our common kinship as children of God, as sisters and brothers who “live and move and have our being in God.” Who are the “insiders” and “outsiders” in my life and how might I reach out to at least one or two “outsiders”? Where can I see active grace in my life right now? Can I see it active in one of the “outsiders” lives?

Blessings,
Fr Tim