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April 11, 2021

4/9/2021

So often when I hear this Gospel I focus on how Thomas gets a bad rap for doubting what we know to be true...even though it was all so totally preposterous...remember, he was among the first human beings to hear of the resurrection. This scene, in of itself, is so unbelievably powerful...remember the last time they saw him, he was being tortured, nailed to a cross, stabbed with a lance and died! So would you believe he was alive without seeing him...without touching his wounds? It’s kind of easy to understand Thomas’ disbelief. But again this year I decided to take a look at Jesus’ greeting... ”peace be with you”! Jesus’ disciples had witnessed that terrible first “Good Friday”, and now there were those who were saying he was alive! How could that be possible? In the midst of death, sorrow and immense disappointment, from the midst of a sense of total loss and failure...there Jesus was; the one upon whom they had pinned their hopes. There he was in their midst...speaking of peace after such violence had had been done to him! And yet there is no hint of revenge or “settling of scores” ...no accusations of betrayal and denial...only the offer of peace of the Risen Christ!

How do we, as disciples of this Christ; as individuals, as a church and as a country react when we are assaulted and have violence done to us...do we speak words of peace? Are we open to having words of peace spoken to us after having been hurt? Jesus offers us, not just any peace but, “his” peace...the peace of Christ! It is the peace of the One who was struck, beaten and crucified...a peace that knows so well, pain and suffering. His peace is a peace that brings forth forgiveness and ultimately leads us to new life! This peace of Christ is transformative. It holds the power to change us and to change how we see and understand the world around us and how we see each and every one of our sisters and brothers, especially those who are different from us. This peace of Christ can transform our communities, our nation, and the very world itself! We must however be willing to accept the peace that Christ offers to us and be brave enough to allow it to transform our very selves, then we can share it with others and build up the Reign of God in the here and now. The Reign of God in which all peoples are equally valued, loved and appreciated for who they are and for whose they are.

Just as the scared and confused disciples gathered in that up- per room, we too need this peace of Christ more than ever in the wake of all of trials and tribulations we find ourselves liv- ing through. In these most difficult times may we open our hearts to that transformative peace of Christ and share it with all the lonely, depressed, the despised and targeted, those seeking racial justice and equality. May this peace of Christ embolden us to stand with and stand up for all those whose voices are silenced or not listened to, to stand with and for all those who are threatened and harassed each day. May this peace of Christ bring us together to help build up the Reign of God where all peoples are equally valued, loved and appreciated for who they are and for whose they are.

What kind of peace do I offer when I am hurt by others? To whom do I need to offer “the peace of Christ”? How can I make “the peace of Christ” show forth in my daily life...within my family, my workplace, my community...and my country? The peace of the Risen Christ is with you always!

Easter Blessings,
Fr Tim

April 4, 2021

4/2/2021

On that first day of the week, while it was still dark...Mary went to the tomb only to discover it empty....then she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple.” She was in a hurry to share what she had found; and by her sharing, a small community took up the search for Jesus...only to eventually discover “The Christ”... “The Risen One”.

Though we know well the Easter story, do we ever fully grasp its meaning? The stone has been rolled away...the tomb is empty for resurrected life cannot be contained! Like the first believers, we so often must continue to live even with our dashed hopes, our suffer- ing and our misunderstanding of God’s mysterious power.

Like the first believers, we do not always realize that all of history has been broken open and is now filled with the resurrected presence of the Risen One! Even in the midst of war and famine, even in the midst of suffering and loss, the presence of the Risen One is with us, and never leaves us, even if our pain and suffering causes us to be blind to that Risen Presence. It is this presence that gives us the strength to carry on and speak truth to power, to stand up for the poor and the marginalized and fight against evil in all its ugly forms, that we know so well.

Christ has Risen...this is the day the Lord has made...let us rejoice and be glad!!!

Like Mary Magdalene and the other disciples let us actively seek the risen One in our midst...in the ordinary of our daily lives...for as surely as Christ appeared to the disciples, Christ now appears to us in our lives! Let us keep our eyes, ears and hearts open to the presence of the Risen One. Let us, like Mary, run forth to share the good new of Jesus Christ with all the world!

I pray you all, God’s Most abundant Easter Blessings,
Fr. Tim

March 28, 2021

3/26/2021

Today’s readings carry the sorrows and the weight of the world. The false accusations, denials, betrayals, injustice and beatings Jesus faced are heart- breaking. Today’s Eucharist begins with great joy with palm branches in hand, we sing victorious hymns to commemorate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Like the crowds, we to welcome and rejoice in his reign. Similar to the disciples, we are also excited and filled with wonderful expectations. However when we listen to the passion of Jesus Christ, the mood of the crowds as well as that of the disciples changes swiftly. The crowds are fickle, cheering for Jesus one day and shouting “crucify him” the next day. Even many of his closest friends and followers sheepishly deny their knowledge of and association with him, and in cowardly fashion, abandoned him out of fear for their own safety.

Jesus, on the other hand is resolved to faithfully car- ry out his mission; the proclamation of the advent of the reign of God and of God’s lavish love and forgiveness poured out for each one of us, and for the earth itself...”for God so loved the world”. Through the suffering and death of Jesus we have been saved, forgiven, and our sins and guilt put as far from us as the East is from the West! We may wonder at times if God really loves us...and just how much. Today we are reminded how much -- as Christ spread his arms wide upon the cross, this is how much we are loved by God!

How do I live out my identity as the “beloved of God”? How can I share this message of God’s love and forgiveness with others? To whom am I being called to open wide my arms to embrace them in the midst of their need? Who are being crucified today...the millions of refugees, people, because of the color of their skin, people crucified for their im- migration status, who they love, what language they speak, what part of the world or country they were born in, their age, their gender, their intellectual or physical abilities? As I enter this Holy Week, whose burdens will I help to shoulder to the foot of cross as I journey with Jesus this week, and meditate up- on the gift of love and forgiveness which he has so lavishly poured upon me, and upon all of humanity?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr Tim

March 21, 2021

3/19/2021

Here we are in the fifth week of Lent, careening towards that horrible first “Good Friday”, and today we hear Jesus warn his disciples of what is about to befall him. Few people truly want to die, not even Jesus... “let this cup pass from me if it is your will”. But Jesus approaches with reverence and awe, knowing that he is heard and loved by the One who sent him. Jesus knows the cost of what is being asked of him and embraces it... and in embracing the cross, Jesus embraces us! Jesus uses the metaphor of the grain of wheat that must die to produce fruit to help us understand that death is not the end but rather a moment of transformation that bears new fruit!

The amazing thing is that in the midst of dying, as he hung upon the cross, Jesus knew he was not abandoned; that the One who sent him was with him. And precisely because he knew this he cried out to that One in prayer, praying Psalm 22, the opening verse which begins with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That psalm does not end in abandonment and death but rather in triumph, “they will proclaim his righteousness, to a people yet unborn. He has done it!” For the faithful Jew, Jesus’ praying of the 22nd Psalm, as he died upon the cross, would have made total sense...the psalm moves from fear of abandonment to the proclamation “He has done it!”....I have not been abandoned!

It is also of note that the next Psalm, the 23rd Psalm, is the Psalm of the Good Shepherd...”The Lord is my Shepherd there is nothing I shall want...even though I walk through the valley of death”. The message is that even in the midst of suffering and death we are not abandoned; our God is with us! And we celebrate this each time we celebrate the Eucharist. We retell this very story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and are strengthened by His very presence to go into the world and proclaim the Good News!

We gather for Eucharist in good times and in bad -- in the midst of a horror of a pandemic, in the midst of sorrow and in the midst of joy -- strengthened in our discipleship to go forth as Christ-bearers into a wounded world desperately in need of forgiveness and healing.

We are called to be that healing presence, that presence of peace in the midst of fear and war, that presence of open arms in the face of rejection and discrimination. We are the ones called to continue the work of Christ in the world to- day. Be it working to end gun violence, or to end racism and bigotry or working towards a just immigration policy that recognizes the sacredness of family or speaking out to end all forms of discrimination based on gender, or age or sexual orientation or “otherness.”

All of these are sins we are called to call out and work to eradicate from our society. Just as Jesus opened wide his arms on the cross so as to embrace the entire world in his love, so too we are called to open wide our arms and embrace “the other”! Who is “the other” that I am being called to embrace, to include, to stand with, and to walk with?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr Tim

March 14, 2021

3/12/2021

“For God so loved the world”...these words that we hear in today’s Gospel set up for us, for all that follows in the Gospel of John...all of Jesus’ words and healings and miracles... everything...yes even the cross, or should I say “especially the cross”!

In the Gospel of John everything needs to be viewed and understood through this reality...that all of God’s saving actions have happened, and continue to happen, precisely because God so deeply and passionately loves the world! I know you hear me say this over and over again but please understand this is the reason that I do what I do...it is why I am still here today...to share this amazing truth that you are deeply and passionately loved by God...just as you are!

Now, I could do a reading of today’s text using strictly a historical critical methodology or perhaps the textual critical method or even a sociological methodology...but all of them fail in the awesomeness...yes I just said “awesomeness”...of this reality that God is, above all else, love! Yes, the very essence of that Divinity which created all that exists...is love! And we are the object of that Love! Imagine what our lives could look like if each one of us lived as if we were the “beloved of God”!
So in this fourth week of Lent it may seem peculiar in the midst of all of the suffering in the world, in the midst of this heart breaking pandemic, in the midst of our own pain and sorrow to talk of God’s audacious love for us...but I think not. Yes, in the midst of all of the pain and suffering of the world and of our lives we need, very much, to reflect on how deeply and passionately we are love by God! In the midst of our Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving we need to ask ourselves “why”...why are we praying, why are we fasting and why are we giving alms...because I am so deeply and passionately loved by God?

What do I have to do to open my heart wider to God’s love for me? Do I really believe that God loves all people equally...even my enemies? How can I share God’s deep and passionate love for all human beings with others? Based on God’s love for all of us how do I respond to situations of racism, sexism, ageism or xenophobia, homophobia? Through what environmentally conscious acts can I show my understanding of God’s love of all of creation? I think these are some important questions for me to spend some time meditating on and then acting on.

Lenten Blessings,
Fr. Tim

March 7, 2021

3/5/2021

As we careen towards the halfway point of our Lenten journey it is good to take a moment and step back, take a deep breath and ask...what are we looking for this Lent? To get closer to God? To clean up our act? To feel more religious? or just to lose a few pounds?

We must be frank about our objective, because we’re bound to find what we seek. The right answer might not be what we think it is. We don’t have to get closer to God. We can’t: God’s right here. God dwells in us, temples of the Holy Spirit!
Getting closer to God’s will might be a better goal, because that alignment is often very far off, it is what most of us struggle with. If we find ourselves thinking that Lent’s not working, that the enchantment of “feeling our religion” isn’t happening this year, then maybe the answer is to practice a new consciousness.

What if we all tried to spend one hour a day trying to be consciously aware of God in every person we met and every place we go? Keep searching with our eyes, our mind, our heart. If we practice believing what we profess—that God is in our midst— then we are much more likely to awaken to the presence of the Divine! At the very least it will begin to change how we see and relate to other people as we practice seeing and believing the Divine presence within each one of our sisters and brothers, regardless of how they may treat us!

This is what Pope Francis is hoping will happen as we draw near to immigrants and refugees, to all those who are marginalized....that we will come to know them as sister and brother, as images of the Creator, as children of God. In whom is it most difficult for me to see God? What deeper reality is God calling me to this Lent? To whom am I being called to “draw nearer”?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr. Tim

February 28, 2021

2/26/2021

This Sunday we hear Mark’s account of the Transfiguration of Jesus. Right before the eyes of three of the disciples, Jesus’ true identity bursts forth and in one brief luminous moment, Peter, James and John are themselves forever changed...”transfigured”, with a growing awareness of the true identity of Jesus! I believe that each one of us have our own “moments of transfiguration”, moments in which we see or feel the very presence of God. They are moments when, deep inside, we come to know with certainty that God is present...that God is real.

These moments of awareness hold the potential to transfigure our lives into something new...something wonderful. The challenge is to learn “to live out of these moments”, keeping these moments alive in our hearts and minds allowing them to continually transfigure us more and more into the image and likeness of God. Each one of us carries within us experiences of the tenderness, mercy and love of God.

So often it is the chaos of our lives that “dim” the luminous moments of encounters with our God...we forget we ever had them in the midst of the rush and busyness of our daily lives. Not all of these “transfiguration” moments are happy or joyful, some of them come in the midst of great sadness, even in the midst of tragedy and death. I have had such “transfiguration” moments with people as they were dying, luminous in-breakings of Grace that transfigured the dying person, and me as well!

These transfiguration moments exist all around us in encounters with the poor and the marginalized, with the immigrant and refugee, with the one whom we see as “other”, there is God, waiting, wanting us to reach out and take “the other’s” hand and be transfigured.

Lent is a wonderful opportunity to look for transfiguration moments as well as to step back and recall those moments of grace when the fullness of God burst into our lives...when we realized that we were not alone... that there was something more to life, more than what we can see or touch...more than we can imagine...“God moments”!

When was my last “God moment”? How was I transfigured by that moment? What does that “God moment” call me to do, to be? Whose hand am I being called to reach out and grasp?

Lenten Blessings,
Fr. Tim

February 21, 2021

2/19/2021

In this Sunday’s Gospel, we hear of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert where he was tempted by the devil to choose worldly power and fame over his mission of compassion and forgiveness, and the announcement of the “in breaking” of the Reign of God. As we begin Lent it is appropriate for us to reflect a bit on our own lives, our own desert experiences and our own temptations. All of us as humans are tempted by pride, arrogance, selfishness, anger and greed...the real question is not if we have those temptations, but whether or not we give in to those temptations.

For some, who give in, they are led to disgraceful acts of greed and ego with catastrophic results. All we need do is read the headlines in the newspapers or listen to the nightly news...we know who they are and are able to judge their heinous acts...choosing profit over the lives of innocent children, manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.

But for most of us, our pride and greed is somewhat more contained...a white lie here and there...perhaps a small theft once in a while...a few carefully chosen harsh words meant to wound. Most of us are basically good people, trying to live as God has called us to live. In the recesses of our hearts we know we’ve been tempted...we’ve stood on the precipice of surrendering to our baser desires...enticed by money, recognition, or power to take advantage of situations or people, neglect of our responsibilities, or treat ourselves or others with disregard and disrespect. But take heart...the slippery slope toward sin does not a sinner make...St Paul in his letter to the Romans tells us that the “lie of sin” is that we think we can’t recover....that our sin makes us irredeemable...unloved and unlovable. Nothing is further from the truth!

We are assured over and over in the Gospels and the Psalms that nothing, no sin, can keep us from the love and forgiveness of God. God puts our sins as far away from us as the East is from the West!

Lent is an opportunity to walk into the darker corners of our heart and face our shortcomings and open ourselves to the Light of Christ...to allow Christ to transform us into the people that God dreams us to be. But how do we do that, individually, as a community and as a nation? How do we deal with our national sin of systemic racism and bigotry, as well as the sins of misogyny, the rejection of the immigrant, the refugee, the LGBTQ community, the poor, the mentally ill, the handicapped, the rejection of the one who is “other” than me?

Lent can be a time to look not only at our personal sin but at our nation’s “structural sin”! Lent can be a time to begin again — let us not allow the sins of our past and pre‐ sent to darken our future by thinking that all is lost! Instead let this Lent be a season of newness; a season of beginning again.

What can I/we do to let the light of Christ illumine the darker corners of our hearts and of our nation’s soul? What feelings or actions do I/we need to let go of to begin again, living a more Christ centered life that can lead us to take on the structural sins of our country? What can I do this Lenten season to build up the Reign of God by working for racial justice and for an end to white privilege.

Lenten Blessings,
Fr. Tim

February 14, 2021

2/12/2021

Today’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus healing of the leper. In biblical times leprosy was a term used to cover a whole host of skin diseases and conditions. Many did not in fact have true leprosy. But unfortunately, they were nonetheless completely cut off from all family, friends and community. They became total outcasts, having to call out as they walked along “unclean, unclean”! Imagine the damage to the human psyche how brutally hurtful to the soul it all must have been to live with a belief of yourself as “unclean”; how isolating it would have been. Imagine the powerful impact that Jesus’ healing had on this man, it would have been completely and utterly life altering and transformative!

While Jesus had instructed him to tell no one about his healing he ran forth and told everybody he encountered about what Jesus had done and how he had healed him. But it is so easy to understand how he simply could not keep his mouth shut about what had happened to him. Suddenly he had his life back; he had his family back. He could once again enjoy the company of his friends and his community! He was no longer an outcast. He no longer had to identify himself as “unclean” and unfit and unable to be part of the human family!

And so, this Gospel begs the question: who are the lepers in our lives, in our communities, in our nation and in our world? Immigrants, refugees and migrants, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community all these people are treated with disdain and contempt by hate groups, and people who fail to see their common human dignity, they fail to see that the ones they hate are the beloved children of God! Racists, white supremacists, misogynists, xenophobes all fail the most basic test of discipleship. Their lives are ruled by hatred of “the other” and they do not love their neighbor as their selves, let alone love their enemy, as Jesus commanded all of us to do as his disciples!

Living our discipleship means loving one another without limits or qualifications! It does not stand on how they treat us or how they think of us. It is about our attitude toward them, not what they do! Treating “the other”, especially the one who has offended me, as the beloved child of God is no easy task but being a disciple of Jesus is no easy life. It ultimately leads to the cross!

We must be willing to at least be open to the possibility of loving the one who hates and return their hate with Gospel love. To embrace them, not their hate filled words and actions or intentions. We can strongly and loudly, in the name of the Gospel, call out as “sin” their wicked words and despicable actions! But that does not mean that we hate them, as they are still the children of God! This is where it gets difficult to put what Jesus calls us to, into action! To live the life of a disciple.

We will fall down and fail but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, we can rise up and start again!

We need to ask ourselves, who are the lepers in my life and how can I try to bring healing and wholeness to them?

How can I actively work to bring an end to all of these “isms” that divide, devalue and demean the human dignity of any of my sisters and brothers?

God’s Blessings,
Fr Tim

February 7, 2021

2/5/2021

Whenever I hear today’s Gospel -- the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and how she immediately gets up and starts to wait on them and feed them -- I always think ‘give her a break’, the woman was just sick in bed with a fever! But have you ever just gotten over the flu or an illness and you feel em- powered, you feel like you have to go and do something? It’s the story of so many of the people whom Jesus heals -- they run off telling all who will listen that Jesus has healed them, even when he has specifically told them not to tell a soul.

And then all the people start to gather at Peter’s house bringing the sick and the lame and Jesus says he and the disciples must move on to the next village, surely leaving a very disappointed crowd behind. He pushes on because he feels the pull of his mission to proclaim the bursting forth of the Reign of God! He feels the pull of the preaching of the Good News of God! It is that mission that Jesus gave to his disciples, to preach the Good News, even unto the ends of the earth!

One of our Spiritan theologians, Rev. Tony Gittins, CSSp, says that the church doesn’t have a mission as much as the mission has a church! The church exists for the sake of the mission Jesus gave to his disciples. And it is that mission that drives the church and gives it direction. It is that mission that drives all Jesus’ disciples!

How excited am I for living and preaching the Good News?

How does it drive my daily decisions and actions?

What parts of the Gospel do I find most challenging to put into action in my life?

God’s Blessings,
Fr Tim

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