Daily Thought

The Strength Of The Martyrs  Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning! Today we reflect on Christian hope as strength of the martyrs. When, in the Gospel, Jesus sends His disciples on mission, He does not deceive them with mirages of easy success; on the contrary, He warns them clearly that the proclamation of the Kingdom of God entails always opposition. And he even uses an extreme expression: “You will be hated — hated — by all for my name’s sake” (Matthew 10:22). Christians love, but they are not always loved. Jesus puts Himself immediately before this reality: in a more or less strong measure, the confession of faith happens in an atmosphere of hostility. Christians, therefore, are “counter current” men and women. It is normal, because the world is marked by sin, which manifests itself in various forms of egoism and injustice. One who follows Christ walks in the opposite direction. Not out of a controversial spirit, but out of fidelity to the logic of the Kingdom of God,...

Bearing Good Fruit Lectio Matthew 7:15–20 Meditatio “So by their fruits you will know them.” Jesus is counseling the disciples to avoid being naive. He wants followers who are simple, that is, childlike in their simplicity—uncomplicated, unsophisticated, but wise, aware, and astute. We should know our faith well enough to realize when we are being fed an untruth and familiar enough with Christ’s life to recognize a charlatan. Some people use religion for various types of gain: money, pleasure, honor. Occasionally someone will use religion as a front for evil purposes: to steal, to harass, to exploit. Jesus uses the example of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, possibly a popular metaphor of his day, to help us picture the danger. I immediately think of the stuffed animal—a wolf with a removable sheepskin—that sat for many years in my parents’ living room. Their grandchildren loved to play with it. Real-life versions aren’t as easily identified. Whom exactly is Jesus cautioning ag...

The Life-Changing Power Of The Holy Spirit!  In the second reading, we listened to the beautiful vision of Saint John: new heavens and a new earth, and then the Holy City coming down from God. All is new, changed into good, beauty and truth; there are no more tears or mourning… This is the work of the Holy Spirit: he brings us the new things of God. He comes to us and makes all things new; he changes us. The Spirit changes us! And Saint John’s vision reminds us that all of us are journeying towards the heavenly Jerusalem, the ultimate newness which awaits us and all reality, the happy day when we will see the Lord’s face – that marvelous face, the most beautiful face of the Lord Jesus - and be with him for ever, in his love.   You see, the new things of God are not like the novelties of this world, all of which are temporary; they come and go, and we keep looking for more. The new things which God gives to our lives...

United With The Sacred Heart      This Heart is a pierced Heart. Jesus stands before us with a pierced Heart. We have seen how knowledge of God has always cost; the human heart has to be broken open before it can receive God, and thus it was with Jesus. And the deepest mystery of all is that we learn that the Father's own Heart is pierced.       How can we enter into this pierced Heart? Only by becoming like it, .. living in love at whatever cost, paying the high price of loving. Too easily we assume that loving is a pleasurable experience. Most surely it is the only sweetness in life, but this must be understood correctly. True love is always bleeding in our mortal life. You simply cannot have love in this life without pain.  Just think of our own way of carrying on. We get hurt, offended ... what do we do? Shrink into ourselves, erect all sorts of barriers. Our heart has withdrawn from the one who hurts us in any way. We mustn't be hurt, "...

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The Nature of Conversion We are impatient, anxious to see the whole picture, but God lets us see things slowly, quietly. Pope Francis

God's Dwelling Is In Peace Keep your heart in peace and let nothing trouble you, not even your faults. You must humble yourself and amend them peacefully, without being discouraged or cast down, for God's dwelling is in peace. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

A Great Outlook! Remember the past with gratitude.  Live the present with enthusiasm.  Look forward to the future with confidence. St. John Paul II

A Challenging Task Lectio Matthew 5:38–42 Meditatio “… offer no resistance to one who is evil.” This is a hard teaching, or perhaps we should say it is a difficult teaching, a challenging teaching. When we read all of chapter 5 we realize that this is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon comes near the beginning of Jesus’ preaching. It develops in a prepared way—rather than spontaneously—and it contains the core message of Christianity. We should not be concerned about the origin of each of these teachings or whether they were given as one whole sermon or collected later by Matthew. Instead let us set ourselves to listen attentively. This Gospel passage is an explanation of the overall theme of love. Jesus is dismantling the common, strong inclination to seek retaliation, to exact revenge. So often we follow this lower instinct that requires nothing of our human nature—simply anger, brute force, animal cunning, “inner evil.” Although we might feel str...

Strength For The Journey Life is a journey, along different roads, different paths, which leave their mark on us. We know in faith that Jesus seeks us out. He wants to heal our wounds, to soothe our feet which hurt from traveling alone, to wash each of us clean of the dust from our journey.  Pope Francis

The Centrality of Witness Spreading the Gospel means that we are the first to proclaim and live the reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, unity, and love that the Holy Spirit gives us. Pope Francis

Trust Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Pope Francis

Salvation - God's Relentless Search For Us   Psychologists tell us that a true friend is someone who has seen us at our worst and still loves us. If you have encountered me only on my best days, when all is going well and I am in top form, and you like me, I have no guarantee that you are my friend. But when you have dealt with me when I am most obnoxious, most self-absorbed, most afraid and unpleasant, and you still love me, then I am sure that you are my friend. The old Gospel song says, "what a friend we have in Jesus!" This is not pious sentimentalism; it is the heart of the matter. What the first Christians saw in the dying and rising of Jesus is that we killed God, and God returned in forgiving love. We murdered the Lord of Life, and he answered us, not with hatred, but with compassion. He saw us at our very worst, and loved us anyway. Thus they saw confirmed in flesh and blood what Jesus had said the night before he died: "I do not call you servants ...

Being Steeped In Christ Everyone knows that if you place a tea bag in a cup of hot water, that water will be transformed. It’s no longer just water, but a cup of tea with a distinct color and flavor. Once they’re combined, it’s no small task to remove the tea from the water. It would take a chemist a complex series of steps to separate the elements. This is a good analogy for the way God changes our lives. Take Peter and John, for example: they had been fishermen, but once Jesus came into their lives, something changed them. Then they spent three years being steeped in his love, his teachings, and his power to heal. They saw him in the day-to-day activities of their lives. They saw his death and his resurrected glory. Then they received the Holy Spirit, who came to live in them. How could they not be changed? You have been changed by the Lord, too. Like the tea bag in hot water, the Holy Spirit is in you; he is making a difference in your life. Every time you go to Mass, e...

PRAYER OF GRATITUDE        Thank You, Lord, for all Your gifts of love, especially for those we often overlook.    Thank You for friends;  they increase our love for You.    Thank You for enemies;  they increase our tolerance.    Thank You for joys and happiness; they strengthen our faith in You.    Thank You for trials and tribulations;  they strengthen our trust and perseverance.    Thank You for times when all goes well; they teach us serenity.    Thank You for days when things are rough; they teach us patience.    Thank You for our successes; they increase our confidence.    Thank You for our failures; they increase our humility.    Thank You, Lord, for the "ups" and "downs" of life.    Thank You, Lord, for the precious gift of life itself.    Comfort us when we are disturbed;  ...

Words To Live By "Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practice what you teach." from The Rite of Ordination

The Challenge To Be Full-Time Christians   Jesus tells us that the seed which fell on the path or on the rocky ground or among the thorns bore no fruit. I believe that we can ask ourselves honestly: What kind of ground are we? What kind of ground do we want to be? Maybe sometimes we are like the path: we hear the Lord’s word but it changes nothing in our lives because we let ourselves be numbed by all the superficial voices competing for our attention. I ask you, but do not respond immediately; everyone respond in his or her own heart: am I a young person who is numb? Or perhaps we are like the rocky ground: we receive Jesus with enthusiasm, but we falter and, faced with difficulties, we don’t have the courage to swim against the tide. Everyone of us respond in his or her heart: am I courageous or am I a coward? Or maybe we are like the thorny ground: negativity, negative feelings choke the Lord’s word in us (cf. Mt 13:18-22). Do I have the habit of playing ...

Pentecost & The Spirit of Unity Today concludes the Easter season, the fifty days that, from Jesus’ resurrection to Pentecost, are marked in a particular way by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is in fact the Easter Gift par excellence.  He is the Creator Spirit, who constantly brings about new things.  Today’s readings show us two of those new things.  In the first reading, the Spirit makes of the disciples a new people; in the Gospel, he creates in the disciples a new heart. A new people.  On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came down from heaven, in the form of “divided tongues, as of fire… [that] rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages” (Acts 2:3-4).  This is how the word of God describes the working of the Spirit: first he rests on each and then brings all of them together in fellowship.  To each he gives a gift, and then gathers them all into unity. ...

Pope Francis on The Grace of Pentecost Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today we contemplate and re-live in the liturgy the outpouring of the Holy Spirit sent by the risen Christ upon his Church; an event of grace which filled the Upper Room in Jerusalem and then spread throughout the world. But what happened on that day, so distant from us and yet so close as to touch the very depths of our hearts? Luke gives us the answer in the passage of the Acts of the Apostles which we have heard (2:1-11). The evangelist brings us back to Jerusalem, to the Upper Room where the apostles were gathered. The first element which draws our attention is the sound which suddenly came from heaven “like the rush of a violent wind”, and filled the house; then the “tongues as of fire” which divided and came to rest on each of the apostles. Sound and tongues of fire: these are clear, concrete signs which touch the apostles not only from without but also within: deep in their minds and hearts. As a result, “...

What Matters Most To God? What matters to God is people, not structures. It is souls that make the church beautiful, and therefore she must adorn herself with souls. God is concerned about the hearts of His people, the love of His people, and everything else is meant to function as a support to that priority. Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa