Category: Prayer

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    Being in the right place at the right time isn't usually a coincidence.  Far more often than we realize, I think it’s the work of the Holy Spirit.  Certainly that has to be the case in today’s first reading.  How else would we explain an angel directing Philip to be on a road at the very same time as the Ethiopian eunuch passed by, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah that referred to Jesus?  Seizing the moment, Philip explains the Jesus event to him in a way that was powerful enough and moving enough that, on seeing some water as they continued on the journey, the eunuch begged to be baptized.  Then, as the Spirit whisks Philip off to Azotus, the eunuch continues on his way, rejoicing in his new life.

    The same is true for those who were fortunate enough to hear Jesus proclaim the Bread of Life discourse that we’ve been reading in our Gospel readings these past days.  Having been fed by a few loaves and fishes when they were physically hungry, they now come to find Jesus who longs to fill them up not just physically but also, and more importantly, spiritually.  Their hunger put them in the right place at the right time.

    Maybe what’s important for us to get today is that we are always in the right place at the right time, spiritually speaking.  Wherever we find ourselves is the place that we are directed by the Holy Spirit to find God.  Wherever we find ourselves is the place that we are directed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim God.  And so we may be called upon to find God in the midst of peace, or chaos, or any situation.  We never know how God may feed us in those situations.  And we may indeed be called upon to proclaim God in those same peaceful, or chaotic, situations.  Because we never know when there will be someone like an Ethiopian eunuch there, aching to be filled with Christ’s presence and called to a new life.

    It is no coincidence that we are where we are, when we are.  The Spirit always calls on us to find our God and proclaim him as Lord of every moment and every situation. 

  • Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

    Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    At our core, we all want peace and security in our lives.  We don’t want rough waters, or pain, or discord in our families, and that’s all understandable.  I think it’s that very same sentiment that is behind our Scripture readings today.

    The Jewish people, the elders and the scribes, the religious establishment of the time, had their laws and customs, and for them, following those laws and customs represented a peaceful and secure life.  So they were not at all open to any kind of teaching that challenged their way of life.  Stephen points out that whenever a prophet called them to a deeper reality, a deeper sense of God’s call, rather than accept that teaching and reform their lives, their ancestors instead murdered the prophets.  And so their response was to prove his point.  They could not accept Stephen’s own prophecy that Christ in his glory was the key to human salvation.  So they stone him to death, with the tacit approval of a man named Saul, a man for whom God had future plans.

    The crowd in the Gospel reading wants peace and security too.  They had recently been fed in the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  But they had missed the point.  They wanted just the bread they could eat for today; they didn’t get and didn’t want to get the bread Jesus really wanted them to have – the bread of eternal life.  And so they ask today for another feeding sign.  Just like Moses was able to provide bread from heaven, they wanted Jesus to feed their physical hunger too.  But Jesus is more interested in their spiritual hunger, and longs to provide that in himself, he who is the bread of life.

    But if all we hunger for is peace and security, bread for today, then we will certainly miss receiving the Bread of Life.  Our hearts have to be open and our desires have to be for the deepest longings.  Then we can receive our Savior who wants to give us everything we truly need.  “I am the bread of life;” he says to us.  “Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

  • St. John Baptist de la Salle

    St. John Baptist de la Salle

    Today's readings | Today's saint
    [display_podcast]

    Our celebration today leads us to two great saints.  The first is St. Stephen in today’s first reading.  This is really the beginning of the end of his life.  His courageous words and steadfast commitment to the truth are beginning to find disfavor among some trouble makers.  The members of the “so-called Synagogue of Freedmen” are angry that they could not withstand Stephen’s wisdom, so they are starting to stir up trouble that will eventually lead to Stephen’s execution, but through it all, he finds his glory and peace in Christ.

    The second saint is the saint of today’s feast: St. John Baptist de la Salle.  John gave up a promising and rewarding career as a scholar-priest at an influential church, complete with a posh life that would take care of him for the rest of his life.  And he gave it up to work at a ministry he wasn’t all that excited about: educating young people.  Yet, the more he became convinced that this was his life’s calling, the more he dedicated himself to it.  He is the founder of the Christian Brothers, who have a ministry of education all over the world, and is the patron of school teachers. 

    His life resonates with St. Stephen in that he too met up with opposition.  He experienced heartrending disappointment and defections among his disciples, bitter opposition from the secular schoolmasters who resented his new and fruitful methods and persistent opposition from the Jansenists of his time, whose heretical doctrines John resisted vehemently all his life.

    Dedication to the truth can be a difficult thing to live.  There is always opposition to it.  But as St. Stephen and St. John Baptist de la Salle show us today, there is also joy and peace in it.

  • Third Sunday of Easter

    Third Sunday of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    emmaus“They recounted … what had taken place on the way, and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”  It is always interesting to me, in this story of the appearance of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, how the one thing that got through to them was the breaking of the bread.  He spent a long time walking with them, interpreting the Scriptures and recollecting all the things that had happened on the way.  But they never knew it was Jesus until he broke bread with them.

    Because of this, the early Christian community quickly took on a Eucharistic identity.  They gathered often and took part in the breaking of the bread, and it is in this act of worship that they found the icon of who they were.  “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus had commanded them, and through appearances like this one on the road to Emmaus, they quickly began to see how important this actually was.  And because the early Christian Community found its own identity in the breaking of the bread, it is not terribly surprising, I think, that we find ourselves to be a Eucharistic people.

    Listen to the part of the Gospel where he reveals himself to them once again: “And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.”  There are four specific verbs here: took, blessed, broke, gave.  First Jesus takes bread, receives our offerings, uses what we have to bring to the table.  Then he blesses that bread: as waning as our gifts may be, Jesus blesses them anyway and gives them a character that they could never have on their own, or as a result of our poor efforts.  Then he breaks it: just as his own body was broken for us on the cross, so he breaks the bread of our offerings so that it can be a sacrifice given for many.  Finally he gives it: our bread, our offerings, are now completely transformed, filled up with whatever they may lack, blessed and made available to many, and now given for our own sanctification and salvation.  The gifts we have given, which ultimately came from God, are now given to us once again, only this time with more blessing than they ever had.

    We are a Eucharistic people.  So we gather over and over to find our identity once again.  We offer our gifts: bread and wine, our experiences, our sorrows and joys, our loving and our living, our successes and failures, who we are and who we were meant to be.  Jesus takes all this, blesses it, breaks it and offers it back redeemed and sanctified and made whole and holy.  Every time we gather for the Eucharist, we not only recognize our Lord in the breaking of the bread, but also we recognize our selves, the ones we were created to be.

    In fact, it is this identity that forms our parish vision statement.  You may have seen it before.  If not, or if not recently, go on our website and look it up.  Here is what it says, and it comes directly from this very Gospel reading.  Listen:

    We, the Catholic community of St. Raphael,
    are a people being transformed into Christ.

    A community gathered –
    a worshipping people
    called by God
    formed by Scripture, Sacrament and Tradition
    renewed by the Spirit
    united in faith
    we journey together.
       
    A community blest –
    a gifted people
    honoring differences
    respecting the dignity of all
    learning and teaching
    developing leaders
    we grow in grace.

    A community broken –
    a compassionate people
    thirsting for justice
    aching for peace
    receiving and giving forgiveness
    bringing hope to the hopeless
    we struggle for wholeness.

    A community given –
    a generous people
    welcoming all
    offering our treasures
    leading with shared wisdom
    responding in love
    we embrace Christ's mission to transform the world.

    Our parish has chosen to identify itself as a Eucharistic community: taken, blessed, broken, and given for all.  How wonderful for us to see our Lord, to see ourselves, and to see one another in the breaking of the bread! 

  • Friday of the Second Week of Easter

    Friday of the Second Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    For any movement to succeed, it must take on a life beyond that of its present proponents.  It has to have a past and a future that are directed by a momentum beyond their own devices.  One might say, there must be a movement of the Holy Spirit in order for a movement to succeed.  Which is what Gamaliel was trying to tell the Sanhedrin.  If this Christianity thing was just a flash in the pan, then why get upset about it?  But if it was a bona fide movement of the Holy Spirit, then getting upset about it wasn’t going to do any good anyway.  Which is, of course, what happened.  God’s will is done regardless of what human beings think of it.

    We see that movement developing in today’s Gospel reading.  But it was too soon, and it was a movement not based on the Holy Spirit.  The people were beginning to clamor for Jesus the miracle worker, the one who would feed thousands with just a few loaves and fish, the one who would heal their sick and cast out their demons.  And Jesus came to do those things, but not just those things, not even primarily those things.  Jesus did not want to lead a movement that missed the point, that missed the grace.

    As is often the case, the Psalmist is the one who helps us to see the point and see the grace.  The one thing the Psalmist seeks today is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of his life.  That’s the point of the movement that Jesus intended, that’s the point of the movement the Apostles were part of and the Israelites couldn’t stop.  The whole point of our faith is to lead us to the house of the Lord both now and in eternity.  That is the one thing we gather together to seek this holy day.

     

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    In these Easter days, the Scriptures begin to speak to us about the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift, is not rationed, as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel reading. This gift is empowering and renewing and, according to the Psalmist, de-marginalizing.

    We all know the kind of men the Apostles were. Yet now, given the gift of the Holy Spirit, they have been transformed completely. Cowardice has been replaced by something very close to bravado. Ineffectuality has been replaced by miracle work. Hiding has been replaced by boldness fired by the truth. In a sense, they have been resurrected in these Easter days. They are new creations because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

    This is the gift that Jesus wants for us in these Easter days too. He wants us to know a complete transformation by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Having done penance during Lent, we now have the grace of that Spirit to transform our lives, our hearts, and our desires during Easter. And we are assured by our Risen Lord that the Spirit will not be rationed. Whatever it is that is lacking in us will be completely transformed in the Spirit so that we too can boldly proclaim the wonderful works of our God.

    That transformation happens little by little as we put ourselves in the presence of our God. We have that opportunity today with Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And beginning today, we have more of an opportunity than before. The hours for Adoration have been extended until 9:00pm when Adoration will conclude with Night Prayer and Benediction. Not only that, but this will now happen not just once, but twice each month. We will begin, as we always do, immediately following Mass today in the Chapel. I hope you’ll be able to spend some time with Jesus in prayer today.

    You never know how what gifts the Spirit is longing to bestow upon you, and how much they will transform you.

  • Easter Friday

    Easter Friday

    Today's readings
    [Mass for the school children.]  [display_podcast]

    We Catholics have the incredible gift of being able to celebrate Easter for eight days – we call that the Octave of Easter – and so today I can still say to you, “Happy Easter!” We celebrate Easter for eight days because it’s that important to us. This is the time when we remember that Jesus loved us so much that he died for our sins on the cross. But not only that, he rose from the dead and promised that we will one day too, because even death cannot stop God’s love for us. That’s why we celebrate Easter Day for eight days, and the Easter season for fifty whole days! Isn’t that wonderful? We are so blessed to be Catholic!

    On this Easter day, we have two wonderful stories in our Scripture readings. In our Gospel, the Apostles are all upset about Jesus’ death and they don’t know what to do about it. They followed him for three whole years and they never thought it would end up with Jesus dying on the cross. So they went back to what they used to do before they met Jesus – they went fishing. Only they didn’t have much luck with it. They go out fishing all night long and catch nothing. Nothing – not even an old tire or a shoe or anything!

    But Jesus, now risen from the dead, appears to them on the shore as they’re coming in. He asks them what they caught and they tell him: nothing. At this point they don’t know it’s Jesus, probably because after he rose from the dead, he looked a little different. So he tells them to put the nets out again and for some reason, even though they had to be tired and frustrated, they do it. And who would believe it – they caught so many fish it stretched the nets to the breaking point! Then they realize it’s the Lord, and he feeds them breakfast there on the shore – he feeds them just like he always did.

    And this gives them courage to do what they did in the second reading. Here they are healing a crippled man, and teaching the people, just like Jesus used to do. Then when the religious leaders confront them, they stand up to them, witnessing to their faith in Jesus who they knew had risen from the dead.

    At the beginning of the Gospel, the Apostles were so sad and confused they didn’t know what to do. They thought they had to go back and do what they used to do before they met Jesus, and to make things worse they turned out to be very bad at it. They can’t even catch one fish until Jesus appears to them. Then they catch all sorts of fish. And I think that huge catch of fish is a symbol for what they were going to do next. Because they now knew that Jesus was risen and still wanted to work in them, they were able to go out and do the same things Jesus did. Just like they caught a huge number of fish on the shore that morning, they were now catching huge numbers of people to follow Jesus. Our first reading says they “caught” about five thousand people to follow the Lord! Isn’t that wonderful?

    The reason we celebrate Easter so much and for so long is because it is at Easter that we find out that Jesus is never ever ever going to leave us alone! He may have died on the cross, but God wasn’t going to let a little thing like death stop us from knowing him and his love for us. God still works in our world. He wants us to do the things the Apostles did. He wants us to take care of the sick and to teach other people about him. And even if those things sound like they might be pretty scary to do, we can do them with courage because Jesus is still working in us and around us and through us.

    This is such an exciting time for our faith that people in the early church, whenever they would see a brother or sister in Christ, they would say to them, “The Lord is risen!” and the person would say back to them “He is risen indeed!” and then they would both say “Alleluia!” So let’s try that…

    The Lord is risen!

    He is risen indeed!

    Alleluia!

    Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!!!

  • Easter Tuesday

    Easter Tuesday

    Today’s readings

    In these Easter days, we so much want to hold on to Jesus. We have journeyed through Lent with him, perhaps coming to terms with our failings or our brokenness, reaching toward growth in our spiritual life. And maybe we have been successful, and maybe not. Whatever our experience of Lent, we have seen him suffer and die for us in Holy Week, and now arrive at the Easter of Resurrection and we don’t want to let the experience go. Just like Mary Magdalene, we are in tears longing for our Lord.

    But just as Jesus told her she could not hold on to him, so he says that to us. We are called to go from this holy place and be witnesses so that what happened in our first reading from acts can happen in our own corner of the world. We are the people now who must witness to our faith, call people to repentance, and bring them to baptism. The three thousand people who were added to the church on that one day should be a drop in the bucket compared to what God’s holy people can do, energized by their Easter faith and confirmed in their baptism.

    We must now be the ones to live our faith in our workplaces, homes, schools, and communities. We must be the face of Jesus to those who are longing for compassion. The tiniest little kindness can be a way of turning someone to faith if we are consistent about doing that in our lives. As the Psalmist says today, “the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” All we have to do is spread that goodness around, point to it, and make sure others feel welcome to receive it.

  • Easter Sunday

    Easter Sunday

    Today’s readings

    Easter1.jpg There’s certainly a flurry of activity in today’s readings, isn’t there? Especially in the Gospel, we see Mary Magdalene run from the empty tomb to get the Apostles. And then Peter and the “disciple whom Jesus loved” ran to the tomb. This flurry of activity centers around a crisis in their faith, a time of confusion that will ultimately lead to stronger faith.

    So Mary comes to the tomb, early in the morning, while it is still dark. In St. John’s Gospel, the idea of light or dark always means something more than whether or not you can see outside without a flashlight. Often he is talking about light and darkness in terms of good and evil. That’s the way it was when we heard of Judas in Friday’s Passion reading: when he went out to do what he had to do, the Gospel says “and it was night.” That wasn’t just to record the time of day, it meant that we had come to the hour of darkness. But here when Mary comes to the tomb, I think the darkness refers to something else. Here, I think it means that the disciples were still in the dark about what was happening and what was going to happen.

    Obviously, their confusion gives that away. Jesus had tried to tell them what was going to happen, but to be fair, what was going to happen was so far outside their realm of experience, that really, how could they have understood this before it ever happened? All they know is what Mary told them: the tomb is empty and she has no idea of where they have taken the Lord. And after all that had just happened with his arrest, farce of a trial, and execution, their heads had to be spinning. How could they ever know this was all part of God’s plan?

    And even us – we who know that this was part of God’s plan – could we explain what was going on? Could we give a step-by-step picture of what happened when, and why? I know I couldn’t. But, like you, I take it on faith that, after Jesus died, the Father raised him up in glory. It’s a leap of faith that I delight in, because it is that leap of faith that gives me hope and promises me a future. How could we ever get through our lives without the grace of that hope? How could we ever endure the bad news that appears on our TV screens, in newspapers, and even closer to home, in our own lives – how could we endure that kind of news without the hope of the Resurrection?

    And so, even though there is this flurry of kind of confused activity among the Apostles this Easter morning, at least this day finds them running toward something, rather than running away as they had the night of the Passover meal. They are running toward their Lord – or at least where they had seen him last, hoping for something better, and beginning with the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” coming to understand at last. It’s not night anymore for them. The day is dawning, the hope of the Resurrection is becoming apparent, the promise of new life is on the horizon.

    And may this morning find us running too. Running toward our God in new and deeper ways. Running back to the Church if this has been the first visit you’ve made in a long while. Running back to families if you have been estranged. Running to others to witness to our faith both in word and in acts of service. We Christians have to be that flurry of activity in the world that helps the hope of the Resurrection to dawn on a world groaning in darkness. It’s not night anymore. The stone has been rolled away. This is the day the Lord has made!

  • The Easter Vigil

    The Easter Vigil

    Today’s readings

    EasterVigil

    Next Sunday, I will have the wonderful privilege of baptizing my brand-new niece Katie. This past Thursday, I anointed a parishioner who is very close to death. On Monday, I will preside at the funeral of my mother’s aunt who was over 90 years old. This past year has been a roller coaster of emotions for me, rejoicing here in ministry at St. Raphael’s and burying my own beloved father. I thought about all of these things this week as I prepared for this Holy Vigil. It is always so amazing for me to see Christ’s presence in all the stages of life, from birth to death, in good times and in bad.

    Did you hear what we prayed at the very beginning of tonight’s vigil? Listen again: “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega, all time belongs to him, and all ages, to him be glory and power through every age forever. Amen.” And these are important, even brave words for us to offer on this most holy night. Because it is certainly the position of our world that time is to be endured, that it is fleeting, and that it ultimately meaningless. But tonight’s vigil proclaims that all time is holy, sanctified by our God who has walked with us through our yesterdays, remains with us today, and forges on with us toward our tomorrows. There is not a single moment of our life, not a single moment of our history that is not holy because every moment has been, is now, and always will be imbued with the presence of our God who is holiness itself.

    As we have walked through Lent, and especially through this Holy Week, there is even a temptation, I think, to come to think that the world, and especially human history, was a creative experiment that went horribly wrong, that God sent his Son to clean up the mess only to have him killed for it, and then in a last move of desperation raised him up out of the grave. But that’s not what we’ve gathered to celebrate tonight. Salvation was not some kind of dumb luck or happy accident. The salvation of the world had been part of God’s creative plan all along. Humanity, given the grace of free will had, and has, certainly gone astray. But God did not create us simply to follow our own devices and end up in hell. He created us for himself, and so sent his Son Jesus to walk our walk, to die our death, and to rise up over it all in the everlasting promise of eternal life. That’s what we celebrate on this most holy of all nights.

    Our world would have us believe that everything is futile and that the only possible way to endure this world is to cultivate a kind of cynical apathy that divorces us from our God, our loved ones, our communities and our world. We are conditioned to believe that time, and life itself, is meaningless, that there is nothing worth living for, and certainly nothing worth dying for. But tonight’s vigil debunks all of that. Tonight we are assured by our God that our present is no less redeemable than was our past, nor is it any less filled with promise than is our future.

    Tonight we have heard stories of our salvation. Each of our readings has been a stop in the history of God’s love for us. God’s plan for salvation, and his sanctification of time, began back at the beginning of it all. Each of the days was hallowed with precious creation, and all of it was created and pronounced good. Then Abraham’s faithfulness and righteousness earned us a future as bright as a zillion twinkling stars. Later, as Moses and the Israelites stood trapped by the waters of the red sea, God’s providence made a way for them and cut off their pursuers, making the future safe for those God calls his own. Keeping all of that in mind, the prophet Baruch sings of the wisdom that God makes known to us, extolling the greatness of God who leads his people in understanding and splendor. St. Paul rejoices in the baptism that has washed away the stains of sin as we have died and risen with Christ, and has brought us into a new life that leads ultimately to God’s kingdom. And finally, our Gospel tonight tells us not to be afraid, to go forth into the Galilee of our future and expect to see the Lord.

    We Christians have been spared the necessity of a cynical view of the world and its people. Our gift has been and always is the promise that Jesus Christ is with us always, even until the end of the world. And so, just as God sanctified all of time through his interventions of salvation, so too he has sanctified our lives through the interventions of Sacrament. We are a sacramental people, purified and reborn in baptism, fed and strengthened in the Eucharist, and in Confirmation, set on fire to burn brightly and light up our world. Tonight we celebrate these three Sacraments of Initiation, all of us recalling and renewing our baptism, Kelli being Confirmed in the faith, and all of us strengthened with the Eucharist, Kelli for the very first time tonight.

    These days of Lent have been a sanctifying journey for our sister Kelli who joins us in faith tonight, but it has been no less sanctifying for all of us, as we have celebrated the Stations of the Cross together, gathered for fish fries, attended our parish mission, spent time before the Eucharist in our Forty Hours Devotion, and so much more. Christ has definitely sanctified this Lenten time for all of us, and has now brought us to the fullness of this hour, when he rises over sin and death to bring us all to the promise of life eternal.

    And it is this very night that cleanses our world from all the stains of sin and death and lights up the darkness. The Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation that I sang when we entered Church tonight tells us: “Of this night, Scripture says, ‘The night will be clear as day: it will become my light, my joy.’ The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy; it casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.” What a gift this night is, not just to us gathered here in this church, not just to all the Catholics gathered together throughout the world on this holy night, but to all people in every time and place. Our world needs the light and our time needs the presence of Christ, and our history needs salvation. Blessed be God who never leaves his people without the great hope of his abiding presence!

    And so, having come through this hour to be sanctified in this vigil, we will shortly be sent forth to help sanctify our own time and place. Brightened by this beautiful vigil, we now become a flame to light up our darkened world. That is our ministry in the world. That is our call as believers. That is our vocation as disciples. “May the Morning Star, which never sets, find this flame still burning: Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all humankind, [the Son of God] who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.”