7/30/2014 – – Wednesday of 17th week in Ordinary Time – Matthew 13:44-46

     Our parables probably sound familiar today – we heard them as part of our readings last Sunday. It is striking that the treasure in the parable is found by accident.  The person was probably not even looking for that treasure when he found it.  Our life of faith is that way as well.  Jesus can come to us in very unexpected ways; perhaps those surprise visits are the greatest treasure we can have.  On the website for the pilgrims going to the Camino of St James in Spain, so many people planning their pilgrimage don’t want to leave anything to chance and try to plan each little detail to the greatest extent possible.  The trouble with that is that sometimes it does not leave much opportunity for God to interact with us in those unexpected ways.  A big part of pilgrimage is being open to God in those unexpected ways.   Even if we are happy and content with our lives, Jesus can come to us out of the blue and really upset our plans, can’t he?   Let us try to open up our hearts to those unexpected ways God speaks to us in our daily lives.

8/1/2014 – St Alphonsus Liguori –Jeremiah 26:1-9

        We hear harsh words that the prophet Jeremiah delivers to the people of Israel today, which were given about 6 centuries before the birth of Jesus..  Even though the people are told that disaster will befall them if they do not repent and turn back to the Lord, they become angry and indignant, wanting to put the prophet Jeremiah to death.  Sometimes we don’t want to hear what God says to us, do we.  I remember one prisoner at the state prison in Yazoo City telling me that when he was in the process of doing the act that put him into prison, he knew that God was trying to give him the message that he was doing something that was wrong, but that he did not want to hear what God was saying and did it anyway.   The Lord tells them that Israel will be treated like Shiloh if she does not repent.  Shiloh was an ancient shrine that had been destroyed by the Philistines. 

      God sends messengers and prophets to bring his message to the people.  Throughout the history of Christianity, God has sent different people to found religious orders, to bring a certain charism to our Catholic faith and to bring a certain message to the world.   Yesterday, we heard of Ignatius of Loyola, who in the era of the Protestant Reformation founded the Jesuits, an order who has sent missionaries all of the world, an order to pledged their allegiance in a special way to the Pope at a time when papal authority was being questioned. Today, we celebrate Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church who was born into a noble family in Naples in Italy and who had a celebrated career as a lawyer before becoming a priest.  St Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer – the Redemptorists – in 1732.  This congregation’s goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and other poor places, to bring the Gospel to that reality.  They also fought Jansenism, a spirituality which created an exaggerated sense of sin, deterring people from receiving the Eucharist.   God used Alphonsus Liguori and the Redemptorists in preaching his message in a very specific way, in bringing his message of love and mercy to the world.  He encouraged people to have a strong devotion to Mary and the Blessed Sacrament.   May the Lord open our ears to the prophets who speak to us today, even though we might not want to hear the message that they have to tell us.

7/31/2014 – St Ignatius of Loyola – Jeremiah 18:1-6

       Jeremiah is sent to a potter’s workshop by God to be taught some lessons.  One lesson Jeremiah learns today is this:  just as a potter has complete control over his clay and makes whatever he wills, so is the Lord master of his people. We are like clay in his hands.  He will fashion us and mold us if we let him.

      The Lord teaches us lessons in our ordinary lives, just as he taught Jeremiah from the ordinary daily work of a potter.  I think of how this relates to the life of St Ignatius of Loyola, our saint for the day.   Since our beloved Pope Francis is a member of the Jesuits, the religious order that St Ignatius founded, it seems that we are hearing more about the Jesuits these days. Ignatius was born in late 15^th century in 1491, the year before Columbus sailed for America.  He was the youngest of 11 children from a family in the Basque country in northern Spain.  Ignatius was destined to be a solider, but while fighting at the siege of Pamplona in 1621, he suffered a broken leg that had to be re-broken after it was not set properly.  Ignatius was confined to his bed for a long period of time, where he learned about saints such as Dominic and Francis of Assisi -  the affected in him a profound conversion of faith.  After spending time as a hermit in a cave and time wandering, reflecting and ponding, Ignatius enrolled in the university of Paris at the age of 30 to become a priest, a very advanced to be in formation to be a priest.  He had to study Latin with young boys in order to get ready for his study of theology.   Like the clay that is molded by the potter, Ignatius had to open his life to be molded by God. From the humble beginnings of his conversion, to the way he wrote his spiritual exercises while trying to discern God’s will for him in his life, Ignatius of Loyola went on to found the religious order of the Society of Jesus – the Jesuit -  an order of priests that still has great influence in Catholicism today. We celebrate Ignatius of Loyola today – and pray that his prayers and intercessions accompany us on our own journey.

7/29/2014 – St Martha – John 11:19-27

      Today, we celebrate the memorial of St Martha.  We hear about Martha, her sister Mary, and her brother Lazarus, but if you think about it, of these three siblings, only Martha is a saint celebrated in our Church’s liturgical year.  What is interesting is that Martha announces as she meets Jesus: Lord, if you had been her, my brother would not have died.  This statement is later repeated by Mary later in the chapter when she meets Jesus.  Perhaps Mary is repeating a statement that her sister said.  What is most remarkable about Martha in today’s Gospel is her profession of faith: I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world. We heard in yesterday Gospel from Matthew about a small mustard seed that can grow into a big, beautiful bush.  Martha ‘s faith probably started with that small kernel of faith, and her profession in the Gospel is the fruit of that faith that grew in her. It is interesting how often Jesus requires a statement of faith before working a miracle in someone’s life.  Perhaps it is Martha’s profession of faith that propels Jesus to enact one of his most profound miracle’s in the Gospel of John – the raising of Martha’s sister, Lazarus.  This miracle that he performs is a proclamation of the person of Jesus Christ, of his identity as the Son of God. After he states that he is the resurrection and the life he asks Martha: Do you believe this?  John shows us in his Gospel that everything is centered around faith: faith in Jesus – father in his Word.  Martha is an example for all us.  She is most particularly an example of faith for those of us in the modern world who face so many obstacles in living out our faith.  St Martha – help us to have the faith to believe.

Photos from our Pilgrimage celebrating the feast day of St James along the Natchez Trace - St James Catholic Church - Tupelo - Mississippi

7/28/2014 – Monday of 17th week in ordinary time – Matthew 13:31-35

      Faith the size of a mustard seed – sometimes that might seem like something unattainable.  I think we often take faith for granted, not understanding that it is truly a grace from God to be able to have faith.  In a conversation I was having with a friend once, he told me that he thought faith was nothing more than a cop-out from having legitimate tangible proof.  I think the age we live in – with smart phones and tablets and computers and GPS systems – with all these technological devices, we think we need touch it and see it and prove it in order to believe.  It all can begin with a little mustard seed.  It can begin by being able to say:  I want to believe.  Or: Lord – I want you to help me in my doubts and in my unbelief.   We need to wrestle with those doubts that we have.   We need to be able to bring them to the Lord.  It may be a very humbling act indeed to admit that we don’t have all the answers, to admit that we will never have enough proof to satisfy our hunger.  But all we have to do to start off with is to have the faith of a mustard seed. That is it. 

7/27/2014 – 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Matthew 13:44-52

      We welcome all of you to this special mass today. We are so grateful to have Bishop Kopacz celebrating with us; so grateful to have all of you here with us celebrating this special occasion as well.  Not only is this the weekend of the feast day of our parish’s patron saint – St James the Greater – but we celebrate our parish’s 100 years here in Tupelo.   It is a very special occasion for us – one that helps us remember and honor the past, one that helps us to look toward the future with hope, and one that helps us to celebrate the community we have here in the present.

     When I was assigned here to St James about a year and a half ago, I received a universal response from people when I told them I was going to move up here.  Their response was:  You are going to love St James.  You are going to love Tupelo.  In fact, Monsignor Elvin Sunds, the Vicar General of our Diocese, told me that he considered St James here in Tupelo one of the gems of our Diocese that a lot of people don’t know much about.   That ties into the message of today’s Gospel, of a treasure that is hidden in a field.  We would give everything we had to have that treasure.   I wonder if anyone could image how a parish would grow and develop here in Tupelo one day?  From the priests who accompanied the Spanish and French who traveled here in this area in the days of the explorers in the 16^th century, to the visiting priests who would come and visit the few Catholic families who resided in this area in the 19^th century.  Our parish of St James in Tupelo would become established a hundred years ago as a small missionary parish served by the Benedictine priests from Culman, Alabama, and would grow into the largest parish in Northeast Mississippi and one of the largest parishes in our Diocese today.  I look out at our parish and see a great richness and a great treasure in our diversity. Some of you here at from families that have been in the parish for many generations, who have many stories in your families from the early days of St James.  We also have a lot of families who came here from other parts of the country, to work in jobs in manufacturing or at the medical center, who have added to the diverse spirituality of our parish.   And then we have a large group of first generation immigrants to the United States, who are raising their families here, and who have added their experiences, their culture, and their languages to our community.  We see that reflected in the rich and diverse participation in our mass today.

       In these past few years, St James the Greater, our parish’s patron saint, has captured the imagination of our parishioners.   We just celebrated the feast day of St James on Friday.  His presence with us this weekend with our Saturday morning hike modeled after the Camino of St James in Spain, and the St James crosses and scallop shell that decorate our gathering space this morning, show home important St James is to us as our patron saint.  The story of St James the Apostle is so fascinating, and in some ways reflects the journey that our Catholic Church and our parish here in Tupelo have as pilgrims.  He traveled to Spain as a missionary after Christ’s death and resurrection, but did not make many converts to the faith, so he returned to Jerusalem feeling very disappointed and very defeated.   He was the first apostle to die a martyr’s death.  After his death, his body was sent back to Spain to be buried, which at that time still was not a Christian country, where his remains were forgotten about for 8 centuries.  In the midst of Spain being occupied by the Moors, James’ remains were rediscovered in the 9^th century, where he brought inspiration to the Christians to continue to practice their faith.  In a modern world where many have become complacent about practicing their faith, the pilgrimage dedicated to St James, which has been in place for more than 13 centuries, calls out to people today from many different walks of life.  

      Just as St James has guided millions of pilgrims to his holy city in northern Spain on a pilgrimage journey of faith, so I feel that St James as our parish’s patron saint has guided this parish throughout its 100 year history.  And we have a lot to be proud of in our parish.  Today, we are very active in our community and involved in many social outreach programs in Tupelo, which has reflected the leadership and wisdom of many of the pastors we have had throughout the years.  We have become a leader in Hispanic ministry here in our diocese, trying many new and innovative things.  Yesterday, at the Saturday evening mass, we celebrated the LIMEX students that we here in Tupelo have hosted for some years now, training lay people for leadership roles in our parish and in our diocese.   I always brag to my fellow priests about how I have the best liturgy committee in the diocese, another fruit of the lay leadership we have here in our parish.  We do have a lot to celebrate today.  It is a very joyful occasion for us.  And we are challenged not to just rest on our laurels and our accomplishments of the past, but we are challenged to look to the future: to be the joy of the Gospel that Pope Francis talks about.  To be a welcoming, committed community that helps its members be disciples, that goes out and makes disciples.  To truly be the Body of Christ.  As we celebrate our mass today around the Lord’s table, as we enjoy a meal together and fellowship with our fellow parishioners, let us give thanks to the Lord for the blessings he has given our parish of St James in Tupelo.   

7/23/2014 – Wednesday of 16th week in Ordinary Time – Matthew 13:1-9

      We have been hearing a lot of parables in our daily and Sunday readings these past few weeks.  In fact, we heard the Gospel today in our Sunday reading just a couple of weeks ago. Parables and stories capture our imagination and help us understand God and what the Kingdom of God is about. Even though a lot of our society is not involved in agriculture and farming as full-time occupations, many of us have gardens, so the parable of the sower still speaks to us today. We can sow seeds in a lot of ways in life. Some of those seeds will fall on ground where they cannot take root, but some of the seeds will bear great fruit for God’s kingdom.  We won’t know if we don’t try.  If we just keep those seeds on a shelf, afraid to plant them for fear of failure, then none of them will take root.  We need to take risks on our journey of faith.  We need to go where God calls us, even if it seems scary.

      We think a lot about the seeds of faith that are sowed right here in Mississippi. We have the Glenmary missionaries and Priests of the Sacred Heart coming from up North to found parishes down here. We have diocesan priests from Ireland and other parts of the United States coming here to dedicate their lives to building up God’s kingdom in our parishes here in Mississippi. And now we have a large group of priests from India working in our diocese.  As we celebrate 100 years of Catholicism here at St James parish in Tupelo, we look back and see a lot of seeds that have been sown throughout those years. What are the seeds that we are able to sow today in our lives?  

7/26/2014 – Joachim & Anne –

      I am not celebrating a daily mass today since it is Saturday and I have the Vigil mass in the evening, but I wanted to reflect briefly upon the lives of the saints we celebrate today - St Joachim and St Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

       They are not mentioned by name in the Bible, but they have been honored since the days of the early Church.   The Tradition that has been passed down from our early Church fathers and mothers tells us that Joachim and Anne were an older couple without children when they were given the gift of a daughter.  The apostolic Tradition tells us that when their daughter, Mary, was with child herself, both Joachim and Anne were notified separately by an angel of the Lord of this good news, which was the same way Joseph and Mary both heard the news of the birth of Jesus as well.  Since their daughter was specifically chosen for this special role in the history of salvation, we can only imagine the holiness and example of faith that Anne and Joachim gave her as she grew us as a child and a youth.  We celebrate the lives of Anne and Joachim and the example of faith that they are for us. 

        Last week, when the volunteers from the Eight Days of Hope were here in our parish to help us in our recovery efforts from the tornado that passed through Tupelo at the end of April, a young man from Shreveport, Louisiana who was helping us paint the church engagement me in a lot of questions about Catholicism.  He was from a Baptist background and he wondered why we believe a lot of things in our Catholic faith.  He could not get over that we in the Catholic faith don't go by Scripture alone, but rather have the teachings of the Magisterium and Tradition to help us with what the Church teaches of the faith.  A lot of what we know about Mary and Jesus are filled in by what the Magisterium and Tradition teaches.  Let us celebrate the lives of Anne and Joachim today.  We give thanks for their place in the history of salvation.  

7/25/2014 – Friday of 16th week of ordinary time – 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Matthew 20:20-28 – St James the Greater –

      We all know the story of St James the Greater, since he is patron saint of our parish.  James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, were called to be disciples of Christ while they were fishing with their father in the Sea of Galilee.  They both took up that call, which couldn’t have been an easy thing to do.  James and John make an appearance in today’s Gospel, in which we hear their mother ask if they can have the seats of honor next to Jesus in his kingdom – one at his right, the other at his left.  Jesus responds that they have to be willing to drink from the chalice that he himself will drink from, but that the Father is the one who will make that decision.  Jesus teaches the brothers that service, rather than honor and glory, is the most important attribute that he wants his disciples to have. 

         James and John were named the “sons of thunder” by Jesus; we can only imagine the fiery and tempestuous nature of their personalities.  We know that tradition holds that James went to Spain in order to bring the Good News to the world after Christ’s death and resurrection.  One would expect James to have had a welcome reception in Spain, but the opposite is the case; he was not very successful at all at that time in making converts.  James returned to Jerusalem, defeated and rejected, where he met his fate in martyrdom, the first of the apostles to be put to death for the Gospel.  The twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that Herod had James put to death by the sword.

         Even today, James draws people from every walk of life ever closer to the faith that he proclaimed as they journey across Spain as pilgrims on a journey. Last year, more than 215,000 pilgrims officially arrived as pilgrims in Santiago.   One of the prisoners I ministered in Yazoo City once told me that he had read that some question if it is really James who is buried in the Cathedral in northern Spain, since according to the legend, his body was transported there after his death in Jerusalem.  My response is that what is most important is that James lives in the hearts of those pilgrims who journey across Spain to where his spirit is so alive in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.  So many people follow James to be ever closer to Jesus in a world that more often than not mocks our Catholic faith and see us as the enemy.  James and his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is pointing people all over the world to Jesus as they walk across the mountains, as they endure the hot sun and the pouring rain. When I hugged the statue of St James above the high altar in his cathedral, a ritual that pilgrims undertake when they arrive, you cannot imagine the emotion and prayers that swelled up in my heart. 

         Thank you, St James the Greater, for your journey of faith and for the testimony that you still give the world so many centuries after your martyr’s death.  You live in the hearts of so many today.  You live in our parish in Tupelo, Mississippi.  And you enliven us with the faith we have in our Beloved Lord Jesus Christ. 

7/24/2014 – Thursday of 16th week in Ordinary Time – Matthew 13:10-17

      We celebrate the feast day of a Lebanese priest today named St Charbel Makhluf.   He was born in a small village in Lebanon in 1828 to a very humble family.  His father, a mule driver, died when he was 3, so he was raised by an uncle.  He entered the Monastery of St Maron in Lebanon and was ordained a priest.   For the last 23 years of his life, he lived as a hermit in the desert where he practiced a life of strict fasting and of strong devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.  People sought him out for his prayers due to his reputation for holiness. 

       The life of a hermit is austere and difficult, and it might be difficult for the average person to see God’s love and mercy in such austerity and discipline.  Yet, God calls us all in different ways, and when we follow that call and choose that life that is meant for us, it is a liberating and life-giving experience.  Finding where God’s love and mercy exist in our lives is one of the main challenges we have as followers of Christ.

       As we think about St Charbel today, we recognize how we live in an age when the motives behind our faith are questioned by many in society, as many people can’t believe that we are sincere and grounded in what we believe. Jesus tells us in today Gospel from Matthew: Blessed are your eyes because they see, blessed are your ears because they hear.  Being able to believe in our modern world is a grace.   Yes, indeed our faith is a grace; our faith would not exist without the way that God and the Holy Spirit interact in our lives.  If we look at the faith of St Charbel, our faith is in the same tradition of theirs, our faith finds strength in the prayers of the community of saints.   Just as St Charbel accepted God’s calling for him, may we also see & hear the way God is calling us, and may we follow that plan in faith.

7/22/2014 – St Mary Magdalene – John 20: 1-2, 11-18

       In John’s account of Christ’s resurrection, it is not one of the 12 apostles who arrives at the tomb first, but rather Mary Magdalene.  When she realizes that the stone has been removed from the tomb and that the tomb is empty, she runs off to alert Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple.  From this account in the Gospel of John, some have referred to Mary Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles – quite an interesting description of her.  There is a lot of discussion in our modern Church about who Mary Magdalene is and who she isn’t.  Many scholars and believers are trying to go beyond the myth and the legends and the labels that have been put on Mary Magdalene throughout history to try to reclaim her as how she really was portrayed in Scripture.  In fact, if you go to the Barnes and Noble or Amazon websites, you will find many recent books about her with titles such as The Meaning of Mary Magdalene or Unveiling Mary Magdalene.  Though a traditional Catholic view saw her as a reformed prostitute, with “Magdalene houses” being established in her name to help women leave the profession of prostitution, there is much debate about how that perception perhaps is not the truth about Mary Magdalene’s identity.  Some scholars say it was Pope Gregory the Great who first fused the identity of Mary Magdalene with that of the promiscuous women with the alabaster jar in Luke’s Gospel.  Perhaps modern imagination and books like the Da Vinci Code do Mary Magdalene a further disservice in seeing her as Jesus’ wife or his love interest.  All of that discussion detracts from how Mary Magdalene is portrayed in today’s Gospel: as a faithful disciple of Christ, as one who believed and brought his message to others.  The Church sees Mary Magdalene as being a patron saint to converts to the faith and to those who contemplate the mysteries of God.  Texts from the era of the Early Church suggest that Mary Magdalene was very instrumental in preaching the message of Jesus Christ in the days after his resurrection and ascension into heaven.  May the faith, perseverance, and loyalty of the devoted disciple Mary Magdalene be an example to us on our own journey.

7/21/2014 – Monday of 16th week in Ordinary Time – Matthew 12:38-42

     The people of Ancient Israel were looking for signs, they were searching for something.  Yet, they could not see the sign that Jesus was right before their eyes.  We can be that way, too, can’t we?  We can ask for God for things, we may want things with all our heart to help us on our journey of faith, but then we can’t see the way God is present to us in our lives in the here and now. Sometimes, as a priest, I hear people telling me that they are wanting a certain sign from God to validate something that is going on in their lives or in answer to their prayers.  But God can speak to us in more subtle ways, ways that perhaps we are not aware of, that we can easily miss.  The first part of the Jesuit examen that the members of Jesuit spirituality follow to review the end of the day is to be aware of God’s presence.  Taking time to see God in our busy daily lives is not easy, but that will show us the signs that God is there with us on our journey.

7/20/2014 – 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Matthew 13:24-43

      In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Jesus tells a series of parables to the crowds.  Why would he speak to them in parables?  Why does he still speak to us in parables today?  Perhaps these parables were meant to get the people of his day to think: To get them to think about their faith, to get them to think about the kingdom of God.  These parables challenge us to critically think about our faith and about God, too.  Perhaps it is not proper to say that we interpret the parables, but rather we should say that the parables interpret us.  In Jesus’ parables, we’re able to see things a little differently; we do this through the paradoxes, contradictions, and multiple meanings contained therein.  The parables that we hear today get us to think about the Kingdom of God and the different meanings his Kingdom might have for us.

      We might ask: how can we describe something that is indescribable?  That is why Jesus’ parables give us little glimpses into what God’s Kingdom is all about.  We hear about a tiny mustard seed that grows into a plant large enough for the birds to nest there.  We certainly want the Kingdom of God to grow in our lives, don’t we? We want the Kingdom of God to grow in the world.  We might think about this in the context of our own parish here in Tupelo as we celebrate our 100^th year anniversary.   We’ve gone from a little parish where Benedictine priests from neighboring Alabama had to come to celebrate mass to one of the largest parishes in our diocese and a regional hub for ministry in Northeast Mississippi. We have people here in the pews each Sunday whose ancestors were founding members of this parish, who really had to endure so much in order to continue to practice their Catholic faith.  And we have others here each Sunday whose families came to Tupelo from other parts of the country for work.  We have parishioners who are first generation here in the United States, coming from places like the Philippines, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico, and Vietnam.  The diversity and richness we have in our parish community is something that often strikes visitors when they attend mass here with us.  So, in some ways, our very parish exemplifies the parable of the mustard seed.

      Yes, we probably think that the Kingdom of God growing as quickly as possible without any hindrances at all is a good thing – perhaps the best thing possible.  But life is not always so smooth and easy and uncomplicated, is it? Maybe there are other things to consider as well.  What if only one tiny little mustard seed blows into a garden where other plants are already growing, where there is already order and structure.   The mustard seed could grow into this huge plant, it could produce other little mustard seeds that grow into other mustard plants, and pretty soon the mustard plants have taken over the entire garden.  The reign of God can grow and grow.  And we want the reign of God to be a welcome addition in our lives, don’t we?   We want it to grow from this little tiny seed into a big, beautiful plant.  But the changes it brings can make us frustrated and insecure.  The power we see in the reign of God and the way it calls out to us can stir up a lot of fear in our hearts.

      Unfortunately, we may want to help the Kingdom of God grow and grow, but there are weeds that sprout up as well.  And through the parable of the weeds and the wheat that we hear today, we know that God understands that the weeds are going to sprout up in his Kingdom.  Yet the master is afraid of doing damage to the wheat, of destroying those parts of God’s kingdom that are growing alongside the weeds, so he lets the weeds remain until harvest time.  God is forgiving and merciful.  He forgives our weeds.  He lets us grow and develop without uprooting us or casting us off.

       When we see the reality of the world around us today, we cannot just assume that the Kingdom of God is going to continue to grow and grow.  We cannot just assume that the Church is going to be around when we need her if we do not do our part today.   I see so many people committed to our parish, committed to help the Kingdom of God grow.  It has been a tough road these past few months since the tornado hit, hasn’t it?   Some of our parishioners lost their homes.  Part of God’s Kingdom is about dealing with the ups and downs of life. When we think about the wonderful volunteers from the Eight Days of Hope who helped us so much this past week here in Tupelo, who have done so much to help our parish recover, it reminds us of what building the Kingdom of God is all about.  In the midst of tragedy and destruction, in the midst of weeds, there is God’s mercy and love, there are the fruits of God’s harvest.

      When we hear these parables in the Gospels – and there are certainly a lot of them – maybe we should try to go beyond the surface meanings that they have.   Maybe we need to see the paradoxes and the multiple meanings and contradictions that Jesus challenges us with.  And just maybe this will help us in our understanding of what the Kingdom of God is all about.

7/20/2014 – el Decimosexto domingo del Tiempo Ordinario – Mateo 13, 24 – 43 –

      Como la semana pasada, hoy, escuchamos una parábola del Evangelio de San Mateo.  En esta parábola, Jesús habla sobre la maldad & la bondad que existen en nuestro mundo.   En la historia de nuestro mundo, siempre la gente pregunta: ¿Por qué existe el mal? ¿Por qué  existe el sufrimiento?  ¿Si Dios es poderoso, si Dios es omnipotente, como podemos entender nuestro Señor con la existencia de la maldad en el mundo?  ¿Como podemos vivir como discípulos de Jesucristo, como podemos proclamar su Buena Noticia y el reino de Dios si tenemos estas preguntas?  Si, hay otros mensajes en nuestro mundo que son más atractivos que el mensaje de nuestro Señor.   No es fácil para ser fieles a nuestra fe si tenemos muchas preguntas, si no entendemos.   Hay muchas voces diferentes en nuestra Iglesia Católica.  ¿Como podemos ser fieles a la palabra de Dios y al mismo tiempo respetar los derechos humanos, respetar las opiniones de nuestro prójimo y tener tolerancia en nuestros corazones?  ¿Como podemos re conocer la presencia de Dios en todos los mensajes y todo el ruido que tenemos en el mundo?

     En la parábola que Jesús nos da en el Evangelio, el explica que el bien es al lado del mal por el mismo camino en nuestro mundo.  El trigo crece en el campo al lado de la hierba mala.  Pero, podemos entender en las enseñanzas de Cristo que el mal va a desvanecer al final del camino al final de nuestra vida con la fuerza de la bondad de Dios.  En la parábola, cuando el trigo y la hierba mala empiezan a crecer, no puede reconocer cual es malo y cual es bueno. Puede decir que en nuestra realidad humana, el bien y el mal andan juntos.  En el Reino de Dios, necesitamos sembrar, necesitamos vivir con sinceridad. F. El mal va a crecer en nuestro mundo, pero podemos sembrar el bien donde hay mal.  Necesitamos tener confianza – confianza en Dios y confianza en nuestra fe.  Necesitamos tener esperanza -  la esperanza que hay la posibilidad de transformar nuestra vida y nuestro mundo - una transformación que viene de Dios.  Cuando empieza, la palabra de Dios es como una pequeña semilla – una semilla de mostaza - casi insignificante al inicio.  Sembramos la bondad de Dios en su palabra al lado del mal que existe en el mundo.  Cada uno de nosotros - cada seguidor de Jesucristo - debe decidir: cual es la cosecha  que vamos a escoger.

      Para saber lo que es bien y lo que es mal, tenemos que recibir diaria el alimento que tenemos en la palabra de Dios.  Es un alimento espiritual que entre en nuestros corazones como nuestra comida espiritual.  En verdad, no somos jueces de nuestros hermanos y hermanas.  Tenemos la llamada de fe de dejar el juicio para Dios.  En lugar de juzgar, necesitamos sembrar y amar. 

More photos from visit to St Stanislaus Kotska Catholic Church - Chicago

Altar - viewed from the sacristy 

Door in sacristy 

Surprise guest at the mass - my brother Cameron - who lives in the Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect 

Back Altar 

Shrine of the Divine Mercy 

7/18/2014 – Friday of 15th week in Ordinary Time – Isaiah 38:10-12, 16

      Our psalm today actually comes from the prophet Isaiah.  In the refrain, we call out – You saved my life O Lord; I shall not die.  I can imagine the saint of the day expressing those words to God.

       Camillus de Lellis was a solider who fought for the Venetians in the later part of the 16th century.   He was discharged from the army and was left penniless and a broken person due to a gambling addiction that was spiraling out of control.  He also suffered from very ill heath due to wounds he received as a soldier.  Camillus, by necessity, started work in a hospital in order to pay off his gambling debts.  God eventually led him to the Capuchin monks, but he was unable to profess his religious vows due to problems from a diseased leg.  He ended up founding his own religious order – the Ministers of the Sick – known today as the Camellians. The Camellians are credited with having the first field medical unit when they treated Hungarian and Croatian troops in war in the early 17th century. The Camellians showed strength and courage while treating the victims of the Plague in Rome.  Camillus is the patron saint of nurses and of the sick. How he overcame adversity and problems to serve the Lord is an example to all of us. The Lord saves our lives in many ways.  He often saves us from ourselves and from the personal demons that haunt us.  Through the new life we have in the Lord, we shall not die.

7/17/2014 – Thursday of 15th week of Ordinary Time – Matthew 11:28-30

      Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. We look at the different contexts in which believers can hear these words. I often pray these words in the anointing of the sick, in which the person receiving the sacrament is facing an illness or surgery or is at the end of his life.

     Today happens to be the feast day of the Carmelites Nuns of Compienge – perhaps these nuns are saints that are not very familiar to us.  In 1790, one year after the start of the French Revolution, a group of Carmelite nuns were ordered to disband the monastery in which they were living.  The nuns refused to do so, and were sent to the guillotine as a consequence after being formerly arrested in 1794.  In 1957, more than 150 years after these nuns were martyred for their faith, the celebrated French composer Francois Poulenc premiered his opera based on the story of these nuns – The Dialogue of the Carmelites.  At the conclusion of the opera, which is the only major opera comprised of only female voices, Poulenc portrays how the nuns sang the Salve Regina as they were put to death in Paris.  Poulenc, a lapsed Catholic at the time, credits his work on this opera to reviving his Catholic faith. I became fascinated by the story of these nuns when I found out that the opera was based on a true story, and then read the novel on which the opera is based – The Last on the Scaffold by German writer Gertrud von le Fort.  The nuns were beatified by Pope Pius X in 1906.  One person who was a strong advocate for their canonization was Therese of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun herself, and now one of the most popular saints and a Doctor of the Church.  Interest in the canonization of these nuns from France still remains popular in the Church today.  The lives and deaths of these courageous nuns might seem to be from a time and place so different from our own, but when we think of the secularization and attacks on religious liberty that have in our own country in recent years, the story of these Carmelite nuns perhaps is very relevant to us today.  Through our labor and our burdens, the Lord reaches out to us.  He gives us the courage and strength to endure.  And the discipleship that we follow is what leads us and guides us along the way.