4/19/2016 – Tuesday of the 4th week of Easter - John 10:22-30

     Our Gospel takes place during the festival of the Dedication in Jerusalem.  This winter festival commemorates the dedication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in December 165 BC after it had been desecrated by the Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes.  Jesus, being a devout Jew, would have celebrated this festival with his disciples and his family.  During this Jewish festival time, Jesus is questioned about his identity again, a recurring theme in the Gospels.  The Jews do not understand who Jesus is.  They are awaiting the Messiah, but they have their own expectations and they are not being fulfilled.  Jesus’ signs and miracles and his proclamation of God’s kingdom are not recognized by so many.  How do we practice our faith, stay true to our traditions, and grow in our relationship with Jesus?  Yesterday, I read an article entitled:  “8 things every Catholic should be doing every day.”  The 8 points that the author recommends includes: 1. Start your day with prayer, reading the Bible, or with your Mother, Mary, 2. Smile – be polite to others – be kind – and give out hugs, 3. Reach out to a friend thru a phone call or an email or a visit, 4. Tell someone you love them and why, 5. Talk about God, 6. Sacrifice something, 7. Serve in some way, and 8. Reflect on your day.   Those are all interesting suggestions.  In whatever way we practice our faith, Jesus must always be our Good Shepherd, we must be true to our faith and our traditions, and we must be true to ourselves.

4/20/2016 – Wednesday of the 4th week of Easter – John 12:44-50

     Most of us here at mass this evening have probably had electricity as a part of our lives since we were born.  Many parts of the world are still not that way.  Where I lived as a missionary in Ecuador and where I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea in Africa did not have electricity all of the time.    Think about what our lives would be like if we did not have electricity.  When I was on the Camino in Spain this past winter, the sun did not rise until about 8:30, so most mornings I was walking in darkness for at least an hour or two.  Since many of the areas were down remote paths, there was not a lot of light. The last day of my walk into the city of Santiago de Compostela, I decided to start out very early in the morning – at 4:45 am – so that I could arrive at the pilgrims’ office that morning to register as a pilgrim and to attend the pilgrims’ mass at noon. During those early morning hours, I spent time in a eucalyptus forest and down some very remote paths in total darkness before the sunrise that morning.  The quiet dark hours that gave way to a beautiful sunset were some of my most memorable, pray-filled hours on the Camino, time with God that I will always cherish.  I remember the little LED flashlight I used on the Camino in those early morning hours that gave me just enough light to be able to see where I was going.  Jesus is the light of our world.  He is that light that helps us navigate through the darkness and shadows that we encounter in life.  He is the one who illuminates those values of our faith that we are to live by. May we see Jesus as our light in the midst of those things that could take us off our path of faith.

Quote - "Gifts" - By Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1843

I love this quote of how our true gifts need to come from our true being: 

Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of yourself. You must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a stone; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing.

17 de abril de 2016 – el cuarto domingo de Pascua – Juan 10, 27-30

     Estamos en el cuarto domingo en la temporada de Pascua.  Estamos muy ocupados con el fin del año escolar, con la primera comunión, con la confirmación, la misa de graduación del colegio, y con el fin de nuestros programas antes del comienzo del verano.  En medio de la temporada de pascua, celebramos el Domingo del Buen Pastor.  Jesucristo, nuestro Buen Pastor, llama a sus ovejas a sí mismo. Él llama a sus ovejas en unión con el Padre.  Para el último par de años, Domingo del Buen Pastor también ha sido el Día Mundial de Oración por las Vocaciones.

      Como discípulos de Cristo, estamos llamados de escuchar la voz de nuestro Buen Pastor: una voz que nos conduce y nos guía y nos ayuda en nuestro viaje.  Hay muchos caminos en el mundo.  Hay muchas voces que nos llaman.  Sin embargo, sólo hay un Buen Pastor.  Nuestro Buen Pastor y la Iglesia están aquí para ayudarnos a encontrar nuestra vocación en la vida y estimular esa vocación.  Sin embargo, esto sólo puede suceder si nos comprometemos a seguir a Jesús como nuestro Buen Pastor.

       Podemos reflexionar hoy sobre nuestra vocación en el Domingo del Buen Pastor.  La búsqueda de nuestra vocación en la vida es importante.  Hoy, oramos especialmente por las vocaciones en la Iglesia: el sacerdocio, al diaconado, la vida religiosa consagrada y el ministerio laico.  Primer punto -  podemos decir que Dios nos llama en medio de nuestros dones y nuestras imperfecciones para servir en el ministerio. El Padre Henri Nouwen dice que aquellos en el ministerio en la Iglesia son sanadores heridos Iglesia, que todos nosotros somos pecadores y todos tenemos nuestros defectos.  En los Evangelios, Jesús llama a muchas personas para el ministerio en medio de las imperfecciones y las debilidades.  En nuestro ministerio, no vivimos nuestras vidas exactamente como Cristo vivió la suya.  Los ministros tienen su vocación para servir en la Iglesia y para vivir auténticamente como Cristo en muchas maneras y en muchas formas, viviendo nuestra vocación cristiana en la fidelidad, el servicio y la humildad.

      Segundo punto -  la vocación nos da una oportunidad de encontrar nosotros mismos.  El Papa Francisco ha dicho que la mejor manera de discernir una vocación en la Iglesia es para trabajar en las misiones, para ser voluntario con los pobres, para visitar a los enfermos en el hospital o en el hospicio, y para servir en nuestra parroquia. Cuando vamos fuera de nosotros mismos para servir a otros, Dios puede comunicar con nosotros en muchas maneras.  Sin embargo, necesitamos acompañar nuestra vocación con la dedicación a la oración y la Eucaristía y los aspectos espirituales de nuestra fe. Nuestros obras de caridad no sólo vienen de las buenas intenciones y el altruismo, sino de nuestra propia fe.  Nuestra fe y las buenas obras deben ser intrínsecamente conectados y deben complementarse entre sí.

       Tercer punto - estamos llamados a discernir a nuestra propia vocación y para ayudar a otros en su discernimiento, tenemos la llamada de caminar como mensajeros de la misericordia. Es un mensaje profundo en el Año de la Misericordia.  Tenemos que animar a otros a ir al Sacramento de la Reconciliación, para encontrar el amor y la misericordia en los amorosos brazos de María, nuestra Madre, y para llegar a otras personas que se han alejado de la fe.  El mensaje de Francisco y el Papa Benedicto es que necesitamos una nueva evangelización, que tenemos que evangelizar a nosotros mismos con el fin de ser capaces de evangelizar a los demás, para redescubrir a nosotros mismos lo que realmente significa ser católico y que se comprometan a esa forma de vida.

        Podemos escuchar a Jesucristo, el Buen Pastor. El nos llama en muchas maneras: a través de la oración, a través de la lectura de su Sagrada Palabra, a través de nuestras experiencias en los sacramentos de la Iglesia, y por medio de nuestro servicio al pueblo de Dios.  En nuestra fe, podemos responder a la vocación  que tenemos en nuestro Buen Pastor.  Cristo nos ayuda para tomar la decisión de seguir nuestra vocación, no importa si es difícil o complicado para seguirlo.

4/15/2016 – Friday of the 3rd week of Easter – John 6:52-59

    Today, we hear further explanation from Jesus in the sixth chapter of John in how we receive him in the Eucharist: “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him.”  How do we experience Christ in the Eucharist and what implications does this have for us?  The American actor Martin Sheen, the star of the the movie The Way, about the pilgrimage of St James in Spain, had this to say in an interview he did this past December about the importance of the Eucharist in his Catholic faith: “one of the great mysteries that I experience at mass is the reception of communion. How do we embrace that? How can we possibly, consciously understand what that is? And I don’t have a clue. I just stand on line and say, 'I’m Ramón, called Martin, your friend, you’re welcome here. And I’m with them.' Whoever the crowd is I’m getting in line with, you just look at the people who are on that line, that community, that is the greatest and simplest expression of overtly trying to explain this mystery I’m talking about, because it is a mystery. It is probably the most profound mystery in all of the universe, this love. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed just watching people on line to embrace that sacrament. It is the most profound thing. I never ever can get over it. It’s just something you have to surrender to. And just saying yeah, I’m with them. That’s the community of saints.”  It is hard to put into words what the Eucharist means to us and what affect it has on our lives, for it is indeed a profound mystery, as Martin Sheen says.  Do we let the Eucharist challenge us and change us and transform us?  Or do we just not think about it? 

4/17/2016 – Fourth Sunday of Easter season – John 10:27-30

      Today, we celebrate the 4^th Sunday of the Easter season.  We are finished with our busy Holy Week liturgies and our students are back from spring break.  Now, we are really busy with the end of the school year, with first communion, confirmation, the baccalaureate mass for graduating seniors, and the end of our programs before the summer starts. In the midst of our busy lives, we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday today in the midst of the Easter season.  Jesus, our Good Shepherd, calls his sheep to himself.  He calls his sheep into union with his Father.  For the last couple of years, Good Shepherd Sunday has also been the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. 

      As disciples of Christ, we are called hear the voice of our Good Shepherd: a voice that leads us, guides us, and helps us on our journey.   There are so many roads we can travel down in life.  There are so many voices call out to us.  But there is only one Good Shepherd.  Our Good Shepherd and our Church are there to help us find our vocation in life and to nurture that vocation.  However, this can only happen if we are engaged in that journey, if we commit ourselves to following Jesus as our Good Shepherd.

      So what are some points we can ponder today on Good Shepherd Sunday in regard to vocations?  Indeed, finding our vocation in life is important, whatever that vocation may be, but in our prayers for vocations today, we especially highlight the various vocations in our Church: to the priesthood, diaconate, consecrated religious life, and lay ministry.  First, we can say that God calls us in the midst of both our gifts and our imperfections to serve in ministry.  The late Father Henri Nouwen calls those in ministry in the Church "wounded healers", highlighting the way all of us are sinners and the way all of us have our faults.  Again and again in the Gospels, we see Jesus calling different individuals to ministry in the midst of their imperfections and weaknesses.  In our ministry, we don’t live our lives exactly as Christ lived his. Instead, those called to a vocation in ministry in the Church are called to live as authentically as Christ lived, with there being many ways and forms in which we live out our Christian vocation in faithfulness, service, and humility.

      Another point we can make about our call to a vocation is that we give of ourselves in order to find ourselves.   Pope Francis has said that the best way to discern a vocation in the Church is to go on a mission trip, to volunteer at a soup kitchen, to spend time with the poor, to visit the sick in the hospitals or in the nursing homes, and to be of service in our parish.  When we go outside of our comfort zones to serve others, God can speak very powerfully to us indeed.  Yet, this also has to be accompanied by our devotion to prayer and the Eucharist and the spiritual aspects of our faith as well.  Our charitable works do not just come out of good intentions and altruism, but from our very faith itself.  Our faith and good works must be intrinsically connected and must complement each other. 

       Finally, we could say, as we are called to discern our own vocation and to help others in their discernment, we are called to be a messenger of mercy.  What better message could we have in this Year of Mercy?  We need to encourage others to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to find love and mercy in the loving arms of Mary, our Mother, and to reach out to others who have fallen away from the faith.  The message of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict is that we need a new evangelization, that we need to evangelize ourselves in order to be able to evangelize others, to rediscover ourselves what it really means to be Catholic and to commit to that way of life. 

      We can hear Jesus, the Good Shepherd, calling out to us in many ways: through prayer, through reading his Holy Word, through our experiences in the Sacraments of the Church, and through our service to the people of God. In our faith, we are to respond to the vocation the Good Shepherd is calling us to, we are to help others make the choice to follow their vocation, no matter how hard or different or overwhelming this may seem.  As we talk about vocations today, we are going to have the chance to hear from one of our confirmation students give a faith testimony, to hear about his journey through the confirmation process and his experiences with the risen Christ as he journeys toward the Sacrament of Confirmation in a few short weeks.  

4/13/2016 – Wednesday of the 3rd week of Easter – John 6:35-40

    “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  Many Catholics take the bread of life discourse in the 6^th chapter of the Gospel of John for granted, but there are indeed some Catholics who do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Yet, going back to the Early Church and the followers of Christ after his death and resurrection, the belief was in the real presence.  St Ignatius of Antioch, a Church Father from the 1st Century, had this to say about the Eucharist: "Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to God’s grace which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead."  Notice that in this same quote, Ignatius calls us to performs various works of mercy in addition to believing in the real presence of Christ.  And even though we have four different masses every weekend here at St James and usually at least four daily masses during the week, with ample opportunity to receive Christ into our lives in this Sacrament, many who claim to be Catholic do not have time for the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist in their lives.   How are we living out the values of the Body and Blood of Christ that we receive?