Imagine having no need to judge anyone! (Henri Nouwen)

    Imagine having no need at all to judge anybody. Imagine having no desire to decide whether someone is a good or bad person. Imagine being completely free from the feeling that you have to make up your mind about the morality of someone’s behavior. Imagine that you could say: “I am judging no one!” 

    Imagine — wouldn’t that be true inner freedom? . . . But we can only let go of the heavy burden of judging others when we don’t mind carrying the light burden of being judged! 

    Can we free ourselves from the need to judge others? Yes, by claiming for ourselves the truth that we are the Beloved Daughters and Sons of God. As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to the need to put people and things in their “right” place. To the degree that we embrace the truth that our identity is not rooted in our success, power, or popularity, we can let go of our need to judge. “Do not judge and you will not be judged; because the judgments you give are the judgments you will get” (Matthew 7:1). 

 

--Henri Nouwen

Image source: https://rorycooney.blogspot.com/2019/03/beam-and-splinter-c8o.html
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 2, 2025: From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks...

From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks…
What happens if we remain in the presence of the Lord? 

    The Book of Sirach offers a multitude of advice on how to remain true to the Lord’s presence in our lives, with a particular focus on speech. What you have to say reveals what you are thinking, the bent of your mind, Sirach says, so we must listen carefully to see what another’s speech reveals about them, and be very careful about how we speak ourselves. Ultimately, Sirach suggests, if we remain close to the Lord and the Lord remains close to us, then our speech will reveal that truth. Indeed, we will be like the palm tree or the cedar of Lebanon mentioned in Psalm 92: if we are planted in the house of the Lord, we will flourish, bearing good fruit! 

    Jesus is similarly full of advice for his disciples in Luke’s Gospel, particularly around the act of discernment. To discern rightly what is good and what is bad takes humility, and a willingness to see one’s own faults clearly before remarking on those of our brother. Remove the wooden beam from your eye first, Jesus says, then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. Again, we are all capable of bearing good fruit, and we shall do so long as we remain close to the Lord and allow him to remain close to us, for when the Lord is with us, our hearts are full, and from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.  

    In the end, as Paul tells the Corinthians, death is swallowed up in victory. Like Jesus, transformed by the action of God in the resurrection, we can be transformed from corruptible to incorruptible beings, by the power of God’s love. This isn’t something we can achieve on our own; only God can transform our mortal bodies into immortal ones, and he will do so, so long as we remain firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

You say I am loved (Lauren Daigle)

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low
Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know 

   Ooh-oh
   You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing
   You say I am strong when I think I am weak
   And you say I am held when I am falling short
   And when I don't belong, oh You say I am Yours
   And I believe (I)
   Oh, I believe (I)
   What You say of me (I)
   I believe 

The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me
In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity 

   Refrain

Taking all I have, and now I'm laying it at Your feet
You have every failure, God, You have every victory
Ooh-oh 

   Refrain 

To hear Lauren Daigle sing You Say, click on the video below: 

Image source 1: Paul Gauguin, Christ on the Mount of Olives (1889), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_on_the_Mount_of_Olives_%28Paul_Gauguin%29 
Video source

The measure you measure (St. Francis de Sales / Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

Above all, avoid false accusations
and the distortion of truth,
regarding your neighbor.

--St. Francis de Sales 

    The universe gives back to us morally exactly what we give to it. As Jesus worded it, the measure you measure out is the measure that will be measured back to you. 

   What we breathe out is what we’re going to inhale. If I breathe out selfishness, selfishness is what I will inhale; if I breathe out bitterness, that’s what I’ll meet at every turn. 

   Conversely, if I breathe out love, gracious, and forgiveness, these will be given back to me in the exact measure that I give them out. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,
Facebook, October 18, 2019 

Image source: https://usw-womensministries.org/the-measure-of-god/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Loving our enemies (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Jesus commands us to love our enemies. 

    And Jesus showed us how to do it. Immediately after being fixed to the cross, he said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." One of the most important elements of Jesus’ kingdom ethic was, accordingly, the praxis of forgiveness: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." 

    As Walter Wink has pointed out, these recommendations have nothing to do with passivity in the face of evil. Rather, they embody a provocative but nonviolent manner of confronting evil and conquering it through a practice of coinherent love. By forgiving those putting him to death, Jesus is awakening them to the truth in which they already stand: their connectedness to him and to each other in God. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, February 19, 2023

Image source: Marion Honors, CSJ, Crucifixion: The Tree of Life,  
https://www.instagram.com/jamesmartinsj/p/CMOGoFVhdfY/?img_index=1
Quotation source

A path to our own mercy (Elizabeth Scalia)

   Jesus did indeed recognize that there are such things as enemies—and we are not meant to wander through our lives reckless and unaware of what or who can threaten us or do us harm. Certainly, we should not turn a blind eye to evil, which is the true enemy.

    But Jesus’ command to love those we perceive to be our enemies is actually a tool for discernment, and for our own salvation. To love our enemies means a great deal more than to simply not wish evil upon them; it means making a conscious effort to find a path to our own mercy, for their sake and our own. That path is found, Jesus tells us, through prayer: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). 

--Elizabeth Scalia

Image source: https://mariacollege.edu/blog/mercy-the-principal-path
Quotation source

Doing good to those who hate us (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Where Jesus stretches us beyond our natural instincts and beyond all self-delusion is in his command to love our enemies, to be warm to those who are cold to us, to be kind to those who are cruel to us, to do good to those who hate us, to forgive those who hurt us, to forgive those who won’t forgive us, and to ultimately love and forgive those who are trying to kill us. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,

Facebook, October 4, 2024

Image source: Melani Pyke, Love Your Enemies, https://www.melpyke.com/blog/184567/love-your-enemies-feb-11-daily-painting-jesus-sermon-on-the-mount
Quotation source

When we make our enemies part of ourselves (Takashi Nagai / Henri Nouwen)

Love everyone and trust his Providence,
and you will find peace.
 I have tried it and can assure you it is so.

 --Takashi Nagai,
Japanese convert to Catholicism
and survivor of the atomic bomb

    Christians mention one another in their prayers (Romans 1:9; 2 Corinthians 1:11; Ephesians 6:8; Colossians 4:3), and in so doing they bring help and even salvation to those for whom they pray (Romans 15:30; Philippians 1:19). 

    But the final test of compassionate prayer goes beyond prayers for fellow Christians, members of the community, friends, and relatives. Jesus says it most unambiguously, “I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44); and in the depth of his agony on the cross, he prays for those who are killing him, “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). 

    Here the full significance of the discipline of prayer becomes visible. Prayer allows us to lead into the center of our hearts not only those who love us but also those who hate us. This is possible only when we are willing to make our enemies part of ourselves and thus convert them first of all in our own hearts. 

--Henri Nouwen

Image source: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Christ on the Cross (ca.1660-1670), https://www.somethingstillsacred.com/reflections/father-forgive-them
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 23, 2025: Love your enemies, and do good to them...

Love your enemies and do good to them…
Is it really possible to love one’s enemies? 

   When, in the First Book of Samuel, David spares his king and enemy Saul, David proves by his actions what he believes: if the Lord has appointed a man to be king, then it’s the Lord’s call to remove that individual when necessary. Do not harm him, David says to his nephew and commander Abishai when they have the opportunity to eliminate Saul, for who can lay hands on the Lord’s anointed? By not taking Saul’s life, David shows himself to be a man in relationship with the Lord, a man who trusts in the Lord, knowing that the Lord will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Ultimately, it is through David that the Lord spares Saul, because, as Psalm 103 reminds us, The Lord is kind and merciful, and thus it is the Lord who allows David to be merciful and compassionate. 

   In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will take this lesson to another level as he tells his disciples to love their enemies, and do good to those who hate them. God loves everything he has created, including our enemies; our lives therefore have to be consistent with the God-life given to us. If we are to learn how much God loves us, we are going to have to participate in that life and in that love, with no half-measures possible. Moreover, Jesus encourages his disciples to not even judge others, for the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you. If our measure of one another is the love God has for us, an absolute love with no limitations, then that love should not limit us either – indeed, that love should approach, as closely as possible, the limitless love God has for us, and for all of our world. 

   We bear the image of the heavenly one, Paul tells the Corinthians. We share in the humanity that Christ took to death and hope that we might share in his divine life in the future, if we but put our faith in him, if we trust in his promise, if we open to being transformed by his sacrificial death and resurrection. In this way, step by step, God draws us into eternal life. But today? We can carry paradise with us, right now. We carry the love of God with us at every moment. We must live in the contradiction, knowing that the world that does not know Jesus is steeped in judgment and condemnation, whereas we, assured of his love, must be steeped in all that heals, all that makes whole, all that builds one another up, until there are no enemies, only brothers and sisters in Christ. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Richly blessed (An unknown Civil war soldier)

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve;
I was made weak, that I might humbly learn to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy;
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I received nothing that I asked for --
but everything that I had hoped for;
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed. 

--An unknown Civil War soldier 

Image source: Jean-Michel Folon, Prayer, Church of Waha, Belgium, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10234068167596143&set=pcb.2889959311158864
Quotation source; see also this link.

Blessed-bringers and Woe-warnings (Sr. Bridget Bearss)

   There are moments in each of our lives when hope in the God of yield and plenty has felt distant and others when we rejoice in our presence as one whose life proclaims resurrection. Many of us, I suspect – if not all of us – find ourselves as those who are “Blessed-bringers” and those who receive the “Woe-warning” as we hear in [Luke’s Gospel]. No one of us is given lifetime admittance to those who make the dream of God – the Kingdom of God—come true - forever in our midst. 

   Today, we are issued both an invitation and a choice. God leaves us free to look within our heart and see what love calls us to do – AND where our feet take us. Do we nourish the soil on which we are planted by keeping our eyes open, our hearts wide, and our hands outstretched? Our past history, our giving record – the social action we took yesterday does not exempt us from the discerning heart that requires that our insides and our outsides match- today. I am challenged again, in this day – to make my life the Gospel read by another – to make visible the vision of Jesus and the tools he left us. When was the last time I washed the feet of the ‘woe warned’ or allowed my own heart to be cleansed? 

   In our midst is the invitation and the call – to make room at the table for both the Blessed Bringers and the Woe-Warned – where each of us makes room for the other – I for you and you for me – no matter what category we place one another -- so that we might hope again – that the dream of God is our dream… 

   A dream where we will each have the chance to make the toast and to eat the toast of love. 

   To be the bread of life with for one another. 

   What does love ask of us this day? 

--Bridget Bearss, RSCJ 

Image source: https://publicsquaremag.org/faith/gospel-fare/unearthing-the-overlooked-gems-of-lukes-sermon-on-the-plain/
Quotation source

To draw closer to the God who loves us (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

   Why do we persist, generation after generation, in a kind of blindness that fails to see the Lord at work in our world, and in us? What is it that so handicaps us from living the life that God has called us to? Some would say it’s merely an ability to pay attention past the tangibles, past those things that are so easy to count, so easy to take stock of. 

   We sometimes don’t put enough importance on our encounters with God. The Irish called them the “thin places,” the belief that heaven and earth are about three feet apart, but there are some places where heaven is closer and you encounter God. How many thin places do we encounter every day, where God is present in our lives, if we would but open our eyes to see? But we are so intent on what we can see that we don’t look. 

   Now is a good time for looking, for finding those thin places in our lives to encounter God as much as we possibly can, so that all of our days might be filled with his presence, with his grace, with his forgiveness, all of which draw us ever closer to him. Our lives are a journey into the thin places, and the only intent is to draw closer to the God who loves us. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, February 21, 2024

Image source 1: https://onbeing.org/blog/thin-places-and-the-transforming-presence-of-beauty/
Image source 2: Mill Valley sunrise, October 30, 2024.
For more on "thin places," see also:  https://christchurchcranbrook.org/2021/03/03/thin-places-in-the-celtic-tradition/

The root choice (Simone Weil / Henri Nouwen)

To be rooted is perhaps
the most important and least recognized
need of the human soul.

 --Simone Weil 

    You are constantly facing choices. The question is whether you choose for God or for your own doubting self. You know what the right choice is, but your emotions, passions, and feelings keep suggesting you choose the self-rejecting way. 

    The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need... God says to you, “I love you. I am with you. I want to see you come closer to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and a new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God.” 

    This is the voice to listen to. And that listening requires a real choice, not just once in a while but every moment of every day and night. It is you who decides what you think, say, and do. You can think yourself into a depression, you can talk yourself into low self-esteem, you can act in a self-rejecting way. But you always have a choice to think, speak, and act in the name of God and so move toward the Light, the Truth, and the Life. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/problem-solving/do-sunflowers-follow-sun/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Your present blessings (Charles Dickens)

   Reflect upon your present blessings – of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. 

--Charles Dickens 

Image source:  https://aileencooks.com/monterey-bay-aquarium-review/
Quotation source

Love is the beginning (St. Augustine / Dr. Wendy Wright)

To fall in love with God
is the greatest romance;
to seek Him the greatest adventure;
to find Him, the greatest human achievement.

--St. Augustine 

   Love is the beginning, end and means of the entire Christian life. 

   [H]uman hearts are created to love deeply and fully, to experience the depth of divine desire, and to love as they have first been loved. 

   Human hearts are drawn to intimacy with the Heart of God and with one another through the Heart of Christ. 

   Human hearts beat in rhythm with the heartbeat of God as they ‘Live Jesus’, and allow the Heart of the gentle, humble Savior to inhabit and animate them. 

   Human hearts rest in the Heart of God like children in the arms of a parent or lovers on the breast of a beloved. Human hearts beat and breathe together in friendship, in families, in intentional communities, in the Church and in loving service, revealing the Heart of the gentle Jesus alive in the world. 

   Holiness, sanctity, sainthood: these words do not refer to an élite cadre of super-human heroes or to a chilly, inhuman piety; they are not reserved for religious professionals or for individuals who are ‘not of this world’. Holiness is the destiny of all human beings. Sanctity is simply the deep realization of the life given over to Love. And all are created for and invited into the mystery of the divine and human world where heart speaks gently to heart. 

--Wendy Wright,
Heart Speaks to Heart:
The Salesian Tradition

Happy Valentine’s Day from

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley! 

Image source: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/wacky-weekend/article/hearts-in-nature
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 16, 2025: He is like a tree planted beside the waters...

He is like a tree planted beside the waters…
Are we rooted in the Lord? 

    The prophet Jeremiah uses vivid plant imagery to describe two different human scenarios. On the one hand, those who seek their strength in flesh and whose hearts turn away from the Lord are like a barren bush in the desert that stands in a lava waste. Such an individual is not rooted in the Lord but in a void; he trusts in his own accomplishments and has abandoned God. On the other hand, the one who trusts in the Lord is like a tree planted beside the waters that bears fruit. We have life so long as we remain connected to God, rooted in God, no matter where we are. If we are without God’s presence because we have cut ourselves off from God, what blessing is possible? But if we are, as Psalm 1 says, people who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night, we too will yield fruit. We must thus concentrate on how to stay close to the Lord, rooted in the love of God.

   To be rooted in God is to be blessed. In Luke’s Gospel, the Beatitudes name as blessed those for whom nothing stands between them and the Lord: Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours… The blessed will inherit the kingdom because they can possess the kingdom more easily, because nothing gets in the way. By contrast, Luke paints the rich as already having received their consolation; having “all” they need, they have no need for God. To be blessed thus suggests closeness to God, while woes are for those who have put themselves at a distance from the Lord. Paul reminds the Corinthians that they too need to be rooted in what God has done: having suffered despair and physical anguish, Christ has been raised from the dead, Paul reminds them, so that humanity could be transformed. To negate this core belief of our faith would be to put oneself at a distance from the Lord, to be uprooted.

   Ultimately, we need to be rooted in God and his love for us, not in some substitute, be it land or worldly possessions or a false belief. Better by far to remain blessed, that we might rejoice and leap for joy, because we are able to bear fruit in the name of Christ who died for us. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

The courage to let go (Marissa Papula)

   Ours is a God who disrupts, interrupts, and breaks into our ordinary lives in extraordinary ways, calling us to deeper love, more committed discipleship, and even sometimes, to leave everything we know behind, to pick up our nets and follow the call. 

   I wonder when in our lives we receive invitations that turn everything upside down, and we’re left with little else to do then pick up our nets and leave it all behind for God: the job layoff, the positive pregnancy test, the diagnosis, the love at first sight. God’s call to us and our compulsion to respond might not involve a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee. Still, it might very well involve the minutiae of our daily lives: parenthood, partnerships, jobs, the humanness of living in a body that is fragile and mortal. From within our lives but beyond our expectations and imaginations come invitations that compel us out of all we know and into a wilderness of holy surrender. 

    [W]hat a wonder it is to affirm their courage in getting out of the boat. How many of us hold fast to familiarity, clinging with a white-knuckle grip to what we know, afraid of loosening our grasp, and opening our hands, hearts and selves to God? 

   Let us pray today for the courage to let go, pick up, and follow Jesus. And let us pray for those who are finding their sea legs as they answer the call to pick up their nets, get out of their boats and move more deeply into the lives God is calling them to live. 

--Marissa Papula 

Image source: https://sheilaalewine.com/2022/02/13/have-you-offered-your-boat-to-jesus/
Quotation source

The invasion of grace (Naguib Mahfouz / Bishop Robert Barron)

Fear does not prevent death. 

 It prevents life. 

--Naguib Mahfouz 

    Jesus climbs into Peter’s boat without asking permission. He simply commandeers this vessel that is central to the fisherman’s life and commences to give orders. This represents something of enormous moment: the invasion of grace. 

    Though God respects our relative independence, he is not the least bit content to leave us in a “natural” state. Instead, he wants to live in us, to become the Lord of our lives, moving into our minds, wills, bodies, imaginations, nerves, and bones. 

    This commandeering of nature by grace does not involve the compromising of nature but rather its perfection and elevation. When Jesus moves into the house of the soul, the powers of the soul are heightened and properly directed; when Jesus commands the boat of the natural human life, that life is preserved, strengthened, and given a new orientation. 

    This is signaled symbolically by the Lord’s directive to put out into the deep water. On our own, we can know and will within a very narrow range, seeking those goods and truths that appear within the horizon of our natural consciousness, but when grace invades us, we are enticed into far deeper waters. 

 --Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection,
September 7, 2023

Image source: Peter Paul Rubens, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1618-1619), https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peter-paul-rubens-the-miraculous-draught-of-fishes 

Quotation source

How worthy or unworthy we are (Fr. James Martin)

   After the Miraculous Catch of Fish, and in the presence of the divine, Simon (Peter) feels his own sinfulness and begs Jesus to ‘depart’ from him (Lk 5: 1-11). 

    But Jesus not only doesn’t depart, he asks Peter to follow him. And later, after Peter denies knowing him during the Passion, Jesus again asks Peter to follow him. 

    Our discipleship depends not on how worthy or unworthy we are, but on how loving and compassionate God is.

--Fr. James Martin,
Facebook, February 6, 2022 

Image source: http://mountcarmelmv.blogspot.com/2022/11/great-power-william-booth.html
Quotation source

Happy Birthday, Fr. Brown!

Today is OLMC Priest-in-Residence
Fr. Bill Brown's birthday!

May God continue to shower you with
wisdom and joy in the year to come,

Fr. Brown,
and may the Holy Spirit fill your heart
with peace and happiness
on your special day!

Image source 1 & 2:  
http://facebook.com/mountcarmelmv/ 
(Fr. Brown was so happy to bless the animals of OLMC in October 2024, including the Spencers' lovely Lilly!)

Once Christ speaks to our hearts (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    [The disciples] have been called to a radical change in their lives. Nothing about their lives will be the same. Nothing will be about their expectations; it will be about learning what God’s expectations are. 

   Once Christ begins to move in our lives, once Christ begins to speak to our hearts, we cannot go back, because we cannot change that fact. We can fight, we can insist on doing what we want to do and going where we want to go. We can say we want everything our way, but that doesn’t mean that he is going to leave, and it doesn’t mean that his call is going to stop – it will continue… 

    And we will be called again and again to proclaim good news with our lives, to be a people of resurrection, not of death, to embrace our world, not to reject it for its evil. For once you reject something, you can’t easily draw it back, but if you love the world, you then have the ability to have an effect on it, and that is what Jesus Christ came to do: to love this world, and everything that is in it. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, Sunday, January 21, 2024 

Image source: Fr. Patrick Michaels, Christ Has Compassion on the Crowds (1984), https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=912444854254263&set=pb.100064662700877.-2207520000&type=3

No moment without its call (Fr. Raymond Tyohemba)

There is no life without a task,

no person without a talent,

no moment without its call. 

--Fr. Raymond Tyohemba 

Image source 1:James B. Janknegt, The Conversion of St. Paul, https://www.bcartfarm.com/wfs69.html

Image source 2: Michelangelo, The Conversion of St. Paul (ca. 1542-1545), https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-conversion-of-st-paul 

Quotation source

Encountering God is not a solitary activity (Alyson Rockhold)

  [Seeing me make three crosses, my husband] asked me what I was doing, and I responded eagerly, “Oh it’s this Catholic thing! They do it before the Gospel is read at Mass. I’m asking for God’s word to be on my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.” 

   My husband’s question prompted self-reflection: Why had I carried this tradition with me for so long? Where does it come from? How did it become part of Mass? What is its true meaning? 

   My research yielded this beautiful interpretation of the practice: “We cross our forehead so that the Word of God may be in our thoughts and purify our minds. We cross our lips so that our speech may be holy and incline us to share the Gospel with others. And we cross our hearts to invite God to strengthen our love for him and others. All of this is so that we might know, proclaim, and love Jesus Christ all the more.” 

   The three cross prayer reminds me that encountering God is not a solitary activity. When I make that gesture, I am not the first, the last, or the only person praying for God’s word to be on my mind, lips, and heart. Instead, I am joined by believers around the world and throughout the generations in our collective desire to know God. And even if we have different skin tones or customs, wear different clothes or speak different languages, we are united as God’s children. We are not alone, and we truly are more alike than we are different. 

--Alyson Rockhold 

Image source: https://pilgrimatthecrossroads.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/the-calling-of-isaiah-isaiah-61-8/
Quotation source & complete article

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 9, 2025: Do not be afraid: from now on, you will be catching men...

Do not be afraid;
from now on, you will be catching men…

What does it mean to be called by God? 

   Isaiah, Simon Peter, Paul: three men, each called by the Lord. Why did God choose them, and how did they respond to this call? 

   In the 8th c. BC, the prophet Isaiah has a vision in which he sees the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. God’s presence can barely be contained, and Isaiah is overwhelmed. Yet, although he feels himself to be unworthy and inadequate, Isaiah knows that he has nonetheless been chosen by God. When the ember that one of the seraphim had taken with tongs from the fire touches Isaiah’s mouth, he is transformed, purified of any stain of infidelity, and can respond to God’s invitation, Whom shall I send? with a resounding, Here I am; send me! Would we respond with such alacrity? 

   In Luke's Gospel, when Jesus gets into the boat belonging to Simon, the fisherman is not enthusiastic about throwing out his net after a night during which they have caught nothing. Yet, upon witnessing with astonishment the catch of fish brought in on Jesus’ command, Simon falls at the knees of Jesus, exclaiming, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. Jesus’ response is meant to calm Simon’s worries: Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men. At these reassuring words, Simon and his companions leave everything and follow Jesus. Would we respond as wholeheartedly? 

   Paul reminds the Corinthians that he was not fit to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church of God, yet the Lord saw fit to appear to him nonetheless. God’s grace is doubly at work in Paul to make up for this brokenness, purifying Paul as God purified Isaiah. Paul’s persecutions of the Church did not lead Paul to this role; God chose him, and Paul allows God to work in him through the grace of God that is with him. As Psalm 138 states, The Lord will complete what he has done for us. Would we respond so humbly? 

   We struggle to imagine that we too might be called by the Lord. Like Isaiah, Simon Peter and Paul, we likely feel unworthy, incapable of earning the forgiveness necessary to serve in such a way. It is an ongoing struggle for us in our own brokenness; we let our brokenness be a barrier standing between ourselves and the Lord. Yet the Lord’s words to Simon – Do not be afraid! – are also there for us as we step out in faith and recognize our call, a call to walk with the Lord and to allow him to work in and through us, every single day. Do not be afraid! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

God is refining you (Anne Kephart)

   There was once a group of women studying the book of Malachi in the Old Testament. As they were studying chapter three, they came across verse three, which says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” This verse puzzled the women, and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out about the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible study. 

   That week this woman called up a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest so as to burn away all the impurities. 

   The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot – then she thought again about the verse, that he sits as a refiner and purifier of silver. She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. 

   The man answered “Yes”, and explained that he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left even a moment too long in the flames, it would be damaged. 

   The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy. When I see my image in it.” 

   If today you are feeling the heat of this world’s fire, just remember that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ are refining you. "You are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ." 

--Anne Kephart 

Image source 1: https://www.mckenziesuemakes.com/the-glassblowers-refiners-fire/
Image source 2: https://comingaliveinchrist.blogspot.com/2011/01/silversmith.html
Quotation source

Love draws all pains into Mary's heart (St. Francis de Sales)

And you yourself a sword will pierce. 
Luke 2:35 

   Consider how love draws all pains, all torments, travails, sufferings, griefs, the wounds, the passion, the cross and even the death of our Redeemer into his most holy Mother’s heart. Alas, the same nails that crucified the body of this divine Child also crucified the heart of his Mother, the same thorns that pierced his head pierced through the soul of this utterly sweet Mother; she bore the same miseries as her Son through commiseration, the same dolorous experiences through condolence, the same passions through compassion; and, in short, the sword of death that pierced the body of this most beloved Son likewise pierced through the heart of this very loving Mother. 

--St. Francis de Sales,
Treatise on the Love of God,
Book V, Chapter 4 

Image source 1: Pieter Porbus, Our Lady of Sorrows (1556), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Sorrows#/media/File:Pieter_Pourbus_-_The_van_Belle_Tryptich_(Our_Lady_of_Sorrows)_(central_panel).jpeg 
Image source 2: Anthony van Dijk, Christ on the Cross (1630), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Sorrows#/media/File:Antoon_van_Dyck_(1599-1641)_-_Christus_aan_het_kruis_(1630)_-_Sint-Romboutskathedraal_Mechelen_9-06-2012_14-47-052.jpg
Quotation source

Because she was faithful (Gowdy Cannon)

   I imagine that in the decades Anna spent giving over her entire widowed life to glorify God in his holy temple, she had some long seasons filled with menial, tedious, mundane, monotonous service. And yet, because she was faithful, one day she got to experience the exact opposite of that. Anna beheld the Creator of the entire universe and Savior of the world with his tiny hands and feet, unable to talk or walk, as helpless and precious as a human ever is. I weep thinking about her reaction. 

   Because what does Anna do first? She thanks God. Man, what an example! I long for that to be my reaction in the trivial and daily, but also in the big and exciting. Especially with things involving Jesus. 

   And what does Anna do second? She tells everyone in the vicinity about this Jesus. About this baby, and what he would come to be. The most important and magnificent message in the history of time. May we all do that all the time, but especially at Christmas. This is the example of those humble shepherds, as has been preached countless times in churches for 2,000 years. It is the example of humble Anna as well. 

   I imagine there is a vast army of Christians from all times and all cultures who knew widows who were extremely faithful to their churches. Who were prayer warriors and were quick to testify about Jesus. Nearly every church I have served in has had at least a few and sometimes more than a few elderly women like that. Anna was the quintessential fiercely dedicated church widow. 

   And for that reason, I can’t wait to hug her when I get to Heaven. 

--Gowdy Cannon 

Image source: Álvaro Pires de Évora, The Presentation in the Temple (ca.1430), https://slmedia.org/blog/simeon-and-anna-senior-citizen-prophets
Quotation source

Returning to his favorite dwelling (Bishop Robert Barron)

   [Sunday]’s Gospel tells the story of the presentation of Jesus in the temple. The temple was, in practically a literal sense, the dwelling place of the Lord. In the temple, divinity and humanity embraced, and the human race was brought back online with God. 

   But the sins of the nation had, according to the prophet Ezekiel, caused the glory of the Lord to depart from the temple. Therefore, one of the deepest aspirations of Israel’s people was to reestablish the temple as the place of right praise so that the glory of the Lord might return. When Joseph and Mary bring the infant Jesus into the temple, therefore, we are meant to appreciate that the prophecy of Ezekiel is being fulfilled. The glory of Yahweh is returning to his favorite dwelling. And this is precisely what Simeon sees. 

   The old seer is a symbol of ancient Israel, watching and waiting for the coming of the Messiah. Simeon knew all of the old prophecies; he embodied the expectation of the nation; and the Holy Spirit had given him the revelation that he would not die until he had laid eyes on his Savior. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Giovanni Bellini, Presentation at the Temple (ca. 1460), https://newdailycompass.com/en/presentation-of-the-lord
Quotation source

Mary's sorrow (Theresa Kiser)

   Mary’s sorrow is different from sadness. It is founded on faith, given momentum by hope, and is the interwoven brother of love. Sorrow is deep, like roots that probe deeper and deeper so that the tree above can bear abundant fruit. It is like the chaff that grows up with the grain; to remove sorrow now would threaten the harvest, but one day, God will separate the two (Mt 3:12). Sorrow will be forgotten, and we’ll be left with the abundance and joy of Easter. 

--Theresa Kiser 

Image source: Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato, The Madonna in Sorrow (17th c.), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Sorrows#/media/File:Frari_(Venice)_-_Sacristy_-_Il_Sassoferrato_-_Madonna_in_prayer.jpg
Quotation source