Everything is possible (Pope Leo XIV / Corrie Ten Boom)

The fruitfulness of Christian life
does not depend on human approval,
but on the perseverance of those who,
united to Christ like the branch to the vine, 
bear fruit when their season comes.

 --Pope Leo XIV

    The wonderful thing about praying is that you leave a world of not being able to do something, and enter God’s realm where everything is possible. He specializes in the impossible. Nothing is too great for His almighty power. Nothing is too small for His love. 

--Corrie Ten Boom 

Image source: A leaf sheep (Costasiella kuroshimae) is a sea slug that is believed to be able to perform photosynthesis. It is no bigger than a grain of rice, yet God has made it able to pull off one of nature’s craziest tricks! Each one of its green “leaves” is covered in chloroplasts taken from the algae it eats (a phenomenon bearing the terrific name of kleptoplasty). Once it has fed, the leaf sheep stores these chloroplasts inside its body, allowing it to convert sunlight into energy – just like a plant. https://kottke.org/26/04/the-leaf-sheep-slug-the-animal-that-eats-sunshine for more details. In God’s realm, everything is possible!
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Note: Corrie Ten Boom knew something about the impossible that God could accomplish through human participation in God's works. With her family, Ms. Ten Boom helped to save the lives of hundreds of Jewish refugees to the Netherlands during World War II. She herself was eventually arrested and sent to a concentration camp, but she survived and became a significant Christian writer and speaker.

Unlimited seeds (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    The God of the Gospels is the Sower who has unlimited seeds, and scatters those seeds everywhere without discrimination: on the road, in ditches, in the thorn bushes, in bad soil, and in good soil. This prodigal God gives us this perennial invitation: Come to the waters, come without money, come without merit… because God’s gift is as plentiful, as available, and as free as the air we breathe. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Facebook, June 12, 2023

Image source 1: https://bonecreek.org/v2/wp-content/uploads/The-Sower.jpg
Image source 2: Plateau di Castelluccio di Norcia, Umbria, Italy, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=24079443388378547&set=gm.4025742350980166&idorvanity=1884776005076822
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Participating in God's work (Suzanne)

    Every human relationship is dependent on dialogue – on how we speak to each other, how we listen, how we communicate. And so it is with God. Communication with the Lord requires that we pay attention to God’s Word in our lives and enter into dialogue regularly with God. 

    However, in Isaiah 55, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 

    This would seem to doom human communication with God to failure. Can we even begin to understand God, God’s thoughts, God’s ways? 

    One little word turns the tide: YET… Yet just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down… That little word, yet, is important… because it suggests hope! You may not understand me, God says – my thoughts and my words – yet I will send my word forth from my mouth and it will do what I want it to do: It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. 

    And we can participate!

    If God is sending God’s word, God must be sending it to someone – namely, us. Which means, implicitly, that there must be some way to “get it,” some way for us to get an inkling of God’s message, because God wants to communicate with us, be in relationship with us, allow us to participate in God's work. 

    This can only happen if we are open to God’s purpose, open to God’s will in our lives. Only through constant communication with God can we find our way to God’s kingdom, both here on earth and in heaven, in synch with God’s ways, in tune to God’s thoughts. Only by listening can we know God’s will and participate in God's work. Only in prayer can we be open: open to the salvation that is ours, open to the joy the Lord promises to the just… 

--Suzanne T.,
Communion Service Reflection,
March 7, 2017 

Image source: John August Swanson, Abraham and Isaac (2025, posthumous publication), available for purchase at: https://johnaugustswanson.com/catalog/abraham-and-isaac-2025/?srsltid=AfmBOooRO4vvFY8V_nZbZnOO7UZKKXF6cUCBE0FZJ-T4ZvAoi38Rsgn9

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 12, 2026: Whoever has ears ought to hear...

Whoever has ears ought to hear…
 Are we really listening? 

    In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable of the sower has one point and one point only: the kingdom of heaven is at work among you and is producing beyond anything you can imagine. Yes, Matthew records the early Church’s alternative, analogy-based reading of this parable, which has to do with all those seeds that “fail” and bear no fruit, but ultimately, as Jesus tells the crowds, the seed that falls on rich soil and produces fruit produces a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold – the fruitful harvest promised by Psalm 65 and then some. It is impossible, and the impossibility is the point! God can do things beyond human imagining, no matter the soil, no matter the conditions. God is at work. God is going to produce. God is going to bear fruit. So be open to God and to where God is leading. The blessing comes for those who participate in the miracle that God is unfolding – but it’s God who is at work, accomplishing this miracle. So open your eyes, open your ears, and hear his Word! 

    Jesus’ message echoes that of the prophet Isaiah, who reassures the people who have returned from exile in Babylon and are beginning to rebuild that God’s word will achieve the end for which God sent it. Isaiah’s message of hope and encouragement suggests that God knows prosperity will come through his word. Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, so God’s word accomplishes God’s works, and in God’s time. What God creates is extraordinary, beyond our comprehension; we have but to be open to all that God’s creation has to reveal to us. 

    Mankind tends to limit creation, its value and abilities, to limit what is possible for God. But God doesn’t, and God expects us to participate! As Paul tells the Romans, creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God. God desires that all creation share in union with Christ, and so creation is groaning in labor pains, waiting to give birth to revelation. We eagerly anticipate the glory to be revealed to us in all its fullness, and so we live in hope… because our God is a God whose activity is fruitful beyond anything we can imagine! We have but to hear the word and understand it, allowing God to bear fruit in us to be that very revelation Paul describes! 

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

His heart is an open door (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque / Anne Costa)

I need nothing but God,
and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.

--St Margaret Mary Alacoque, VSM

    Jesus does not wish his heart to be a mystery to us. Rather, his heart is an open door; he wears it on his sleeve for us, so to speak. He is meek, he is humble, and he makes himself vulnerable, as he is consumed by love for us and concern for our eternal destiny. 

--Anne Costa,
Healing Promises:
The Essential Guide to the Sacred Heart

Image source: Christ the Missionary Overlooking the World, Notre-Dame des Missions d’Epinay, https://eglisesduconfluent.fr/Pages/VIT-93Epinay-EglND.php
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Accompanied on the journey (Fr. Dave Ghiorso / Henri Nouwen)

    Take my yoke and learn from me. 

    A yoke is a tool. It’s an instrument that binds two animals together. It’s kind of an unusual image for rest. 

    But you have to remember what Jesus is trying to get across here. Christian rest does not mean an escape from life, but to be joined to our Lord through this life. Jesus does not remove the burdens; he’s very clear on that. He says, I will give you rest, but then he tells you to take the yoke. He’s not going to remove every burden. What is promised is that he shares the burden and, in doing so, completely transforms it. 

    Jesus is not asking us to carry those crosses we have alone. When we let him walk beside us, when we let him steady our steps as we go forward, the weight changes. That is what is being promised. The burden is still there, but the crushing heaviness of it is not. What might have felt unbearable is now survivable. 

    And then he promises us, And you will find rest for your soul – that inner peace that comes from knowing that we are loved, we are held, we are accompanied on our journey. 

    Maybe today we are invited to slow down, to rediscover that gentle God who walks beside us. 

--Fr. Dave Ghiorso,
Homily, December 10, 2025 

Dear God, Speak gently in my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my surroundings
and the loud inner noises of my fears
keep pulling me away from you,
help me to trust that you are still there
even when I am unable to hear you.
Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:
“Come to me, you who are overburdened,
and I will give you rest....
for I am gentle and humble of heart.”
Let that loving voice be my guide.
 Amen. 

 --Henri Nouwen

Image source: https://whatthenwhynow.org/an-easy-yoke/
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He came to rule from within (Fr. Patrick Michaels / Molly Hartle)

Christ didn’t come to rule over us;
he came to rule from within.
Because Christ did not come to rule as any other king.
 There was only one power he wished to exercise
and that was the absolute love of God for all.

 --Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, April 30, 2026 

    [In Matthew 11: 25-30], Jesus seems to be saying something odd. Essentially, he thanks God for hiding his treasures from “the wise and the learned.” My first question upon reading this was “Wouldn’t the wise and the learned naturally see his treasures?” 

    But those aren’t the people Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about the Jewish elite (that is, the Pharisees and Sadducees). Jesus knows that the Jewish elite are not only going to try to undermine him but that eventually their judgement will lead to his crucifixion. We get a taste of this in Matthew 9 when Jesus heals a paraplegic by saying simply “your sins are forgiven.” Rather than seeing the miracle in Jesus’ astonishing healing, the Jewish elite say, “This fellow is blaspheming!” 

    So, Jesus is mad. Not at the Jewish elite per se, but at their own misguided attachment to the letter of the law. He knows that their inability to remain open to his teachings will cost them salvation. Thus, his reference to “the childlike” – the Jewish elite are anything but. 

    In the latter part of this gospel reading, Jesus speaks to the very people who have fallen under the Jewish elite’s perfectionistic adherence to Mosaic law—all those who “labor and are burdened.” Jesus offers them a simple, inclusive faith that doesn’t require an education. No doubt this is what he means when he says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

    Here, Jesus opens the door for anybody and everybody to follow him, even those people who lack an education, social standing, and money. He himself was born into poverty, was unable to read and write, and had little to no standing in society. 

    Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened… 

--Molly Hartle,
Communion Service Reflection,
October 4, 2022 

Image source: Jesus challenges the Pharisees and Chief Priest, The Chosen, Season 5, Episode 3, https://www.thebibleartist.com/post/the-chosen-season-5-episode-3-bible-study-discussion-guide-exploring-the-chosen-with-small-group