Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 15, 2026: Give me discernment...

 

Give me discernment...
What does God’s order look like? 

    For the people of Israel, the answer to this question lay in the Law, which the Book of Sirach invokes as the primary source of order for those who opt for it: If you choose, you can keep the commandments; they will save you. As Wisdom literature, Sirach is full of instructions on proper behavior, directing readers away from chaos (which is frequently the choice of human beings, thanks to free will) and toward a world in which love rules. Participating in the order set out by the commandments was perceived as aligning oneself with God; obedience leads to right relationship. These sentiments are echoed in Psalm 119, which focuses on the human capacity to learn God’s ways, to walk with the Lord: Open my eyes, that I might consider the wonders of your law, the psalmist asks. In other words, help me to be internally disposed, bearing the power of discernment, so as to be open to God, because it is in God that I will find life. 

    From a Christian perspective, the coming of Jesus represents a new kind of order, one still focused on relationship, but based first and foremost in love. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus invokes a variety of Jewish laws (about murder, adultery, and false oaths, in this week’s reading), deepening the implication of Jewish law from the literal – the letter of the law – to an internal and more profound understanding. For example, it’s not enough, Jesus says, not to murder; we need to protect our relationships with one another through compassion and kindness, building each other up, treating each other with reverence. In each case, constant attention to relationship is in order, particularly as concerns our internal disposition to that relationship. If we embrace one another in love, with our whole beings, we can’t help but maintain God’s order, for God’s order is love.

    This is the new wisdom of this age of which Paul writes to the Corinthians, a wisdom that applies not to a select few (like the Corinthians, who wanted to feel “special”), but to all: God has revealed the full force of his love, sending first his Son to die and rise, and then the Spirit to dwell in and with us, Love, in its most perfect form, known imperfectly by us, yet still, the principal source of God’s order in today’s world. 

    What does God’s order look like? Seek to live your life immersed in God’s Love, serving as a conduit of that Love to others, and you will find the answer! 

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

We don't see them (Dan Evon)

Share your bread with the hungry,
 shelter the oppressed and the homeless.

 --Isaiah 58:7

    On the first day of shooting his new movie, [Time Out of Mind,] director Oren Moverman had an unusual task for his star, Richard Gere: He wanted the famous actor to stand in New York City's bustling Astor Place with an empty coffee cup begging for change. 

   Moverman needed the scene for "Time Out of Mind," in which Gere radically goes against type to play a homeless man. But the filmmaker soon realized it served another purpose. 

   "Richard stood there for 40 minutes‎. No one gave him a cent. No one even recognized him," Moverman said. "And that proved the whole point: The homeless are all around us and we don't see them." 

--Dan Evon 

Do we see the hungry and the homeless?
Do we help?
Or do we turn away? 

Image & quotation source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/richard-gere-homeless/

Acts of kindness (Maya Angelou)

My wish for you is that you continue.
 Continue to be who and how you are,
to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.
Continue to allow humor
to lighten the burden of your tender heart.

 --Maya Angelou

The owl stirs cake with wings so wide,
A cat in a monocle, with dignified stride,
A puppy wags, a happy bark,
A day for fun from dawn till dark!
May you leap like a deer through meadows green,
As playful and joyful as you've ever been.
May you find treasures, shiny and sweet,
Like a squirrel with nuts, a tasty treat!
With a lion's roar, let your laughter ring, 
And the grace of a swan, let your spirit sing.
May your day be filled with furry friends,
And happy adventures that never end.
So blow out your candles, let the wishes fly,
Like birds soaring high in the bright blue sky!
Happy Birthday to you, a creature so grand,
The best animal lover in all the land! 

(A poem after Edward Lear…) 

OLMC parishioners wish our Priest-in-Residence
(and secret animal whisperer),

Fr. Bill Brown, a very happy birthday!

We are so grateful that you are

a part of our parish family –

you are a blessing to us all!
 

Image source 1: Fr. Brown blesses the animals on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 2025, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=5097555260353039&set=pb.100002958458217.-2207520000&type=3
Image source 2: Fr. Brown with one of the feral cats he befriended in Tiburon, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1261250759373669&set=a.1261251466040265
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Learning to have a heart that is moved (Pope Leo XIV)

    If Christ shows us the face of a compassionate God, then to believe in him and to be his disciples means allowing ourselves to be changed and to take on his same feelings. It means learning to have a heart that is moved, eyes that see and do not look away, hands that help others and soothe their wounds, shoulders that bear the burden of those in need. 

--Pope Leo

Image source 1: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-07/pope-leo-hope-is-source-of-joy-no-matter-our-age.html
Image source 2: https://www.today.com/parenting-guides/want-raise-empathetic-children-here-s-what-know-t177606
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Fiercely kind (Laura Jean Truman)

God,

Keep my anger from becoming meanness.

Keep my sorrow from collapsing into self-pity. 

Keep my heart soft enough to keep breaking. 

Keep my anger turned towards justice, not cruelty.

Remind me that all of this, every bit of it, is for love. 

Keep me fiercely kind. 

--Laura Jean Truman 

Image source 1: https://www.facebook.com/groups/387096378163324
Image source 2: https://fiercekindness.com/introducing-key-fierce-kindness-practice-tool-the-kindometer/
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The way to right wrongs (Ida B. Wells / St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata)

The way to right wrongs is
to turn the light of truth upon them.

 --Ida B. Wells

    When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. 

--St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata 

Image source: A Missionaries of Charity nun talks with a man at a home for the dying in Kolkata, India, Sept. 4. The lunch took place during Mother Teresa’s canonization in Rome. https://catholicphilly.com/2016/09/news/world-news/mother-teresa-do-small-things-with-great-love-2/
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We bring God's life to others (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Friends, in [Sunday’s] Gospel, Jesus uses the images of salt and light to show how we are to bring salvation to the world. In our rather privatized and individualistic culture, we tend naturally to think of religion as something for ourselves designed to make our lives richer or better. Now there is a sense in which that is true, but on the biblical reading, religiosity is like salt, light, and an elevated city: it is meant not for oneself but for others. 

    Perhaps we can bring these two together by saying that we find salvation for ourselves precisely in the measure that we bring God’s life to others. The point is that we followers of Jesus are meant to be salt, which effectively preserves and enhances what is best in the society around us. We effectively undermine what is dysfunctional in the surrounding culture. 

    We are also light by which people around us come to see what is worth seeing. By the very quality and integrity of our lives, we shed light, illuminating what is beautiful and revealing what is ugly. The clear implication is that, without vibrant Christians, the world is a much worse place. 

--Bishop Robert Barron

Image source 1: https://maymanamarket.co.uk/food-cooking/enhance-flavour-with-salt-how-a-sprinkle-transforms-taste-in-seconds-2904/
Image source 2: https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/09/why-salt-enhances-flavor/
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