Fear not (Pope Francis)

    There is no need to worry and fret, for our story is firmly in God’s hands. We are heartened by Jesus’ invitation not to fear. Indeed, at times we feel imprisoned by a feeling of distrust and anxiety. It is the fear of failure, of not being acknowledged and loved, the fear of not being able to accomplish our plans, of never being happy, and so on. And so, we scramble to look for solutions, to find a space in which to emerge, to accumulate goods and wealth, to obtain security. 

    And how do we end up? We end up living anxiously and constantly worrying. 

    Instead, Jesus reassures us: Do not be afraid! Trust in the Father who wants to give you all you truly need. He has already given you his Son, his Kingdom, and he always accompanies you with his providence, taking care of you every day. Fear not: this is the certainty that your hearts should be attached to! Fear not: a heart attached to this certainty. Fear not. 

--Pope Francis

Image source 1: https://chrisgoringe.net/2023/06/many-sparrows/ 

Image source 2: Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich, Procrustes (2023). For a compelling explanation of how this piece embodies human fear, go to: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/matthew-25-14-30-2025/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 21, 2026: Lord, in your great love, answer me...

Lord, in your great love, answer me…
 What does salvation look like? 

    Humankind’s understanding of what constitutes salvation has evolved greatly over time. When the prophet Jeremiah prays to the Lord, he is hoping to be saved from his former friends, now his enemies: Perhaps he will be trapped, Jeremiah imagines them saying, then we can prevail! Jeremiah’s community has no concept of an afterlife, and so Jeremiah believes that any vindication he might see – in the form of verification of his prophecies – needs to happen in his lifetime. Ultimately, however, Jeremiah has confidence in God’s love: to you I have entrusted my cause. Jeremiah has much in common with the author of Psalm 69, who has become an outcast to his brothers, a stranger to his mother’s children. Yet, like Jeremiah, the psalmist knows that he must not change his message simply because he feels threatened. Instead, he will trust in the Lord’s help, for bounteous is God’s kindness and mercy. 

    When, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus sends out the Twelve, his principal request is that they fear no one. Fear makes us defensive, and if the disciples are defensive, then Jesus will not be able to be present to the communities the disciples are hoping to reach. Rather than fear, therefore, the disciples must remain confident that Jesus is with them, present to them at all times, that they might go and love and heal their world. They have entered into relationship with Jesus, and consequently they know salvation. To deny him before others would be to deny their own identity. Clearly, Jesus has every confidence that his Twelve will remain faithful, and thus be effective in their ministry. 

    Paul will remind the Romans that the vindication of all mankind comes from the one God has sent, for the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflows for the many. When Adam and Eve chose control over relationship, sin entered the world, but Jesus’ unselfish, generous gift is not like the selfish transgressions of Adam and Eve. Indeed, God’s response to transgression is a generous and absolute love. We know salvation because we know Christ. So long as we remain in him, we too can trust in the bounteous kindness of the Lord, entrusting our salvation to his infinite mercy. 

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

We cannot remove the scales of sin on our own (Haley Stewart)

    The confessional requires our vulnerability. We can have no veils between ourselves and God, and he himself has torn the veil of the temple that might separate us. To examine our conscience with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, we can see ourselves with the help of God’s divine mirror. 

     Before becoming Catholic, I might have felt guilty about things I had done, but that guilt never could be truly addressed and overcome. The sacrament of Reconciliation not only makes it possible to accept the reality of my sin; confession offers the gift of leaving the shame in the confessional. Sin has been spoken, it has been faced—and it has been met with mercy and washed away by the blood of Christ. 

     We may try to uncover our “faces” inch by inch and day by day, but like Eustace Scrubb in one of C.S. Lewis’ stories, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we cannot remove the scales of sin on our own but only through the mercy of God, in order that one day we can truly meet him “face to face.” No flimsy veil of self-deceit can protect us from the power of that mercy. The grace is there, waiting for us. Thanks be to God. 

--Haley Stewart

Image source: https://anunexpectedjournal.com/lewiss-dragons-and-materialism-a-reflection-on-eustace-scrubb-and-other-dragons/
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Compassion lies at the heart of prayer (Henri Nouwen)

    Compassion lies at the heart of our prayer for our fellow human beings. When I pray for the world, I become the world; when I pray for the endless needs of the millions, my soul expands and wants to embrace them all and bring them into the presence of God. But in the midst of that experience I realize that compassion is not mine but God’s gift to me. I cannot embrace the world, but God can. I cannot pray, but God can pray in me. When God became as we are, that is, when God allowed all of us to enter into his intimate life, it became possible for us to share in his infinite compassion. 

    In praying for others, I lose myself and become the other, only to be found by the divine love that holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace. 

 --Henri Nouwen 

Image source:   https://www.crosswalk.com/church/end-racism/a-convicting-prayer-for-compassion-on-those-affected-by-racism.html
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Proclaim the compassionate love of God (Fr. James Martin)

    Jesus calls a whole group of people to spread the Good News, not just one. That is, he doesn’t just appoint a kind of assistant—one person, like Peter. No, he appoints 12 of them and then more. In other places in the Gospels, we’re told that there were as many as 72 disciples. The 12 is an image of the 12 tribes of Israel, a kind of "gathering in." But these numbers are also a reflection that Jesus knows we need one another, even amid divisions—like the disciples faced. And like we face today. 

    Jesus also calls them by name. He doesn’t call a mass of nameless people, but individuals: Peter, Andrew, James, John, and so on. And he calls them, which was unusual in those days, when the student sought out the teacher. Today, Jesus calls each of us by name, too. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses, our likes and limitations, our desires and dreams. 

    Every person here has at some point realized that God is inviting him or her, or them, into a relationship with God. But that relationship is not just for you and God, it’s for everyone. God calls us each of by name and sends us out. To do what? The same thing Jesus asks his disciples to do: to heal diseases and illnesses. Not in the same way of course, but diseases nonetheless; the disease of violence, the disease of exclusion, the disease of ignorance and the greatest disease of all, the disease of hatred. 

    So go into the world, proclaim the compassionate love of God, knowing that the Good Shepherd is with his flock, with his feligresía, and with you always. 

--Fr. James Martin, S.J. 

Image source: https://catholicmagazine.news/the-defining-moment/
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His heart fills with compassion (Fr. John P. Fitzgibbons S.J.)

    The future we all long for, the Reign of God, is found in the present moment. It seems to me that is what Jesus senses in today's gospel passage from Matthew (9:32-38). After a long series of stunning cures -- a hemorraghic woman, the raising of a synagogue official's daughter, the cure of two blind men, and the exorcism of a possessed man -- Jesus breathlessly looks out over the crowd. Instead of shrinking away, his heart fills with compassion and sorrow for the multitude "because they were harassed and dejected." Surely he, too, was exhausted! 

    Yet what issues from his mouth is a prayer for more ministers of mercy: "The harvest is good, but the laborers are scarce. Beg the harvester to send laborers to gather the harvest.” 

    I think what gives Jesus the energy and the heart to labor and live so well in the present is an insight. It's hard to name exactly, but the insight starts when looking into the eyes of someone who needs. It grows when we reach out and heal by caring. It becomes a harvest when a community begins to act this way. 

--John P. Fitzgibbons, S.J. 

Image source: https://timeofmercy.com/time-of-mercy-blog/2021/1/5/6x7gnsd1sds2mhzcxvn33n1itn15zm

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Compassion will flow (John O'Donahue / Pope Leo XIV)

There is a place in you...
that is the eternal place within you.
The more we visit there,
the more we are touched and fused
with the limitless kindness and affection of the divine…
If we can inhabit that reflex of divine presence,
then compassion will flow naturally from us.

--John O’Donahue 

      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 XIV 

Image source: Eustache Le Sueur, Christ Healing the Blind Man, https://www.wikiart.org/en/eustache-le-sueur/christ-healing-the-blind-man
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