If God loves us with all his being (Pope Leo XIV)

    If God loves us with all his being, then we too must love one another. We cannot love God whom we do not see without loving our brother and sister whom we do see (cf. 1 Jn 4:20)... 

    In following Jesus, the ascent to God passes through descent and dedication to our brothers and sisters, especially the least, the poorest, the abandoned and the marginalized. What we have done to the least of these, we have done to Christ (cf. Mt 25:31-46). 

    In the face of disasters, wars and misery, we bear witness to God’s mercy to those who doubt him only when they experience his mercy through us. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: Pope Leo XIV blesses a baby as he greets people before celebrating Mass with those assisted by the Albano diocesan Caritas agency at the Shrine of Santa Maria della Rotonda in Albano Laziale, Italy, Aug. 17, 2025, https://catholicreview.org/burn-with-fire-of-gods-love-pope-says-at-mass-and-lunch-with-the-poor/
Quotation source

Joy and duty (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Joy and commandments: these are not terms that we would readily juxtapose. We usually associate commandments with the carrying out of duty and responsibility, or laying down the law and establishing order and discipline. But all of this seems opposed to joy. 

    We find joy in God alone, for our souls have been wired for God. We must acquire God if we are to be joyful. But here’s the trick—and the whole of the Christian life is on display here: God is love. God is self-emptying on behalf of the other. But this means, paradoxically, that to acquire God is to make of oneself a gift. To have God is to be what God is—and that means giving one’s life away. That alone will make you joyful. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Marc Chagall, Crucifixion, Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York, https://hudsonvalley.org/article/union-church-of-pocantico-hills-virtual-tour/
Quotation source

What is a Paraclete? (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

     What is a Paraclete? A Paraclete is one who comforts, who cheers, who encourages, who persuades, who exhorts, who stirs up, who urges forward, who calls on, what the spur, and word of command is, to a horse. [The Paraclete] is what clapping is to a speaker, what a trumpet is to a soldier. That is what a Paraclete is to the soul: one who calls us to the good. 

      A Paraclete is just that, something that cheers the spirit of one, with signals and with cries, all zealous, that one should do something and full of assurance that if one will, one can, calling us on, springing to meet us halfway, crying to our ears, or to our heart: This way to do God’s will, this way to save your soul, come on, come on! 

--Gerard Manley Hopkins,
Sermons & Devotional Writings

Image source: https://www.justhorseriders.co.uk/blogs/news/legends-of-the-saddle-the-10-greatest-horse-riders-and-equestrian-disciplines?srsltid=AfmBOorCX-J44yMX7Xrgvbmecqi20pUYf9dhnA9bqAjsDWP_wD_5bBT_
Quotation source

Bless all mothers (A Mother's Day Prayer)

Heavenly Father,
We thank You for the gift of mothers,
through whom Your love is revealed in so many ways.

Bless all mothers:
those who are joyful, and those who are burdened,
those expecting new life, and those who mourn a loss,
those who nurture children now, and those who lovingly remember. 

Grant them strength, patience, and joy in their vocation.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord,
be their guide and consolation.
Let their sacrifices be honored,
their love returned,
and their hearts filled with peace. 

We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Happy Mother's Day to all
who fulfill the role of mother!

Image source: Filippo Lippi, Madonna with Child and Two Angels (ca. 1460-1465), https://mymodernmet.com/madonna-and-child-art-history/
Prayer source

God broke open his own heart in love (Bishop Robert Barron)

     In his passion to set right a disjointed universe, God broke open his own heart in love. The Father sent not simply a representative but his own Son into the dysfunction of the world, so that he might gather that world into the bliss of the divine life. God’s center—the love between the Father and the Son—is now offered as our center; God’s heart breaks open so as to include even the worst and most hopeless among us. 

--Bishop Robert Barron

Image source: https://inspiration.org/spiritual-life/an-open-heart-for-god
Quotation source

Mary is not passive (China Galland)

     Mary is not passive. The image we've been shown has truth in it, but it is a limited truth. I derived great comfort in the fact that Mary was an earthly mother, that she went through a pregnancy as a teenage mother, that she had known homelessness, that she had borne at least one child. She had witnessed that child's suffering and death, she knew the depths of a mother's sorrow. ⁠ ⁠ 

 

     But Mary's passivity may be all we've allowed ourselves to see. A woman rising up against authority, a woman strong and fearless, a ferocious woman, an independent woman, a heroic woman, a physically courageous woman - to have seen Mary this way would not have served the social order...⁠ ⁠ 

     This is a Mary we need now, a fierce Mary, a terrific Mary, a fearsome Mary, a protectress who does not allow her children to be hunted, tortured, murdered and devoured. 

--China Galland 

Image & quotation source: Margo Humphrey, Black Madonna (2013), https://periodpastor.com/2020/12/13/mary-knew-and-she-still-said-yes/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 10, 2026: Always be ready to give an explanation...

Always be ready to give an explanation…
What role do we play in the revelation of God’s infinite love? 

    It is through relationship that God is revealed. In John’s Gospel, Jesus reassures his disciples at the Last Supper that, while he will not longer be visibly or physically present to them after his death, he will ask the Father, and he will give them another Advocate, the Spirit of truth. This Spirit will remain with them and will be in them. Jesus came to bring us to God, to give us access to God’s infinite love. All that Jesus said and did points to that and was working to make that happen. To be church is to find our union in the love of God revealed in the death and rising of Jesus and revealed in the Spirit at work in our lives. If we as a church are one, then we share in the relationship shared by Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit. And we can only enter into that union through surrender, which requires that we keep his commandments. Our true identity lies in our connectedness, in the participation of all as one. 

    After Jesus’ death and rising, then, it was left to the Twelve and to the disciples that came after them to continue to reveal God’s infinite love to our world through the Spirit that dwelt in them. In the Acts of the Apostles, Philip proclaims the Christ to the people of Samaria, and then Peter and John also come to Samaria and pray for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. The disciples are channels through which God works, through whom God is revealed, and that revelation is cause for great joy! 

    That joy is to be evident in our communal witness to God’s action in our lives: Shout joyfully to God, all the earth; sing praise to the glory of his name, Psalm 66 reminds us. Such joy is precisely what allows us to, as the First Letter of Peter recommends, give an explanation to anyone who asks us for a reason for our hope, with gentleness and reverence. Our challenge is to make sure Christ is revealed in our answer, and that the love of God is manifest in our response. In this way we can further Jesus’ purpose in coming, as in our words and deeds, we too offer access to God, revealing God’s love to all, so that all the earth can indeed cry out to God with joy! 

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