A worldwide web of spiritual connections (St. John of Kronstadt / Christine Firer Hinze)

Ask the angels and the saints to intercede for you,
just as you’d ask people who are alive.
Stand face to face with them,
in the belief that they are also
standing face to face with you.

 --St. John of Kronstadt

    [The Solemnity of All Saints, which we observe tomorrow,] celebrates an intimate, worldwide web of spiritual connections grounded in the power of love: God’s love in embracing us as children, and our human love and support for one another across boundaries of space, time, and even life and death. This communion connects all saints -- every finite sinner whose heart is set on God --with the entire company of ‘friends of God,’ living and dead – neighbors across the globe and ancestors who’ve gone before us. 

   Right now, a cloud of witnesses is extending a special, limited-time offer to you and me to renew --or activate --our personal membership in the blessed communion we celebrate today. By God’s grace, let’s do it! 

--Christine Firer Hinze

Image source 1: https://www.nomenchristi.org/blog/tag/bohemian+grove
Image source 2: The Communion of Saints, Baptistry of Padua, https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/making-difference/our-hurting-world-needs-saints
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 2, 2025: They shall shine as sparks through stubble

They shall shine as sparks through stubble…
Do we believe in the promise of salvation for All Souls? 

   In the midst of his Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowds that it is his Father’s will that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. It is a promise of salvation for all, a promise of hope, a promise of eternal life in perfect union with the Lord. 

   But before that can happen, we must undergo a continual process of transformation. The Book of Wisdom reminds us that although the just suffer, yet is their hope full of immortality. However, purification is necessary: As gold in the fire, God proved them, the author of Wisdom says, testing them by metaphorical fire, that their impurities might rise to the surface and be removed. As sparks darting about through stubble, they can then be the source of salvation for others, living on in the memory of their community. But trust is required, as Psalm 23 reminds us: Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil, for you are at my side. God will lead them through the darkness, that they might shine. 

   As Paul reminds the Romans, we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. In baptism, we are one with him, dying with him so that we can be raised with him. And so, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so too will God raise us, that we too might live in newness of life. Our old self did not know about salvation; our new self is growing in knowledge of God’s love for us. Like the souls who have gone before us, we are in the process of being perfected, drawn into the eternal embrace of God. Though we may face difficulties, we can be confident in God’s consistent, true love for us, which will support us as we continue to grow, change, and be purified. Then, as gold that shines or sparks amid stubble, we will be witnesses of the love of God that is eternal, and Christ will be revealed through us. 

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

Do you know what the cries of the poor sound like? (Verónica Rayas)

   There is a story of a Native American woman who visited New York City to give a presentation at the UN. She had a host, Liz, who wanted to share with her some New York City landmarks, so Liz took her to Times square to experience the energy, thousands of people, the lights from the billboards and sparkle of the diamond dust in the sidewalk. And as they walked around Time Square, Alina was impressed by all the hustle and bustle of the city. As she sat there soaking in the experience she turned to Liz and said “I hear a cricket.” Liz was a little confused and looked upward at the billboards for an advertisement that might contain the sound of the cricket. 

 

   And by the time she brought her eyes back to the ground she saw Alina crouched over behind the coffee cart waving Liz to come over. So, Liz went over and all of a sudden she could hear the chirp of the cricket. And the two of them sat in awe of the cricket that chirped on the corner of 44th and Broadway. 

   Liz turned to and asked Alina, “How did you hear that?  In the middle of the noise from the traffic, people talking, walking and their cell phones, how did you hear the cricket?" 

   She responded saying, "My ears are attuned to nature and that’s what hear. There may be noises and other distractions in our world but our ears listen for the things that we care about." 

   Our ears listen for the things we care about. 

   Do you know what cries of the poor sound like? 

   Not from a distance where we can read about it on our phone and then flip it over and forget. 

   Can you identify the cries of the poor in real life, in your hometown, your workplace, your environment? 

   The poor, the marginalized, the excluded, and the suffering are crying, and God is calling us to action, to be God’s Tzedeka and Chessed, steadfast love and justice. 

--Verónica Rayas

Image source: https://www.aol.com/why-hear-crickets-chirping-more-150200414.html
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Be in touch with your brokenness (Henri Nouwen)

   The Kingdom is where everything is turned upside down. Those who are marginal, those considered not respectable, are suddenly proclaimed as the people who are called to the Kingdom. The part of us that is weak, broken, or poor suddenly becomes the place where something new can begin. 

    Jesus says, “Be in touch with your brokenness. Be in touch with your sinfulness. Turn to God because the Kingdom is close at hand. If you are ready to listen from your brokenness, then something new can come forth in you.” 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://www.thepositivemom.com/broken
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When you demonize the immigrant (Charles Darwin / Rev. Benjamin Cremer)

If the misery of the poor be caused
not by the laws of nature,
but by our institutions,
great is our sin.

 --Charles Darwin

   When you demonize the immigrant, the poor, and the marginalized, I’m not interested in hearing about your religious beliefs. 

   You’ve already shown me what they are by how you’re treating the immigrant, the poor, and the marginalized. 

--Rev. Benjamin Cremer

For a deep meditation on this question
(if you're on Facebook),
check out this Facebook reel
featuring Sweet Honey in the Rock's
"Would You Harbor Me?"

Source of images: https://medium.com/@adynamicibo/6-main-causes-of-poverty-in-the-world-3cfa4db7c8c0
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Mercy opens the door of the heart (Pope Francis)

It is confidence in the merciful love of God
that sustains us daily and
will enable us to stand before the Lord
on the day when he calls us to himself.

(Apostolic Exhortation, C’est la confiance, no.3) 

    Mercy enables us to understand that violence, rancor, vengefulness have no meaning, and the first victim is whoever feels these sentiments, because he deprives himself of his own dignity. Mercy also opens the door of the heart and allows one to express closeness especially to those who are lonely and marginalized, because it makes them feel as brothers and sisters, and as children of one Father. It favors recognition of those who need consolation and helps one find the appropriate words so as to give comfort. 

 --Pope Francis 

Image source: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/the-pope-of-mercy.html
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Life is not about me (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    Because life is not about me. It isn’t really all about me. It’s about the world I live in. It’s about what I can bring to that world – not how special I can be in that world, but what I can bring to enhance it, what I can do to lift people’s lives up, to help them find the grace that is ever present because God loves us all. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, December 15, 2024

Image source: James Tissot, Le paralytique descendu du toit (1886-1894), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Palsied_Man_Let_Down_through_the_Roof_(Le_paralytique_descendu_du_toit)_-_James_Tissot_-_overall.jpg

This mysterious mercy (Bishop Robert Barron)

    [In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus] compares the self-centered prayer of the Pharisee with the God-centered prayer of the tax collector. 

    The Pharisee spoke his prayer to himself. This is, Jesus suggests, a fraudulent, wholly inadequate prayer, precisely because it simply confirms the man in his self-regard. And the god to which he prays is, necessarily, a false god, an idol, since it allows itself to be positioned by the ego-driven needs of the Pharisee. 

    But then Jesus invites us to meditate upon the tax collector’s prayer. He speaks with a simple eloquence: “He beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” Though it is articulate speech, it is not language that confirms the independence and power of the speaker; just the contrary. It is more of a cry or a groan, an acknowledgment that he needs to receive something, this mysterious mercy for which he begs. 

    In the first prayer, “god” is the principal member of the audience arrayed before the ego of the Pharisee. But in this second prayer, God is the principal actor, and the tax collector is the audience awaiting a performance the contours of which he cannot fully foresee. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Byzantine manuscript illumination, The Pharisee and the Publican, from Tetraevangelion (12th c.), https://thevcs.org/pharisee-and-tax-collector#beseeching-and-reaching
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 26, 2025: O God, be merciful to me, a sinner...

O God, be merciful to me, a sinner…
Do we need God? 

    It’s so easy to be like the Pharisee in Luke’s Gospel, who thanks God because he, the Pharisee, is not like the rest of humanity -- he is not greedy, dishonest, adulterous… It’s so easy to be caught up in our own self-righteousness, in our own self-centeredness; it’s so easy to point out the bad in others and, in so doing, to separate ourselves from God, as if we were superior to sin. But as Jesus points out to those who were convinced of their own righteousness, it is the tax collector, the man who recognizes his own brokenness, his own sin – O God, be merciful to me, a sinner – who knows his own need for mercy; it is the man who is open to God, to God’s mercy and compassion in his life, who can then be compassionate and merciful to others. 

    Jesus’ message to the self-righteous is grounded in traditional Hebrew Scripture. In the Book of Sirach, the Lord is a God of justice: God identifies real need, and hears the cry of the oppressed, as well as the prayers of the one who serves God willingly. Psalm 34 is clear: The Lord hears the cry of the poor, and is particularly attentive to those who own their own sin, who know their own need for salvation: the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and those who are crushed in spirit. In his Second Letter to Timothy, Paul, writing from prison, likewise knows that, although everyone deserted him, the Lord stood by him and gave him strength. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, Jesus says, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

    We are all in need of God because we all know sin. We are human; we are broken. Yet, if we own our own brokenness, we too can open to the power of God’s mercy and compassion to transform us, to redeem our lives, to be our refuge. Is God listening? Certainly, so long as we are listening as well, open to the transformative compassion and mercy of God in our lives.

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

God of our weary years (James Weldon Johnson)

Pray always without becoming weary. 

--Luke 18:1 

  Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won. 

   Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. 

   God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land. 

--James Weldon Johnson 

To hear the a cappella group Committed sing James Weldon Johnson’s poem “Lift Every Voice” to the music of the poet's brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson, written in 1900 to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, click on the video below: 

Image source: Henry Ossawa Turner, The Thankful Poor (1894), https://eclecticlight.co/2020/07/10/painting-the-end-of-slavery/
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We can pray ceaselessly (St. Augustine / Hunter Leonard)

If you want to pray without ceasing,
never cease to long for God.
The continual longing is
the continuation of your prayer,
and if you cease to long for Him,
this prayer will also cease.

 --St. Augustine

   Perhaps the most common excuse for why we don’t pray is that we are too busy — it certainly is for me. Yet all the busyness in the world can’t keep us from ceaseless prayer. In fact, St. Augustine points out that while it is beneficial to spend much time in prayer, this is not necessary for unending prayer. We can continue with the good and necessary work in our lives, all the while desiring the Lord and his will for us. This means keeping God at the heart of all we do. 

   Augustine explains that prayer without ceasing is “Desire without intermission, from him who alone can give it, a happy life, which no life can be but that which is eternal.” We can pray ceaselessly, by desiring continually, the Lord and the true happiness that only he can bring. It can be very easy for me to get overwhelmed by the struggles and anxieties of my daily life, but I strive to remember and focus on what is at the heart of my life — the Lord. When I can end the day knowing that I kept God and his love for me in mind with all that I did, I can rest knowing it was a day of prayer. 

   One of the most transformative approaches to ceaseless prayer I have learned is to turn the interior monologue of my thoughts into a dialogue with God. If there is one thing I already do without end, it is thinking! There is a beautiful opportunity to invite the Lord into these thoughts so that they are transformed into a conversation with him. I often become overwhelmed when thinking of my plans for the future. Instead of planning my future alone in my mind, I turn my thoughts into a dialogue with God, asking him to guide my ideas, show me the right way, and help me accomplish his will for my future. Through that continual conversation and contact with the Lord, we are truly praying without ceasing. 

--Hunter Leonard

Image source: Pope Francis prays at Lac Ste. Anne, a place long held to have healing powers by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, https://globalnews.ca/video/9018380/pope-francis-pilgrimage-to-lac-ste-anne-draws-thousands-to-alberta-lakeshore
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Hearts turned towards God (St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata / St. Francis de Sales)

When you know how much
God is in love with you,
then you can only live your life
radiating that love.

--St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata

    A Ship may sail in different directions, north or south, east or west, driven by various winds, yet the needle of its compass will always point towards the pole star. 

   Likewise, let everything turn upside down, not only about us but also within us: whether we are sad or happy, relaxed or restless, in peace or in turmoil, in light or darkness, in temptation or assurance, in attachment or aversion, in aridity or ardor, scorched by the sun or refreshed by dew, always ensure that your heart, soul and spirit, are always, as the needle of the compass, turned towards God our Creator and Saviour, our unique and sovereign good. 

--St. Francis de Sales 

Image source 1: Henry Scott Tuke, Four-Masted Barque (1914), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_art#/media/File:H._S._Tuke_Four_Masted_Barque_1914.jpg
Image source 2: https://aladean.com/products/religious-gifts-path-of-god-brass-compass?srsltid=AfmBOoqj_2HSjTuIsK4iF2YVTLFWtFMkKpRVRjVgTad5smcvAj95OIrn 
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Prayer is to be shared (Henri Nouwen)

   Much that has been said about prayer might create the false impression that prayer is a private, individualistic, and nearly secret affair, so personal and so deeply hidden in our inner life that it can hardly be talked about, even less be shared. 

   The opposite is true. Just because prayer is so personal and arises from the center of our life, it is to be shared with others. Just because prayer is the most precious expression of being human, it needs the constant support and protection of the community to grow and flower. Just because prayer is our highest vocation, needing careful attention and faithful perseverance, we cannot allow it to be a private affair. Just because prayer asks for a patient waiting in expectation, it should never become the most individualistic expression of the most individualistic emotion, but should always remain embedded in the life of the community of which we are part. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source 1: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/ask-a-franciscan/the-our-father-amen-and-holding-hands/
Image source 2: Joseph Von Führich, Moses in Prayer with Aaron and Hur, https://augusta-stylianou.pixels.com/featured/moses-in-prayer-with-aaron-and-hur-on-the-mountain-horeb-joseph-von-fuehrich.html?product=spiral-notebook
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Pray always (Mary Oliver / Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica)

The real prayers are not the words,
but the attention that comes first.

--Mary Oliver

    It is of great significance if there is a person who truly prays in a family. Prayer attracts God’s grace and all the members of the family feel it, even those whose hearts have grown cold. Pray always. 

--Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica 

Image source: Nicolas Pumper, St. Monica, Full of Hope, available for purchase at: https://www.redbubble.com/i/art-board-print/St-Monica-Full-of-Hope-by-nickpumper/58243059.TR477
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Others hold us up (OLMC Scripture Class)

Aaron and Hur supported his hands,
 one on one side and one on the other,
 so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

 –Exodus 17:12

    We need the support of community. When our prayer is not effective, others hold us up – spiritually and metaphorically. We can even take turns. When in need, we ask for prayers from other people. We ask for their love. 

    Aaron and Hur support Moses’ hands physically – imagine how tired their arms must have been. They bear his weight for a whole day. 

    Holding hands during the Lord’s prayer gives us a sense of community, expressing the bond that we feel when we are all together. Whenever there is a threat, we go to that bond, and everyone feels closer to everyone else. 

    This is why touch is important, especially for those who live alone. This is why we hug one another, why we embrace when we meet. We share our lives with one another, and we open others’ lives and we treasure them. When we embrace one another, we give expression to God’s love on earth, revealing it to our world. 

--Reflections from participants,
OLMC’s Scripture Class,
October 2022

Image source 1: Our Ladies of Mount Carmel supporting OLMC Cursillista Linda Mencken, October 2025. Photo courtesy of Jackie Bacon.
Image source 2: Aaron and Hur Holding Up the Hands of Moses as Joshua and the Israelites Defeat the Amalekites, chromolithograph after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872), https://www.meisterdrucke.us/fine-art-prints/English-School/1326660/Aaron-and-Hur-Holding-Up-the-Hands-of-Moses-as-Joshua-and-the-Israelites-Defeat-the-Amalekites.html

Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 19, 2025: Our help is from the Lord...

Our help is from the Lord…
 But how do we go about acquiring it? 

   The point of this week’s Gospel reading from Luke couldn’t be clearer: Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. But what does that kind of prayer look like? The parable tells the story of a judge who is approached repeatedly by a widow who wants him to render a just decision for her against her adversary. In the end, the judge gives in – why? Because of her persistence – she does not become weary but calls out day and night to the one who can secure justice for her. 

   But prayer is a complicated bird. We pray, and sometimes our prayers don’t seem to be answered. Or, like Moses and Aaron and Hur in our reading from Exodus, we put our faith in tangibles – like the staff of God that Moses raises during battle, a sign of God’s support. As Psalm 121 points out, the Israelites’ help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth, a response to their plea, whence shall help come? Much later, during his own ministry in Ephesus, the disciple Timothy is also losing heart; Paul tells him to turn to the Word of God in the form of Scriptures that are capable of giving Timothy wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. For engaging with Scripture is itself a form of prayer; it is a medium through which God speaks to us in an on-going revelation of God’s love. 

   Is prayer what you do to get what you want, or is it an act by which you affirm your belief in God’s love and goodness? If in prayer you place yourself in the presence of divine love, what effect does it have on you? Does your prayer challenge you to anything new? Prayer, persistent prayer, needs to be sincere, to come from the depths of our being. If we open to divine love, if we are persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient, then divine love will have something to say to us, because love, more than anything, is what we need. And love is the beautiful fruit of a relationship grounded in prayer. 

This post is based on one of Fr. Pat’s Scripture classes, “vintage” edition. 
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Thank you, thank you (Mary Oliver)

I have just said
    something
ridiculous to you
    and in response, 

your glorious laughter.
    These are the days
the sun
    is swimming back 

to the east
    and the light on the water
gleams
    as never, it seems, before. 

I can’t remember
    every spring,
I can’t remember
    everything-- 

so many years!
    Are the morning kisses
the sweetest
    or the evenings 

or the inbetweens?
    All I know
is that “thank you” should appear
    somewhere. 

So, just in case
    I can’t find
the perfect place-
    “Thank you, thank you.” 

--Mary Oliver       

Image source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10423063/Laughing-friends-reduces-risk-disability-study-claims.html
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The highest appreciation (President John F. Kennedy / Henri Frédéric Amiel)

As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that
the highest appreciation
is not to utter words,
but to live by them.

 --President John F. Kennedy

 

Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude.

Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.

Thankfulness may consist merely of words.

Gratitude is shown in acts. 

--Henri Frédéric Amiel 

Image source: https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2395-a-foreigner-s-praise
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What do you worship? (Bishop Robert Barron)

    In [Sunday’s Gospel] Jesus heals ten lepers, saying, "Go show yourselves to the priests." The lepers who begged for a cure were not simply concerned about their medical condition; they were Israelites in exile from the temple—and hence they were a very apt symbol of the general condition of scattered, exiled, wandering Israel. In curing them, Jesus was, symbolically speaking, gathering the tribes and bringing them back to the worship of the true God. 

    That’s why he tells the lepers, "Go show yourselves to the priests." In other words, go back to the temple from which you’ve been away for so long. I propose that the lepers here stand, not so much for the socially ostracized, but for the ones who have wandered away from right worship, the ones who are no longer able or willing to worship the true God. 

    What is so important about worship? Protestant theologian Paul Tillich said that the key to understanding a person was to uncover his "ultimate concern," another way of saying, "what he worships." What do you worship? If it’s not the living God, you’ve wandered into the land of exile. You have become, in fact, unclean. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source:  Jorge Cocco, The Ten Lepers, available for purchase at: https://altusfineart.com/products/jorge-cocco-the-ten-lepers-jesus-gratitude-leper?srsltid=AfmBOopXqDv5TbRfsWgIHDixe2Dw2TDCw844W9xePDFABq6MOK4I_Z9F
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Intimate contact with Jesus (Pope Leo XIV / St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata)

We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine…
but we risk forgetting that our first task
is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ
and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord.

 --Pope Leo XIV

    I worry some of you still have not really met Jesus—one to one—you and Jesus alone. We may spend time in the chapel—but have you seen with the eyes of your soul how He looks at you with love? Do you really know the living Jesus—not from books but from being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you? Ask for the grace; He is longing to give it. Until you can hear Jesus in the silence of your own heart, you will not be able to hear Him saying 'I Thirst' in the hearts of the poor. Never give up this daily intimate contact with Jesus as the real living person—not just the idea. 

—St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata 

Image source 1: Giovanni Bellini, Christ Blessing (1500), https://simplykalaa.com/famous-paintings-of-jesus/

Image source 2: El Greco, The Veil of St. Veronica (ca. 1580-1582), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Greco_-_The_Veil_of_St_Veronica_-_WGA10461.jpg
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To recognize God's gift (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

   Worship is not a mindset but a heart set – it is setting your heart at God’s disposal, recognizing that the source of anything necessary is God. When we gather, we praise God for his presence in our lives, for being active in our lives, for being grace in our lives, in an ongoing way. We gather to praise God from a position of reverence and adoration. To worship is to recognize God’s gift. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Scripture Class,
October 10, 2019

Image source: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Mill Valley Easter Sunday Mass, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1123835223115224&set=a.1116337687198311

Healing, restoring, re-creating (Gloria Steinem / Henri Nouwen)

The final stage of healing
is using what happens to you
to help other people.

--Gloria Steinem

 

    All Christian action—whether it is visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or working for a more just and peaceful society—is a manifestation of the human solidarity revealed to us in the house of God. It is not an anxious human effort to create a better world. It is a confident expression of the truth that in Christ, death, evil, and destruction have been overcome. It is not a fearful attempt to restore a broken order. It is a joyful assertion that in Christ all order has already been restored. It is not a nervous effort to bring divided people together, but a celebration of an already established unity. This action is not activism. An activist wants to heal, restore, redeem, and re-create, but those acting within the house of God point through their action to the healing, restoring, redeeming, and re-creating presence of God. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://hail.to/tui-motu-interislands-magazine/publication/430InQe/article/ALM3pfM
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, October 12, 2025: He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him...

He fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him…
Do we recognize divine mercy with gratitude? 

    In the Second Book of Kings, Naaman, the army commander of the King of Aram, is a leper, a condition that isolates him, separating him from his community. When, at the word of Elisha, the man of God, Naaman plunges into the Jordan seven times, thus becoming clean of his leprosy, Naaman has no greater desire than to express his gratitude for this miraculous cure: Please accept a gift from your servant, he says to Elisha. When Elisha refuses this gift, Naaman asks for two mule-loads of earth, so that he can continue to worship the Lord God of Elisha even in his own land, for Naaman knows, as Psalm 98 reminds us, that The Lord reveals to all the nations his saving power. Naaman himself is a beneficiary of God’s faithfulness not only to the nations but to all the ends of the earth. 

   During his journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will also encounter individuals suffering from the affliction of leprosy: ten lepers stand at a distance from him and cry out, Jesus, Master! Have pity on us. Divine healing does not depend upon faith; Jesus clearly heals all ten of the lepers. But only one of them returns, glorifying God, to thank Jesus. This leper knows his life would have been very different had he not met Jesus that day. His gratitude, like ours, is a great response to grace: it is not to acknowledge that we owe God, but as a natural response to God’s action in our lives. The Samaritan leper recognizes God’s action and responds in faith, caught up in his new-found relationship with the Lord God, and with Jesus, the origin of God’s action. 

   Paul will similarly give witness to the God’s action in his life, in his Second Letter to Timothy. Paul knows that, while he himself may be chained, like a criminal, the word of God is not chained. Paul is an ongoing witness, even in the midst of his suffering, to God’s action in his life, knowing, as he tells Timothy, If we persevere, we shall also reign with him. Timothy must therefore remain faithful, in grateful acknowledgement of all that God is doing in his life. Are we called to any less? 

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

I just want to praise you (Mary Mary)

Whoo!
It sure is hot out here
Ya know?
I don't mind though
Just glad to be free
Know what I'm saying, uh!

Take the shackles off my feet so I can dance
I just want to praise you
I just want to praise you
You broke the chains now I can lift my hands
And I'm gonna praise you
I'm gonna praise you 

In the corners of mind
I just can't seem to find a reason to believe
That I can break free
Cause you see I have been down for so long
Feel like the hope is gone
But as I lift my hands, I understand
That I should praise you through my circumstance 

REFRAIN

Everything that could go wrong
All went wrong at one time
So much pressure fell on me
I thought I was gone lose my mind
But I know you want to see
If I will hold on through these trials
But I need you to lift this load
Cause I can't take it anymore 

REFRAIN 

Been through the fire and the rain
Bound in every kind of way
But God has broken every chain
So let me go right now 

REFRAIN 

To hear Mary Mary sing their hit, “Shackles (Praise You),” click on the video below: 

Image source: https://www.scross.co.za/2023/01/why-we-dance-at-mass/
Video source

Committing oneself to love (Marcy St. John)

    In [this past Sunday’s] gospel, Jesus gives instructions to his apostles, and they don’t sound, at first, very generous or loving. It comes just after the apostles have asked Jesus to increase their faith, and while he describes the power of faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, he doesn’t grant their wish. Instead, he tells them about this master and how he treats his servant. 

 

   Here is a servant who works all day for the master and now comes into the house. But the servant is not allowed to rest. She must continue serving the man, and it is only when the man is fully served and the house put in order that the servant can eat and drink. Not only that, the servant is to remind herself that she is an unprofitable servant who has done what she is obliged to do. This sound harsh, too. Is one never to think that one’s work is done, to instead say I have served my master well today? I have done all that was asked, and have not shown myself to be unprofitable? 

    I think of the work that is done throughout the day, ordinary work, to take care of those you care for – your family, your spouses, your friends, your children, your animal companions. It never ends because that love you have for them never ends. My mother had five children, two under age four, when my parents’ marriage ended, and when she fell sick, we were useless children – loved, taken care of, but useless in taking care of her. What Jesus is saying, I think, is that, when it comes to discipleship, committing oneself to the love that is in Christ Jesus, it is never done. 

    Pope Francis says that this passage teaches that the Christian life requires both faith and service; they cannot be separated. He likens the Christian life to a carpet being woven, with the weft of faith and the warp of service. We do serve others, not for a reward or for an expectation for everlasting life, but because it increases our love for the world, and it is our way of navigating toward Jesus. It is our way of following Jesus, seeking to follow his instructions and sharing his love in what we do. 

--Marcy St. John,
OLMC, November 14, 2023 

Image source: https://hereinislove-glorifyhim.blogspot.com/2012/05/unprofitable-servants.html

Out of our suffering (Nick Cave / Angela Alaimo O'Donnell)

We suffer as human beings,
but out of that can come enormous joys,
and genuine happiness, too.
 It can run in tandem with this ordinary sense of suffering.
Otherwise, joy doesn’t resonate fully.
 Joy seems to leap forth out of our suffering.

 --Nick Cave

One artist who knew great suffering and yet produced extraordinary work was the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Although Kahlo ostensibly abandoned her faith, America Magazine writer Angela Alaimo O’Donnell writes of the Catholic inspiration that undergirds Kahlo’s work: 

    The inviolate self Kahlo paints […] is also ecce homo—or ecce femina—the Woman of Sorrows who must endure the crucifixion of being human. 

    The inspiration for her art came from a variety of sources, one of which was the Catholic practice of ex-voto art, votive offerings to the saints or to God. These small paintings depict instances of human disaster—accidents, sudden sickness, death from disease, robbery, assault and murder—overseen by divine providence. Frida and her husband owned over 400 of these ex votos, which line the walls of Casa Azul. Largely the work of Mexican folk artists, each constitutes a kind of prayer. The figures are often depicted appealing for divine intervention to save them from death and suffering. Saints, angels, Christ, and God the Father appear in the sky, creating the image of a world in which the divine is in communication with and actively present in human affairs. 

    [Kahlo’s] Catholic formation is evident in her iconic self-portraits (some of which resemble actual icons), including those in which she wears the traditional Mexican Resplandor headdress, a garment made of starched veils that encircles her face like a halo; in her many visual allusions to the central events of the Christian story and Catholic lore, including the instruments of Christ’s passion and the sufferings of the saints; and in her insistence upon the beauty and sanctity of the body. 

--Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
 

Image source 1: Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column (detail), https://adogcalledpain.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/can-we-learn-from-suffering-lse-forum-for-european-philosophy-24-oct-2016/
Quotation 1 source
Image source 2 and Quotation 2 source (complete article): Frida Kahlo, Diego on My Mind (Self-Portrait as Tehuana), https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2019/04/19/catholic-art-frida-kahlo?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=1e8ad4d3b3-ARTS_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0fe8ed70be-1e8ad4d3b3-58623709

God walks with us (Rainer Maria Rilke)

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night. 

These are the words we dimly hear: 

You, sent out beyond your recall, 

go to the limits of your longing. 

Embody me. 

Flare up like a flame 

and make big shadows I can move in. 

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. 

Just keep going. No feeling is final. 

Don’t let yourself lose me. 

Nearby is the country they call life. 

You will know it by its seriousness. 

Give me your hand. 

--Rainer Maria Rilke,
Book of Hours:
 Love Poems to God

Image source 1: Odilon Redon, The Wanderer (1890-1895), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wanderer,_Study_for_%27Walking_Buddha%27_(Figure_with_Book),_by_Odilon_Redon,_1890-1895,_charcoal_and_sepia_-_Scharf-Gerstenberg_Collection_-_DSC03854.JPG 

Image source 2: Odilon Redon, The Night (1910-11), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/La_Nuit_%28The_Night%29_-_1910-1911_-_Odilon_Redon.jpg 

Poem source