A communion of love (Dr. Wendy Wright / Fr. Patrick van der Vorst)

Divine love is ecstatic and communicative.

--Dr. Wendy Wright,
Heart Speaks to Heart:
The Salesian Tradition

    The truth is, even the most introverted among us long for companionship. We are not made for isolation. Deep down, we know we are only fully ourselves when we are in relationship to others. If we reflect on the happiest moments of our lives, most will involve moments spent with friends and family. Despite living in an age of heightened individualism, something within us insists that we are not islands. 

    And this longing for relationship reflects something even truer of God. At the very heart of God’s nature is not isolation, but communion. God is not a solitary being; He is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, united in a perfect, eternal relationship of love. This divine community is not closed or exclusive, it is radically open. The love shared between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit overflows and reaches out to include us. Jesus speaks intimately of His Father and of the coming of the Holy Spirit. He reveals that God’s deepest desire is not distance but closeness, not detachment but union. 

    This sacred mystery is captured in our painted panel by Laurent Girardin, created around 1460 in Lyon, France. The painting depicts the Holy Trinity in a striking composition: God the Father, wearing a papal tiara and a richly embroidered cope of crimson velvet adorned with gold pomegranate patterns, supports the crucified Christ, His Son, with the Holy Spirit hovering above as a dove. The grandeur of the Father’s vestments, paired with the profound suffering of the Son, creates a tension between majesty and sacrifice. Surrounding them are radiant cherubim. This artwork invites us not just to look upon a theological truth, but to stand in awe of a divine relationship: a communion of love that calls us not into isolation, but into the very heart of God Himself. 

--Fr. Patrick van der Vorst 

Image & quotation source 2: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/john-16-12-15-2025/
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He brings salvation (Fr. Bill Brown / Marcy St. John)

In John 3:16,
to give = love + sacrifice.

--Fr. Bill Brown,
OLMC Scripture Class,
May 28, 2026

    What is Jesus telling Nicodemus? He tells Nicodemus that he has come down from heaven to tell us of heavenly things, and that he will be lifted up like the serpent in the desert to bring eternal life to those who believe in his teachings. He is telling Nicodemus that he brings salvation, and this message is not something that can be reasoned out, or held in one’s hand, or seen with one’s eyes. It requires seeing with the eyes of one’s heart, the eyes of the heart that are open through Jesus’ death and resurrection, through our faith and baptism into that faith. Once one opens those heart eyes and lets in Jesus, the Holy Spirit, like the wind, comes right in and leads us to the quiet, gentle space where we can grow in Spirit and feel with our whole heart the words and message of Jesus. 

    Nicodemus doesn’t understand. He is still in the world, and he is caught between trusting his heart’s eyes and believing that Jesus is the Christ. 

    With Jesus’ death and resurrection, and our baptism, we are born of the Spirit, and our days on earth are to give us the many challenges and opportunities to become closer to that Spirit, to grow in gentleness, to grow closer to God, to God’s love for us, to Jesus’ love for us. 

--Marcy St. John,
Communion Service,
April 9, 2024

Image source: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Nicodemus Visiting Christ (1899), https://jesusscribbles.wordpress.com/2018/09/23/sermon-on-nicodemus-trinity-sunday/

Grace, love and fellowship (St. Augustine / Laurie Brink OP)

The Trinity, one God,
of whom are all things,
through whom are all things,
in whom are all things.

 --St. Augustine

    Paul distinguishes divine attributes—grace, love, and fellowship, each proceeding from a different person of the Godhead. 

    Grace—charis—also means loving-kindness, good-will, favor.
    Love—agapē—is the type of love that is sacrificial, desiring the best for the beloved.
    And fellowship—koinonia—is quite literally participation, communion. 

    This grace, love, fellowship triad which we call the Trinity has given theologians no little challenge over the centuries. How do we envision one God but three persons? And why do we do so? Like our naming of God, we are left with only metaphor and analogy. 

    The Cappadocian Fathers described the Trinity as perichoresis, a dance of relationship and mutual indwelling. 

    St. John of Damascus used the analogy of God as the sun, Jesus as the rays, and the Holy Spirit as the heat. 

    Whether adjectives, descriptors, dances, or sunshine, all are encompassed within the oneness of God.

    The Trinity isn’t just a theological expression. It is a way of understanding God’s presence in and for the world. 

    As Elizabeth Johnson noted, “If God is creating and nurturing the world within the divine being—transcendently, incarnately, and immanently—then God must be conceived as experiencing the world’s suffering within Godself, rather than outside Godself. Pregnant with an evolving yet suffering cosmos, God can heal and transform suffering through the love and creativity that characterize the Trinity.” 

--Laurie Brink, OP

Image source 1: https://whyy.org/articles/heat-dome-wave-hot-temperatures/

Image source 2: Blessed Trinity Catholic Church, Buffalo, NY, https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1410365821126816&set=pcb.1410370764459655 (Click on the photo to see the depiction of the Trinity:  God the Father, Jesus the Lamb, and the Holy Spirit as dove.)
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A dynamic relationship (Pope Leo XIV)

    For God is not immobile and closed in on himself, but activity, communion, a dynamic relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, which opens up to humanity and to the world. This dynamism of God’s inner life gives birth to life. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: Perichoresis, Rothschild Canticles (ca. 1300), https://artandtheology.org/tag/perichoresis/
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Mary's last recorded words (Philip Kosloski)

    The Blessed Virgin Mary does not have many words in the Bible, but each one of them is significant. In particular, Mary's last recorded words are extremely important and are in fact directed at all of us. 

    The Gospel of John contains Mary's last recorded words and they occur in the context of the Wedding Feast at Cana: His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” John 2:5 

    Mary’s words are profound and can provide an entire lifetime of meditation. Her words, “Do whatever he tells you,” apply to not only the waiters at the feast, but also to every Christian throughout history. 

    Her mission has always been to point others to her son, Jesus, and to urge them to follow his commands. Mary leads others to Christ and speaks those words to us today. These words also summarize every single Marian apparition since her assumption into Heaven. In each private apparition, she calls the world to repentance and to follow her son, Jesus. 

    Furthermore, these words highlight the need for action in our lives of discipleship. It’s not enough to simply profess our faith in Jesus Christ, we must also live it out, following Jesus’ every word. 

    If we want to follow Mary, we must first of all, listen to her Son. 

--Philip Kosloski 

In May we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary… 

Image source: Corita Kent, at cana of galilee (1952), http://www.portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=22543;type=101#
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 31, 2026: Blessed are you, O Lord...

Blessed are you, O Lord…

How can we pray to a God who is Three Persons in One? 

    From the beginning of time, humankind has had trouble capturing an image of our ineffable God. In the Book of Exodus, when Moses goes back up Mount Sinai, taking along the two new stone tablets on which the Lord will again write his commandments, God proclaims his name and then offers three important insights into his own identity: he is the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity. Having stood with the Lord, Moses can invite him to come along with them on their journey through the desert and receive them as his own. In this scene, we do not get a complete picture of God in God’s fullness, but we do get a sense of what it means to experience the presence of God in a grace-filled moment of theophany on the mountain. 

    In John’s Gospel, Jesus tries to help the Pharisee Nicodemus to understand that God sent Jesus, the image of the intangible God, for the salvation of all, because God loves all: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. Jesus, God’s Son, incarnate, is God’s gift, freely given – he is the very grace of God, an embodied invitation to Nicodemus to be born again. It is an invitation Paul will extend to the recalcitrant Corinthian community: Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace. The Corinthians do not yet know union because they can’t get beyond their own worldly divisions. Paul’s wish for them is essentially Trinitarian: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. Such a multi-dimensional experience of the Lord’s presence would indeed allow them to rejoice! 

    The three Persons of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are bound in love to one another, indeed, so perfectly in love that they are one. We may not be able to get our minds around this concept very easily, but if we are one in Jesus, we are one in God and one in the Spirit and they are one in us. Yet this relationship is not static; there is a dynamism to the Trinity that invites us to grow in knowledge of the Lord who has given us life, welcoming the transformation such knowledge entails, that we might have an ever better experience of how God is active in our lives, everywhere, always, involved in everything. Then we too can rejoice and pray, as in the canticle of the Book of Daniel, Glory and praise to our God who is exalted above all forever! 

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

We give witness to his love (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

     So many generations after, we also are asked to give witness. We are reassured that God will be by our side, God will defend us, God will protect us. We’re to understand that, not to mean that we won’t actually meet our end – death will come – but that God will protect us, eternally. God will never lose us, as we give witness to his love in the world. 

    It’s hard to imagine that, by loving, you would in fact run into conflict, but it has happened in every generation. Love is a power that people find hard to comprehend, because they don’t have power over it. Human beings like the kind of power they control, but love cannot be controlled. 

    That is wherein we find its truth. Love is given without cost. Love is given freely. And by God, love is given fully. It is in that love that [the saints] proclaimed that love. It is in that love that we continue that ministry of proclaiming the good news. [Their] deaths are a sign to us, a promise of the life that love provides, the life that does not end, because love does not end. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, August 29, 2025

Image source 1: Eglise Notre-Dame de Pentecôte, La Défense, Paris, https://www.flickr.com/photos/51366740@N07/15311253760
Image source 2: https://answeredfaith.com/summary-acts-chapter-2/

A direct encounter with the Risen Christ (Fr. James Martin)

    [F]rom a spiritual point of view, [the disciples’] fear makes no sense. In John’s Gospel, Jesus had, towards the beginning of his ministry, told them about his death and resurrection (2:19). More recently, they had just seen him raise Lazarus from the dead (not to mention all the other “signs” they witnessed during his public ministry). Moreover, Mary Magdalene, whom they knew well, had told them a few hours before that Jesus had risen from the dead. 

    What keeps them locked behind closed doors is what keeps us locked behind closed doors: not simply fear, but the belief that God could never bring anything good out of a bad situation. It’s a form of despair. Thomas Merton wrote that despair is “the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that God is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.” 

    That’s a pretty harsh judgment on those who fall into despair, but it basically means that despair is refusing to believe that God can do more than we can imagine. Ultimately, it’s a form of pride because it says, “I know better than God. And what I know is that God cannot change this.” 

    What enables the disciples to be fearless, to not despair, is a direct encounter with the Risen Christ. 

--Fr. James Martin 

Image source: https://friarmusings.com/2018/04/12/opening-hearts-witnesses/
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The Spirit frees us (Lance Lambert)

   
   The Holy Spirit, whenever He comes, brings life. 

   

   Why? 

   We read in Romans 8:2, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 

   That’s what the Spirit of life does. He frees us from all these guilty fears, all this evil conscience, all this sense of condemnation, all this bondage from the past, all these things we carry over from the old life. 

   He frees us again and again, progressively. 

--Lance Lambert,
The True Anointing

Image source: Khrystyna Kvyk, Pentecost (2020), https://digitalcollections-staging.lancaster.ac.uk/view/VS-ICON-10410/1
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Those who have died in the cause of freedom (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Those who have long enjoyed
such privileges as we enjoy
forget in time that men have died to win them.

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

God of power and mercy,
you destroy war and put down earthly pride.
Banish violence from our midst
and wipe away our tears,
that we may all deserve to be called
your sons and daughters.
Keep in your mercy those men and women
who have died in the cause of freedom,
and bring them safely into
your kingdom of justice and peace. 

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. 

Image source: https://whyy.org/articles/what-is-memorial-day/
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Peace be with you (Fr. Ron Rolheiser / Yunuen Trujillo)

Name your deaths. Claim your births.
Grieve and adjust. Stop clinging and let go.
Receive the Spirit of new life.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser

    “Peace be with you.” Now, let me say that again—but this time, try to feel it in your heart. Close your eyes and take a deep breath: “Peace be with you.” 

    We are living in tumultuous times—both for our country and for the world. Tumultuous because a toxic theology and worldview have become mainstream in the halls of power. A worldview that tries to convince us that marginalized groups—whoever is “the other” for each of us—are to blame for everything that goes wrong. A worldview that wants us to fight each other for resources and for God’s love, as if God’s love were a pie to be divided among us. 

    Sometimes, it feels as though any hope for peace is far away. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

    For those of us who believe in the Gospel, this sense of hopelessness and fear might feel familiar. After Jesus' death, his disciples were in despair and fear. When the apostle of the apostles Mary Magdalene reported seeing the risen Jesus early on the morning of the resurrection, the other disciples struggled to believe her, continuing to live in fear. That evening, the resurrected Jesus appeared to them, greeting them with "Peace be with you." He told them the Holy Spirit would come to them, yet they still remained afraid. It wasn't until Pentecost, which we celebrate today, that the Holy Spirit came, and their hope was renewed. Filled with the Spirit and with enthusiasm, they were transformed, boldly proclaiming the message of the Gospel. 

    The main event that filled them with enthusiasm was the realization that, despite their differences—in language and otherwise—they could finally understand one another. They finally had a shared purpose, understanding, and language. 

--Yunuen Trujillo 

Image source: Gabriel José Ramírez, mosaic, Iglesia Luterana Cordero de Dios, Puerto Rico, https://www.facebook.com/corderodedios.iglesialuterana/
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Living water (Pope Francis)

    Christ, in fact, is the Temple from which, according to the prophets, flows the Holy Spirit, the living water which purifies and gives life. Whoever thirsts for salvation can draw freely from Jesus, and the Spirit will become a wellspring of full and eternal life in him/her. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source: Susan Bradbury, Water of Life, Ayr Cathedral (2000), https://www.visitstainedglass.uk/location/ayr-roman-catholic-cathedral-ayrshire
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We go to our Mother (Pope St. John Paul II / Pope Francis)

May Mary, who in the freedom of her ‘Fiat’
and her presence at the foot of the cross,
offered to the world Jesus the Liberator,
help us to find him in the Sacrament of the altar.

--Pope St. John Paul II

    Our Lady listens to our cries and heals our sorrows. We should learn this: when there are difficulties in life, we go to our Mother; and when life is happy, we also go to our Mother to share these things. We need to go to these oases of consolation and mercy, where faith is expressed in a maternal language; where we lay down the labours of life in Our Lady’s arms and return to life with peace in our hearts, perhaps with the peace of little children. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source: Josef Janssens, Crucifixion, Cathedral, Antwerp, Belgium (ca. 1903-1910), https://airmaria.com/2009/04/11/there-at-the-foot-of-the-cross-2/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 24, 2026: We were all given to drink of one Spirit...

We were all given to drink of one Spirit…

Are we ready to become sources of living water for our world? 

    We are a people of hope, hope in a promise. Our first reading for the Vigil Mass of Pentecost is the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel, whose inhabitants desired to make a name for themselves, an act of pride that ultimately led to division. Come, let us build ourselves a city and so make a name for ourselves, they say. But God then confuses their language and scatters them all over the earth. In so doing, the people are humbled, but, sadly, they are also divided. It is that division that Pentecost reverses. 

    We see hope for the people of Israel in the remaining readings for the Pentecost Vigil. In the Book of Exodus, Moses reminds the people that God desires relationship with them, so long as they hearken to God’s voice and keep God’s covenant. Unfortunately, they do not do so, and yet God remains faithful, promising the prophet Ezekiel that he will open their graves and have them rise from them, and bring them back to the land of Israel. The prophet Joel similarly speaks of God’s desire for renewal: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; then everyone shall be rescued who calls upon the name of the Lord. Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, renewal and reunification were not yet possible, but in John’s Gospel, Jesus promises that, not only will they be restored to God, but his disciples will become a source of living water pouring out to renew the earth. And, at the time Paul writes to the Roman community, although the Spirit has come to all believers, Paul knows our ultimate union in Christ will be in heaven: we hope for what we do not see, and wait with endurance. 

    The readings for Pentecost Sunday turn our attention even more closely to the workings of the Holy Spirit. When, in John’s Gospel, having risen from the dead, Jesus comes to the disciples who are hiding behind locked doors, he breathes on them, saying, Receive the Holy Spirit! They are now fully one in him and he in them. At last, filled with the Holy Spirit, they are ready to give witness and speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim – a total reversal of the sin of Babel, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles. The language the disciples now speak is a language that is universal, for it is the language of love, and they are returned to the world, that rivers of living water can flow from them onto the world. 

    As Paul reminds the Corinthians, we were all baptized into one body, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. It is the Spirit that banishes division, the Spirit that makes our union in Christ possible. And so, may we pray, as we hear in Psalm 104, Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth. In Pentecost we are created anew, drenched in the Spirit, that we too might offer hope as we proclaim that Jesus is Lord… to all! 

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

A realm of power already within us (Marianne Williamson)

    Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. The world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world. 

--Marianne Williamson 

Image source: Rembrandt, The Ascension, detail (1636), https://ryanadorjan.com/why-are-you-just-standing-there-staring-at-the-sky-ascension-sunday-2021/
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Go and make disciples of all nations (Bishop Robert Barron)

    [In Matthew’s Gospel,] Jesus assures us that he will always remain with us. Only when we realize that our lives are situated in a context of a Life that stretches infinitely beyond them, only when we know that our wills are related to a Will that encompasses and surpasses the whole of the cosmos, are we ready to live. 

     Matthew brings his Gospel to completion with Jesus’ Great Commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. . . . And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” We must come to terms with the fact that our lives are not about us. 

    There is Another who will tie us up and take us where we never imagined we could or would go; there is a Power that is operative in us and accompanies us whether we know it or not and that will accomplish what we, by our own power, could never accomplish. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Frank Salisbury, Ascension, The Victoria & Albert Museum, originally created for Richmond College, Surrey (1932), https://www.facebook.com/groups/303462353173920/posts/2891612621025534/
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To perceive the divine mystery (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

     Love [people] even in [their] sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. 

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
The Brothers Karamazov

Image source: https://tinybuddha.com/blog/understanding-is-love-and-the-world-needs-more-love/
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Starting from the heart (Julian of Norwich / Pope Francis)

All shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well…
For there is a force of love
moving through the universe
that holds us fast and will never let us go.

--Julian of Norwich

    It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy’, openness, gift and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle. 

--Pope Francis,
Dilexit nos,
Paragraph 28

Image source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/sacred-heart-of-jesus-a-symbol-of-love-and-mercy/
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You've got to let go (Rowan Williams)

At his Ascension,
our Lord entered Heaven,
and he keeps the door open
for humanity to enter.

--Oswald Chambers

 

   [At] the Last Supper, when Jesus says, “It is expedient for you that I go away,” as if Jesus is saying, “If I stay around, it’ll be all too easy for you to be comfortable with the assurance of the love of God and the healing power of God that I have embodied for you. But actually, for you to be open to the full range and depth of what God is going to give through the life of the Holy Spirit, then you’ve got to let go of having me around as a best friend. It’s more than that.” 

--Rowan Williams,
Former Archbishop of Canterbury

Image source: Jacques Le Chevalier, Ascension Window, Notre-Dame des Otages, Paris (20e), https://www.mesvitrauxfavoris.eu/Supp_G/vitraux_jacques-le-chevallier.htm
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Sing in jubilee to the glorious Virgin (St. Bonaventure)

      All ye nations, clap your hands: sing in jubilee to the glorious Virgin. For she is the gate of life, the door of salvation, and the way of our reconciliation. The hope of the penitent: the comfort of those that weep: the blessed peace of hearts, and their salvation. 

     Have mercy on me, O Lady, have mercy on me: for thou art the light and the hope of all who trust in thee. By thy salutary fecundity let it please thee: that pardon of my sins may be granted unto me. 

—St. Bonaventure

In May we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary... 

Image source: Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato, The Virgin in Prayer (ca. 1640-1650),  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_in_Prayer#/media/File:Sassoferrato_-_Jungfrun_i_b%C3%B6n.jpg
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 17, 2026: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you...

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…
Are we ready to exercise the power of Christ’s love? 

    We are always in a state of misunderstanding. Faith can and will lead us to understanding, but it is a process, not a fiat. The early Christian community was left with many questions when Jesus ascended to heaven: When will he be back? How will he return? In the Acts of the Apostles, they ask outright, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Before he ascends, Jesus needs them to finally recognize that his power is not intended to topple regimes but to win hearts. The power Jesus gives his disciples – and that he gives us – is the power to love and to love profoundly, to love past barriers. We are still working toward mastering this power. 

    It helps to remember, as Paul tells the Ephesians, that if the eyes of our hearts are enlightened, then we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call. Christ, in dying and rising, did the one thing that could bring salvation: he offered himself for all humanity, a superlative act of love that made him king eternally, seated at the right hand of God in the heavens. But the throne of which Psalm 47 sings, the throne God mounts to shouts of joy, is also and always, for Christians, the enthronement of Jesus Christ in us, for all eternity. 

    To believe this is to have true knowledge of him, which then empowers us – who, like the eleven disciples in Matthew’s Gospel, worship, though we doubt – to go and make disciples of all nations, revealing his love that we choose to participate in, secure in the love that makes him king of our hearts, with us always, until the end of the age. 

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

A union that will reveal You to the world (Erin Flynn)

What use is it if I receive You
and do not bear You to the world?
“Mary went in haste…”
What use is it
if I join myself to You in love
and do not love my brother?
“They’ll know you are my disciples…” 

Is it even possible to be
truly united to Goodness
and not share that goodness?
What kind of union is it,
if I stay my same self thereafter? 

Do not allow me to remain as I am, Jesus.
Help me to prepare my heart
for true union with You,
a union that will reveal You to the world
uniquely through me. 

For what use is it if You come to me
and I refuse You to my neighbor? 
What use is it, Lord, if You fill me
and I do not overflow? 

--Erin Flynn               

Image source: Elizabeth Polfus, Overflowing, https://theologyandchurch.com/2017/09/17/a-prayer-on-sunday-11/overflowing/
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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/
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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/
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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_
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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/
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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
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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

Join in that love (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    I was at St. Kevin’s on Cortland Avenue in San Francisco during a period when Cortland Avenue was a little rougher than it is now, with a lot of drug dealing and using and a lot of people hanging around doing nothing and creating havoc. 

    One day at morning Mass, there was this man who was a good 6’6” – much taller than anyone else, or so it looked. He didn’t look like he’d had a bath for a month or so. His eyes were glazed, and he was totally unfocused. At the Our Father, Margaret Ahearn, who was all of 4’6” and had a smile that was about five feet wide, walked to the man with a big smile, took his hand, looked up at him (which was quite a feat), and then prayed the Our Father with him and everyone else. What she couldn’t see were the tears running down his face. How long had it been since someone had touched him? How long had it been since someone recognized that he, too was a human being, he too was loved into existence by God? When was the last time anybody had recognized his dignity? 

    Margaret was amazing; I’ve known very few people like her. I never met her husband Matthew; he was dead before I arrived in the parish – but she would talk about him. She said that she and Matthew wanted children, but they never had any, so they adopted everybody they met. And they did: everybody they met. It didn’t matter who, they had a place in the hearts of the Ahearns, a place in their home, if they needed it. Come Thanksgiving, if you didn’t have anyone to have Thanksgiving with, they had more than enough room. And they were happy to have you. 

    Because Margaret took this seriously: If God has loved us first – it doesn’t happen the other way around – if God has loved us first, what other response can we have but to love God and to love what God has made? Our gospel text is the conclusion to last week’s text: Remain in me as I remain in you. Love one another as I love you. As I love the Father and the Father loves me, join in that love, be one in that love, join us, be with us, never part from us … for our love for you is eternal. Let your love for each other try and reach the same lack of limitation. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, May 5, 2024

Image source: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/11/16/what-its-going-church-when-youre-homeless/

Creating and nurturing communiies of faith (Carolyn Jacobs)

    There is a healing power for those gathered in prayer who trust that God is in the midst of them. While we may share hope for a specific outcome, we must remember that line of the Lord’s prayer where we ask for God’s will to be done. Trusting in God frees us to hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance, not just our own desired outcome, for in the midst of the community and in our hearts as we become open to new ways of hearing the other, we realize that whatever the outcome may be, we are not alone on our journey. We are in the family and community where God calls us. 

 

    The challenges of our church and our world are invitations to continuous discernment of how to dialogue, to forgive, and to be obedient to the urgings of the Spirit. We live in a time when we need to step out and invite others to prayer, dialogue, and action. We need to trust the Holy Spirit to guide us. For the challenges invite us to become open to our personal and collective vulnerabilities in creating and nurturing communities of faith that are inclusive. To remember that we are not alone, that we are because others exist in the world surrounding us. We trust that whatever challenging circumstances or people we meet on our journeys, we are called to listen for God’s voice as we gather in groups of two or more and hold in our hearts the love of our neighbors as ourselves. 

--Carolyn Jacobs, MSW, Ph.D. 

Image source: OLMC Liturgical Ministers Retreat, August 2022, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=5555792571148786&set=a.5555795787815131
Quotation source

Only Christ's love (Pope Francis)

     Only Christ’s love can set us free from a mad pursuit that has no longer has room for a gratuitous love. Christ’s love can give a heart to our world and revive love whenever we think that the ability to love has been definitely lost. 

    The Church also needs that love, lest the love of Christ be replaced with outdated structures and concerns, excessive attachment to our own ideas and opinions, and fanaticism in any number of forms, which end up taking the place of the gratuitous love of God that liberates, enlivens, brings joy to the heart and builds communities. 

--Pope Francis, Dilexit nos,
Paragraphs 218 & 219 

Image source: Pope Francis shares a meal with the poor and homeless of Rome, June 29, 2018, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-06/pope-francis-dinner-poor-homeless-krajewski.html
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