God's hand (Paula Nelsen)

    A few days ago, I saw to my horror that I had let my little houseplant garden dry up. Most of the plants in the pots were sadly wilted and looking dead. I had been so preoccupied by projects that they had slipped my mind. So, I watered them, soaked them, and hoped for the best. The very next day, they had transformed, almost like magic – the Christmas cactus, the shamrock, the orchid and the begonia all suddenly bloomed with bright little flowers. I was suddenly relieved. 

    Finally, when I sat down to read [Isaiah 55], it all seemed so simple and clear. Outside, the rain was pouring down. Inside, I was reading: Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down, and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful… so we can plant seeds, make bread, and eat! The rainstorm no longer looked dreary. I could see its incredible beauty and its incredible, beautiful power, and God’s hand behind it. 

--Paula Nelsen,
Communion Service Reflection,
February 20, 2024

Image source: https://www.reddit.com/r/houseplants/comments/14p5lgt/are_these_plants_dead_housesitting_concerned/

Everything is possible (Pope Leo XIV / Corrie Ten Boom)

The fruitfulness of Christian life
does not depend on human approval,
but on the perseverance of those who,
united to Christ like the branch to the vine, 
bear fruit when their season comes.

 --Pope Leo XIV

    The wonderful thing about praying is that you leave a world of not being able to do something, and enter God’s realm where everything is possible. He specializes in the impossible. Nothing is too great for His almighty power. Nothing is too small for His love. 

--Corrie Ten Boom 

Image source: A leaf sheep (Costasiella kuroshimae) is a sea slug that is believed to be able to perform photosynthesis. It is no bigger than a grain of rice, yet God has made it able to pull off one of nature’s craziest tricks! Each one of its green “leaves” is covered in chloroplasts taken from the algae it eats (a phenomenon bearing the terrific name of kleptoplasty). Once it has fed, the leaf sheep stores these chloroplasts inside its body, allowing it to convert sunlight into energy – just like a plant. https://kottke.org/26/04/the-leaf-sheep-slug-the-animal-that-eats-sunshine for more details. In God’s realm, everything is possible!
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2
Note: Corrie Ten Boom knew something about the impossible that God could accomplish through human participation in God's works. With her family, Ms. Ten Boom helped to save the lives of hundreds of Jewish refugees to the Netherlands during World War II. She herself was eventually arrested and sent to a concentration camp, but she survived and became a significant Christian writer and speaker.

Unlimited seeds (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    The God of the Gospels is the Sower who has unlimited seeds, and scatters those seeds everywhere without discrimination: on the road, in ditches, in the thorn bushes, in bad soil, and in good soil. This prodigal God gives us this perennial invitation: Come to the waters, come without money, come without merit… because God’s gift is as plentiful, as available, and as free as the air we breathe. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Facebook, June 12, 2023

Image source 1: https://bonecreek.org/v2/wp-content/uploads/The-Sower.jpg
Image source 2: Plateau di Castelluccio di Norcia, Umbria, Italy, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=24079443388378547&set=gm.4025742350980166&idorvanity=1884776005076822
Quotation source

Participating in God's work (Suzanne)

    Every human relationship is dependent on dialogue – on how we speak to each other, how we listen, how we communicate. And so it is with God. Communication with the Lord requires that we pay attention to God’s Word in our lives and enter into dialogue regularly with God. 

    However, in Isaiah 55, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts. 

    This would seem to doom human communication with God to failure. Can we even begin to understand God, God’s thoughts, God’s ways? 

    One little word turns the tide: YET… Yet just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down… That little word, yet, is important… because it suggests hope! You may not understand me, God says – my thoughts and my words – yet I will send my word forth from my mouth and it will do what I want it to do: It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it. 

    And we can participate!

    If God is sending God’s word, God must be sending it to someone – namely, us. Which means, implicitly, that there must be some way to “get it,” some way for us to get an inkling of God’s message, because God wants to communicate with us, be in relationship with us, allow us to participate in God's work. 

    This can only happen if we are open to God’s purpose, open to God’s will in our lives. Only through constant communication with God can we find our way to God’s kingdom, both here on earth and in heaven, in synch with God’s ways, in tune to God’s thoughts. Only by listening can we know God’s will and participate in God's work. Only in prayer can we be open: open to the salvation that is ours, open to the joy the Lord promises to the just… 

--Suzanne T.,
Communion Service Reflection,
March 7, 2017 

Image source: John August Swanson, Abraham and Isaac (2025, posthumous publication), available for purchase at: https://johnaugustswanson.com/catalog/abraham-and-isaac-2025/?srsltid=AfmBOooRO4vvFY8V_nZbZnOO7UZKKXF6cUCBE0FZJ-T4ZvAoi38Rsgn9

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 12, 2026: Whoever has ears ought to hear...

Whoever has ears ought to hear…
 Are we really listening? 

    In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable of the sower has one point and one point only: the kingdom of heaven is at work among you and is producing beyond anything you can imagine. Yes, Matthew records the early Church’s alternative, analogy-based reading of this parable, which has to do with all those seeds that “fail” and bear no fruit, but ultimately, as Jesus tells the crowds, the seed that falls on rich soil and produces fruit produces a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold – the fruitful harvest promised by Psalm 65 and then some. It is impossible, and the impossibility is the point! God can do things beyond human imagining, no matter the soil, no matter the conditions. God is at work. God is going to produce. God is going to bear fruit. So be open to God and to where God is leading. The blessing comes for those who participate in the miracle that God is unfolding – but it’s God who is at work, accomplishing this miracle. So open your eyes, open your ears, and hear his Word! 

    Jesus’ message echoes that of the prophet Isaiah, who reassures the people who have returned from exile in Babylon and are beginning to rebuild that God’s word will achieve the end for which God sent it. Isaiah’s message of hope and encouragement suggests that God knows prosperity will come through his word. Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, so God’s word accomplishes God’s works, and in God’s time. What God creates is extraordinary, beyond our comprehension; we have but to be open to all that God’s creation has to reveal to us. 

    Mankind tends to limit creation, its value and abilities, to limit what is possible for God. But God doesn’t, and God expects us to participate! As Paul tells the Romans, creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God. God desires that all creation share in union with Christ, and so creation is groaning in labor pains, waiting to give birth to revelation. We eagerly anticipate the glory to be revealed to us in all its fullness, and so we live in hope… because our God is a God whose activity is fruitful beyond anything we can imagine! We have but to hear the word and understand it, allowing God to bear fruit in us to be that very revelation Paul describes! 

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

His heart is an open door (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque / Anne Costa)

I need nothing but God,
and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.

--St Margaret Mary Alacoque, VSM

    Jesus does not wish his heart to be a mystery to us. Rather, his heart is an open door; he wears it on his sleeve for us, so to speak. He is meek, he is humble, and he makes himself vulnerable, as he is consumed by love for us and concern for our eternal destiny. 

--Anne Costa,
Healing Promises:
The Essential Guide to the Sacred Heart

Image source: Christ the Missionary Overlooking the World, Notre-Dame des Missions d’Epinay, https://eglisesduconfluent.fr/Pages/VIT-93Epinay-EglND.php
Quotation 1
Quotation 2

Accompanied on the journey (Fr. Dave Ghiorso / Henri Nouwen)

    Take my yoke and learn from me. 

    A yoke is a tool. It’s an instrument that binds two animals together. It’s kind of an unusual image for rest. 

    But you have to remember what Jesus is trying to get across here. Christian rest does not mean an escape from life, but to be joined to our Lord through this life. Jesus does not remove the burdens; he’s very clear on that. He says, I will give you rest, but then he tells you to take the yoke. He’s not going to remove every burden. What is promised is that he shares the burden and, in doing so, completely transforms it. 

    Jesus is not asking us to carry those crosses we have alone. When we let him walk beside us, when we let him steady our steps as we go forward, the weight changes. That is what is being promised. The burden is still there, but the crushing heaviness of it is not. What might have felt unbearable is now survivable. 

    And then he promises us, And you will find rest for your soul – that inner peace that comes from knowing that we are loved, we are held, we are accompanied on our journey. 

    Maybe today we are invited to slow down, to rediscover that gentle God who walks beside us. 

--Fr. Dave Ghiorso,
Homily, December 10, 2025 

Dear God, Speak gently in my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my surroundings
and the loud inner noises of my fears
keep pulling me away from you,
help me to trust that you are still there
even when I am unable to hear you.
Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:
“Come to me, you who are overburdened,
and I will give you rest....
for I am gentle and humble of heart.”
Let that loving voice be my guide.
 Amen. 

 --Henri Nouwen

Image source: https://whatthenwhynow.org/an-easy-yoke/
Prayer source

He came to rule from within (Fr. Patrick Michaels / Molly Hartle)

Christ didn’t come to rule over us;
he came to rule from within.
Because Christ did not come to rule as any other king.
 There was only one power he wished to exercise
and that was the absolute love of God for all.

 --Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, April 30, 2026 

    [In Matthew 11: 25-30], Jesus seems to be saying something odd. Essentially, he thanks God for hiding his treasures from “the wise and the learned.” My first question upon reading this was “Wouldn’t the wise and the learned naturally see his treasures?” 

    But those aren’t the people Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about the Jewish elite (that is, the Pharisees and Sadducees). Jesus knows that the Jewish elite are not only going to try to undermine him but that eventually their judgement will lead to his crucifixion. We get a taste of this in Matthew 9 when Jesus heals a paraplegic by saying simply “your sins are forgiven.” Rather than seeing the miracle in Jesus’ astonishing healing, the Jewish elite say, “This fellow is blaspheming!” 

    So, Jesus is mad. Not at the Jewish elite per se, but at their own misguided attachment to the letter of the law. He knows that their inability to remain open to his teachings will cost them salvation. Thus, his reference to “the childlike” – the Jewish elite are anything but. 

    In the latter part of this gospel reading, Jesus speaks to the very people who have fallen under the Jewish elite’s perfectionistic adherence to Mosaic law—all those who “labor and are burdened.” Jesus offers them a simple, inclusive faith that doesn’t require an education. No doubt this is what he means when he says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

    Here, Jesus opens the door for anybody and everybody to follow him, even those people who lack an education, social standing, and money. He himself was born into poverty, was unable to read and write, and had little to no standing in society. 

    Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened… 

--Molly Hartle,
Communion Service Reflection,
October 4, 2022 

Image source: Jesus challenges the Pharisees and Chief Priest, The Chosen, Season 5, Episode 3, https://www.thebibleartist.com/post/the-chosen-season-5-episode-3-bible-study-discussion-guide-exploring-the-chosen-with-small-group

The heart of the gentle, humble Jesus (W.S. Gilbert / Dr. Wendy Wright)

Let your heart be your compass.

--W.S. Gilbert

     [In Salesian spirituality,] each devout person becomes such by conforming her or his heart to the heart of the gentle humble Jesus of the gospels. It is interiorly, within the core or heart of the person, that this conformity is to take place. The human heart, refashioned through prayer, loving relationships, and loving actions, becomes fashioned into the heart of the gentle, loving savior. Jesus will live in such a heart. Jesus is enfleshed in such a person’s life. Through the ‘devout’ Christian, Jesus lives and society is transformed. 

--Dr. Wendy Wright,
“Hearts Have a Secret Language”

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/418091763063248/posts/1038651777673907/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

We still hope for freedom (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

     On this day each year, we try and remember what has been good in our journey as a country. The entrance of Europeans into this land was good and bad. It was good from the standpoint that it gave a place of religious freedom to those who were oppressed where they came from; it was a problem for the people who already lived here, who found that their land was slowly being taken from them, and they and their values and their way of life weren’t necessarily being incorporated into this new land. 

    As immigrants would continue to come to this land, they would struggle to make a go of it, and they did so because of their own courage, their own conviction, their own values. They built up, through hard work, a nation, prosperity, things they did not know in the lands that they came from. They built up so many things that are biblical. The sense of a concern for one another; that even though there was competition, there was also often one nationality taking under its wing another, helping them to make their way, helping them to find their place, helping them to establish themselves, building up slowly the fabric of a country, built upon the hope for freedom. 

    We still hope for this freedom, and we still work to build it up, and we celebrate what we have accomplished so far, what God has accomplished through us. 

    Our greatness as a country is in our vulnerability to one another and to our world. It is to be found in our weakness, where God has the opportunity to work, God has the opportunity to weave, God has the opportunity to create anew. Today we celebrate our own independence, the right to not just exercise our own freedom, but to make it available to all. 

    It is not a feast, a celebration, that is about us individually. It’s a celebration about us collectively, and when we see ourselves collectively, what we can achieve through the freedom that we won over and over and over again. This is a celebration of all that is best in us, which requires an acceptance of all that is not. And in owning all that is not, to transform it. God is at work in us, and for that, we give thanks. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, July 4, 2025

Image source: https://daily.jstor.org/celebrating-immigration-on-the-fourth-of-july/

A store of meekness and kindliness (Fr. Ron Rolheiser / St. Francis de Sales)

True religion is, at a point,
about the size and quality of our hearts,
about how wide or narrow they are,
about how mellow or bitter they are,
about how forgiving or angry they are,
and about how much they can imitate God’s love
which goes out warmly and equally to all,
to the bad as well as the good.

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI

    Lay up a store of meekness and kindliness, speaking and acting in things great and small as gently as possible. Remember that the Bride of the Canticles is described as not merely dropping honey, and milk also, from her lips, but as having it “under her tongue,” that is to say, in her heart. 

    So we must not only speak gently to our neighbor, but we must be filled, heart and soul, with gentleness; and we must not merely seek the sweetness of aromatic honey in courtesy and suavity with strangers, but also the sweetness of milk among those of our own household and our neighbors; a sweetness terribly lacking to some who are as angels abroad and devils at home! 

--St. Francis de Sales,
Introduction to the Devout Life

Note: In Salesian spirituality, the word "meek" is most often translated as "gentle."

Image source:  https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/which-honey-tastes-the-sweetest.html
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 5, 2026: Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me...

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…
Does Jesus rule your heart? 

     Christians generally look to the Book of the Prophet Zechariah as a prophecy about the coming of Jesus. Your king shall come to you, the Lord says through the prophet, a just savior, meek and riding on an ass. In his gospel, Matthew will use this very passage to describe Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But before Jesus gets there, no one seems to comprehend the nature of his kingship, particularly in the towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida where he has gone to preach. And yet Jesus prays: I give praise to you, Father, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike. Jesus speaks a prayer of praise for all that is unfolding, all that will lead to the salvation God has promised. Even the obstinate failure of many to understand – which will lead to Jesus’ death – is part of that promise, for Jesus must offer all for the sake of all mankind. His is not the meekness of the weak, but the gentle, humble heart of our King who gives himself for expiation of our sins. 

    It is only once we open ourselves to that truth and allow Jesus to rule our lives that our vision can be expanded past the tangible and we can truly know him, know Christ. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves, Jesus says. It is invitation, not coercion. Jesus’ yoke is his love for us; to accept it is to open ourselves to his love and to allow him to dwell in us and rule our hearts. Our job is simply to let him steer and guide us.. Then we will find the kind of peace prefigured by Zechariah, when all the implements of war (the chariot, the horse, the warrior’s bow) shall be banished, and we shall shout for joy, praising God’s name forever, as Psalm 145 exhorts us to do. 

    How do we open ourselves to the truth of Jesus’ tremendous gift? As Paul tells the Romans, it is the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead who will give life to our mortal bodies also. If we live for the sake of the love revealed to us in Jesus Christ, if he lives in us through baptism, then we are participating in his love, and what we choose to do with our enfleshed bodies reveals that love. If we allow his Spirit to come and work within us, we are set free, and it is freedom that brings peace in the way that God has wanted to rule throughout all of Scripture – ruling our hearts with his love. 

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

Starved for stories of kindness (Robin Williams / Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

Everyone you meet is fighting a battle
you know nothing about.
Be kind. Always.

--Robin Williams

I could have said potato chips. Always true. Plain ones. No flavors. Potato. Oil. Salt. I could have said black licorice from Finland, also always true. Or long flowy pants with no front pockets. That’s new. Tending my eight aloe babies still recovering from their transplant. Counting orchid buds about to bloom. How many grams of protein in a serving of anything. The insane softness of my daughter’s inner arm. How baby swifts can fly ten months without stopping. Imagining Rodin and Rilke watching sunsets together. But what I said felt truest of all—I am starved for all stories of kindness. The young man delivering diapers to immigrant families in Maine. The woman sending socks to my friend with cancer. The stranger who walked a labyrinth with me. My husband offering me the last egg in the carton. Anyone who smiles and says hello in the grocery store aisles. Anyone who says hello back. 

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer,
"When They Asked Me,
'What Is Your Current Hyperfixation'”

Image source 1:  https://www.newhopeministry.info/blog/labyrinth-walking
Image source 2: Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, The Prophet Elisha and the Woman of Shunem (1664), https://www.mfab.hu/artworks/9145/
Quotation source
Poem source

God's goodness (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

 

Forever I will sing
the goodness of the Lord!

--Psalm 89

    Above all else, Jesus revealed this about God: God is good. That truth needs to ground everything else: our churches, our theologies, our spiritualities, our liturgies, and our understanding of everyone else. 

    Sadly, it often doesn’t. The fear that God is not good disguises itself in subtle ways but is always manifest whenever our religious teachings or practices somehow make God in heaven not as understanding, merciful, and indiscriminate and unconditional in love as Jesus was on earth. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI 

Image source: https://virtueconnection.com/how-to-rest-in-gods-mercy-3/
Quotation source

Working towards the eternal (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

God’s love is eternal, 
and it is to work towards the eternal 
that we live in him. 

--Fr Patrick Michaels,
Homily, October 31, 2025 

    Chapter 10 of Matthew tells of the mission and commissioning of Jesus’ apostles (yes, apostles, the only time Matthew uses this word), and it is full of challenges. In this chapter, Jesus gives the Twelve clear instructions and tells them of the coming persecutions, exhorting them not to be afraid when they are made to suffer for his sake – a sobering message. 

    The next part of the gospel passage is no less disconcerting: Are we really to spurn our families, set ourselves against our fathers & mothers? Yet Jesus teaches us that our first priority must be God himself, because if we love God first and foremost, we can love others – family, friends, all – more fully. To embrace God's love is to be transformed by it, and for the better, though many who are hostile to faith don't understand this concept, really. But once transformed, we can be even more loving to all.

    Jesus further tells the apostles to take up their cross, and to lose their life for his sake. Jesus' own suffering on the cross is an exemplar for them of complete devotion to the will of God, and also a model of generosity in sacrifice. 

    So many martyrs followed the apostles' commission, and for this, they lost their lives. But oh, the gain!  Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it, Jesus says. To embrace an existence in which God, Jesus is our first love, to discern our path by means of his Word, to carry out his mission in our world… This is how we find true life, the life that is God's love, growing within us, a love we are called to share with the world, a love we will know in its fullness one day, in perfect union with our Lord, in heaven. 

--Suzanne T., 
Communion Service,
November 24, 2015 

Image source: St. Andrew Dung-Lac and Companion Martyrs, https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-andrew-dung-lac-and-companions/  

The promise of eternal life (Fr. James Martin)

And whoever gives only a cup of cold water 

to one of these little ones to drink 

because the little one is a disciple, 

amen, I say to you,
he will surely not lose his reward.

--Matthew 10:42 

    Eternal life is a hard thing for even some devout Christians to believe. But we have to remember that Jesus does three things to help us accept this promise. First, he tells his disciples about eternal life, [for example,] in John 6. Second, he shows his disciples what it looks like by raising Lazarus from the dead, in John 11, proving that Jesus has power over death. Finally, he definitively reveals the pattern of eternal life, the “first fruits,” as St. Paul says, at the Resurrection. 

    But if that doesn’t “convince” you, look at it this way: God is love. God loved you into being and entered into a loving relationship with you, at the moment of your conception. Why, then, would a loving God let something like death end that loving relationship? No, God has a place prepared for each of us, a place where we will dwell with God until the end of time. Hope in this. Trust in this. Most of all, believe in this. 

--Fr. James Martin 

Image source: https://divinewordmedia.com/2020/06/27/hospitality-exemplified-amidst-covid-19/
Quotation source

Our greatest cross (Thomas à Kempis / St. John Vianney)

If you carry your cross joyfully,
it will carry you. 

--Thomas à Kempis

         On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses. 

--St. John Vianney

Image source: Hieronymus Bosch, Christ Carrying the Cross, detail (c.1505-1507), https://faithmag.com/take-your-cross-and-follow-me
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

The kindest people (Fr. Greg Boyle / Bianca Sparacino)

The only non-delusional response
to everything is kindness.

--Fr. Greg Boyle

    The kindest people are not born that way, they are made. They are the souls that have experienced much at the hands of life. They are the ones who have dug themselves out of the dark, who have fought to turn every loss into a lesson. The kindest people do not just exist, they choose to soften where circumstance has tried to harden them. They choose to believe in goodness, because they have seen first hand why compassion is so necessary. They have seen firsthand why tenderness is important in this world. 

--Bianca Sparacino

Image source: Maureen Merrell, Preparing Bread for Elisha, available for purchase at: https://maureenmerrellart.com/products/preparing-bread-for-elisha-woman-bible-elisha
Quotation source 1: Fr. Greg Boyle, paraphrasing author George Saunders, in his commencement address at Santa Clara University in 2024, which is worth a watch! https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=892881732706997
Quotation source 2

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 28, 2026: Whoever receives a prophet will receive a prophet's reward...

Whoever receives a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward… 
We are defined by our acts of kindness!

    Whenever, in the Second Book of Kings, the prophet Elisha comes to Shunem, he is treated with kindness by a woman of influence who, along with her husband, recognizes Elisha as a holy man of God. Appreciative of her repeated kindness and upon learning that she has no son, Elisha promises the woman, This time next year you will be fondling a baby son. Although she is at first skeptical, the woman will come to cherish this divine gift and sing the goodness of the Lord, following Psalm 89. 

    Did Jesus have this story in mind when, in Matthew’s Gospel, he says, whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward? Speaking to his disciples, Jesus sets forth a series of challenges, each of which contains both an invitation – Whoever… – and a clearly defined consequence: Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of my disciples to drink will surely not lose his reward! Jesus is sending his disciples out into the world to proclaim the good news, and he wants them to know that for every condition he sets forth for discipleship, there is the possibility of a lasting recompense. The conditions of discipleship are not always easy: Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, Jesus says. But to put Jesus first is to open oneself to absolute, infinite love; it changes you and it changes your capacity to love. If the disciples go forth with such love for the lost sheep of Israel, that love will reach out and draw those to whom they speak into relationship with Jesus. And the rewards are infinite: eternal life! 

    Our baptism into Christ Jesus has the power to draw us into the death of Jesus so that we can then rise with him to new life. If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live in him, as the Letter to the Romans states. Baptism redefines us; it redefines the parameters of our existence and of our identity, allowing us to enter more profoundly into the life to which he calls us. We, like the disciples, are on a journey to do just this: to open our hearts to the Lord in such a way that our hearts are also absolutely open to everyone in our life and in our world. May we, like the woman of Shunem, be defined by our own acts of kindness, as we come to know the fullness of life in him, and become conduits of that life to all. 

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

A light from the shadows shall spring (J.R.R. Tolkien)

All that is gold does not glitter,

not all those who wander are lost;

the old that is strong does not wither,

deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

a light from the shadows shall spring;

 renewed shall be blade that was broken,

the crownless again shall be king. 

--J. R. R. Tolkien
 

Image source 1: Palms from the previous year are burned to create ashes for Ash Wednesday, February 2020, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Mill Valley, https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2921086967952706&type=3 
Image source 2: The Paschal Fire, April 2025, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Mill Valley, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1123130969852316&set=a.1116337687198311
Quotation source

God wishes the salvation of everyone (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

    Many great saints and mystics were either borderline or full-blown universalists. This means that they believed that there is universal salvation. 

    Their reason for believing this is not the perennially popular (and bad!) argument: ‘If God is all-loving and merciful, how can He send anyone to hell?’ 

    Rather, they argue from the power of God’s love: ‘God wishes the salvation of everyone and is, ultimately, powerful enough to bring it about. 

    If we believe in the power of love to heal and to create freely its own response, surely God’s perfect love will eventually bring even the most hardened sinner to accept it. If human love, weak and imperfect as it is, can melt hard hearts, won’t perfect love eventually penetrate every kind of resistance? 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI 

Image source: Wayne Pascall, Prodigal Son, available for purchase at: https://www.waynepascallart.com/584174/prodigal-son/
Quotation source

Trust that your soul is in God's hands (Marie Philomène Péan)

    How do you keep the balance between love, life, and truth? How do you hold onto gratitude, even when your expectations are not met? Can you trust that your soul is in God’s hands and live like you believe it? 

    Because with Jesus, it is a win-win! Jesus accepts us no matter who we are. In John 6, 37 he said: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me”. 

    Thus, if we live, we live in Christ. If we die, we die in Christ. Either way, we are held. We are loved. We are home. 

--Marie Philomène Péan, D.Min. 

Image source: https://charis.regent.edu/trust-artwork-on-trust/
Quotation source

A holy human soul (Frederick Douglass / Marilynne Robinson)

 

The soul that is within me
no man can degrade.

--Frederick Douglass

    Once in a lifetime, you look at a stranger and you see a soul, a glorious presence out of place in the world. And if you love God, every choice is made for you. There is no turning away. You’ve seen the mystery – you’ve seen what life is about. What it’s for. And a soul has no earthly qualities, no history among the things of this world, no guilt or injury or failure. No more than a flame would have. There is nothing to be said about it except that it is a holy human soul. And it is a miracle when you recognize it. 

--Marilynne Robinson, Jack

Image source: Elizabeth Catlett, Recognition (1970), https://www.swanngalleries.com/news/fine-art/african-american-art/2015/12/elizabeth-catletts-varied-mediums/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Learning from St. Joseph (Thomas Griffin)

    Each moment we have as fathers, whether before or after the birth of our children, and whether it is beautiful or challenging, is an opportunity to learn from St. Joseph. Joseph knew what it was like to wait for the birth of his child, and he knew what it was like to embark upon an unknown pilgrimage into the future. Joseph is the king of dealing with unpredictable and unforeseen situations -- from the pregnancy of Mary before they lived together (Matthew 1:18), to having no place for her to give birth in Bethlehem (Luke 2:7) all the way through the flight from Egypt in fear for their lives (Matthew 2:13-14) and providing for his family with his small carpentry shop. 

     Life has uncertainties and challenges, but following St. Joseph’s lead will allow you to perceive God’s fingerprints in every present moment – no matter what might come. Joseph’s silence in the Bible, humility in following God, and trust in God’s plan made him the best suited stepfather to Christ. 

--Thomas Griffin 

God bless all fathers,
biological, adoptive, and spiritual, today!
Happy Fathers Day! 

Image source: El Greco, St. Joseph and the Child Jesus (ca. 1600), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cathedral_of_Toledo,_sacristy,_with_paintings_by_El_Greco_%2815%29_%2829161098404%29.jpg
Quotation source

Salvation comes (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    God wants to embrace every human being. Salvation – the kingdom of God – comes when every human being allows themselves to be embraced, when they understand that love is a way of life, not hatred, when love creates the world that God came to create, not to diminish it. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, February 23, 2025

Image source: Jesus embraces John, The Chosen, Season 5, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/newsletter/2025-06-20/the-chosen-prime-video-a-king-like-me-netflix-long-way-home-apple

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/
Quotation source

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/
Quotation source

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
Quotation source

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/
Quotation source