Love needs to be built upon mercy (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

Forgiveness was meant to broaden our view,
to help us see one another more clearly,
and to help us see God at work more clearly.

 --Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, January 16, 2025

    To say that we love God or to say that we love our brothers and sisters may in fact not get at the point. Because love needs needs to be built upon a mercy, an understanding, a willingness to understand, and our ability to open our hearts. Love can be a static sort of thing that we sort of possess, as if that were enough, and yet love is truly an investment in one another. 

    It is the mercy that we have received from God. That is the mercy we are supposed to mete out to the world. And yet in our time, it is harder and harder for us to recognize that mercy. 

    I go back to that professor in Rome who asked us a question at the end of her presentation on the Passion narrative as it is depicted in Renaissance and Baroque art: How can we paint a crucifixion for today in a world where no one recognizes their own need for mercy, or their own sin? How do you make that death matter? How do you make that life matter? 

    It’s played out in us, and it’s played out through mercy. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, January 8, 2026

Image source: Renato Guttuso, Crucifixion (1941). For a well-developed analysis of this remarkable painting, go to: https://www.americamagazine.org/art/2013/03/14/contemporary-crucifixion/

Risk proclaiming the prodigal character of God's mercy (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Those of us who are parents, ministers, teachers, catechists, and elders must risk proclaiming the prodigal character of God’s mercy. We must not spend God’s mercy as if it were ours to spend, dole out God’s forgiveness as if it were a limited commodity, put conditions on God’s love as if God were a narrow tyrant or a political ideology, or cut off access to God as if we were the keepers of the heavenly gates. We are not! If we link God’s mercy to our own assessment of things, we then link it to our own limits, wounds, and biases. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Image source: Domenico Fetti, The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (ca. 1619-1621), https://lectionaryart.org/2016/09/21/the-unforgiving-servant/
Quotation source

Must you forgive them? (Marcy St. John)

    Jesus’ parable teaches us about mercy — about what mercy looks like and how we are to give it to others. Recall the time when you were a child and you acted badly — most likely toward a brother or sister or other relative. Recall that moment when you knew you “were in big trouble” and had to go to your parent for confession and mercy. Recall that feeling in your stomach, or your head, and your heart. Jesus tells Peter what mercy looks like: If your brother sins against you, forgive him not seven times but seventy-seven times. There is discussion in the Babylonian Talmud — one of the sources of Jewish law and teachings — that forgiveness must be unconditionally given three times — so we should understand seventy-seven as an indefinitely large number. In other words — forgive your brother again and again, always and forever. 

    We believe that God is merciful, and will show mercy to us. But this tells us that it isn’t for nothing that he grants mercy. We, too, must be merciful to receive mercy. Again, we must forgive those who trespass against us always, as many times as needed. This message so important that it is in the prayer we pray most often — at every Mass, at every service: when we gather together with other Catholics, when we gather together with other Christians, and even when we gather with those who are not Christian but who know this prayer — because it is The Lord’s Prayer. We ask God to “forgive us our trespassers as we forgive those who trespass against us.” 

   Why must this be? There are those who have greatly wronged others — the coworker who lies and gets you fired; the banker who refuses to give you relief on your debts; the sister who keeps you from seeing your parent; the criminal who assaults your child or husband. Must you forgive them? This is America! I have rights — the right to sue, to accuse, to demand, to fight, to pursue Justice. 

    I won’t tell you that that is not so. There are times when you do need to defend yourself in the courts on earth against those who have harmed you. But even when you need to take those steps, you still need to forgive the person or persons who trespassed against you. 

   Why? 

    Because Jesus forgives. Because failing to do so injures your own heart and keeps you from your connection to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is a block, a stone, a pebble, a shard, a nugget of pain and resentment and anger. Or, as Pope Francis calls it, “a bothersome fly in the summer that keeps coming back” It keeps you from fully taking in the Word of God, the lessons of Christ, and the works of the Holy Spirit that are active, alive and giving us grace and mercy every day. 

--Marcy St. John,
OLMC Communion Service,
March 5, 2024

Image source: https://pastorduncansblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/forgiveness-reflections-on-parable-of.html

A welcoming and merciful attitude toward everyone (Pope Francis)

    This is the logic that guides Jesus’ mission and the mission of the Church: go in search, “fish” for men and women, not to proselytize, but to restore full dignity and freedom to all, through the forgiveness of sins. This is the essential point of Christianity: to spread the free and regenerative love of God, with a welcoming and merciful attitude toward everyone, so that each person can encounter God’s tenderness and have the fullness of life. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source 1: Br. Mickey McGrath, St. Frances Cabrini, available for purchase at: https://trinitystores.com/products/wall-frame-gold-st-frances-cabrini-by-m-mcgrath?srsltid=AfmBOoo6GEhZi16BOxZzbYNz6xjP9ye7xTX9eB9IDKM5REwvbTC5mWaC
Image source 2: https://www.catholiccompany.com/blogs/magazine/st-frances-xavier-cabrini-giving-without-reserve
Quotation source

Forgiven people must become forgiving people (Fr. Patrick van der Vorst)

    It is worth listening carefully to the questions that arise in the Gospels. They are rarely just trivial; they are our questions too. [In Sunday's Gospel,] it is Peter who speaks: “Lord, how often must I forgive?” He dares to suggest an answer, seven times, already generous in the language of Scripture, where the number seven points to fullness. But Jesus stretches the horizon even further: not seven, but seventy-seven times. In other words, forgiveness is not something to be counted, measured, or exhausted. And to make his point, Jesus tells a story of a servant whose debt is unimaginably large (far beyond anything he could ever repay) and yet, when he asks, it is simply cancelled. This is how God forgives: not cautiously, not reluctantly, but freely, abundantly, without calculation. Every time we enter the sacrament of Confession, we stand in that same place: bringing what we cannot repay, and receiving what we do not deserve: mercy. 

    But the parable does not end there. The one who has been forgiven so much refuses to forgive a small debt owed to him. And suddenly the light shifts. The story becomes sad... but it becomes a mirror. Because the mercy we receive is never meant to remain with us; it must flow through us. Confession does not only reconcile us with God... it calls us to become people of reconciliation. If we close our hearts to others, if we hold on to resentment or refuse forgiveness, we begin to block the very grace for others. Jesus is not being harsh; he is revealing a truth of the heart: that forgiven people must become forgiving people! 

    In The Confessional (1827) by Sir David Wilkie, we are drawn into a vivid moment of the sacramental life of the Church. A young woman kneels at the confessional, quietly speaking to the priest, while a small crowd gathers closely around, waiting their turn after what appears to have been a penitential procession. The scene is almost theatrical in its intimacy: faces lean in, bodies press forward, and , if you ask me, the figures seem remarkably close, almost a bit too close to the confessional box. This closeness is intentional however. Wilkie is less concerned with strict liturgical accuracy and more with conveying the human drama of repentance: the urgency, curiosity, even tension that surrounds the sacrament. The painting captures confession not as a distant, private ritual, but as something deeply embedded in communal life. The proximity of the onlookers heightens that sense of shared experience: sin and forgiveness are personal, yet never entirely hidden from the community. 

--Father Patrick van der Vorst 

Image & quotation source: https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/matthew-18-21-35-2026/

Can we forgive? (Robert Schreiter CPPS)

    Where might we stand now, years after 9/11? When we think about perhaps forgiving something as terrible as this, we need to attend to the teaching of Jesus closely. 

    First of all, it is God who forgives sin and wrongdoing. Only God has sufficient perspective to grasp the extent of damage that sin and wrongdoing create in our lives and in the lives of those against whom we sin. 

    In the act of forgiving, we participate in God’s larger act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is something that comes from God it is a gift of God to us. If we listen closely to Jesus’s words, we will discover that. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s first word on the cross is about forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do ” (Luke 23:34). We often read this as Jesus forgiving his executioners. But in actual fact, Jesus is calling on God, his Father, to forgive them. Jesus is still in the midst of his suffering. He cannot forgive his executioners for something they have not yet completed. But he can call on his Father to forgive. 

    This act of Jesus can be a great source of comfort to us when we struggle to forgive but cannot. We can call upon God, who sees all things, to forgive. And that is a prayer that we, too, someday may be able to forgive. 

--Robert Schreiter CPPS 

Image source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/can-we-forgive-9-11/
Quotation source (and full article)

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 13, 2026: Unless each of you forgives your brother from the heart...

Unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart…
If you can’t receive the mercy of God, how can you give it? 

    Our ability to be forgiving is based on our ability to accept mercy from God and to know that we need it. The author of Psalm 103 is very clear on God’s abundance of mercy for humankind: The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion. Indeed, God crowns us with kindness and compassion so that we might bring his mercy to bear on the world through our own forgiveness of others. For, as the Book of Sirach points out, mercy restores connection: Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord? Rather, forgive your neighbor’s injustice, Sirach suggests, and set enmity aside, so that you might participate in the healing justice that mercy and forgiveness create in our world. 

    How often must I forgive my brother? Peter asks Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. In response, Jesus offers the parable of the unforgiving servant, in which the king understands the power of mercy and forgives the servant’s loan, but the servant himself does not understand forgiveness even after he himself is forgiven: he has his fellow servant put in prison until he pays back his debt. Jesus wants Peter to understand that God’s mercy is tremendous and there is no keeping score; if you have to keep score – as many as seven times? – it is not forgiveness you are contemplating. 

    God constantly forgave the people of Israel as a sign of the depth of his love for them. They didn’t get it, nor do we. God’s mercy is not conditional – God gave his Son for our salvation! -- nor can our forgiveness be conditional. For, as Paul tells the Romans, none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord. All we do should thus be for the sake of his love for us, including opening ourselves to his divine mercy and wielding that same loving mercy in our world as we forgive our neighbor’s injustice and bring the Lord’s healing kindness to bear upon our world.

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

Created to experience union (Dr. Wendy Wright)

    God’s heart ‘breathes’ in and out, and our hearts are created to breathe in concert, in inspiration and aspiration, with the heartbeat of God. Our heartbeats are aligned with the divine rhythm by ‘living Jesus,’ by letting His divine-human Heart become our own. 

    Human hearts, too, breathe and beat in concert. 

    Human hearts are created to experience union with each other in the process of coming into union with God. In fact, we are most fully who [we] are created to be when we exercise love relationally. That is, when we love one another as we have been loved: concretely, uniquely, particularly. 

--Dr. Wendy Wright,
Seeking God’s Will Together

Image source: https://cbcmb.com/gods-heart/
Quotation source

It's a give-and-take (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    In order to create Christian community, it is necessary to help all the members find balance with each other. Nothing will ever be the way we want it to be, but it will be the way we need it to be in order for us to be in community. Concessions will have to be made. We will have to make some changes in ourselves in order to be members of a community, as the community will have to make some changes in themselves to receive us as members of the community. 

    It’s a give-and-take that is the very center of what Jesus means by “love one another.” Love one another in order to adapt. Love one another in order to be transformed by one another. Love one another so that the Lord can work among us. That is change in us. 

   We stay the same and we no more belong than we did before. To belong to any relationship requires change, and that is what love makes possible. 

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

Image source 1: OLMC Advent Fair 2025, Activity Tables, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1306595431505868&set=a.1306604761504935
Image source 2: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/discover-power-community-being-part-something-bigger-than-johnson/

Resting from our usual labors (A Prayer for Labor Day)

We are the clay.
You are the potter.
We are all the work of your hands.

--Isaiah 64:8 

    On this weekend, when we rest from our usual labors, loving Father, we pray for all who shoulder the tasks of human labor – in the marketplace, in factories and offices, in the professions, and in family living. 

    We thank you, Lord, for the gift and opportunity of work; may our efforts always be pure of heart, for the good of others and the glory of your name. 

    We lift up to you all who long for just employment and those who work to defend the rights and needs of workers everywhere. 

    May those of us who are now retired always remember that we still make a valuable contribution to our Church and our world by our prayers and deeds of charity. 

    May our working and our resting all give praise to you until the day we share together in eternal rest with all our departed in your Kingdom as you live and reign Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. 

    Amen. 

Image source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SOyBMLfQkBs
Prayer source

 

Alienation from the source (Barbara Brown Taylor)

    Deep down in human existence, there is an experience of being cut off from life. There is some memory of having been treated cruelly, and—a little deeper, perhaps—the memory of having treated someone else cruelly as well…. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of reaching for forbidden fruit, of pushing away loving arms, of breaking something on purpose just to prove that you can. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of doing whatever is necessary to feed and comfort the self, because there is no one else to trust, no other purpose to serve, no other god to follow. 

    For ages and ages, this experience has been called sin—deadly alienation from the source of all life. By some definitions, it implies willful turning away from God. By others, it is an unavoidable feature of being human. Either way, it is a name for the experience of being cut off from air, light, sustenance, community, hope, meaning, life. It is less concerned with specific behaviors than with the aftermath of those behaviors. There are a thousand ways to turn away from the light, after all, with variations according to culture, century, class, and gender. The point is to know the difference between light and darkness, and to recognize the pull when it comes. 

    I do not believe that sin is the enemy we often make it out to be, at least not when we recognize it and name it as such. When we see how we have turned away from God, then and only then do we have what we need to begin turning back. Sin is our only hope, the fire alarm that wakes us up to the possibility of true repentance. 

--Barbara Brown Taylor

Image source 1 : Edward Hopper, Automat (1927), https://nuvomagazine.com/daily-edit/the-art-of-solitude?srsltid=AfmBOooU_7jTqH6XxoJ9oePzYQq8bE19Ajr7f72HXnUvq69k7h_5JVA_ Image source 2: Pompeo Batoni, The Return of the Prodigal Son (1773), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son#/media/File:Pompeo_Batoni_003.jpg
Quotation source

The illusion of separation (The Quantum Riddle)

   According to quantum physics, a particle vibrating due to your sound when you speak can affect a molecule inside a star at the edge of the universe instantly.  This phenomenon is known as quantum entanglement. 

    The greatest illusion of this universe is the illusion of separation. 

--The Quantum Riddle

Image: https://quantummechanicsstreet.com/quantum-foundations/quantum-entanglement/
Quotation source

Correcting an errant brother or sister (Bishop Robert Barron)

    In [Matthew’s] Gospel, Jesus is instructing his community in the difficult task of correcting an errant brother or sister. He tells them to avoid the practice of gossiping and complaining to others about a grievance; rather, they should confront the person who has offended them directly and courageously. That way, the difficulty is addressed, the loving concern of the complainant is evident, and the process of rumor, attack, counter-attack, innuendo, and scapegoating is arrested. 

    Now, if the person does not respond to this loving intervention, “take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” Thus, the wider community is involved, but only minimally—enough to bring the offender to repentance. Only if this small circle of the Church is ignored should one bring the complaint to the whole community. 

    What is so rich here is the pursuit of the issue (since speaking the truth, even when it is dangerous, is essential), coupled with a deep care for the person in question and also for the entire family of the Church (since love is our constant call). 

--Bishop Robert Barron

Image source: Guercino, Return of the Prodigal Son (1651), https://encourageandteach.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/if-your-brother-sins-against-you/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 6, 2026: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another...

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another…

What are our responsibilities toward one another? 

    No one exists independently of others. If there is one consistent message in Scripture, it is that human existence is about relationships. No one is on their own; no one is to live in isolation for themselves only, but for each other, with responsibility to maintain connection in all circumstances. 

    Thus, in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, the prophet is appointed watchman for the house of Israel as they try to maintain their identity as community while in exile. The Lord calls Ezekiel to speak to the wicked, those whose behavior is inappropriate, to call them to change; the salvation of the people is in his hands. The people’s covenant with God should tell them what is just and what is not; so long as they remain focused on the community and act justly toward one another, so long as their hearts are not hardened, as Psalm 95 states, the people shall not die to God and to relationship. All are called to find their identity in community and, as community, to do better. 

    Similar wisdom can be found coming from Jesus, in Matthew’s Gospel, as Jesus explains to his disciples that the consequences of one person’s choice affect those around them, and may be damaging to relationship. And so the disciples are called to embrace their responsibility for each other in community: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. The community is meant to be in unity with one another; we tell another his faults not be superior but to come together on equal footing and connection. And if that person chooses not to connect, you still love him. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in the midst of them, Jesus says. Jesus is the connection, the source of all unity. 

    Paul sums up these teachings nicely in the Letter to the Romans: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another. The only debt we have is that of love: we owe it to one another to love one another because Jesus showed the depth of God’s love for us in dying for all for our salvation. As we enter into union with one another, we are drawn into union with God and become the Body of Christ. And so we are called to be Christ’s followers, to model ourselves on the love he has revealed, modeling our love on his love, that we might live justly and one day know perfect union, eternally, with him. 

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

So that others might have life (St. Thérèse de Lisieux / Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

The only way I can prove my love
is by scattering flowers,
and these flowers are every little sacrifice,
every glance and word,
and the doing of the least actions for love.

--St. Thérèse de Lisieux

     There is a quality I see in the great, selfless people that I have met. They have made peace with the inadequacy of life, no longer demanding that others make them happy, and find real joy in being able to sacrifice their time, their dreams, and their lives so that others might have more life. 

     Our faith needs to give us the tools to handle that, namely, to help us come to grips with the fact that we live and die in incompleteness. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI

Image source: https://seedsheets.com/when-does-wisteria-bloom-a-simple-growers-guide/?srsltid=AfmBOoqDga1pc82b7ikcP627HzUkVdFXWjP-MI8_aZDzPtQ3a2pSlaQi
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Letting go (Fr. Patrick van der Vorst)

   Before a tree can produce its leaves, it must grow, shed and nurture. When it sheds them, it makes way for new leaves and new life. In the same way, those who desire closeness to Christ must be willing to let go of certain things in order to embrace new life in Him. This ongoing process of sacrifice and renewal is at the heart of the Christian journey. Peter... is told precisely this: whatever has been left behind will be returned in the form of new, abundant life. 

    Philip McKay, a Liverpool-based digital artist, began creating digital works in 1996. Strongly influenced by René Magritte and the Surrealists, his art often weaves together the surreal and the spiritual, evoking a profound sense of mystery. In our image, the leaves being swept away from the tree subtly take on the shape of a face, a striking visual metaphor. It serves as a reminder that who we are is often revealed in what we give away! 

--Fr. Patrick van der Vorst 

Image source: Philip McKay, In Spirit (2022), https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/mark-10-28-31-2025 (Quotation taken from this same page.)

Imaginal cells (Richard Hooker / Mirza Inayat Khan)

Change is not made without inconvenience.

 --Richard Hooker,
16th-century theologian

    Midway through its life, the caterpillar withdraws into a chrysalis. After weeks of hidden transformation, it emerges as a butterfly. We might imagine it slowly growing wings. But what happens is far stranger. 

    The caterpillar dissolves. Tail, limbs, head, and body break down into a pool of cells. 

    And yet, within that dissolution, small clusters survive. Biologists call them imaginal cells. They have been there from the beginning, carrying the pattern of the butterfly. From these cells, a new winged body takes shape. The butterfly emerges and takes flight. 

    Perhaps our true self has always been there, hidden within us. Awakening is the remembering of who we really are, transcendent and beautiful. 

--Mirza Inayat Khan,
March 4, 2026

Image source 1: https://a-z-animals.com/animals/butterflies/how-does-a-caterpillar-turn-into-a-butterfly/
Image source 2: Phoebe Anna Traquair, Progress of a Soul, detail (1895-1902), https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/progress-soul-phoebe-anna-traquair/
Quotation source

What cross will you choose? (Paulo Coelho)

     A man in a certain village was always complaining about his lot in life. He was a Christian and found the weight of his “cross” much too heavy to bear. 

    One night, before going to sleep, he begged God to help him find a way to change his burden. 

    That night he had a dream; the Lord led him to a warehouse. “Go ahead and change it,” God said. The man saw crosses of all sizes and shapes, each with the names of their owners. He picked an average size cross. But when he saw the name of an old friend written on it, he left it aside. 

    Finally, as God had permitted, he chose the smallest cross he could find. To his surprise, he saw his own name on it. 

--Paulo Coelho 

Image source: This image is taken from a thirteen-minute animated, slightly more developed version of this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP0J2eDPIjU
Quotation source

Let us turn this thirst into a step stool (Pope Leo XIV)

    We continually aspire to something 'more' that no created reality can give us; we feel a deep and burning thirst that no drink in this world can satisfy. Knowing this, let us not deceive our hearts by trying to satisfy them with cheap imitations! Let us rather listen to them! Let us turn this thirst into a step stool, like children who stand on tiptoe, in order to peer through the window of encounter with God. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: https://www.spscreens.com.au/blog/guide-keeping-children-safe-around-windows/
Quotation source

Sacrifices and suffering (Pope Francis / Fr. Louis Brisson)

The sacrifices and sufferings required by
[our] acts of love of neighbor
unite us to the passion of Christ.

 --Pope Francis, Dilexit nos

    When we suffer pain, we must cut short all reflections, all murmurings and say, ‘I accept it.’ When we are tempted to pride or sensuality, we must cut short again. Someone causes you pain or expresses disdain for you. Why do you stop there? ‘Why do you listen to your own thoughts?’ says St. Francis de Sales. Couper court! [Cut it short!] 

    Sacrifice, thus understood and practised, is extremely pleasing to God. Cut short whatever binds you to your own will, whatever makes you look back, whatever enchains you and holds you captive. 

    By practicing the couper court, you acquire a considerable amount of strength and energy… Day by day, hour by hour, you will develop the habit of sacrifice. And when a formal order of God will ask of you something difficult, something which will seem impossible to nature, you will accept it completely and courageously. 

--Fr. Louis Brisson,
Founder of the Oblates
of St. Francis de Sales

Image source: https://www.antidote.info/en/blog/reports/couper-court-et-finement
Quotation source 1
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