18th Sunday of ordinary time

 

What are you chasing after in life?

Money,

Youth,

Popularity

Health

And what about Time, the most fleeting of all.

Will you ever catch any of them.

No!

It is all fleeting away

It all passes away.

That is why to chase after them is vanity.

Money is Vanity as everything costs more tomorrow

Youth is vanity as everyday you wake up you are one day older.

Health is vanity as the body is alway breaking down or aching somewhere

And popularity is vanity as someone comes along who has stolen the spotlight.

And time is vanity, always slipping away.

So what is a person to do?

Seek what is above

Where Christ is seated.

Seek what is above not what is on earth.

Seek first the kingdom of Heaven!

Because everything you gather here will be left behind.

Not a single thing will go with you when you die.

So why chase after it.

It will all be left behind to someone else.

And when you die God is not going to ask how much money did you make.

One how beautiful or popular were you.

For In Heaven we will all be rich beyond compare.

We will all be loved endlessly

There will be no more growing oll

We will be eternally young.

So why chase after anything in this world

When everything you want is yours for free in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Friday 17th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The Feasts of Martha, Mary and Lazarus

Whenever Jesus would go to Jerusalem

He would stay at the house of his friends,

Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany on the Mount of Olives.

It was there that He could relax from the crowds pressing on Him,

And the Pharisees questioning Him.

They were His friends

And He felt at home in their house.

Are we good friends with Jesus,

Or just acquaintances?

Does Jesus feel at home in our hearts?

Or does He look for other places to stay?

Thursday 17th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The potter never gives up. Jer. 18:1-6

Whenever a Potter is working on a piece of clay that does not turn out as he wants,

He does not throw the clay out.

Rather takes the clay and starts over again.

Maybe it needed more water;

Maybe the wheel needed to turn a little slower;

Maybe the clay was too hard.

God is the Potter and we are the clay.

Whenever we do not turn out as God planned.

He does not throw us out.

Rather he starts over again.

Maybe we need a little more time;

Maybe we need a little more grace;

Maybe our hearts are too hard.

It does not matter,

For God is a Master Potter!

Tuesday Feast of Sts. Joachim and Ann

 

Grandparents.

Why do we call then Grand?

Because they are!

If something is “Grand”

It is large, important, stately or majestic.

Grandparents are larger than life!

St. Ann and Joachim were the Grandparents of Jesus.

Did Joachim bounce Jesus on his knee.

Did Ann bake treats for Jesus.

Simple Memories that Jesus probably never forgot.

It is the little things that we do for others,

That make us “grand” in their sight.

Never pass up therefore the chance to do something little.

Because it really is the little things that matter.

And are remembered the most.

Monday Feast of St. James

 

Can you drink the chalice? Mt. 20:20-28

Everyone wants the consolation of our Faith.

Everyone wants healing and forgiveness and their prayers answered.

Everyone wants to reign with Christ forever in Heaven.

But how many want to drink the cup of His suffering?

This is what Jesus asked James in the Gospel.

And drink of the cup he did.

James was the first Apostle to be martyred

As he was beheaded by Herod.

Do we want to drink of the cup or would we rather pass it by?

How close to the cross do we want to stand?

If we die with the Lord we shall live with the Lord.

If we endure with the Lord, we shall reign with the Lord.

As James does today and forever

17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 For the sake of the Guilty Gen. 18:20-32

If there is one thing everyone can agree on,

The country and the world seem to be in a mess.

But no one can agree on what to do.

Politicians have differing opinions,

And Religious people have differing opinions too.

Some people think that what the world needs is a good old fashioned chastisement.

That will wake everyone up.

The problem with chastisements is that they make no distinction between the good and the bad;

Everyone suffers.

Sodom and Gomorrah were filled with sin and vice

And things needed to change.

Because God was going to send a chastisement if they didn’t.

Then Abraham pointed out that the chastisement

Would sweep the innocent away with the guilty.

That didn’t sound too fair.

So Abraham kept asking God;

What if there were 50 good people in the city.

Would God spare it?

What if there were 45, 40, 30, 20?

What if there were only 10?

God answered and said that He would spare the city for the sake of the 10.

Because if the city is spared,

There is always Hope that others would change their ways.

If we want our city, our country our world to change,

Maybe God is looking for just 10 innocent people.

10 people who strive for holiness and seek to do God’s Will.

Are there 10 people here?

Just 10 people who seek to give themselves wholly to God

For the sake of the guilty;

For the sake of the city and country?

As Jesus who was innocent,

gave Himself for the world.

God is looking for 10 people today.

Who will give themselves to Him totally

In prayer and in self denial and sacrifice;

For the life of the city and the country.

Are you willing to be one of those 10?

16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

St. Mary Magdalene

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Work?

Errands?

Breakfast?

What got Mary Magdalene up early in the morning

Was to run to the tomb to see Jesus.

It was so early it was still dark.

All Mary could think of early in the morning was Jesus.

She could not stand to be away from Him

So she ran to the tomb.

Is Jesus the first thing we think of in the morning?

Those who go in search of Jesus early in the morning.

While the rest of the world is sleeping

Are the ones who are sure to find Him.

Waiting for them in the Garden.

The Garden of Paradise.

Thursday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Love Grown Old Jer. 2:1-13

Wedding days and honeymoons are fill with young love.

But as the years go by,

Sometimes that love begins to grow old;

Aged by fears, worries, money problems and and other crises.

This happened to Israel.

In her youth, she followed God everywhere;

Through deserts,

Fearing no evil;

As God led her into the Promised Land.

But then the love of her youth grew old.

As Israel forgot her early love for God,

And went to worship false gods instead.

Has our love for God grown old,

Or does the flame still burn brighter than ever?

Wednesday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Before we were even conceived Jer. 1:4-10

Many people believe that life begins at Conception.

And while that is true,

It is not completely true.

For even BEFORE we were conceived in our mother’s womb,

God knew us and had a plan for each one of us.

BEFORE we were conceived in our mother’s womb,

We were conceived in the mind and heart of God.

He thought of us and was dreaming about us,

Before we were conceived in our mother’s womb.

Like an artist conceives what he wants to paint,

Tuesday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The Family of Jesus Mt. 12:46-50

In our life there are strangers and acquaintances.

There are work associates and friends

There are second and third cousins;

Then there are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers.

Intimate family members.

Jesus tells us that to be a mother or brother or sister to him is not a matter of blood or biology

but of doing God's Will!

Doing God's Will therefore will determine whether we are strangers and acquaintances

Or mother, brother, or sister to Jesus

God bless

Fr. Patrick

Monday 16th Week of Ordinary Time

 

An Act of Spiritual Communion

My Jesus, 

I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. 

I love You above all things, 

and I desire to receive You into my soul. 

Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, 

come at least spiritually into my heart. 

I embrace You as if You were already there 

and unite myself wholly to You. 

Never permit me to be separated from You.

Amen.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 Prayer and Work. 10 : 25-37; 10 :38-42

Just last week,

We heard the story of the Good Samaritan

Who stopped to help someone in need.

While the priest and Levite kept going,

Quite possibly because they were on their way to pray in the Temple

And now Luke is telling us to stop what we are doing,

And pray.

So which one is it?

Should we be Good Samaritans and help others in need,

Or should we we be like Mary and spend time with Jesus in prayer?

Both!

Luke uses the story of the Good Samaritan who did good works

And then follows it immediately with the story of Mary at prayer;

To remind us that we must do both.

Good works AND pray.

Help others in need;

AND spend time in prayer.

Usually however we are do one or the other.

We are either Good Samaritans always running around with no time to pray.

Or we are Marys spending most of our time in prayer but getting little done.

We must do both.

It is like breathing.

We have to inhale and exhale to live.

And we must work and pray to be fully alive.

For we are physical AND spiritual beings.

If all we do us work, work work,

We starve our souls.

And if all we do is pray, pray, pray,

Our bodies do no good.

Striking the balance between prayer and work is not always easy.

But if we don’t

Then we lead a life “out of balance”

And are sure to Fall.

God bless

Fr. Patrick

Saturday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Prayer to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Virgin Immaculate, perfect lover of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we ask thee to obtain for us the graces we need to become true adorers of our Eucharistic God. Grant us, we beg of thee, to know Him better, to love Him more, and to center our lives around the Eucharist, that is, to make our whole life a constant prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and petition to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Amen.

  Pray for us, O Virgin Immaculate, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. That the Eucharistic Kingdom of Jesus Christ may come among us! (St. Peter Julian Eymard)  

 

Reflections of St. Padre Pio

"A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament."

Friday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Feast of St. Bonaventure

St. Bonaventure is often known as the second founder of the Franciscan Order after St. Francis. He was Minister General of the Order, a Cardinal and Doctor of the Church.

He was particularly known for his wisdom, because it was not so much knowledge that he sought but Wisdom.

Not a worldly wisdom, but a hidden mysterious wisdom that God planned before all ages for our glory. 1 Cor. 1:7

It is a Wisdom that eye has not seen and ear has not heard. 1Cor. 1:9

But how does one attain such a hidden, mysterious wisdom?

A wisdom that cannot be seen nor heard.

Through silence!

For the beginning of wisdom is silence.

As Bonaventure taught, “we must silence all of our cares, our desires and our senses so that we might pass over with Christ Crucified from this world to the Father.”

What cares do we have?

What desires do we crave?

What senses and appetites seem to run our lives?

Sit in front of a crucifix and silence them.

For In the face of the Crucified, all of our cares, desires and appetites become unimportant.

In the face of such Love and such suffering all one can do is fall silent.

And in that silence one begins to grow in Wisdom that eye cannot see and ear cannot hear nor the world understand.

But was prepared for our glory before the ages!

Thursday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Finding Rest. Mt. 11:28-30

There is one thing more exhausting than physical labor

And that is a restless heart.

Our passions and desires;

Our addictions and our wants and our sins;

Our Anger and resentments;

Our worries and anxieties.

They all disturb our peace of mind.

People cannot even fall asleep at night nowadays because they are so restless.

There is no rest for our hearts except in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

For His Heart is gentle and humble.

Wednesday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The Childlike Mat. 11:25-27

Jesus gives thanks to His Father because He has hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven from the wise and learned and revealed them to the childlike.

Because the wise and the learned think they know everything and do not need God.

This is why Our Lady always appears to children.

Such as Bernadette and the children at Fatima and LaSalette.

They had no knowledge, or power or pride to blind them.

Be grateful then when you do not know or understand everything

For in your humility and littleness,

God is able to reveal His mysteries to you.

Tuesday 15th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Capernaum Mt. 11:20-24

After Jesus grew up,

He left Nazareth and moved to Capernaum.

Imagine having Jesus live next door?

Or see Him healing the sick;

Or hear Him preach in the synagogue?

Would it change your life?

For most of the people in Capernaum,

It did not!

So Jesus condemned Capernaum,

By saying if the miracles that took place in Capernaum,

Had Happened in Sodom, the most sinful city on earth,

Sodom would have repented in sack cloth and ashes.

But Capernaum did not.

Our cities hear the words of Jesus every Sunday,

May they take root,

So that they are not condemned as was Capernaum.

St. Benedict July 11

 

The founder of Western Monasticism whose motto is work and prayer; striving for a balance and when one works more tha one prays, one’s life can become unbalanced.

In his Rule, St. Benedict encourages us: "May we learn to prefer nothing to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life."

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

Have we forgotten who our neighbor is? Lk. 10:25-37

If you saw a Democrat lying half dead beaten up by robbers on the side of the road.

What would you do?

If you saw a Republican mugged on the street what would you do?

When President Biden fell off his bike,

What did you say?

If Trump got hit by a truck what would you do?

Is there a little of the priest and Levite in each of us.

The Priest and the Levite,

Saw the man half dead by the side of the road,

After he was stripped and beaten,

And they just kept going.

Because they thought he deserved it.

Maybe he was a Roman soldier;

Maybe he was a known critic of the religious leaders of Jerusalem;

Maybe he was a tax collector.

Maybe they didn’t want to get involved.

Maybe they were in a hurry and didn’t want to be late.

No matter who he was or what he did,

The priest and the Levite had their excuses to keep going.

And they thought they had good excuses.

The Samaritan did not care why the man was on the side of the road.

This is why he is Good.

He saw someone suffering and reached out to them.

Suffering doesn’t have a label.

It doesn’t care if you are Republican or Democrat;

Religious or atheist;

Black or white.

It comes for us all.

And when it does ,

Do we only help those people who think like us and act like us,

And the rest get what they deserve?

Do we have a list of “ good excuses to keep “ going?

Who is our neighbor?

And are we Priest, Levite or Good Samaritan to them?

Saturday 14th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Prayer to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Virgin Immaculate, perfect lover of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we ask thee to obtain for us the graces we need to become true adorers of our Eucharistic God. Grant us, we beg of thee, to know Him better, to love Him more, and to center our lives around the Eucharist, that is, to make our whole life a constant prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, reparation, and petition to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Amen.

  Pray for us, O Virgin Immaculate, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. That the Eucharistic Kingdom of Jesus Christ may come among us! (St. Peter Julian Eymard)  

 

Reflections of St. Padre Pio

"A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament."

God Bless

Friday 14th Week of Ordinary Time

 

Return ! How. 14:2-10

The northern Kingdom of Israel had strayed from God,

They went in search of riches,

And worshipped false gods.

And it did not make their lives better,

Only worse.

And God tells them through Hosea that

If they return,

He will heal them;

He will love them;

They shall blossom like lilies in the Spring;

Bear fruit like the olive tree;

And their fragrance will be like the Lebanon Cedar;

And grain will be abundant in the land.

But they did not return.

And were carried away by the Kingdom of Assyria,

Never to be heard fro again;

Thus the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.

Let those who are wise; Hos. 14:9

Learn from Israel’s mistakes!

Thursday 14th week of Ordinary Time

 

Give without Cost Mt. 10:7-15

What do we have that was not given to us from God?

Our life, our breath, our being all comes from God.

And from that comes everything else.

Everything that we accomplish with our life and breath and being can be traced back to God.

If all that we have comes FREELY from God,

Then should we not give FREELY to others?

For when we do,

We imitate the generosity of God,

Who will then be generous to us in return.

Wednesday 14th Week of Ordinary Time

 

The Lost Tribes of Israel

The King of Assyria conquered the 10 northern tribes of Israel and carried them away never to be heard of again.

Thus is the origin of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel.

But they were lost long before the King of Assyria conquered their land.

They had lost their souls long before that worshipping false gods.

Putting up stone pillars and altars to worship false gods.

Prophet after prophet warned them but they would not listen.

Long before a country is conquered and loses its land,

One sees that it lost its soul long before.