I've been to four funerals in the past week or so. Which filled my heart with this message for us all: Life is short, and the goal should be to live each moment to the fullest. We mustn’t waste time in anger, regrets, and worries. Life is too short to be holding grudges. 

Mother Theresa said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet. We have only today.”

My two brothers and I did not speak to each other for many years. Some of that was from past hurts, but most was laziness. We didn't take the time to reach out to each other. My brothers died within a few months of each other last year. My heart is heavy with regret. Learn from me – call someone today and tell them you care; mend fences if you need to. Life is fleeting.

One way to make life more joyful is to be grateful. Gratitude and joy are uniquely linked. According to a study by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness, people who keep a happiness journal for a week feel happier than people who don't, even three months after they stopped writing it.

Lately, I've learned to take some time in the morning - praying, sipping coffee, and coming up with my day's to-do list. It has become the most precious time of the day for me now. I try to make sure the things on my list are not just chores but reflect what came to my heart during prayer. I try to ensure my list includes things I want to be doing and reaching out to people God put on my heart. In my morning prayer time, I reflect on the life I want to be living.

A Swiss philosopher once said: "Life is short. We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind," and I would add to that beautiful message to always be aware of the blessings of God, who made us, loves us, and encourages us to love one another.

 On October 7, we celebrate 

the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary 

in honor of the Blessed Mother.  

October was also the month in which Mary appeared for the last time to shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, 

urging them to 

'SAY THE ROSARY EVERY DAY 

TO OBTAIN PEACE FOR THE WORLD.'

Join me this October

praying the rosary for peace in Ukraine

God values humility - Homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

There aren't too many benefits of growing old, except if you live long enough, you begin to put things in perspective. When you're young, you constantly worry about what other people think of you. You worry about whether they think you're good-looking or your peers think you are cool. I can’t imagine what it’s like with social media! If you're lucky, you stop worrying about those things somewhere along the line. You stop caring so much about what other people think of you. And when you get to my age, you realize that most of the people you worried about weren’t thinking about you at all. 

In our Gospel reading, Jesus is with a whole lot of people who were all caught up in what others thought of them. And he told them a truth about how God sees us. He said:

“Those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.” Luke 14:11

We all want to be great … right?   So, what does it mean to be humble?

Does it mean to put ourselves down?

Does it mean to think less of ourselves? 

Does it mean to deny our true worth or to belittle it?

Not at all!

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself. It doesn't mean having a low opinion of your gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all. When we take ourselves out of the picture, what is left? God and others. That is what Jesus is talking about, putting God and others first in our lives.

Jesus is the most remarkable example of humility. In his letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul tells us: “… though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.” Jesus Christ was humble. He lived his life obeying his Father and serving us, even giving up his life to save us. 

To be humble is to imitate Jesus. He once said about himself: “The Son of Man did not come to be served; he came to serve." Mark 10:45  If you are struggling to understand what Jesus is saying about humility, just think of Him on his knees washing his disciples' feet. Or think about Him on the cross giving up his life for us. True humility is to take the talents that God has given us and use them to lift others up. 

I read a story about Pope John Paul II, now "Saint" John Paul II. The story goes that a priest was visiting Rome. And on the steps of one of the churches, he saw a beggar who looked very familiar. To his surprise, he realized it was one of his classmates from the seminary. "Didn't we go to the seminary together?" he asked. "Yes," said the beggar. "But you're a priest, right?" "Not anymore," the beggar replied, "I fell off the deep end."

A short time later, the priest had an audience with Pope John Paul II. He told him the story and asked him to pray for his friend. The Pope assured him that he would. Later that day, the priest received a phone call inviting him to have dinner with the Pope, and the Pope asked him to bring the ex-priest with him. He ran to the church, found his friend, and gave him the good news. But the beggar said, "I'm a mess. I haven't showered in a  long time, and my clothes are filthy." But the priest took him back to his hotel room and helped him get all cleaned up.

At the end of a very enjoyable dinner, the Holy Father asked to be alone with the ex-priest. After a long while, the man came out with tears in his eyes. "What happened?" his friend asked. The man replied, "The Pope asked me to hear his confession! I told him, 'Your Holiness, look at me! I'm a beggar, not a priest!'  But the Pope looked at me and said, "Who among us is not a beggar? I too come before the Lord as a beggar asking for forgiveness of my sins." I told him I was not in good standing with the Church, but the Pope assured me that as the Bishop of Rome, he could reinstate me right then and there."

After he heard the Holy Father's confession, the newly reinstated priest asked the Pope to hear his confession. Then Pope John Paul II gave him an assignment to minister to the beggars on the steps of the church where he had been found. Through the humility of Pope John Paul II, who saw himself as God saw him, this former beggar received a new hope, a new mission, and a new beginning.

The Goal for each of us is to see ourselves as God sees us. The world doesn’t believe that the Virtue of Humility is important or even desirable. But God thinks otherwise. To be truly humble means to see ourselves as God sees us.

We’re about to receive the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. But before we do, we will all make the following statement: 

“Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

We say these words first spoken by a Roman Centurion, a very powerful man, a very successful man who came to Jesus to plead for him to save his sick servant. Jesus was a nobody in that culture, just a humble carpenter, but this powerful man came to him in humility. And like that Centurion, in a few minutes, we are called to humble ourselves before Jesus and see his power and presence in the simple bread and wine that Father Sebastian will bless in a moment. We believe as Catholics that in the holy Eucharist, the Lord is truly and substantially present under the appearance of bread and wine. Just as the mighty Centurion recognized God's power in a humble carpenter, we are called to see that same Jesus in the humble elements of bread and wine. So today, let’s each of us say those words before communion with conviction. In true humility, let us open our hearts to the Lord our God, who humbled himself to join us today.

Martha and Mary Homily

 

The great American philosopher Dolly Parton once said:

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”   

Martha was so busy serving Jesus that she missed something much more important. … Because I’m kind of a Martha, I get her. For me, she is the servant leader of the family, doing what needs to be done. But it’s also clear that Mary, the devoted learner chose the better part. She recognized the rare opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus to learn from and pray with Him. 

Making dinner or being with Jesus? From our perspective, it's easy to see which is the better choice. Both women were serving Jesus but choosing different ways to serve. Both sisters are admirable; they both acted out of love.

Luke positions this story between two of Jesus’ most important teachings. I don’t think that’s an accident. Right before this story comes the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is the ultimate story of discipleship as service. And right after the Martha and Mary story, Luke tells how the disciples come to Jesus and say Lord teach us to pray. So you see. The sister of service and the sister of prayer are sandwiched right between the two passages, emphasizing the importance of service and devotion.

So why did Jesus say Mary picked “the better part?” Martha's mistake that day was to get so caught up in her servants' heart, so full of worry about her hostess duties, that she completely misses the more significant point. As was so often the case, Jesus was doing something radical that day.

The reading tells us: that Mary sat beside the Lord at his feet, listening to him speak. Rather than assuming the role expected of women in her culture,  she takes her place at the feet of Jesus. She assumes the posture of a student learning at the feet of a rabbi, a role traditionally reserved for men. And Jesus encouraged her. Jesus accepted Mary at the same level as a male disciple. She was assuming a position equal to a man. To call women to be equal to men in discipleship was radical. So radical Martha missed it. That was her mistake. She got so caught up in her work. She missed the better part. She missed the opportunity Jesus was calling her to because she was too busy with busy work. He was calling her to something more important than making dinner.

We do that! We can get so busy in our lives that we don't hear Jesus' call to us to do something big. We can't hear God calling us because we get so caught up in our work. We don’t take the time to listen. We don’t take the time to sit at his feet and listen to his call. We don’t take some time in quiet prayer to listen to God. We get so caught up in the day-to-day work that we forget to spend quality time each day with Jesus. And because of that, we can miss how he is calling us.

So many of us right now are like Martha, anxious and worried about many things. Jesus gives us the medicine for that anxiousness and worry. He shows it to us through Mary spending time at the feet of Jesus. 

Jesus wants us to be his disciples, all of us. He wants us to slow down and spend more time in study and prayer. Like Dolly Parton, he's asking us to “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”

When I was a kid, we had nuns teaching in our Catholic grammar schools. They taught us from something called the Baltimore Catechism. It was a series of questions that the catechism answered.

Question # 6. It is one everyone who learned from this book can repeat. The question was: 

Why did God make you?

And all the students would answer:

God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.

Martha and Mary teach us this same lesson. Mary shows us how important it is to KNOW him and Martha shows us how important it is to SERVE him. Ultimately, the goal is to LOVE him. But … we need to slow down enough to know and love our God.

I heard a poem a few years back that I think of whenever I'm going too fast – when I'm locked on to making a living rather than a life. I'd like to end with it today. 

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask: How are you?

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done,

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You’d better slow down.

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,

We’ll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say, “Hi”?

You’d better slow down

Don’t dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through the day,

It is like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower.

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

 

“God made you great. Stay great.”

Mark Link SJ

 

PROGRESS IN PRAYER 

“To some extent
prayer comes naturally to man.
Like anything innate
it often tends to follow
a natural rhythm identifiable with growth.

During childhood
recited prayer predominates
words learned by heart or read from a book ...

From adolescence to adulthood
meditative prayer develops.
We also find spoken prayer during this period.
This species, while focusing upon
a subject of one’s own choosing,
breaks forth spontaneously ...

It may be the outburst of an emotion of joy,
praise, gratefulness, sorrow ...

Finally,, silent prayer
is the prayer of the mature man, whose soul
remains speechless in the presence of God
aware of the inadequacy of whatever the soul may say to him.
But is simply content
to rest in God’s entrancing company.”

by Michael Lapierre, S.J.

Asking God your reason for being ...

I give you 

life 

I place you on 

earth 

for a very

special reason

but you won’t 

find out unless 

you ask me what 

the reason is

and talking 

is so easy

why don’t 

you do more 

with me?

J. Janda

 Saint Stephen 

Saint Philip

Saint Prochorus

Saint Nicanor

Saint Timon

Saint Parmenas

Saint Nicholas

Pray for the success of our Million Meal Event

 

I’ve always identified with Thomas. 

Thomas was asked to do what the other disciples didn’t have to do. He had to believe sight unseen. Thomas might be the easiest apostle to relate to because many of us have experienced what it is like to live between faith and doubt. Almost everyone experiences some kind of doubt at some point in their faith journey. It’s part of the faith journey.

Faith is often seen as the opposite of doubt, but that is inaccurate. The opposite of faith is certainty; there is no room for faith where there is certainty. 

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. Doubt forces us to rely on God because we don’t have it all figured out. 

In the ninth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, there is the story of a distraught father whose young son is possessed by an evil spirit. The boy's father has asked Jesus to heal his son, and Jesus told him to have faith, and his son would recover. Like the rest of us, the poor fellow had his doubts, so he said, “I’ll do my best, but while you’re attending to my son, please cure my unbelief.” The boy was cured; the father’s faith was strengthened by Jesus, who reminded him, “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”

The most excellent cure for doubt is a good prayer life that includes scripture reading. Ponder God’s word. Let it speak to you and use it to speak to God. Pray to God in the words of the psalms. Enter into the Gospel stories, try to imagine yourself in the reading. Visualize yourself as the person whom you see Jesus healing. Feel his hands rest upon you; hear his words as if they were spoken to you. Don’t read them as you read the morning paper but listen to them as part of your morning prayer. From my experience doing this, I can promise you that God will touch your heart and strengthen your faith.

The Saint Brigid Parish Stations of the Cross are Amazing

This Lent let's focus on the words rather than the images.

The first panel says:

We Adore Thee
O Christ
And
We Bless Thee
Because
By Thy Holy Cross
Thou Hast
Redeemed
The World

The cross of Christ is the greatest of all paradoxes. 

The cross was the darkest hour in history

yet it was the time of greatest light.

It was the most tragic event in the history of the world,

yet the most wonderful thing that ever happened. 

It was the saddest spectacle man ever beheld,

yet it was the most stunning defeat Satan ever suffered

   and the most glorious victory Christ ever won. 

He won by losing. 

He conquered by surrendering. 

We see man's hatred for Christ in the cross, 

yet we see Christ's love for man. 

There we see human vengeance as the crowds cried for His blood, 

yet we see divine forgiveness as Jesus prayed, 

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."

The cross portrays man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness;

 human weakness and divine strength. 

It demonstrates man's inability to save himself 

and God's ability and power to do this for him. 

The cross, from the human standpoint, is foolishness;

yet it is a revelation of the highest wisdom of God. 

💗

St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that "for the Jewish people the cross is a scandal 

and for the Greeks (Gentiles) the cross is foolishness, but to those on the way of salvation -- 

Jew and Gentile alike -- Christ the power and wisdom of God!"

Make your Lenten prayers ... prayers for peace.

As we begin Lent, our 40-day season of prayer, sacrifice, and almsgiving in preparation for the celebration of Easter, I would suggest we offer our sacrifices and prayers for the people of Ukraine. We watch in horror as peaceful communities are turned into arenas of violence, families are separated, and young men young fathers pick up weapons. We see missiles destroy places of refuge and safety, and lives are abused, wounded, and lost, including innocent children. Millions must flee their homes with just the clothes they can carry. We all want to do something to help! And we can! As we begin our Lenten traditions, let all of us remember that prayer is powerful. Pray for peace! Pray for Ukraine. Ask God to pierce Putin’s heart.   

O God, author and giver of peace,
in whose image and likeness each of us has been created
with a human dignity worthy of respect on earth
and destined for eternal glory,
Listen to the cry that rises from every corner of this fragile earth,
from our human family torn by violent conflict:

Give peace in our time, O good and gracious God,
that peace which, as your son Jesus Christ told us
and as we have experienced in these days,
is a peace which the world cannot give.

To world leaders grant the wisdom
to see beyond the boundaries of race, religion, and nation
to that common humanity that makes us all your children
and brothers and sisters to one another.

To those who have taken up arms in anger or revenge
or even in the cause of justice
grant the grace of conversion to the path of peaceful dialogue
and constructive collaboration.

To the innocent who live in the shadow of war and terror,
especially the frightened children,
be a shelter and strength, their haven and hope.

And to those who have already lost their lives
as victims of human cruelty,
open wide your arms and enfold them all
in the embrace of your compassion, healing, and everlasting life.

Grant this through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord.

Mary, Mother of all and Queen of peace, pray for us.

- Peter J. Scagnelli

“A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”   

---Seneca