His Word Today: Trust

Good morning everyone,

Today's scripture reading, taken from the first Book of Kings (18:41-46) reminds us of the importance of trust in any relationship, but most especially in our relationship with God.  Elijah had already provided proof of the presence and power of God when he had called down fire upon his offering in the sight of all those who had refused to change their ways and worship God (1 Kings 18:22-39), but he had to go further in order to convince the skeptical crowd.

There had been a severe drought in all the land, yet Elijah urged King Ahab, saying: there is the sound of heavy rain (1 Kings 18:41).  There was not a cloud in the sky, but Elijah did not let this stop him from believing.  Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, crouched down and put his head between his knees (1 Kings 18:42), praying, hoping and trusting that what the Lord had said through him would come to pass … and it did!

Our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Our God is the God to whom Elijah prayed, in whom he trusted.  Our God has never turned His back on His people.  Our God has always loved us and has always been willing to provide for us.  Do we call out to Him when there are droughts in our lives: when we find it hard to believe, to trust, to love?  Do we sit and wait for Him to answer, all the while trusting that He is there?  He will never turn his back on us because he loves us and wants only the best for us.

Have a great day.

His Word Today: Saint Anthony of Padua

Today, the Church celebrates one of the most beloved of the Saints.  He is beloved because he always managed to find a way to stay close to the people he served.  His heart was always open and he was constantly looking for ways to help simple ordinary people understand a very simple truth: God loves us!

Fernando Martins started out in life just like all the rest of us.  He had a mother and a father who loved him, and because they were relatively wealthy, he could have had anything he desired.  Yet, at the age of fifteen years, he asked to be sent to the Abbey of Santa Cruz in Coimbra (which was the capital of Portugal at the time).  There he studied theology and Latin with the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, an Order of priests who followed the Rule of Saint Augustine.

Fernando was eventually Ordained a priest as one of the Canons Regular and served as guest master for some time until he was introduced to Franciscan friars who settled in a small hermitage outside Coimbra.  His ongoing conversations with the Franciscans allowed him to draw close to them and eventually he felt a calling to leave the Canons Regular and to become a Franciscan, taking the religious name of Anthony, after Saint Anthony of Egypt, a third-century religious hermit.

Saint Anthony’s constant curiosity inspires us to be like Elijah.  In the first reading for today’s Mass, the Lord tells him: Go out and stand on the mountain (1 Kings 19:11).  Standing there, Elijah made himself vulnerable, but he had to do that in order to experience the gift that God had prepared for him.  We too are standing and making ourselves vulnerable.  We have come to celebrate the Eucharist.  In this place, we hope to meet the Lord and to discover the gifts that he has prepared for us today.  It was his ability to make himself vulnerable that allowed Saint Anthony to constantly go out and to follow the path that the Lord was pointing out.

Inspired by the zeal of his Franciscan brothers, he travelled with them to Morocco where he began to spread God’s word.  However, he became extremely ill and was sent back to Portugal.  As Providence would have it, his ship was blown off course and he ended up in Sicily instead of in Portugal, and from there, he travelled to Tuscany.  He continued to pray and to study as he recovered there from his illness.

Anthony earned a reputation as a beloved preacher because he was very learned, but he also had a gift for explaining the mysteries of God with language that could be understood by everyone.  If he were here with us today, I wonder what he would say about the gospel passage that we have heard (Mt 5:27-32)?

The sin of adultery is one that few people will admit to, but we live in a society that has become extremely promiscuous, so I am sure that if he were here, Saint Anthony would not shy away from the subject.  Perhaps he would use this occasion to say to us that sometimes people need to be shocked into realizing the great treasure that has been entrusted to us: the treasure of our faith.  Many people, perhaps even some who you and I know personally, seem to find all kinds of excuses to deny the fact that they need God in their lives, or they prefer to speak with Him one on one rather than participating in the life of a local parish.

The problem with this individualistic way of thinking is that we become increasingly concerned with our own interests and content ourselves with that which is pleasing to us.  In the meanwhile, we run the risk of cutting ourselves off from other people and we become deaf to their cries for help.  It is at such times that we need to be shocked into realizing that we need one another in order to make it through this life.

Jesus used some very graphic images to make his point.  He spoke about tearing out an eye (Mt 5:29), and cutting off a hand (Mt 5:30) if they should cause us to sin.  Perhaps we don’t need such drastic measures, but maybe we need to ask Saint Anthony to pray with us today, to help us understand with our minds and our hearts how much our God loves us.

If we can begin to experience God’s love in our lives, if we can begin to experience the tender and loving way that our God listens to us when we speak with him, if we can begin to experience the way that our God is always present to us, inviting us to come close to him and always ready to help us ... maybe we in turn will also be inspired to listen compassionately to others.  Perhaps we will want to tell others how important it is that we spend time together, sitting around a table and enjoying good food, talking with one another about the everyday joys and worries of life.  If we can learn to trust one another with our stories, we can also learn to trust in God.

Let us ask Saint Anthony to pray for us today, so that the Lord will soften our hearts and make it possible for us to learn how to trust in Him, how to trust in others, and most of all to believe with all our hearts that God loves us.

His Word Today: Give always

Good morning everyone,

Today, the scriptures focus our attention on a widow in a small town called Zarephath.  She would never have been known to us except for the fact that she was courageous enough to extend hospitality to him.  Her husband had died and she was living alone with her son.  This would have been a difficult situation, but she was doing what she could - gathering sticks in order to prepare a small meal with the last of her provisions.

What worries were going through her head as she gathered those sticks?  Was she worried, scared or resigned to the fact that she had only a handful of flour left in her jar and a little oil left in her jug (1 Kings 17:12)?  With all these thoughts rolling around in her head, a stranger arrived on the scene and asked: please, bring me a small cupful of water to drink (1 Kings 17:10).  What was he asking?  Did he not know that there was a drought, that her water jar was running low?  Yet, he went further: Please, bring along a bit of bread (1 Kings 17:11).

The man who was asking questions was a stranger to her, yet the code of conduct of the time demanded that she extend hospitality to him.  To do that, she had to really stretch her heart so that she could give away the little that she had.  Sometimes we feel the same way - our bodies and souls are thirsty for refreshment and rest, yet at that particular point, someone else calls out to us for help.  We need to dig deep in order to find the strength to give out of our own emptiness, yet if we do, we are often rewarded beyond our dreams: we find that there is always enough flour in our jars and enough oil in our jugs.

Have a great day.

His Word Today: Saint Barnabas

Good morning everyone,

Today, the Church celebrates the Memorial of Saint Barnabas, one of the earliest Christian disciples who was well known in Jerusalem.  Barnabas was actually born in Cyprus and of Jewish origin.  The Acts of the Apostles tells us that news about the early Christians reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch (Acts 11:22).

Barnabas was overjoyed to find faith in the early Christians at Antioch.  He rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart (Acts 11:23).  From Antioch, he travelled to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch where the Christian community was already established.

Barnabas and Paul established a wonderful friendship and encouraged many by their own example to follow in the footsteps of the Lord.  Give thanks today for the people in your life who are examples of faith for you, and ask the Lord to strengthen this gift in your heart so that you in turn can share it with others.

Have a great day.

Look Forward in Faith

Week after week, this community gathers to celebrate the Eucharist.  Every time we do, the Lord is present in our midst: gently and lovingly caring for our needs and feeding us with special food.  It’s important that we never lose sight of the history that is behind this special food.  That’s the reason why we read a part of our faith history at every Mass.

Today’s first reading places us at the moment when Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden ... and they hid themselves (Gen 3:8).  What follows is a reflection of the reaction that every one of us encounters when we know that we’ve done something wrong.  Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of the tree that they were not supposed to touch and so they hid themselves from God’s presence.  What’s interesting is that God comes looking for them.  The Lord God called to the man and said to him: Where are you? (Gen 3:9).  Our God always comes looking for us.  Even when we may be ashamed of our actions and prefer to hide, He will always come looking for us, because he loves us.

The conversation that takes place between God, Adam, Eve and the serpent is very revealing.  Have you ever noticed that when we have done something wrong, we are always quick to blame someone else for our own mistakes?  Why does it always seem so much easier for us to point blame at others rather than owning up to our mistakes?  Adam blamed Eve for giving him fruit from the tree (cf Gen 3:12) and Eve blamed the serpent for tricking her into eating the fruit (cf Gen 3:13).  The devil is always at work, trying to deceive us, but that’s not the end of the story.

In the gospel, we find a moment when Jesus had returned home (cf Mk 3:20).  Home is supposed to be a place where we can relax, enjoy a meal and refresh ourselves before continuing on the journey of life. Even in that place though, the crowd came together ... so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat.  Did his human emotions get the better of him?  Maybe he was grumbling – wouldn’t we? – so the people were saying that He has gone out of his mind (Mk 3:21).

Almost immediately though, it seems that Jesus regained his composure, and we see the real lesson of today’s scripture passage.  Jesus invites us to gather around his table, to share a meal with him.  In this place, we are nourished and refreshed and the food that he gives us helps us to continue doing his work: the work of recognizing God’s loving and merciful presence in our world.  God has always wanted to live with us, to walk with us in the garden (cf Gen 3:8) and to help us to live in peace and harmony with one another.

The devil is always present, trying to deceive us and to take away the gifts of peace and harmony, replacing them with discord (cf Mk 3:24-26).  Thankfully, God us much smarter than the devil: he knows all his tricks and catches him at his own game, every time.

Jesus has invited us to gather in this place.  He reminds us today that even though the devil is always at work, He is there to protect us.  We have come to believe this because we know that the one who raised Jesus will raise us also with Him and will bring us into his presence (2 Cor 4:14).  Let us give thanks for this great gift.

His Word Today: the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Good morning everyone,

Saint Paul's words to Timothy sound as though they were written just yesterday: For the time will come, he says, when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth ... (2 Tim 4:3).

Even if this appears to be the case, we must always proclaim the word ... be persistent in doing so (2 Tim 4:2), and we must constantly seek out the occasions when we encounter hearts that are receptive to the Word.  We cannot do this alone.  Instead, we must call on the assistance of those who have gone before us, and who better to help us than our heavenly mother?

Today, the Church celebrates the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Like yesterday's celebration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, today's commemoration reminds us that Mary has an immaculate and maternal heart that is always ready and willing to welcome us, to listen to our pleas and she will always find a way to help us carry out her Son's desire.

Have a great day.

His Word Today: the Sacred Heart

Good morning everyone,

Today, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  This devotion focuses on the constant outpouring of love and compassion from the heart of Jesus upon all his beloved children.  This devotion was introduced by a French nun by the name of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque who received a series of apparitions of Jesus between 1673 and 1675.

It is also the World Day of Prayer for Priests.  Saint John Paul II introduced this Day of Prayer in 2002.  All Catholics are invited to pray today for the sanctification of priests: to remember them in prayer and thanksgiving, and to ask God for the grace that they may continually rediscover the gift of their own ordination and experience the joy of the mission entrusted to them.

It is fitting that the prophet Hosea speaks of God's love for his people with the words: When Israel was a child I loved him ... I took him in my arms ... and loved him (Hos 11:3-4).  Today, we should pray for the grace to be aware of this grace in our lives.

Have a great day.