Saturday's Thoughts - 12/01/2012

Daily Thought: We wait today for the starting of a new liturgical year but we also wait for that perfect world described in the first reading today, the Kingdom of God. When this perfect world will arrive is hidden in our hearts, it is mystery. What is clear for us today though is that we are not simply suppose to wait but also to act, to live. Living our are relationship with God will have us ready to enter the Kingdom of God!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, help us to keep our hearts alert and vigilant at all time to the gift of your presence in our life. May we always be strong as we encounter the tribulations of this life so that we may keep alive the message of your love! Amen!

Runner's Thought: Life like running contains elements of challenge, difficulty, and pain...life like running hurts, it wounds, it calls on us to rise above conditions that seem beyond what we are capable of doing!

Have a wonderful Saturday and may you enter into Advent with a new sense of awe and wonder in God's loving presence! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

PS I could still use your prayers that may voice holds up!

Friday's Thoughts - 11/30/2012

Daily Thought: The last day of November and the Feast of St. Andrew an apostle and the brother of St. Peter. I have to say the line that caught my attention in the scriptures for today's feast comes from St. Paul's letter to the Romans, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!" Being a preacher my hope always is to bring the good news and I think I have been successful most of the time. Yet, it is not just preachers who bring the good news it is all of us. Yesterday was a great example of that, a picture of an NYPD officer in Times Square stopping to give a homeless man a new pair of shoes. It is a picture that millions saw on the Internet, that evening news programs showed. The officer brought the good news not only to the homeless man but to all of us. Perhaps as we live life today let us do so by bringing the good news to the world any way we can, with our voices, our actions, our lives. Let us believe in God's love with our heart and live it today and always!

Daily Prayer: Humbly we pray O God, make us fishers of people today that we might believe with our hearts and proclaim with our voices the Good News. Help us to be people in love with our God so that we may do great things and become powerful apostles for you! Amen!

Runner's Thought: Lay the groundwork for a lifetime of running in the presence of God. Run with God today!

Have a great Friday everyone! If you get a chance could you say a prayer for me, I am struggling with my voice and I begin a parish mission tomorrow. Say a little prayer I find my voice by tomorrow afternoon that I might bring the good news! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Thursday's Thoughts

Daily Thought: The "time of the Gentiles" as Jesus puts it in the Gospel today. The time between the destruction of Jerusalem and the second coming of Jesus. It is our time, we live within this "time of the Gentiles" and we see the signs, disasters, wars, violence, struggles, difficulties of all kinds. We see the signs in culture, society, church, family and the individual. We experience trials and tribulations that are personal and communal however, it doesn't mean the end is around the corner the "time of the Gentiles" has been going on for 2,000 plus years. We are just in the midst of it. A point on the continuum of time. It is a part of the mystery of God that challenges us to not give up, to continue to walk by faith. Jesus remains us to always stand up straight because we don't know when this time will end and we need to always be ready.  We remain ready with a faith that reminds us that we do not stand or walk alone. Jesus stands and walks among us. We encourage and strengthen one another because God is always with us!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, may your grace always go before us and follow us and with this grace may we always be determined to carry out good works of your kingdom for one another! Amen!

Runner's Thought: Some days running is effortless, other days it is a struggles. Which of the runs is most fruitful? Both are fruitful, because the first brings us enjoyment, perhaps we might say these runs little gifts from God. The second kind of run brings us struggle that makes us more aware of the need for God in our life and so we work, we struggle to find that presence!

Have a great Thursday everyone! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Wednesday's Thoughts - 11/28/2012

Daily Thought: "Great and wonderful are all your works, Lord, mighty God!" the refrain for the responsorial psalm today, yet in the Gospel Jesus tells the crowd, tells us, that persecution, pain, struggle and difficult time are ahead if you believe. These struggles and persecutions will come from everywhere they can even come from our family. This seems a far cry from great and wonderful works! Believing, having faith takes a tremendous amount of trust in God. Howver, if we have that trust then great and wonderful things can happen! In the midst of our daily struggles, in the midst of everything that makes it hard to to have faith, to hope, to love can we trust in the great and wonderful things of our loving God today?

Daily Prayer: O God, let us have hearts ready to trust in your abundant kindness and mercy that we might always be ready to say great and wonderful are your works, Loving God!

Runner's Thought: Always run with imagination and see as you run God is running towards you!

Have a wonderful Wednesday wherever you are and whatever you are doing! Blessings as you journey through life today. Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Sunday's Thoughts - 11/25/2012

Daily Thoughts: The Feast of Christ the King has never been one of my favorite feasts. I think because kings have never really been a positive image during my life time. I have grown up in an age of democracy, kings and kingdoms are part of the past. I have read about kings and kingdoms. I have studies them in school and even though there are a lot a positive images and moments they really are not part of my life experience. Kings and kingdom often symbolize a time when ordinary people meant nothing and there was a great divide between the haves and the have nots!

So what am I to do today, with Christ celebrated in the image of a king. Well the first reality is the Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, which means it is different. That it is a kingdom of truth, and we know that truth can set us free. We also know from the life of Jesus that it was not about the haves and the have nots, it was about community, it was about people.

Jesus' kingdom is beyond, government, power, authority and institution. It is a body, a living thing working as one for the good of all, for the salvation of all, for the love of all. Jesus' as king rulers to bring out the best in people so that truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love and peace will be lived. Jesus' kingdom is here and now but also is coming. May we be different from Pilate in the Gospel today and not miss the presence of Christ when we encounter him!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, may we look beyond the earthly images of king and find your loving presence in our life this day and always. May it lead us to truth, life, holiness, grace, justice and peace. May it make us true workers in your eternal kingdom of love! Amen!

Runner's Thought: "Happiness is an inexpressibly misleading and temporary thing, decides nothing; the true stations of joy are on the road whivh lies through simple endurance." Rainer Maria Rilke

Happy Feast of Christ the King! Have a blessed and holy Sunday. May it include family and friends, may your favorite team win and may you have many blessings today and always! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul