Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/23/2013

Daily Thoughts: The stage is set today for Holy Week. All the characters are taking their places for the drama that will unfold throughout the coming week. The religious leadership has made its choice. They are afraid of Jesus, their comfortable life has been disturbed. Caiaphas has given the justification for the rest of their actions. He has put their social problems squarely on the shoulders of Jesus. He has put their leadership problems squarely on the shoulders of Jesus. He has put their fear and faithlessness squarely on the shoulders of Jesus.

With today’s Gospel we have a clear understanding of why all that we are about to reflect upon as we go through Holy Week has taken place. In many ways the ideal kingdom that Ezekiel images in the first reading for today has not come about. There still is not just one God, one land, one people and one everlasting covenant of peace. We humans get in the way. We often fail to recognize God in our midst. We struggle to trust God’s presence in our life. We find it difficult to believe, to stake our lives on the promises of God. We are always looking for someone to blame, someone to sacrifice in the hope that things will get better.

As we prepare to begin this most holy of weeks in this year of faith let us take the time, not to plot against God, but to hear God’s word. Let us take the time to have faith in our relationship with God, to be hopeful in the promises of God and to allow the love of God to embrace us and live within us as we journey through life!

Daily Lenten Prayer: Loving God, open our hearts to the hope of your promises. Give us faith filled hearts that recognize your presence in our life today and always. Grace our hearts so that they may be filled with your love and that we will share your love with all we meet. Deepen our faith, hope and love this day and always so that we will never reject you, so that we will always have faith, see with hope filled eyes and live your love! Amen!

Runner’s Thought: Breath is usually expressed in Greek as pneuma, which can also mean air, wind, or spirit. In Hebrew ruah is translated as breath, but it can also mean creative energy or life-giving force. As we run today let us have an awareness of our breath as spirit, as our capacity to bring God into our being as we take in oxygen into our lungs. If we see each breath this way we will begin to allow our runs to become prayer! (Adapted from Running the Spiritual Path by Roger Joslin)

Saturday Blessings to all! I hope your brackets are going well, if not just sit back and enjoy the upsets they can make for some fun. I hope you will have a restful and peaceful Saturday surrounded by friends and family, if not I pray your day will not be too busy. As I said yesterday I head out again this afternoon for Marlboro, NJ and St. Gabriel’s Parish where I will begin a mission this evening. This is a wonderful week and I pray you will make some part of it part of your faith journey this week. My prayers will be with all of you throughout this week and I ask your prayers for this humble preacher of God’s Good Word! Be well and safe this weekend and always. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/22/2013

Daily Thoughts: Both Jesus and Jeremiah find themselves in difficult situations today. For Jeremiah it is the reality of begin a prophet, the people do not like what God is calling them to and so they are going to take it out on the prophet. For Jesus it is the reality that people just will not accept him. He has done many good things but people focus in on what they see as a problem, they look passed all the good, they only see the negative.

Isn’t that often the case, wonderful things can be happening yet people only focus on the negative. Whether we are talking about faith, church, religion, culture or society there can be many signs of hope, many actions that are good yet for some reason what is wrong, the negative, becomes the focus. We tend to look for what is wrong with a person, an experience or situation rather than what is right and good. At times it seems like we can make every positive story, situation, experience or person negative just give us time.

How can we overcome this? How can we be a positive life giving person today? How can we find the good and the hope in life? Well I think Jeremiah and Jesus give us the answer.

Jeremiah in the midst of his struggle says, “But the Lord is with me….” Yes, life isn’t exactly the best at this moment, things are not going so well, but God is with me! Jeremiah turns a negative into a positive. Jeremiah finds hope in a struggling moment.

Jesus reminds the crowd to look for and believe in good works. In other words find the goodness in the actions and works of yourself and others. Find what is right with the world, not what is wrong!

This is certainly a different way to live life and living this way will be challenged every day. The media and I realize that it is not just the media or all the media’s fault, but with its twenty four hour a day focus, its need to create news, it has helped us to constantly look for the negative. Let’s face it we like negative, we like seeing people’s faults and failings, negative stories that sell. The stories that most often seem to capture the attention of the viewers are those that focus of the negatives of life. We search and hunt for all that is wrong. We seem to take delight in pointing the finger, in bringing a person down rather than finding the good and building up.

Perhaps our challenge today is to look for the good work in ourselves and others and to believe that God is always with us!

Daily Lenten Prayer: Loving God, we thank you for this holy season of grace. Help us through your grace to see the goodness in ourselves and in others. Give us the strength to believe that you are always with us even when we struggle. Enliven our hearts with the gift of hope, a gift that we through the living of life can bring to the world. May your spirit of life, love and hope always be within our hearts and help us to celebrate each and every day of our lives! Amen!

Runner’s Thought: If we become meditative runners, prayerful runners, then we will be fortunate enough to find ways that refresh our bodies, our minds and renew our spirits, thus we might say we will be born again with every new run!

TGIF everyone! I hope you have had a good week. I am sorry I didn’t post anything yesterday but I was busy with other things and did not get to my computer. I did pray for you as I began my day yesterday and held you in my prayer throughout the day. The mission at Good Shepherd Parish closed with a very prayerful celebration Wednesday evening and I made it through my busy day on Wednesday in one piece.

As I said above I hope your week has been a good one but I am sure you are ready for the weekend. We enter the most sacred of all weeks in the Christian tradition this coming week. We call it Holy Week and it brings to a close this long journey of Lent. We begin with Palm Sunday and we make the journey through the week celebrating Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and we end with Easter Sunday. I hope you will give some time to prayer and the high holy days. This is a great week times to slow down a bit and allow the church to help you focus on your relationship with God. As the very least make some special time for prayer this week!

I will keep you in my prayer this week, which will be a busy one for me. I head to St. Gabriel’s Parish, in Marlboro, NJ tomorrow to begin a Holy Week Mission. I will be there from Saturday to Wednesday. The mission will be after the 9:00 am Masses, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and at 7:00 pm each day. Then then it will be on the St Barnabas Parish in the Bronx for the Triduum, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. I will preach the three Triduum Liturgies and celebrate and preach one of the Easter Sunday Masses. Yes, it will be a busy week but I love this week and I am so looking forward to it!

Be well everyone, have a great Friday and a restful and peaceful weekend. If you are in the area of St. Gabriel’s or St. Barnabas, come and join me in prayer. If not join me in prayer anyway as we journey through this most Holy of Weeks. If you are beginning Passover on Tuesday my prayers are with you also! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/20/2013

Daily Thoughts: “…and the truth will set you free.” Simple words of Jesus in today Gospel if only we could follow them. Sometimes the truth is the last thing we choose to speak. We think it complicates life. We think it causes more problems. We think it often hurts more than it helps. We think it should only be used as a last resort only when there are no other options. The truth seems anything but free at times to us!

Yet throughout his life and ministry Jesus only spoke the truth and every time we walk into a church or a Catholic home and see a crucifix on the wall we are reminded of where the truth got Jesus. We are reminded of the price he paid for coming into this world to speak the truth. We are reminded just how much God loves us.

Perhaps a different way of thinking about Jesus’ words in the Gospel today is that the truth has set us free. If only we would embrace it. If only we would follow the example of the three young men in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace. If only we would realize the freedom that living by the truth means for our lives, the gift that it can be to ourselves and the world and the hope that it brings to life.

May we have the courage to speak and live the truth like the three young men and may the truth truly set us free to be the people God has created us to be!

Daily Lenten Prayer: O God of compassion, touch our hearts this day with the spirit of your truth. Grace us with strength so that we might stand in the midst of the fire of life with a faith ground in your Word, a hope enlivened by your truth and freedom grounded in your love. Amen!

Runner’s Thought: When we run in a spiritual way, we are brought into the process of God-ing. Meaning as we run we are not moving toward God but interacting with God along the way. Our run becomes a direct physical, emotional and spiritual way of becoming who we are, our authentic selves. In the process we open up vast and unlimited opportunities to connect with God in new, life giving ways!

Happy Wednesday everyone! Yes, it is “hump day” once again. I have to say when I am on the road the weeks seem to go rather fast! Today will be a busy day, I will not only be finishing up my mission here at Good Shepherd with a morning and evening service but I will head over to Manhattan, to St. Malachy's Church, this afternoon to tape two masses for the Sunday Mass. I was up to the wee hours of this morning trying to collect my thoughts and come up with two homilies. So I am starting the day on very little sleep please pray for me today. I want to do my best!

I hope and pray your day is not as busy. May you encounter many good people today and have may good experiences. May your day be rich in God’s blessings! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/19/2013

Daily Thoughts: Today we celebrate St. Joseph a person we know very little about but what we know can be an inspiration for all of us. He was a simple man skilled in the use of his hands to shape, form and build. He was an ordinary man place in an extraordinary situation. He was a faith filled man who staked his life on the promises of God.

St. Joseph wanders into our life through a few verses of scripture and leaves a lasting impression. In every situation we find him he pursues the right thing to do. He is righteous man who cares about the people around him. He is a loving man who protects those he loves. He is a hope filled man who places his trust in his relationship with God.

Yes, in his ordinariness St. Joseph stands as an example for all of us and we live our lives of faith. He is a model of quiet faithfulness. He is the hopefulness that fathers bring to a family. He is an example of loving attention to God’s presence. He is the humble father who reminds us of the gift of family life and the challenge of living for others!

As we celebrate St. Joseph today as the husband of Mary let us honor his faithfulness, his hopefulness and his love by letting him be an example that helps us to live our life of faith caring those around us.

Daily Lenten Prayer: Loving God, we honor your faithful servant, St. Joseph today. Help us with your grace to be your faith filled servants too. Enable us to be compassionate like Joseph to those around us. Give us the wisdom of Joseph so that we to will see your plan in every aspect of our lives. Gift us with a love like Joseph so that we to can make a different with our lives. Good St. Joseph pray for us and watch over us. Help us to always find the value of family life no matter how difficult the world makes it. Amen!

Runner’s Thought: Running can become a tool that helps us deal with the difficulties that we face. It can be a time to release the negative energies in our life. It can be a time to let go and let God!

Happy St. Joseph’s Day everyone! A special shout out to Pope Francis on this special day beginning of the Petrine ministry. May God truly bless him with a spirit of renewal and service. May St. Joseph guide him in the gift of love for all people.

I hope all of you have gotten off to a good start today and may your day to be blessed with many good things and many encounters with God’s grace. If it hasn’t been a good start to the day may your day only get better.

We had a nice first day of the mission here at Good Shepherd, though it was a small crowd last night because of the bad weather. I am looking forward to our second day. Your continued prayers for the faith community here and their preacher as always are greatly appreciated.

Again, everyone have a faith filled day with many blessings and much peace. As always you are in my prayers. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/18/2013

Daily Thoughts: “You judge by appearances….” Often our judgments of people are just based on appearances. It is either the color of their skin, their ethnic background, the language they are speaking, the clothing they are wearing, the god they believe in, the part of the world they come from that we use to decide who people are. We have not bothered to stop and talk with them or listen to their story or understand what they believe and value. We just judge them, we put them into a box from which they will never escape.

Jesus has been judged in just this way by the religious leaders of his time. He cannot escape the box they have placed him in no matter what he does and says or how hard he tries. The problem is when people are judged in this way, those who do the judging lose. The religious leaders lose because they missed the presence of God in their life. God was standing in their midst and they didn’t see God.  God can be standing in our midst, perhaps not as dramatically as Jesus, but God is still presence in others and if we judge them by only appearance we lose.

Susanna was judged unfairly and what we learn from her story is that unfair judgments always catch up with those who do the judging. The truth always finds its way to the surface. It can be a difficult process and at times we need people like Daniel to point out the flaws in our judgment but truth will always win even though it may take time, sometimes a life time.

As we go about our day let us not judge by appearance. Let us look for the truth, look for the presence of God in all we meet. Let us be guided by the Light of the world.

Daily Lenten Prayer: Loving God, you are our light and life. Grace us with the wisdom to recognize the many works of your hands today. Help us to be your light in the world today by the way we live our life. Enable us to turn away from the desire to judge and to trust in your presence in everyone we meet. Make us instruments of your love and peace so that we never walk in darkness but only in your light! Amen!

Runner’s Thought: As we run today let us receive God’s blessings through every breath we take. We breathe in the presence of God and we exhale all our struggles, all our faults, all our failings. With each breath let us allow God to create something new within us as we run. Enlivening us with the breath of life, the breath of grace, the breath of God!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend or at least a good one! I also hope your new work week has started off well with a morning without any issues or problems. If that is not the case I pray that you day gets better as you go along! I hope your favorite team got in to the NCAA basketball tournament. If not there is always next year and this gives you a chance to claim another team as your own at least for a few weeks. If you are not a basketball fan then you have Easter and spring to look forward over the next few weeks!

We begin the mission here at Good Shepherd this morning with the 11:00 am mass and our evening service at 7:30 pm as always your prayers for the faith community here and their preacher are greatly appreciated.

Blessings upon everyone today, may your day be productive and peaceful. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Lenten Thoughts - 03/17/2013

Daily Thoughts: For me the interesting thing about our Gospel story today has always been that it is only the woman who is brought before Jesus. She was caught in the act of adultery so there had to be a man there but only the woman is dragged before Jesus. It gives you a sense of the injustice that was present in society at that time. Women were pieces of property along with children, not treated in an equal way.

Jesus however has a different way of looking at life and society. Perhaps he sees the injustice and responds to it, or perhaps Jesus just sees every person as someone created in the image and likeness of God. Perhaps he sees someone who has made a mistake yet deserves another chance. Perhaps Jesus sees life were the crowd sees death. Perhaps Jesus sees the possibility for change and newness of life and the crowd sees only the law and punishment.

Over this past week Pope Francis has asked us to look at things differently by his words and actions. His picking of the name Francis reflects a different way of thinking about, seeing and living life. His humility and care for others reflects a different way of thinking about, seeing and living life. His putting of people first, his care for the poor, his desire for peace reflects a different way of think about, seeing and living life.

Our challenge as people of faith is to always see and live life through the lens of faith. We are to think of life not death. We are to see the others first rather than just ourselves. We are to live compassionate lives of justice and peace.

Daily Lenten Prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Runner’s Thought: As you run imagine God is at your side, running along with you. Imagine how God would look with kindness into the faces of all whom the two of you meet. Imagine how God would fine good in everyone you encounter. Look for good in everyone. Look for good in yourself! (From Roger Joslin – Running the Spiritual Path)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! I hope you are celebrating a little because you know there is a little Irish in everyone even if it is just your smile, so celebrate a little. I am celebrating in a number of ways today. The mission here at Good Shepherd Parish in Brooklyn has gotten off to a great start. Everyone has been so friendly and hospitable. A great group of priest here and you can feel it in the community. I am looking forward to the next three days. The pastor is throwing a little St. Patrick’s Day party for some of his priest friends so it should be a great evening and perhaps I can get some future jobs. All thinking ahead!

The St. Louis University Billikens won the Atlantic 10 Tournament this afternoon and will be headed for the NCAA Basketball Tournament anyone out there want to join Billiken Nation? Go Billikens! And if you want to know what a billiken is stay tuned!

So have a great evening everyone. Many blessings as you begin a new work week. May it be one that runs smoothly and peacefully with many graced moments! And remember a few prayers for the faith community here at Good Shepherd Parish and their preacher will be greatly appreciated. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul