Daily Thoughts - 06/08/2013

Daily Thought: Today we celebrate the second half of our focus on the heart. It is Mary’s Immaculate Heart that we honor today. There are many things we can say about Mary’s heart but the virtue that stands out most to me about Mary is strength. I think Mary’s heart was truly a heart of strength.

In the Gospel today Luke tells us that Mary kept all the experience of Jesus in her heart. She kept the joys and sorrows, the miracles and the opposition, the quiet moments and the great crowds, the mother and father moments of family and the community moments of discipleship. Mary kept the triumphant moments of shepherds, angels, kings and palms and failing moments of whips, nails, wooden crosses and death on a hill. Yes, Mary kept all things in her heart so she needed a very strong heart to hold all the experiences of life that she encountered from early on. Mary was truly a woman, a mother of great strength, a strength that came from and was nourished, feed and supposed by her heart.

As I said yesterday the heart is central to who we are as a human being. Whether we are speaking about our physical, emotion or spiritual life the heart plays a central role in how we live our life. Mary’s heart was a heart of strength carrying the grace of God’s presence in her life. Her strength enabled her to say “yes” to God and then watch as that “yes” unfolded in the life, passion, death and resurrection of her son, Jesus.

Mary, woman of strength, hold us in your heart that we too may be strong in living our journey of life!

Daily Prayer:

All Loving God, as we honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary this day, we ask that by the help of her prayers we might strengthen our own hearts and come to share your blessings this day and always.

O holy Mary, mother of all mercy, you are our life, our love and our hope. This day we call out to you, in all our humanness, in all our failings. To you we send our prayers, our thoughts, our tears, our joys. Turn your eyes, O most loving Mother toward us that we might always hold the presence of your Loving Son in our lives.

O Compassionate, O Loving, O Tender Mother Mary. Direct our prayers always though Christ, your Son, our Savior.  Amen! (Adapted from the Prayer - Hail Holy Queen)

Runner’s Thought: One way to look at running is as a tool, a device or practice that aids the user in our quest to pray. If we are intent about moving along the spiritual path, then it only makes sense to use those aspects of our live that already fill our days. So spend some time in prayer today go for a run! (Adapted from Roger Joslin)

Happy Saturday everyone! A special shout out to all the graduates at this time of year. I will be heading to an eighth grade graduation party later today on Long Island. This is a special time of year for all levels of graduation and I offer my prayers to all who graduated giving thanks for what you have accomplished and asking God to bless the next steps in your lives.

I hope everyone will be having a great Saturday for us here in Pelham the rain has stopped, the warmth has returned and the sun is out at least for the moment. I hope things are the same wherever you are! May we all be blessed today with family, friends, fun and rest. Please know as always, you are in my prayers. Be safe out there today! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/07/2013

Daily Thoughts: Our focus today and tomorrow is the “heart,” The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The heart is the center of who we are, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is the place where we often think of God’s presence within us.

Think for a moment, in a physical way the heart is the center of who we are. It is the pump that pushes life through us. Without it we can do nothing. All our other organs, muscles, bones and assorted other things are important but it is the heart that keeps us alive that makes everything we do, say and feel possible.

Emotionally the heart is central to what we feel. It is the home of the emotions. On February 14^th we do not receive or send a card with a gallbladder on the front that says, “I love you!” No we send a card with a heart on the front. The heart is the place of feelings and emotions. If we were to write a song, a poem or a story about love we would talk about the heart. A broken heart means we have lost at or been hurt by love.

In a spiritual way the heart is important too. The heart in a spiritual sense is the dwelling place of God. In the Old Testament, the psalmists and prophets talked about the community or individual who was without God as having a stony heart. A stony heart has no room for God, is closed to the presence of God.

So as we see the heart sits at the center of who we are as human beings. These two days remind us of just how important the heart is to us. Jesus and Mary had hearts that lead them through their journeys of life.

Jesus’ Sacred Heart teaches us about love. It is a heart full of the kind of love that leaves no one behind. Sometimes that love seems foolish but not in the eyes and heart of Jesus. Every person is valuable, ever person is important; every person is worth searching for. Now this doesn’t mean that everyone will be found because some of us don’t want to be found and some of us even when found don’t want to return. But the love of Jesus’ Sacred heart will always look, will always search and will always wait.

This Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is about love, but it is also about hope; the hope that God is always searching, looking and waiting for us because we are that special, that important. The question for today is, “Can we believe in our value, can we believe in our specialness, can we believe in God’s love for us, can we hope in the fact that God will find us and bring us home?”

Daily Prayer: We come to you Jesus on the Feast of your Sacred Heart, for you are our refuge and our hope. You are the strength that keeps us going through all that is wrong in the our lives, the forgiveness for all our faults and failings, the comfort for all our struggles, the peace for all our anxieties, the enhancement for all our imperfections, and the hope in all our prayers.

You are the only one who never wearies of us and who offers us grace in the midst of our faults, because you love us so much with an infinite love. You are the one always in search of us especially when we follow a different path.

So we ask you loving Jesus, to have mercy on us and do with us, and be for us, and be within us, whatever you want. We give our hearts to you, hoping that the gift of love that flows from your most Sacred Heart will never leave us to face the struggles and difficulties of life alone.  Amen.

Runner’s Thought: Holiness is not something we can build into a run. Running does not make us holy. However, we can make our run holy by bringing to our run a sense of God’s Presence. Thus we can transform our run from the ordinary to the sacred. (Adapted from Roger Joslin- Running the Spiritual Path)

TGIF everyone! We are in the midst of a wet Friday here in Pelham. The rain began falling yesterday afternoon and they say we will see it until Monday or Tuesday. So we will run between the rain drops the next few days. If you are not here in the northeast I hope your weather is a bit better.

Regardless of the weather I hope you are having a good day wherever you are and in whatever you are doing. The official start to the weekend is not far away so may the hours to its beginning go quickly and may you and those you love be blessed today and always. If you are traveling be safe, if you are celebrating be safe. Most of all enjoy your weekend may it be one filled with family, friends, fun and faith! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/06/2013

Daily Thoughts: I have always liked the story that we find in today’s Gospel (Mark 12: 28-34). I especially like the end when Jesus looks at the scribe and says, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” It is perhaps the only moment in the Gospels when Jesus and the scribes are on the same page. There is a mutual understanding, a mutual respect at this moment in the struggle between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time. It is a nice thing to see. Would that this kind of understand and respect would happen between leaders of all kinds during our time.

The respect and understanding centers around the two great commandments, love of God and love of neighbor and we might say there is a third, love of self, because Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As Jesus teaches and the scribe comes to understand these are the two or three great commandments and everything else flows from them, which might explain why we find ourselves in the struggles that we are in today.

If we just look around at our world, our culture, our society, our church the problems that we find relate to the way we live out or perhaps better said, don’t live out these commandments. Our struggles can be directly related to how we don’t value God and perhaps more importantly how we don’t value others or ourselves. We might even say that our struggles as a culture, society, church and a world can be traced to the lack of love that we have for ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves how can we love others, how can we love God?

Love is not just wanting the best for ourselves, others and God. Love is a respect, a reverence for life, for who we are as individuals, as a culture, as a society, as a church, as a world. Love is finding the good in ourselves, others and God. Love is seeing God in others and in ourselves. Love is seeing, acknowledging, and accepting the differences in ourselves and others but most importantly still being able to find God.

Our challenge today and every day is to put into practice these three great commandments. Our challenge is to wake up each day in love with God, our neighbor and ourselves!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, strengthen us with the power to love through your spirit in our inner most being. Fill our hearts with your presence and please do not leave us to face the struggles of life alone. Help us to grasp how wide and long and high and deep your love is for us. And, above all, grace us with the understanding that your love surpasses all knowledge so that we will always share it with others. Amen!

Runner’s Thought: As we prepare to run today and every day let us imagine that in addition to stretching our muscles we are also stretching our spirit and giving it the flexibility it needs to engage God. Each stretch is a prayer, a conversation with God.

Thursday greetings to everyone! I hope your day has started off well and that your week is going smoothly. If not be assured that you are in my prayers with the hope that things will get better!

I celebrated National Running Day yesterday with a 6.5 mile run. It was a gorgeous day for a run and there seemed to be more people out running than usual. The only negative is that I have a lingering sore foot that has me worried a little. I cannot figure out just what the problem is! If you are a runner I hope you had a little chance to celebrate yesterday with a run.

Well friends, have a great day. May whatever this day brings to your life be life giving. May whoever you meet bring a positive spirit to your day. May God’s love be with you and all those you love today and always! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/04/2013

Daily Thoughts: Once again Jesus finds himself challenged, harassed, or questioned by the religious leadership. The Pharisees and Herodians seem to be at least civil this time, yet they are trying to entrap Jesus. Their tactic this time is to ask about paying taxes.

In recent years there has been a lot of talk about religious freedom, about the government infringing on the rights of churches, religions. Perhaps our Gospel story today can be cast in the light of religious freedom after all Rome was asking for tax money so that they could continue their conquering ways. Just think of all the barbaric acts that these taxes would be paying for. Just think of the Roman occupation that these taxes would be paying for. It would seem only right for Jesus to say that withholding the Roman tax would be the right thing to do.

However, Jesus simply says, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  In other words culture and society are not always going to line up with our faith values yet we are still part of culture and society. We will need to give what they require but we will also need to live out our faith, our relationship with God. At times these two relationships are in tension even conflict and we have to make a choice. The choice is not always easy and often has consequences. The challenge is that we live in the world but we are friends of God.

Daily Prayer: Loving God, renew in us the courage to live life as Jesus would. Help us especially to stand for the values that Jesus taught, and give us the wisdom to discern how best to do this. When opposition comes our way may we not give way to fear and timidity. Grace us always with the gifts of wisdom, right judgment, courage and reverence. Amen!

Runner’s Thought: Running meditation is not about the peak experience, that rare moment of personal triumph occasionally achieved by athletes.  It is about a consistent relationship with God through the gift of running. The meditative runner simply moves, swiftly or ploddingly, towards union, towards friendship with God. The meditative runner achieves her/his goal every day. There are no good runs. There are no bad runs. There is always victory – a steady movement toward a relationship with God.

Happy Tuesday everyone! We are still at war with ants here in Pelham but at least the sun is out and the air is crisp and comfortable. I hope everyone’s Tuesday has started off well. I hope the sun is shining wherever you are and that you are moving about today with a lively step and a hopeful purpose. If not I pray that your day will get better!

Blessings today upon you, your work, your ministry, those whom you meet, those whom you love! Remember, “Seek God and you will find God and every good thing as well!” (Meister Eckhart) Have a great day! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/03/2013

Daily Thoughts: I think we have all had one of those moments when listening to a reading from Scripture we think, “O my God that is directed at me!” There is something in the message, the story that hits home that makes us pause and think about our faith, our relationship with God, our life.

I get the sense that today’s Gospel story (Mark 12: 1-12) was one of those moments for the religious leadership of Jesus’ day. Jesus’ story was directed right at them and they knew it. However rather than taking it to heart, rather than giving it some thought, rather than discerning how to change their lives they chose to consider ways of getting rid of Jesus. The uncomfortableness of the truth did not set them free it just made them blinder to the presence of God in their life.

I ran across a quote the other day that I have always liked and you might have seen it on my Facebook page or in one of my tweets. The quote goes something like this, “Someone described a biblical prophet as one who comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable.”  That was certainly true of Jesus especially in our story today.

Yet our reaction to today’s Gospel might be to sit back and relax think that Jesus is speaking to leadership and not to us and that would be a mistake. Jesus’ words should also make us uncomfortable today. How often has God sent people into our lives with a message, with the presence of God and we have rejected them. Thinking they don’t fit in, thinking they don’t have the truth, thinking they don’t belong?

The point is that we never know when God will come a calling, sending a servant, a son, to collect the fruits of our labor. Will we recognize that it is God and embrace his presence or will we reject the visitor because we think we know best?

Daily Prayer: O God, search us and know our hearts; test us and know our concerns. See if there is any crooked way in us, and lead us in the everlasting way. For we truly do believe so our prayer to you is help our unbelief. Amen!

Runner’s Thought: Remember if we have the desire to run with God, then the specifics of the techniques used do not matter very much just keep hold of the desire and God will be with you!

Happy Monday everyone! I hope your day has started off well though if you are in the east like me it is cloudy and rainy this morning. Not only do the clouds and rain make it a gloomy day but we are battling ants here in Pelham these days. Can’t tell where they are coming from they just seem to appear. Not real fun! But hopefully they too will pass like the clouds and the rain.

Have a great day everyone. May it truly be a good start to your week but if not I pray that things will get better. Please continue to keep Jake and his family in your prayers and continue to know that wherever you are and wherever your life brings you today you are in my prayers! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/02/2013

Daily Thoughts: There are many ways to look at the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ which we celebrate today. The most obvious is the gift of the Eucharist, a most cherished gift that offers us the spiritual nourishment we need to live this life of faith. The real presence of Christ in the form of bread and wine that in receiving it demands our lives, it demands that we bring this real presence to the world.

Another way to look at this feast is through the Gospel today. As Fr. James Martin, S.J. said in a tweet earlier today, “God can do a lot with what you think is a little.” Just think of what he did along the Sea of Galilee when his disciples said all they had were five loaves and two fish. As we have learned God makes possible the impossible while doing a lot with little; or as Teresa Whalen Lux put it, “God often takes something small and insignificant and turns it into the extraordinary.”

A final thought about today’s feast also comes from Gospel. In America Magazine’s reflection on today’s scriptures called The Word, John Martens says that, “The verb Jesus uses is in the imperative, the messianic equivalent of “Just do it!” “You feed them!”  In other words long before Nike there was Jesus who challenged all who followed him to, “Just do it!”

I have often in my preaching reflected on receiving the Eucharist as a moment when God, when Jesus says to us, “I demand your life! I have given you mine so now go and give it to the world.”  Our celebration of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ today reminds us of just how blessed we are, of just what God can do and of our challenge each day as we life to trust in God and “Just do it!”

Daily Prayer:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Prayer by St. Teresa of Avila

Runner’s Thought: As you run today remember with each plant of your foot you feel firmness under you. Feel that firmness as the presence of God.  Trust in that firmness. Know that God is running with you!

Sunday blessings to all! I sat today before the Blessed Sacrament in spirit with Pope Francis; he in Rome and I in our little chapel here in Pelham. I spent the hour from 11:00 am until noon in prayer was for all of you that God’s hope, love and peace will be with you and those you love always.

This morning before I spent my hour in prayer with the Pope I offer mass and prayed for a young man by the name of Jake. Jake is 10 years old and underwent brain surgery Friday night for an aneurysm that burst. I pray that he will be healed and returned to his mom, dad and 8 year old brother Luke! Please offer a prayer for him too!

Have a great Sunday and blessings upon your coming week! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul