Daily Thoughts - 12/31/2014

Daily Thoughts: This last day of the year we are treated to the mysticism of St. John. The profoundly familiar opening of his Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word..." It is not an opening story like in Matthew, Mark and Luke, it is a mystical reflection on God, creation and Jesus' entrance into the world. It is a reminder of where we have come from and the profound love of God we journey towards.

In the first reading John in his letter speak to a community, a church, under persecution, struggling with the reality of life in a world made up of many different realities.  Things appear to be coming to an end, but John reminds the community about what they know, what they have been taught, and about the relationship with God that they have entered into, so that no matter what happens they will remain faithful.

These readings speak to our realities this last day of the year. Things are coming to an end, perhaps not in the way John envisioned them but a calendar year is coming to an end. Over the past year we have seen many struggles, many signs that point to loss, tragedy, the absence of God and a hopelessness. However, John reminds us, as he did his own community, about what we know because we are friends of God. John reminds us of a new beginning, of by whom we have been created and the hope that needs to remain alive in our hearts.

We can encounter "fiscal cliffs," tragic losses, challenges to our faith, natural disasters but we know the love of God, we know that the Light shines in the darkness of life, we know that that world often does not know God, but we do and we will live in the Light and bring it to the world today and always.

Some things to ponder as we prepare to welcome a New Year…

“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice.” (T.S. Eliot)

“Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences.”  (Thomas Merton)

“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.” (G.K. Chesterton)

“Faith is why I'm here today and faith is why I made it through.” (Jonathan Anthony Burkett)

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.” (Thomas Merton)

“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

“Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things...as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.”  (Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ)

“As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.”  (Fr. Henri J.M. Nouwen)

“Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!”  (Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM)

Whoever you are, you are human. Wherever you are, you live in the world, which is just waiting for you to notice the holiness in it.” (Barbara Brown Taylor)

According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, “Grow, grow.”  (Barbara Brown Taylor)

If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”  (Meister Eckhart)

Have a great December 31st everyone and a Happy 2015!

Daily Prayer: I thought Thomas Merton’s prayer would be a good end of the year prayer for all of us today –

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. (Thomas Merton - Thoughts in Solitude)

Runner’s Thoughts: Run with the wind today into a New Year blessed by God!

Daily Blessing: Greetings family and friends, on this last day of 2014. I begin this day thankful for the year that has passed but happy and excited to bring in a New Year. I pray all of you are where you need and want to be and that you will get a chance to celebrate with family and/or friends tonight. If you need to travel please travel safe. If you are going to be out and about at, around or after midnight, please be safe!

I offer a simple blessing on this last day of 2014 -  O Loving God, hear our prayers today as we pray in thanksgiving for the year that has just past and with hope for the year we are about to begin. Bless us with the grace if wisdom that we have gathered over this last year and help us during the coming year to soften the hearts of all so that we may always know your friendship. Grant peace and prosperity to your people bless each of today and always with your love. Amen! May all of us encounter peace, hope and many new dreams in 2015. See you next year! Peace in Christ’s Passion...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 12/30/2014

Daily Thoughts: “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.

Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” (Thomas Merton)

This quote from Thomas Merton is one of my favorites because it always brings me back to what my life should be about, gratitude. Gratitude for the very gift of life itself and gratitude for God’s love that created this life.

We live in a world, a culture, a society, a nation, a city, a church that is too often fragmented, too often divided and too often filled with ingratitude all of which leads to violence, hate and injustice. We seem to be more willing to tune our backs on those we don’t like; those whom we think have done us wrong, those who are different than to find the common ground, the common gift, the common presence which is God’s love for all of us.

St. John reminds his community of just what they have, the presence of God. They are to remember that and not forget it. They are to be grateful for God’s presence and bot give in to the things, the ways, and the enticements of the world. They are not to put their trust in what will pass away but in what will not!

Anna is a person of gratitude. She never lost faith, lost trust in God and we find her today giving thanks, being grateful. Anna was a person of hope who did not give in to the enticements of the world but waited patiently for God’s love.

As Merton tells us everything is gift, everything is grace. It is our choice – do we turn our backs on God and others or do we enter into the experience of God with gratitude and hope? For if we do it will make all the difference!

Have a great Tuesday afternoon and evening everyone!

Daily Prayer:

O God, grant us the grace and a portion of your Holy Spirit of Trust that we may so live as to give others cause to be thankful today and always. Thankful because we have not forgotten how to hope, how to laugh, how to say, “I am sorry,” how to forgive,  how to bind wounds, how to dream,  how to cry, how to pray, how to love when it is hard, and how to love when it is dangerous.

Open us with freedom’s songs, O God, that from us – praise may flow more easily than wants, thanks more readily than complaints, trust more abundantly than anxiety.

Praise be to you, God of life, praise be to you for another chance to live with gratitude this day and always! Amen.

A Runner’s Thoughts: “The more I run, the more I want to run, and the more I live a life conditioned and influenced and fashioned by my running. And the more I run, the more certain I am that I am heading for my real goal: to become the person I am.” (George Sheehan) – So to in the spiritual life…the more we pray the more we will want to pray and the more we will live a life conditioned and influenced by our relationship with God. And the more we live in God’s presence, the more certain we will be that we are heading for our real goal in life: to be the people God has created us to be!

Daily Blessing: Tuesday afternoon blessings to all! I hope your day is going well. It is a partly cloudy and cold afternoon here in Pelham with no warming trend in sight but then it is winter what should I expect?

On a sad note I would like to offer my thoughts and prayers to the Stawick families of North Carolina and Michigan as they lost the patriarch of the family last night. My prayers are for Mr. Stawick’s peace now and for consolation, support and peace for his family as they mourn the loss of an important part of their life. May they be comforted in the memories of him that they have and in his spirit that remains!

May God bless all of us today with the peace and consolation of his grace and love as we journey through this day and life. May we all find the comfort, support, joy, hope and love we need to be the gift that God has created us to be this day and always! God’s blessings to all! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 12/29/2014

Daily Thoughts: Feast of St. Thomas Becket – We find ourselves listening to the same Gospel as yesterday. I have always liked the story of Simeon which we hear once again. It is a very tender scene. However there is something missing in our Gospel today. It should read just a few verses more so that we also encounter the story of Anna; to me it just seems natural to include both stories. Two people who have dedicated their lives to God waiting for this moment. You can hear the joy in their voices as they realize the purpose of their lives coming to completion, both embraced by the Holy Spirit graced with the gift of hope.

They do not sugar coat their message they tell it like it is – or should I say like it will be. There will be sorrow and struggle but also life. Rather than speak about the "rise and fall" Simeon speaks of the "fall and rise." The cross is part of Jesus' story but it is not the end. Death leads to life, doubt is embraced by faith, sorrow and struggle turns to joy!

Perhaps as we listen to Simeon today we need to remember that in being a person of faith our direction in life is always "upwards." Hope means that no matter how difficult things seem to get, no matter what the struggle – God is always with us. If we can be patience like Simeon and Anna the light of God will always direct our way, death, doubt, struggle and sorrow will become life, faith and joy!

Have a great day everyone and may you find peace, hope and joy as you journey through your day!

Daily Prayer: Grant, O Loving God, that I may never fall away in success or in failure; that I may not be prideful in prosperity nor dejected in adversity. Let me rejoice only in what unites us and sorrow only in what separates us. May I strive to please no one or fear to displease anyone except you. May I see always the things that are eternal and never those that are only temporal. May I shun any joy that is without you and never seek any that is beside you. O God, may I delight in any work I do for you and tire of any rest that is apart from you. Let me direct my heart towards you, and in my failings, always repent with a purpose of amendment. – Amen! (Adapted from a prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P.)

A Runner’s Thoughts: “It's important to know that, at the end of the day, it's not the medals you remember. What you remember is the process - what you learn about yourself by challenging yourself, the experiences you share with other people, the honesty the training demands - those are things nobody can take away from you whether you finish twelfth or you're an Olympic champion.” (Silken Laumann)

Daily Blessing: Monday greetings to all on this last Monday of 2014! I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and a relaxing long weekend. If you had to work in the days after Christmas I hope the time was not too stressful! We now make our way to the beginning of the New Year 2015. Hopefully this will not be too busy a week for you. I will be spending my week home alone as my community members are away for the week. I am hoping that it will not be as eventful as the movie, “Home Alone!”

My blessing prayer today is that God will bless us all with calm, peaceful and fun filled days this week as we prepare to bring in a New Year. May God bless any travel we will do in these last days of 2014. May God help us to enjoy these closing days of 2014 and look ahead with hope to 2015. May God bless this day with many smiles, the gift of laughter and people whom we love! Let us also keep the people of the Air Asia flight that went mission two days ago in our prayers along with their families and friends who now morn their loss and will enter the New Year with profound grief! May those lost and those who morn them find God’s peace. Have a great day everyone! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 12/28/2014

Daily Thoughts: My reflections are a little long today so please bear with me…

As we celebrate this Sunday between Christmas and the New Year we do so honoring the family, specifically the Holy Family, but in honoring the Holy Family we remember all families. In my homily last year on the Feast of the Holy Family I mention one of my favorite fictional characters from TV, Special Agent, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, from the show NCIS. During an episode a few years ago part of the story line was Abby’s struggle with family. She finds out that she was adopted. In a very touching scene she goes to Gibbs and says that she doesn't know who she is now and Gibbs' reply goes something like this, "Abby, family is more than science and DNA, family is about the people who care about you and you have a lot of people who care right here." To me it was a touching scene that reflected some of Gibbs' wisdom but also it reflects our feast today.

We might look are the Holy Family and say how can the Holy Family be an example of family life? They were the perfect family, how could my family even begin to measure up to them? They were special people, blessed in a unique way by God. Jesus is the Son of God. Mary came into the world without sin. An angel came to both Joseph and Mary. How can we ever measure up to the Holy Family? In a word by caring!

Gibbs was right the basic value of family is that family cares no matter what. And it doesn’t always come from DNA. Haven’t there been times when you considered a person family even though they did have your DNA? You considered them family because in some way they cared about you, about your family.

All of the stories we find about the Holy Family are about people who care for each other and for those around them. The gift of the Holy Family is the grace of caring! Perhaps our challenge today is to remember the people who care, those we are connected to by DNA and those we are not – all of whom we call family!

If you would allow me just a little more of your time today I would like to offer you a little extra food for thought. If today was not Sunday we would be celebrating the feast of the Holy Innocents. This feast has special meaning for me because when I professed my vows as a Passionist my title was Paul Raymond of the Holy Innocents. I took “of the Holy Innocents” as my title, because before entering the Passionists I worked as a social worker and my responsibilities focused on abused and neglected children. I also worked with hard to place adoptive children. So when I entered the Passionist I wanted to honor children particularly those often forgotten by or unwanted by the world. I thought what better way to honor and remember the children I served, worked with and encountered by placing them and myself under the protection of the Holy Innocents.

There is not a day goes by that I don’t pause to remember many of the children that I encounter in my work. I often wonder what happened to them. Many of them were wonderful kids who just need a chance to break the cycle of abuse and neglect. They were children with gifts who often didn’t get the chance to realize those gifts because of decisions that adults had made. I continue to commend them and all children around the world to the care and protection of the Holy Innocents.

The Holy Innocents are martyrs, saints and spirits of God who cares for those often not cared for or forgotten. By remembering them today as we remember the Holy Family may we come to value the gift of all children from the first moment of conception to the last breath of life and every moment in between as God precious the gifts.

Have a great Holy Family Sunday everyone and may you find a little time for God today!

Daily Prayer: God the Creator of all families, graciously help us to imitate the love of the Holy Family for each other and the world. Grace us with the gift of caring so we might always bring your loving presence to a world that at times forgets to care. May your gift of family always keep hope alive within us. We continue though out this Christmas Season to pray for families in grief; for little ones whose lives were too short; for teachers, administrators and responders who put others first; for firefighters who risk their lives; for a community that must find a way to live; for all of us who seek a world of lasting peace! For truly blessed are all who hope in you! Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: A truly successful run is one in which the work of returning to God's presence in practiced over and over again.

Daily Blessing: I hope you are having a great Sunday and have not forgotten to give a little time to God today. I have a busy day ahead. I will be at St. Mary and St. John Parish in Chappaqua, NY for the noon mass and then it will be on to St. Francis de Sales Parish in Manhattan for the 6 pm mass this evening. So if you are in either of these places come and join me for the celebration of Holy Family Sunday!

As we are celebrating the Feast of the Holy Family I hope you are with family today and will take the time to enjoy the gift of their presence today. I ran across a Prayer of Thanksgiving a few years ago and it seems like a good prayer to use today for our Daily Blessing. So for all families and for all of you I ask God’s blessing today as I pray…

God of all blessings, source of all life, giver of all grace: We thank you for the gift of life: for the breath that sustains life, for the food of this earth that nurtures life, for the love of family and friends without which there would be no life.

We thank you for the mystery of creation: for the beauty that the eye can see, for the joy that the ear may hear, for the unknown that we cannot behold filling the universe with wonder, for the expanse of space that draws us beyond the definitions of our selves.

We thank you for setting us in communities: for families who nurture our becoming, for friends who love us by choice, for companions at work, who share our burdens and daily tasks, for strangers who welcome us into their midst, for people from other lands who call us to grow in understanding, for children who lighten our moments with delight, for the unborn, who offer us hope for the future.

We thank you for this day: for life and one more day to love, for opportunity and one more day to work for justice and peace, for neighbors and one more person to love and by whom be loved, for your grace and one more experience of your presence, for your promise: to be with us, to be our God, and to give salvation.

For these and all blessings, we give you thanks, eternal, loving God, through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Blessings upon all families today and may we all have a blessed and holy Sunday and for you and your family may it be a special on. Peace in the Holy Family...Fr. Paul