Daily Thoughts - 05/16/2014

Daily Thoughts: “Characters welcome,” is the slogan of the USA Network. As I listen to the stories of the early Church as they come to us through the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 13: 26-33) I am reminded that our Church, our community of faith is made up of characters, faith characters. Some very familiar to us like Peter and Paul others not so familiar just names or people who appear for a moment yet they played a role in the development of the early Church.

What is it that makes a “character of faith?” Well, I think our answer is in today’s Gospel (John 14: 1-6). We hear that famous passage from John’s Gospel where Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Thus, a “character of faith” is someone who does not let her or his heart be trouble. A “character of faith” has faith in God and faith in their friend Jesus. A “character of faith” follows Jesus and believes that in following Jesus they will make their way in truth and life.

One thing is for sure because we are “characters of faith” we will not live life the same way and every once in a while we will need to stop and like Thomas say, “Master, we do not know where you are going, how can we know the way?” But as a faith character we take comfort and have hope that Jesus will always take the time point us in the right direction.

The sad thing is that like in the early Church and during the time of Jesus, characters are not always welcome. We have all been gifted by being created in the image and likeness of God. Each of us are different, each of us are unique and special. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. There are many dwelling place in the eternal home. There is room for every character!

Have a blessed Friday and don’t forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!

Daily Prayer: O God, author of life and freedom, hear us as we call upon you to help guide us through life today. Help us to trust in your loving presence so that we will be true to the “character” that you have created us to be. May we never be afraid to ask for your help especially when we are not sure which way to go. Give us the strength to not be troubled by the anger and negativity of the world, but to have faith and hope in you. Grace us with the energy to live life with truth and authenticity.  Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: Oprah Winfrey once said, “Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.”  So as we run today let us put God into our run.

Daily Blessing: Friday Blessings to everyone! Yes, we have made it through another week and we can take a deep breath and say, “Thank God it is Friday!” I hope you have had a good week and that your weekend will be a reward for all your hard work this week. If not, if this week has not gone so good or the weekend means no rest and more work just hang in there, better days are ahead!

We come to the end of our chapter this morning and all will be heading back to our various houses around the province later this morning. It has been a long and at times intense week for us here in West Hartford, but all in all it has been a good week.

I will only be stop at my Pelham home for an overnight, an emptying and repacking of my suitcase as I will be heading to Harrisburg, PA on Saturday morning to begin a Forty Hours Devotion this weekend through Tuesday. I will be preaching all the masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Harrisburg on Saturday and Sunday and then preaching the Forty Hours Devotion on Monday and Tuesday evenings. So I jump right back in to ministry and for me that is a good thing!

So my prayer for blessings today is that where ever you are and whatever you are doing today you may be blessed with the thought and reality that rest and relaxation is the order of your weekend and that you will get through today with a sense of accomplishment that your week has been a good one. May it be graced with the presence of good people today and may God gift you always with his joy and love! Peace in the Christ’s Passion and Hope in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/14/2014

Daily Thoughts: It is the feast of St. Matthias today. Matthias was the person chosen after the resurrection to take Judas’ place among the twelve. So we first call upon Matthias’ spirit of faith in the Risen Lord to guide and direct us today.

“You are my friends….It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”  Two reflections by Jesus in John’s Gospel (John 15:9-17) this morning that I have always given me pause for thought.

On the one hand there is something comforting about being a friend of Jesus. Yes, this friendship demands a lot and is not always easy, but being identified as a friend of Jesus often helps me to know that I am never alone. When you think about it someone who is willing to and did lay down his life for me is not going to walk away from me. The only person who can walk away from this relationship is me!

The second reflection by Jesus is a little more of a struggle. I guess I would prefer to think that I am in control, that I am the one doing the choosing and to a certain extent I have chosen God. However, when I look back over my life I can see the signs of God’s hand, of Jesus’ invitation. I can see God’s plan at work in the story of my life. I am who I am today not because I chose God but because God chose me!

I have come to believe that it is God who does the choosing, extending the invitation to be friends. After all we can put Jesus’ words together with Psalm 139. “O God you probe me and you know….You formed my inmost being: you knit me in my mother’s womb.” Yes, God did the choosing long ago. God chose to create me and Jesus chose me as a friend.

God so loves the world that each of us are fearfully, wonderfully made so as we live this day let us trust in our friendship with God and live the gift that God has created us to be!

Happy feast of St. Matthias everyone and have a great Hump Day! Don’t forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!

Daily Prayer:  Loving Jesus, you have no body now on earth but mine, no hands but mind and no feet but mine. Mine are the eyes through which you look out with compassion on the world. Mine are the feet with which you go about doing good. Mine are the hands with which you bless people now. Jesus you have no body now on earth but mine so through me bless the world today. Amen! (Adapted from St. Teresa of Avila)

A Runner’s Thoughts: “There is a lesson to be learned from running in various emotional states, just as there are lessons to learn from running in a wide range of environmental settings. Don’t shy away from running in an unaccustomed state of mind or an unusual situation. Opportunity for enlightenment often waits in the unfamiliar.” (Roger Joslin)

And another thought, “Run often. Run long. But never outrun your joy of running.” (Julie Isphording)

Daily Blessing: “Hump Day” greetings everyone and happy feast of St. Matthias! I hope your day has started off well. Here in West Hartford the sun is out once again though there are some rather dark clouds hovering not far away! Most of our day will be spent inside as our chapter continues. Much work left to do but we seem to be on schedule.

I would ask you to say a prayer for me today. I have a rather important decision to make and I am struggling with it. It is the first of two decisions that I have to make this week and it is probably the hardest. I need to make it by later this morning or early this afternoon so I just ask that you prayer that I hear God’s spirit and make the right decision. I would very much appreciate your prayers today!

I pray that everyone will have a great day, one filled with many blessings. May God bless your work, your travel, your encounters with others, may God’s blessings be upon those whom you love and upon you! May God bless you so that you can get over any “hump” today in peace and joy! Peace in Christ’s Passion and Hope in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/13/2014

Daily Thoughts: It is always interesting to me to hear the stories of the early Church as they are presented in the Acts of the Apostles. We hear about the struggles and the joyous moments of the early Church. We meet the people who made up the early Church and helped it to move forward. We hear about the wonderful faith filled moments and the dark moments of persecution and challenge.

Each time I hear the stories of the early Church I am reminded that as much as things change they also remain the same. The characters are different, the events are different but the struggles and joys are the same. Today we face many if not all of the same challenges of the early Church. We have communities of great faith; we have preachers on fire with the Good News. We have challenges inside and outside the Church and at time we have persecutions.

Our faith is constantly in question, challenges, under attack. We are faced with change, differences within and a changing, struggling world around us. Like the early Church we are a community of believers listening for the voice of the Good Shepherd. Sometimes we hear it and sometimes the noise of the world around us tries to out shout it.

Our challenge is to hear the Good Shepherd’s voice, to recognize it in the midst of all the other voices and to have faith, to trust and to believe that the Good Shepherd will always be with us and will never leave us to face our perils alone!

Have a great day everyone and don’t forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!

Daily Prayer: Good Shepherd, speak to us words that will comfort and strengthen us today. Grace us with your loving and hope filled presence. Help us to always hear and recognize your voice among the many voices of the world. Guide us to the right path of life. Enliven us with your Spirit to be people who always bring joy and hope to the world around us. Love us with your everlasting love. Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: Remember when running as a pilgrim, as a friend God, we do not just log miles, witnessing the run as it happens. Our run becomes an act of devotion, a spiritual renewing. Our pilgrim run is not mere sightseeing or getting from one point to another, it is the development of the capacity to see what is sacred, what is of God and to hear the Good Shepherd!

Daily Blessing: Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope your day is going well. The second day of our provincial chapter will get underway in about three hours. Yes, I am up early this morning. I am finding that the older I get the less I sleep and days full of meetings don’t help. At first I was distressed by this turn of events in my life but recently I have grown to enjoy my fewer hours of sleep and early mornings! So continuing the theme, this morning I found myself wide awake at 3:00 am and I have been up ever since. As I said above being awake so early is sort of nice. It is quiet, peaceful but only down side is that it is dark! So far today I have done a little reading and put a few musings together for the new day.

Our provincial chapter has started off well or as well as events let these go from my perspective. There are a lot of faith filled people, some angry people, there are people looking to debate and fight and there are people just wishing the whole thing was over. There are people with vision for the future and people stuck in the past, in other words there are all kinds of people. For the most part the community is spirit filled and open to the journey. Please offer a prayer for all of us gathered here during this time of chapter and know that I am praying for you especially in my early morning hours!

Once again through my own prayer I ask God to bless all of you today, to bless your endeavors, to bless the people your encounter, to help you when you struggle and most of all to help you know God’s love even when it doesn’t seem to be there! Peace in Christ’s Passion and Hope in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/12/2014

Daily Thoughts: These words of Pope Francis seem to capture the spirit of today's Gospel, (John 10: 11-18). , "Every Christian, and especially you and I, is called to be a bearer of this message of hope that gives serenity and joy: God's consolation, his tenderness toward all. But if we first experience the joy of being consoled by him, of being loved by him, then we can bring that joy to others. This is important if our mission is to be fruitful: to feel God's consolation and to pass it on to others!"

Jesus offers us a relationship with himself and the Father. Jesus offers us the consolation and tenderness of the Good Shepherd. Jesus brings God’s joy to us. All we have to do is accept it and offer it to others!

Have a great day everyone and don’t forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!

Daily Prayer: Lord Jesus, you have brought us the gift of abundant life. Give us eyes that can look beyond the glamor and trivia of the world to the richness of your loving presence as it comes to us in others, creation and ourselves. Grace us with hope so that we will not give into despair, anger, vengeance and fear but through hope we will find the joy, grace and life you came to give us. May we come to know the full measure of life that you have promised and bring it to others! Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: Run with a strong heart today. If you run in the midst of the ordinary, you will often find yourself touched by the extraordinary presence of God. Run strong into the heart of God today!

Daily Blessing: Happy Monday everyone! I hope your Monday, your week, has started off on the right foot. If not I pray your fortunes will change as the day and the week goes on. I am headed to our house in West Hartford, CT for the week. Our chapter starts at noon today. Please keep us in your prayers and thoughts and know that you will be in my prayers this week. The sun is out and it a beautiful day a good way to start the week!. I hope it is and will be the same for you. Blessings upon your day, upon all that you are doing and upon all whom you will meet! May God bless you with the gift of bring God’s joy to the world today! Peace in Christ’s Passion and Hope in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul

Mother's Day Thoughts - 05/11/2014

Mother's Day Thoughts: “I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.” These are but a few of the words spoken by the Good Shepherd in today Gospel (John 10: 1-10). I could not help but think about mothers as I read John’s words about the Good Shepherd today. Perhaps if it were not Mother’s Day I would not make the connection between mothers and the Good Shepherd. I am sure there are theologians and scholars out there who would cringe at the thought of connecting the image of mothers with the image of the Good Shepherd.

But it makes sense to me and that is all that is necessary as I offer you a few thoughts and musings on this Fourth Sunday of Easter, on this Mother’s Day. First let me wish all mothers out there a Happy and Blessed Mother’s Day. My own mother is not far from my thoughts today even though she has been gone now for well over two years. I do miss her but I know that she is in a much better place and enjoying the gifts of God’s joy, peace and love abundantly now. But I still miss her!

Mothers are often the Good Shepherds of our lives, standing guard at the gate, especially early on in our life, protecting, nurturing, feeding and loving us. They are the first shepherds of our life yet even after we leave the sheep fold for what we think are greener pastures they are still with us, standing guard, nurturing, protecting, feeding and loving us. They don’t do it perfectly, mothers are human and have their flaws, but the vast majority of the time they are Good Shepherds!

Early this week the professional basketball player, Kevin Durant received the Most Valuable Player Award for this year’s NBA season and unlike most other professional athletes he chose not to honor himself or his teammates but to honor his mother. For Mr. Durant his mother was the Good Shepherd of his life, the person who make all his achievements possible.

Yes, that is what a Good Shepherd does, he makes possible all our achievements, and the Good Shepherd makes possible our life. The Good Shepherd came into the world that we might have life and have it more abundantly. There is what mothers do to. They give us life and by their care, their nurturing, their protection, their wisdom, their joy and their love we get to have life and have it more abundantly.

If this were Father’s Day I would say the same thing about fathers, but this is Mother’s Day and if you have a hard time seeing the Good Shepherd, Jesus, in all mothers I am sorry. However, each time I think of my mother, each time I encounter the many mothers in my life there is only one image that I see and that image is Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

May the Good Shepherd, bless and be with all mothers today, especially those carrying life. May Jesus, the Good Shepherd stand at the gate of life with all mothers so that all of us may continue to have life and have it more abundantly!

Happy Mother’s Day, Happy Good Shepherd Sunday and don’t forget to thank your mother and make a joyful noise with your life!

Mother’s Day Prayer:

We thank you, God, Creator of us all, for our mothers.

We thank you that they gave us life and nurtured us all those years. They gave us our faith, helping us to know you and to know Jesus and his ways. They taught us how to love and how to sacrifice for others. They taught us that it was okay to cry and that we should always tell the truth.

Bless our mother, both living and deceased with the graces they need and which you want to give her today. Help our mothers to feel precious in your eyes today and to know that we love them. Give our mothers strength and courage, compassion, peace and those who have passed eternal life.

Bless our mothers this day and always with your love. Amen (Adapted from a Mother’s Day Prayer found on Creighton University Ministries web site)

A Runner’s Thoughts: Run in honor of your mother today and as you run let your focus be on whatever presents itself to you during each moment of your run. Remembering that God can speak to you directly through everything you see, hear and smell!

Daily Blessing: Good afternoon everyone and once again Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you have had a great day and that you had the chance to honor your mother in some way. I always find it special honor my own mother as I celebrate mass and I was most happy to do that today.

As I mentioned yesterday this week coming up with be a long and tedious one for us Passionist and we enter into a time of chapter. It will run from Monday noon until Friday noon and we have a lot of work to get done in this short period of time. Please offer a prayer for us if you get a chance as you journey through your week!

I might not be posting very much this week but all of you will certainly be in my prayers. I pray that you will have a week blessed with the presence of God and that your travels, your encounters with others and your time alone will be rich in the joy of God grace and love. May this week be a week of blessings that will help you to encounter the joy of life! Peace in Christ’s Passion and Joy in the Risen Lord…Fr. Paul