Daily Thoughts - 04/01/2015

Daily Thoughts: Spy Wednesday, (Isaiah 50: 4-9a and Matthew 26: 14-25), the day when we pause to remember Judas’ actions many years ago. A companion, a friend of Jesus yet he allows the forces of darkness, the forces of evil to become more a friend than Jesus.

We do not truly know what motivated Judas. Was it his desire for money? Was it that he truly thought he would scare Jesus into changing his approach to life? Was it that he saw Jesus as a threat?  Was it that he was angry with Jesus? Had he been caught stealing money? Was he upset that Jesus challenged him at Lazarus’ house? We just don’t know the motive.

What we do know is the Judas sold Jesus out to the religious leadership. What we do know is that Judas could not admit to Jesus what he was about to do. He could not tell the truth and that until the end he continued to see himself as Jesus’ friend.

The Prophet Isaiah today reminds himself of who his friend truly is, God. That no matter what happens God is there to protect Isaiah in his ministry as prophet. It is not easy but Isaiah is faithful to his ministry and God is faithful to Isaiah, helping him through the struggle.

We encounter Isaiah’s words and in them we see Jesus. We listen to Isaiah’s words and hear Jesus speaking. Jesus is the servant who suffers, the servant who trusts in God, the servant who is abandoned by everyone except by God.

The questions for today – Are we with God or against God? Can we remain friends of Jesus or will the trappings of the world cause us to betray him? Can we trust in God even in the midst of our own struggles? It is often said that every person has her or his price, what is our price?

Blessings to all on this Wednesday of Holy Week!

Daily Prayer: At the name of Jesus every knee must bend in heaven, on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father! Loving God, help us to always be faithful and may the gods of the world not temp us into betraying our friendship with you. Grace us with the strength to always trust in your presence especially when we struggle. Help us to keep hope and joy alive through your word and sacrament! Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: If, in running we desire is to connect with God, to pray, then that is what we are doing. Keeping that desire at the forefront of our thoughts and remaining conscious of our intent is very important. Remember seek God and you will find God in every good thing!

Daily Blessing: Greetings and blessings to everyone on this Spy Wednesday and welcome to April! I hope you are having a good day and that you have not been caught in an April Fool’s joke so far today. The sun is out here in Pelham though the temperature at this time is a little on the cool side. I think it is supposed to getting a little warmer over the next two days. May the sun warm you up as you journey through you day!

I am making my final preparations today for the next three days ahead of me. As I have already mentioned I will be preaching the Triduum there Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Pelham Manor. Tomorrow I will be preaching the 7:30 pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper, then on Good Friday I will preach the 3:00 pm Service of the Lord’s Passion and on Holy Saturday I will preach the Easter Vigil beginning at 7:30 pm. So if you happen to be in the area come and celebrate with us.

Hopefully your day, today, will be filled with God’s many blessings and as I have said all week so far, I pray that you will take some time to enter into the holiness of these next few days. If not, if you are busy, please know that as I journey through them you will be held in my prayers. May prayer of blessing today is that God will bless you with the trust, the faith, the hope, the love and the joy to never give up on your relationship with God. That you will always know even in the midst of your struggles that God is always with you and that God will never leave you to face life alone! Have a blessed day. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 03/31/2015

Daily Thoughts: Troublemakers and troubleshooters are two very different types of people. Troublemakers are those people who create anxiety, frustration, agitation and cause calamity. Troubleshooters are those people who have the ability to identify, locate and eliminate the source of the disturbance. In today’s Gospel (John 13: 21-33, 36-38) Judas is a troublemaker and Jesus is a troubleshooter.

In the Gospel we are told that Jesus is deeply troubled and as we read on and picturing the scene we quickly understand why. The scene today is the Last Supper and Jesus is aware of the events ahead of him. He knows that Judas will betray him and in the midst of the supper Jesus sends him on his way. We all know what it feels like to lose a friend. We invest time, effort, our emotions and feelings only to have the person move on, decide that we are not worth the time, effort and trouble. Jesus has given three years to Judas but Judas needs to move on.

Jesus has given three years to all of his disciples yet he knows they will all run away before the night is over. One of his closest friends, Peter, will deny that he knows Jesus even though we listen to his bold statement of loyalty in the Gospel. Yes, it is a troubling time for Jesus.

However, unlike the troublemaker Judas, Jesus does not run away. He identifies the problem, the struggle, the difficulty. Jesus realizes that humankind has “fallen from love.” That is our original sin; we have fallen from God’s love. Jesus the troubleshooter is going to restore the gift of that love by his journey to the cross the empty tomb. Jesus set us free to embrace the mystery of God’s love. It is up to us to turn away from sin but through the action of Jesus, the troubleshooter, we are given the chance to once again “fall in love with God!”

As we journey through this day let us remember what Jesus has done for us. Let us look at the cross and “fall in love once again!”

Have a blessed Tuesday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Lord Jesus, we thank you for your great love. We are sorry for having troubled you by not embracing, by rejecting, by denying, by betraying your love. Help us to be people of hope, to be people of joy, to be people of faith. Help us to be people who fall in love with you again! You know the weakness of our human hearts. Grace us with hearts alive with your joy filled love. Gift us with faith filled spirits that will help us to make good choices as we journey through this life to the mystery of your everlasting love! Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: Let us run with a spirit of gratefulness. Before we begin our run let us declare our intentions to look upon all we encounter with the freshness of the unexpected. The let us run with a sense of miraculous expectation and allow our feelings of gratitude for the extraordinary and the ordinary to flow through our beings. (Adapted from Running the Spiritual Path by Roger Joslin)

Daily Blessing: Tuesday greetings and blessings to everyone! I hope your day is starting out well. It looks like a sunny start to our day here in Pelham and they say we will be a little cooler than yesterday. Hopefully the cooler temperatures will not last too long. It would be nice to see the sun and feel some warmth for at least a few days in a row. Whether your day is warm and sunny or cool may it be one touch by God’s joy!

My prayer asking for God’s blessing today is that you will all have a great day. One filled with many blessings. If you are encountering a bad day take a moment to remember that you are in my prayers and that God does love you. Perhaps that pause will help to turn the tide from a bad day to a good one. I pray that all of you will be rich in the special graces of this most holy of weeks and extravagant love of God will touch your life in many life giving ways today. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 03/30/2015

Daily Thoughts: As we begin this most Holy of Weeks our readings (Isaiah 42:1-7 and John 12: 1-11) remind us of the good of this week and the bad. We are reminded of the compassion and love of Jesus. We are reminded of the caring and friendship of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. We are reminded of the impact that Jesus had on peoples' lives. We are reminded how Judas lost his focus and turned away from Jesus.

These early days of Holy Week set the scene, the characters and the focus for the Triduum. They give us the background of the story that will lead us to Calvary and the empty tomb. They remind us of how easy it is to get lost in the trappings of the world. They remind us how easy it is be distracted by the things of the world and to not recognize the presence of God. They remind us of how hard it is to be faithful people.

The scene today also reminds of the fact the Jesus is willing to accept extravagance when it is done in love. Jesus appreciates the extravagance of Mary's true love because Jesus and the Father are always about offering true love, the true love of the Cross which we will celebrate later this week.

What extravagant gesture of love can we offer someone this week? How can we make God's presence known and felt in our world this week? Remember God never turns away from a humble and contrite heart. Let us not be like Judas, someone who cannot grasp the love and support of God, rather let us be like Martha, Mary and Lazarus people who are friends of God!

Have a blessed Monday of Holy Week everyone!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, help us to enter more deeply into this journey of Holy Week. May we always have the faith of true friendship with you. May our actions express this friendship and thus make your presence known to all that we meet. Touch us with your extravagant love so in our moments of doubt and struggle we will not turn way, but turn towards you trusting in your compassionate love. Give us hearts which are humble and open to forgiveness. Give us spirits alive with your joy and love. Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: As we run during this Holy Week let us remember that each run can help us embark on a pilgrimage of the ordinary which often leads us to the extraordinary and sacred!

  

Daily Blessing: Monday of Holy Week greetings and blessings to everyone! I hope your week is starting of well. We had a great crowd gathered last night at the 6 pm Mass at St. Francis de Sales. It was really a nice way to bring an end to Palm Sunday and enter this most Holy of Weeks!

I hope you had a great weekend and found some time for God by entering into the celebration of Palm Sunday! I will be praying that God will bless your Holy Week and fill it with many graces. May the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, the God of Peter, James and John, the God of Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph bless and be with all of us as we make this journey of Passover and Holy Week.

My prayers are with all of you today and throughout this week. Please give sometime to God this week, even if your week is a busy one. Attend one of the Triduum services, make a visit to a Church on Holy Thursday evening, take the afternoon off on Good Friday, just try to connect with God in some special way this week. You will not regret it! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 03/29/2015

Daily Thoughts: In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis invites us to renew our relationship with Jesus when he says,

“I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”. The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!”

It is my feeling that Pope Francis invitation focus us of the gift of this Holy Week. It is an invitation to once again enter a personal relationship with our God who loved us so much that he gave us his only son. As we journey through Holy Week we relive the crowning moment of Jesus’ journey, his journey of love. Today Jesus enters Jerusalem to take his last steps, steps that sum up his whole existence. He gave himself without reserve he kept nothing for himself, not even his life. May we take Pope Francis’ invitation to heart and live the joy of the Gospel proclaimed today!

As we begin this most holy of weeks, we are reminded of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. This wonderful, “Hosanna” filled day is the starting point for the central story of all the Gospels, Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection. Today, we reconnect ourselves to all those first gatherings of the Church as we listen to Mark's accounts of Palm Sunday and the Passion of our Lord. We remember the triumphant ride over the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem and the lonely walk to Calvary. We once again tell the story of triumphant, glory, hosanna, struggle, pain, sorrow, blessing, truth, giftedness, prayer and most importantly love. Like the early Church and all the centuries of Church that have gone before us, we are asked to remember, to believe, to have faith and to hope in the love of God as lived out by our Lord Jesus Christ. As we journey through this Holy Week, “May the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ Truly Be Always in Our Hearts!”

Have a holy and blessed Palm Sunday everyone!

Daily Prayer: At the name of Jesus every knee must bend, in heaven, on earth and under the earth and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus Christ is Lord!

A Runner’s Thoughts: “...the real purpose of running isn’t to win a race. It’s to test the limits of the human heart.” (Without Limits)

Daily Blessing: Palm Sunday greetings and blessings to everyone! I hope you will be taking a little time to celebrate this holy day and that you will give a little time to God.

I am looking forward to beginning this journey through Holy Week by celebrating Palm Sunday mass at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Manhattan this evening. Our community just finished a mission in the parish this week and there was a wonderful spirit to the community during the mission and I am hoping that carries over to our celebration this evening.

I will keep you in my prayers this coming week. I will be at Our Lady of Perpetual help in Pelham Manor for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I will preach the three Triduum Liturgies. Then it will be off to Jamaica, West Indies on Easter Sunday. Yes, in a way it will be a busy week but I love this week and I am so looking forward to it!

I pray in a special way for God’s blessings upon all of you as you journey through this most holy of weeks. May you truly be touch by the unfailing love of God and may the Passion of Jesus Christ be always in your hearts! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul