Making a Joyful Noise through Lent 04/11/2014

Making a Joyful Noise through Lent – 04/11/2014

“The Christian ideal will always be a summons to overcome suspicion, habitual mistrust, fear of losing our privacy, all the defensive attitudes which today’s world imposes on us. Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel. For just as some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without the cross, they also want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command. Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.” (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel)

Pope Francis’ words today speak to the struggles that Jesus and Jeremiah have in our readings (Jeremiah 20: 10-13 and John 10: 31-42) today. Hopefully like Jesus and Jeremiah we will find comfort and strength in knowing that we are not alone that God is always with us!

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!

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

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, joy and hope always be within our hearts and help us to celebrate each and every day of our lives! Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: 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!

Daily Blessing: TGIF everyone! I hope you have had a good week. 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 God during these 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. Frist I head to St. Eugene’s Parish in Yonkers to give a talk at noon to a group of Passionist Associate and then I head to Notre Dame Parish of Mount Carmel, in Cedar Knolls, NJ tomorrow afternoon to begin a Holy Week Mission. I will be there from Saturday to Tuesday. The mission will be Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at 7:30 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 11:30 am Easter Sunday Mass. Yes, it will be a busy week but I love this week and I am so looking forward to it! Also I will be heading out Easter Monday for Jamaica, West Indies to give a retreat to the Passionist Volunteers International which will begin Easter Monday Evening and end the 2^nd Sunday of Easter.  So with the coming of Easter my work is still not done, in fact it is never done!

I pray today that God will bless all of you in a special way not just today but throughout the coming week. That is time will be rich in the presence of God and that you will find time to make today and the coming holy in your life. May you be blessed today with the joy, faith, hope and peace of our God who so loved the world that he gave us his only Son and if we believe God will give us the gift of eternal life. Blessings upon all today!

Be well everyone, have a great Friday and a restful and peaceful weekend. If you are in the area of Notre Dame of Mount Carmel Parish 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