Daily Thoughts - 04/25/2014

Daily Thoughts: "We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace." (Pope Francis)

"To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others." (Blessed Pope John Paul II)

"Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it." (Blessed Pope John Paul II)

"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do." (Blessed Pope John XXIII)

"See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little." (Blessed Pope John XXIII)

Have a great Easter Friday everyone and don't forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, It is your desire that all should be saved. Great is your compassion and mercy because you gave us your only Son and Christ died for us all. Teach us to recognize you in all things and love you as you love us. Our prayer of deep faith today is that through the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ you will send workers into the vineyards of life to proclaim the Good Word. That through your Holy Spirit of hope you will enkindle in our hearts an ardent love that can help us to do all things, to be all things and to live in your love. Be for us the Good Shepherd today and guide along the right road to your tender love! Amen!

Daily Blessing: Happy Easter Friday to all! I hope your day is starting out well and that you will be enjoying this Friday in the Octave of Easter in some life giving ways. We begin our last full day of retreat here in Jamaica and I think it has been a good time of grace and peace for all on the journey of retreat. Please continue to keep the seven Passionist Volunteers on retreat in your prayers and also pray that wisdom will continue to touch their retreat director!

I pray for all of you today that you will once again be touch by the joy of Easter. May you be gifted today with many live giving experiences, with many encounters with God through the people you meet, with safe travels if you are traveling and with much joy and peace as you journey through this day! God's Easter blessings to all today! Peace in Christ's Passion and the Joy of the Risen Lord...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 04/24/2014

Daily Thoughts: Pope Francis in an address on April 1, 2013 said the following: "The grace contained in the sacraments of Easter is an enormous potential for the renewal of our personal existence, of family life, of social relations. However, everything passes through the human heart: if I let myself be touched by the grace of the Risen Christ, if I let him change me in that aspect of mine which is not good, which can hurt me and others, I allow the victory of Christ to be affirmed in my life."

Are we open to the grace of the Easter sacrements? Will we allow that grace to change us? Happy Easter Thursday everyone! Don't forget to make a joyful noise today!

Daily Prayer: Be with us today O God, be with us as we wake, be with us as we watch and live this day, be with us if we weep and morn, give your angels and saints charge over us when we sleep. Tend us, O Lord, if we are sick today, help us if we are weary to find rest today, jounrey with us through the last steps of life today if you are calling us. Comfort us if we are suffering today, give compassion to us if we are afflicted today and celebrate with us as we life today in your joy, We ask all of this and live this day for the sake of your love for us! Amen (Adapted from a prayer by St. Augustine of Hippo)

Daily Blessing: Easter blessing to all on the Thursday of Easter Week. I hope your day is getting off to a go start. We begin the third full day of retreat here in Jamaica. Please continue to keep the seven Passionist Volunteers in your prayers and if you have time their director also!

Have a blessed day rich in the grace of Easter. May the Risen Christ touch your life with the joy that first Easter. May you be touch by the newness of life as you encounter other, journey through your day and celebrate the gift of family and friends. Peace in Christ's Passion and the Risen Lord...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 04/23/2014

Daily Thoughts: Pope Francis in an address he gave on June 17, 2013 seemed to ask the question - Are we revolutionaries? In this address he said, " There have been so many revolutionaries in history, many indeed. Yet none of them have had the force of this revolution which brought Jesus to us: a revolution to transform history, a revolution that changes the human heart in depth. The revolutions of history have changed political and economic systems, but none have really changed the human heart.

True revolution, the revolution that radically transforms life was brought about by Jesus Christ through his resurrection.... In this day and age, unless Christians are revolutionaries, they are not Christians." So the questions remains, Are you a revolutionary?

Easter Wednesday blessings to all! Make a joyful noise with your life today!

Daily Blessing - 04/23/2014

Daily Blessing: Happy Easter Hump Day everyone! Yes, it is Easter Wednesday so our camel is decked out in Easter eggs and lilies today proclaiming the good news that it is Hump Day. I hope your day has started well and that were ever you are the sun is out or will be out and you will get to enjoy it warmth!

This is the second full day of our directed retreat Jamaica. I am directing seven very faith filled and talented volunteers. For all of them it is their first directed retreat. It is a very interesting experience for them and me, since I am usually giving preached retreats and mission. I am challenged not to talk but to listen. Please keep these seven young women and men in your prayers and also say an extra prayer when you get a chance for their director...me!

I send Easter blessings to all of you today. Yesterday in my homily at mass with the volunteers I said whenever I get to this week I think of the movie Ground Hog Day, because for these eight days of the Easter Octave each day we celebrate Easter Again. So Happy Easter and may God bless you today with the gift of Easter joy wherever you and and whatever you are doing. May you be found rich today in the grace and presence of God and may you share your Easter joy with everyone you meet. Make a joyful noise with your life today! Peace in Christ's Passion and the Risen Lord...Fr. Paul 

Making a Joyful Noise on Easter Sunday – 04/20/2014

Making a Joyful Noise on Easter Sunday – 04/20/2014

“If we think that things are not going to change, we need to recall that Jesus Christ has triumphed over sin and death and is now almighty. Jesus Christ truly lives…. Christ, risen and glorified, is the wellspring of our hope, and he will not deprive us of the help we need to carry out the mission which he has entrusted to us.

Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force. Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed. Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power.” (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel)

These words of resurrection today from Pope Francis remind us of what Easter is all about. He challenges us to believe in the empty tomb and like Mary of Magdala and disciple whom Jesus loved to believe and proclaim that believe to all we meet. There is goodness and newness of life today do we believe?  The Messiah is among us, the Messiah is one of us. Are we willing to bring the risen Christ to the world?

"The Lord is risen, Alleluia! Happy Easter everyone! I heard an interesting thought on today's Gospel last night. The question was posed why when Peter and the other disciple (John) get to the tomb, Peter goes in and John goes in but it is only John who believes? The person's answer was that after three years of traveling with Jesus, seeing him day in and day out when John saw how the cloths where left he knew that Jesus had risen because he rolled up, he folded his bed lines in just the same way every day.

It is an interesting theory, one that is only speculation; however it does lead to an important aspect of our faith journey. Believing, having faith is much easier if we have a relationship with Jesus, with God. If we spend time with God, if we share ourselves, if we allow God to share himself with us, it is much easier to have faith, to believe.

The mystery of Easter is about relationship, it is about friendship with God so that when we encounter the empty tomb we too will believe!

Easter Sunday blessings to all and don’t forget to make a joyful noise with your life today!

Easter Sunday Prayer: Loving God, you gift us today with Easter hope. We thank you for the journey that you made from Bethlehem to Calvary. We thank you for all that you have shared with us, taught us and lived for us. Grace us now with an Easter faith that looks into an empty tomb and believes. Enliven our heart to be on fire with the hope that your love is everlasting. May the Easter mystery make us proclaimers of your Word and carriers of your Light. May we truly be joy filled Easter people today and always! Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: Runners in faith today is Easter, rest, relax and enjoy family and friends and believe!

Easter Sunday Blessing: Happy Easter everyone! I hope this finds you enjoying a beautiful Easter Sunday morning. In a couple of hours I am off to celebrate the 11:30 am mass at St. Barnabas Parish in the Bronx. It will bring an end to my Lenten and Holy Week journey this year. It has been a busy one but also a faith filled one. I thank all of you for your prayers and good thoughts they certainly helped to keep me focused and spirit filled. But I need to ask you to work overtime this as I leave tomorrow morning for Jamaica, West Indies where I will be giving a retreat to the Passionist Volunteers International from tomorrow evening until next Saturday. Prayers for the volunteers and their director would be greatly appreciated!

My prayer of blessing today is that all of you will be touch by the joy of Easter, the joy of the Gospel and the joy of God’s love.  On this most holy feast of Easter, having journeyed with Jesus through his Passion, Death to this day of Resurrection may our Good and Gracious God bless you and protect you from the struggles and perils of life. May the God who so loves us that he gave us his only Son touch you with that love today and always. And through the joyous grace of Christ may God lead you to the banquet of lasting joy. Amen – Alleluia!

Enjoy your day and I hope you will get to celebrate today with family and friends! Peace in Christ's Passion - Joy in the Risen Lord...Fr. Paul