Daily Thoughts - 01/09/2016

Daily Thoughts: I have always been struck by John the Baptist’s words in the last line in today's Gospel, "He must increase; I must decrease." What a meditation on faith! When you think about it are not John’s words our challenge each day and perhaps our hardest challenge?

The world around us tells us every day to increase. Increase what we have, what we want, what we desire, what we need, who we are! Our economy is built on increasing, increase spending so we can increase building, producing, creating and thus increase profits. When we finally leave home all we want to do is increase because the world tells us we are defined by what we have, what we have achieved, what we own, what we have accumulated. As is often quoted, "The one with the most toys wins!"

Yet, what John is telling us in the Gospel today is that for us to be people of faith, we must decrease so that Jesus, so that God, can increase in our lives. It is not about being the greatest, the best, the biggest, the most powerful, or the most important. It is about God. John had it all. He was liked, he was loved, he was important, he was powerful, and he had all the attention. However, for him, all of this was not as important as his relationship with God. He knew what he was about. He knew his mission and it was time for God to be the most important focus and all John could do was rejoice!

Sometimes we think God is not present, God is always present, at home, at school, at work, in the government, everywhere. The problem is not where is God – but that we have made ourselves too big so we and others cannot see God!

Can we let go of the world, let go of what the world says is important and let God? Can we recognize our mission, our ministry, our relationship and let God be the focus? Can we decrease and let God increase in our life and in the world? Tough questions for tough times, but if we are willing the end result is great joy!

Have a great Saturday everyone!

Daily Prayer: O God, nothing is more practical than find You, that is, than falling in love with You, in an absolute, final way. What we are in love with, what seizes our imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get us out of bed in the morning, what we do with our evenings, how we spend our weekends, what we read, who we know, what breaks our heart, and what amazes us with joy and gratitude. O God, helps us to fall in love with You and stay in love, and it will decide everything today and always. Amen (Adapted from a prayer by Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ)

A Runner's Thoughts: “Being a runner means you are now free to win and lose and live life to its fullest.” (Bill Rodgers) Run today recognizing the motion of life and flow with it, let go of all your preconceptions of God, be open to the vast, unlimited opportunities to connect with God in new and evolving ways as you run.

Daily Blessing: Saturday greetings and blessings to all! I hope your day has started off well. It is a mild but cloudy day here in Pelham. It looks a lot like rain though I think it might hold off until tomorrow. I hope it is a nice day weather wise wherever you are.

The retreat finished up rather nicely yesterday. Thank you for all your prayers for the men on retreat. They have a long journey to priesthood ahead of them and it will not be easy.

Before I forget I would like to send a shout out to my friend, classmate and fellow Passionist, Fr. Chris Cleary, C.P. on his birthday. Happy Birthday, Chris and many blessings today and always and yes you can use as many puns as you want today!

May God bless all of us this day with the gift of his presence, his hope, his joy and his love. May God bless up with the grace to trust in his presence so that like St. John the Baptist that we might come to realize that we to must decease and let God increase in our lives today and always.

Enjoy your Saturday everyone, have a great day with many blessings, a little rest and much peace! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 01/08/2016

Daily Thoughts: "Lord if you wish, you can make me clean. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I do will it. Be made clean. And the leprosy left him immediately." I think the key elements of this story are the person's faith in Jesus, the willingness of Jesus to heal and Jesus' touch. Maybe the most important element is Jesus' touch, his willingness to be connected with someone who is unclean by the standards of culture, society and religion.

Today whether we are talking about our culture, society or even our church the usual response is to disconnect ourselves from someone defined as unclean. Yet, Jesus sought to be connected. He did not want to push them away from the community but to bring them into the community.

The Feast of the Epiphany which we celebrated last Sunday was about the universal nature of Christ's presence in the world. Jesus confirms that nature today by reaching out to one who has been pushed out of the community. It is a profound moment, it is a challenge to all of us who proclaim we believe. Do we wish, do we will that all belong to the community no matter what? Jesus does and he was willing to step across a boundary to make sure that it happens. Are we?

Perhaps like Jesus it is a commitment to prayer that will help us to, wish it and will it. It is through prayer, our conversation with God, that we will find the strength to walk with Jesus across the boundaries imposed and bring others to the community, to friendship with God!

Have a great Friday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, we know that you wish your community of faith to include everyone. Help us to break down the barriers, to across the boundaries that our world, our culture, our society, our institutions create to bring mercy and healing to all your people. Help us to be committed to prayer, to our conversation with you, so that we will always have the strength to share with others the healing power of your love! Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: “Being a runner means you are now free to win and lose and live life to its fullest.” (Bill Rodgers) Run in a new place today, for new places can stretch our capacity for finding the presence of God as we run!

Daily Blessing: Friday greetings and blessing to all. I hope your day has started off well. It is still dark out so I am not sure what this day will bring. I think the temperature is to be on the mild side but the day is to be cloudy and rainy. If that is so that will make the drive back to New York not so nice later today. Well I hope the weather is better by you today.

I hope everyone has had a good week. It certainly has been a good week here in Baltimore at least from my perspective. The retreat seems to have gone well. Please offer a prayer for these men as their retreat comes to an end later this morning and they head back to the seminary to begin their second semester and continue their discernment for the priesthood. A little extra prayer for their preacher to finish well and travel safely would be great appreciated too.

My prayer of blessing today for all of us is a simple one - may we all have a day filled with many blessings and much grace where ever we find ourselves. If we are on the road or away from home or just have to travel each day may we return home safely this evening to begin a restful weekend with the people most important in our lives! And if our schedule for today and this weekend calls for busyness may we find some quiet, restful and peaceful time during the busyness! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 01/07/2016

Daily Thoughts: Today’s Gospel (Luke 4:14-22a) presents us with a moment in Jesus' early ministry when he returns home perhaps for a weekend visit. This story whenever as I read it always seems to paint two pictures for me, one of a moment in the life of Jesus and the other a moment in our own lives.

The moment in Jesus' life is pretty straight forward he returns home and like a good young man honors his faith by going to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He is now a wise young man with a reputation as a preacher so he is honor by being asked to do the reading. So he stands up and is handed the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and proceeds to read the passage where Isaiah says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..."

This a very familiar passage to us and the community gather for prayer that day. After the reading Jesus just sits down but everyone there is in awe of him and all eyes are focused on Jesus. After what probably were a few moments of awkward silence, Jesus simple says, "Today this Scripture passage if fulfilled in your hearing." Perhaps in other words, "Folks, this is what my life is going to be about, today my ministry starts!" With those words everyone is even more amazed! A pretty straightforward picture wouldn't you say?

Now as for the second picture of us – every one of us have had a moment like Jesus. We have been in our own parish church perhaps for a sacrament, baptism, confirmation, first communion, marriage and a community has gathered. At some point during that sacrament all eyes are

on us, watching us receive baptism, receive communion, take our vows, be anointed with oil. After the mass or the service people have come up to us and congratulated us and speak highly of us because of this special moment in our lives.

The difference between Jesus' picture and ours is that we know the end of Jesus' story. We know he did fulfill the words of Isaiah by the way he lived, died and rose for the death. However, we don't know the end of our story! Will we fulfill the words of our baptism, our confirmation, our marriage, our priesthood, our religious life, our Eucharist?

Today we are asked once again to love and in doing so to live that love as best we can by bringing the gift and presence of God to the world. We are asked to stand up and proclaim the Good News with our life and let that proclamation be fulfilled in the way we live our faith! So my friends, stand tall, love richly and live fully today and always!

Have a great Thursday everyone!

Daily Prayer: O God, help us to live life to its fullest, loving richly, acting justly and walking humbly with you our loving God. Help us to bring life to the Good News that we proclaim by the living of our lives so that all who hear and see will know the gift of your merciful love. Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: “Anything worth doing is going to be difficult.” (Fauja Singh) Always run open to discovering the strength that you did not know you had, let that strength be the very Spirit of God's presence in your life!

Daily Blessing: Thursday greetings and blessings to all. Once again it is a cold morning here in Baltimore but hopefully like yesterday the sun will come out and things will warm up a little at least enough to take a walk or a run this afternoon. I hope the weather by you is helping to invigorate life for you.

We are in our last full day of retreat. Tomorrow there will only be a morning session. I think the retreat is going well. We had a nice informal session last night and the men seemed to be into the retreat. I once again ask you to continue to pray for the men on retreat that this time of retreat will help to strengthen their vocational journey if that is what God is truly calling them to and if you could say a little extra prayer for the preacher it would be greatly appreciated.

My prayer of blessing today is that God will continue to bless all of us with his life giving presence and that God will grace us with the strength and energy to share that presence wherever we go and with whomever we meet! Blessings to all today, have a great day, stay warm and know that God is with you! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul