Daily Thoughts - 05/21/2016

Daily Thoughts: In reading today Gospel, we are reminded of how truly dependent children are and about the wonderful freedom and joy that they derive from that dependence.  In the Gospel Jesus is trying to help the disciples see two points with respect to allowing children to come to him.  The first is to connect his care for the children with his ministry thus far.  He had been curing people who are vulnerable, helpless or weak: a demoniac, a deaf man, a blind man and a Gentile woman’s daughter.  And now, by welcoming and blessing the children, he is involving with another group who shared the same characteristics.

The second point is that Jesus is helping his disciples understand that to truly follow him they must become essentially dependent upon him.

In our first reading today from James, we can hear James appeal to his readers to become dependent on our Lord.  If you are suffering, pray to God and depend on God to grant you the grace you need to get through the suffering.  If you are in good spirits, pray to God and give praise, recognizing that your joy is the fruit from your dependence on God.  If you have sinned, pray to God for forgiveness and depend on God’s merciful grace so that you will be at peace with God again.

Both our readings today remind us that dependence on Jesus is overwhelmingly beneficial.  Jesus is hoping that his disciples will connect with memories of their own childhoods as well as with the reality of the children right in from of them.  Children are completely dependent on their parents for everything that they need, their health, for being loved, for food and for being protected.  Because they are so dependent, they are free to enjoy each moment of their day.  Each day is filled with discovery, with the joy of being with others, with no worries about anything else.  And because of this, they can feel deeply joyful; they can go through their day and get ready to sleep with nothing left on their minds to worry about.  They can begin and end each day in peace.

Jesus invites us to do the same.  When we are physically, emotionally or spiritually suffering, he invites us to be dependent on him.  In a way, our suffering can free us from our day-to-day worries.  Some of these seem quite small when we are in pain.  And by freeing us up, by unblocking our day to day worries we find room to focus on Jesus, in other words, to become dependent upon Jesus.  When we are able to do this, we are assured by Jesus that our one step toward him will be met with an incredible amount of steps by him toward us.  As we become more dependent upon Jesus, we will feel his unconditional grace that he is constantly sharing. We will find more joy and more peace in our lives. 

Have a great Saturday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All that I am and all that I possess you have given me: I surrender it all to you to be disposed of according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and I will desire nothing more. Amen. (St. Ignatius of Loyola)

A Runner’s Thoughts: You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone. (Percy Cerutty) So to in the spiritual life…

Daily Blessing: Saturday greetings and blessings to all. I hope your day is starting off well. Right now here in Pelham it is a sunny day but they say the sun will soon be cover by clouds and the rains will be coming. So I am going to enjoy the beauty of this day for as long as I can.

Well, I made it through my first taping day. It was a long day with a few bumps along the way but all in all I think it was a good beginning. Hopefully I can build on this start and continue things moving in the right direction. We have a lot of work to do now as we will be moving the site of the Sunday Mass from St. Francis de Sales to our own Immaculate Conception Church in Jamaica, New York. As you might gather there is a lot involved in moving a production like this so it is not going to be a lazy summer!

My prayer of blessing on this Saturday morning is that this will be a day blessed in God's presence, grace and love. That it will be a day bless with wonderful experiences, safe travel, if you are traveling, and the rest and relaxation that will help you to enjoy the gift of your life! Have a great Saturday everyone and don’t forget to give God a little time this weekend. Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/20/2016

Daily Thoughts: In today's gospel, Jesus rather than debating the issue of indecency, he addresses the hardness of people’s hearts. He makes it clear that unless we invite God into our relationships, more specifically our marriages, then we enter relationships, we marry for all the wrong reasons. God offers his love and his Spirit to us so profoundly that we often find it hard to comprehend. Should our love in any personal relationship call for anything less? The capacity to do so, results from a call to a close relationship with Jesus in the Spirit.

By contrast, the majority of today’s marriages in our imperfect world end in divorce. We all witness this daily. It is hard to find anyone who has not been touched by the struggles and sadness of divorce. As much as we make an honest effort to console family and friends caught in the struggle of broken relationships often it is hard to find the right words, or any words at all. Divorce causes God deep sorrow. In our Church, the issue of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics is a painful pastoral problem which Pope Francis has tried to address but change is slow and not without its own struggles.

St. Paul felt the preservation of peace was a greater value than the preservation of an unpeaceful marriage. How many of us, know of someone, who spent more than half of their adult life working dutifully on their marriage only to watch it fall apart. As challenging and difficult as divorce and broken relationships can be, it is also hopeful when encounter people who move on to a place of diminished pain and hope for new life.

Have a blessed Friday everyone!

Daily Prayer: O God, give us insight into our friendships. Help us to see your gift of love, your presence in them. Help us to be faithful friends to others, loyal, generous and kind. Grant us the gift through our friendships to love and be loved. Bless our friends this day and always with the richness of life and the faithfulness of our love. Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: If we run as a spiritual runner let us remember that it is being a runner that matters, it is not how fast or how far we go. The joy, the gift is in running, in the journey and not always in the destination. We have the best chance of encountering our friend God, in the midst of our run when we remain focused in the present and don’t think too far ahead! (I adapted this from a quote by John Bingham, the author of No Need for Speed: A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running.)

Daily Blessing: Friday greetings and blessing to all! In a little while I will be off to Manhattan and a taping day for the Sunday Mass. This will be a special one as I will take over the role of host. It should be an interesting day to say the least. I would ask your prayers for our taping especially for patience for the production staff.

I hope your Friday will start off well and that your day will be a short one that will take you into a relaxing and fun weekend. Today is to be a sunny day here in New York and it is to be a pleasant one temperature wise too. I hope the skies will be bright, the sun will be out and the air will be warm wherever you are today.

My prayer today is that all of us will encounter the wonderful tiny whispering sound of God’s presence in our life today. That all of will be renewed in our journey, our mission in life and that in being honest with ourselves we will overcome fear, hurt, anger, loneliness, jealousy and fatigue to be the person of joy, hope and love that God has created us to be!

Enjoy your Friday and know you will all be in my prayers today and always. May your day be safe and when evening finally comes may it be blessed with rest and peace! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/19/2016

Daily Thoughts: A few years ago I ran across the following reflection by an unknown author that seems to be a good reflection for our Gospel today so I share it with you…

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are we not to be? We are children of God. Our playing small doesn’t save the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around us. We were born to make visible the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it is all of us!

And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fears, our presence automatically liberates others.

So let us not allow our salt, our flavor, to become insipid. Today let us live as the person that God has created us to be rich in the gifts of faith, hope and love, rich is all that matters to God.” (Adapted from an Unknown Writer)

Have a great Thursday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, in you is found the fullness of life and unconditional forgiveness and love. We place ourselves in your hands each day, asking that you make holy all that we are, all that we have, and all that we offer you. Keep us firm in our faith and strong in your service. Create in us a new heart, that we might find a peace that always welcomes us home. Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: Not every run need to be a search for life’s deeper meanings. Sometimes when we run we need to just “cruise!” Approach your next run with openness to the moment. Try to run unencumbered by the stress and strains of life. Look for the unexpected, look for the expected in a different way. Just cruise with God at your side!

Daily Blessing: Thursday greetings and blessings to everyone! I survived 37 eighth graders yesterday. Actually it was a good day but I also realize that my energy is much different than an eighth graders energy and sometimes I think I am getting to old for this aspect of my ministry. But then it is nice being around young people and being gifted by their openness, honesty and imagination. Please continue to keep these young people in your prayers as they journey towards Confirmation and graduation.

We are starting off the day cloudy here in Pelham, but by late morning we are to get some sun and warmer temperatures. I hope your Thursday is starting off well wherever you are.

I will be headed to the Wartburg Home later this morning for mass but most of my day will be spent preparing for our Sunday Mass taping day tomorrow. I am looking forward to stepping into my new role and excited about the challenges of tomorrow!

Well my friends, my prayer is that you will have a great day. May whatever this day becomes for you be life giving. May whomever you meet bring a positive spirit to your day. May any travels this day be easy and safe. May God’s love and presence be with you and all whom you love today and always! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/18/2016

Daily Thoughts: The message of Jesus today is a very simple one, but often we don’t want to hear it.  Help the poor, love our enemies and don’t be so obsessed with wealth and power. All wonderful ideas and ones we cheer with our whole heart. Well, most of it.

Today’s readings challenge us not to be so confident and self-assured. Not to be arrogant. In the first reading, James cautions us not to count on our own plans to get us through life because “you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.”

Maybe that lack of control in life is what makes us less willing to turn our life so completely over to God. In the morning, we can pray to surrender our whole life to Jesus. Then we spend the rest of the day wresting it back from him a little at a time. “Let us have just this one part back,” We will bargain. “Oh, and that one, too.”

We don’t like not being in control and all Jesus is asking is that we trust in him more. We don’t have to know what is over the next hill or the next week. But if we trust in Jesus’ presence in our life and in his loving care for us, whatever does come in life will be easier for us, whether we are in “control” or not.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Daily Prayer: May God the Father who made us bless us. May God the Son send his healing among us. May God the Holy Spirit move within us and give us eye to see with, ears to hear with, and hands that your work might be done. May we walk and preach the word of God to all. May the angel of peace watch over us and lead us at last by God’s grace to the kingdom. Amen. (Prayer by St. Dominic)

A Runner’s Thoughts: “I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days.” (Ronald Rook) So too in the spiritual life…

Daily Blessing: Wednesday greetings and blessings to all! Well we survived the leaving of Very Special Agent Anthony Di Nozzo last night on NCIS. Not what I expected but a rather unique way to move him along and begin a new era. If you are not an NCIS fan then it was another night in the never ending saga of The Donald, Hillary and Bernie. Ah, would it be nice if they all just move on to somewhere other than here!

It looks to be another cloudy day here in Pelham perhaps with some rain or not. I think we are to get near 70 today. I hope it is a nicer day by you! I will be off in the little while to St. Joseph’s Seminary to conduct a Confirmation Day with the students of St. Barnabas School. This is the second half of the Confirmation class. If you remember I had a day with the first half last month. If you get a chance, please offer a prayer for these eight graders as they make their final preparation for Confirmation today. And a little prayer for their presenter would be greatly appreciated!

My prayer of blessing is a prayer asking for healing. So often I am asked to pray for someone who is struggling with illness or some other kind of difficulty. I always say that I will certainly pray for them but today I would like to bring that prayer to you. O God, I pray today bringing before you all who are in need your healing touch. Grant my friends, my family and all who ask for my prayers, comfort in their struggles. If they are afraid give them courage. If they are afflicted, ill, struggling, depressed, confused, frustrated give them patience. If they are dejected afford them hope. If they feel alone assure them of your presence and my prayers and the prayers of many. Bless them with your healing. Bless all who read this blog, this prayer of blessing today with your loving presence. Amen! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/17/2016

Daily Thoughts: In our Gospel today we encounter Jesus as teacher and a moment in his journey of teaching.  The task of a teacher is often a very difficult one, so was Jesus’ task as teacher.  His students were his disciples, were mostly women and men long past their childhood.  Most of them did not have much formal schooling.  They were not ideal students and teaching them was not always easy.  There was no classroom and there was none of our modern teaching equipment and technology.  The teaching of Jesus was often done in the open air and subject to many distractions for the students.  The teaching was often done, as in our story today, while the group traveled on foot.  Such obstacles were frustrating for Jesus.  He sometimes expressed his frustration with his disciples, especially with their slow progress of understanding, of believing.

On this journey through Galilee with his disciples, Jesus was a teacher.  He explained the things that he wanted them to learn.  For the second time he predicted his coming passion and death.  Yet, once again his disciples didn’t understand what he meant, and they were afraid to ask any questions.  They probably feared that any questions they might ask would reveal their failure to understand. And, of course, they did not want to be seen as ignorant by the other disciples.  How little has changed over the centuries.  How often have we had a teacher tell us: “If there is something you don’t understand, let me know.”  And yet how often do we find that difficult because we fear to show our ignorance? 

In spite of these difficulties, Jesus continued his teaching.  Even with his disciples fearing to ask questions, he kept to his mission.  Jesus had all the characteristics of a good teacher.  He excelled in patience and kept repeating the most important lessons that he wanted his disciples to learn.  He also made good use of parables and stories to explain the meaning of his teaching.  Gradually the disciples came to learn and understand the important lessons that Jesus wanted to teach them.

Today Jesus is still teaching us through the words of the Gospel.  The most important teachings of Jesus are repeated often in the Gospel readings at Mass.  All of us are encouraged to familiarize ourselves with the teachings of Jesus through our own reading of the Gospel stories.  Sometimes we refer to those who read the scriptures often as students of the bible.  All of us can be students in this sense.  The more we read about the teachings of Jesus, the better we will understand them.  And as we come to a better understanding of Christ’s teachings, we will become, like the disciples, true followers, true believers, in other words faith filled friends of Jesus. 

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Daily Prayer: O God, in whom all things live, who commanded us to seek you, who are always ready to be found: to know you is life, to serve you is freedom, to praise you is our soul’s delight. We bless you and adore you, we worship you and magnify you, we give thanks to you for your great glory, though Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer by St. Augustine of Hippo)

A Runner’s Thoughts: “Life is for participating, not for spectating.” (Kathrine Switzer) So to in the spiritual life…faith is for participating, not spectating!

Daily Blessing: Tuesday greetings and blessing to all. I hope your Tuesday has started well. I think we are in for some rain today and temperatures are going to be on the cool side once again. But hopefully it will be a good day in many other ways and I pray the same will be true for you wherever you are.

I am headed into Manhattan later this morning to do a little preparation work for my Friday debut as host of the Sunday Mass. I am going to meet with media coach in the hopes of finding my own TV persona and thus beginning a bit more relaxed at my new ministry. It should be an interesting day!

My prayer of blessing today is that your Tuesday has started off well and will continue to be a good day. May God bless your work, your interactions with others, your travels, your relationships and most importantly you today! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/16/2016

Daily Thoughts: If you Have every had the chance or taken the time to read the Gospel of Mark straight through, you will notice that the disciples of Jesus come across as particularly dense, especially in chapters 8 through 10. They simply don’t “get it.” They are spiritually blind and deaf. “Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?” Jesus asks at 8:18. Three times in the next two chapters, Jesus speaks of his coming death and resurrection, and each time the disciples’ response is one of self-centeredness and that of people missing the point. Each time this happens Jesus tries to teach them that following him requires that they let go of their efforts to “save themselves” and begin to serve one another.

Today’s Gospel gives another example of the disciples’ clumsiness.

Today’s Gospel reading is about the father with demonized boy and it becomes another story of a failure for the disciples that Jesus must rescue them from. A distraught father tells Jesus how he brought his boy to the disciples to drive out a demon but they were unable to do so. “O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?” And Jesus appears to be saying this about his disciples. He also confronts the dad when the poor man asks for help: “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus says to him, “If you can! Everything is possible to one who has faith.” Then the boy’s father cries out, “I do believe. Help my unbelief!”

So Jesus with a command that expels the unclean spirit and then with a simple gesture raises the boy from what looked like death. When the disciples ask Jesus later, “Why could we not do it?” Jesus says, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

It is pretty clear why Mark includes this episode here. In his picture of the disciples, he dares to portray them with the characteristics that are, no doubt, embodied the Christian community he writes for. That would also include us. In other words, if the shoe fits. Jesus’ message is loud and clear, if our lives and work are not the life giving and redemptive lives that Jesus promised, the fault may be in our failure simply to pray.

And if we wonder how we should pray, the distraught father provides what is probably the perfect prayer for most of us, most of the time: “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!”

Have a great Monday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Grant us Lord, to know what is worth knowing, to love what is worth loving, to praise what delights you most, to value what is precious in your sight, to hate what is offensive to you. Do not let us judge by what we see, nor pass judgment according to what we hear, but to judge rightly between things that differ and above all to search out and to do what pleases you the most. May we do all this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Adapted from a prayer by Thomas Á Kempis)

A Runner’s Thoughts: “A [person] can fail many times, but he [or she] isn’t a failure until he [or she] begins to blame somebody else.” (John Burroughs)

Daily Blessing: Monday greetings and blessings to all. I hope your Monday is starting off well. It looks to be a sunny but cool day here is Pelham I hope that same is true wherever you are. Well we closed the Easter Season yesterday with the celebration of Pentecost and today we find ourselves back in Ordinary Time. Perhaps for some today does feel ordinary but for others this time in life seems anything but ordinary. Wherever you find yourself may today be a day truly blessed by the presence of God in some way.

In an hour or so I head out to the dentist and then I will spend the rest of the day preparing for the week ahead as this week will be anything but ordinary for me. Friday will be my first taping day as the new Executive Producer of the Sunday Mass. I am sure the nervousness and anxiety will build as I make my way towards Friday. I have watched Fr. Edward hundreds of time introduce and close the Sunday Mass and it seems like a simple process but once in front of the camera it is a whole different feeing and experience. I think I will be spending a lot of time in front of the mirror this week practicing.

My friends, hopefully your day and week will be less stressful then mind. My prayer for you today is that God’s blessing will be with you today and always. May the richness of who you are as a person created in the image and likeness of God touch the lives of all you meet. May you bring God’s presence to every experience and each moment of this day. May the world you journey through be a better place because of you today. And at the end of the day may you smile with the tired satisfaction that because of you today was a good day! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/15/2016

Daily Thoughts: Before I begin my reflections this morning first let me say that I am sorry for offering you the wrong reflections yesterday. It was early in the morning and I looked at the readings for Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter forgetting that May 14^th is the feast of St. Matthias. I hope you were not too confused!

As we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost today I am using the readings, Acts 2:2-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7,12-13; and John 20:19-23. These are the traditional readings for Pentecost there are other options for Cycle C but I have chosen for my reflections to use these readings.

“Different gifts but the same Spirit!” It is hard sometimes to trust in the gifts that we have. We always seem to look across the fence at the other side and think it looks better. We tend to see what other people do and think, “If only I could be like Mike!”

The key to overcoming our struggle with the Spirit is to remember, that every gift comes from the same Spirit. In other words we all have a common origin, we all are gifted. The challenge is not, are we the best, the brightest, the most powerful, the most important, the most well-known, the strongest, the most gifted. The challenge is how do we give life to the gifts we have? How do we speak and act so that when others hear and encounter us they come to know the mighty acts of God?

St. Paul was very creative when he used the image of the body to represent our relationship with God, our relationship with Jesus. It is one body with all of us as members, as parts. All of us are necessary for the body to work, to function, to have life, with each member, each part valuable and important. Some members, some parts may stand out more than others, but it is the sum of the parts working together take makes the body visible, strong and life giving.

Yes, today we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We celebrate being one of the many gifts of the Spirit. We celebrate being a part of Christ’s body. We celebrate being a member and hopefully like the disciples on the first Pentecost we give life to the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we have received so that all will hear through us in a language they understand that proclaims the mighty acts of God in the world today.

Have a great Pentecost Sunday everyone! And may the Spirit of God’s peace be with you today and always. Let the Holy Spirit fill your hearts with the Passion of Jesus Christ and bring to life the fire of God’s love within you!

Daily Prayer: Breathe in us, O Holy Spirit, that our thoughts, our ideas, our words, may all be holy. Act in us, O Holy Spirit, that our works, our labors, our actions, our living of life too, may be holy. Embrace our hearts, O Holy Spirit, that we may love and be love in a holy way. Strengthen us, O Holy Spirit, that our lives may represent all that is life giving and holy. Protect us, O Holy Spirit, that we always may be your gifts of hope and life in this world. Amen! (Adapted for a Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Saint Augustine)

A Runner’s Thoughts: Running is about the physical, the mental and the emotional sides of our lives. It challenges us in physical, mental and emotional ways. Will our bodies respond, will they hold up, will they get us back home or to the finish line? Will our minds let us move beyond the pain and the struggle? Can we overcome the fear? Will we give in to what seems easier? Yes, running is about the physical, the mental and the emotional sides of our lives, however running is also about the spiritual. It is about breathing in the breath of God, the Holy Spirit. Running is about giving life to the gift of who God has created us to be!

Daily Blessing: Pentecost greetings and blessings to all! It is a beautiful morning here in Pelham and the forecast calls for a sunny windy day with temperatures in the 60’s. No rain in sight at least for today. What a great day for celebrating the Feast of Pentecost.

I hope your Pentecost Sunday has started out well and that you will have a good if not great day. Just a reminder to give the Holy Spirit a little time today too!

May God bless you with an enjoyable day especially among family and/or friends. Through God’s Spirit may this day offer you some rest and relaxation so that you might enjoy the gifts of the Holy Spirit within and around you!

I will leave you today with this thought from Thomas Merton, “Love is the guarantee that the life of the Spirit is growing in us. Love is the sign of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church and in the world.” So may God bless you with much love today and may you love much today my friends! Peace in Christ’s Passion and Joy in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit…Fr. Paul