Daily Thoughts - 06/04/2016

Daily Thoughts: Today we celebrate the second half of the Church’s focus on the heart. Yesterday we celebrated the Sacred Heart of Jesus and today it is Mary’s Immaculate Heart that we honor. There are many things we can say about Mary’s heart but the virtue that stands out most to me about Mary is strength. I think Mary’s heart was truly a heart of strength.

In the Gospel today Luke tells us that Mary kept all the experience of Jesus in her heart. She kept the joys and sorrows, the miracles and the opposition, the quiet moments and the great crowds, the mother and father moments of family and the community moments of discipleship. Mary kept the triumphant moments of shepherds, angels, kings and palms and failing moments of whips, nails, wooden crosses and death on a hill. Yes, Mary kept all things in her heart so she needed a very strong heart to hold all the experiences of life that she encountered from early on. Mary was truly a woman, a mother of great strength, a strength that came from and was nourished, feed and supposed by her heart.

The heart is central to who we are as a human being. Whether we are speaking about our physical, emotion or spiritual life the heart plays a central role in how we live our life. Mary’s heart was a heart of strength carrying the grace of God’s presence in her life. Her strength enabled her to say “yes” to God and then watch as that “yes” unfolded in the life, passion, death and resurrection of her son, Jesus.

Mary, woman of strength, hold us in your heart that we too may be strong in living our journey of life!

Have a great Saturday everyone!

Daily Prayer:

All Loving God, as we honor the Immaculate Heart of Mary this day, we ask that by the help of her prayers we might strengthen our own hearts and come to share your blessings this day and always.

O holy Mary, mother of all mercy, you are our life, our love and our hope. This day we call out to you, in all our humanness, in all our failings. To you we send our prayers, our thoughts, our tears, our joys. Turn your eyes, O most loving Mother toward us that we might always hold the presence of your Loving Son in our lives.

O Compassionate, O Loving, O Tender Mother Mary. Direct our prayers always though Christ, your Son, our Savior.  Amen! (Adapted from the Prayer - Hail Holy Queen)

A Runner’s Thoughts: One way to look at running is as a tool, a device or practice that aids the user in our quest to pray. If we are intent about moving along the spiritual path, then it only makes sense to use those aspects of our live that already fill our days. So spend some time in prayer today go for a run! (Adapted from Roger Joslin)

Daily Blessing: Saturday greetings and blessings to all on this Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! I hope everyone’s Saturday is starting off well and that you will have a productive day or a restful day or maybe even both!

We finished the first phase of the move of The Sunday Mass from Manhattan to Jamaica Queens yesterday. All of the lighting and electric elements were moved from St. Francis de Sales into storage at Immaculate Conception Church. Another day will need to be dedicated to moving all of our other equipment and things. Slowly but surely our new home for The Sunday Mass will begin to take shape.

It is a sunny morning here in Pelham. It looks to be a nice day temperature wise. And you might say it is a beautiful day to drive to Brooklyn and begin a mission at St. Ephrem’s Parish. I will head out in midafternoon as I will be preaching all the masses today and tomorrow. The mission will begin Monday and end on Wednesday. If you are in or near the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn come and join us for this late spring mission!

My prayer of blessing today is that God will bless all of you with a beautiful day, one in which you will celebrate the gift of life with family, friends and people who enjoy life. May you be blessed with a day that is fun and filled with moments and people of joy and hope. May you be blessed with a day of rest and enjoyment. Please know as always, you are in my prayers and be safe if you are traveling today. Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/03/2016

Daily Thoughts: Our focus today and tomorrow is the “heart,” The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The heart is the center of who we are, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is the place where we often think of God’s presence within us.

Think for a moment, in a physical way the heart is the center of who we are. It is the pump that pushes life through us. Without it we can do nothing. All our other organs, muscles, bones and assorted other things are important but it is the heart that keeps us alive that makes everything we do, say and feel possible.

Emotionally the heart is central to what we feel. It is the home of the emotions. On February 14th we do not receive or send a card with a gallbladder on the front that says, “I love you!” No we send or receive a card with a heart on the front. The heart is the place of feelings and emotions. If we were to write a song, a poem or a story about love we would talk about the heart. A broken heart means we have lost at or been hurt by love.

In a spiritual way the heart is important too. The heart in a spiritual sense is the dwelling place of God. In the Old Testament, the psalmists and prophets talked about the community or individual who was without God as having a stony heart. A stony heart has no room for God, is closed to the presence of God.

So we might say the heart sits at the center of who we are as human beings. These two days remind us of just how important the heart is to us. Jesus and Mary had hearts that lead them through their journeys of life.

Jesus’ Sacred Heart teaches us about love. It is a heart full of the kind of love and mercy that leaves no one behind. Sometimes that love and mercy seem foolish but not in the eyes and heart of Jesus. Every person is valuable, ever person is important; every person is worth searching for. Now this doesn’t mean that everyone will be found because some of us don’t want to be found and some of us even when found don’t want to return. But the love of Jesus’ Sacred Heart will always look, will always search and will always wait.

This Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is about love, but it is also about hope; the hope that God is always searching, looking and waiting for us because we are that special, that important. The question for today is, “Can we believe in our value, can we believe in our specialness, can we believe in God’s love for us, can we hope in the fact that God will find us and through his mercy bring us home?”

Have a great Friday everyone!

Daily Prayer: We come to you Jesus on the Feast of your Sacred Heart, for you are our refuge and our hope. You are the strength that keeps us going through all that is wrong in the our lives, the forgiveness for all our faults and failings, the comfort for all our struggles, the peace for all our anxieties, the enhancement for all our imperfections, and the hope in all our prayers.

You are the only one who never wearies of us and who offers us grace in the midst of our faults, because you love us so much with an infinite love. You are the one always in search of us especially when we follow a different path.

So we ask you loving Jesus, to have mercy on us and do with us, and be for us, and be within us, whatever you want. We give our hearts to you, hoping that the gift of love that flows from your most Sacred Heart will never leave us to face the struggles and difficulties of life alone.  Amen.

A Runner’s Thoughts: Holiness is not something we can build into a run. Running does not make us holy. However, we can make our run holy by bringing to our run a sense of God’s Presence. Thus we can transform our run from the ordinary to the sacred. (Adapted from Roger Joslin- Running the Spiritual Path)

Daily Blessing: Friday greetings and blessings to all. We are to have a rainy Friday here in Pelham but right now I cannot tell what the weather is going to do because the sun hasn’t risen yet. So only time will tell if we are to have a rainy day here.

I am starting the day rather early because I have a lot to do. I have two masses this morning. One at Mount St. Michael’s High School and the second at the Wartburg Home. Then it will be on to our monastery and parish in Jamaica, New York as the first phase of The Sunday Mass move takes place. Everything from St. Francis de Sales Parish will be brought to Jamaica and stored until we begin the renovation of the lower church for the new site of The Sunday Mass. I will be there to supervise the drop off end of the move. Then it will be back to Pelham in order to make final preparations to hit the road on Saturday for a three week run of missions and retreats. You might say, things are getting busy again!

I hope your Friday has started off well wherever you are and in whatever you are doing. The official start to the weekend is not far away so I pray that God will bless these morning and afternoon hours of your Friday so that they will go quickly and bring you into the gift of another weekend. I pray that you and those you love will be blessed by God’s Love as we celebrated it in the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus today. If you are traveling be safe, if you are busy working be safe. Most of all may you be blessed with a Friday you can enjoy and may it be filled with interesting people, wonderful experiences, fun, joy, faith, hope, mercy and the presence of God! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/02/2016

Daily Thoughts: I have always liked the story that we find in today’s Gospel (Mark 12: 28-34). I especially like the end when Jesus looks at the scribe and says, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” It is perhaps the only moment in the Gospels when Jesus and the scribes are on the same page. There is a mutual understanding, a mutual respect at this moment in the struggle between Jesus and the religious leaders of his time. It is a nice thing to see. Would that this kind of understand and respect would happen between leaders of all kinds during our time.

The respect and understanding centers around the two great commandments, love of God and love of neighbor and we might say there is a third, love of self, because Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As Jesus teaches and the scribe comes to understand, these are the two or three great commandments and everything else flows from them, which might explain why we find ourselves in the struggles that we are in today.

If we just look around at our world, our culture, our society, our church the problems that we find relate to the way we live out or perhaps better said, don’t live out these commandments. Our struggles can be directly related to how we don’t value God and perhaps more importantly how we don’t value others or ourselves. We might even say that our struggles as a culture, society, church and a world can be traced to the lack of love that we have for ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves how can we love others, how can we love God?

Love is not just wanting the best for ourselves, others and God. Love is a respect, a reverence for life, for who we are as individuals, as a culture, as a society, as a church, as a world. Love is finding the good in ourselves, others and God. Love is seeing God in others and in ourselves. Love is seeing, acknowledging, and accepting the differences in ourselves and others but most importantly still being able to find God.

Our challenge today and every day is to put into practice these three great commandments. Our challenge is to wake up each day in love with God, our neighbor and ourselves!

Have a great Thursday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, strengthen us with the power to love through your Spirit in our inner most being. Fill our hearts with your presence and please do not leave us to face the struggles of life alone. Help us to grasp how wide and long and high and deep your love is for us. And, above all, grace us with the understanding that your love surpasses all knowledge and give us the courage to always share it with others. Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.” (Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own”)

Daily Blessing: Thursday greetings and blessings to everyone! I hope your day has started off well and that your week is going smoothly. If not be assured that you are in my prayers with the hope that things will get better!

It looks to be another beautiful sunny day here in Pelham with the temperature not as warm as previous days. I hope you are enjoying the beauty of spring wherever you are today.

I celebrated National Running Day yesterday with a 10.2 mile run it was also my third day of 10 or more miles of running. I am starting to build daily and weekly mileage as I continue to prepare for my ultra-marathon in September. The next thing I need to add to my runs is a backpack weighing about 10 to 12 pounds. I need to get use to running with a backpack as I will need to do it in the September race.

Well friends, I hope you have a great day. My prayer of blessing is that whatever this day becomes in your life that it will be life giving and grace filled. May you and whoever you meet bring a positive spirit to this day. May God’s love be with you and all those you love today and always! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 06/01/2016

Daily Thoughts: In today's Gospel reading, Mark considers the problem of life after death and its implications.  Jesus takes the side of the Pharisees, believing in resurrection from the dead, as opposed to the view of the Sadducees.  This is one of the reasons why Jesus frustrated the Pharisees so much:  although he seemed to be one of them according to this criterion, he refused to interpret Scripture as literally as they did or to put as much importance on a strict and literal interpretation of the Law.  He goes beyond (not against) what many Old Testament texts seem to assume concerning both life after death.

The wider question which Jesus is addressing here is how we are to interpret Scripture.  A literal interpretation is easy for us to understand and so to follow, at least insofar as our having confidence in doing the right thing is concerned.  Anyone who is actually willing to come to grips with Scripture, however, soon recognizes that this approach has its problems.

The interpretation of the Scriptures is best left to the scholars, what is important for us is how we as individuals read Scripture and draw sustenance from God through it.

What I am referring to here is prayer. If we are to have a living friendship with God we need to be in conversation with him.  Scripture, as the Word of God, plays an important role here but cannot be taken literally or assumed to have only one "message" in a given passage. Scripture is rather a place where we listen to what God says through a particular passage.  The Spirit will lead us to pay attention to one aspect of that reading, to a word or expression, or will inspire us with a new understanding of ourselves and who we are. 

What is most important here for us is first that we actually pray, regularly, with or without using the Scripture, and then that we reflect on what we are doing and what we experience in prayer.  And then go on to live in the strength of that Word.

Mark’s Gospel today ends with the great affirmation that God is the God of the living and we encounter this living God first and foremost through prayer. God is not just waiting for us to just survive life, God is actively nudging in the midst of prayer and other ways to give life to his kingdom each and every day.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Jesus, fill us, we pray, with your light and life that we may show forth your wonderful glory. Grant that your love may so fill our lives that we may count nothing too small to do for you, nothing too much to give, and nothing too hard to bear. Amen (Prayer by St. Ignatius of Loyola)

A Runner’s Thoughts:
“If someone could find a way to bottle motivation, he [or she] would make a fortune.” (Hal Higdon) and in honor of Global Running Day – “I’m more of an alone kind of runner. When you’re by yourself, it’s you, the trail, and your thoughts.” (Reggie Miller) I have to agree with Reggie on this one!

Daily Blessing: Wednesday greetings and blessings to all. Welcome to June! I hope your day and your June is starting off well. It is another warm beautiful sunny day here in Pelham and I hope the weather is just as nice by you! Though I know that in some parts of the country, like Texas, people are struggling with Mother Nature!

I would like to send a shout out to my sister-in-law, Rosemarie and my brother, James on their 31^st Wedding Anniversary. Many blessings today and always. I hope you will take a little time to enjoy the memories of this day!

My prayer of blessing today is that your day will be blessed with many wonderful and life giving experiences. I pray that you will take sometime today to smell the flowers, to enjoy the colors of creation and to let yourself be loved! I also pray that sometime today you will spend a little time speaking with God. So may the blessings of God’s love be with you today and always. Have a great day everyone and continue to know that wherever you are and wherever your life brings you today you are in my prayers! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

PS Today is Global Running Day, I know that to most of you this has no meaning whatsoever but I have pledged to run at least 8 miles today. So to all runners across the globe happy running today!

Daily Thoughts - 05/31/2016

Daily Thoughts: “How does this happen to me?”  We have used some form of this saying at times in our life; probably most often out of frustration. “Why is this happening to me?”  The frustration of bad things happening to good people or the frustration of being in a situation we would prefer not being in. Seeing something bad happen to family, friends or seemingly good people in life struggle. These words echo each time we encounter the tragedies of life; natural disaster like tornados, powerful storms, floods or unnatural disasters like terrorist bombs, gun violence, war, tragic accidents and we say “why is this happening?”

Yet these words spoken by Elizabeth today, “How does this happen to me?” are spoken out of excitement and joy. This ordinary woman encounters the mother of God, what a great gift! It is such a wonderful moment that all present are moved to celebrate even the child in her womb. It is not a time of frustration or struggle; it is a time of joy and hope.

I have been to Israel many times and one of my favorite stops has always been the village of Ein Karem. There you will find the Church of St. John the Baptist and to the southwest high on a hill the Church of the Visitation. Even though it is a rather steep hill and a difficult walk the Church of the Visitation is always a great treat and the words that always come to mind are, “It is good for us to be here!” As you enter the courtyard of the Church there is a statue of Elizabeth and Mary two pregnant women joyfully greeting, embracing each other.

Seeing the statues of Elizabeth and Mary is always a moment of hope for me because seeing any pregnant woman is a hopeful gift. It is a sign of life, a sign of the future, a sign of hope. With today’s Feast of the Visitation we are reminded to be a people of life because it is in and through life that we encounter the gifts of hope and love and come to know the blessing of, “how this life happens to us!”

Happy Feast of the Visitation and say a special prayer for all pregnant women that Elizabeth and Mary will walk with them as they bring new life and hope into the world!

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, we come to you this day as a people in need of hope. There are times when because of the experiences of life we feel helpless, when we feel weak and overwhelmed. So today we pray for your gift of hope. We need hope so that we might build a better future. We need hope that we might live a better life. We need hope that we might be a people of love and kindness.

It is often said that the sky is at its darkest just before the light. And so we pray that this is true, because often life seems dark and we need your light, O God, in every way. We pray that we will be filled with your light from head to toe. So that we might find the joy and hope that Elizabeth found when visited by Mary. That we might say with excitement not frustration or struggle, how does this life happen to me?

Help us to be people of hope today that all is right in the world, as you have planned, and as you want it to be. Help us to walk in your light, and live our lives in faith and hope. Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: I always use as my running theme, “I run for Life!” Wherever and whenever you run today run in the spirit of Elizabeth and Mary, run for life! Let us as we run be signs, witnesses and proclaimers of just how wonderful life is and can be!

Daily Blessing: Tuesday greetings and blessings to all. On this Feast of the Visitation I send special greetings to all mothers, especially those who are carrying life at this time and in a particular way I remember my niece, Sarah who just gave birth to her son, Michael, last Friday. Through the spirit of Elizabeth and Mary I ask God’s blessing upon all mothers for the gifts of hope and love that you give to the world. Mothers are truly special people.

As the day begins here in Pelham it looks to be another warm sunny day. I expect for many of us today will feel like a Monday after the long Memorial Day weekend. I hope you had a nice holiday weekend with some rest and relaxation. Not much on my agenda today just continued preparations for the next three weeks on the road beginning Saturday.

My prayer of blessing for all today is that you will have a great Tuesday and a wonderful and blessed week. I pray for blessings upon your work, your ministry, and your experiences of life today and always. I also pray for blessing upon those you love, those your encounter and especially upon you today! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/30/2016

Daily Thoughts: I think we have all had one of those moments when listening to a reading from Scripture we think, “O my God that is directed at me!” There is something in the message, the story that hits home that makes us pause and think about our faith, our relationship with God, our life.

I get the sense that today’s Gospel story (Mark 12: 1-12) was one of those moments for the religious leadership of Jesus’ day. Jesus’ story was directed right at them and they knew it. However rather than taking it to heart, rather than giving it some thought, rather than discerning how to change their lives they chose to consider ways of getting rid of Jesus. The uncomfortableness of the truth did not set them free it just made them blinder to the presence of God in their life.

There is a quote that I have always liked and you might have seen it on my Facebook page or in one of my tweets. The quote goes something like this, “Someone described a biblical prophet as one who comforted the disturbed and disturbed the comfortable.”  That was certainly true of Jesus especially in our story today.

Yet our reaction to today’s Gospel might be to sit back and relax think that Jesus is speaking to leadership and not to us and that would be a mistake. Jesus’ words should also make us uncomfortable today. How often has God sent people into our lives with a message, with the presence of God and we have rejected them. Thinking they don’t fit in, thinking they don’t have the truth, thinking they don’t belong?

The point is that we never know when God will come a calling, sending a servant, a son, to collect the fruits of our labor. Will we recognize that it is God and embrace his presence or will we reject the visitor because we think we know best?

Have a great Memorial Day everyone!

Daily Prayer: O God, search us and know our hearts; test us and know our concerns. See if there is any crooked way in us, and lead us in the everlasting way. For we truly do believe so our prayer to you is help our unbelief. Amen!

A Runner’s Thoughts: “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” (Edward Stanley) So to in the spiritual life…

Daily Blessing: Memorial Day greetings and blessings to all! I hope you are enjoying your day. Today is certainly a day to remember all who serve our country in the military and all who have given their lives over the years is service protecting our freedom. We pray that someday we will find a way to live in peace so that people will never have to train for and fight in war again!

I hope the sun is out where you are, however, if you live in the east like me you know that it is quite rainy today. I pray that if you are avoiding the rain today that your day will take you outdoors in some way to enjoy the gifts of God’s creation!

May your Memorial Day wherever you are and whatever you are doing be blessed with the richness of family and friends. May it be a day of fun, laughter, joy and relaxation. May it be a safe day and may you be truly blessed by God’s love today and always! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 05/29/2016

Daily Thoughts: There are many ways to look at the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ which we celebrate today. The most obvious is the gift of the Eucharist, a most cherished gift that offers us the spiritual nourishment we need to live this life of faith. The real presence of Christ in the form of bread and wine that in receiving it demands our lives, it demands that we bring this real presence to the world.

Another way to look at this feast is through the Gospel today. As Fr. James Martin, S.J. said, “God can do a lot with what you think is a little.” Just think of what he did along the Sea of Galilee when his disciples said all they had were five loaves and two fish. As we have learned God makes possible the impossible while doing a lot with little; or as Teresa Whalen Lux put it, “God often takes something small and insignificant and turns it into the extraordinary.”

A final thought about today’s feast also comes from Gospel. In America Magazine’s reflection on today’s scriptures called The Word, John Martens says that, “The verb Jesus uses is in the imperative, the messianic equivalent of “Just do it!” “You feed them!”  In other words, long before Nike there was Jesus who challenged all who followed him to, “Just do it!”

I have often in my preaching reflected on receiving the Eucharist as a moment when God, when Jesus says to us, “I demand your life! I have given you mine so now go and give it to the world.”  Our celebration of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ today reminds us of just how blessed we are, of just what God can do and of our challenge each day as we life to trust in God and “Just do it!”

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Daily Prayer:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
(Prayer by St. Teresa of Avila)

A Runner’s Thoughts: “There are no strangers at the starting line. Just fellow runners who haven’t met yet.” (Suzy Shapiro) So to in the spiritual life…

Daily Blessings: Sunday greetings and blessings to all! I hope your Sunday has started off well or is starting off well. It is a beautiful sunny day here in Pelham and the word is it will be a beautiful day throughout. It is the Feast of Corpus Christi and so we focus on the spiritual food which nourishes us and sustains us on our journey of faith through life. It is a time to remember how blessed and how loved we are by God. It is a day to give a little time to God so I hope you remember to give God a little time today!

I would like to send a shout out and a welcome to my newest great nephew, Michael! Welcome little buddy we are glad to have you with us. I would also like to send kudos and congrats to his Mom and Dad on a job well done and thanks to his big sister Natalie, for her wonder smile. Can’t wait to meet the little guy.

I pray for God’s blessings upon Michael, his family and all of you today and always. I hope you will be blessed especially today with the richness of family, friends, peace, rest and throughout this long weekend. May God truly be with you and those you love, keeping you safe as you enjoy the gifts of God’s creation. May you recognize the presence of God around you and within you today. May you remember that Christ has no body now on earth but yours! Have a great day and remember “Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.” (Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ) – Have a great Sunday and blessings upon your coming week! Peace in Christ’s Passion…Fr. Paul