This week we hear of the man who inquires of Jesus how to obtain eternal life. He rejects Jesus’ invitation to sell his goods, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. Mark tells us this devastatingly sad line, “At this saying, his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions”(Mark 10:22). The man’s heart wasn’t centered on Jesus, but on his possessions. Perhaps Jesus intuited this. Now, we don’t know if Jesus intended to actually make him go through with it, like God’s call to test Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. But sadly, in this case the willingness was not there to entrust everything to Jesus. And this made the man deeply sad.
For most of us, the literal dispossessing of our goods is not our call. But as Christians, a consistent renouncing of them is. This week, especially if you’re noticing a persisting sadness, I invite you to hear Jesus calling you to acknowledge that none of your possessions are finally yours. They are God’s and on loan to you. We get so addicted to that stuffy and sad word, “mine.” At Mass, we rehearse this attitude of joyful detachment by giving bread, wine, and money to the Lord, as if to say, “Lord, all I have is yours.” And what we get back is a sadness-defeating joy beyond all description: knowing that He is ours, and we are His.
What possessions are pre-occupying you at the moment? Write them down. Intentionally offer them to the Lord at the next Mass you attend.
— Father John Muir
October 6, 2024 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
As a young pastor years ago, I met with a middle-aged couple who had been divorced and civilly remarried. They were frustrated that an annulment had to precede a Church marriage. Sympathizing with their plight, I promised to walk with them along their journey. Once as we sat in my office, the man said to me, “Why is the Church so difficult on marriage?” I replied, “Actually, Jesus’ teaching is what’s difficult.” He furrowed his brow and asked what I meant.
We opened the Bible and together read today’s gospel passage from Mark 10:12 in which Jesus says, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery with her…” My two friends sat in silent astonishment. Surely Jesus understands the complexities of human life and sexual love. The words hung thick and heavy in the air. How could the merciful Lord be so seemingly unrealistic in his expectations, especially with so much divorce and remarriage in our world?
I didn’t know what to say. So, we kept reading. Next, Jesus says, “Let the children come to me.”The innocence of children allows them to receive and give love, to trust unconditionally, to believe in love that endures. Most children aren’t yet jaded by statistics, broken hearts, or dysfunctional relationships. Children remind us of the world to come. The couple and I began to talk about child-like trust in Jesus and his teaching, and we continued to move forward. When it comes to the Church’s demanding teaching on marriage, it’s best to approach it as trusting children, whatever situations in which we find ourselves.
Maggots, grubs, worms. When I imagine one or many of these nasty slimy buggers living inside my body — unseen, feeding off my flesh, slowly rotting me out — I feel deeply disgusted. If I knew I had a worm, I would do anything to remove the alien invader, and fast. But what if I couldn’t ever get it out?
This is precisely the image Jesus uses to describe those who cause others to sin and fail to cut out what leads them to sin. He contrasts the kingdom of God with Gehenna, “where the worm does not die.” If we can stomach it for a moment, there is much wisdom in this nauseating metaphor.
First, sin is always parasitic. It feeds on what is good like a worm in a host. It’s not symbiotic or additive, as virtue and love always are. Sin invades, devours, and damages the sinner. Second, sin is always social. No matter how hidden, it quietly eats away at others — usually the most poor and vulnerable, the “little ones,” as the Lord says. How healthy it is for us to acknowledge this! Our gossiping, greed, overindulgence, lying, pride, laziness, lust for power and reputation, and so on … they do not add anything to life. They are worms eating away at others and ourselves.
We cut out these filthy parasites through genuine repentance and bold action. Imagine the peace and relief that follows the removal of a sickening worm from your body. How much greater is the peace we enjoy when the spiritual worms are gone for good. We’d never wait to act against physical parasites. Neither should we with the worms of sin.
This morning, I received a text message that a member of my extended family will likely die of cancer within the next few hours. His name is Luke. He is a 45-year-old husband and father of six. Though I am not as close to him as my sister (she is his sister-in-law and knows him well), I wonder: how can we, including Luke himself, manage such a terribly awful and unfair situation?
The words of this Sunday’s Gospel offer a powerful and challenging path. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”(Mark 8:34). Today I see with new freshness the starkness and strangeness of the words take up. The cross stands for suffering which is unjust, absurd, seemingly hope-less, and humiliating. Jesus doesn’t say “accept” or “endure” or “tolerate,” but “take up.” Embrace it, actively. Choose it and lift it up for others to see what terrifies and sickens us. But somehow, for Jesus, this is the path to “saving one’s life.” A new world is breaking in, one in which love is everything, when no relationship can be wounded or die. I trust that in the embraced suffering of Luke and his loved ones, Jesus is taking up his cross and saving us all.
By the time you read this, barring a miracle, Luke will have died. He will be carrying his cross no longer. But we all still face suffering. This week let’s not just endure, but take up our crosses, big and small. That’s our only hope for saving our lives.
— Father John Muir
August 25, 2024 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Purity isn’t popular at the moment. Or is it? Look at a rack of health magazines or at popular podcasts. You’ll see an infinite ocean of regulations and rituals of diets, intermittent fasting, morning sun rituals, intense juice detox practices, lists of dangerous foods, mental practices, as well as long lists of dos and don’ts for the proper cleaning of clothes, dishes, cars, houses, pets, and children. Like it or not, we long to be pure, clean, and without blemish.
This question of purity haunted people in Jesus’ day, too. The Pharisees and scribes (the leading purity authorities of the day) criticize Jesus, asking, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”(Mark 7:5). Jesus responds by saying, “There is nothing outside the person that can defile him if it goes into him; but the things that come out of the person are what defile the person”(Mark 7:15). What does he mean, and how can it help us be pure?
We’ve probably all heard the somewhat shopworn interpretation that Jesus replaces the ritual, exterior notion of purity with a moral, interior one. Christianity is thus seen as a kind of moral re-tooling, as if religion doesn’t make us pure. Good moral intentions do. But this doesn’t take the rest of Jesus’ ministry seriously enough, nor our obsession with purity. The better reading is that Jesus audaciously offers himself as the ultimate source of human purity — from within each human heart. Both our religious ritual practices and our moral actions are meant to flow from this encounter with Jesus the Lord. When we are in friendship with him, everything becomes pure for us.
— Father John Muir
August 25, 2024 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
The famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing.” In the Gospel reading this week, Jesus does something harsh and dreadful— he watches his own disciples abandon him. What could possibly be loving about that?
Well, we notice the context is Jesus’ teaching about eating and drinking his body and blood. His followers hear this and say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (John 6:60). We shouldn’t imagine we’d do anything different, because not even the ones who stay, like Peter, seem to understand what Jesus is saying. Then we hear this devastating line, “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him”(John 6:66). Besides the night of the Last Supper, only now do Jesus’ disciples abandon him. And, painfully, Jesus just lets them go.
Well, we notice the context is Jesus’ teaching about eating and drinking his body and blood. His followers hear this and say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (John 6:60). We shouldn’t imagine we’d do anything different, because not even the ones who stay, like Peter, seem to understand what Jesus is saying. Then we hear this devastating line, “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him”(John 6:66). Besides the night of the Last Supper, only now do Jesus’ disciples abandon him. And, painfully, Jesus just lets them go. The best way to make sense out of this is love. Jesus is God’s love in action. He wants to become one with those whom He loves. He wants to love them as His own body. Yes, the oneness manifested in the Eucharist sounds harsh and dreadful because it is rooted in love which is willing to risk abandonment and separation to attain its goal: to be one body with the beloved. It is both terrifying and wonderful that Jesus will risk losing us in order to be one with us. Our response? Lord, we cannot grasp a love so great, but please help us never to abandon it, either.
— Father John Muir
August 18, 2024 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
A priest I know was asked by a door-to-door evangelist, “Do you believe in Jesus?” He answered, “Yes, I do. But if I may ask you,” he continued, “Where do you experience Jesus’ body and blood?” His interlocutor responded somewhat confusedly, “I don’t. I just believe in him. That’s all that is needed.”Later my priest friend would relate to me, “The more I thought about it, that response struck me as totally inadequate. As human beings, we need to encounter Jesus’ body and blood, not just hear about him and mentally believe. Otherwise, Jesus is just a ghost.”
This week we see this central point as we arrive at the climactic moment of Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist. Jesus has established the importance of believing in him as the “bread of life come down from heaven.” Belief deeply matters because it leads to a real, bodily encounter with Jesus through eating and drinking. That’s why Jesus emphasizes to an almost outrageous degree the non-metaphorical necessity to “eat my flesh and drink my blood” (John 6:54). The real presence of Jesus’ body and blood — he himself, truly, really, substantially — has been the Church’s treasure since Holy Thursday. Internal belief in the heart and the ritual act of eating and drinking the Eucharist, the Church has stubbornly insisted on both, not just one or the other.
This is not meant to criticize non-Catholic Christians who deeply trust and love Jesus, nor is it a triumphal elitist claim about the Catholic Mass. Rather it is a humble, trusting acknowledgement that God in Jesus comes to us in a way most proper to human beings: in our hearts and our bodies, faith and the Eucharist.
— Father John Muir
August 4, 2024 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Since my college days I’ve loved a song called “Dance with You” by the rock band Live. It touches on the deep mystical hunger of our heart: “I’ve tasted all the wines/ a half a billion times/ came sickened to your shore/ you showed me what this life is for.”These lines resonate with anyone who has feasted on the good things of this world only to be left spiritually hungover and unsatisfied.
We see a similar dynamic evoked by Jesus’ words after he feeds the crowd with bread and fish. To teach them to hunger for God, he recalls God’s gift of manna bread for the hungry ancient Israelites. Those folks had grown spiritually sick from the idolatrous food of Egypt yet still longed for more worthless pagan food. So, God sent heavenly bread to nourish their bodies, but also to heal their distrustful hearts. His people — like us — must learn to hunger and thirst for God alone. Before we can receive that, which will not disappoint, we first must cease expecting that earthly goods will satisfy us.
We will get to the Lord’s teaching on the Eucharist in the next two weeks. But first, he asks us: do you trust me to take care of you? Do you trust me to give you what you need for each day, and to not worry about the next day? Do you see that when you hungrily stuff yourself with the things of this world you become sick and lose your taste for the bread of life? So, our hungry hearts cry out: Lord, help us to trust that you’ll provide for our every need. Help us to use only what we truly need. Help us hunger for the goodness of your Son, who is the true bread from heaven. That is what this life is for.
— Father John Muir
July 28, 2024 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The world is filled with people whose basic needs aren’t met, whether for clean water, nutrition, safety, education, meaningful work, stable family life, basic medical resources, religious freedom, and the right to life. So how can we possibly believe what Psalm 145says to us this week, “The hand of the Lord feeds us, he answers all our needs”? Does he? What about the countless poor? Can’t we identify at least a few unmet needs in our own lives right now? Is the Bible promoting wishful thinking and laziness in helping others?
No. The psalm flows from Israel’s experience of God’s relentless fidelity again and again —especially in the Passover from Egypt. This divine providence is recalled when Jesus feeds the needy multitudes in the Gospel of John. Passover arrives once again, and the people are hungry like the ancient Israelites on the wilderness journey. What is new is that in Jesus God not only provides for their needs, but He learns what it’s like to have those human needs. He shares them too. He feeds them bread and fish; and even more, He hungers to provide them, and us, much more than just that kind of perishable food.
Our deepest need is for God. Like the multiplied bread, all earthly provisions ultimately fail, for we all finally die. Of course, our obligation to meet the needs of the poor is basic. But Christ promises to feed us with the one bread that never fails: God Himself. He is humanity’s eternal food. If we eat this bread, we taste the faithfulness of God who answers all our needs, even when every earthly thing fails.
Deacon Ken’s Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Times
I read these readings several times one evening hoping for some “enlightenment” from God. I’ve got to tell you nothing was coming! Crickets is the word I hear floating around these days. I thought “Maybe I’ll just rest a while like Jesus and His Apostles did after their long week of preaching and healing.” I turned on the television to a Western Movie. The name of the movie was“Silverado”. It’s the story of four good guys, who mix it up with an evil sheriff, and his evil deputies, who are bought and paid for by an evil rancher. Of course, the sheriff is protecting the evil rancher who illegally acquired one of the good guys’ family’s farms. The ranchers’ men have kidnapped the nephew of two of the good guys, and the nephew is being held at the ranch. The big finale of the movie is that the good guys join forces to rescue the boy and then rid the town of the evil rancher, evil sheriff and evil deputies. It is a classic good guy versus bad guy, good versus evil movie.
The next day, I’m back to the readings and I discover there’s a bit of Silverado going on here. Picture this: God and Jeremiah are teaming up to confront the elders of the church, who are not acting responsibly towards those God has given them. For sure, the elders know what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to act, but many want to be seen and treated as dignitaries. They walk around with “Holier than Thou attitudes.” They impose strict rules on those they are supposed to lead, but they don’t follow those same rules themselves. If you listen closely, you can almost hear Jeremiah, in a west Texas drawl say: “Boys, you’ve scattered the sheep, I’m going to have to run you out of town.”
Then, along comes Jesus and his apostles in the Gospel. They are the good guys who travel from town to town, village to village doing good works and preaching the gospel. Recently, they’ve run sin and evil out of town when Jesus rebuked an evil spirit on a naked man in a cemetery and the evil spirit leaves the man. A woman touches the hem of His garment and is healed from years of hemorrhages. A little girl is not dead, but asleep after Jesus tells her “Little girl, I say arise!”Jesus is “the” good shepherd, the righteous shoot of David, and He and his apostles will do what is right and just, and because of them many will be saved.
Today, you and I are living our own Silverado. We are called to rid our towns and villages of sin and evil. We do this by our actions when we: show love to the unloved, feed the hungry, fight injustice and prejudices, and share the love of Jesus with others. All the while we have to guard ourselves that we are never anything more than a humble servant of God. From time to time, we need to rest and look inward to see where we are in the grand scheme of things. Picture a sliding scale with the icon of a weed on one end and seeds on the other. Somewhere between the weeds and the seeds we find ourselves. Though we start out as weeds, we should always strive to constantly plant seeds that lead to the Good Shepherd. We trust God and have faith that even in our weaknesses God will seek us out whether we are near or far from him.
In his great love and mercy, God has sent us a good shepherd who will provide for us now and forever if we but turn to him. Good versus evil. It’s all around us. We see it every day. If we but pay attention to the shepherd, He will teach us many things and He will bring us together one people, gathered in love. And then, at the end of our days The Good Shepherd will ride His white horse into town and say to us: “Well done my good and faithful servant enter into the joy of your master.”
July 21, 2024 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Burnout. Recent studies suggest that roughly two-thirds of doctors and nurses have signs of it. You probably know what burnout is: long-term stress leading to emotional exhaustion and a lack of a sense of personal accomplishment. Burnout can threaten anyone who tries to seriously serve and love others. How does our faith inform this challenging experience, and how do we find refreshment?
The apostles face something like burnout this week in Mark 6. They are run down from their missionary work, and Jesus says, “Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while.” For them, and for us, it takes humility to intentionally rest. It means the world can go on without us. It stings our pride to admit God is necessary and we are not. Choosing to leave our good work to be with him — whatever the cost —is an act of humble faith. And that trust in God begins to revive us.
But there’s more to it. Hilariously, Mark tells us that throngs of needy people find out where the apostles are going and arrive ahead of them. Imagine the exasperation of the burntout apostles. “Can we please get a minute to ourselves? This is not healthy!” And Jesus seems to encourage the boundary violation by telling his frayed followers to feed the crowd. Look: once we move into humble rest, he calls us to more work, because we are made for love, not for rest. But Jesus does the vast bulk of the labor. He himself is the one who multiplies the small offering until everyone is satisfied. What finally gives our heart rest isn’t more vacation time. It’s experiencing the super abundant generosity of God for us and those whom we serve.
Once I asked a fallen-away Catholic friend of mine what he remembered about the parish priest from his youth. He said, “He was a gentle, nice guy. Kind of vanilla. Kept to himself.”It struck me that he, perhaps like many, perceive Catholic priests as the following: lonely, harmless, and self-sufficient. As a challenge both to this perception (accurate or not) and to us priests who perhaps feel a pull in that uninspiring direction, stands the mighty image of what we see in the Gospel this Sunday.
Jesus sent out his apostles, “two-by-two, with power over demons, and without money belts.” Two-by-two: they enjoyed deep fellowship and brotherhood. Power over demons: they were anything but harmless. These men wielded enormous power against evil. Without money belts: they were not self-sufficient. They needed others to help them. Not lonely, but in community. Not harmless but armed with massive spiritual energy. Not self-sufficient, but poor and in need of help.
This is a challenge to me, and perhaps to all of us, living in a rich, secularized, and individualized culture. Do I embrace my priestly ministry in deep fellowship with other priests? Do I speak and act boldly to drive out evil where it is found? Do I live poorly and simply, trusting in the help of those around me even for basic needs? The fruitfulness of priestly ministry largely depends on these three traits. Let’s pray for all priests — and, by extension, all of us Christians — to live more like Jesus’ communal, poor, and powerful apostles.
Recently I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to optimize willpower in the face of weakness. The message was: do not accept your weakness. Crush it. Dominate it. In one video, however, at the end of a rant by a willpower coach, the muscular stoic admitted, “You’ll never actually get what you want, no matter how hard you try.”Amazingly, he admitted that willpower alone is not sufficient for us weak-willed humans.
What does God want us to do with our weaknesses, if crushing them with willpower won’t work? For example, what should I do with my tendency to arrogance and self-isolation? Or my procrastination? Or my intellectual and physical limitations? Or my selfishness?
The counter-intuitive answer is clear in this week’s words from St Paul, “I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses in order that the power of Christ may dwell in me (2 Cor. 12:9).”Boast of our weaknesses? Paul isn’t promoting weak-mindedness or laziness. Rather, he perceives that Jesus loves us not despite our weaknesses but because of them. Boasting of our weakness means claiming human will is not all we have. It means turning to God whenever we feel weak, which–let’s face it–is almost all the time. When we do, we learn to love our weaknesses, because it’s there that we meet the strength of Christ. This week, I challenge us to find ways to boast not in willpower but in weakness.
Sin isn’t given its due these days. Downplaying sin is dangerous. But there is also another spiritual misstep in which we make way too big a deal out of sin. It happens, for example, when we persistently wonder if our confessed sins are “really” forgiven, or suspiciously ponder what God “really” thinks about us, behind His merciful face. Or when someone returns to Church, and we question whether his or her conversion was genuine. Or when we commit some sin and put on a sad face for days, thinking, “Maybe my sins are too great for God to deal with.” God save us from that attitude! Well, he does just that, this week, in the raising of Jairus’ daughter. The dead twelve-year-old’s house is filled with a spirit of excessive moaning and groaning, tumultuous weeping and wailing. They even laugh at Jesus in a mocking tone. It’s shocking how easy it is for him to raise the dead child. It is equivalent to gently waking a kid from a light nap. And then he sends her off to get some lunch. No big whoop. The overactive drama is actually part of the problem, and removing it is a key part of the miracle.
Friends, sin can and does kill, but Jesus is always ready and able to raise us back to life, often without much hullabaloo. His ease of forgiving should never be a pretext for presumption, minimizing sin, or taking lightly the cost he pays for our sins on the cross. But for God’s sake, we often need Jesus to put out the weepers and wailers. He’s the Lord. And remember, the girl is not dead, she’s just sleeping
— Father John Muir
June 23, 2024 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Right now, you and I are only worried about one of only two things: wind or water. Bear with me. This week we hear the account of the terrified disciples waking Jesus in a sea storm. He chastises them for their lack of faith, and then, “rebuking the wind, he said to the sea, ‘Quiet, be still!’” He rebukes the wind and stills the water. In the Bible wind and water represent the two most fundamental poles of our experience of creation. Wind means heaven, spirit, that which gives identity, unity, order, light. Water stands for earth, variation, potential, that which can be drawn into identity, darkness, chaos
Too much “wind” is when things get way too rigid, abstract and ideological — when we face oppressive leaders and tyrants, when we get addicted to our own way of doing things, when our attention is too narrowly focused on one thing. Too much “water” is excessive novelty, passivity, indifference, and chaos — when our attention is too broadly diffused on many things, when things seem to be crumbling without direction into the dark abyss. We know both terrifying experiences all too well.
The point of the miracle is that God in Christ is the One who brings final cosmic harmony between these two vital but threatening forces. He ultimately does so from the wood of the cross, when he breathes forth the wind of his spirit and pours forth the water from his side to establish a new creation, filled with harmonious peace. When the wind and water are out of control, trust him.
— Father John Muir
June 16, 2024
Deacon Ken’s Homily for the 11th Sunday of Easter
A Chinese proverb goes like this: “The journey of a thousand miles, begins with the first step. Nothing happens until the first step is taken, and much will happen between the first step and the end of the journey. Along the journey there will be failures and successes, but as the journey nears the end, faith and confidence soars. Like a mustard seed, many great things start out small.
Most, if not all of you, have heard of a Poor Clare nun by the Name of Mother Angelica. As a young woman she had a horrible stomach ailment. Mother Angelica’s mother took her to see a Mystic who prayed over Mother Angelica and made her promise to pray a novena, which she did. At the end of the novena, Mother Angelic was healed. Her healing is what led her to become a Nun. She felt God asking her to begin a ministry for Catholics in the Bible Belt in the south, and with a handful of Nuns, they began making fishing lures to support the venture. In 1961, Mother and her sisters bought some acreage and a building and began a community. The community was named Our Lady of the Angels Monastery and is located to this day in Irondale, Alabama. Working in the community Mother Angelica began to give talks. Eventually, her talks were recorded and broadcast via satellite to the entire world. In the early 1970’s, Mother Angelica, felt inspired by God to begin a Television Station for Catholics. Acquiring donations worldwide, The Eternal Word Television Network was born. It began when a garage was fashioned into a makeshift television studio. It is estimated that EWTN reaches 264 million families worldwide daily. On a trip to Columbia, Mother Angelica received a vision she was to build a Shrine in honor of the Baby Jesus. Collecting over $48 million in donations from around the world, the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament was constructed in Hanceville, Alabama. The Shrine is visited by thousands each year. Like a mustard seed, many great things start out small, even fishing lures.
Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta was a schoolteacher in the mid-40’s. While travelling to Calcutta for a retreat with her Sisters of Charity, Saint Theresa felt she received a call to care for the poor and suffering in Calcutta, India. She began her journey by opening a hospice, in an abandoned Hindu temple, where people who were a blight on society, could come and receive medical treatment. Some came to Saint Theresa so they might die with dignity, not laying in the street or sidewalk. She walked the streets of Calcutta looking for those who needed her help and brought them back to her Hospice. She often had to walk those same streets begging for food, and contributions money, medicine and volunteers. Her goal was that no one in Calcutta would die alone while on the streets. Later, Saint Theresa opened a hospice for those with leprosy, and the Children’s Home of the Immaculate Heart, for orphans and homeless youth. Saint Theresa then expanded the congregation abroad, opening houses in Venezuela, Rome, Tanzania, the United States and many countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. By 2007, the Missionaries of Charity worldwide, operated 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries. Like a mustard seed, many great things start out small.
Behind Saint Augustine, volunteer trees grew from a foot tall to fifteen feet tall in an area deemed too rough for the landscapers to mow. There was a hole in the ground six feet long, four feet wide and three feet deep, that looked as if someone used a bobcat to move dirt from one place to another, leaving the hole. A simple plan was made dig up the trees, fill up the hole, level the ground. To keep the area cleaned up, an idea was born to create a pile of dirt on which a small statue of Mary would be placed, and flowers would be planted. Today, it is a Rosary Prayer Garden. The beads are made with concrete and broken glass placed in KFC side dish bowls. In the center of the garden stands a life-sized statue of Mary. The garden has comfortable benches for those who want to sit and meditate. A woman, visiting Germantown from Lake Elsinore California described it on her Facebook page as “A little Gem”. Like a mustard seed, many great things start out small, even a pile of dirt.
How did Jesus enter the world? He entered the world as a little baby in a manger in a stable. He began life listening to the sounds of cattle and oxen crunching their grain and hay. No brass bands, no ticker tape parades. As he grew, he acquired a few followers, and continued to acquire more followers. To this day, there are a little over 1.39 billion Catholics in the world. Like a mustard seed, the greatest of all things started out small, like a little baby.
Our faith can be the catalyst to inspire others in their faith. Often, we hear, I am not worthy, and the truth of the matter is we are not. But God calls us to do great things. We often let fear keep us from doing the small things that can blossom into the larger things. If we only remember the words of the Prophet Isaiah who said: “Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, I am your God, I will strengthen you, and help you, and uphold you with my right hand of justice”(Isaiah 41:10)
Today, God is calling us to do great things for his Kingdom. Will we answer the call, or will we let it pass by like a shadow in the night? Today, start something small for the Kingdom, and watch how God will make it grow!
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, and to those who were Father figures to others. Happy Father’s Day also to our church Fathers who feed us with the bread of life
Deacon Ken Stewart
June 16, 2024 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
GOSPEL MEDITATION – ENCOURAGE DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE
Today, we hear two parables from St. Mark’s gospel. All these two parables emphasize our faith journey. The first parable, which is unique to Mark alone, portrays the image in our faith journey when we think it is through our effort alone that we can bring about the kingdom of God. At times we feel guilty and blame ourselves that we didn’t do enough to speedy up our salvation. We take consolation from this parable that all we can do is act like farmers to plant the seed of faith and nature that faith, with our daily spiritual exercise, and God, who is the chief farmer, will see to its growth.
The Second parable encourages us who think we have little or no faith at all to continuously hope for a better time as we do our part, putting in all the effort we can and leaving the rest to God to do it. Let us take consolation from Paul in the second reading today as he says, “Brothers and sisters; we are always courageous although we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for if we walk by faith, not by sight… we aspire to please him whether we are at home or Away”. St Augustine in his confessions puts it in a short and straight forward manner that “our hearts are restless until it rests in thee”.
As we navigate life in our mortal bodies, we will inevitably face moments of frustration, anger, rejection, and loneliness. It’s important to remember that these struggles are not unique to us; even the chosen people of God, the Israelites, experienced them. However, we can find solace in the assurance that ‘the Lord has said it and he will do it’. He will indeed lift us out of the pit and crown us with victory.
