Third Sunday of Easter, _B - We Are Witnesses Too!_041424

Image Credit: Supper at Emmaus by Matthias Stom (fl. 1615 - 1649)

Deacon Tom Writes,

We Are Witnesses Too!

Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Today’s readings remind us how incredulous the resurrection is to the logical mind. That’s perhaps why both the first reading and the gospel mention that there were eyewitnesses to Christ’s death and resurrection. There were people who saw Jesus die a horrific death on Friday and then saw Him in the flesh walking along the shores of Galilee and with His disciples on the road to Emmaus soon afterward. So alive, in fact, that in the gospel today Jesus is asking His disciples, “Have you anything here to eat?”

Hearing the personal narratives of eyewitnesses to history is powerful. Recall some of the stories you may have heard first hand from people who landed on the beaches of Normandy or were at or near the World Trade Center on September 11th. So many perspectives, so many details, that when we encounter people with rich experiences, we tend to capture these memories and save them for future generations.

Our readings today do just that. For 2000 years believers have benefited from hearing the story of Christ’s death and resurrection directly from eyewitness accounts detailed in the scriptures. Does the eyewitness testimony we read in the gospels carry the same weight for us today as it did for those first believers? No matter how strong our faith, we tend to have a little Thomas within us; we tend to believe and yet there remains some doubt echoing in our mind. Who wouldn’t like a little sign from above; who wouldn’t like as sign from above, an answer to a heartfelt prayer that brings about reconciliation to a bad relationship or perhaps a healing to a chronic illness for a loved one or just a moment of peace in the troubled waters of our lives. In different ways we carry that same doubt that Thomas experienced when he made it known to Jesus’ other hand-picked disciples, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”. After all, “Seeing is believing” as the saying goes, and wouldn’t we all like to see, that is, to comprehend this mystery for ourselves!!!

We all face this struggle. If we are honest with ourselves, we all struggle with real belief in the mysteries of our faith. St. Paul tried to teach the Corinthians that the real nature of our faith is summed up by the statement, “We walk by faith, not by sight”.

While we today have no personal eyewitness experience of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are witnesses to the death and resurrection He brings about in us, the death to self, and His raising us to new life in every difficulty and struggle we face over the course of our lives. These trials and triumphs represent our eyewitness testimonies, those stories of our living faith and how Christ has remained present to us and has continued working in our lives. These are the eyewitness accounts that we bequeath to the generations to come. All who embrace the faith continue to believe in what our faith professes now as it has over these past 2000 years: Christ has died! Christ is Risen! And they believe Christ will do the same for them.”

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: The Seeing Eye by C.S. Lewis presents an eloquent and colorful defense of Christianity for both devotees and critics... in a collection of essays composed over the last twenty years of his life.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Listen to C.S. Lewis’ The Seeing Eye on YouTube Video.

 

 

Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday, Year B - In the Beginning_040724

Image Credit: 123RF.com Hands in a heart #17810429

Deacon Tom Writes,

“In The Beginning”

 Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday, Year B

The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the early days of the church as it came to understand its purpose and mission. It describes individuals coming together and struggling to understand the profound mystery they had recently witnessed. Today’s first reading from the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles says that, “…the community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common”. It appears that the death and resurrection of Christ touched their lives profoundly and so they made a conscious choice to live their lives according to the spirit of Jesus’ teaching… and to care for one another… “so that there was no needy person among them”.

What’s happened over the centuries? Has the mandate Jesus given us to “love one another” changed? Has it been enhanced or modified or made conditional so that we…love others only IF they love us in return, or IF they hold the same ideological position as we do, or IF they are the same color, ethnicity, or culture as us! God forbid that we define “neighbor” as used in the Golden Rule as only those who are just like us. Jesus had a much wider interpretation in mind as to who is our neighbor.

It seems that on the most basic level Jesus loves the victim, no matter what side of the fence they are on. The Risen Jesus is not concerned about nationalism, borders...ethnicity, etc. He is with the suffering of every race and creed. He is an outcast with all those who are disenfranchised; He mourns with all the broken-hearted no matter the color of their skin…He is shunned along with all those people we run and hide from...that we are afraid of…that we can't look in the eye, perhaps because we helped contribute to the way they are. Christ suffers want, rejection, isolation, poverty and humiliation with all who experience those pitiful states of existence.

We hear the rhetoric: we can’t afford to pay for everyone to have health insurance… or let them work like the rest of us and become “self-made individuals” – whatever that means - or send them home where they belong! And so, Jesus wanders the streets today, sick and uncared for. He sits in an ICE detention center waiting to be sent back "home". He’s chronically unemployed, under educated, invisible, losing hope, forgotten, a victim of hate crimes, discrimination, exploitation. He is despised and rejected to this day.

Didn’t Jesus have something to say about these things? How we have twisted and distorted His words to make them to our liking? I guess the Romans weren't as brutal as history or we might judge them to be. Sure, they beat Jesus...They tortured him…They made him drag the instrument of his death across town...They nailed His hands and His feet to the cross so He couldn't move. And, they even stuck a lance in His side to make sure He was dead. BUT, they never did silence Him! No, they never did shut Him up! We do that!!!We silence Jesus when we choose to ignore what He taught us…about love, about being servants, about what it will cost to follow His lead.

In these joy filled days following His Resurrection, let us pray to be filled with the Spirit of Christ so we may follow His example and His teachings as those early followers of his did in the beginning, when all the community “was of one heart and mind”.

Enjoy the day and the Blessing that is now!
Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Back to Virtue by Peter Kreeft who explains that being virtuous is not a means to and end of pleasure, comfort and happiness but rather a way to experience life to the fullest by having the moral character to make right choices along the way.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Cardinal Virtues - Peter Kreeft Ph.

Easter Sunday_B - Rise and Shine_033124

Image Credit: Mariela Calderon Aguirre

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Rise and Shine”

 

Easter Sunday - The Resurrection of the Lord - The Mass of Easter Day, Year B

One of my lingering childhood memories is that of my mother calling from the bottom of the stairs, “Tommy Joe, rise and shine! It’s time to get ready for school.” It’s a pleasant memory. To this day there are times when I can still hear those words echo in my mind, especially on those rainy days when I just want to roll over and go back to sleep…. and then, softly in the back of my head, I hear these words, “Tommy Joe, rise and shine! It’s time to get ready…”.

As people who profess Christ’s Resurrection as central to our faith and lives, we realize that we who have been baptized in Christ also share in His death and that we, like Him, will one day also rise, as He did, to eternal life. There will come a day when we all will “rise and shine” forever. There will come a day when we will possess the fullness of life that Christ has promised to all who believe in Him and follow His ways.

Yet, I do not think that the promise of rising to new life is one that is entirely reserved for the next life. We are meant to “rise and shine” today because we participate in the Mystical Body of Christ. We “rise and shine” today because God has chosen us to be the stewards of all of creation and, if we are truly His disciples, we have said “yes” to that call. We “rise and shine” today because we have committed ourselves to follow “the firstborn from the dead” in the way of peace, in the way of humility, in the way of self-denial, in the way of choosing to follow in His footsteps.

We “rise and shine” every time we chose to imitate Christ by forgiving others who hurt us; when we offer up our sufferings to be a part of His suffering; when we embrace others’ sorrows as if they were our own; when we persevere to the end as He did.

On this most wonderful day, may we, like Christ, awaken to God’s call to “rise and shine.”

Happy and Blessed Easter to you and your loved ones!
Deacon Tom

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCE

Recommended Reading: The Life of The Beloved by Henri J.M. Nouwen is insightful testimony of the power and invitation of Christ to lead us into a deeper spiritual life in today’s world.

 

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  The Life of the Beloved

 

Palm Sunday_B - The Lady with the Oil_032424

Image credit: riverwindgallaryart.com

Deacon Tom Writes,

The Lady with the Oil

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion, Year B

 We don’t know much about the woman who walks into Simon the leper’s house from our reading in Mark’s Gospel. But we do know that this was an important event for two reasons. First, because Jesus tells us that “wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her”. Second, this story is told in all four gospels. (If you’re interested, here are the references: Matthew 26.6, Mark 24.4, Luke 7.36, and John 12.1. You can see how details are added by the other Evangelists to this, the earliest account that we read today in Mark).

Picture the scene described in today’s Gospel. Jesus is having dinner with Simon and this uninvited woman comes in off the street, breaks open an expensive jar of perfumed oil, and anoints Jesus’ head. There is more than a little disgust on how unreasonable this is. To do such a thing at the expense of feeding the poor was seemingly the source of their outrage. Its value was substantial, as scripture notes, worth more than 300 days wages. But Jesus states an awful truth, “the poor you will always have with you”. How true, how sad and how real it is that we tend to the poor when we feel like doing so!

This act of anointing with oil proves comforting to Jesus as His hour approaches. A stranger, an outsider perhaps, appears on the scene, creates this intimate moment of holy anointing in recognition of He who it is she is kneeling before and then goes off into the night. Jesus needed to be strengthened and encouraged but he gets neither from His close friends and disciples, only from this stranger.

There are times in our lives when we have the chance to be an “angel of mercy” just like this woman with the jar. We have unlimited opportunities to lift someone’s spirits, give them some positive affirmation, encourage them or cheer them up. It may cost us some time and some energy. We may have to rearrange our schedules or go out of our way. But remember, it was expensive oil, a year’s salary. Remember too, as we come into Holy Week, that when we do any kind deed for another person, we are really doing it to Jesus who was so grateful for this act of kindness that He tells those seated around the table that she will be remembered as long as the gospel is proclaimed throughout the world. Isn’t it interesting St. Mark begins the story of Jesus’ Passion with her anointing of His feet? Who will we anoint with our kindness, generosity or forgiveness this Holy Week?

Have a holy, Holy Week!  

Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCE

Recommended Reading: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis who explores the common ground upon which all of the Christian Faith stand together.

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Shortest Way Home: C.S. Lewis & Mere Christianity

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B - Extreme Makeover_031724

Image Credit: Song of David: Hilary Sylvester

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Extreme Makeover”

 

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B

 One of the most emotionally charged psalms in the Old Testament is the one we read today. It is attributed to King David and is so appropriate as our Lenten journey nears completion. David is guilt ridden, and rightfully so. (Read 2 Samuel, chapter 11 to see why). In this dreadful state he wants his guilt taken away and to be washed clean. Mindful of the damage he has done to others, himself, and to his people, he turns to God and begs, “create a clean heart in me, O God.” Most of us can relate to David because we have been in his shoes. And we, like David, would like to have a fresh start, an “extreme makeover” to renew and purify us through and through.

If we have engaged in the difficult work of spiritual introspection this Lent, we most likely have encountered some of our flaws, and that’s a good thing, one of the primary purposes of these forty days. But then comes the more challenging task…. changing our ways…. And that’s very hard to do. Yet all the energy, time, and effort we may make to bring about changes in attitudes and behaviors will, by themselves, likely won’t be enough; we are going to need even more. So, we turn to God and ask Him to cleanse us, renew us, and give us a willing spirit to change our ways.

The truth of the matter is that most of us carry around burdens of the past; burdens that weigh us down and rob us of the joy and happiness God intended for us to experience is this life. In this we can easily identify with David. David finds comfort in the compassion of God, and so can we. Sinners that we are, God is always seeking to create a clean heart in us so that we can grow in His love and share in the joy of His salvation. These last few weeks of Lent give us ample opportunity to confront our shortcomings and defects so that we can join in the Easter celebrated as people who have been given a special blessing, an “extreme makeover”, and a fresh start that we enjoy life to the fullest as God intended for us from the foundation of the world.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCE

Recommended Reading:  Christ Among Us by Anthony J Wilhelm C.S.P is one of the most popular guides to modern Catholicism.

 

 

Recommended YouTube Video: The Spirituality of Everyday Life, Part 2 by Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O

 

Fourth Sunday of Lent_B - By Grace You Have Been Saved_031024

Deacon Tom Writes,

“By Grace You Have Been Saved”

Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B

In the brief passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians we hear the phrase “By grace you have been saved” several times. According to St. Paul, grace is the dynamic principle at work in our lives, much like an invisible force, that leads us to faith in Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines Grace as “the free and undeserved gift of God given to us to respond to His call.” Grace, then, is intended to activate or awaken within us the desire to respond to God in some manner or fashion. It is when we cooperate with this gift from God that we come to discover Him and desire Him above all else.

The Franciscan Friar, Richard Rohr, explains grace this way: God’s love is total, unconditional, absolute and forever. The state of grace – God’s attitude toward us – is eternal. We are the ones who change.

Fr. Richard goes on to explain. Sometimes we are able to believe that God loves us unconditionally, absolutely, and forever. That’s grace! And sometimes because we get down on ourselves, and carry guilt and fear and burdens, we are not able to believe that God loves us. Biblically, that’s the greatest sin: not to believe the good news, not to accept the unconditional love of God. When we no longer believe God loves us, we can no longer love ourselves. We have to allow God to continually fill us. Then we find in our own lives the power to give love away.

What a powerful dynamic grace is! Grace engenders faith; faith leads to the awareness of God working in and through our lives. God working through us touches the lives of others while transforming each one of us so that “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). And by this divine formula, or can we say by this Amazing Grace, we and the world are conformed to Christ and each other.

May God’s grace be with us in our efforts to smoothen the rough edges of the stones of our lives during the remainder of our Lenten journey.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: The Sin of Omission - Some food for thought on this year’s Lenten journey.

 

Recommended YouTube Video The Spirituality of Everyday Life, Part 1 by Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O

 

Third Sunday of Lent_B - Time Out_030324

Image Credit: Image ID14181565...123rf.com

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Time-Out”

Third Sunday of Lent, Year B

 

Many motivational speakers direct their marketing efforts so they appeal to our lack of success, our poor self-image and low self-esteem. They claim to have the know how to help us be successful in life or how to achieve our highest aspirations. Some will attribute their success to the lessons they learned from sacred scripture. It’s not exactly “breaking news” that the bible provides critical insight into our own human nature, that is, if we take the time to look. Yes, the bible gives us valuable insight on how to navigate the challenges and hardships we experience in this life so that we may “live life to the fullest” as Jesus promised His followers.

Today Moses reveals God’s instructions for our well-being and happiness, key ingredients if we are to experience the best life possible. He does this with amazing efficiency, identifying ten key behaviors on how to treat God and neighbor that, if we embrace them, we are sure to be engaged in a well-ordered and balanced life. There doesn’t seem to be any real big show stoppers here, really…love God and your parents, don’t sell your soul to any idol, control your language, no adultery, don’t kill or steal or be desirous of you neighbor or his wife or their possessions. Oh, and one more little nugget of advice: come, set some quiet time and rest with me once a week says the Lord.

God’s tenderness and love for us is revealed in this commandment to keep holy the Sabbath. God is concerned about our well-being. He rested after six days of creation and He invites us to do the same, put ourselves in “Time Out” so to speak. The Third Commandment is God inviting us into His Rest, where He speaks to us, comforts us from the worries and anxieties we have suffered during the week. Resting in God is where our energy to do anything good or even have the idea to do anything good comes from; it is where our vision of the good is restored, so we can see God at work in our world and in our lives, or where He is absent, and not fall victim to the naysayers or become the voice of cynicism; it is where we come to know and experience God’s love for us; it is where we come to know God’s Divine Will for us. Resting in God is what the Sabbath Day envisioned. If we use this day as God intended, we will embrace the other commandments as well, each in their own way helping us along the road to success, which for us is loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. So, this Lent, let’s give ourselves a break and take some time to rest in God not just on Sundays but throughout the week as well.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: Praying with Thomas Merton by Wayne Simsic is an invitation to that transformative life that is the heart of Merton's message. A good Lenten read.

Recommended YouTube Video: Centering Prayer with Thomas Merton