Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We celebrate Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and join our voices with Mary’s Magnificat. I invite us to approach this day in profound humility and deep faith, asking our Mother to lead us to her Son that we might become more like Him. May we have the audacious faith today to believe that our Mother desires to draw close to us, to visit us, even us.
Tuesday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
In the text from Mark before us today, we receive a bold challenge. Peter announces that the disciples have given up everything to follow Jesus. Jesus talks about giving up the kinds of possessions that people value most. He names houses and land, which were surely among the most prized possessions for people of his time.
Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
Mother of the Church, fairest daughter of Israel, and sacred vessel chosen by God. Eve approaches you like mother to daughter, Old Eve to New Eve—two mothers of souls both on earth and in heaven. - Robert Cardinal Sara
In 2018 Pope Francis established Mater Ecclesiae as a feast to be kept on the Monday after Pentecost.
In the Fourth Gospel, Mary the Mother of Jesus and the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved keep watch on Golgotha. They are symbolic of the entire Church gathered at the foot of the cross. In fact, in that Gospel, the Holy Spirit is gifted to them when Jesus is pierced with the lance, symbolized by the blood and water flowing from the wounded side of Christ. This flowing blood and water gives birth to the sacraments of the Church and, in John, the Church itself.
Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter
We have come to the last day of the Easter Season, and with it to the end of both the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John, both of which we have been following throughout the Easter Season. Both of these endings gesture toward the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome. In today’s first reading Paul has arrived in Rome under house arrest. Even under supervision, he continues to teach and spread the Word. With Paul’s arrival in Rome the exhortation of Jesus to His disciples at beginning of Acts (1:8) has been fulfilled, the Gospel has been preached “to all the ends of the earth.” Yet, Paul still stands to be a “witness” (the literal meaning of the word “martyr”) to Jesus in his forthcoming death in Rome.
Memorial of Saint Philip Neri, Priest
I have had facial hair of some kind for over 15 years. For the first time last fall, I chose to grow a full beard. In the work that I do, I meet a lot of new people on a regular basis so for many folks this year, they have only known me with a beard. Several times in the last few weeks, those same people have been in for a surprise as they’ve encountered me since I shaved the beard on Good Friday. One new student to CJ even asked me recently if I would grow the beard back because she can’t get used to the “new” look. My favorite thing to do though, is to share a picture of what I looked like on Holy Saturday (much to LeeAnn’s dismay). For one day, I shaved all of my beard and left only the mustache. The picture is quite alarming and the strangeness of the look was both humorous and ridiculous. With our feast today, I like to think that I was just channeling my inner St. Philip Neri.
Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter
In Luke’s Gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. Thank you, disciples! I pray a lot. And I’m confident that most of the time I really don’t know what I’m doing. That’s a big reason why I admire the practice among the Amish of not praying out loud, even in church. By praying silently, they acknowledge the limits of human prayer and the temptation we humans have to call on God in public prayer for our own reasons, as if God ought to want what we want.
Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Our Gospel reading today is part of Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer” that spans all of chapter seventeen in John’s Gospel. In this prayer, Jesus prays for himself, his disciples, and all believers. The passage today is part of our Lord’s prayer for his disciples. As we know, we are his disciples, too, if we love him and seek to follow him. So, Jesus’ prayer is for you and for me. We can be 100% certain that Jesus prayed according to his Father’s will, and so let us join him in his prayer today, confidently inviting God to consecrate us in the truth.
Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter
This week the Church Universal looks towards Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, concluding Easter. The Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of Genesis, spoke through the prophets, and was poured out at Pentecost. The long desired Paraclete comes as our comforter, our sustainer, and our counselor. Veni Sancte Spiritus!
Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter
My husband and I enjoy hiking, and besides the beauty of nature, one of my favorite parts of our time together is the deep conversations that we share. Just recently, the subject of why we pray for others was a topic that we addressed as we trekked through the woods. Jesus brings up the idea of coming to God in prayer, and he assures us that God listens when we ask because of God’s great love for us.
Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Grief is a part of life, isn’t it? No one chooses to grieve. We can be open to it or try to block it, but either way it’s part of the human experience. It’s not a choice, it’s simply a reality. Jesus in John’s gospel today seems to know that. As we remain in the Easter season, we are again taken back to Jesus preparing his disciples for his death and resurrection. And we hear that he does not try to sugarcoat what they are about to experience: “You will weep and mourn.” Jesus understood what it means to be human, to feel the pains of grief and loss. He does NOT tell them that there is no need to weep and mourn “because I’m going to rise again and it’s all going to be OK.” He acknowledges that it will hurt for a while. They will be in anguish. Do we expect to be excused from that very human experience?
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter
As the cliché says, our lives are quickly changing. In the first reading, we see Paul failing to convince his own people that Jesus was the Messiah, and so he moves on to Plan B, the Gentiles. And in our Gospel, Jesus is once again speaking in cryptic language about his death and resurrection that will happen ‘in a little while.’
Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Whenever I read Acts chapter 17, I’m always drawn to the phrase “in him we live and move and have our being.” It’s so remarkable that our lives, the things that make us human, and our very existence find their place in God. God is not something or someone we seek from afar; God is someone we find within us and close around us. I invite us to meditate on and contemplate this phrase today, in him we live and move and have our being.
Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
It can sometimes seem as though Jesus is far removed from our 21st-Century lives in Dayton, Ohio. His life and ministry on earth is certainly removed from us by many centuries. He lived in a time when the world was very different, and he lived and worked in a much different cultural context. I find that my own sense of being far removed from the historical figure of Jesus sometimes has the danger of allowing me to make excuses for myself: in particular it allows me to pick and choose the ways that I am willing to follow him. I find myself sometimes asking how Jesus expects me to follow him when he is so far away from my life. This in turn can make me less passionate about my faith and less certain of my role as a Christian in the world around me. The scriptures for today speak to these concerns and show that this way of thinking is mistaken. They remind us that Jesus remains very close to us, in many different ways but in particular through the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Throughout Easter we hear from Acts of the Apostles. Acts reveals that from the time of the apostles, we’ve been a “we” people and not a “me” people.
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Our gospel message today encompasses the whole point of salvation history. Jesus calls us his friends. The entirety of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the word of the Father, is summed up in the great commandment: “love one another” (Jn 15:17). Yet, we are reminded daily of just how difficult we make it to live out this calling.Friendship is an opportunity to freely choose to love someone else and care for who they are. True friendship is typically grounded in a concern on the part of each person for the best of the other, for the other’s sake; it is the embodiment of the commandment to love one another.
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Our reading from John’s Gospel delivers an incredible, unbelievable (even) promise: complete joy. Seriously? In this world? Is John unaware of the suffering in the world, whether in his time or our own? Of course, he is. He writes about the crucifixion, after all.
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
A few years back a tree died in my front yard. The yard seemed like it was missing something, so the hunt for new tree began. Although I liked the Silver Maple that was there before I really wanted to get a tree that flowered. In my search I came across the Bartlett Pair, crabapple and apple trees. But what really captured my attention was this combination Cherry tree. I had never heard of such a tree, but I thought it was worth try.
Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
Our first reading today sounds familiar; nearly the same passage was read this past Sunday. There must be something there worth repeating! It’s a very historical reading. Paul travelled here, did this, and then he went there, met with these people, etc. But between the itinerary, we read that Paul was thrown out of the city and stoned, but got up as the disciples gathered around him, and went right back into the city! This is a person without fear! Paul goes on to tell the disciples that “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” This is what strikes me in the first reading. Paul and the disciples are not delivered from hardships and persecutions, but they are freed from the power that such coercive acts have over normal people.
Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Acts of the Apostles was not intended as “absolute history.” For example, Paul’s itinerary in Acts differs extensively from what he wrote with his own hand in the seven authentic letters attributed to him. Acts was composed 60+ years later than the events it describes.
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Today’s readings talk about God’s saving power, and call followers of Christ to be instruments of this action here on earth. It seems much easier to see how God’s power is alive and active within our scripture readings, but we are also called to be signs of God’s glory in the way we live in this modern world.