June 29, 2021: Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

We celebrate two great pillars of our Church today, Saints Peter and Paul, who helped build up the Church significantly in its earliest years.

They are pillars because they proclaimed the Gospel message based on the revelations to them from the Heavenly Father, through Christ.

So they grounded themselves in such a strong foundation, which supported them in the face of great opposition and gave them boldness in proclaiming the Gospel given to them.

And so the Gospel continues to be handed on, to us, and then we hand it on to others, keeping ourselves grounded in the foundation of Christ, as we answer the call to boldly proclaim the Gospel. And so we participate in the work of advancing the Kingdom, because God has given us a part in this great work, guided by the authority handed on to the apostles and their successors to uphold Christ's teachings, those keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's fitting for me to conclude June with such a great feast, for earlier this month, on June 8, I marked the anniversary of my middle school graduation.  Those years were a time when I came to deeply appreciate my faith, and the call to boldly proclaim and live the Gospel by which I receive faith as a gift.

June 27, 2021: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

While we face troubles from time to time in this world, by faith, we believe in a God Who is over all those troubles, and Who has demonstrated His power of redemption over them.

He is a God Who created us, and saved us so that we might have life.

The healing stories in the Gospel passage are pretty astounding.  When Jairus's daughter was thought to be dead, He helped her up.

The woman with the hemorrhages, which would have started around the time the daughter of Jairus was born, was cut off from the life of the community because of her condition.  And even though touching Jesus would have, according to the Law, made Him unclean, she had faith to reach out and take what she knew Jesus could offer her.  Indeed, He brought her the healing only He could make possible, and instantly restored her to fullness of health and participation in the life of the community.  Just as He brought her healing without being stained, so Christ imparts to all of us healing and redemption without being stained by our sins.

Let us reach out to touch Him, confident in knowing by faith that He can restore us to wholeness by His powerful Presence and His Life.

And let us be a blessing to others, bringing life to all the world, as we give generously, as our God has.

June 24, 2021: The Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Christ entered our world and brought great Light.  It was so great that the rejoicing on account of it began before Christ was born when St. John leaped in the womb of his mother St. Elizabeth.

And when he was born, his mother had great joy in overcoming her barren womb, and many rejoiced with her.

It was clear from the beginning that St. John was born for a special purpose, considering the angel announced his name.

St. John the Baptist would devote his ministry to heralding the way for the birth of Christ.

So all of us who are people of faith in Christ are born with a purpose, to herald the great Light that God has brought us in Christ.  Indeed, we rejoice in that Great Light, shining and bearing it before all the world.

June 20, 2021: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Out in a dark night on the plains of Eastern Colorado, just south of Burlington, on May 17, 2011, I watched a fierce storm with lots of lightning approach from the west.  I was with a storm chasing group.  As I saw the scene outside the window, I reached for a flashlight and for my Bible and opened to Job 38, a piece of which is today's first reading.

No matter how fierce the storms we encounter in life, we know that God is still powerfully present with us.  Our God demonstrates that He is above the storms, and they are still under His control.

We see this reality in a whole new way when Jesus comes to earth as fully man and fully God, and demonstrates God is among us like never before when He calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Indeed, a new order of the ages has manifested itself, and so we are transformed to be a new Creation we enter into the Paschal Mystery, entrusting ourselves to God and walking in the ways of Him Who is truly Lord of Heaven and Earth.

June 13, 2021: 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus presents some marvelous imagery in the parables in today's Gospel reading.

The farmer plants seeds and does his part tending to them, but then the process of the seeds becoming plants in full bloom unfolds in ways beyond his control or understanding.  Then there's the incredible reality of how the tiny mustard seed becomes such a large bush.

It is truly marvelous to think at how God is similarly at work in our lives.  While we can't see God, He reveals Himself to us, so that we walk by faith, not by sight, as St. Paul writes, striving to please God in this life as we journey toward the judgment.

As we devote our lives to putting faith into action through righteous deeds, God is at work in ways that we can't fully understand or control, though we know His work is really happening because of the fruits that come to bear.  Ultimately, God mightily declares Who He is through these deeds, doing what He alone can do.

Yet we marvel at how God invites us to be transformed so that even our small deeds of righteousness, kindness, and compassion can be part of His plan to advance the Kingdom of God on Earth, which is not a place, but a way of life.  By faith, we open ourselves up to how our deeds can be part of God's plan to advance the Kingdom by making God known.  So we constantly strive to do good works, ready for God's action through them.

Today, 27 of the students I taught in RE class this past year graduate from both Brooks and Julian Middle Schools in Oak Park.

As a Religious Education teacher, part of my role is to plant seeds, and then open up to how God does His part to bring them forth to fruition.  By faith, I recognize that the seeds planted during their time in RE class will come to fruition, though I know not how it happens, and even if I'm not there to see the fruition.

Furthermore, I recognize in my experience that so many seeds were planted during my middle school years, especially in becoming a person of deep faith, which have born great fruit over the past 16 years, and I marvel to think of how God has been at work in wondrous ways that He alone can do.

June 12, 2021: Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Mary is often called the first disciple.

She accepted God's will for her and became the Mother of God.

She had a close relationship with her Son, sharing love with Him so intimately.

She is a model for how we can open our lives to the love flowing forth from the heart of God, poured out to us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

And when we receive that love and share in it, we are transformed so that we pour out that love to others so they may come to know our loving God.

June 11, 2021: Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

God's love is so immense for us, and we have powerful imagery in how He poured out His love for us so deeply in Jesus, when He was pierced upon the Cross.

When we sinned and strayed from Him, His heart was so full of love, He sought after us.

May we rejoice that this love has brought us salvation, and constantly seek after this God, so that we may come to more fully understand His love for us, and be transformed to imitate our Savior, to pour ourselves out in showing such love to others.

June 6, 2021: Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ/Corpus Christi

We recently observed Memorial Day and today is the anniversary of D-Day and the end of the Battle of Midway.  Perhaps those occasions are a fitting backdrop of our celebration of the great sacrifice at is at the heart of our Roman Catholic Christian life.

At a meal with the disciples, which He eagerly desired to share with them as the Gospel of St. Luke recounts, Jesus Christ instituted a new covenant.  It was built on the foundation of the covenant God established with His people when He delivered them from slavery in Egypt and gave them the Law, celebrated by that Passover meal.

Moses splashed blood on the altar and sprinkled it on the people as a sign that they were going to enter into a life-giving relationship with God, the people having consented to do as God commanded.

That covenant commanded sacrifices of animals for atonement for sin.  Then, Christ came, and, at the commemorative Passover meal, offered Himself, pouring out His body and blood to free us completely from sin and make us right before God.  This great gift furthermore brought us into deep, intimate union with our God Who loves us so much.

When we gather at Mass, we have the extraordinary opportunity to encounter our Living God Who has offered Himself to us so that we may share in His life, and live transformed to be a blessing to the world.

We have indeed received a great gift, which calls us to live to be a gift to others in the model of Christ.