“If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart.” When bad things happen, we might think that we are forgotten, or somehow outside of God’s will for us. But suffering comes to all. We can choose to go through suffering and learn, or we can stomp our feet and become resentful, indignant, and mean spirited towards others.
“Time keeps on slipping into the future,” says an old song. The God of Abraham calls you and me to a covenant that not only puts God first but also calls us to notice and care for the poor and needy. Like the rich man, we can be too preoccupied to take the time to notice who is at our doorstep.
The parable of the dishonest steward reminds us that we must put first things first. Knowing that his service was coming to an end, he started to plan for the future, stretching the boundaries of what was acceptable, to accomplish his goal. Jesus gives him credit for doing just that.
Many Christians are worried about worshiping graven images and idols, but the scriptures today show something different. Perhaps in a desire to hide our worship of idols we rail against images like the cross and statues of saints. What or who do you really worship?
Are you “all in” as a Catholic Chrier Him to your mother, father, brothers, sisters. He says my yoke is easy and my burden light; but that only happens when you put the Lord first in your life.
Our identity and dignity as human beings is based on our creation in the image and likeness of God. In humility we acknowledge that we are dust of the earth filled with the breath of God that gives us intrinsic value, based not on what others think of us or the number of “likes” we receive from others.
To the question, “Will many people be saved?” Jesus responds, “strive to enter through the narrow gate.” To strive means to make great efforts to obtain something. Do you make great efforts to hear the word of God and act on it?
The author of Hebrews describes us as running a race and if you are lagging: #1 Remember that you are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses; we call it the Communion of Saints.
What is faith? Beyond intellectual assent, faith means putting your trust in God into action that changes everything. Abraham, in a foreshadowing of Jesus’ sacrifice on Mount Calvary, has Isaac carry the wood up the mountain, who then lays down his life on that firewood, as a sacrifice.
Once every three years we hear the parable of the rich fool, who is selfishly concerned only with himself, and focuses on what does not last. Our sinful tendencies need instruction and discipline that come through spiritual practices. If you were to die today, what would matter most to you and your loved ones?
What’s in a person’s heart? You and I can never know another’s motivations, but the Lord God, who outside of space and time, does. God knows what we need and even our destiny.
Henry Nouwen writes that hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.
Doing the right thing seems difficult; Moses in Deuteronomy says that it is already written in our hearts. It’s not a matter of greater knowledge nor of our will power, but only desire. What do you desire more than life itself? If the Lord God is your desire, you will love him, and that love will change your behavior.
As we celebrate the freedom of Independence Day, we acknowledge that there is no greater freedom than that of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We become a new creation as we share the peace and mercy of the gospel with those around us.
The two pillars of the Church: Peter, one of the twelve and a simple fisherman, immediately dropped his nets on hearing Jesus say, follow me. Peter didn’t calculate and think before he acted or spoke and didn’t allow excuses to delay him.
Give them some food yourselves, says the Lord in St. Luke’s gospel. You and I are called to give others ‘something’ that is, a someone, to eat.
“…then was I beside him as his craftsman,” the author of the Book of Wisdom writes to describe Jesus at the time of creation, or perhaps it is the Love that, St. Paul writes, has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Happy 199th anniversary St. Mary Church and Happy Pentecost! Holy Spirit, show us what is right and give us the strength and courage to do it!
Congratulations to our First Communicants and to our Confirmandi in receiving their sacraments this month! A big thank you to all our catechists in our religious education program.
The controversial question that had to be put to rest in the first reading, is an example of the action of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised in the Gospel.
Jesus is glorified by suffering and dying on the cross for us. We need to learn to go beyond fear and love one another as Christ loves us. The new commandment is so simple yet so difficult. Love one another as I have loved you. Be humble enough to reconsider, and to try again. You and I, like Pope Leo, are a living advertisement for the love of God.
“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” That inner voice through which the Holy Spirit speaks to each of us and to the whole body, as in the conclave in Rome, reminds us that we are not left to fend for ourselves.
The conclave will meet to elect the one to follow our beloved Pope Francis, who as the 266th leader in the shoes of St. Peter died last week at the age of 88. After denying the Lord, Peter, as the servant of the servants of God, was called to feed his lambs and sheep.
How are you doing? Fine, we always say. Shame and fear might keep the doors of our hearts tightly closed, keeping us isolated. But Jesus, the Lord of life, enters through locked doors.
St. Paul proclaims 20 years after the death and resurrection of the Lord: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” What has the Lord God given you in your hidden life with Him? Today all Catholic Christians renew their commitment to the Lord through baptism when we die with Christ, and each “I do,” is a renewed commitment to living resurrected life in the Lord Jesus.
St. Paul writes that Jesus, in obedience to the will of his Father, doesn’t seek what is comfortable but conforms himself to his imminent suffering and death on the cross. He trusts that his heavenly Father will bring about good from what appears evil.
Jesus bends over and writes into the dust of the earth, dissipating the chaos and screams swirling around the woman caught in adultery. People will always use others to make their point and win the argument, often out of jealousy, hurt feelings, or pride. Jesus the Word wants to write something completely new in your life.
We read today of the prodigal son, but the parable might better be named the indulgent Father from whom nothing can separate us. His holiness, Pope Francis has invited us to ponder this indulgent love during this Jubilee year of hope.
There is a sense of urgency in today’s readings, both in the fig tree being given one more season, and in St. Paul’s reminding us of the insecurity of our personal standing in this world. Repent and convert or face the likelihood of perishing, but also keep in mind that the owner of the garden is also the One who cultivates and prunes that we might come to fruition.
The smoking fire pot and burning torch seal the deal in the first covenant with Abraham. The blinding light that knocks Saul down and lovingly sets him on a new path as missionary to the Gentiles, like the Transfiguration of the Lord, reveals the one who from before and within, calls us his sons and daughters.
“Jesus, after 40 days in the desert,
experienced the temptations we all face yet did not fall. Notice that He cites the bible in his encounter with temptation. Wrestling with pleasure, honor, glory, and wealth pursues us all the days of our life. The three-prong strategy of Lent, prayer, fasting and abstinence, plus almsgiving, however, are keys to discipleship in the Lord.
“From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks,” reminds me of a guided walk through an obstacle course on a youth retreat. The guide gives verbal instructions to the blindfolded person as the rest of the group together communicate messages that both help and hinder the one who must discern the correct next step.
The first sentence of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church states that “God,
infinitely perfect and blessed in
Himself, in a plan of sheer goodness
freely created man to make him share
in his own blessed life.”
The first sentence of the Catechism of
the Catholic Church states that “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.”
I remember the night that God called me to the priesthood; after overcoming my misgivings, I said yes, and then sensed his tremendous peace. Isaiah writing about his call says, woe is me for I am doomed having seen the living God.
The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord does not often fall on a Sunday when most Catholics attend mass. Here the Lord is presented in the temple to be consecrated as the first born, and Mary his mother, following the Jewish prescriptions, to be purified 40 days after childbirth.
The world around us is swirling in the opposite direction, yet we are sons and daughters of the Lord called like Jesus to stand in public and proclaim the year acceptable to the Lord.
St. Augustine, in writing about the water turned wine at Cana, remarks that for the Christian who knows of the wonders of God, this should come as no surprise, as the Lord God does this every year in vines.
I’m always edified when we touch our fingers to the holy water, and bless ourselves in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Epiphany is three celebrations in one! First, it celebrates the manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles after his birth by the visitation of the three pagan Magi from the East, also known to us as the three kings, who through the virgin Mary encounter Christ for the first time as an infant. This expression of universality was the Christmas celebration of the Eastern or Greek church introduced into the Latin or Roman Rite in the 6th century.
Jesus was born into a Jewish family that often moved because of economic or political reasons from Bethlehem of Judea to Nazareth, and to Egypt, and back again. And like the millions around the world migrating today, family bonds hold us together.
Next August 8th – 10th, 2025, you are welcome to join us on a pilgrimage to Detroit where the now Blessed Solanus Casey is buried. He arrived for the first time at St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit on December 24, 1896, on a snowy Christmas Eve and was shown to a small room containing a bed, a desk, and a chair. He stretched himself out on the bed and fell fast asleep.
St. Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again rejoice!” Today, we light the rose-colored candle on our advent wreath on our journey toward the birth of the One who John the Baptist says will baptize us with fire.
Do you ever feel like you are barking up the wrong tree? If John the Baptist is the voice crying out in the wilderness for us to change our hearts, Jesus is the Word he speaks that liberates us today from the captivity of our own making.
Today, the first Sunday of Advent, we begin the gospel of mercy, St. Luke who invites us to watch and wait. When we learn to patiently wait, though the world be spinning around us, we foster a greater appreciation and peace in daily life.
Jesus Christ king of the universe, unlike earthly royalty, is unlimited in his ability to resolve the crises of our world.
Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the end of time when he said, “…the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
Do you go all in for the Lord? Or do you hold back, worried that He might not give you what you need or desire? The Lord God has given all for you, laying down his life for us in Jesus Christ.
St Mary’s Church
440 Grand Street
New York, NY 10002
St. Mary’s Rectory
28 Attorney Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 674-3266
saintmarygrand1826@gmail.com
