First Sunday of Lent_A - Unrequited Love_022623

Deacon Tom Writes,

Unrequited Love

First Sunday of Lent, Year A

 

The Prophet Hosea speaks of God’s unending love for his unfaithful people and his desire to be reconciled with them with these words:

“I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.” HOSEA 2:16

The season of Lent draws much from the desert imagery that is so deeply immersed throughout our Sacred Scripture. And, so at the very mention of the word “Lent,” for instance, we recall the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land, a journey from slavery to freedom. And we are mindful of how Jesus withdrew to the desert to discern God’s Will for him as read in today’s gospel.

Yet, the words from Hosea cast another light on desert experiences: they are a time of solitude, a time of intimacy, of knowing and becoming known. God calls those he loves into a place of solitude so that we can enter into a deeper relationship with him and, through his Mystical Body, into a deeper relationship with one another.

Yes, Lent is about discovery, an awakening of just how incomplete our lives have become separated from our Beloved. These next six weeks give us the chance to see just how far we have fallen out of relationship with God and provide us the opportunity to seek to make things right.

But, least we think that we are left on our own to do all the work, recall the beautiful words from Hosea and remember who it is who entices us into this desert journey: it is our very God himself. It is God who desires us to seek him; it is God who calls us into relationship with him; it is God who desires to be our all in all, our Beloved; and it is God who is desperate for us to love him in return.

May God bless all our Lenten efforts to draw near to him. May he bless abundantly our Seeking Hearts.

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: Throughout the Lenten season, writers from the Ignatian network will guide us on a spiritual journey —"Finding God in the Chaos." Join us to hear stories of hope, of justice, of God’s presence in a chaotic, broken world. Sign up at: https://ignatiansolidarity.net/lent-2023/

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Lenten Meditative Music

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time_A - The Call to Holiness_021923

Deacon Tom Writes,

“The Call to Holiness”

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

Jesus takes the contemporary wisdom of his time and turns it upside down. The ancient patterns of behavior of seeking revenge, the old “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” order of the day mentality needs to give way to a new mindset, a new way of resolving differences. So, Jesus introduces his followers to some new and innovative ways, a new “wisdom” to bring about justice saying, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil” and “turn the other cheek.”

Jesus’ radical new prescription to eradicate the plagues of hatred, violence, revenge and discrimination is to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Of course, this is much easier said than done. There is a story told about the days following the North’s victory over the South in America’s Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln was being pressured to completely destroy the Confederacy, to decimate the enemies of the Union once and for all. Lincoln’s answer was classic. He responded to those calling for the annihilation of the South with these reconciling words saying effectively: “Don’t I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” Lincoln understood very well that violence only begets more violence. The cycle never ends. How could it in the absence of a new mindset, a new vision that lifts the victim and the vanquished to a higher level of social and moral conscientiousness? This attitude perhaps helped fashion America’s treatment of our enemies in the twentieth century when, after the Second World War, the Marshall Plan sent massive humanitarian aid to Europe in order to lay the foundation for a world able to reconcile differences through mutual respect and an orderly process of dialogue rather than mutual destruction.

Embracing a new way of responding to problems that give rise to the endless cycle of violence that ravages peoples, cultures, and societies is a critical component of our faith. Through the Prophet Moses, the Lord told his people to “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” We are called to be holy as God is holy. Therefore, violence and revenge are not options. There is no better advocate for this than Christ who became a victim for us all and who suffered torture and death at the hands of violent people in order to show us the way of peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Let us take Christ’s words to heart and strive to put them into practice by “turning the other cheek” when others choose the way of violence and also by praying for those who do so.

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: Living Justice, by Thomas Massaro, S.J. explores the life and teaching of Jesus to help us understand that “Justice is constitutive of the Gospel." Living Justice opens our hearts and minds to put the teachings of Jesus into practice helping serve “the least of our sisters and brothers.”

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret (No More!) | Magis Talk Episode 51

 

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time_A - Light and Zest_020523

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Make the Right Choice”

 

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Our readings today address the choices we have in life. Sirach seems to say that, in essence, every choice that we make comes down to this: we choose between life and death or, stated differently, between good and evil. Then the Sacred Writer cautions us further that, “whatever we choose shall be given to us.”  

 

It is not often we think of the choices we make throughout the day as either good or evil or between life and death. We probably make hundreds of choices over the course of an ordinary day. Yet, it shouldn’t be a surprise to us that every choice we make counts; every choice we make has us heading in one direction or another. We often find ourselves in situations where we must compromise... our faith, our values, our entire belief system. Jesus, in saying that he has come to fulfill the law, not to abolish it, reminds us that we have a reference point on how to determine if we are making good or bad choices. His focal point is … the Law, specifically, the Law God handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai.

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus expands the meaning of the Law when he interprets it in a much broader sense. He equates anger with the act of killing another person. Then again, the act of calling someone a fool and thereby diminishing their dignity as a child of God becomes punishable by eternal damnation….

 

I don’t think that Jesus is being overly scrupulous. But, he is being very cautious. He knows that it is the little things that trip us up not only in the day-to-day happenings in our material life but also on our spiritual journey as well. He knows that every choice we make is either drawing us nearer to him or has us moving further away from him. He knows that little by little we can lose the kingdom of heaven by making bad choices. 

 

Jesus taught us that the best choice we can make is to choose to love, to love God first and foremost, and to love others, even our enemies as well. And this happens every time we choose to put others first, and by doing so, we deepen our love of God, which is always the right choice!

 

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: A Reason to Believe, A Personal Story by Lawyer Ron Tesoriero of his fascinating journey in pursuit of answers. Following the trail of the blood of Christ through history and through science he also encounters Eucharistic miracles, the Shroud of Turin, The Sudarium of Oviedo and a vial of “the blood of Christ” taken at the time of the crucifixion now in Bruges, Belgium, in search for the DNA of Christ.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  The Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time_A - Light and Zest_020523

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Light and Zest”

 

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

The Sacred Author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote this graphic an insightful, if not disturbing, passage concerning the enduring truth about the Word of God when he penned these words, “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.” Heb 4:12

It seems there is no shortage of problems in our world today. Look around and you see protesters carrying signs and placards supporting one cause or another, advocating one course of action over a different path forward, labeling one ideology good and those who stand in opposition to that way of thinking bad. We seem divided over many issues... the world seems to be in disarray. Where does one turn to find a meaningful message, one that inspires hope, gives us a path that we may follow that helps heal our social, spiritual, emotional, and mental maladies? Perhaps anyone who enters any of our Catholic Churches around the world today, February 5, 2023 will find some direction in these words from the Prophet Isaiah

Thus says the LORD:

Share your bread with the hungry,

shelter the oppressed and the homeless;

clothe the naked when you see them,

and do not turn your back on your own.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your wound shall quickly be healed;

Isaiah goes on to say:

If you remove from your midst

oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;

if you bestow your bread on the hungry

and satisfy the afflicted;

then light shall rise for you in the darkness,

and the gloom shall become for you like midday.

We don’t surrender our politics, our agendas, our experiences or hopes for the future when we enter Church to worship God. These are essential dimensions of our lives that are to be conformed and shaped by the Word and Sacrament that we receive when we participate in “the sacred mysteries” which bring us together as “the people of God” whenever we gather in his name.

We are faced with many challenges today; we have many factors dividing us into contentious fractions to put it mildly...toxic polarization. Where to begin to find a remedy? In good conscience, we must not overlook the cautionary and prophetic advice we find in Sacred Scripture, which, like a scalpel, cuts away all diseased ways of thinking for those seeking to be healed from their malady. 

Jesus calls his disciples “the salt of the earth.” All who heard Jesus say this understood how valuable salt was as a preservative, an antiseptic, to enhance the flavor of food. Salt was a medium of exchange from which the word “salary” is derived. If we are to be the “salt of the earth” as Jesus called us to be, we must bring to the current debates the Christian values we find in Sacred Scripture that sees us all as God’s children and not just with our words but with our actions as well by bringing light and zest to the world around us. And the hardest part of all this, my brothers and sisters, is that first, we my embrace those very values Jesus teaches to rid ourselves of the toxins in our system.

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: Immortal Diamond by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM - A spiritual exploration of the True Self that can never be destroyed—only transformed to live in eternal Love.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations Podcast - Father Richard Rohr: Finding Your True Self