There's Plenty To Go Around!

Deacon Tom Writes,

“There’s Plenty To Go Around!”

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year C

Can we ever be satisfied… with anything? We want faster, bigger, better, more of everything and we want it right now. We don’t want to wait to have it, or work long and hard to get it. And the message we hear loud and clear today from Fifth Avenue, from self-help gurus, from the media, and even from some pulpits is, “You can have it all and you can have it your way”. Tell tale signs that our expectations are not realistic.

Our spiritual senses, if they are well developed, will tune us in to the fact that there is a problem with our instant gratification thinking and warn us that this is not the natural order of things. No created thing, no human being can completely satisfy us or our hearts desires. It is only God who can satisfy the deepest longing of our hearts. Today we contemplate the wisdom of God as we celebrate the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. God, the architect of the universe and all that exists within it, designed us to seek the ultimate good, which, of course, he is by his nature, by his very being. He “hard wired” us, so to speak, so that we would come looking for him, seeing his image in all creation, and putting aside all else in our search for the “real thing”, the ultimate goodness, the one and only giver of life and of all that is.

Those who were fortunate to be around Jesus listening to him speak about the Kingdom of God may not have fully realized the gift they were given, the bread of life, food that would satisfy completely. What’s our excuse? As Catholics there is no more profound mystery of faith than what we experience when we receive the Eucharist – the Son of God coming into our lives and dwelling within us and satisfying us completely. God becomes, in a sense, the very fuel that energizes us to do our part in helping bring about the reign of God in our times, in our lives, and in the world around us.

That God would become really present in the bread and wine during the Consecration remains as difficult teaching today as it was when Jesus first revealed it. Recall how many walked away because this teaching was too difficult? Jesus asked the apostles, “Will you leave me also”. And Peter responded, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

The gift of the Eucharist reveals God’s desire to be a part of the very fiber of our lives. We give our thanks for this precious gift by sharing our faith and our lives with one another as we await the fullness of the long awaited kingdom of God on earth.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

We Are God's Delight

Deacon Tom writes on….

“We Are God’s Delight”

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year C

The reading from the Book of Proverbs calls to our imagination that moment in time when God, the master craftsman, is busy laying “the foundations of the earth”. Witnessing this extra-ordinary event is this mysterious figure, “The Wisdom of God”. God’s Wisdom is personified, given a physical reality, in order to be by God’s side as his craftsman to assist him in bringing forth creation. God’s Wisdom is euphoric at what is happening, “being God’s delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; finding delight in the human race”. The Wisdom of God is such a cooperative, willing, and light-hearted assistant, and one so eager to find delight in God’s masterpiece of creation, the human race.

Our readings today give us insight into the Holy Trinity whose feast we celebrate today. We recognize God, as the Creator, calling into existence our physical universe. And we can surmise that the Wisdom of God, who is also present and is also known as God’s delight, is the Holy Spirit, that “mighty wind” who swept over the waters of creation in Genesis. In the Gospel, Jesus is completing his mission on earth and, as he prepares to depart, tells the disciples they will be guided by the Spirit of Truth, another name, perhaps, for the Wisdom of God.

The Trinity will always be a mystery for us, in this life and the next. We know that we will never be able to comprehend God’s nature completely. But we do share in it by virtue of our participation in the sacramental life of the Church. There we encounter Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who delight in our human family.  

The celebration of Trinity Sunday is a sign that our Easter Season is behind us. We have reentered Ordinary Time trusting in the Holy Spirit whose work it is to help us recall the depth of God’s love for us. A complete giving of self in Jesus the Christ through whom we have come to know that we too are God’s delight.  

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

tjc_Weeki Wachee Sunset

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Lord, Send out your Spirit,

and renew the face of the earth”

Pentecost Sunday, Mass during the Day,  Year C

On this Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the birthday of our church. On this special day we pray to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for whose help we are most in need. We pray for the Spirit of God to come into our lives and revive our hearts so we may know God’s presence at work within us and in our world, renewing us and filling us with his love.

This Pentecost we pray that the Spirit of Jesus Christ will awaken in us a desire to know God and to do his Will. Yet, we really don’t need to ask for this gift…. Jesus told us that he would send…“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name -- will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you” JN 14:26. Our need is to be open to receive this Spirit of God deep within the fiber of our being. We need the Holy Spirit so that we can meet the demands of Christian discipleship … that is to grow daily in the knowledge and love of God and in service to our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who breathes into us the knowledge of God’s love so that we, in turn, can love and engender love in others as Jesus taught us. For indeed…“we have been given the manifestation of the spirit for some benefit”…. and that benefit is to realize God’s abundant love not only in ourselves, but in others also giving them the opportunity to discover God’s love for themselves.

Jesus sent his disciples into this world that hungered for the love, peace and rest from the toils and anxieties of life. And we still do! Can there really be any question about that as we witness the horrific suffering in our world, the political divisiveness, the economic disparity, and the hopelessness engendered by the degradation of the human spirit? We are in desperate need of the gifts of the Holy Spirit...wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord so that we can live together and realize our full potential as children of God. These gifts of the Spirit transform our lives and conform us so that we become Christ-like in every way. Too difficult?  Yes, for us left to ourselves, but not for Christ to accomplish in us. That is the transformative power of Holy Spirit this Pentecost for all who strive to be disciples of Christ today. As Christ sent his first disciples into the world to dispel the darkness and give it hope, he now sends us into the world so we can continue to be people of hope…. who forgive and love one another, who act justly and work for a justice in this world, who look forward to the fullness of God’s reign.  We, like those who have gone before us, have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit and, so empowered, are sent into the world to be witnesses of God’s love and to cooperated with his own Spirit so that together we can renew the face of the earth.

Enjoy the day

Deacon Tom

We're All In This Together!

Deacon Tom Writes,

“We Are All In This Together!”

Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C

The words of today’s gospel challenge anyone attempting to live as disciples of Christ amid the disunity that troubles our world. Jesus finishes the last Passover meal he was to share with his friends before heading across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane. His final words spoke of his burning desire that  “they may all be one”. Jesus calls us to share the same unity with one another and with him as he has with the Father so that we may know, “…that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them”. Recall that when Jesus spoke these words he too was in the midst of a fractured world… Roman occupation, tension between the Jews and the Gentiles, slaves and free, rich and poor, religious leaders and the people they were supposed to shepherd.  Unity was far from the reality. 

Yet Jesus calls his followers to a different worldview… one of unity. Jesus’ last words emphasize that we live in God’s love just as Jesus lives in Father’s love. The Son of God calls us to a mutual love, loving him as he loves us. It is an invitation into this mutual love, a love that leads us into union with the Divine Godhead, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

With even the slightest awareness of this reality, we begin to see ourselves as one with God, united to him as children to their father. We all should be working as one big family seeking to remove all the barriers that divide us, that separate us from the love of God and each other. And so, as people so intimately united with one another through our mutual, loving relationship with God, we are called to surmount all the barriers to God’s love, the barriers of hatred and discrimination, the barriers of poverty and ignorance, the barriers that has one group thinking they are superior to another group. And, furthermore, we are called to shun all the voices calling us to disunity, factions, division. All these barriers attack the central reality of our faith – that we are made in the image and likeness of God and that we possess a dignity of person because of God’s love and indwelling in us.

God loves all his children, without exception and he calls us to be like him in this regard. Let our lives be spent living Jesus’ farewell prayer to his disciples by seeking to be one with him and with each other by reconciling our differences, by being moved with compassion in the face of suffering, bigotry, violence, and ignorance. In the face of the rampant divisiveness we witness today, do we dare pray with Jesus, “Holy Father… may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you”.  May the Almighty Father hear our prayers and give us the grace and courage to overcome our fears so we may live as true disciples of the Lord who prayed that” we all may be one”.

Happy Mothers’ Day to all our mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers! May God bless on this special day and always and fill your day with his joy.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom