Second Sunday of Lent_A - Renewal of the Mind_030126

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Renewal of_ the Mind”

Second Sunday of Lent, Year A

 

In his letter to the Ephesians St Paul instructed them: “You should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God's way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” (Eph 4:22)

 

When Peter, James and John see Jesus in the fullness of his glory, they, quite naturally, want to hang on to the moment. To hold on to this moment they want to erect three tents perhaps so that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus can stay with them for a while. But that was not to be. The vision doesn’t last. Before you know it, it’s all over and the time comes to return to the ordinary, routine affairs of daily life.

 

Hold on to the vision, Christ tells them. Keep this all to yourself until the Son of Man has been raised from the Dead! What an impossible task! Yet there can be no doubt that these men were deeply affected by what they saw. Seeing Christ in the fullness of His glory affected their thinking, their behavior, and their attitudes. Does what we hear today do the same for us?

 

If we so desire, the words of our Gospel today can have a great impact on our life. We too can be renewed in the spirit of our minds and be given a new mindset, one that will transform every aspect of our lives, renew and enliven our inner beings, empower us to do the difficult interior work that will allow us to grow more spiritually mature. St. Paul describes this process, “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Cor 5:17). It is being renewed from the inside out.

 

Peter, James and John were fortunate to have been given this glimpse of the divine Jesus. We are somewhat more challenged today since we will not experience this until our life’s end. But now that the story has been told, we have this vision implanted in our heads AND hearts. It is a vision that beckons us to begin the difficult, life-long work of crafting our new selves created in God’s way, a work that will come to completion only when we become one with him in what we refer to as, “the life to come.”

 

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

 

 

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com where you will find contemporary conversations with several Paulist Deacon Affiliates and their guests exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer to those on the threshold of our church… those thinking of joining our Catholic Community or walking away from it

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: Wonderous Encounters: Scripture for Lent. This season, our Lent Sit Meditations explore themes from Fr. Richard Rohr’s devotional “Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent.”

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Lenten Sit Meditation with Fr. Richard Rohr OFM Let go of the old and make room for new beginnings this Lenten season. Journey beyond the surface of Lent into the depths of stillness with our extended CAC community. (USER NOTE – SLIDE THE RED TIMELINE TO THE RIGHT UNTIL THE 5:45 TIMESTAMP AND THE VIDEO WILL START)

First Sunday of Lent_A - Unrequited Love_022226

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: Stubborn Hope During this Lenten season, let us cultivate a stubborn hope, like the trees in Psalm 1, planted near streams of water, yielding fruit in due season, and never withering.

Throughout Lent, writers from the Ignatian network will nourish our hope. Join us each day to allow your roots—be they abundant, brittle, or somewhere in between—to pull from the waters of faith and bear fruit for a more just world.

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Lenten Meditative Music

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time_A - Make the Right Choice_021526

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: Thoughts Matter, by Mary Margaret Funk, OSB. John Cassian taught that real intimacy with God in prayer demands renouncing one's former way of life, the thoughts belonging to that former way of life, and one's very idea of God. In Thoughts Matter, Funk explains well how failure to control these thoughts can undermine our spiritual life, and she instructs readers on how effectively to overcome these thoughts and to focus instead on thoughts in harmony with God's will. The result is an experience of joy, hope, and freedom from enslavement to our appetites. Readers will come away enlightened, strengthened, and inspired to delve more deeply into a life of intimacy with God.

 

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Glory Be podcast Episode 37 Sister Meg Funk

"We don't have [to work] to pray. We have to let prayer happen to us. The Holy Spirit is already alive in us. When we renounce our afflictions, prayer starts surging up." Sr. Mary Margaret Funk has been a Benedictine nun at Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, IN, since 1961. She holds a M.A. from Catholic University in Religion and Religious Education and a M.S. from Indiana University. She’s the author of five books in the Matter Series that brings forward the teachings of the Desert Spirituality. She is currently facilitating the St. Enda retreat, a 100-day online retreat. In this episode Sr. Mary Margaret gives the listener a little insight on how our thoughts matter in our effort to grow in spirituality.

 

 

 

 

 

Fifth Sunday in Ordinay Time_A - Light and Zest_020826

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

 

There is no shortage of problems in our world today, extremely morally challenging ones facing our country. Look around and you see protesters responding to the recent ICE killings in Minnesota. Crowds of people carrying signs and placard protesting the arrest and treatment of immigrants; other protestors 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 are divided over many issues... our world, our country seems to be in chaos. 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 8, 2026 will find some direction and hopefully a better plan of action 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 not only in our political and social lives but also in our ecclesial and  moral realms; 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 all who are seeking to be healed from our current and prevalent toxic pattern of thinking. 

 

Jesus calls his disciples “the salt of the earth.” All who heard Jesus say this understood how valuable salt was as both a preservative and an antiseptic, that enhances 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 must 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: The Universal Christ by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM - Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world. “God loves things by becoming them,” he writes, and Jesus’s life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God—except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet.

 

Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Fr James Martin, SJ Spirituality Podcast with Fr. Richard Roar, OFC.  Host James Martin, S.J., welcomes the Franciscan spiritual master and author, Richard Rohr O.F.M., onto “The Spiritual Life”: