Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time_A - Living Without Fear_062126

  

Image Credit: The Scream, by Edvard Munch

 

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Living Without Fear”

 

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

 

Seized by fear...paralyzed by fear ... overcome with fear. These are just a few of the ways to describe the trauma that fear can have on us. At times our fears seem to gang up on us and we feel powerless over them. We fear the loss of a loved one. We fear our own mortality, the loss of a job or economic status, our sanity. We fear losing our youth, our friends, our identity, our independence or pretty much anything that is dear to us. One can say almost without hesitation, we are living in an age of fear, especially of the future and what it holds in store for us going forward.

 

Being fearful, worrying about things over which we have no control, saps us of the energy and vitality that rightfully belongs to today. Jesus is on record for telling us not to be afraid. Today’s reading is one of many of them. “Fear no one”, “And do not be afraid…” The Lord knows that we are like little children and that we need to be told repeatedly that our Dad will always be there when we need Him. He reassures us that our fate is in the hands of our heavenly Father who is more concerned about us than we can ever imagine. God, who cares for the sparrow and watches over the lilies of the fields, cares infinitely more about us. He even counts the hairs on our heads! Comforting thought for the fathers who celebrated Fathers’ Day last Sunday.

 

More than just instructing his listeners on a wholesome way of living, we see Jesus putting these words into practice all through his ministry. We see Jesus pass through “terrors on every side” and not give way to fear. We see Him challenged and persecuted by the religious leaders of his day and He does not weaken or become weak-kneed. When He is beaten and nailed to the Cross, He utters not a word of anger. How is Jesus able to do this? Because, in the words of Jeremiah, Jesus puts his trust in the Lord, “O Lord of host. for to you I have entrusted my cause”.

 

Jesus came into the world to teach us to fear nothing, not even those who can harm us physically. Through His life and activities, He has given us example so that we too can have the confidence to put our trust in our heavenly Father who loves us without limit and who seeks to rid us from every fear that seeks to seize our hearts and would have us live our lives under its power.   

 

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 RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Thoughts in Solitude By Thomas Merton addresses the necessity for quiet reflection in an age when so little is private. Thoughts in Solitude stands alongside The Seven Storey Mountain as one of Merton's most urging and popular works. Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, is perhaps the foremost spiritual thinker of the twentieth century. His diaries, social commentary, and spiritual writings continue to be widely read after his untimely death in 1968. 

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Authentic Happiness and Human Flourishing Series - Week Two - In this four-week series, Dean Steve Thomason draws on resources from Martin Seligman, Berne Brown and Richard Rohr, using scientific work to explore elements of human experience that lead to authentic happiness, flourishing and deep meaning, and set all that against a backdrop of the gospel as good news, inviting all people into the fullness of life.

 

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time_A - A Town Without Pity_061426

 

Deacon Tom Writes,

A Town Without Pity

 

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time_Year A

 

Gene Pitney began his singing career in the sleepy town of Litchfield, Connecticut.  You don’t hear his songs played very much anymore but his loyal fans still sing-along when he pops up on the oldies station.  One of his big hits was “A Town Without Pity” and the refrain goes, “No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity can do”. Jesus understood this human drama all too well.  In today’s gospel Jesus has a different venue as Matthew tells that Jesus is moved with pity for the crowd that followed Him because “they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd”.

 

Most dictionaries define pity as, a feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the misfortunes of others. The Marrian-Webster Dictionary uses the word “compassion” to describe the feeling Jesus has when He sees the crowd assembled before him. According to the definition in the dictionary, compassion is the “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

 

Jesus did not come just to “feel our pain”.  He came to do something about it. And so, He calls his disciples together and He gives them the authority to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons.”  And then He sends them on their way. 

 

Before He sent them on their way, however, He told them to pray that the master of the harvest would send more help.  That’s where you and I enter the picture my brothers and sisters.  We are the answer to the prayers of many, many people who throughout the generations have asked God for workers to help Him do His work to end the hunger, the violence, the suffering, and the illusions of power and privilege that have made many places, here and around the world, a Town Without Pity.  We are called to be sympathetic to those who suffer, and we are called to be moved, as was Jesus, to do something about it. 

 

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 RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: The Saint’s Guide to Happiness  by Robert Ellsberg. In our search for genuine happiness, the author suggests that some of the best people to show us how to achieve it are holy men and women throughout history who have experienced it—from St. Augustine to Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Merton to St. Theresa of Avila and Mother Theresa. These people weren’t saints because of the way they died or their visions or wondrous deeds. They were saints because of their extraordinary capacity for goodness and love, which—in the end—makes us happy.Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up."

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Authentic Happiness and Human Flourishing Series - Week One - In this four-week series, Dean Steve Thomason draws on resources from Martin Seligman, Berne Brown and Richard Rohr, using scientific work to explore elements of human experience that lead to authentic happiness, flourishing and deep meaning, and set all that against a backdrop of the gospel as good news, inviting all people into the fullness of life.

 

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ_A - All Ate and Were Satisfied_060726

 

Deacon Tom Writes,

“All Ate and Were Satisfied”

 

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Year A

 

Can we ever be satisfied...with anything? We want faster, bigger, better, more of everything and we want it when?  Right now, of course. We don’t want to wait to have it or work long and hard to get it. And the message Madison Avenue shouts at us today is, “You CAN have it all!” “You CAN have it your way!” Tell tale signs that our expectations are not realistic or worse than that, they are going to cause us much grief and bitter disappointment when they fail to materialize.

 

Our spiritual senses, if they are well developed, will tune us in to the fact that there is a problem with our instant gratification mindset and warn us that this acquisitive, materialistic drive within us 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 can only be found in Him. The Almighty has “hard wired” us, so to speak, thus enabling us to know Him so that our life’s journey would be a quest to discover Him in all created things and to put them all aside in favor of Him, the one and only giver of life and of all that is.

 

Those who were fortunate to hear Jesus speak about the Kingdom of God did not realize the gift they were being given, the bread of life, food that would satisfy completely. As Catholics there is no more profound mystery of faith than what we experience when we receive the Eucharist – the Son of God comes into our lives and dwells within us and satisfies us completely. God becomes, in a sense, the very fuel that energizes us to do our part to help Him establish the reign of God in our times, in our lives, and in our world.

 

That God would become really present in the bread and wine during the Consecration remains a 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. Let us thank Him for this special gift that we often take for granted and His faithfulness to His promise of "Satisfaction Guaranteed" for those who trust in His Word. 

 

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 RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up."

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life - Here is Fr. Rohr’s presentation on the First Half of Life.