Fourth Sunday of Advent_A - Everything Is Ready_121822

Deacon Tom Writes,

Everything Is Ready

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A

Saying yes to God is never easy. Somehow, we think that Mary had an easy time saying yes to God when asked by the Angel Gabriel to be the Mother of God. The same goes for Joseph. He was afraid to take Mary as his wife until the angel told him not to fear. We are fearful of many things and that is perhaps why scripture tells us, as we hear today, “Do not be afraid.”

Fear has governed many aspects of our life. We live in fear of losing our jobs, our health, our loved ones. We are afraid that we won’t have enough…. enough success, enough money, enough energy to make it through the day, or enough of the things we need to live comfortable and independent lives. In order to lessen our fears, we work longer and / or harder. We spend our time and resources continually seeking to improve our station in life. Yet most still live in a persistently fearful state, anxious of the uncertainties that lie ahead.

Advent is a time to put our fears to rest. That is what saying yes to God really boils down to. Yes, God, I trust you. Yes, God, I know you are with me through the turmoil and uncertainty of my life. Yes, God, you will help me bear the pain, the loss, the loneliness of life that I find myself in now. I know that you will calm my fears and give me all that you see as good for me.

Mary’s son was born into a dark and harsh world. Yah, some things never change! Yet, he never succumbed to the anxieties and fears of life. Like Mary and Joseph, Jesus did all that His Father asked of Him, saying yes even in becoming flesh and bones and blood like the rest of us and born of a fully human Mary; saying yes to taking on all the hardships of our human condition; saying yes to suffering the injustice and humility of death on the cross.

Today on this Fourth Sunday of Advent, the stage is set; everything is ready. We are ready to greet the Child who frees us from our fears and anxieties and who guides us through all the uncertainties and challenges of life.

Have a blessed and joy-filled Christmas!
and Happy New Year

Deacon Tom

Please Visit www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: “Father Ed The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor, By Dawn Eden Goldstein is an excellent biography of an incredible priest, mentor and spiritual guide who helped rescue many people from painful addictions and emotional suffering. A must read for everyone.

 

Recommended You Tube: A YouTube interview with Dawn Eden Goldstein by Robert Ellsberg, Editor of Orbis Books on the release of her recent book, Father Ed The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor. Wonderful overview of this timely book.

 

Third Sunday of Advent_A - Rejoice in the Lord Always!_121122

Image credit: REJOICE! By Sarah Brush, Discipleship Ministries

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Rejoice in the Lord Always!

 

Third Sunday of Advent, Year A

Today is known as Gaudete Sunday. The word Gaudete is the first word of the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Liturgy. "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice! The Lord is near". One of the symbols of this Joy is the lighting of the rose candle on our Advent wreath.

In our first reading, the Prophet Isaiah tells us that a day will come when God's kingdom will break forth like the desert bloom. If you have ever seen this miracle of nature, you know how breathtaking it is. This barren, desolate and vast expanse gives way to an overabundance of delicate beauty. Water will gush in the desert, burning sand will transform into a bubbling spring. For all those who are twisted, bent and bowed down by their burdens and harsh realities of life, Isaiah prophesies that one day, “they will meet with joy and gladness, [their] sorrow and sighing will flee”.

Today’s readings prompt us to be people of expectant hope and who claim God’s promise as if we already possessed it, as if we were already living in this ultimate reality! Today we all claim as our own the gladness and joy Isaiah tells us will chase away our sorrows and sadness. Look closely at our readings today. Look around today at the litany of people who, although cast aside by the world, marginalized by poverty and ignorance, sadness and disease, refugees from war and famine; these are the very one who have a special claim on God’s love, mercy, and compassion. Look carefully at those Isaiah says have a very special reason to rejoice today: those with feeble hands and weak knees, those with frightened hearts, the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute, the oppressed, the hungry, the captives, the bowed down, the strangers, the orphans, the widows, the poor, the lepers, and the dead. To be numbered among them…. is to be specially chosen by God!!!!! To be number among those who serve these little ones is to be faithful to Christ’s call to serve these, the least of our sisters and brothers.

On this day of Rejoicing, it is good to recall the times in our lives when we have been the forgotten, the alienated or hungry one. Let us resolve this Advent to be a source of strength, encouragement and support to those who have yet to claim God’s promise of gladness and joy.

Make this a joy-filled 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: “Channel of Peace, Stranded in Gander on 9/11” by Kevin Tuerff tells the story of a stranded traveler’s encounter with boundless acts of generosity and compassion from total strangers. This is a great read during these challenging times.

 

Recommended You Tube: a short reflection on “Stillness and the Fruit of Attention” by Fr. Lawrence Freeman, OSB that encourages us to develop the practice of contemplation in our lives.

Second Sunday of Advent_A - Getting Right With God_120422

Deacon Tom Writes,

Advent, Getting Right with God

 

Second Sunday of Advent, Year A

 

“Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand,” John tells us. Repent from what? There was a book out in the ’70s that was very popular. It was called, “I’m OK, You’re OK” by Dr. Thomas Harris. Catchy title isn’t it! It gives us the sense that all is well; I don’t need any fixing. I/m not the hot mess that people think I am! And, by the way, you are OK too! Oh, if only that were true! Unless we are suffering from some deep phycological prob I think we know in our hearts that nothing could be further from the truth.

We are all sinners. As St. Paul penned, “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) We carry the scars and wounds of those numerous times when we have wronged God, others and ourselves by not living up to the to the high standards Jesus taught us. The memory of those failures festers deep within our innermost being. Our psyches are damaged as a consequence of the guilt those sins have spawned with us. We have much need to repent, but our pride often gets in the way and prevents us from coming to grips with the sinfulness of our thoughts, words and deeds, and even for those things that we should have done but failed to do.

In search of a remedy to their troubled consciences, the people of antiquity went out into the desert to hear John preach and to be baptized. In the solitude and isolation of the stark desert, people were able to grasp the notion that they needed to repent, to change the direction and focus of their lives in order to experience a spiritual rebirth as children of God.

This awareness of our sinfulness for the wrongs we have done or the good that we have failed to do is a prerequisite for us to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Christ Child into our lives. We need to be like John who testified, “He must increase; I must increase.” (John 3:30) That is, we must empty ourselves of our own self-centeredness, those driving ambitions, emotions and desires the place ourselves above others in order that we may be filled with the desire, the willingness and the passion to do God’s Will, to be the instrument of his joy, peace and hope in our world today.

These few remaining weeks of Advent are a special time to reflect on the way we treat others and ourselves. It is a time to get right with God, to turn away from sinful behavior and await the new life that God has in store for us, an abundant life and one promised to last forever.


Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

 

Check the www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary conversation exploring the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: “Channel of Peace, Stranded in Gander on 9/11” by Kevin Tuerff tells the story of a stranded traveler’s encounter with boundless acts of generosity and compassion from total strangers. This is a great read during these challenging times.

 

Recommended You Tube: a short reflection on “Stillness and the Fruit of Attention” by Fr. Lawrence Freeman, OSB that encourages us to develop the practice of contemplation in our lives.

First Sunday of Advent_A - An Advent Journey_112722

Deacon Tom Writes,

“An Advent Journey”

First Sunday of Advent, Year A

The Season of Advent marks the beginning of a new Liturgical year marked by a time of waiting, expectation and preparation. Expectation is what the Prophet Isaiah envisions as he looks forward to the days when people from every nation will make their way to Jerusalem, their final destination, the place where their journey comes to an end as they “…climb the mountain of the Lord and arrive at the house of the God of Jacob, where they learn his ways and walk in his paths.” 

For many people today the Advent journey is drudgery. It is a time of going to the malls and wandering through a maze of stores and kiosks. For the tech savvy, it is endless hours of searching on-line and calling upon Amazon for overnight delivery of our digital shopping bargains. Any wonder that the real meaning of the season is lost in the busyness of buying gifts and preparing for the “Holidays.” The sheer exhaustion from the pace leaves little energy or time for any reflection on the profound meaning of the Incarnation and the gift from God Most High who is eager to enter our world and the recesses of our hearts from his divine realm.

The words of the Prophet Isaiah invite us to go on a journey this Advent. No, we don’t have to pack our bags and head off to Jerusalem and climb Mount Zion, although that would be a wonderful experience. We can stay right at home and be engaged in just as challenging an experience. We can use this Season of Advent as a spiritual ascent, a time of reflection to identify and resolve to overcome the obstacles that limit our growing closer to Our Lord, surmounting the mountains, if your will, that keep us from experiencing the depth and totality of God’s love for us. The journey to overcome the hurts and scars others have caused us and forgive them may be more difficult than climbing the highest mountains. How very difficult is it for us to change our mindsets and be opened to the ways of peace as Jesus taught throughout his ministry. 

Isaiah invites us to do just that in this image he presents today of recasting spears into pruning hooks. Can we use this holy time to seek all that is necessary to find interior peace within ourselves for all that is troubling us? Can we find the time this holy season to consult and listen to the Holy Spirit to direct our lives and heal our troubled consciences for all the wrongs we have done, and all the hurts we have caused others? I doubt there is a more difficult uphill climb than this: finding peace by yielding our thought and ways to the One who came to dwell among us. May we all reach higher terrain this holy and grace filled season. 

Enjoy the day,

Deacon Tom

Check out www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary Catholic conversation exploring the treasures our faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading:  The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI probes the question “What is spirituality?”, cutting through the misunderstanding and confusion that can often surround this subject with his trademark clarity.

Recommended Web Site: Check out Fr. Frank Donio’s Catholic Apostolate Center for some thoughtful Advent Reflections  

 

Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time_C - The Feast of Christ the KIng_112022

Image credit: inapenafrancia360.weebly.com/

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Christ the King”

 

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Year C

Pope Pius XI established the Feast of Christ the King in 1925 in response to the growing sense of secularism that arose in the early 20th century. Germany was experiencing the rise of Nazism and exaggerated nationalism. There were populist movements toward Communism, atheism and totalitarian governments elsewhere that demanded total sovereignty over people, substituting a nation or an ideology in place of God. This led Pius XI to institute today’s Feast as a way to make us aware that nations can never replace God in claiming sovereignty over the people.

Yet, we know from Sacred Scripture that Jesus rejected the notion of being an earthly king. St. John tells us that when asked by Pilate if he was a King, Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” (John 18:36)

So, just what does Jesus’ kingdom that is “not of this earth” look like and how do we show our fidelity to it? The answer to this may be hidden in the choice of today’s gospel that is taken from St. Luke’s account of Jesus’ death on Calvary. (Luke 23:35-43) In Jesus’ perfect surrender of himself on the cross, we get a glimpse of the Kingdom to which we have been called along with a sense of the nature of the Christ’s Kingship. His is a kingship of suffering the insufferable, a kingship of forgiveness in the face of terrible injustice, a kingship of surrendering self and any authority or power we may have in this life into the hands of God the Father. Christ is king for those who live the beatitudes; he is king for everyone who suffers with those who suffer injustice, persecution, victimization, or deprivation; he is king for those who side with the immigrants, refugees, widows, the powerless, afflicted, disenfranchised; he is king for anyone who attempts to bring a sliver of hope to our world where hope is so desperately needed. If our loyalties and fidelity lie elsewhere, be assured, we do not belong to the kingdom Jesus inaugurated an is running its course before our very eyes.

It is fitting that the Feast of Christ the King marks the end of our liturgical year. It enables us to move into the Season of Advent anticipating the day when God’s justice and peace come to completion on this earth. That time when all the kings and prime ministers, chancellors, presidents and all who have ever ruled this world, will pay homage and tribute to the one from whom they have received their power and their authority and the one to whom they too must one day render an account.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Check out www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary Catholic conversation for those seeking to explore the treasures our Catholic faith has to offer.

 

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius may be the best way to prepare ourselves to receive the Christ Child into our lives this Christmas.   

Recommended YouTube Video: Meaning of Life: Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. A Philosopher’s view of Frankl’s Man’s search for Meaning.  prayerful reflection on the people, events and happening of the day and where you met Jesus in them.  

 

 

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time_C - The Days to Come_111322

Image Credit: journeytopenuel.files.wordpress.com

Deacon Tom Writes,

“The Days to Come’”

 

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Seeing Christmas decorations in the stores and hearing the countdown to Christmas since early September is a sure sign that our holiday shopping season has arrived. In the spiritual realm it is a reminder that this current Liturgical Year is drawing to a close. As it does, Sacred Scripture invites us to consider “the days to come”. Today we hear the first of several prophetic warnings about the judgment that will take place in “the days to come”. The Prophet Malachi issues a warning that the proud and evildoers will be punished, and those who fear the Lord and follow his ways will be rewarded in “the days to come”.

Jesus, too, sees that in “the days to come” there will be a judgment rendered upon Jerusalem, a day when the magnificent Temple standing before him will be leveled…. “so that not one stone will be left upon another”, a painful image for the people of his day.

What Malachi and Jesus both envision for us today is that the days of this world are numbered. The clock is running...tic, toc. History, with its wars, famines, revolutions and plagues will give way to a new chapter in the Creator’s plan in “the days to come”. These readings remind us that everything around us is temporary. The world and all that has been developed over the ages in the course of human achievement and progress will one day fade away. What will not fade away, however, is God’s judgment!

In these last several weeks of our Liturgical Year, we are challenged to prepare ourselves for “the days to come” by setting our hearts and minds on the things that matter, on the things that will endure, Jesus and the kingdom he inaugurated. As citizens of God’s kingdom we are invited to live a healthy and mature spiritual life that leads to a deeper relationship with God; we are encouraged to develop a discerning spirit so that we know how to make the right choices for ourselves and our families; we are asked to conform our lives to Christ’s so that we live and act justly and do what we can to comfort and help the poor and the needy.

Following Christ’s example can be costly, as Jesus makes clear in the gospel today. Being a witness of the gospel can cause us hardship, suffering, and distress. Just try speaking out against capital punishment or advocating the principles of our Catholic Social Teaching. Watch what happens if you welcome a political refugee from Venezuela into your home. That’s because the gospel stands in contrast to the world around us, a world that is often indifferent, wasteful, unjust and, oh, by the way, passing.

As our Liturgical Year ends, we look forward to “the days to come”, when all that is temporary and lacking gives way to the plans that God has in mind for those who persevere in following his ways. Today, we wait in hope for “the Lord to come and rule the earth with justice.”

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Check out www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary Catholic conversation exploring the treasures our faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading: Letters From an Understanding Friend by Isaias Powers, CP, draws the reader into Christ's loving care to experience his love and compassion
by Isaias Powers, CP,draws the reader into Christ's loving care to experience his love and compassion.

Recommended YouTube Video  Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI  on Catholic Social Teaching. This is an excerpt from his lecture series "Simply Being Good-Hearted is Not Enough: A Spirituality of Charity, Justice, and Prophecy." I hope you will find this very interesting.

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time_C - The Forces of Change: Prayer in Action_110622

Deacon Tom Writes,

The Forces of Change: Prayer and Action

 

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

In today’s reading, St. Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray that he and his companions, “be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith”.

St. Paul had reason to be concerned about perverse and wicked people. He knew the history of the Jewish people and was certainly aware of the story of the seven Maccabees who were arrested, tortured and killed for their faith. Paul, a man of prayer, asks the community to pray for him and his companions that God will protect them from the perverse and wicked things that people without faith do as he continues his mission to spread the Good News about Jesus.

The question that this account from St. Paul’s life raises for us today is, “Does the evil and wickedness we experience in our world today come only from the hearts and minds and hands of ‘those without faith”? Unfortunately, the answer is to this question is...no. Discrimination, the exploitation of the poor, the profiteering from the hopelessness and misery of others is a business today and, and many are eager reap the profit from such enterprises. All we have to do is, “remove the wooden beam from your eye first” (Mt 7:5) in order for us to see how we may participate in the suffering of others by what we do… or what we fail to do. There are many ways in which we, the faithful, contribute to the suffering of so many people around us - people of color, the elderly and vulnerable, the immigrant, the single parents, the homeless and those “working poor” who struggle just to live simple lives. The sad reality is that so much evil and harm is done by people professing to be people of faith; those who fill our churches, temples, and mosques. Insane, but true nonetheless.

St. Paul was able to deal with the evil he experienced spreading the Word for two reasons: he was a man of prayer, and he was a man of action. Prayer and work: pray as if everything depends on God and work as if everything depends on us, advice echoed by St. Augustine some 350 years after St. Paul.

If we are ever to have any success in eliminating the racism, poverty, discrimination and sexism from our society and in the world, we must find the right balance between prayer and action. Prayer is the way we get things right on the inside, “cleanse first the inside of the cup…” as Matthew writes, (Mt 23:26) so that the love of God can flow out to others.

Perhaps this week we can commit some time to daily prayer. In the quiet of our hearts God speaks to us telling what we can do to bring about the world that he has in mind for us: one without poverty, or war, or hunger; a world of right relationships built on the sure knowledge that God’s abiding love rests upon each and every one of his children.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Visit my Blog at: www.deacontomwrites.blogspot.com

Check out www.deaconspod.com for a contemporary Catholic conversation exploring the treasures our faith has to offer.

 

OTHER RESOURCES

Recommended Reading:   Losing God by Michael Paul Gallagher, SJ  who has us follow the Magi to have our own experience of God as we navigate the challenges of everyday life.

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Check out NCR on YouTube  to stay up to date on what is happening in our Church today.