Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter

April 26, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042624.cfm

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Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way.”
Thomas said to him,
“Master, we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14: 1-6

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The disciples today, especially Thomas, remind me of myself on my first day of kindergarten. I had never done anything without my mother beside me, (except when, early one morning before the adults awakened, my three-year-old self tried to escape our front door to capture myself a pet pigeon.)

The disciples now face a life without Jesus’s physical presence. They’re scared. But Jesus assures his nervous followers that, in Him, they now have all they need to move forward with the Gospel. If they hold to his Way, his Truth, and his Life, they have nothing to fear.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy,

We ask to trust Christ’s assurance to us as well, focusing our days on his Way, Truth, and Life by our sincere study and practice of a Gospel spirituality.

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Prose: ― Thomas Keating – from Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit

St. Teresa of Avila wrote: ‘All difficulties in prayer can be traced to one cause: praying as if God were absent.’ This is the conviction that we bring with us from early childhood and apply to everyday life and to our lives in general. It gets stronger as we grow up, unless we are touched by the Gospel and begin the spiritual journey. This journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent.

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Music: Here’s a little “cardio-prayer” for your enjoyment! 😀

Feast of Saint Mark, evangelist

April 25, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042524.cfm

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Beloved:    
Clothe yourselves with humility
in your dealings with one another, for:

God opposes the proud
but bestows favor on the humble.

So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
that he may exalt you in due time.
Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5:5-7

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In Peter’s inspiring letter, he lovingly mentions his “son” Mark. No doubt Mark has earned this intimate affection by living a life such as Peter describes – one clothed in humility and trust.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Humility, that grateful self-understanding which recognizes itself as completely dependent on God, opens us for God’s favor, as noted by Peter.

As we grow in that holy knowledge, worries abate and trust upholds us.

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Poetry: Humility- Jessica Powers

Humility is to be still 
under the weathers of God’s will. 
It is to have no hurt surprise 
when morning’s ruddy promise dies, 

when wind and drought destroy, or sweet 
spring rains apostatize in sleet, 
or when the mind and month remark 
a superfluity of dark. 

It is to have no troubled care 
for human weathers anywhere. 
And yet it is to take the good 
with the warm hands of gratitude. 

Humility is to have place 
deep in the secret of God’s face 
where one can know, past all surmise, 
that God’s great will alone is wise, 

where one is loved, where one can trust 
a strength not circumscribed by dust. 
It is to have a place to hide 
when all is hurricane outside.

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Music: Act Justly – Bernadette Farrell

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

April 24, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042424.cfm

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I came into the world as light,
so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.
And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them,
I do not condemn him,
for I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world.
Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words
has something to judge him: the word that I spoke,
it will condemn him on the last day,
because I did not speak on my own,
but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak.

John 12:46-49

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Today’s message is pretty clear and a little scary: it is our own words and actions – not anyone else’s, not even God’s – that will condemn us if we do not choose the Light!

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to be honest with ourselves as life presents its many challenges, to seek the confidence that comes with living those choices in God.

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Quote: from St. Ignatius Loyola

“Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.”

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Music: Suscipe – Luke Rosen

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

April 23, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042324.cfm

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And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon.
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him,
“How long are you going to keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe.
The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me.
But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.
My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

John 10:23-28

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We may find ourselves not unlike the crowd in today’s Gospel: impatient for answers we already have!

Sometimes, if the apparent answer isn’t what we want, we persist in believing we haven’t been answered at all.

Jesus says what makes the difference is faith which opens us to a logic beyond this world – the Logic of eternal life.

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Prose: from Rainer Maria Rilkë

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

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Music: Unanswered Prayer – Garth Brooks

Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

April 22, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042224.cfm

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Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate
but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.
But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice,
as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he has driven out all his own,
he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him,
because they recognize his voice.

John 10:1-4

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The “gate” is the place where life flows in and out of our spirits. “Thieves and robbers” – all that is unloving – tries to break in to that sacred place. But it is only when we hear the voice of Love and Truth that we should allow our hearts to follow.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

Let’s examine our heart’s gate – that place where we discern the spirit motivating our lives. To guard our hearts for grace, that “gate” must be secured and oiled with prayer and a Gospel-catechized life.

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Poetry: from Rumi

Before you speak, 
let your words pass 
through three gates
At the first gate, 
ask yourself, 
“Is it true?”
At the second gate ask, 
“Is it necessary?”
At the third gate ask,
“Is it kind?”

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Music: Passage – Mike Wall

Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 21, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042124.cfm

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Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said:
“Leaders of the people and elders:
If we are being examined today
about a good deed done to a cripple,
namely, by what means he was saved,
then all of you and all the people of Israel should know
that it was in the name of Jesus Christ …

Acts 4:8-10

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The early Church understood that the miraculous grace in their lives came only through the power of Jesus. They lived in his Name.

No doubt they continually said that precious Name in prayer, remembrance, hope, and longing.

As we pray the precious Name today, let us think of how it sounded when spoken by his loving mother.

Think how brave Peter called to him in prayer.

Hear Steven say the Holy Name as he faced death.

Hear the tenderness of Mary Magdalen‘s “Rabboni”.

Listen to your own heart, and all that it means to you as you repeat the precious Name, Jesus.

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Prose: from St. Bernard of Clairvaux

The sweet Name of Jesus 
produces in us holy thoughts, 
fills the soul with noble sentiments, 
strengthens virtue, begets good works, 
and nourishes pure affections. 
All spiritual food leaves the soul dry, 
if it contain not that penetrating oil, 
the Name Jesus. 
When you take your pen, write the Name Jesus: 
if you write books, 
let the Name of Jesus be contained in them, 
else they will possess no charm or attraction for me; 
you may speak, or you may reply, 
but if the Name of Jesus sounds not from your lips, 
you are without unction and without charm. 
Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, 
light in the eyes, 
a flame in our heart.

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Music: Jesus – Roc O’Connor

Saturday of the Third Week of Easter

April 20, 2024

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042024.cfm

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When he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs
where all the widows came to him weeping
and showing him the tunics and cloaks
that Dorcas had made while she was with them. 
Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed. 
Then he turned to her body and said, “Tabitha, rise up.” 
She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. 
He gave her his hand and raised her up,
and when he had called the holy ones and the widows,
he presented her alive. 
This became known all over Joppa,
and many came to believe in the Lord.

Acts 9:39-42

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In our readings today, we see people’s lives turning forward or backward based on the power or weakness of their faith.

Peter prays and then turns toward Tabitha to restore her life by the power of his faith.

In our Gospel, those disciples whose faith is too weak to receive Christ’s teaching on the Eucharist, return to their former uninspired life.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We pray to have a committed faith that grows stronger with the inevitable turns of our life. May our Eucharistic faith power our lives to witness Christ.

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Poetry: The Waterwheel – Rumi

As I read this poem, I can hear Jesus asking his friends to believe and stay with him in the turns of life.

Stay together, friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made
of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
and turns and gives it away,
weeping.

That way it stays in the garden,
whereas another roundness rolls
through a dry riverbed looking
for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment
like a drop of mercury.

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Music: Waterwheel – Marina Belica

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

April 19, 2024

Today’s Readings :

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041924.cfm

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As Paul was nearing Damascus,
a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
He said, “Who are you, sir?”
The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.”

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless,
for they heard the voice but could see no one.
Saul got up from the ground,
but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing;
so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus.

There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias,
and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.”
He answered, “Here I am, Lord.”
The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight
and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul.
He is there praying,
and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias
come in and lay his hands on him,
that he may regain his sight.”

Acts 9:3-7

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Acts describes all kinds of “sight” in this familiar passage. We can see with our eyes, with our minds, with our hearts, and with our spirits. Or these magnificent gifts can be blinded in us by our ignorance and prejudice, as they were in Saul.

Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:

We think of times in our lives when truth or reality “dawned” on us. We may have been shocked that we had, until that time, missed the point! Surely you’ve asked yourself at sometime, “How did I ever miss that?!”

We pray for the grace to SEE God’s Presence in our circumstances by living a prayerful, spiritually receptive life. God may be calling us, comforting us, challenging us – but God is there, loving us.

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Poetry: St. Paul – Thomas Merton

When I was Saul, and sat among the cloaks,
My eyes were stones, I saw no sight of heaven,
Open to take the spirit of the twisting Stephen.
When I was Saul and sat among the rocks,
I locked my eyes, and made my brain my tomb,
Sealed with what boulders rolled across my reason!

When I was Saul and walked upon the blazing desert
My road was quiet as a trap.
I feared what word would split high noon with light
And lock my life, and try to drive me mad:
And thus I saw the Voice that struck me dead.

Tie up my breath, and wind me in white sheets of anguish,
And lay me in my three days’ sepulchre
Until I find my Easter in a vision.

Oh Christ! Give back my life, go, cross Damascus,
Find out my Ananias in that other room:
Command him, as you do, in this my dream;
He knows my locks, and owns my ransom,
Waits for Your word to take his keys and come.

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Music: On the Road to Damascus – Smokey Robinson