Reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time and Back to Church Sunday 2021

Strength of Faith

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.

Hope Is Here! It has been so encouraging to gather as a church and uncover all the ways that our faith is strengthened when we find hope in our relationship with Jesus and each other. We have learned that there is hope for the weary because we don’t have to carry our burdens on our own. There is hope for the broken because forgiveness is offered to us in love. There is hope for the underdog because with God we can do anything. This week we deal with a special subject, with one of the hardest. Is there hope for the doubter?

The gospel illustrates a concept that can be very difficult for us: That service and the attitude of a child is the way to the Kingdom, and that suffering is the prelude to glory. St. James tells us what he learned at Jesus’ side: That we must walk in purity of spirit, gentleness, mercy, constancy, and sincerity as cultivators of peace. This raises a problem of doubt, doubt that those things, that way of living, can make us victorious. Can it?

James’ illustrations of the world’s way the way we are to live presents a juxtaposition. We get that, but still doubt because the worldly seem to be doing so much better. So, I doubt, ‘Can Jesus’ promise be true?’

Each walk has markers. Each of them leads a person on a different path. One is a disordered path with disordered loyalties and desires. The other is well ordered with loyalty to God and a desire only to do God ordered things. One is a life with finality, the other life without end. But, can that promise alone ease my doubt? 

Doubt has become a common occurrence today. People have failed us. There is so much false information out there. Covid-19 has overwhelmed us. Each of these caused doubt and we wonder where God is. Certainly, the disciples must have doubted as Jesus spoke of the road to Jerusalem and the outcome He faced, death and resurrection. They probably doubted that being last and childlike would work out so great. We are there with the disciples and struggle against doubt.

There are many struggling with their faith. They may have lost hope that Jesus is who they thought he was. How does Jesus respond to them, to me when I doubt or struggle? He would welcome the questions, the conversation, the wrestle. He knows that honest doubt will find honest answers.

So Jesus left us, the Church, to listen to those who doubt for what they are not saying as much as what they are saying. Where does the doubt come from? Where is the hurt, pain, and struggle? We are so blessed to be that congregation who is willing to listen and provide hope to the doubting. We empathize and express compassion. We allow ourselves to feel others’ hurt, pain, and struggle, and that equips us to meet needs and build a bridge for the doubting back to faith and hope. The answer to doubt is providing Jesus Who is hope for all. What we do here helps us and all to see Jesus as the antidote to doubt.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of a trip where his ship encountered a terrible storm. In the dark belly of the ship, the passengers were frightened and worried. They were filled with doubt. One of the men finally ventured out and to the upper deck, where he saw the captain quietly on the bridge. With a tranquil face, he looked out across the sea and gave orders. He turned to the man and smiled. The man made his way back to the cabin where the other passengers were huddled together. In response to their questions and doubt, he comforted them by saying, “I have seen the captain’s face, and all is well.” That is what we must say.

Yes, hope is here for the doubting for Jesus is here with us. Looking into the face of Christ and holding onto each other we know all is well. We have peace.

Reflection for the Solemnity of Brotherly Love 2021

Strength of Faith

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember to focus on our Strength of Faith.

Today we again take a brief break from Mark’s gospel account and this time venture into Luke’s account of the challenge Jesus faced from the lawyer. How do I get to eternal life? What must I do?

The Jewish faith, from outward appearance, even to this day, has a very strong emphasis on doing. Wear this, wash this way, cook this way, spend the Sabbath like this. Pray this way. Responding to Jesus, the lawyer could have just quoted every one of the 613 commandments and all the rabbinical commentary on them. If you do all this, you shall live.

Perhaps the lawyer was just a bit wiser than that. For him, it came down to the two core commandments of love, love of God, love of neighbor.

Then confusion set in, for the 613 commandments make very clear distinction between insiders and outsiders. Commandment 166 and 167: A bastard child cannot become an Israelite. A eunuch or sexually mutilated man may not enter the community. Or 596 and 597: Destroy the seven Canaanite nations. Not to let any of them remain alive. Then there is always 449: A skin-diseased person will tear his clothes, grow his hair long, and cry out, “unclean, unclean.”

Could these people possibly be my neighbors? Do I have to love them? They are outside the community.

We all know that Jesus takes the Samaritan businessman, and uses him as the example of right behavior, for proper brotherly love, for strength of faith. Jesus is being totally politically incorrect and inappropriate for the Samaritans were more despised than the gentiles. A Samaritan woman was always considered “unclean.” Jews and Samarians hated each other. Some Pharisees even accused Jesus of having a demon and being a Samaritan Himself, as insulting as one could get.

This detour into Luke tells us two things. The first is that our studies on strength of faith cannot be just studies. Faith does not live if it is on a bookshelf. We are to live out our strength of faith. We must move from discipleship to apostleship, from students to doers of love.

The second lesson is that strength of faith calls us to the harder work. Ever meet one of those people who when presented with a challenge are already underway in taking it on; before the question is even over? Yes, that is how we are to be. Strength of Faith must be translated not only into doing, but into heroic doing. We are called to love in great self-sacrificing ways, to conquer even the most challenging call to love in Jesus’ name. That is what we must do.

Reflection for Labor Day 2021

For where your treasure is there also your heart will be.

I like Labor Day, in fact I really love Labor Day because it gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we do each and every day, whether we do it as retired people, when we hop in our car or get online to go to work, when we go to school, or the work we do when we’re searching for new work, for a new job, for a new opportunity. It takes time it is a struggle. It is a constant effort to do those things and to do them well as a representative of Christ Jesus.

The thing we must be careful of each day and what is pointed out by God on this day especially, is that we cannot compartmentalize our lives. We cannot say: Well, it is 8 a.m or 7 a.m or if you’re a construction worker 6 a.m. Now it is time to go to work and I am going to do my work and that is going to be one little compartment of my life. Then I am going to drive home at the end of the day and that is going to be another little compartment. Then I am going to get home with my family and that is going to be another compartment. Then I am going to watch some TV and do some gaming and do some other things around the house that need to be done (maybe mowing the lawn or pretty soon shoveling the snow). That is another compartment.

As you have likely experienced, we tend to break things into ordered segments. The segments of our lives are ordered according to the schedule of our days. As such, what we must be careful of, and what God calls us to consider this day, is that all those segments must not be segregated from our work as Christians.

Bishop Hodur, in organizing the Church, was a great advocate for the Labor movement. Why? Because he saw the Labor movement as a reflection of God’s kingdom design. In Unions people come together to accomplish. He did not say: Well the Labor movement is going to do this and they’re going to do their work in this little box, No, he said Labor and the work of the Christian member of Labor has to be a consistent activity focused on the building up of the Christian man or woman, of their families, and all pointed to the building up of the Kingdom of God.

No, work cannot be segregated from God. Pleasure and time spent in relaxation cannot be segregated from God. Time spent in school, time spent searching for work, time spent shoveling the snow or mowing the lawn or caring for the garden cannot be segregated from God.

We are called by God to live a consistent and holistic life that is focused on the work of the Kingdom. If we do that, what Saint Paul points out will be accomplished in our lives. We will be building with gold, silver, and precious stones.

Remember, Paul is saying that a foundation has been laid in Christ. That is the foundation we are building upon in every aspect of our lives. As Christians, we do not build in some small Sunday compartment. Everything in our lives is meant to build upon the foundation established in Jesus Christ.

It is about how we build on the foundation. Some build with gold, silver, and precious stones. They put their whole selves into the work of the Christian life, not segregated or compartmentalized.  Other use wood (probably not pressure treated), straw, or hay.

When the DAY comes, and Paul is referring to the end times, all of that is burned away. What will be left but the gold, silver, and precious stones.

What is going to burn away is the work of those who compartmentalize and segment their lives. They are not all-in. they have built weakly, with straw and with hay and with wood rather than gold, silver, and precious stones.

So, our whole efforts, our entire work, everything we do is to be within our life in Christ and Christ in us. On this Labor Day then, let us reflect upon what we do each day and resolve to be builders for God, building with only our best.

Reflection for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith.

Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, He comes with vindication; with divine recompense He comes to save you.

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember to focus on our Strength of Faith.

For weeks we have focused on Strength of Faith, and perhaps it is time to focus on its opposite, strength of despair. 

It often astounds me to see people struggling so much, to see the level of despair they are wrapped up in. I see young families struggling with schedules and financial resources. I see middle aged people trying to make sense of relationships that seem to be breaking down. I see older folks facing decline in health and vitality. At the same time, I know people who face the exact same challenges, yet persevere and come to victory.

Listen to a few words from Adam Zamoyski’s 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow: 

Although Moscow boasted a French Catholic church whose priest had remained at his post, churchgoing did not figure among the activities of the soldiers. A handful of officers, came to mass or confession, and the pastor was only asked to give Christian burial on two occasions. He went around the hospitals to talk to the wounded, but found them interested only in their physical wants, not their spiritual needs. He said: ‘They do not seem to believe in an afterlife. I baptized several infants born to soldiers, which is the only thing they still care about, and I was treated with respect.’

The difference between people who face the same challenges, and yet have different outcomes is the presence of both faith and the fellowship of Church in their lives. Zamoyski points to soldiers amid despair and on the losing side who were so self-iinvolved they refused to see God in their midst. Their strength of despair overtook faith and led them to give up, to seek no help. They were left with only despair.

You see, we have the actual answer. We have a God of love and complete forgiveness. We have a God ordained way-of-life. We have the Bread of Eternal Life and the Cup of Salvation. We have the “all” so many seek because Jesus said, ‘do this, live this way, receive My promises,’ and so we do.

I can attest this from my own life. Any time where I absented God my life became the definition of absence. It was a turning inward to despair. Yet when I turned to God and committed to live the life of the Church, I was made whole. The challenges did not end, only they were transformed by God.

I imagine the deaf man lived in despair, but then he was brought to Jesus who said: â€œEphphatha!”, “Be opened!” Once he was opened his despair was transformed and so are we.

September 2021 Newsletter – This and More

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

I have a box. For those who get to church early enough or stay late enough, for the past two years you have seen me walking in and out of church with an old broken down box. The box is my briefcase of sorts. My family often comments: Why don’t you get rid of that old box and just get a briefcase? I don’t say much. I like my box.

This month’s scripture, taken from Matthew 6:33 reminds us of priorities – what comes first, what is most important: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

The box is a reminder to me of what we are celebrating this year, and in a special way how we will begin the month of October. One-hundred years ago people in Schenectady packed bags and boxes. They did not have much. They tread on foot to the corner of Raymond and Van Vranken to build a new church. This would be a church providing them the freedom to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Not long before this momentous event in 1921, these very same people packed boxes and bags and trunks to emigrate to the United States. They sought a better life and the opportunity to add good things to their lives – the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What is worthy of not just celebration, but also emulation, is that these founders did not separate or compartmentalize seeking the kingdom, righteousness, and a better life. They saw them as God’s way-of-life. They listened to what St. James pointed out: Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God (James 1:17). As we celebrate the centennial of our wonderful parish, as we reflect on the good gifts we have received, let us remember those bags, boxes, and trunks. Let us recall that the search for truth and the achievement of victory took work and struggle. Most importantly, may we too live seeking what is important first, and all these things will be added to us.

Welcome to our September 2021 Newsletter. We are one-month away from our grand centennial celebration and September holds a wide variety of worship events leading up to this momentous occasion. Check out the October 1st through 3rd centennial schedule. In September we celebrate Labor Day, Brotherly Love Sunday, and Back to Church Sunday (who will you invite?). We commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11/2001. We reflect on our summer events and the great things accomplished in our parish, including astounding generosity. Ready for coffee hour? It’s back starting September 12th. Ready for daily Holy Masses? They are returning to parish life. Pray in advance of our Diocesan Synod and reflect on walking with God and each other.

All that we do, all accomplished, a future filled with hope is by God’s good grace and YOUR love and commitment. Thank you!

Check out all this and more here in our September 2021 Newsletter.

Reflection for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith

Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls. Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember to focus on our Strength of Faith.

As we return to the Gospel according to St. Mark, we are asked to pause in our growth in Strength of Faith to assess exactly how changed we are. How fully do we live as Jesus did? How do we walk the gospel walk?

Moses is presenting the Lord’s commandments to the people. These commandments were given by God in love to help His people to grow toward Him.

As you may recall from a few weeks back, the heart in Hebrew, the Lev, means the whole self. God was seeking the hearts of His people, a relationship with the whole self of each of them as individuals and them as a community.  Through these laws they would live in relationship with Him and grow ever closer to Him in strength of faith.

We know our God is a God of relationship from the identity of God as Trinity, to His creation, to the salvation He won for us through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.

To remain in relationship, God gave us His Holy Spirit Who dwells with us and helps us in the process of loving Him more fully and deeply. He gave us each other, the reason I am so happy and blessed to be here in this time and moment where we are for each other.

So, today (and everyday) we are asked to assess how we are changed by our relationship with God, how our faith is strengthened, how deep we are willing to go with God and His Church. We also figure where we must improve.

The people Jesus encountered, the leaders and officials, no longer cared for depth of relationship. They left the heart behind and reduced relationship with God to motions and actions. They did not have Strength of Faith, but rather adherence to ritual for the sake of the ritual. Growth ended when life became mere performance.

St. James, writing less than a decade after Jesus Ascension, took the time to remind the people to live fully in Strength of Faith. We must not reduce our faith to motions but rather live it out. St. James says: Do not hold back, do not sell yourself short, be all-in just as God is all in for you. He tells us that we have been changed and we are to live changed from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes. He willed to give us birth by the word of truth that we may be a kind of firstfruits. We are a new creation.

We need to be whole-hearted, whole-self livers of new life in Jesus. We are something remarkably special. Let us then check-in on how we live changed and new in strength of faith.

Reflection for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith

Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember to focus on our Strength of Faith.

We are at the culmination of our five-week detour into the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, the discourse on the bread that came down from heaven which we must eat to have eternal life. Next week our study on Strength of Faith returns to Mark’s gospel account.

Some people can go about their life never having their faith tested. It is rare, but it does happen. They face no confrontation. They experience no difficulty. No criticism is encountered. They never have to choose between representing Jesus or just going along. For the rest of us, we have faced and will have to face those moments.

I want to clearly distinguish that God does not send challenges to test us. He is not the god of the science lab where we all get mixed and shaken until we either wither or explode. That said, the world is what it is, worldly. So, we face tests.

Sometimes we face the test of education. That is the moment in which someone who wants to understand God better confronts us and asks for an explanation. Here is where we can shine, not by being all philosophical and theological, but by recounting what the experience of Jesus and His Church hold for us.

Here’s what I would say and have said: In meeting God in Church each week I am renewed and refreshed. I find order in my life, peace, the necessary quiet that is lacking in the world. I can face challenges knowing that God has me in His hands. I am reassured even in the hardest times. And I am blessed doubly and triply over.

Sometimes we face the test of hatred, disdain, and the sin of human arrogance. Here too we can shine as the presence of Christ in the world. If we react as the world would have us react, we belong to the world. If we however react as Christ would, then we have citizenship in heaven.

Yes, I have faced those moments, and I have learned to react in only one way, a word or gesture of peace and kindness. It is rarely accepted, but my conscience is clean, and I maintain my citizenship. Sometimes (especially online) it is by not reacting, by silence.

At some point or another, unless we are that extremely rare person, we will be challenged. Will we: As a result of this return to our former way of life and no longer accompany Him? Or will we too say: â€œMaster, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Strength of Faith and our growth in faith may be tested at any moment. In that moment let us, His disciples, say: This is hard; but I accept it!

Solemnity of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin 2021 (translated)

For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ

Fanciful stories and romantic notions. This day is a bit about that. Fanciful stories and romantic notions. It comes from the idea that we, and I want to emphasize we have to do something with our Blessed Mother. 

Indeed, we owe Mary a debt of gratitude for her fiat, her acceptance of God’s will for her, that she be the mother of His Son Jesus. We owe her a debt of gratitude for the ministry she performed, both throughout her Son’s life, and in the early Church. She left us an example of dedication and service that we should all be following.

At the same time, there is no gospel of Mary. Rather, Mary lived the gospel path her son laid out for all of us. As a faithful follower of her Son, by her yes to God and her service, she showed us that we too can follow Jesus’ gospel path. Mary did not propose alternatives.

What Mary did say we read in today’s gospel: “From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name.” The entire Magnificat concerns what God has done and is doing. Mary is the vessel through which God would accomplish the works Mary praises. Accordingly, she deserves honor, respect, and the title blessed. Blessed is she among women because the fruit of her womb is the Blessed One.

So, what must we do with Mary? If we hold Mary in esteem, as we should, we honor her rightly. We must not ascribe to fanciful stories and romantic notions. We do not make her ‘appear’ over trees, in the hills, and on mountain sides sharing ‘special messages.’ We do not remove her humanity. We do not rush her resurrection from the dead. We follow the gospel path her Son Jesus laid out for us. We trust His words alone. We follow His teachings exclusively. We honor and esteem Mary. We seek her intercession.  We entrust ourselves to the power of her prayer before the Throne of God.

Bottom line is that we need not ‘do’ anything with the path of Mary’s life and death. We need not impose our fanciful stories and romantic notions on Mary. We need only trust that if we too follow Jesus like she did then we, like she, will be brought to life at Christ’s coming.

Reflection for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember, we are focusing on our Strength of Faith.

Over these past few weeks, in John’s gospel account, we see a steady progression from a feeding with the day’s bread as Jesus multiplies and distributes it, to a teaching on the true meaning of our daily bread, an everlasting feeding with the bread that came down from heaven.

See the change in tone from the day’s bread to our daily bread. See the power of the food Jesus provides – a food that does not perish or waste, a food so abundant that no one who wants it will go hungry. A food so powerful it gives us life.

A day’s bread, the stuff we put on our tables, the ordinary food needed for life will sustain us for a period. Our daily bread however is all that comes forth from God, and most particularly He Who came forth from the Father, Jesus, the Son of God. It has eternal power and life in it.

Who doesn’t love a banquet invitation? We get them for weddings, anniversaries, our parish centennial, and special birthdays. We send our RSVP in the mail and make our food choices. We anticipate the celebration and the exquisite hors d’oeuvres and main course. We go to celebrate and receive a portion of the day’s bread. I’ve eaten great bread of the day and I’ve had some doozy rubber chickens at banquets. Funny how I can remember the bad day’s food so clearly. Better that I remember the great food here at the Lord’s table. Here I have life.

Proverbs tells us that God has prepared a banquet and in Jesus that is true. He is the banquet. What He feeds us on is certainly the Holy Eucharist, the flesh and blood we eat and drink in communion, but not just limited to that. That would make His bread too small. His daily bread is the complete food we need. It is His complete self – flesh, blood, words, teaching, and way of living.

Jesus echoes Proverbs when He invites us to RSVP and show up for His daily bread. Answering yes on the RSVP and showing up has broad consequences for our whole lives. Those who accept the invitation must eat and drink of the entire daily bread, thereby choosing to “live.” We chose to live now and eternally by walking the gospel path in strength of faith.

In the Our Father we ask for our daily bread. The Father gives us Jesus, the perfect daily bread. As we partake of Jesus, Who gives us true life, let us open ourselves to share Him with a world that is so very hungry for life. As Jesus withheld nothing, so let our faith be so strong we never hesitate to proclaim and share Jesus – our daily bread.

Reflection for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith

So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

Over the months of Ordinary Time, a time dedicated to growth, we focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we walk in Strength of Faith. Remember, we are focusing on our Strength of Faith.

We have heard various examples of strength of faith among those whom Jesus encountered, and in Jesus Himself. I cannot stress strongly enough that our call is to walk the gospel way, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, to encounter Him over and over because in living His way we receive ever greater grace to do so.

Grace is this, an encounter in the eternal and heavenly doorway where Jesus stands opposite us and hands over all we need to be powerfully successful in our mission and ministry.

As we experience today, this encounter begins at baptism. We meet Jesus in that doorway for the first time and He says, you are now a member of my body, the Church. You now have access to this doorway anytime and every time you approach. Come back a lot.

The catch, we must show up, certainly in church every Sunday for the particularly strong encounter we have for Jesus said: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever. That is the bread we need, the sharing in the heavenly bread that gives us the victorious eternal life Jesus won for us and that renews us for the work we need to show up for every day.

The catch, we who are called by the Father must return to the doorway again and again, each day, asking Jesus to meet us there is prayer so we become better and better outfitted for walking in strength of faith, for living the gospel way, walking the gospel path. Then speaking, proclaiming, and sharing Jesus.

Living Jesus’ way is not easy. This week Renee and I were up in Maine for Carly and Dom’s wedding – a truly beautiful event. We walked the streets of York and visited the Kittery Trading Post on our way back. We encountered people totally dedicated to readiness, spending the time needed. They were ready for the sea. They were ready to hike the highways and byways. They were prepared against dehydration and hunger. Their lesson to us – be ready. Like they do, let us be dedicated to readiness by strengthening our faith in the doorway every day.

Like anyone dedicated, we must spend the time needed to encounter the deep sea of grace, to walk the highways and byways proclaiming the Word of God and partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus so that we may never hunger or thirst. 

We the baptized, and today, Cameron, pledge to be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love by strengthening our faith and living it out in strong active witness to Jesus.