Today at Holy Mass we hear in the Gospel of St Mark about Jesus once again gives sight to a blind man…This theme of “being blind” and then recovering sight keeps coming up….This is not a coincidence…”When Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethsaida, people brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him”…..What we “see” depends upon many things….Especially when it comes to God and our Catholic faith…What we do not “see” depends more times then not on one thing…..Our pride - It gets in the way of “our sight”…..In order to see as God sees we must bend our will and open our heart…..Human beings are capable of convincing themselves of almost anything…It takes humility to “see”
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Miracles happen everyday, even in New York City!….”The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised”
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
All good things start small…..In the mean time God is patient…He knows what we are capable of - Both the good and the bad…God always finishes what he starts - But we need to cooperate with him
Today at Holy Mass in the Gospel according to St Mark Jesus warns his friends……”Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod”….But the disciples did not understand what Jesus was warning them about…They thought he was talking about food (bread).....…“Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?………What Jesus was trying to warn his friend about was sin…..He used an analogy to try to communicate what he was trying to teach them…..”The leaven of Herod”…As we all know Herod was a bad man…Also leaven is used to make bread, its placed in dough to make it rise before it is put into the oven and turned into the bread we all eat…But the disciple’s minds were elsewhere…They were thinking about worldly things - “Bread to eat”……There are a few things to reflect upon here…...First, Jesus was patient with these hand picked men…These were the first bishops of the Catholic Church…They had a huge task ahead of them and still, they did not “get it”…....But Jesus did not give up on them, nor does he give up on us…Second, these twelve men were “good guys”, yet Jesus knew full well what is in the heart of every man…How sin can start off small, like “leaven” in the dough of bread only to rise and overshadowed everything that is good and pure….And lastly, while Jesus was with his twelve friends trying to teach them, their minds were still not completely on God but on the things of the earth - “Bread to eat”……After this exchange between Jesus and the disciples in the gospel today…Jesus says this to his friends…..“Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?”……In this statement Jesus is telling us that our ability to “see” and “hear” depends upon how open our heart is…A “hard heart” will never allow us to “see” and “hear” what is essential for us to know in order to become the people we were all born to be
Monday, February 17, 2025
The Sacraments of the Catholic Church, which is the “medicine” for humanities “sin problem” have helped billions upon billions of people for 2000 years…Still don’t believe me?…Still want to address your “sin problem” without God’s medicine?…..Good luck!
Today at Holy Mass we hear in the first reading from the Book of Genesis about how the two offsprings of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel have a dispute….Both give an offering to God…God approves of Abel’s offering but disapproves of Cains….This made Cain very angry and as a result God addresses Cain….”So the LORD said to Cain: “Why are you so resentful and crestfallen. If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master”….This is an interesting statement, one we need to explore deeply…What it shows very clearly to us is, all human beings have a propensity to sin….In Catholic terms, we call this concupiscence….While our original sin was wipe away when we were baptized, we still have a “pull” to sin…This is apart of human nature…This is very important to acknowledge…But this is the part that many do not acknowledge…God gave us the “tools” to overcome this “pull towards sin”….These tools are the Sacraments of the Catholic Church…..Notice what God says to Cain……..”sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master”…..We can “master” the sin that “lurks at our door” through living a Sacramental life…..We can also overcome sin by fasting and daily prayer…..Ask yourself…How does a priest live a celibate life?…I can hear it now - Priests don’t live celibate lives….Such a claim is sad and mistaken…Many priests keep their vows of celibacy, just as many married men remain faithful to their wives…To overcome sin, that “lurks at our door”, we need God’s grace…Many people of good will try to do this with the best of intentions and fail…Why?…Because concupiscence is apart of the human condition…This is why God established a Church…This is why Jesus is called the “Divine Physician”…And this is why the Catholic Church is the only place on earth were we can get the “medicine” to help our condition…That “medicine” is the Sacraments
Sunday, February 16, 2025
”Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows”
Today at Holy Mass we hear in the Gospel from St Luke Jesus teaching the crowd…His message when read by the secular world does not exactly sound like a lifestyle one would want to embrace…..But this is the measure and mark of true Christian…Don’t be deceived……“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man…….Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way”….The message of Jesus Christ has always and always will be a message that is rejected by the secular world…..Why?…..Because it puts value in people over “things”….It embraces sacrifice…It requires obedience and humility…..It recognizes authority….All these attributes of a true follower of Christ are the exact opposite of the mind set of a secular person…….To be Catholic in our world today means we do not go along to get along…It means we are to stand out, be different and in doing so we will be salt and light….Salt was used by the ancient world to preserve food and in living our faith out in the public square a follower of Jesus Christ acts as salt does for food….Preserving what is good…..We are also to be light….A light guides one to where they need to go….A light stands among the crowd in the front not the back…..For a light that is “hidden” is of no use……If we reflect upon all the “Blessed” statements made by Jesus today in the Gospel…One may say to themself - This "Christian thing" does not sound like a good deal…..While the road is narrow that leads to life and “the cross” is always laid upon our shoulder - The peace of Christ and a deep and lasting joy accompany us along “the road”…..Remember the words of Jesus himself……”Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid”……So there you go! - This “deal” may not be as bad as the world says it is
Saturday, February 15, 2025
”I will go before you and level the mountains; Bronze doors I will shatter, iron bars I will snap……I will lead the blind on a way they do not know; by paths they do not know I will guide them. I will turn darkness into light before them, and make crooked ways straight. These are my promises: I made them, I will not forsake them”
Today at Holy Mass we hear again in the the first reading from the book of Genesis…..Adam and Eve had to “face the music”…They screwed up and the Paradise that God created for them was lost…But God’s love and mercy was not lost…While they had to “pay a price” for what they did…And what was that price?……..”To the woman he said: "I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master. " To the man he said: "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, "Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return." …….Some many read this and think God is very harsh - Let us never forget - Mercy is always tempered with Justice…..We should never take the mercy, which God makes available to us for granted….And when we experience the justice of God due to our sins, God uses that time to form us…Nothing is wasted!….We can lose sight of that reality as it is happening in real time…..The driving purpose of every human life is to be purified and return to the original state in which we were created……This is why when a child is born, he / she is baptized and their original sin, the sin of Adam and Eve is washed away….However, then the journey begins!…And as we all know…Life has many ups and downs…We learn as we go.......All the while the “seeds of our baptism” are germinating…..Grace builds upon grace….And more times then not…Its the “wrong turns” in life that “wake us up” to the “narrow way” that lead to life eternal
Friday, February 14, 2025
For there are many who “hear” but do not “listen”…There are many who “see” but have no “sight”….“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)……And immediately the man’s ears were opened”
Today at Holy Mass we hear in the Gospel of St Mark about a man who was deaf and begged Jesus to help him….”He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened”….In his public ministry Jesus performed many healing miracles….But there is also something deeper here…This particular man could not hear…How many people today, even within the Catholic Church “do not hear” what the Church teaches….Sure they “hear it” or can read it for themselves but what they “hear” does not register……How can this be addressed?…..In order to “hear” the Truth in its fullness we must work at purifying our heart…And to do that takes supernatural grace….Supernatural grace you say??? - What is that? - Supernatural grace comes from the Sacraments, which were given to the world by Christ himself….When we go regularly (once a month) to a Sacramental Confession and then receive the Eucharist in the state of grace - We are empowered with supernatural grace, which enables us to “see” and “hear”…..Without this grace, our own individual biases, agendas and ideologies “get in the way”!
Thursday, February 13, 2025
All roads lead to God in the end…Even “dead ends”
Today at Holy Mass in the first reading the creation narrative in the Book of Genesis continues….."It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him”….And from the man’s rib God created that partner for him and called her “woman”….”For out of 'her man' this one has been taken”……And to this very day this partnership continues and will always continue…..Marriage is between one man and one woman…Any other variation of this union, which was defined by God himself is a misnomer…..”That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh”……There are many reasons as to why society prescribes to defining marriage as something it is not and can never be…..At the root of all the “variations of marriage” we see today, even in non Sacramental marriages between a man and a woman, under it all are wounds…..And sadly, our society does not take those wounds to the “Divine Physician”, instead humanity falsely believes they can “create” as God created…And whenever mankind convinces himself into believing this lie - In the end, humanity hits “a wall” and we are greatly disappointed when we hit this "wall"……Many times God works in our life when we come to the end of our self….This means when we wholeheartedly pursue a behavior or an ideology that is “not of God” and after time we realize that it does not and can not satisfy what we intended it to satisfy…Its at that point that God meets us right where we are as we are…And its at that moment that we must make a decision - To continue down a “rabbit hole” that has no end, or reverse course and start something new.