Sixth Sunday of Easter_B - First Round Draft Choice_050524

Deacon Tom Writes,

First Round Draft Pick

 

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

 

Being chosen for a special assignment can do wonders for our self image. In today’s gospel we hear Christ tell us that “...I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit…”. God’s way of doing things is a little different than the way things work in this world. Take Major League football or baseball draft choices. All the teams are vying for the best players to augment their teams. They need to have backup players who can step in and fill the position when a player gets injured or is having a bad game. That’s good strategy and essential for major league sports. It’s just not the way that God does things.

You see, in God’s plan every person has a role to play, specific work that is unique to us, something that only that person can do. If we don’t do it, if we are not up to the task, that work doesn’t get done. God doesn’t have a backup player ready to take our place to carry out the life-long work he has assigned specifically to us. When we are out of the game, so to speak, that good work we were given to do, doesn’t get done. That act of kindness that would have flowed through us to another, doesn’t get done. That righting of a social or moral wrong doesn’t get done. The same goes for that injustice that doesn’t get made just.

One important point to this thought is that our failure to act as God’s chosen ones does not in any way thwart God’s plan. His will will be done in his mysterious way. But we would have sat on the sidelines ignoring the field of play where the game of life is won or lost.

Understanding that we all have a role to play in bringing about God’s plan helps us to realize just how much God loves us and lets us see that he is there every step of the way to help us succeed. We are in every sense of the word God’s, “friends” because he shares his plans with us and gives us the resources we need to accomplish the mission he calls us to do. The secret for our success is “to remain in my love” he reminds us.

The Feast of Easter which lasts from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, a period of fifty days or seven weeks, is a time to renew our hearts and minds and fine tune our lives so that we can experience that “complete joy” that only God can give to us. The joy that comes from God is a joy that is also unique to us and to our circumstances, tailor made for us, just as the mission that comes from God is strictly ours. May these last couple of weeks of Easter help us to know what God is asking of us and may we experience the joy that comes with doing all that we can on our part to becoming his “First Round Draft Pick”.

Easter Alleluia!!
Deacon Tom

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

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Beginning to Pray by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh was a prominent writer and broadcaster on prayer and the Christian life, as well as the founder and leader of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh. His classic book on prayer leads us into a deeper experience of the one we seek.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Beginning to Pray - Listen in to hear the wisdom of Bishop Bloom as he guides us on how to have a richer prayer life that draws us closer to God.

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter_B - Simple Abundance_042824

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Simple Abundance”

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B

In the gospel we hear the story of the “Vine and the Branches” that, not surprisingly, contains a message quite suited for us today. That message is this: if we live our lives trying to discern God’s Will for us and see ourselves connected with and dependent upon one another, a life of simple abundance awaits us. Not an abundance entirely of the material “stuff” this age of consumerism has spawned upon us, but rather, an abundance of those necessities that matter most for our overall “well-being”: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and yes, even some of the material blessings that surround us!

We begin our journey to pursue the rich abundance the gospel speaks of in earnest when we realize that it is lacking in our lives. Simple abundance is a matter of choosing to live well-balanced lives that contribute and enhance the “well-being” of others. It is what Jesus taught His disciples to do when He said they must put others first and be the servants of all. This is the hardest challenge Christians face and, make no mistake about it, it is in actuality a… “dying to self”.

For most of us this doesn’t describe the current state of our spiritual journey. John’s gospel today reminds us that God calls us to “bear much fruit”, but we settle for so much less. Think about it!!! Would our God, who through Christ promised to raise us from the dead and share eternal life with us not also want us to experience some simple joy and happiness during this life that has more than its share of sadness and sorrows? I am sure that God wants us to share in the blessings this world has to offer, but we often settle for the glitter and trinkets, far lesser “stuff” while foregoing the spiritual riches we should be the focus of our lives.

God has truly set a banquet before us. It starts in this life and comes to completion, perfection in the next. We know that we can do nothing without Him, nor should we want to. For God desires to be a part of our life’s journey so He can fill us with His joy and peace, fruits that matter. And, He waits for us until that day comes when He, the harvest master, gathers to Himself the rich harvest of the fruit of our lives.

May our harvest be abundant and may the harvest master welcome us into His kingdom as His good and faithful servants at the end of the harvest.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

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

OTHER RESOURCE

Recommended Reading: A Big Heart Open to God - A Conversation with Pope Francis (Interviewed by Antonio Spadaro, S.J.). In this historic interview, Pope Francis's vision for the church and humanity itself is delivered through a warm and intimate conversation, and he shows us all how to have a big heart open to God.

Recommended YouTube Video: Praying With the English Mystics

Fourth Sunday of Easter_B - Wait, There's More?_042124

Deacon Tom Writes,

“But Wait! There’s More!”

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B

If you watch any television at all, you are probably familiar with those nagging commercials that bark the mantra… “Wait, there’s more!” The announcer then chimes in, “If you call now, we will double your order…That’s right, there’s more!” I’m sure they must sell a lot of their gadgets; otherwise, they wouldn’t be spending all that money on advertising. One technique that makes them so successful, I suspect, is that they are savvy marketer appealing to the consumer’s appetite for getting something for nothing… that is, “for free”. It seems that St. John had a touch of that Madison Avenue mindset too by the approach he takes in today’s Second Reading. John is promoting “God’s love for us”. He tells us that God’s love enables us to think of ourselves, “as children of God. But wait, he seems to say, not only are we children of God now, but wait, there’s even more…. “What we shall be has not yet been revealed”…..but when it is, “we shall be like him”.

Over and over again in John’s writings we discover this theme of God’s love for us and that God’s love transforms our very being, our very essence, our very identity. As John says today, we are God’s children now! And what we shall become later on, although not known now, is even greater in that “we shall be like him”. God continues to mold us into His likeness.

As I read this passage, I recalled being in Amsterdam at the Rembrandt Museum. On exhibit were many of his paintings along with some self-portraits. This passage from John is beautiful imagery that expresses God, the master artisan, doing a self-portrait on the canvas that is our lives. We are made in God’s image and likeness and God, who John tell us “is” love, is always bringing out the best in us so that we reflect the Divine Love that is His gift to us.

If we could just begin to understand the gift of love we have been given, we would realize that it is something that we cannot keep to ourselves. We are God’s self-portrait. We are images, reflections of the artist. We cannot hoard or squander the outpouring of the divine essence we have been given; we can only reflect that love to those in need... the lonely, the brokenhearted, the fearful, the forgotten. God’s very presence is with us, forming and shaping our world and filling it today with His love. And that is sufficient reason for us to be grateful today and to give thanks to God… But wait…. there’s more to come……!!!

May the Risen Lord continue to bless us with His peace and Joy so that we may enjoy the many blessings that He freely bestows upon us.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

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

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton addresses the pleasure of a solitary life, as well as the necessity for quiet reflection in an age when so little is private.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Sit back and enjoy Thomas Merton feed your soul on YouTube - Thoughts in Solitude.

 

 

Third Sunday of Easter, _B - We Are Witnesses Too!_041424

Image Credit: Supper at Emmaus by Matthias Stom (fl. 1615 - 1649)

Deacon Tom Writes,

We Are Witnesses Too!

Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Today’s readings remind us how incredulous the resurrection is to the logical mind. That’s perhaps why both the first reading and the gospel mention that there were eyewitnesses to Christ’s death and resurrection. There were people who saw Jesus die a horrific death on Friday and then saw Him in the flesh walking along the shores of Galilee and with His disciples on the road to Emmaus soon afterward. So alive, in fact, that in the gospel today Jesus is asking His disciples, “Have you anything here to eat?”

Hearing the personal narratives of eyewitnesses to history is powerful. Recall some of the stories you may have heard first hand from people who landed on the beaches of Normandy or were at or near the World Trade Center on September 11th. So many perspectives, so many details, that when we encounter people with rich experiences, we tend to capture these memories and save them for future generations.

Our readings today do just that. For 2000 years believers have benefited from hearing the story of Christ’s death and resurrection directly from eyewitness accounts detailed in the scriptures. Does the eyewitness testimony we read in the gospels carry the same weight for us today as it did for those first believers? No matter how strong our faith, we tend to have a little Thomas within us; we tend to believe and yet there remains some doubt echoing in our mind. Who wouldn’t like a little sign from above; who wouldn’t like as sign from above, an answer to a heartfelt prayer that brings about reconciliation to a bad relationship or perhaps a healing to a chronic illness for a loved one or just a moment of peace in the troubled waters of our lives. In different ways we carry that same doubt that Thomas experienced when he made it known to Jesus’ other hand-picked disciples, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe”. After all, “Seeing is believing” as the saying goes, and wouldn’t we all like to see, that is, to comprehend this mystery for ourselves!!!

We all face this struggle. If we are honest with ourselves, we all struggle with real belief in the mysteries of our faith. St. Paul tried to teach the Corinthians that the real nature of our faith is summed up by the statement, “We walk by faith, not by sight”.

While we today have no personal eyewitness experience of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are witnesses to the death and resurrection He brings about in us, the death to self, and His raising us to new life in every difficulty and struggle we face over the course of our lives. These trials and triumphs represent our eyewitness testimonies, those stories of our living faith and how Christ has remained present to us and has continued working in our lives. These are the eyewitness accounts that we bequeath to the generations to come. All who embrace the faith continue to believe in what our faith professes now as it has over these past 2000 years: Christ has died! Christ is Risen! And they believe Christ will do the same for them.”

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

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

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: The Seeing Eye by C.S. Lewis presents an eloquent and colorful defense of Christianity for both devotees and critics... in a collection of essays composed over the last twenty years of his life.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Listen to C.S. Lewis’ The Seeing Eye on YouTube Video.

 

 

Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday, Year B - In the Beginning_040724

Image Credit: 123RF.com Hands in a heart #17810429

Deacon Tom Writes,

“In The Beginning”

 Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday, Year B

The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the early days of the church as it came to understand its purpose and mission. It describes individuals coming together and struggling to understand the profound mystery they had recently witnessed. Today’s first reading from the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles says that, “…the community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common”. It appears that the death and resurrection of Christ touched their lives profoundly and so they made a conscious choice to live their lives according to the spirit of Jesus’ teaching… and to care for one another… “so that there was no needy person among them”.

What’s happened over the centuries? Has the mandate Jesus given us to “love one another” changed? Has it been enhanced or modified or made conditional so that we…love others only IF they love us in return, or IF they hold the same ideological position as we do, or IF they are the same color, ethnicity, or culture as us! God forbid that we define “neighbor” as used in the Golden Rule as only those who are just like us. Jesus had a much wider interpretation in mind as to who is our neighbor.

It seems that on the most basic level Jesus loves the victim, no matter what side of the fence they are on. The Risen Jesus is not concerned about nationalism, borders...ethnicity, etc. He is with the suffering of every race and creed. He is an outcast with all those who are disenfranchised; He mourns with all the broken-hearted no matter the color of their skin…He is shunned along with all those people we run and hide from...that we are afraid of…that we can't look in the eye, perhaps because we helped contribute to the way they are. Christ suffers want, rejection, isolation, poverty and humiliation with all who experience those pitiful states of existence.

We hear the rhetoric: we can’t afford to pay for everyone to have health insurance… or let them work like the rest of us and become “self-made individuals” – whatever that means - or send them home where they belong! And so, Jesus wanders the streets today, sick and uncared for. He sits in an ICE detention center waiting to be sent back "home". He’s chronically unemployed, under educated, invisible, losing hope, forgotten, a victim of hate crimes, discrimination, exploitation. He is despised and rejected to this day.

Didn’t Jesus have something to say about these things? How we have twisted and distorted His words to make them to our liking? I guess the Romans weren't as brutal as history or we might judge them to be. Sure, they beat Jesus...They tortured him…They made him drag the instrument of his death across town...They nailed His hands and His feet to the cross so He couldn't move. And, they even stuck a lance in His side to make sure He was dead. BUT, they never did silence Him! No, they never did shut Him up! We do that!!!We silence Jesus when we choose to ignore what He taught us…about love, about being servants, about what it will cost to follow His lead.

In these joy filled days following His Resurrection, let us pray to be filled with the Spirit of Christ so we may follow His example and His teachings as those early followers of his did in the beginning, when all the community “was of one heart and mind”.

Enjoy the day and the Blessing that is now!
Deacon Tom

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

 

OTHER RESOURCE

 

Recommended Reading: Back to Virtue by Peter Kreeft who explains that being virtuous is not a means to and end of pleasure, comfort and happiness but rather a way to experience life to the fullest by having the moral character to make right choices along the way.

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  Cardinal Virtues - Peter Kreeft Ph.

Easter Sunday_B - Rise and Shine_033124

Image Credit: Mariela Calderon Aguirre

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Rise and Shine”

 

Easter Sunday - The Resurrection of the Lord - The Mass of Easter Day, Year B

One of my lingering childhood memories is that of my mother calling from the bottom of the stairs, “Tommy Joe, rise and shine! It’s time to get ready for school.” It’s a pleasant memory. To this day there are times when I can still hear those words echo in my mind, especially on those rainy days when I just want to roll over and go back to sleep…. and then, softly in the back of my head, I hear these words, “Tommy Joe, rise and shine! It’s time to get ready…”.

As people who profess Christ’s Resurrection as central to our faith and lives, we realize that we who have been baptized in Christ also share in His death and that we, like Him, will one day also rise, as He did, to eternal life. There will come a day when we all will “rise and shine” forever. There will come a day when we will possess the fullness of life that Christ has promised to all who believe in Him and follow His ways.

Yet, I do not think that the promise of rising to new life is one that is entirely reserved for the next life. We are meant to “rise and shine” today because we participate in the Mystical Body of Christ. We “rise and shine” today because God has chosen us to be the stewards of all of creation and, if we are truly His disciples, we have said “yes” to that call. We “rise and shine” today because we have committed ourselves to follow “the firstborn from the dead” in the way of peace, in the way of humility, in the way of self-denial, in the way of choosing to follow in His footsteps.

We “rise and shine” every time we chose to imitate Christ by forgiving others who hurt us; when we offer up our sufferings to be a part of His suffering; when we embrace others’ sorrows as if they were our own; when we persevere to the end as He did.

On this most wonderful day, may we, like Christ, awaken to God’s call to “rise and shine.”

Happy and Blessed Easter to you and your loved ones!
Deacon Tom

 

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

 

OTHER RESOURCE

Recommended Reading: The Life of The Beloved by Henri J.M. Nouwen is insightful testimony of the power and invitation of Christ to lead us into a deeper spiritual life in today’s world.

 

 

Recommended YouTube Video:  The Life of the Beloved

 

Palm Sunday_B - The Lady with the Oil_032424

Image credit: riverwindgallaryart.com

Deacon Tom Writes,

The Lady with the Oil

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion, Year B

 We don’t know much about the woman who walks into Simon the leper’s house from our reading in Mark’s Gospel. But we do know that this was an important event for two reasons. First, because Jesus tells us that “wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her”. Second, this story is told in all four gospels. (If you’re interested, here are the references: Matthew 26.6, Mark 24.4, Luke 7.36, and John 12.1. You can see how details are added by the other Evangelists to this, the earliest account that we read today in Mark).

Picture the scene described in today’s Gospel. Jesus is having dinner with Simon and this uninvited woman comes in off the street, breaks open an expensive jar of perfumed oil, and anoints Jesus’ head. There is more than a little disgust on how unreasonable this is. To do such a thing at the expense of feeding the poor was seemingly the source of their outrage. Its value was substantial, as scripture notes, worth more than 300 days wages. But Jesus states an awful truth, “the poor you will always have with you”. How true, how sad and how real it is that we tend to the poor when we feel like doing so!

This act of anointing with oil proves comforting to Jesus as His hour approaches. A stranger, an outsider perhaps, appears on the scene, creates this intimate moment of holy anointing in recognition of He who it is she is kneeling before and then goes off into the night. Jesus needed to be strengthened and encouraged but he gets neither from His close friends and disciples, only from this stranger.

There are times in our lives when we have the chance to be an “angel of mercy” just like this woman with the jar. We have unlimited opportunities to lift someone’s spirits, give them some positive affirmation, encourage them or cheer them up. It may cost us some time and some energy. We may have to rearrange our schedules or go out of our way. But remember, it was expensive oil, a year’s salary. Remember too, as we come into Holy Week, that when we do any kind deed for another person, we are really doing it to Jesus who was so grateful for this act of kindness that He tells those seated around the table that she will be remembered as long as the gospel is proclaimed throughout the world. Isn’t it interesting St. Mark begins the story of Jesus’ Passion with her anointing of His feet? Who will we anoint with our kindness, generosity or forgiveness this Holy Week?

Have a holy, Holy Week!  

Deacon Tom

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

 

OTHER RESOURCE

Recommended Reading: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis who explores the common ground upon which all of the Christian Faith stand together.

 

Recommended YouTube Video: Shortest Way Home: C.S. Lewis & Mere Christianity