Gospel, Homily and Coffee

God's mercy, love, presence is always with us, always available for us to experience. Yet, I do not always notice it. It is like the sunrise, it always happens.  I am either not awake to witness it, or I am awake but too busy to note it. La misericordia, presencia, el amor de Dios siempre está con nosotros, siempre está disponible para nosotros a experimentar. Pero, Yo no lo note siempre. Es como el amanecer, siempre está ocurriendo.  Yo soy o no despierto o ocupado para a verlo.

What is this Gospel passage about?  Is it only an admonition to be humble and not be arrogant? I think that there is something much deeper here, of which humility and arrogance are the visible signs. What it comes down to is about having a real authentic experience of God: of God’s love, of God’s mercy, of God’s nature...which means we are saved. What Christ desires for us truly, is to know the Father as he knows the Father, and then our lives are truly free! See, the pharisee who exalted himself, who followed all the rules and regulations, had, at best, a superficial relationship with God. The tax collector has the real relationship with God. He is the free one. How about us? There is an ancient heresy, called pelagianism that was condemned in the 3rd or 4th centuries.   Basically it says that Jesus was great role model, and as long as I do X,Y and Z, follow his example, I can save myself. Unfortunately this heresy pervades to this very day. ...

We humans are often contradictory...which leads to lives all messed up. Here is the contradiction...We think we deserve everything and can have it and yet we tend to think too small, too narrow. So we have this internal conflict.  We want everything, and we really can, but we end up wanting the wrong “Everything”. This is what this scripture is addressing. What Jesus offers to us, in the plan of Salvation, is a way for us to get past that internal conflict, to see ourselves and more importantly God differently, and be able to live more freely. He teaches us to want the correct “Everything“. Jesus teaches us to pray always. He is telling us not because we need to badger and nag the Father until he gives us what we want.  His whole point in that story is that if a corrupt judge can be badgered into doing what is just, then certainly God who is all loving will do what is just without the nagging. It is that last sentence  “...will he find faith on ear...

Why do we need to be open to God's way of doing things? Often because I, we, think toooooo small.  We think toooo limited.  And often the solution, at least for me, is all about getting rid of my fears, and may not be truly about the situation. There is joy that comes with surrender, with trusting in God's life.  There are so many surprises out there, so much to see that is wonderful.

Lk 17.11-19 This passage is one of the reasons why being Catholic is so much fun! If we were literalists, we would say, okay, some lepers were healed, one is grateful and gee isn’t he nice.  And Jesus is such a good guy for doing this. Or isn’t Jesus powerful, able to cure 10 lepers from afar. But, as Catholics, we go deeper, to the invisible reality that the visible words are presenting. Jesus is teaching us about True Faith and experiencing the Salvation in the here and now.  Which means it can change everything. Most of you who have heard me preach know that the theme of Salvation is very common. I think we do not fully comprehend what it means, and because we of this, we prevent ourselves from experiencing the fullness of being disciples of Jesus Christ. I also am thinking we really underthink   faith too. Clearly, faith and salvation are connected How many times in the gospels does Jesus say  “Your faith has saved you.”  or somethi...

Faith, how do we understand it? Faith, is it simply to say “I believe” or “i trust”? Or “I know that God exists”? How about this, Faith, having an open mind and imagination to God’s very life.   Faith is to imagine a different outcome, imagine new possibilities of God being at work in our lives, at work in our world.   This is not my idea, but of a theologian that I happen to agree with. Look at this Gospel, Jesus affirms this.  He says imagine being able to say to this tree, uproot and move into the sea.  Can we even imagine that? Can we imagine saying to Mt. Rose, “move” and it would? What can we truly imagine God doing? Jesus certainly imagined God doing incredible things through him!  I think that was how he healed, he imagined it, and he got the people to imagine it too, and BOOM, healing. I think this is wonderful, because for us adults, we can lose our faith, we can become to jaded by life.   We can lose our sense of wonder of...