Gospel, Homily and Coffee

One of the more difficult aspects of priestly ministry, at least for me, is when people are confronted with suffering and tragedy, and they want to know “why?” Why did my teenage daughter die in the car accident? Why does my parent have alzheimer's? Why do kids get massacred in schools? Why do people hate each other? Why does this bad person have it so easy? Is this God’s will?   Is this God punishing me?  Is this God testing us? There is real pain behind these words, and the man in me wants to fix the hurt right away...but...it is not that easy. Yet, we have hope.   It is the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, of which we are in the process of preparing to celebrate. We have the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God, and therein lies the mystery of suffering, and the freedom from being controlled by the badness and evil in the world. There is that concise statement from St. Paul who clearly states that God is for us.  God did NOT punish

I just read this and thought, WOW by Kurt Marti it might readily suit many lords of this world if everything were settled at death if the dominion of the lords and the servitude of the slaves were confirmed at forever it might readily suit many lords of this world if in eternity they remained lords in expensive private tombs and their slaves remained slaves in rows of commons graves but a resurrection is coming quite different from what we thought a resurrection is coming which is god's rising up against the lords and against the lord of lords--death

In our modern age we have these wonderful GPS gadgets that can tell how to get to where we are going.  We get off route, and that wonderful voice reminds us, and then tells us how to get back on track. Mine is set up with a British voice, so it sounds oh so polite. If only it was as easy in the spiritual life? Or Maybe even life in general? Mark’s gospel sums up Jesus’ mission in a few words:  “Repent and believe in the Gospel, the good news.” In other words, change the direction of our lives so as to fully experience the Love of God. Because the Good News is that God loves us no matter what. The experience of this is what life is about, and is the direction of our lives. God’s love is what leads us to having fulfilling lives. Jesus’ mission was to open us to God’s love, God’s grace.  He did this through his preaching, healing, welcoming, et al. And of course, the highest moment, THE moment of knowing God’s love, is the Paschal Mystery, his death and resurrec

Our degree of hospitality shows our degree of humanness. I am a “bit” of a SciFi geek, Star Wars and Star Trek.  Star Trek of course has the famous character of Spock, the coldly logical half Vulcan who had the internal conflict with his other human half, the emotional part.  Star Trek throughout all its other shows generally maintained that type of character, one who wrestles with what it means to be human. Clearly, we as Catholics have our belief in what it means to be human, as revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus’ Salvation means to be those human persons we were created to be. Easier said than done. I think many, if not all of us, we wrestle with being human; and often it seems a conflict between logic and the heart. Look at Leviticus and the “law” regarding Lepers.  It makes logical sense, doesn’t it?  Given the lack of sanitation and lack of knowledge about diseases, someone who has a skin disorder, in order to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the communi

I have news, good or bad depends our perspective.  We are created to work. God created us to work in the world.  We can read this in Genesis; man and woman placed in the garden, to work for and with God. Work is part of who we are as humans. Ideally we find meaning and purpose in work.   Ideally we discover ourselves through our work.   Ideally we contribute to a better world by the work that we do. Ideally… We can also read in Genesis how humanity chose to work against God, and the consequences of that act continue in us to this day. God warned Adam and Eve that when they, and we, separate ourselves from God, work loses its meaning; work becomes drudgery and ultimately work will control us. The Salvation of Jesus redeems us, and restores harmony, and in Christ, work becomes what it means to be. So, how is our work life? Jesus clearly was working with and for the Father; he taught, healed, forgave, welcomed.  He did it all in Love; for Love of Father and