Blog & Pastor Letters

After Sunday masses this weekend, I shall set out for my vacation to Nigeria. It’s important for me to take this opportunity to decompress, relax, and refresh my spirit to return strongest for work. Therefore, from 27 October until 15 December, I shall be on vacation. A few activities are lined-up for me already.

What’s in it for me?

I think we’ve all been guilty of looking at a situation and wondering what’s in it for us. It doesn’t matter if it’s a particular work assignment, someone at the parish asking for help with the mission trip bake sale, or your spouse asking if you’ll take over the grocery shopping this week. Often, our first reaction to one of these requests is a heavy sigh and the thought: “If I do this, what will I get?”

I oftentimes say in prayer, "Grant me the wisdom to see Your will for my life and the courage to follow that will." It is a request for true discernment to see that God's will is always more important and fruitful than my own will. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking happiness and fulfillment lie in doing what I want to do and following my own wants and desires. Our entire secular culture is filled with that message.

How often do we hear couples having playful or loving nicknames for each other, especially at the beginning of their relationship or marriage? Those names often reference the uniqueness of that couple’s love for each other. Perhaps the best image to have for a better understanding of the sacrament of marriage is to look upon your spouse as an ox.

Each week we recite in the Nicene Creed that we believe in “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” It sounds pretty clear: there is one Church, gathered by the Holy Spirit and made holy by the body of Christ. She is catholic on account of her totality and being endowed with the fullness of faith. And she is apostolic because she is taught, ministered to, and shepherded by the Apostles and their ordained successors, the bishops. But as we all know, there are Christians who live a moral life, read the Bible, and have a prayerful relationship with Jesus, but they are not members of the Catholic Church. How should we understand our relationship to them?

What does success look like for a Christian? Our culture has its own standards determining what constitutes success and failure. Fame, wealth, and power are, of course, indicators that one has “made it” in this world.

Anyone who studies Sacred Scripture understands that there are some differences between the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We call the first three of these the Synoptic Gospels because they “take a common view” of the life, death, and Resurrection of Christ. St. John’s account is widely regarded as the latest chronologically of the four and the most distinct in its approach.

In the Rite of Baptism, the priest or deacon prays over the newly baptized child in the very manner in which our Lord heals in today’s Gospel. Touching the ears and mouth of the child, he prays the following words: “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

On this Labor Day weekend, with college and professional football leagues getting underway, a favorite American pastime can resume: armchair quarterbacking. This is an activity in which a spectator, watching from the comfort of his favorite chair at home, tells everyone else in the room what Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow or Josh Allen should do to march their offense down the field and into the end-zone. The armchair quarterback always thinks he knows better than the professionals who prepare and practice for hours and hours each week.

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?” A hard saying of Jesus is one that his own disciples find difficult to believe or accept. Not everything he taught is “hard,” yet any believer who finds everything Jesus says pleasing and agreeable has not truly heard the Jesus revealed in the Gospels. A man rejected by his own people who in the end clamored for his crucifixion was not one who simply told people what they wanted to hear. More than once they took offense at what Jesus said, whether it was the townspeople of Nazareth saying, “Where did this man get all this?” (Mark 6:2-3); or the Pharisees affronted by Jesus’ indictment that they nullify the law with their traditions (Matt 15:12).

Today’s Gospel contains one of the most disputed passages in Christianity. The question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” continues to be raised by his followers. Jesus’ teaching divided his initial audience and has not ceased doing so among the generations of believers since. What Jesus says is controversial and scandalous, yet because Jesus speaks quite clearly, repeating three distinct times the provocative phrase of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, the reason for the quarreling over what he meant lies with his followers, not with him.

We continue a month-long hearing from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, which began with Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes to feed a multitude in a deserted place. When the crowd recognized the miracle as a sign that God’s Messiah would reenact the wonders of Exodus and again feed them heavenly bread, Jesus quite simply disappeared. He fled from their adulation, their plans to make him their king. He went deeper into the wilderness, higher up the mountain, to pray to his heavenly Father in secret.

When hunger overtakes you, the importance of what you were doing fades until you find the satisfaction of a filled stomach. Whatever you were doing, that day’s pursuit, succumbs to the simple need for sustenance. A life spent primarily on the pleasures of food and drink is meanly lived, yet no one can go without eating. Wisely, we often combine caloric intake with the good of eating together, changing the meal into a communal repast of joyful conversation. We do well when the replenishing of the body is joined with true communion with others, the one thing really worth living for.