A reflection for the 30th Sunday, Ordinary Time, B. The readings are Jeremiah 31:7-9; Psalm 126; Hebrews 5:1-6 and Mark 10:46-52.
You don’t have to see something to know that it exists. We can’t see the CN Tower right now, but we know it exists. I’ve never seen a $1000 bill but I’m told they exist. I don’t have any reason to believe they don’t exist. Just because I can’t see or understand something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or that it isn’t true. There are some things that we can’t prove, but they exist. Our ability to see sometimes has to do with how open our hearts are. You go to Mass to worship God and to meet Christ in the Eucharist, but you can’t see him. You’ve been told that He’s there, but we can’t see him.
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A reflection for the 23rd Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year B. The readings are Isaiah 35:4-7; Psalm 146; James 2:1-5 and Mark 7:31-37.
When the Cardinals were in Conclave three years ago, the story goes that when the cardinal from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had the majority of votes, his Brazilian friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes leaned over and whispered to him, “remember the poor.” Pope Francis, says that up to that point everything was a bit of a blur, but at that moment he thought of St. Francis of Assisi, Il poverello, “the poor one” and knew that would be his name, “Francis.” It’s pretty clear today that his papacy has put not just the poor at the front, but all who are marginalised, the people he calls, “the throways.” But I’ve always wondered why Cardinal Hummes said that. Why ‘remember the poor’? Had the Church been neglecting the poor? I don’t think so.
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A reflection for the 22nd Sunday, Ordinary Time, year B. The readings are Deut 4:1-2, 6-8; Psalm: 15; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27 and Mark 7, 1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
Maybe some of you are going to university this week, or have children going to university. One of the things about going to university, especially if you move out of the house, is that all those rules you had growing up – you don’t have to follow them anymore. You can stay up all night, sleep in, miss class, drink orange juice out of the container in the fridge; you don’t have to wash your hands before you eat… That’s the way it is. When I was young, I didn’t want to be told what to do; I wanted to figure it out by myself. I didn’t mind doing the things I was being told to do, but I wanted to do them because I wanted, not because I was being told.
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A reflection for the 19th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year B. The readings are 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34; Ephesians 4:30-5:2 and John 6:41-51.
I recently read an article by Fr. Ron Rolheiser in which he quoted a story by Christian de Cherge, the Trappist Abbot who was martyred in Algeria in 1996, who said that on the day of his First Communion he said to his mom, “I don’t understand what I am doing.” His mother replied, “It’s OK, you don’t have to understand it now. Later you will understand.” Fr. Rolheiser goes on to say that he imagines this exact conversation at the Last Supper. Jesus says, “This is my body, this is my blood, take and eat, take and drink. Do this in memory of me”. The apostles say, “We don’t understand what we are doing” and Jesus replies, “It’s OK, you don’t have to understand it now. Later you’ll understand.”
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deacon pedro 