Look at the interaction between Elisha and the Shunamite couple. Elisha is known as the “holy man of God,” and this couple is clearly warm and gracious to him, to the point where they provide a room for him in their house, so he will be comfortable when he visits.

And what becomes of all that generosity? The great gift of their lives: in one year, Elisha promises, they will have a baby son.

This, of course, is the greatest gift God could bestow on them in their old age, and the story is paired with today’s gospel from Matthew 10, which says: “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”

But, it turns out, our generosity of a cup of cold water to any disciple of Jesus, no matter how “little” or unknown, will bear a reward that can never be lost.

Here’s a quote I love, from James Blanchard Cisneros “You touch the world on a much deeper level than you currently perceive. … knowingly or not, you change the world with every interaction you have with a fellow being.” 

I really believe that we carry interaction we’ve ever had, somewhere in our hearts. As William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Even if we don’t remember all those sweet, loving words the lunch ladies said to us in first grade, the effect of all that kindness never leaves us.

Every cuddle with our parents, every kindness of a coach or a teacher, burrows a home in our hearts, and we find ourselves providing safety and shelter to other “little disciples” whom we meet in life.

What are your fondest memories of interactions with particular people?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

I love to watch YouTube videos of babies with their (exhausted) and thrilled parents.

They can sit for long periods of time, just gazing at their new baby, cheering at the slightest signal that their newborn recognizes their voice. They lovingly stroke their baby’s hair, and I’m confident that, should a single hair on baby’s head go missing, they would search for it and put it in the Baby Book.

Babies grow into adults, of course, but never forget this: Each of us is adored in the same way. Jesus assures the disciples today that Even all the hairs of your head are counted. Drink that in for a minute. Just as new parents know every strand of their newborn’s hair, so our Heavenly Father knows every strand of ours.

And yes, our aging male friends will ruefully observe that those strands of hair are fewer and fewer, and we can all rue our rapidly greying hair. But it’s a comfort to know that God is in the process.

But what of the real fears in our lives—bodies that can’t retrieve the strength of their youth, illness, loss of dear ones, and the random violence that terrifies us all?

What a comfort to take in Jesus’ words to his disciples as he sent them out into the frightening Roman world: Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Take Jesus at his Word every day. Wrap yourself up in the promise that you are a beloved child of an endlessly loving Heavenly Parent.  

Hold us tight, loving God. Touch the wounds that bind and betray us. We gaze at you, God, as you gaze upon us.

In what ways this past week did you experience the warm embrace of God?  

Kathy McGovern ©2026      

Reflecting on Matthew 9: 36-10:8

My heart always hurts a little when I read that sentence from today’s gospel: Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.

Nine months ago, our lives changed, and in all the good ways. My husband’s cousin’s 29-year-old daughter came to live with us while  finishing her Masters in Engineering. Immediately, phones began to ring in our house again, and it was always HER phone, and always a new friend, and always hours of chatter.

How intoxicating it is to listen to her, on a summer night, out on the back porch, laughing and making plans with the actual friends (not fake Facebook friends) she makes every day.

I think the answer is in identity. She knows she’s smart. I assume she knows she’s beautiful. But her core identity is as a daughter, and sister, and granddaughter and, yes, second cousin.

In the nine months she’s been in Denver I’ll bet she’s driven back to Salt Lake eight times to see her grandparents. It’s extraordinary to see a young person realize, so early in life, that it’s family that forms you, and, hence, gives you the building blocks to go out into the world to be a wonderful and engaged friend.

In the first reading today (Exodus 19: 2-6a), God tells us who we are:

“My special possession, dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.”  Because they knew who they were, the apostles had the strength and spiritual background to say YES when Jesus called them. It hurts that so many people don’t know that they are God’s special possession. Tell somebody today.

How are you getting that Good News out to the world?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on John 6: 51-58

My friend John’s story about going to the football game with his dad comes back to me every year on this feast day. “I’ll never give up my season tickets. I go to every game. It’s the place where my dad and I have our best talks.”

His dad died nearly thirty years ago. Growing up, John and his dad enjoyed the entire Game Day ritual―Mass, breakfast, driving to the stadium, firing up the grill, hamburgers, and football. They talked, and ate, and shared in the triumphs and humiliations of the game. And the next week, if the team was in town, they did it all again.

John grieved horribly when his dad died in the spring of 1990. He was his best friend. They had built so many memories. He would never see him again.

Except, of course, on Sunday afternoons, in the sun and wind and cold, and the hot dogs and beer, and the cheering and the booing, and memories so real that John feels his dad next to him at every game. He goes to see his dad, to really feel his presence.

There are many sensory triggers that can transport us. Think about pipe smoke. Can you smell it? I can, and suddenly my grandpa is with me. A Beach Boys song on a summer day can bring childhood friends right into the room. These cues make the past Really Present.

As Catholics, we get that. Every Sunday we place ourselves in the position to Re-Member the One who loved us to his death. In the Eucharist the Beloved Past becomes the Real Presence. This is the feast that tells us who we are.

What sensory experiences bring the past right back to you?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

One of the many touching things I’ve learned through the years of writing this weekly column is how seriously Catholics take the gift of their faith.

Catholics today read, and pray, and are constantly learning about the faith they love. When we arrive at the Solemnity of the Trinity, for example, I’m always inspired by the deep and intuitive reflection in which today’s Catholics have invested in order to come to their own understanding of what it all means.

For example, if you asked an adult practicing Catholic today what the first part of that closing blessing St. Paul offers in today’s second reading—“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”—means to them, you’ll get a rich reflection on the ways grace has directed their lives.

The second half of the blessing—“the love of God”—is probably the easiest, because all Catholics can tell you how the love of God is living and active in their lives.

The third part of the Trinitarian formula—”and the fellowship of the Spirit”—will be easy too, especially since we are smack in the post-Pentecost octave. I can’t imagine active Catholics who can’t relate the ways in which the Holy Spirit lives in their hearts and spirits.

We don’t need theological explanations for what we’ve experienced through lifetimes of prayer and attentiveness to the liturgy and scripture. Grace, and love, and intimacy. That’s the meaning of the Trinity.

Why do you think one of the Persons of the Trinity might attract you more than the Others?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on Matthew 5: 17-37

Therapists and marriage counselors all agree on the number one behavior of engaged couples who aren’t going to make it: contempt. The rolled eyes, the crossed arms, the incredulous stare—these are all signs that at least one of the partners holds spoken (or maybe unspoken) contempt for the other. That’s a huge red flag, and a warning that there are many serious issues that need to be brought to light before this couple attempts to marry.

Sure, we all know the Ten Commandments, especially “Thou shalt not kill, “ but dig deep into the reasons for this command, and we find unspoken anger, violent language, and quiet contempt for the other. It’s usually considered bad form to bring this contempt into the light by actually saying out loud the ugliness we harbor in our hearts towards the people we secretly despise, but unless we truly repent of this contempt, it will eventually find its way out of our hearts and into malicious gossip, simmering rage, and, in the worst cases, physical violence.

This portion of the Sermon on the Mount thwarts our attempts to compromise our faith.  If your right hand is your trouble, gouge it out and throw it away. Yikes. Who among us hasn’t broken promises, harbored resentments, imagined the vengeance we would take if given the opportunity? I think this hyperbole that Jesus uses, to gouge out our eyes rather than be thrown into Gehenna, is a good example of the reasonable way to approach a challenging text like this. Everyone has temptations. Has anyone ever actually gouged out their eyes?

The greatest danger is to bask in our contempts. Pray that another isn’t doing the same towards you.

How will you use the upcoming Lent to disarm your resentments?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on Matthew 5: 13-16

Here’s an earthy explanation for Jesus’ words about salt, and how, after it loses its taste, is good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot.

In Israel, even today, many prefer cooking in clay ovens rather than on electric stoves. These ovens have been around since ancient times, and are undoubtedly what Jesus refers to when he speaks of the importance of salt.

The common fuel for these communal ovens was camel or donkey dung. It was the task of the girls in the family to gather the dung, mix salt in it, mold it into patties, and leave them in the sun to dry.

A slab of salt was placed at the base of the oven, and upon it the salted dung patty. Salt has catalytic properties that cause it to burn, so food can be cooked. Dung fuel is still used today.

Eventually, of course, the salt loses its catalytic capacity and becomes useless. Jesus says it’s good for nothing but to be thrown outside, where it can still provide a sure footing in a muddy road. Jesus is so earthy, so at home with the family life of his listeners. No wonder crowds followed him everywhere he went.

I recently read a book that I think you would love. Theo of Golden (by Allen Levi), demonstrates for the reader how to bring light to the world. As one reviewer put it,  You think you’re settling into a quiet story about companionship, but before you know it, you’re rethinking what it means to live a meaningful life. 

It’s like receiving a warm hug, or someone turning on the light in a dark room. It’s what the world needs now.

Who in your life is like salt, bringing joy and Light?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on Matthew 5:1-12 

Most weeks, when I start this column, I bring up many of my favorite spiritual writers to see what they have to say about that week’s readings. But this week, when praying about the Beatitudes, one name surfaced loudly and clearly: Father Greg Boyle, SJ, founder of Homeboy Industries,  the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program, ( and yes, there is now Homegirl Industries, too.)

Greg Boyle understands those who are poor, and weak, and grieving. He employs hundreds of them, some right out of prison, in his bakeries and restaurants in Los Angeles. He also understands, intimately, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He’s at the top of that list.

His teaching on the Beatitudes is simple. It’s just geography. It’s not about WHAT to be, but WHERE to be, which is always with the vulnerable. True blessing isn’t health or wealth, but finding life and joy in solidarity with those the world rejects, even if it leads to crucifixion, since that’s where Jesus is.

So, a re-write of the Beatitudes might be, “You know you’re in the right place if…you are singlehearted, working for justice, showing mercy, working for peace.”

But how do we who have never been materially poor crowd in with, as Richard Rohr writes, the poor in spirit, whose “material poverty has broken their spirit”?  My only answer is to hang out with people who serve those who are poor with abundant love.

Christ, who will always side with the poor, begs us to place ourselves in proximity to “the weak of the world,” so that we too may learn from them. Theirs is the kingdom.

Have you ever been inspired by someone who is “humble and lowly”?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on Matthew 4: 12-23

And so it begins. Jesus learns that John has been arrested (Matthew 4:12-23) and is being held in Herod’s terrifying, lonely dungeon.  The back story of his arrest isn’t given to us by Matthew for another ten chapters (14:1-13). I

It’s then that he tells the whole ghastly story of John’s arrest by Herod Antipas, and his beheading at the behest of Herod’s illegally wedded wife, Herodias.

But this is all to come. When today’s gospel opens, we only know that John has been put in prison. This event marks the end of John’s ministry, and the beginning of Jesus’ public life. One senses the strong foreboding Jesus must have felt. His forerunner is gone, and now he must fulfill the words of his baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

At first, he retreats to Galilee, perhaps realizing he may have no other time to be with his Mother. When he leaves Nazareth, it’s crucial to note that he travels north, straight to the lands of Zebulon and Naphtali. These were called the “Galilee of the Gentiles” because, eight centuries earlier, the violent nation of Assyria had invaded those lands, dragged the Jews away, and repopulated the land with Gentiles.

Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about those lands: “On those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death, a light has arisen” (9:1-2). It’s to these “half-breed” people, forgotten Gentiles living in Jewish territories, that Jesus’ first words of hope and consolation are preached.

Imagine living there and seeing Jesus before anyone else. Wherever we are, Jesus will go and find us.

What would you say to Jesus if he came to find you?

Kathy McGovern c. 2026

Reflecting on John 1: 29-34

I don’t generally think of John the Baptist as a dreamer, or a star-gazer. But today he admits to seeing a vision: I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him.  

Why do these biblical figures have visions and dreams, and we don’t? My great Denver friend Fr. Pat Dolan thinks that modern humans have “evolved” away from the deep gifts of intuition and “seeing” that was common to the ancients. Two thousand years ago, the great Baptizer met Jesus, reluctantly complied with his wish to be baptized, and then actually saw the Spirit descend upon him.

But here’s the thing: I think we, too, often see the Spirit descend. Think of your favorite homilist. Don’t you “see” the Spirit descend when he digs deep into the scriptures and gives you something rich and beautiful upon which to meditate?

Watch your friends with their grandchildren. Years and years of parenting seem to have given them a sixth sense about how to listen to these dear ones, how to truly “see” them, and how to navigate their temporary whining and bring them back to that gentle place of delight and content that makes being with them such a joy.

Or think of the musicians you know. Watch them sit down at the piano and take mastery of it. Can you see the Spirit descend? Think of any person you love, really. Aren’t there many times a day when you “see” the Spirit descend as they bring kindness into the world?

Make this the year when you pay closer attention to the Spirit’s “descent.” Chances are, the Spirit hovers over you all the time.

What person in your life seems to have the Spirit’s presence always?

Kathy McGovern ©2026