One of the beautiful things about the liturgical year is the way the mysteries of faith are tied together, especially with  the feasts of  Mary, John the Baptist, and Jesus.  Theirs are the only births celebrated as feasts, since it’s the days of death (and hence new life) of the saints that are generally celebrated.  But so important are their births that even the dates of their conceptions are remembered!

Hence the Immaculate Conception of Mary is December 8^th, and her birth (nine months later) is September 8^th.  The ancient date of the conception of Jesus (the Annunciation) was set on March 25^th, which of course was a perfect nine months before December 25^th.

The conception of John the Baptist was once commemorated on September 24^th, which brings us to today’s (June 24^th) feast of his birth, so treasured that it actually pre-empts today’s 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time.   Think about it:  Luke (1:26,27) says that Elizabeth was six months pregnant the day that Jesus was conceived.  He goes on to tell us that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months before John’s birth. That means Mary was three months pregnant when John was born.  So if the Nativity of Jesus is December 25^th (when the days begin to grow longer), then John’s birth was six months earlier (June 24^th) when the days begin to gradually get shorter.

That I may decrease, and He may increase, John said. Just like the days ahead, as they oh-so-gradually decrease and, like the Baptist, point the way to the birth of the Invincible Son, in whom there is no darkness at all.

What graces do you feel during these long summer days?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 4: 26-34

Over the past few months I’ve had the great joy of reconnecting with some friends from high school.  As a group we drifted away from each other almost immediately all those years ago, but some one-on-one friendships have held fast through the decades.

It wouldn’t have been impossible to find each other through the years.  But in the magical, expansive time-frame of friendship we have gravitated back, forgiving each other for abandoning our teenaged promises to stay close, to help with the raising of babies and the burying of parents.

Each of us has changed in huge ways.  Illness and loss have forged not-invisible gashes across our souls. But the sweet gifts of time and grace have given us all the chance to become more and more the people we wanted to be way back then.  How?  We do not know.

We are like the farmer who sows the seed and then sleeps and rises, week after week, and is then astounded to see the wheat that has grown high and golden while no one was watching.  How? He does not know.

There are secret seeds growing in us all the time.  How blessed to encounter someone with whom we may once been estranged and realize that those wounds healed long, long ago.  Or maybe it’s bad habits that once plagued us that we one day notice haven’t tempted us in years.

Look around today.  Billions of seeds, secretly buried in the dark and cold, have burst open to create the luscious greens that surround us on the grass and on our tables. Grace abounds.  How? We do not know.  But we live in astonished gratitude.

What secret victories have you achieved through the long gift of time?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Mosaic found in church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, Tabgha, Galilee, Israel

It’s all in the bloodstream. That’s a family joke.  There wasn’t a one of us (including our parents) who had ever understood one minute of Science class.  As we kids cycled through colds and flus and broken bones my mom would read all the directions on the pill bottles, shake her head wisely and say Ah yes.  It’s all in the bloodstream. Which, all these years later, still means in family-speak, The world is just way too confusing and scientific, and I’m admitting defeat.

But of course the ancients knew that it really is all in the bloodstream.  Blood is the carrier of life, and solemn covenants were sealed by splashing blood on the two parties entering into them.  When Moses wanted to show the deadly earnest with which the Israelites promised to keep the Law which they had just received on Mount Sinai, he used the life-force of the sacrificed bulls as a substitute for human blood.  We promise to be faithful, God, and we enter this joyful covenant sprinkled in blood, the life of the world.

When Jesus the Bridegroom entered into his eternal marriage contract with us the night before he died he used the same image of blood, but this time it would be his own.  This is my blood of the covenant. Taken, blessed, broken, shared—This is my Body. This is my Blood.

We Catholics have endured many difficult years recently.  But this this is our Feast.  This is Who we are.  And once again we enter this joyful covenant.  We are one Body, one Body in Christ.  And we do not stand alone.

What memories do you have of your First Communion?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Have you read The Shack?  The book has its detractors, but oh how it captures this One Truth: we are made in the image and likeness of a God who is Three, and the Persons are in eternal relationship with each other.

An elderly friend said to me the other day, “The truth is, I just want to be left alone.  Leave my Social Security check alone.  Leave my V.A. benefits alone.   Let me sit out on my porch and enjoy the sunset.  Alone.”

He doesn’t really mean it.  I’m sure he also wants to eat, and to do that we all need farmers, and harvesters, and those who drive the food to town.  The magical ways that electricity, and fuel,  and air conditioning, and bicycle tires keep us comfortable all require people—smart people—and millions of smart people before them.

Of course, it’s not just humans or animals or plants or planets that must have each other.  In fact, the God who set the atoms and molecules of the earliest life in motion wasn’t even alone.  Proverbs 8: 22-31 describes a Being who danced with God—who WAS God—at the beginning of creation (the Holy Spirit).  And the first verse of John’s Gospel says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  That’s Jesus.

The Trinity, together and present before anything existed, danced the universe into being.  A liturgical dance of Three.  And since we live and move and have our being in Christ, we too are caught in the endless dance of Love.  Never alone.  Never on our own.  Thank God.

Which member of the Holy Trinity do you feel you understand the best?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

A PENTECOST SEQUENCE

Come, oh Holy Spirit, come!

Concerns have made our spirits numb.

With fruits of joy and love and peace

Give our anxious hearts release.

When we are sick of sin and Law

Stop us cold with grace and awe.

Hold us dumbstruck, draw us near.

Stay with us this coming year.

Help us see the world anew

And do the things that He would do.

The gentle word, the warm embrace,

Let those who see us see His face.

And help us work for justice, too,

And speak up when You ask us to.

With your sevenfold gifts descend

And help us fall in Love again.

Melt us, mold us, make us new.

Veni, Sancte Spiritu!

What gifts of the Holy Spirit do you most appreciate in your life?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Acts 1:1-11

Remain in me. How many times have we heard Jesus tell us this throughout this Easter season?  Remain in me as I remain in you.

And now, like tender branches clinging to the vine, the eyewitnesses are instructed to remain in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes upon them.

How they must have longed to say to Jesus, “No!  Take us with you.  Don’t leave us.  We are powerless and terrified without you.”

But Jesus knew what they didn’t.  The Advocate, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit was about to come, like a mighty wind, and change their hearts and all history.

I love thinking about the people in that upper room who remained in prayer for those nine days from Ascension Thursday until Pentecost.  We know from Acts 1: 12-14 that the eleven apostles were there, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his “brothers”.

Wow.  That’s quite a minyan (a Jewish prayer group).  Think of the things they had seen with their own eyes, including the resurrected Christ.  I’ll bet a huge part of their time together was in telling each other the stories, over and over again.  And I’ll bet that Mary had the best stories of all.

Like a mighty wind the Spirit came, and clothed them in so much power that they went out into the four corners of the Roman world, preaching a Jewish Savior.  With Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Lydia and Phoebe and Chloe and hundreds of other disciples (see Romans 16 for a few) they built the church in every settled and unsettled province of the world.

Remain in me, says Jesus. Even today.  Especially today.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48

Icon of St. Peter

Perhaps the most challenging statement ever uttered in the history of the world appears in today’s first reading, taken from The Acts of the Apostles.  Peter himself says it:  In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.

Two millennia later, it still takes your breath away.  Peter, the Orthodox Jew, is telling the “God-fearers,” those believing Gentiles in the home of Cornelius, that God loves them exactly as much as God loves the Jewish people!  And, as if on cue, the Holy Spirit rushes upon those Gentiles even before they are baptized in water!  It’s as if the Spirit is saying, “Do you think I have to wait to send my gifts of comfort, and strength, and wisdom upon these people just because you haven’t baptized them with water yet?”

What a scary God that would be—a God who isn’t huge enough to love every single one of us, who plays favorites, who withholds comfort and grace based on our correctly-articulated dogma.  It’s thrilling to read the Acts of the Apostles and watch the Holy Spirit, in the first decades after the Resurrection, gather people of every race, language, and way of life into the one eternal banquet.

In fact, Peter’s realization is so important that it is told originally in chapter 10, and then re-told in chapters 11 and 15.  It’s as if St. Luke was afraid we’d forget it in time.

And so our annual novena to the Holy Spirit begins this Ascension Thursday, as we wait with Mary and all the Church for another Pentecost to take our breath away once more.  Come, Holy Spirit, come.

What are you asking of the Spirit this year?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on John 15: 1-8

The branches of the vine should be especially full and beautiful these days.  Over forty-three thousand adults entered into full communion with us this Easter.  Think of that.

Perhaps it’s because they are getting married and want to share the faith of their spouse.  Or maybe a childhood friend introduced them to Catholicism decades ago, and they finally gave in to a lifelong curiosity.  Or maybe they, like so many people, long for a deep and beautiful connection with God, and they choose us as their conduits to Jesus the Resurrected One.  That’s scary, isn’t it?

But here’s the thing: if the branches are overflowing with new Catholics, and recently-new Catholics, and cradle Catholics, why don’t things seem to change? When the Denver Nuggets are in town, with the capacity crowd of 19,000 roaring the roof off the Pepsi Center, the city knows it.  There is an energy that changes the atmosphere of downtown.

Ah, we say.  The Nuggets must be here.

More than double that number joined the Catholic Church this Easter, and the Easter before that, and Easters for the last two thousand years.

Where is the pulsing, world-changing tidal wave of joy, and peace-making, and justice-seeking, and outreach to those who are estranged?  There are 1.19 billion of us on this planet.  Let’s continue to work for the day when people say, “Ah.  The grieving are comforted, the hungry are fed, families are happier and safer, and the poor have the good news preached to them.  The Catholics must be here.”

In what ways do you work to heal the world?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on John 10: 11-18

I had the most beautiful experience on Holy Thursday.  I was sitting next to a very sweet man who appeared to be a little confused about the rituals of that unique night—the ringing of the bells at the Gloria, the washing of the feet, the transfer of the Holy Eucharist to the altar of repose.

It was then, as the lights dimmed and the congregation began to follow in procession, singing the ancient hymn of adoration Pange Lingua, that he turned to me and said, “I’m sorry.  I don’t know what’s going on.  Am I supposed to be doing something?”

What a thrill to be asked to explain “what’s going on”.  It reminded me of the ritual Passover meal, where the youngest child is prompted to ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” And then the rest of the family jumps in to tell the wondrous story of their liberation from slavery in Egypt.

We walked in procession, and I explained that we were remembering Jesus and his night of solitary prayer at Gethsemane before his arrest.  He listened with a heart utterly open to all the beauty that the rituals of Holy Week and Easter reveal.

And he told me, in a reverent whisper, that he was returning to the church on Easter morning.  He had been gone for forty years.

On this Good Shepherd Sunday I think of the millions who have left us, and I grieve for us and for them.  We wait in joyful hope for the day when we are all one again. Because there is so, so much beauty here. “What’s going on?” he asked me.  “Oh,” I grinned.  “I can’t wait to tell you.”

How can you tell the Good News to your own family members?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Luke 24: 35-48

I love to read stories about near-death experiences.  I’ve recently read two books about two different young boys who have “died” and returned, with wonderful, thrilling reports about what awaits us.

The first book, The Boy Who Went to Heaven (Kevin Malarkey), tells the story of a terrible car accident, and a boy who will be a quadriplegic the rest of his life. Yet this child (now a teenager) is radiant with joy because of what he saw in heaven when he “died”.

The second is the stunning Messenger: The Legacy of Mattie Stepanek (Stepanek).  You may have seen Mattie on Oprah or many other television shows while he was alive. He was brought back from death several times as he struggled with a rare form of muscular dystrophy that had already taken his three siblings.  “They’ve got it all wrong about the angels on the Christmas trees, “he said in wonder. “They’re so, so much more beautiful than words can describe.”  He was almost fourteen when this Catholic poet/peacemaker went home to God.

We long to believe these near-death accounts, but perhaps we have doubts about exactly what happens when we die, and if our brains play tricks on us as they are shutting down.

But today we get a glimpse of heaven ourselves, as the resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples and says, “Have you anything to eat?”  They are speechless.  Astounded.  And apparently just about to have lunch. Jesus knows just how to give them peace. When in doubt, eat together.  And there he is, in the midst of them.

Have you ever had a “glimpse of heaven”?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).