Thoughts on fasting

 

Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus prescribes the essential disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Let’s focus on fasting and almsgiving. The appetites for food and drink are so pressing, so elemental, that, unless they are quelled and disciplined, they will simply take over the soul. They are like children who clamor constantly for attention and who, if indulged, will in short order run the house. Therefore, if the passion for God is to be awakened, the more immediately pressing desires must be muted, and this is the purpose of fasting. We go hungry and thirsty so that the deepest hunger and thirst might be felt. In a way, fasting is like the “calming of the monkey mind” effected by the Rosary: Both are means of settling the superficial mind that darts from preoccupation to preoccupation. But food and drink are not the only objects of concupiscent desire. Material things and wealth are also ready substitutes for the passion for God. Thus, a kind of fasting from what money can buy is an important practice. How often Jesus recommends that his disciples give to the poor, and how often throughout the Christian tradition has almsgiving been emphasized. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Father's Day

 

Happy Father’s Day to all fathers and spiritual fathers today. Yours is a profound and indeed privileged calling. And in many ways, you walk in the footsteps of St. Joseph, who, as I’ve said many times before, was charged with the provision and protection of the Holy Family. Watch my reflection here.

As fathers, you are similarly charged. Studies have shown that fathers who attend Mass greatly influence their children attending Mass in their own adult lives.  So, fathers: Can I encourage you to keep bringing your families to Mass for your spiritual life, the life of the Church, and the lives of those in your care? And as we reflect on fathers, let’s pray a Rosary for all the fathers in our lives. Happy Father's Day!  In Christ,

Bishop Robert Barron P.S. Don’t forget to pray today for all the priests in your life, who serve as spiritual fathers to God’s people!

Thoughts on the Holy Trinity

Trinity Sunday

15 June 2025

                       

There are so many mysteries in life. They frequently confound us, they irritate us, and sometimes entertain us. The ultimate mystery, however, is a mystery that consoles us. It is the mystery of God Himself, the Holy Trinity. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the central dogma (highest level of doctrine) of the Christian Faith. 

• It is the most basic belief of our Faith. It is even more basic than the doctrine of the Incarnation, of God becoming man, for without the Trinity there could be no Son.

• The Holy Trinity is the most basic mystery of our Faith. Theologians call it an “absolute” mystery: a divinely revealed truth, the inner essence of which cannot be fully understood by the finite human mind. It is absolute mystery because we would not know of it if Jesus did not explicitly reveal it to the Apostles.

• Our belief is that the one true God exists in three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

These three divine persons are:

► co-equal (No one person is above the others.)

► co-eternal (Each person has always existed and will always exist.)

► consubstantial (“of one substance” or “nature” or “essence”)

This absolute, ultimate mystery of God cannot be fully (or even satisfactorily) explained.

It defies our logic and even defies our mathematics. How can one equal three?

Through reason alone we can know that God exists; however, we cannot know or understand the Trinity through reason alone. But, this absolute mystery can console, encourage, help, and guide us.

           God the Father:  Is the Loving, Providential God who created us, the world,                                          and all in it. He is the Loving God who still holds us in                                                existence.

           God the Son:  Is the Lord and Savior who suffered and died for our salvation.

                                  He revealed to the world the ways of God and the way to God.

           God the Holy Spirit:  Is God with us still – sustaining, guiding, consoling,                                                    counseling, pleading our cause.

Life is always full of mysteries: some confuse, some irritate, and some will never be solved in this world. But the ultimate mystery of God's true nature, the Holy Trinity, is meant to comfort us, console us, and even inspire us, because we believe that our True God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – guards and guides us with His providential love each day.



Fr. Don Saunders, SJ

Thoughts on repentance

 

Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 5:20–26

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches that if a brother has something against us, we must be reconciled with him before we offer our gift at the altar. This reconciling requires a change of heart and mind. The word often misleadingly translated as “repent” is metanoeite. This Greek term is based upon two words, meta (beyond) and nous (mind or spirit), and thus, in its most basic form, it means something like “go beyond the mind that you have.”  The English word “repent” has a moralizing overtone, suggesting a change in behavior or action, whereas Jesus’ term seems to be hinting at a change at a far more fundamental level of one’s being. Jesus urges his listeners to change their way of knowing, their way of perceiving and grasping reality, their mode of seeing.  What Jesus implies is this: a new state of affairs has arrived, the divine and human have met, but the way you customarily see is going to blind you to this novelty. Minds, eyes, ears, senses, perceptions—all have to be opened up, turned around, revitalized. Metanoia, mind transformation, is Jesus’ first recommendation. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Mary, Mother of the Church

 

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

John 19:25–34

Friends, today we celebrate the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church. We recall that, from the cross, Jesus pronounced this word to St. John: “Behold, your mother.” In saying this, he was giving Mary not only to John, but through John to the whole Church. Mary would be the mother of all the beloved disciples of Jesus up and down the centuries. Then we recall that, at the Annunciation, the angel declared to the maiden of Nazareth: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” The two persons required for the Incarnation were the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother. Now we can make the connection: in becoming the mother of Christ, Mary, by extension, would become the mother of all those members of Christ’s Mystical Body across space and time. Just as the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother were required to bring about the Incarnation in history, so those same two agents are required to bring about the birth of Christ in our souls. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Pentecost

Pentecost

8 June 2025

                                                                                              

Pentecost is the Birthday of the Church, and the Gospel setting is the Cenacle, the Upper Room in Jerusalem, the place where the Church was born, the focus of Christian history from the Last Supper to Pentecost. For the Apostles that was the room where frequent memories of Jesus continued to come alive, encouraging them, but also embarrassing them, and even chastising them. 

Slightly more than seven weeks before Pentecost, Jesus gathered the Apostles for the Last Supper. He gave them His final instructions. He celebrated the first Eucharist, and He gave them the mandatum, the new commandment to “Love one another as I have loved you.”

The Cenacle is a room of love, but also a room of sadness, betrayal, and parting. This is the room from which Judas left to betray – and to which the others returned to hide and to pray. From this room the Apostles heard the shouts on Friday morning, “Crucify Him!” But also in this room the Apostles heard, on the evening of that first Easter, Jesus’ words of forgiveness: “Peace be with you!” There the cowering Apostles saw and heard the incredible: “Why are you disturbed? Look at my hands and my feet; it is really I.” And a week later Thomas heard, "Put your finger here and see my hands."

Even after the Ascension they were once more huddled and confused in that room – and the Holy Spirit comes upon them that first Pentecost. That finally changes everything: they understood! They now leave that “room of memories” with new courage – and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit – to do what The Master had done: to preach, to teach, to heal. To spread the Gospel; to spread the Church; to spread the Kingdom of God.

The Apostles became New Creations: Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon them, as the Father breathed into inert clay to create man in the beginning. St. Paul tells us that we are Temples of the Holy Spirit. We are meant to be “inhabited” by God, always “reminded” of God, always in God's presence. Because we, too, have received the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom (highest knowledge); understanding (intimate knowledge); knowledge (most basic of the three levels of knowledge); fortitude (firmness of spirit; steadiness despite difficulties); counsel (discernment about the right choice); piety (honor; reverence); fear of the Lord (an attitude of respect, awe, and dread of offending God).

We, like the Apostles, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are to leave the Cenacle, our Upper Room of memories and fear and confusion, going forth and reminding our world of the truth of God’s presence. On this Pentecost, the “Birthday of the Church,” may God give us the graces we need, the courage and perseverance we need, to witness to a frequently unbelieving world – the miracles of the Upper Room, the miracles of our Church, the miracles our True Faith.

Fr. Don Saunders, SJ

Thoughts on unity

 

Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

John 17:20–26

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus prays for our unity with him and with each other. The Church is one because its founder is one. Jesus compels a choice precisely because he claims to speak and act in the very person of God. Jesus simply cannot be one teacher among many, and therefore those who walk in his way must be exclusively with him. Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) commented that the opening line of the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one God,” is a subversive statement, because it automatically rules out any rival claimant to ultimate concern. To say that one accepts only the God of Israel and Jesus Christ is to say that one rejects as ultimate any human being, any culture, any political party, any artistic form, or any set of ideas. A Christian, I would argue, is someone who, at the most fundamental level of his or her being, is centered on the one God of Jesus Christ. This helps to explain why, on the last night of his life on earth, while sitting at supper with his disciples, the core of the Church, Jesus prayed, “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one.” Bishop Robert Barron