Thoughts on Saint Paul

The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, celebrated on January 25, casts a distinctive light on the Church’s mission. The great Baroque artist Caravaggio captures this moment with striking clarity in The Conversion on the Way to Damascus. Saul lies outstretched on the ground, arms extended, his body forming the shape of a cross as he is seized by the light of Christ. The fiery reds of his vest and cloak suggest the work of the Holy Spirit, through whose action Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the apostle.

Paul’s mission, the proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles, is the hard work of making Christ known in the face of hostility, indifference, and doubt – the mission of the Church now and always. It is not a matter of clever rhetoric or momentary fervor. For Paul and his co-workers—Timothy, Titus, and others—it requires vigilance, fidelity to the word of God, and the patient labor of building up the Church. Central to this work is the fostering of unity amid division, so that those who belong to Christ may be united “in the same mind and the same purpose.” Writing to the Corinthians, Paul insists that the Church is not founded on the charisma of so-called super-apostles, nor divided into factions gathered around Apollo, Cephas, or even Paul himself. Instead, the Church is founded on the Crucified Lord, whose Body cannot be divided.



This week the Church prays with particular intensity for Christian unity, a concern that Pope Leo XIV has made central to his pastoral mission. Christ’s call to repentance and the nearness of God’s reign form the deepest basis of our unity in faith, a unity that is never inward-looking. Instead, shaped by the Cross, it carries its own missionary power, drawing others into communion with the Lord who first called Paul on the road to Damascus.

In Christ,



Fr. Hermes 

Thoughts on miracles

 

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

Mark 3:7–12

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus cured so many people that he had to climb into a boat to escape the press of the crowd. To this day the Church carries on his gracious healing ministry.  We recall that the apostles of Jesus simply continued what the Master did. And one of the principal marks of the Lord’s ministry was clearly healing. There was, of course, a deep biblical conviction that when the day of the Lord arrives, creation would be set right. What we witness in the healings of Jesus is just this repairing of creation. If you doubt that miracles of physical healing still take place in the life of the Church, I invite you to read Craig Keener’s book Miracles or visit the Church in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, where the expectation of the miraculous is taken for granted. But the Church also brings healing to mind, soul, will, and imagination. The Bible knows that sin has done tremendous damage to us, and anyone involved in pastoral ministry knows what this looks like: broken minds, divided hearts, addicted passions. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on evangelization

 

Listen to the Voice of Love

From: Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

As a reaction to a very aggressive, manipulative, and often degrading type of evangelization, we sometimes have become hesitant to make our own religious convictions known, thereby losing our sense of witness. Although at times it seems better to deepen our own commitments than to evangelize others, it belongs to the core of Christian spirituality to reach out to the other with good news, and to speak without embarrassment about  what we “have heard and … seen with our own eyes…. Watched and touched with our hands”(1 John 1:1).

Reflection Question: When was the last time you had the opportunity to reach out to the other with good news?

“We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— what we have seen and heard we also declare to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”   - 1 John 1: 1-3

Thoughts on MLK

 

MLK

Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thunder cloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Rain down on him
So let it be
So let it be

Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized
If the thundercloud
Passes rain
So let it rain
Let it rain
Rain on him

Bono - U2
from The Unforgettable Fire album released in 1984

Even more thoughts on baptism

 

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

John 1:29–34

Friends, in our Gospel today, John the Baptist gives witness to the role of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s baptism. Baptism is the moment when the Holy Spirit draws us out of this fallen world and into a new world. And with this in mind, we can understand the relationship between baptism and the other sacraments. Baptism is birth in the spiritual order, the beginning of a properly spiritual life. The other sacraments represent specifications of that life. For instance, a living thing needs to be nourished. This is the role that the Eucharist plays. But do you see why only baptized people can receive the Eucharist? If you’re not alive, there is no point in feeding you. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the liturgical year

Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord: just as we recover from Thanksgiving, the seasons, feast days, and mysteries follow one another in rapid succession. As the old year gives way to the new, the Church directs our attention to another calendar – the liturgical year – her own cycle of time that sanctifies and gives meaning to our daily lives, already ordered by the cosmic and civic rhythms of time. The seasons and feast days of the liturgical year shape our minds and hearts according to the Christian mysteries and thus help us live the faith with greater focus and interior devotion.

Saint John the Baptist also orients us and focuses our attention, pointing us to the very Heart of the world. When the Baptist proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” he directs us to follow Jesus, the Crucified Lamb, whose side is pierced and through whom God saves his people. To follow Christ Jesus, to be his disciple, is both gift and vocation: a gift given at Baptism, and a call, in the words of Saint Paul, “to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our growth in holiness is largely a matter of how we use our time – how we inhabit our days. To offer our weeks and days to God, indeed all our activities, is to sanctify time itself. To unite our daily prayers, works, joys, and sufferings to the Heart of Christ and to his intentions is to draw closer to his pierced Heart. This self-offering allows him to shape and form our hearts, making us holy with all the saints before the face of his heavenly Father.

In Christ,



Fr. Hermes 

Thoughts on healing

 

First Week in Ordinary Time

Mark 1:29–39

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus heals many of the townspeople of Capernaum. His healing of physical ailments points to his spiritual healing—to his being the doctor of the soul. The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus’s healing encounters with those whose spiritual energies are unable to flow. Much of Jesus’s ministry consisted in teaching people how to see (the kingdom of God), how to hear (the voice of the Spirit), how to walk (overcoming the paralysis of the heart), and how to be free of themselves so as to discover God. Jesus was referred to in the early Church as the Savior (Salvator in Latin). The term speaks of the one who brings healing—indeed, our word salve is closely related to salvus, meaning health. When the soul is healthy, it is in a living relationship with God. When the soul is sick, the entire person becomes ill, because all flows from and depends upon the dynamic encounter with the source of being and life who is God. We heal the soul by bringing to bear the salvator, the healer, the one who in his person reconciled us with God and opened the soul to the divine power. Bishop Robert Barron