Thoughts on the Visitation

 

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Luke 1:39–56

Friends, today’s Gospel tells of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. I’ve always been fascinated by Mary’s “haste” in this story of the Visitation. Upon hearing the message of Gabriel concerning her own pregnancy and that of her cousin, Mary “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste” to see Elizabeth. Why did she go with such speed and purpose? Because she had found her mission, her role in the theo-drama. We are dominated today by the ego-drama in all of its ramifications and implications. The ego-drama is the play that I’m writing, I’m producing, I’m directing, and I’m starring in. We see this absolutely everywhere in our culture. Freedom of choice reigns supreme: I become the person that I choose to be.  The theo-drama is the great story being told by God, the great play being directed by God. What makes life thrilling is to discover your role in it. This is precisely what has happened to Mary. She has found her role—indeed a climactic role—in the theo-drama, and she wants to conspire with Elizabeth, who has also discovered her role in the same drama. Like Mary, we have to find our place in God’s story. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Ascension

 

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Luke 24:46–53

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is taken up to his Father in heaven. We tend to read the Ascension along essentially Enlightenment lines rather than biblical lines—and that causes a good deal of mischief. Enlightenment thinkers introduced a two-tier understanding of heaven and earth. They held that God exists, but that he lives in a distant realm called heaven, where he looks at the human project moving along, pretty much on its own steam, on earth. On this Enlightenment reading, the Ascension means that Jesus goes up, up, and away, off to a distant and finally irrelevant place. But the biblical point is this: Jesus has gone to heaven so as to direct operations more fully here on earth. That’s why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus has not gone up, up, and away, but rather—if I can put it this way—more deeply into our world. He has gone to a dimension that transcends but impinges upon our universe. Bishop Robert Barren

More thoughts on the Holy Spirit

 

Sixth Week of Easter

John 16:12–15

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church through time: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” Since Jesus is the Son of God, it is impossible for us adequately to interpret him through our own powers of perception. We require a divine pedagogue through which the speech of the Father is to be understood. This is the advocate we call the Holy Spirit. The words of today’s Gospel are almost unbearably profound, for they speak not only of the inner life of God but of the central dynamic of the Church’s life. The Father indeed spoke the fullness of his life, being, and truth in the Son, but the Church, in its earliest days, was incapable of taking that fullness in. What was (and still is) required is the ongoing influence of the Spirit, the divine interpreter of the Word, who does his work gradually and powerfully as the Church journeys across space and time. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Memorial Day

 

Memorial Day thoughts

This post was originally published on Memorial Day 2015:


My wife and I went to Mass on Memorial Day and our priest told a story in his homily about a man he knew that grew up without parents.  The man's name was Matt.  Matt led a lonely life and it seemed that everything he did or tried was met with a closed door.  He joined the military and eventually was deployed into active service in Afghanistan.  On return home to the US while on leave, he seemed bitter and distant to the priest and others who knew him.  His demeanor had changed now that he had been exposed to the brutality of war.  Upon his return to Afghanistan for another tour of duty, he fought bravely for his country, but this time he was killed by enemy fire and returned home to the US again, but this time he returned in a flag draped coffin.  He was given a proper funeral Mass and burial service, and this time he went through an open door, a door which led to heaven.  At this point the priest got choked up and everyone could see that he was very moved by this story.  The story of a person he knew personally, who had fought and died for his freedom as an American.  A person who was not loved by many people on this earth, but was loved tremendously by God.  We often don't think of the thousands of people, real people, real human beings, who lost their lives for this country, when we think of Memorial Day.  We tend to think of the patriotism and the flags, but we quickly turn to thoughts of summer time, BBQ's and time off from our jobs to be with our families and enjoy a day off.  When you think about people who were touched by a soldier who gave his life, it gets personal.  We live in a great country because of people like Matt.

Scott

Thoughts on the Holy Spirit

 

Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:23–29

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in Christ’s name, will teach his disciples everything. The Holy Spirit is the love shared by the Father and the Son. We have access to this holy heart of God only because the Father sent the Son into the world, into our dysfunction, even to the limits of godforsakenness—and thereby gathered all of the world into the dynamism of the divine life. Those who live in Christ are not outside of God as petitioners or supplicants; rather, they are in God as friends, sharers in the Spirit. And this spiritual life is what gives us knowledge of God—a knowledge, if you will, from within. When the great masters of the Christian way speak of knowing God, they do not use the term in its distanced, analytical sense; they use it in the biblical sense, implying knowledge by way of personal intimacy. This is why St. Bernard of Clairvaux, for one, insists that initiates in the spiritual life know God not simply through books and lectures but through experience, the way one friend knows another. That knowledge is what the Holy Spirit facilitates. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on summer

 

Summer

For many people, summer has a lot of different parameters as far as when it begins and when it ends. For children, summer begins when school lets out for the year.  When I was a kid, that meant sometime in June, but now it means late May.  This past school year, my children were done for the year on May 23rd!  For people who work for a living, Memorial Day weekend kind of marks the beginning of summer, a time when the temperatures are warmer and the local swimming pools open up.  Of course, if you go by the calendar, the official beginning of summer is on June 21st with the summer solstice.  If the weather doesn't cooperate, most anyone else will have to admit that by July 4th, Independence Day weekend, we are definitely into summer.  For a few, summer doesn't begin until you take your vacation from work and go on a trip out of town. 

People who have children in school will most likely agree that what we think of as summer, the time off between when school ends and when it begins, has definitely moved from a Memorial Day to Labor Day time period to a late May to early to mid August time period as schools nation wide have adjusted their schedules over the last 20 years or so.  For many folks, once the calendar flips over to August, vacations are over and you are buying back to school supplies and thinking about school starting again.  But really, summer is only about half over because it doesn't really end until Sept 21st. So when is summer to you?  I guess it really doesn't matter, unless you make calendars.  Enjoy the warm weather and time off of work.  Slow down and enjoy the enjoyment!

Scott

Thoughts on joy

Reflection for the Sixth Sunday of Easter

During this Easter season there have been numerous references to joy, especially in the preaching of the early apostles and in Jesus’ words to his disciples at the supper. In fact, Jesus’ prayer is that our joy will be complete. Why not just pray for happiness? It is Joy that seems to be the ultimate goal that God has for us. (Someone who knows Greek has pointed out to me that “joy” comes from the same root as the word for grace.)

Many of those things that bring us pleasure in life are really a reflection of a deeper reality that we seem to be seeking. Joy is a gift that transcends time and circumstances, is connected to our confidence in God’s love and care. Perhaps the joy coming from our relationship with God, prayed for by Jesus and proclaimed by the apostles was what provided the freedom to embrace the life held out to all who came to believe.

This promised joy and freedom rested then—and still rests—in the gift of the Spirit who continues to fill us and our whole world with the prospect of a joy and a peace that this world cannot of itself provide.

 The “Good News” is that God has drawn close to us, and as the Book of Revelation proclaims: “The Lord God almighty and the Lamb provide the light for our lives!”



Len Kraus, S.J. 

Thoughts on grace

 

Fifth Week of Easter

John 15:9–11

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs us in the way of loving others with God’s love: “Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”  Much hinges on that little word “remain”—menein in the Greek—which John uses frequently in his Gospel. God’s love is given unconditionally as a grace, but remaining in that love is indeed a matter of keeping certain commandments.  Here is how it works: God’s love can truly dwell in us and become our “possession” only in the measure that we give it away. If we resist it or try to cling to it, it will never work its way into our own hearts, bodies, and minds. But if we give it away as an act of love, then we get more of it, entering into a delightful stream of grace. If you give away the divine love, then it “remains” in you. This is the great Catholic doctrine of grace and the cooperation with grace. We don’t drive a great wedge between law and grace, as some of the Reformers did. Rather, we say that law and commandment allow us to participate in the love that God is. It’s a play, if you want, of both conditional and unconditional love. And it’s precisely why we can grow in love. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on love

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 13:31–33a, 34–35

Friends, today’s Gospel instructs us in the way of loving others with God’s love. We find joy in God alone, for our souls have been wired for God. But here’s the trick, and the whole of the Christian life is on display here: God is love. . . . Love is God. God is self-emptying on behalf of the other. But this means, paradoxically, that to have God is to be what God is—and that means giving one’s life away. Now we see the link between joy and commandments: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” And now we begin to understand the laws, commands, and demands of the Church. All are designed to make us more adept at giving ourselves away. Don’t steal; don’t kill; don’t covet your neighbor’s goods or wife; honor your mother and father; worship God. All of these commands—positive and negative—are meant to awaken and make possible love. Notice, please, that we are to love with a properly divine love: “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” Radical, radical, radical. Complete, excessive, over-the-top. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on glorifying God

Reflection for Fifth Sundays of Easter

What does it mean to “glorify God?” One succinct and simple answer is this: whenever any of our actions or words make God look good, when the goodness and loving kindness of God is manifested in a person or in an experience of love, that is the way that God is glorified.

Jesus, in this Sunday’s Gospel says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Then he turns to his disciples and says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.”  If we love one another as he loves us, all will know that we are his disciples. Is it really that simple? Our world might not agree…

Our reading from The Book of Revelation addresses the world in which the followers of Christ were living: a world of division, fear, uncertainty, rejection. This is what is proclaimed as God’s vision: a new heaven and a new earth.  “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and will always be with them as their God.

A new heaven and a new earth are not yet fully realized. We live in hope as we place our trust in Jesus, and in the grace to love as he has loved us. Even if it isn’t always evident to our world, we do glorify God and we continue to help fulfill the promises God has made to us and to all of creation. “Behold, I make all things new.”



Len Kraus, S.J.

A prayer for the new Pope

 

A Franciscan prayer for Pope Leo XIV

You are the Holy One, Lord God Most High,
the one who works wonders.
You are strong, you are great,
you are the Most High and Glorious God.

By your Spirit,
You have given us a successor to Peter—
our brother, Pope Leo XIV.
Bless him, Lord, and guard him tenderly
as he begins this sacred ministry.

Show your face to him,
and have mercy upon him
Lord turn your gaze upon him
and give him peace.
Steady his steps with swiftness and clarity,
that he may walk the pilgrim path
with joy and resolve.

Let him guide Your Church securely and joyfully,
leading us along the way of prudent happiness.
With us, he is Christian, for us he is Bishop
Like all Christians may he offer his vow to you, Most High,
in the pursuit of that perfection
to which the Spirit of the Lord has called him.

As our pontiff may he embrace the poor and crucified Christ.
Let him gaze upon Jesus, our Brother and Lord—
to consider him, to contemplate him,
and to desire always to imitate him.

We pray all this for your greater glory,
for our sanctification,
for the good of all the Church
and for the healing of the whole earth.

Amen.

—Gilberto Cavazos-González

Thoughts on celebrating

 

Freed From the Bounds of Time

Celebrating means the affirmation of the present, which becomes fully possible only by remembering the past and expecting more to come in the future. But celebrating in this sense very seldom takes place. Nothing is as difficult as really accepting one's own life. More often than not the present is denied, the past becomes a source of complaints, and the future is looked upon as a reason for despair or apathy. When Jesus came to redeem mankind, he came to free us from the boundaries of time. Through him it became clear not only that God is with us wherever our presence is in time or space, but also that our past does not have to be denied but can be remembered and forgiven, and that we are still waiting for him to come back and reveal to us what remains unseen.

“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”   - Psalm 90: 4

Thoughts on Mother's Day

 

When we think of mothers, we think, of course, of our own dear mothers, but also of the Church as Mother, and indeed of Mary, the Lord’s Mother. It was to her that Simeon prophesied in the Gospel of St. Luke that a sword would pierce her own soul. Mothers share in our joys and our sorrows, our fears, our failures and successes. Indeed, they are worthy of honor and love, especially on a day like today. So can I make a particular recommendation? I encourage all of you to pray a Rosary today for all the women who have played a motherly role in your life. And remember to visit our website to log your Rosary for our 25th anniversary challenge, with the goal of 100,000 Rosaries prayed this month.

LOG A ROSARY

In Christ,

+Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on a new Pope!

 

Habemus Papam! (We have a Pope!)

 
With joyful hearts, we welcome our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV—the first American pope in the Church's history. In his first address, he spoke movingly of being a son of Saint Augustine, a man whose restless heart found peace in God. This is a moment of profound hope and encouragement for those of us formed by Augustine’s wisdom and love for the truth.
 
Pope Leo XIV now steps into the shoes of Peter, called by Christ to “strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). Let us pray for him with confidence and fervor, that he may lead the Church with wisdom, holiness, and apostolic courage.
 
Together, let us renew our commitment to be faithful sons and daughters of the Church. Let us love and support our new Holy Father—not only in word but also in prayer. As St. Paul exhorted the early Christians, we are also called to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), especially for those entrusted with great responsibility.
 
In this Jubilee Year of Hope, may our hearts be filled with confident joy as we look to the future. God is faithful. Christ is with His Church. And with Pope Leo XIV, we journey forward in faith, hope, and love.
 
Please join me in praying for our new Holy Father—asking Our Lady, Mother of the Church, to intercede for him and for all of us.
 
May the Lord bless and keep you,
Tim Gray
President, Augustine Institute

Thoughts on the Conclave

 

A prayer for the conclave

“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.”
Jesus, with these words you chose your apostle
to guide the holy people of God
on their journey towards the Kingdom.

As we await the successor to Peter,
send forth your Holy Spirit upon our brother cardinals.

Give them wisdom and discernment,
ability to listen and docility, courage and humility.

As in the Upper Room, come yourself behind closed doors
to accompany our shepherds.

At this decisive hour for your Church,
may they search together with truth and openness of heart
for the one you have chosen to lead your people.

Lord Jesus, already prepare the heart of the next Bishop of Rome,
who will be shepherd of the whole Church.

Watch over him.
Grant him the gifts, charisms and fruits of the Spirit.

May he always be your bold witness,
eager to bring the Gospel to every person of goodwill.

May he be a pilgrim of hope,
inviting us to walk together and to build,
by our words and deeds,
a new world of justice, peace and fraternity..

Amen.

—via the Catholic Church of Quebec

Thoughts on miracles

 

Third Week of Easter

John 6:22–29

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the crowd that experienced the miracle of the loaves pursues Jesus to see more wonders. They finally track him down in the synagogue in the lakeside town of Capernaum.  When they ask Jesus how he got there ahead of them, the Lord chides them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” Ordinary bread satisfies only physical longing, and it does so in a transient way: one eats and one must eat soon again. But the heavenly bread, Jesus implies, satisfies the deepest longing of the heart, and does so by adapting the one who eats it to eternal life. The Church Fathers loved to ruminate on this theme of divinization through the Eucharist, the process by which the consumption of the bread of life readies one for life in the eternal dimension. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on unconditional love

Reflection for Third Sunday of Easter



As we continue to celebrate this Easter season we are gifted with stories of the joy and enthusiasm experienced by the friends of Jesus who meet him. And so many of those meetings involve meals where Jesus comes to bring peace and assurance. There are so many compassionate and loving actions we see in Jesus in his glory and his own joy.

One of the most touching and affirming revelations of the unconditional love and mercy of God comes at the meeting at the Sea of Tiberius where His friends are fed the breakfast of bread and fish. We remember that Peter had denied Jesus three times. Now Jesus addresses Peter, but not with a question of his repentance. Jesus, as he speaks to Peter, asks only one question: “Do you love me?”  Not “Are you sorry, or do you regret what you did.” Only “Do you love me?”

As the darkness of the night turns to the light of dawn Jesus reveals himself.  Jesus, the light of the world, reveals himself to us as the full picture of God: the one who has come that we may have life to the full—and have this life amid our own weakness, even our feelings of guilt or regret.

 With great joy and gratitude, we can answer His question for ourselves. And when the answer is “Yes,” we experience what Peter must have felt when Jesus went on to tell him that the only thing that really mattered was that he loved Him as well as he could, and that was enough!

Len Kraus, S.J.

Thoughts on eternal life

 

John 3:31–36

Friends, today’s Gospel promises eternal life to those who believe in the Son of God. In almost every religion, the life of faith has something to do with a creature’s relationship to the Creator; nearly all religions speak of the creature’s dependency upon God, of his subjection to the divine providence, and of his need for grace and forgiveness. Christianity, too, articulates these basic relationships, but it pushes beyond them because it speaks of the Incarnation and the gifts associated with it. We hear in the third chapter of John’s Gospel that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” This well-known verse summarizes the Christian faith and gives expression to its distinctiveness, for it speaks of the possibility that a creature might share in God’s own life.  The purpose of the sending of the Son was to gather the human race into the divine life—the rhythm of the Trinitarian love—so that we might relate to God not merely as creatures but as friends. You see, love becomes complete only when there is another who can receive fully what the lover wants to give. Bishop Robert Barron