Thoughts on judgements

 

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

In celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession), it is not uncommon for individuals to list among their sins that they have been “judgmental.” Sometimes I am left wondering if they have truly committed a sin.

Human beings have a right to make judgments. We have a right to have opinions, even negative ones! But, how do we exercise that right in a way that is consistent with our desire and commitment to act morally, to act as Jesus did? Of course, as Christians the answer to that question is crucial because the fact is that although we have a right to have (negative) opinions/judgments, we cannot exercise that right in such a way that we denigrate someone else or dismiss them as simply evil. They may do evil things, in our judgment, and may have qualities and attitudes which we might reasonably consider to be obnoxious. We may also perceive that they make decisions which are self-serving, insensitive, foolish or even cruel. All of that may be true, in our judgment, BUT we do not as Christians have the right to use our own opinions, judgments and words as weapons to destroy someone else. Jesus himself could be quite critical at times of the behaviors and attitudes of others, but he did not equate what they did with who they wete as a son or daughter of God.

So, what guidelines should apply to the Christian exercise of judging? First, of course, our opinions must be, as best we can determine, true and accurate. We do not have permission to lie or gossip! Also, we must bring a certain humility to our opinions. Others have the right to make judgments, and often those are inconsistent with our own. We should not assume that our opinions and judgments contain total and absolute truth. There’s one more criterion, and for me at least, it’s the toughest one. Even when I am certain that my opinion is accurate, and even when I am being careful to separate the behavior from the person, I must keep in mind the most basic of Christian principles… My words and actions should be motivated by love. If I cannot sincerely say that the sharing of my opinions will serve the cause of helping a person or the world be better, the most loving option is usually to keep my judgments to myself – my mouth shut!

Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Thoughts on Evangelization

 

Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 4:38–44

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares his mission: “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” And he continues to pursue his mission among us in our efforts to do the work of evangelization. Do we need evangelization? The statistics couldn’t be clearer. Did you know that the fastest-growing category in polls of religious affiliation is “none”? And did you know that there are far more nones than Catholics in this country? So, Catholics cannot avoid the demand of evangelization, proclaiming the faith. Vatican II couldn’t be clearer on this score, seeing the Church itself as nothing but a vehicle for evangelization: It’s not so much the case that the Church has a mission, but rather that a mission has the Church. St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II made this idea central to their teaching. In fact, John Paul famously called for a new evangelization. Bringing people to Christ is not one work among many; rather, it is the central work of the Church, that around which everything else that we do revolves. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on our Spirit

 

Sending Our Spirit of Love

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

After a very short visit to earth the time comes for each of us to pass from this world to the next. We have been sent into the world as God's beloved children, and in our passages and losses we learn to love each other as spouse, parent, brother, or sister. We support one another through the passages of life, and together we grow in love. Finally we ourselves are called to exodus, and we leave the world for full communion with God. It is possible for us, like Jesus, to send our spirit of love to our friends when we leave them. Our spirit, the love we leave behind, is deeply in God's Spirit. It is our greatest gift to those we love.

Reflection Question: How might the love you share with others become a lasting gift that continues to live in them—even through times of change, loss, and separation?

Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills. - Genesis 49: 26

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) was a priest, professor, and spiritual writer. He authored over 40 books on the spiritual life and spent his final years at L'Arche Daybreak, a community for people with intellectual disabilities. Drawing from his own journey of vulnerability and faith, he invites seekers into deeper intimacy with God, themselves, and others.

More Books by Henri Nouwen

Explore the Daily Meditations

Thoughts on the loss of a pet dog - Part 2

 

The next morning I woke up around 6 am and walked out of our bedroom and looked down the hall at Lola's empty dog bed where she normally slept at night.  She wasn't there.  No, I didn't dream that Lola got hit by a car, it was real.  Too real.  I got dressed and fixed some coffee and went to the front room where I normally went in the mornings to check e-mail and social media sites.  Lola wasn't on the chair looking out the window.  It seemed like everything I did made me think about Lola.  Why did this happen? She was supposed to be with us for 5 or 10 more years!  I went around to the back of the house and looked at the blanket covering Lola's dead body.  I pulled it back and knelt down beside her and petted her still body.  She was such a good dog I thought. I wasn't ready for this.  I got up and decided to go for a walk like Lola and I normally would in the morning.  At the end of the street I ran into one of my neighbors who was walking her dogs and she said, "Hey where's your partner?"  I told her what had happened last night and I broke down crying.  She was shocked at the news and gave me a hug.  She said that she would pray for me and my family for our loss.  I continued on my walk and went on one of our normal routes.  I would look at the spots that Lola liked to stop at and sniff around.  It was a hard walk full of memories.  After I got home I decided to prepare a grave in our backyard so we could bury Lola.  We had done this with two of our cats that we had lost over the years.  This time I had to dig a much bigger hole.  The ground was hard and rocky but I got the grave started.  I told my wife that I would probably need one of our boys to help finish digging.  Later in the day, I took my wife and two daughters on another walk to show them one of Lola's favorite routes.  It seemed so odd not having Lola walking with us. After our walk we all tried to do some of our normal weekend activities but it was hard not to constantly think about Lola being missing.  We sent a group text out to the family to let them know that we would like everyone to come home for dinner that evening.  After dinner, my oldest son helped me finish digging the grave for Lola and then we gathered the family outside in the backyard for a little graveside service for Lola.  Everyone looked at the grave in disbelief.  This was so sad.  Lola was such a big part of our family.  We covered Lola in her blanket with dirt.  This was her final resting place.  We decided to order a marker to place on the grave in remembrance of her.  We didn't do it for the cats, but we needed to do it for Lola.  She was special. The next week was very hard to get through.  Every day was filled with memories of Lola and we discussed what Lola was missing or what she might be doing if she was still with us.  We looked through pictures on our phones to find pictures of Lola to share and place in an online photo album. I knew this was going to be hard, but I wasn't prepared for how hard it was going to be.  Lola was a dog, but she was a member of our family.  I was not prepared for the amount of loss, grief and emptiness that I was feeling over Lola.  This will take some time...

Thoughts on the loss of a pet dog

 

We adopted Lola in February of 2021.  She was a one year old beagle that had been adopted and returned by at least three families.  She apparently wasn't good with young children they said.  Well our youngest child at the time was eleven so we weren't too worried about that, but we did have a three year old grandson.  Our family immediately fell in love with Lola.  She liked to play with toys and go on walks in the neighborhood.  We didn't have a fenced in yard so we put her out on a lead in the front yard so that she could run around and get some fresh air and do her doggy business.  We found out the hard way that beagles are hard to house train and they like to chew on things and hide things.  She had a fondness for taking underwear and socks out of the dirty laundry baskets and chewing on them.  She liked to take shoes and chew on them also.  But she was fun.  She had a big personality and she liked people.  Anyone she met she would jump up and kiss them on the chin.  She liked to be petted, brushed and scratched.  In the evenings she would jump up on the couch and find a pillow to sit on and rest.  She seemed to sleep a lot.  While she was full of energy in the morning and evening, she would take a lot of naps during the day.  She liked to find a bed and bury herself under the covers while she napped.  She seemed to sleep so often that I referred to her as a cat-dog!  Well, as I told the kids when we took her home, I was the one that would end up feeding her and taking her on her morning walks.  We would walk every morning in the neighborhood and surrounding areas.  We explored the area around the neighborhood that we lived in.  We would meet other dogs out for walks and greet them.  Some dogs Lola liked, others she did not like.  It usually depended on their size and aggressiveness, but it wasn't always easy to figure out.  As a beagle, she walked with her nose to the ground.  She was constantly sniffing around and marking spots that she liked. Over time I began to look forward to our morning walks, as it became our time together to bond.  Lola sometimes walked me and other times I would have to tug on the leash to get her to keep moving at a good pace.  Over the years Lola became a big part of our families lives, as she liked to be a part of things like dinner times (she was always hoping for some food to fall off the table or for a scrap to be given to her), she liked birthday parties, holidays and all the normal activities that families do.  She was always there for us when we came home from work or school or other events.  She liked to look out the window and watch for dogs to come by the house so that she could bark at them.  Lola was special.  On August 14th, 2026 the day had started just like any other day.  I walked Lola in the morning and went to work.  Later that day, after I had returned home from work and we had eaten dinner, our daughter was leaving to go see her boyfriend and as she was leaving the house with the front door wide open, my wife was asking our daughter what she and her boyfriend were planning to do for the evening and Lola saw the front door wide open and decided to bolt.  She ran straight through the front yard, crossed the street and ran into the neighbors yard, make a hard right hand turn and ran across the street again through the other neighbors yard and went straight for the woods. Lola was on a hunt for rabbits!  Now this had happened before, several times over the years.  Lola would see an opportunity to run out of the house and she would take it.  We would run after her and catch her and bring her back home, sometimes with a scolding.  Well, this time she seemed to be very much on the scent of a rabbit, we could tell by the way she was yelping and crying out as she ran.  My wife stayed by the field looking for her and I got in my car and went around to the other neighborhood in the hopes of seeing her patrolling the sidewalk or in some other persons yard.  After 10 or 15 minutes of searching I went back to the house and to the field where Lola had gone earlier, to see if she had come back.  I no longer heard her barking or yelping.  I walked through our neighbors backyards heading farther towards where we thought she had gone, and I got a call on my phone from an unknown number.  Now we had purchased a collar for Lola some time ago that had her name and my cell number printed on the collar.  I answered the call and a lady named Heather said that she found my dog, but it was not good.  Lola had been hit by a car!  I ran back to the house told my wife what had happened and we rushed to the scene of the accident.  Heather and two other men were standing by the side of the road and Lola was lying in the grass next to the road.  She was lifeless.  She was dead.  It was such a shock.  This is not the way we had expected to find Lola.  She had always come back before or we were able to track her down and walk her back to the house.  This time was different.  Our life had changed in that instant.  Our sweet Lola who we had now had for five and a half years, was gone.  We took her back to the house and I carried her in a blanket to the back of our house and placed her on the ground in a corner by the chimney where we kept our firewood.  I went back inside the house and started to process what had just happened with my wife and our other daughter.  Our youngest son and returned home from work and we told him what had happened.  No one could believe it, our Lola was gone!

To be continued...

Thoughts on love and concern for others

 

Mt. 15: 21 - 28



       The setting and main character make this Gospel extraordinary.

Setting:

“Jesus withdrew to the districts of Tyre and Sidon.”

           Tyre and Sidon were part of the Phoenicians’ territory, which means that is was Gentile territory. This is the only occasion that Jesus was ever outside Jewish territory, which may be a foreshadowing of the Gospel going

out to the entire world. Jesus has withdrawn to prepare Himself and the disciples for the day that He would give up His life on the Cross. It is significant that no Scribe, Pharisee, or any other Jew would follow Jesus into this non-Jewish territory.

Canaanite Woman:

“… a Canaanite woman of that district . . .”

           This woman was not only a Gentile, but a Canaanite, the ancestral enemies of the Jews. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the early 1^st century A.D., wrote, “Of the Phoenicians, the Tyrians [the people of Tyre] have the most ill-feeling towards us [the Jews].” When the Canaanite woman asks for Jesus’ help in healing her possessed daughter, Jesus replies using the image of a dog: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Dogs were animals of contempt to the Jews, because they were often diseased, unclean scavengers of the street. But from this highly inauspicious setting and character, we can learn a great lesson of the kind of Faith that wins the Lord’s Blessing.

           

           The Canaanite woman has great love and concern for her daughter, which motivate her plea. She also

has a faith that grows in the presence of Jesus.  She begins by addressing Him as Son of David, a popular

political title of earthly power, but ends by calling Him Lord, seemingly offering a prayer to the Living God.

The woman begins by following Jesus and asking a request, but she ends by giving Him homage by kneeling before Him. She is on her knees in prayer with the spirit and actions of reverence. Furthermore, she has indomitable persistence, not being discouraged by the disciples trying to get rid of her and not taking No for an answer from Jesus. This woman even has the gift of cheerfulness, with wit. Even in her anguish over her daughter, she replies in a cheerful, witty way. We can almost see her smiling at Jesus’ calling her a dog and her clever retort. Perhaps Jesus begins to joke with her, as He uses the diminutive word kunaria (kunaria), not a stray street dog, but a little household pet.

           This example of the Canaanite Woman can teach us important aspects of the type of faith that wins the Lord’s blessing:

• Love and concern for others;
• Reverence, which means a recognition of the constant presence of God;
• Persistence in prayer that is never discouraged;
• Cheerfulness that cannot be dismayed by the vicissitudes, sinfulness, and faithlessness of this world.

           So, from this Gospel we learn that if we want the Blessing of the Lord, we must strive for greater love, concern, reverence, persistence, and even cheerfulness.

-Fr. Don Saunders, S.J.

Thoughts on reconciliation

 

People of Reconciliation

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

If you dare to believe that you are beloved before you were born, you may suddenly realize that your life is very, very special. You become conscious that you were sent here just for a short time, for twenty, forty, or eighty years, to discover and believe that you are a beloved child of God. The length of time doesn't matter. You are sent into this world to believe in yourself as God's chosen one and then to help your brothers and sisters know that they are also beloved sons and daughters of God who belong together. You're sent into this world to be a people of reconciliation. You are sent to heal, to break down the walls between you and your neighbors, locally, nationally, and globally. Before all the distinctions, the separations, and the walls built on the foundations of fear, there was unity in the mind and heart of God. Out of that unity, you are sent into this world for a little while to claim that you and every other human being belongs to that same God of Love who lives from eternity to eternity.

Reflection Question: Where might God be calling you to break down walls with your neighbors today?

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved - you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. - Jeremiah 31: 3

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) was a priest, professor, and spiritual writer. He authored over 40 books on the spiritual life and spent his final years at L'Arche Daybreak, a community for people with intellectual disabilities. Drawing from his own journey of vulnerability and faith, he invites seekers into deeper intimacy with God, themselves, and others.

More Books by Henri Nouwen

Explore the Daily Meditations