A message from Father Pete

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 How am I responding to God’s law of love? Am I selective in giving, caring, forgiving, helping? Do I see that every person who comes into my life each day, even if it is for only a few seconds, is a person God loves and cares for -- and therefore I could be the person God has chosen to reach out to that person? I may say it’s impossible, I don’t have the time, I have important things to do and places to go. How would I respond to God? When I look at my life, I so often can see that the one who touched me in my time of need just happened to be the “good Samaritan” who was present with a helping hand. Being from New York, I loved to go to the Big City. One of my favorite hobbies was to stand at the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway and watch the people walk across the crosswalk. I would play my mental gymnastics game and try to imagine where they were from … what was on their minds … where were they going … wh...

Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69 We are all created out of love. Have we ever reflected on what this means? So many times in my life and in each person's life, we have felt needed, understood, appreciated and, hopefully, accepted and loved. Then there are times when we have wondered if we could ever be loved because we have felt put down, ridiculed, mocked, made to feel like we were part of the woodwork and, too many times, abused. This has never been from God. Jesus came to deliver God’s message that had not been understood throughout Salvation History: God created each person out of love, and at every moment loves each person and wants them and us to know that. We have fallen through the cracks too often, and when this happens it leaves us with a bitter taste and makes it difficult for us to be God’s instrument of love. We can even feel this in the second reading, where a frequent misinterpretation of Paul’s letter and the time he wrote it leaves a bitter not...

Revelation 11:19, 12:1-6, 10; 1 Corinthians 15:20-27; Luke 1:39-56 How am I living these days? Today’s readings emphasize over and over the divine virtue of hope. Mary is silhouetted as a model of hope in God’s eternal plan for all of His creation. She trusted that God’s word to her would happen. She would bring forth the Savior of the world. This had never happened before. She really didn’t comprehend what the Messiah would be. She probably wondered quietly within herself how she would raise this child to be the Messiah. She had never been a mother … she had vowed herself to be a virgin completely dedicated to God … now she is to give birth to the Messiah. Did she wonder how she would continue her daily life and devotions? Each of us has been chosen as Mary was. We have been commissioned to be a sign of God’s love, care, forgiveness and mercy to the world we live in. How often do we think about this? How often do I think about this? What changes have I made in my daily activities to b...

1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51 It is sometimes too hard to follow through on direct orders. I believe it started with my parents telling me to do some chore or something when I wanted to go play with my toys or my friends. I learned discipline but still was not happy with it. This continued in school with the good sisters … they succeeded well. This continued in my seminary training and the priesthood. I learned early that I will always be in a position where someone: parents, teachers, a boss, a school principal, a pastor, a bishop will give orders … my position is to obey. Often these “orders” were met with disagreements but were obeyed. In today’s readings we see the same situation existed with the Israelites during their sojourn through the desert after God had set them free from the slavery they experienced in Egypt. Paul is telling the Ephesians to listen to how and where God is leading them in this “new religion” of Christianity. And the huge crowds that were f...