A message from Father Pete

Sirach 35: 12-14, 16-18; 2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18; Luke 18: 9-14 My dad would use a variety of sayings/quotes and   I have no idea if they were his own or from another not-so famous person or famous person.   I preface them by saying:   ‘my dad used to say.’   One that fits in with today’s readings is ‘…one might say to you, ‘I use to be proud but now I don’t have any faults.’   I certainly have seen this attitude.   Probably it has found its way in me too.   We will be ‘celebrating Halloween’ this week.   Now it is restricted and protected in all areas, I hope, so that our little ones can have fun and   get dressed up while parents try to control their input of sweets.   The idea of disguising who one is goes back to even before Jesus’ time.   Actors would put on masks to ‘pretend’ to be someone else. The Greek word for hypocrite means actor.   The actors would wear large masks to mark which character they...

Exodus 17: 8-13; 2 Timothy 3: 14-4:2; Luke 18: 1-8 What is my prayer life like?   Am I satisfied with it?   I tell people who come to me that the way they are praying right now is the right way for them to be praying.   But do I listen to my own advice?   I find myself trying to ‘dicker’ with my approach to prayer.   I have a tendency to add prayers, but the question is do I ever eliminate some prayers?   I can keep on adding and adding, which means more time spent in ‘saying words’ which takes away from me being still before the Lord.   Is this healthy?   Could it be the devil is distracting me away from quiet prayer?   Jesus is telling me today to “ pray always.”   How can I possibly do this with my hectic schedule?   Perhaps it’s a good idea to take time and revisit what prayer means to me…this is the content of todays scripture passages. Exodus continues the Israelites journey to Mt. Sinai where God enters a covenant w...

2 Kings 5: 14-17;   2 Timothy 2: 8-13; Luke 17: 11-19 Today’s gospel is the same gospel that we use on Thanksgiving Day.   We could easily look at it and see that Jesus is instructing us to be grateful to God for the gifts we have received. We seem to be able to do this but is our gratitude all inclusive?   Do I consider outsiders as ‘regular people’ as I am?   Put another way, do I feel that I am important, valued and treasured because I am a Catholic or because I am in this social strata?   Do pride myself on the company I keep or the group I count as friends?   Do I consider that these are the ‘in-group’ for me?   To have an ‘in-group’ means that there is an ‘out-group’.   These would be people who do not belong…do not agree…are somehow different from the groups that I am associated with and have relationships.   If this is so do I consider my ‘group’ better?   Do I feel my way of thinking is better or my religion is better or...

Habakuk 1; 1-3, 2:2-4;   2 Timothy 1: 6-8, 13-14; Luke 17: 5-10 Probably one of the most hurtful of our emotions is when we are discouraged.    It can so easily lead to losing our confidence.   It causes us to be pessimistic rather than enthusiastic.   It prevents us from seeing the good   around us and thereby creates difficulties in our relationships. This happens to all people.   Often it is just hard to be positive. Webster gives these synonyms for ‘discourage’:   chill, deject, demoralize, dishearten, disparage, dismay, dispirit, frustrate, unnerve. We wake up and generally start the day in a good mood hopefully t hanking God for another day to receive His love and to share that love as best we can.   Then we pick up the paper or watch the morning news or see what’s on the internet and we can get overwhelmed by the negativity, the violence, the hurt, the catastrophes, the disasters, the inhumanity that is being displayed near...

Amos 6: 1, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6: 11-16; Luke 16: 19-31 How do I feel that I am keeping Jesus’ teachings?   Are there ones that I like and some that seem too hard for me ?   Do I realize and admit that all Jesus’ teachings are equal in their seriousness and must all be followed?   Jesus constantly used care for the poor and the needy as primary in following His law of love.   Do I live this way?   The American ‘ideal’ is to take care of ‘me’ first.   Is this how I am living?   I have been honored to visit Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru for three weeks to watch groups of priests and religious minister to the very poor.   I have also spent 6 days in Haiti with Food For The Poor watching how they care for the poorest of the poor especially in City of Soleil.   This is an extremely impoverished and densely populated shanty town. It has grown to an estimated 200,000-400,000 people who live in extreme poverty.   It is regarded as one of the ...

Amos 8: 4-7;  1 Timothy 2: 1-8; Luke 16: 1-13 How do I regard the people in my life?  The initial response to this question is ‘ well, that depends.’  And what does it depend on, ‘ It depends if they are family, neighbors, people I work with and am associated with, people at my church community and then those who appear in my life at times.’  So what forms the basis of my treatment of them?  ‘ That depends on how well I like them, how they have treated me, if it’s worth my while to be nice to them…you know I just can’t like everyone!’  This is an accurate exchange of thoughts I had with a small group of people recently.  I never asked, ‘How does God expect us, and need us to treat others?’  This attention-getter was written in Sunday Homily Helps this week:  “Once a wonderful pueblo Indian woman told a young Franciscan how to pray.  She said: ‘First, you pray for the world, for everything and everyone in the world, everything i...