A message from Father Pete

Numbers 11:25-29; James 5:1-6; Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 The readings today ask us to reflect on groups of people or even the individuals we have a difficult time understanding, helping or responding to ... including the ones who create a great deal of animosity within each of us. For the first 23 years of my priesthood I was a teacher and, later on, an administrator in Catholic high schools. Did I have favorite students? Definitely. I also had difficult ones. Sometimes I was able to see that their backgrounds, health and student ways led to their problems in the classroom. I frequently tell the story of one with whom I had the most difficulty: He was consistently disruptive in class, didn’t use his gifts for learning and only occasionally did homework. I was inwardly pleased when he was absent for class. One day I ate humble pie: He was the first student to enter class and said, “Hiya Padre, how are you today?” I responded, “My sinuses are killing me.” The immediate thought I had was th...

Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37 Sometimes it’s good to use the proper words to identify our purpose on Earth and the way we should proceed. Sometimes our search for understanding is more about asking the right question than discovering the right answer. We are in a faith ballgame trying to be a winner. In the first reading from the Book of Wisdom, the prophetic writer speaks about a “just one” who not only knows the ways of God but also makes every effort to live according to them. The author contrasts this person with the “wicked” who are oppressing the poor and pious, and who aren't afraid of divine justice while seemingly trying to understand why these “righteous ones” believe what they do. Should the wicked test them to find out if they're right? James ponders that if they do, won’t they find out that jealousy and selfishness is part of their “modus operandi,” whereas the “righteous” are peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and strive to cultivate peace? He p...

Isaiah 50:5-9; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35 Today’s question from Jesus is: “Who do people say that I am?” [Mark 8:27] Then He asks,  “But who do you say that I am?” [Mark 8:29] Rev. Billy Graham Jr. often said that his crusades had two purposes: to call those who don’t know Christ to follow Him, and to call those who do know Christ to make an even deeper commitment to Him. I enjoyed listening to his wisdom. He was an outstanding minister of Jesus’ Gospel of Love. So often his preaching would follow this pattern: Many people today claim to be a Christian. Do you claim to be a Christian? That’s an easy claim to make. ‘I’m a Christian because I grew up in church,’ some people say. Others say, ‘I’m a Christian because I was baptized as a child.’ Maybe you’ve heard people say, ‘I’m a Christian because my family are Christians — my grandmother and grandfather are Christians, and so are my mother and father. Why they even helped give our new pews at Church.’ But, then there’s you. You’re ...

Isaiah 35:4-7; James 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37 How do I feel about myself? Am I comfortable living within my own skin these days? Do negative comments … reactions from others … disturb me? When people I have a relationship with put me down, what is my reaction? Have I developed the persona that “insults roll off my back?” When I get the urge to put myself down, or when others put me down, I can so easily carry this over to God feeling the same way about me. Yet if God did not want me to be born ... I wouldn’t have been born. So there must be and is a value and specific reason I was born: to be the loving person God sees in me and needs me to be. Overcoming negativity and realizing I’m loved at every moment of my existence is God’s message to each of us every day. Emily Dickinson published the following poem in 1891 ... a poem that seems to resonate with many. I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be som...

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...