July 20, 2025 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Genesis 18:1-10 + Psalm 15 + Colossians 1: 24-28 + Luke 10: 28-42

At some point in my childhood I began to listen to the Gospel at Mass. It could have been because it was the first thing spoken in English. Everything else was in Latin. I remember hearing this story and on the way home from Mass asking my parents why Jesus didn’t go into the kitchen and help Martha. There was silence from the front seat leaving me to wonder about that even today. But of course, maybe he did and Luke just didn’t mention it or maybe their brother Lazarus who never has anything to say jumped up to help keeping the sisters apart. Whatever the human side to this story, there is no missing the point that Jesus thinks listening is very important, and Martha wasn’t doing that. Her problem was that she was fixated on her work. 

This whole scene is filled with contradictions. Luke, who tells us more about woman than any other Gospel writer must have thrilled to record this incident. He puts Martha in charge of things in spite of the fact that in that Patriarchal society women were in charge of nothing. Hospitality was a man’s responsibility. Yet, Luke has no male figure in this story at all. Teaching and conversing with a woman was strictly forbidden by the religious rules of the time. Only men engaged in teaching man, and conversation was between men. So, with this story, Luke is giving us some insight into how things should be in the Kingdom of God, and perhaps instructing the early Christian Community that is to receive this Gospel.

Yet, even with all of that there is more to think about. Listening and Hospitality are the issues here. A listener is being praised, and the who is too busy to listen is being reminded that there is something more than busy work when it comes to living life in the presence of Jesus Christ. Mary is the model being put before us today. Listening is really an act of love, and it is hard work. Many people do not listen well. It is a skill that come out of a loving heart. Too many these days listen selectively, listening for what they want to hear, or just waiting for their turn to talk. When not hearing what they want to hear, they begin to end the conversation as quickly as possible, maybe so that they can go back to work.

There is a great saying in our Christian tradition, “When a guest comes, Christ comes.” This idea was deep in the conscience of early America. It was a rare day when some stranger did not sit at the family table. My own mother always set an extra place at our table just in case I brought someone home from school, or my sister did the same, or my father might invite someone. George Washington recorded that his family didn’t once sit-down dinner alone for twenty years.

Many folk tales tell of gods and kings who travel in disguise and reward people who show them hospitality. If you listened, you just heard something like that in the first reading today. God dropped in on Abraham unannounced and anonymously. And, Abraham almost blew the opportunity by fussing, but he recovered and fulfilled his duty. It was only when listening that Abraham heard the leading visitor promise a miraculous birth of a son to his aged wife Sarah Then he realized that somehow it was the Lord. He listened!

At some point, this country has lost what it had early on. Hospitality to strangers is in short supply, and it might be because we have not listened to them, not heard of their need, their fear, their suffering. It might be that when we recover our ability to listen with love even when we do not like what we hear that we may once again recognize that we have been visited by God who wants to make a home among us. The risk is always that we may not make room for God.

It is Jesus who teaches us today lessons that the one thing necessary in our lives is love that we must show in action, in hospitality, and in listening not just to God’s Word, but to each other.

July 13, 2025 at Saint Agnes Church in Naples, FL

Deuteronomy 30: 10-14 + Psalm 69 + Colossians 1: 15-20 + Luke 10: 25-37

The day that Jesus spoke those words to that man who came to him asking a question is a date to be remembered in all the history of humanity. What Jesus said that day was something that no other religion in history ever said: that everyone in the world, without exception, is our neighbor. In those days, and even for some today, there is always a “them and us” attitude that is incompatible with a faith rooted and springing out of the words and actions of Jesus Christ.

There is here even a new definition of neighbor. In the book of Leviticus quoted by this scholar of the law a neighbor is one who is to be loved. What emerges from this exchange with Jesus is that a neighbor is one who loves. Jesus is answering a question that should have been asked and is being asked today as he speaks to us: “Who is capable of becoming a neighbor?” This is the deeper question being asked of us today. We don’t need to ask “Who is my neighbor?” That question is already settled. Now we have to ask, “Am I a neighbor?”

There is a terrible risk confronting all of us today in the world and in this nation. It comes from seeing, day in and day out, the suffering of others either in real life or on TV, the homeless, the victims of violence, famine, and injustice. The risk is a hardened heart or a surrender to helplessness. A religion that is totally vertical that is focused only on my going up to God and God coming down to me is not a religion inspired by Jesus Christ. It must also be a horizontal religion that embraces broken humanity through whom we might find God. How is it possible to see the Divine in a suffering and crucified Jesus unjustly condemned and not see the Divine in the sufferings of anyone else? This is the critical issue raised by this story and the words of this Gospel.

Feeling sorry will not do. Those who passed by that victim certainly saw him and, no doubt, felt sorry for him. They had their excuses, and because of them, nothing changed. When reflecting on this story, it is easy to focus on the Samaritan, thinking that we should all be “good Samaritans” and that’s all very nice thinking, but where is the action?

It might help if instead of focusing on the good Samaritan we focused on the man in the ditch and with some empathy and compassion beginning to realize what it’s like to lie there watching people look away and walk on by. In truth, that man in the ditch and the Samaritan had a lot in common, and that might be why the Samaritan rose to the occasion. They were both looked upon as outsiders by the world in which they lived. Samaritans were despised by Jews at the time who would have nothing to do with them. It would make them unclean just as having something to do with that victim would make them unclean. Suddenly on that road, the Samaritan and that man discovered that they had something in common, and they both ended up being the better for it.

When we realize that we have something in common with the suffering people in this world, we will all be better for it. We have humanity in common. We are neighbors. We both share the image of our creator and a place in God’s creation. We all have a right to dignity. All of us were saved by that man on a cross. When someone is vilified, deaminized, imprisoned, and treated like an animal put in a cage, all humanity is degraded, and we all suffer this indignity. 

As long as we perpetuate the false belief in individual independence, we will never relate to those who are suffering. We will continue to see them as a burden. That Samaritan did not see that man as a burden. The more deeply we become related to one another, the more we shall truly live in the image of the Holy Trinity, ultimate Divine community.

July 6, 2025 at Saint Peter the Apostle and the Naples Maronite Mission

Isaiah 66: 10-14 + Psalm 66 + Galatians 6: 14-18 + Luke 10- 1-12, 17-20

None of the great Scripture Scholars seem clear about what Luke had in mind with the number of disciples sent out on this mission. Early Hebrew manuscripts say 72 and early Greek copies say 70. In the Book of Genesis 70 is the number of Gentile tribes, and in the Book of Numbers, Moses chooses 70 elders to be his helpers.  In either case, what we can be sure of is that Luke is making a point that the Gospel is for everyone, and Jesus expects everyone to share in the mission. There is no doubt that we are today’s 70 or 72 no more professional or prepared than the first wave of disciples sent by Jesus.

Those who have gone before us drew people by the example of their lives, not be rational proofs and arguments. They didn’t carry around a Catechism spouting memorized verses or citing church documents. It was their love, their compassion, and their service that attracted people to their faith. We need nothing more than our experience of the joy that comes from living the message of Jesus Christ, with its peace and its hope.

What we have to share is what we have experienced in communion with God and with others. I believe that this is why those who were first sent went out two by two, in pairs. This is no solo mission. No single person can accomplish the work Jesus sees needs to be done. This is a communal effort that springs from relationships that know the healing power of forgiveness, sharing and supporting each other through the sorrows and joys that life in communion will bring.

There is a warning that the Word of God will not always be welcomed by those who resist its message of justice. Those who are sent cannot be people pleasers. They must be God pleasures. Yet, we go, as Jesus says, “like sheep among wolves.” We have wolves to threaten us as much as did those who first took up the mission. The powerful violent Romans and the comfortable elite resisted, ridiculed, imprisoned, and killed those who brought the Good News. Those Jesus called “wolves” are still among us sewing fear, spewing hatred, bigotry, division, violence and lies every day and every hour. So, when the message was refused, they were to move on peacefully, because what God offers can never be imposed. The instruction was to “move on” not quit, not be silenced, but simply to continue in another place at a different time.

Our message is simple. It is Peace, and I think the best meaning of that word is oneness with God’s will. Peace is not something given. I must be worked for and worked at. With that in mind, we must be free from discouragement, impatience, and anger in failure in our efforts for peace. We must remain sincere, humble, and wise in our peace seeking and peace making. 

This is the highest calling within civilization. We are the ones called to this noble task. Peace is the one undeniable sign of God’s presence and God’s Kingdom. We are not there yet perhaps because we have not counted ourselves among the 70 thinking someone else should do it.

July 6, 2025 with the Naples Maronite Mission at St Agnes Chapel in Naples, FL

Matthew 10: 1-7

Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, the son of Zabedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

This Gospel passage invites us to reflect on two details. The first detail is these twelve. Some of them are identified by their family/father’s name which may be Matthew’s way of distinguishing them from others with the same name. Then there is Matthew who is identified by his occupation. The Gospel makes an important point about the role of one’s past in one’s ministry. When we follow Jesus, what matters is what we become, not what we have been. Notice how that works with Judas. What matters is what he becomes. Then there is Simon, the Cananean. This is not Simon Peter. This Simon is identified by his political activity. Cananeans were radical revolutionaries.

Reflecting on these details lets us see that the Twelve represent some diversity with several things in common: they are all men, they are Palestinian Jews, they are all working- or lower-class men. There is not a single person from the elite class of people here, no great leaders, nor foreigners. The fact is, that probably not one of these twelve could pass a test or succeed through an interview for some top post in a big corporation. They are so ordinary and simple, that no one would think to call them together to undertake a great task. But, God does.

The other detail concerns their instructions, where to go and what to do.  What is clear from Matthew’s report is that basically, these twelve are being sent to do what Jesus has been doing, and we ought to always see what he does through the words of the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus tells them “to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he is telling them to stay home. I think he is suggesting that they need to clean up their own lives – their own communities or families before running all over the place fixing others. They are going to need some creditability, and it will come from their own lives, families, and villages. They are to do what Jesus does. He invites them into his very life. They are to bring the power of the Gospel to bear against every force, public, private, political or social that diminishes human life.

If the Kingdom of God is at hand, then we are living in it. If we look around and what we see does not match what Jesus said it would be like, then the mission of those twelve is incomplete. When I look around here, it seems to me that we are just the sort of people Jesus would summon if we had been there at the beginning. It is still the beginning. To have any credibility or the kind of authority Jesus had to attract, invite, and set people free, our deeds must match our words. It was so for him. Our lives must match the life of Jesus Christ. Our courage can be no less than his when it comes to speaking up, acting up, and standing up against any force that diminishes human life.

Our past is of no interest to Jesus Christ. What we have done has no bearing at all on what we must become. There is no test to pass, no interview to survive when summoned. All God has to work with is you and me, and we would not be here if people just like us had believed for one minute that they were not up to the task of discipleship. We are summoned, we are gifted with everything we need which is the power of grace, the power of faith, and maybe most of all, the power of hope.

June 29, 2025

Acts of the Apostles 12: 1-11 + Psalm 34 + Second Timothy 4: 6-8, 17-18 + Matthew 16: 13-23

We are hardly back into Ordinary Time with its green vestments when this date, June 29, falls on a Sunday calling us to remember and celebrate to the two pillars on which our faith was built: Peter who is always associated with Jerusalem and its community and Paul with his Gentile converts. They represent for us the universality of our Church, and we ought not miss that this red replaces the green of Ordinary Time reminding us of the price that the commitment of these two asked of them.

As a church we come from every generation, race, culture, and social class. We share no common culture, but we do share a common faith that is rooted in the identity of Jesus Christ. All of us profess him to our Savior, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It is that identity we proclaim with the Gospel today.

Jesus asks the disciples what people are saying about him. He wants to know how his words and actions are being understood by the people. The answers given to his questions are telling. Some believe that he is John the Baptist; others that he is Elijah; still other that he is one of the other prophets. These people have already died; the people seem to believe that Jesus is a prophet come back from the dead, and that’s all.

Then Peter speaks up proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God adding that title, “Son of the Living God.” With that, Peter does more than just affirm the identity of Jesus Christ. He settles his own identity as well, and Jesus identifies Peter as the rock. That exchange is not just historical, something that happened a long time ago. When any of us proclaims our faith and identify Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior, our identity is revealed as well.

The issue raised today with this Gospel is then about identity; not just the identity of Jesus or the identity of Peter.  There is a question here we ought to ask ourselves every day. “What are people saying about us? What can they assume from our words and deeds?”

Jesus warns the disciples that those identified as his own, will pay a price for that, and it’s not just Peter, Paul and their companions who will suffer when what they say and do identifies them with Jesus Christ. It’s about suffering that can be subtle and sometimes violent. If we have never suffered anything for our faith, it may well be because no one would guess who we are.

Those witnesses we call martyrs are still around us today in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. They have names like Stanley Rother, Archbishop Romero, Jean Donovon, a lay woman murdered in

El Salvador, and three Sisters killed with her. Yet it is not always these dramatic executions; more often, especially among us, it is the subtle dismissal or ridicule of our beliefs, of things we hold sacred and believe to be true. It is sometimes the bullying and mocking those of real faith experience that confirms that they are truly filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

So, we might wonder: if we have never experienced any challenge or have never suffered at all for our faith, perhaps our identity is not so clear and obvious, and might want to do something about that.

June 22, 2025 A Vacation Weekend

Genesis 14: 18-20 + Psalm 110 6 First Corinthians 11: 23-26 + Luke 9: 11-17

In every chapter of Luke’s Gospel there is reference to food. Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. Today’s story is set in a deserted place where food would be difficult to find, and with that detail, Luke expects us to remember the wilderness of the desert and miracle of the Manna by which God fed the people.

Perhaps because of the overabundance all around us today, this Feast has shifted our attention away from the Gospel upon which it rests today. At the mention or the reading of the words: Holy Body and Blood of Christ too many immediately think of and see in their minds an object, a host, often in a monstrance. When that happens, and if it persists, the Church will dissolve into a collection of isolated individuals like so many strangers packed into one space, but not really together. People will come to church and leave without meeting anyone. Whatever they take away won’t be from one another. Nor will they give anything to another. 

We are still struggling to recover from ages of an old system that had everyone following the Mass quietly and privately involved in their private prayers and devotions if they followed the Mass at all. This is not the way it is meant to be, and live streaming has only made this worse. We have a deep need for community. Loneliness is a major cause of mental illness and depression. The world is crying out for community, and this is where the Eucharist rightly understand can be both a help and a challenge. The Body and Blood of Christ is not and object. It is not a thing. It is a people.

The whole of Luke’s Gospel is a rallying cry to the ancient and ever-new church of our day. It is a radical summons to community, to a life shared and lived together. His wisdom and inspiration to acknowledge and focus on food is nothing more than the Holy Spirit at work. Food shared is what nourishes the soul and the body. We all have memories of great family feasts when we laughed, remembered, and strengthened the bonds of love that hold us together. I think of my grandmother with her apron stirring pots on that old stove, with my aunts unpacking the other dishes they brought to share, then setting the big table while my dad and uncles sat around in the living room with their exaggerated fish stories. At the same time, all of kids were out in the back yard waiting to be called to that card table off to the side cleaning our plates so we would get desert. That experience is the bedrock of our Eucharistic life. We must re connect the Eucharistic celebration to the family of faith eating together joyfully, hopefully, and often. When we do, it will take us even further into the miracle that we have recalled today. 

Over the years some preachers have attempted to explain what really happened in this story. Was food really multiplied? Or did people bring out of their own provisions and share them with others? I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. That thinking tries to explain away a miracle and misses the point of the miraculous abundance God provides through Jesus. If Jesus can change bread and wine into his body and blood, he can take five loaves and two fish and feed a mob. There is a miracle here. Yet the role played by the apostles must not be overlooked. They are the ones through whom the crowd experiences this generous gift of Jesus Christ.

Eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is inseparable from sharing God’s abundant blessings upon us, especially the gifts of food and water, with those who are needy and hungry. The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is to be read not as a past event that Jesus did, but rather as present expectation that followers of Christ are called to undertake in today’s world. This is a challenge to extend that miracle in the world today.

Our worship cannot be separated from our service. If the Eucharist does not move us to service, it becomes an empty ritual detached from life, just as feeding the hungry apart from the Eucharist never really satisfies. The command of Jesus to those apostles still rings out every time we gather to feast on the Gospel and on the Bread of Life: “Feed them.” he says to us. 

June 15, 2025 at Saint Peter & Saint Elizabeth Seton Churches in Naples, FL

Proverbs 8: 22-31 + Psalm 8 + Romans 5: 1-5 + John 16: 12-15

One week ago, we celebrated the moment when we were brought to life. We called it, Pentecost. As the creation story in the First Book of Scriptures tells us, the very breath of God awakened that first man but left him with no identity. None of us have any identity until we are connected in a relationship. Without a mother and father, we are nameless. We are nothing. God saw this, and God created all sorts of other things, but plants and animals to name still did not give that one creature a name and make a real person. God’s solution was Eve, and in that relationship an identity was born, and with that, life began. Realizing and acknowledging the essential importance of relationship for life and identity is what can lead us into the Divine presence revealed to us as three persons. So, here we are one week after Pentecost invited to reflect upon the identity of God in the Trinity.

The four verses of John’s Gospel we have just proclaimed are the beginning of the final words of Jesus the night before he died. He speaks of the relationship he has with the Father and of the Spirit that springs from that relationship. Encouraging and comforting those at that table, he gives them hope to see through what is to come, he speaks of that Spirit, his Spirit, the Spirit of the Father that called life into the womb of a virgin in Nazareth.

He tells us that this Spirit will come to judge, convict, and correct an unbelieving world and expose the deep-seated causes of human pain, suffering, and death. That Spirit will open our eyes to see what causes the suffering of this world, and that Spirit will bring comfort to the suffering and courage to those ready to challenge those causes. Too much of our formation in faith is centered on Jesus, leaving us not quite focused and responsive to what he has left us in his absence.

The story we told last week about the moment of Pentecost can easily lead us to miss the real work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Expecting a mighty wind and tongues of fire, or an earthquake-like awakening is dangerous leading us to miss the Spirit’s real work. In our American English, that word “advocate” does not exactly describe how Jesus tells us the Spirit will work. In other English-speaking cultures, an “advocate” is a defense attorney – someone who stands beside someone in need. As a “Comforter” the Spirit comes alongside all who suffer, face crises, experience persecution or discrimination, or are lonely and need comfort. The Spirit brings strength to the weary and hope to the discouraged.

It is a Spirit-filled people, you and me, who do these things, and often it comes as little more than a deep urge to take a stand because the Holy Spirit is nudging and awakening us to those who need someone to stand beside them. That Spirit nudges us back into life-giving relationships when we have tried to go “solo” through this life. Who we are is determined by who we know. Instead of thinking we have to be perfect and do everything just right in this life, we might simply live as grace-filled disciples who have already been saved and let the Holy Spirit put us to work.

June 8, 2025 at Saint William and Saint Peter Parishes in Naples, FL

Acts 2: 1-11 + Psalm 14 + 1 Corinthians 12: 3-7, 12-13 + John 14: 15-16, 23-26

Most of us who went to Parochial Schools can surely remember being prepped for Confirmation. We were told that the Bishop would come to ask questions, and the sister or the teacher drilled the answers into us. She told us it would be like a test. Then she told us the answers making me feel as though we were cheating. I always wondered: is it right to know the questions and the answers before the test? It never made any difference in the end however. It may have been the same for you, because when he came and asked the questions, no one raised their hand to answer except that one who always answered the questions whether it was her turn or not. My memory tells me that it started off easy with a question about how many sacraments there were. Then you had name them. After that came the challenge of naming the Holy Days of Obligation. Then, the big question came at the end. We had to name the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I sat on my hands afraid I would mix up the Gifts of the Holy Spirit with the Corporal Works of Mercy!

That whole focus on gifts is at the root of today’s great feast and the message of this Gospel. Jesus enters that locked up room and enters those hearts locked up by doubt, confusion, and fear to give them one great gift, peace. Think of this. These were the very people who had vanished when he needed them most, who denied him, ran when there was trouble leaving him alone. These were the ones who, it would seem from some of their conversations, were with him only for what they could get out of it. “We want to sit at your right hand” they whined. These were the ones who complained that there might not be enough for them when he told them to feed the people. I’ve always thought that they had the doors locked, not for fear of the Jews, but for fear he might really come back and look them straight in the eye. Suddenly there he was. He came with a gift, the gift of forgiveness, the only gift that can bring peace.

We are a people richly blessed with more gifts than we can count. The consequence of this easily allows us to forget that there is a difference between material gifts and spiritual gifts. A really mature person of faith always knows that difference. They have the gift of Wisdom knowing which gifts endure and are the most precious. They know how to use their gifts for the good of all. They understand that only truth can set us free. They can judge right from wrong with the courage to speak up for justice. They have a holy respect for life and for all creation, and every day they stand in awe of a God whose love is everlasting.

And so, Jesus stands once again among us breathing that Spirit into us, not just upon us. He stands before us as he did in that locked up room with a heart of forgiveness and mercy. He gives us the greatest of all gifts, forgiveness, the only gift that can bring us peace. Anyone who refuses to give that gift cannot receive it, and they will never know peace. Where peace is needed, forgiveness is needed more. Where people of peace live, forgiveness will be found. We cannot pray for peace if we do not pray for forgiveness and give what we have been given.

June 1, 2025 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Acts 1: 1-11 + Psalm 47 + Ephesians 1: 17-23 + Luke 24: 46-53

For anyone not really paying close attention to all four of the Gospels, it might come as a surprise to know that only Luke’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus ascending into heaven. Matthew leaves off with the final words of Jesus. Mark’s original ending stops with an empty tomb. There is nothing in the earliest manuscripts about anything happening later. John writes about Jesus being ‘lifted up’ in the third chapter, but never says and describes anything about it after the resurrection. Luke tells us in the Gospel that Jesus was taken up to heaven, and in the Gospel, it is the same day as the resurrection. In Acts of the Apostles, Luke says that a cloud took him from sight. He never says that Jesus rode a cloud as some artists would have us believe, no matter how “inspired” their artistic work might be. There work is not biblical inspiration. 

I remember a prayer book I had as a child that had a picture of feet hanging out of a cloud. All I could do with that image is wonder how he did that without falling down. It took some serious study of Sacred Scripture to learn that Luke is trying to trigger memories and images from the Old Testament where the same cloud was all around the Tabernacle in the desert and again was described as surrounding the Temple at its first dedication.  It is also his effort to connect this with the cloud that came during the Transfiguration. What’s really going on here is Luke’s way of drawing us into the real nature of the Ascension which is and always will be a mystery – something for which there are no words to relate an experience that happened only this one time and never to anyone else. How could anyone describe that. It only happened one time and the person for whom it happened is gone. This ought to leave us in wonder asking what it means, what it says to us, and what God is doing.

What does this mean for us is the issue, not where did Jesus go, and how did he get there. Luke tells this story because of the need for us to find our place in God’s plan. What is supposed to happen between the departure of Jesus of Nazareth and the return of the Christ in the glory of the Father? That is what this story must tease us to consider, because this mystery, so hard to describe in words, is at the heart of every Christian life and is the cause of our hope. It is at that moment when the earthly work of Jesus is finally at an end that the church begins to take shape as a eucharistic community centered on our unity with Christ and one another. We have from this communion a new identity. The Ascension is the event that makes us aware of the presence of Jesus as well as his absence.

For those disciples it was not until Christ had seemingly left his people that they began to understand the true nature of his presence. It can be no different for us. It seems that he is gone until we remember how he remains within us as a eucharistic community. Great things were yet to be done. The power of Christ was about to transform not just a handful of individuals but the whole world. They would see that begin to happen, they would begin to see Christ at work, when they could begin to look for him in a new way. From then on, the presence of Christ would be experienced by those who learned to look for him, and for the effects of his power within themselves.

Christ did not move out of their lives. He began to move into their lives so that their skills, talents, and virtues might become divine instruments by which God’s work in the world would be done. This holy day, this day of the Ascension is really about us, about what we can do when we remain in communion as a Eucharistic community, and about where and how others seeking the Lord of Life may find him among us.

May 25, 2025 at Saint Peter Church in Naples, FL

Acts 15: 12, 22-29 + Psalm 67 + Revelation 21: 10-14, 22-23 + John 14: 23-29

Last week I read an article suggesting that we are living through a crisis of serious thinking, and that opinion struck me as true when I think about public policy both locally and around the world. Our nation, and the whole western world for that matter is losing the ability to reason leaving me to wonder what happens when people lose the ability to make good judgements especially at a time when everyone thinks they are right and if you don’t agree with them, you’re wrong. At that point, there is nothing more to talk about. And so, we just fold our arms and stare at one another. That keeps going through my mind as I listen to the instructions Jesus gives us as he is about to leave us on our own.

This instruction we just heard speaks about the Holy Spirit whose job is to teach us. Well, anyone who has ever had anything to do with education can tell you that there is a certain disposition required on the part of the learner before any teaching can begin. In other words, you can’t teach a room full of people who believe that they know it all. And there’s the problem. This world, is in dire need of the Holy Spirit and a people who are ready to learn, listen, and be inspired.

When we listen to that first reading describing the polarization of that early Church we can learn something about how to resolve the polarization we live in today. Those Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles were staring at each other because they both believed they were right. Those Jewish Christians were certain that because Christ was born and died a Jew, everyone should be. Then Peter speaks up for the Gentiles and insists that there was no need for the Gentiles to become Jews in order to follow Jesus Christ. They only needed to live as people filled with the Spirit of Christ.

What they did can teach something very important. Luke tells us that after listening to one another in invoking the Holy Spirit, they boldly pronounced, “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and us not place undue burdens on the Gentiles.

That decision in the first century after Christ is one of the most important moments in the history of our Church. In fact, without it, this church would probably be nothing more than a small reformed version of Judaism. What it required was two things: listening to each other and listening to the Holy Spirit together. The consequence of that is diversity, which is a bad word for some around here these days. Yet, that diversity allows opinions and backgrounds to listen with a hunger to understand and discover what God may desire.

Humble open hearts never think they know it all or what they know is necessarily the whole truth. A humble and open heart is where the Holy Spirit can be found allowing us to comprehend various sides in every issue and discover new, creative, and compassionate ways for building up the human family. This Gospel invites us to examine honestly, carefully, and deeply how we are thinking and how our thinking is inspired by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.