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.