I have been at my engineering job for over 3 years now, and one day this week was the first time I overslept and missed my train to work. I usually wake up at 5:55am and I am out the door at 6:30am to drive to my 7:00am train. Then I will get to the office around 8:40am and start my day. The repercussions of sleeping in were minimal; I had to rush out the door and drive to the office instead of riding the train. I had an important meeting at 9:30am and was still at the office by 9:00am. If it wasn’t for having work in the morning, I would have never rushed to get out the door that morning. Work is an important priority to me, and I never want to be late or “drop the ball” while I am at it. If that morning all I had planned was maybe to go to the gym, I would never have rushed out the door. The gym is not an important priority to me, and I would have never thought twice about missing a workout because I slept in. Some of you maybe feel different. I have some friends who have a workout schedule that they stick to every week and would feel awful if they missed a workout. I know other people who show up late to work all the time, and it doesn’t bother them at all. A lot of our feelings and actions are determined by what we prioritize in our life. Take some time right now to think about the priorities in your own life…

Jesus’s message to us today is that our most important priority should be going to heaven. He says that heaven is so awesome that you would sell everything you have to get there. The way I imagine Jesus speaking in the gospel today is the same way I would describe a great restaurant that I ate at to a friend. I would have a bunch of hand motions and say something like “you gotta trust me, it’s worth every penny”. I think some people think that heaven is a big mystery, almost like God teases us with it and that we will only find out what it is like when we get there. Jesus says the opposite and explains that heaven is incredible and worth all our time and every dime we have (He knows because He has been there)! What is something that is always worth the money to you? I can think of a few things that I’ll always pay extra for:

- Free range eggs

- Fresh parsley

- Uber Black & XL

- A warm brownie when I order my ice cream

- A new iPhone

- Locatelli cheese

- Lulu Lemon pants

- Whatever I want on the restaurant menu + dessert

I’ll almost never cheap out and pay whatever it takes to have these things (meanwhile, I will sit in seat 33E on a flight and drive my truck until it literally falls apart lol).

So now how do we make heaven an important priority in our life like Jesus asks us to? In other words, how do we make the thought of going to heaven sound as good as a warm brownie with ice cream sounds to me??? Here is one way to think about it. I never used to wear Lulu Lemon pants, but then I saw some people wearing them and thought they looked really nice, and then later I saw online a bunch of people make videos with great reviews, and the next thing I knew I was buying them and now will be a customer for life. My mind was influenced! If we wish to prioritize going to heaven more, then we need our spirits to be influenced! The same way it might take a few raving reviews or videos to get you to buy something or go somewhere, our spirit’s need to see/hear about heaven to help us prioritize going there. Read some chapters of the gospels, watch some YouTube videos on the lives of some of our saints, go on a retreat, or maybe visit some beautiful churches or cathedrals. All these things will stimulate our senses and help our thoughts and actions follow the inner desires of our spirit. Let us pray that we stay in pursuit of heaven and prioritize in our lives everything that helps us get there. May God know that above all things our greatest priority is to be united with Him in the kingdom, Amen.

Above all powers
Above all kings
Above all nature and all created things
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
You were here before the world began

Above all kingdoms
Above all thrones
Above all wonders the world has ever known
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
There’s no way to measure what You’re worth -Michael W. Smith

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It was junior year of high school, and our baseball team just got off the bus from a 2+ hour ride down to one of the toughest teams in our division. While I like to think we would always go into a game optimistic, this was one of those games that we went into knowing what the outcome would be. I remember we made it all the way to the bottom of the 6^th inning and the score was 1-1. With us still in the game, you could feel the dugout getting excited. We thought to ourselves this could be a huge upset and a win we would remember forever. I went out to my spot in left field and began to watch the opposing batters, one after the other, rake singles and doubles. The next thing I knew we were going into the final inning down 6-1. We all felt defeated and that spirit we were feeling the last inning had turned into silence and blank stares. I got up to the plate that inning and struck out on three pitches . . . I watched all three. To me the last pitch was clearly low and outside, and to make known to the umpire my dislike of his call, I proceeded to point to the location on the dirt with my bat where I thought the ball crossed. He took off his mask and said something to effect, “who made you the judge”.

This week Jesus tells us a similar parable to the one He told us last week, except now He is emphasizing the judgement of God. Jesus tells us that in the world there are seeds (wheat) that will follow God, and different seeds (weeds) that will follow the devil, and when it comes time for harvest the weeds will burn in hell. The first reading says, “For your might is the source of justice” (Wisdom 12:16). If our God is a God of justice, doesn’t it seem harsh that He would use His might to condemn us to hell??? I think this is a hard question sometimes for us to grapple with. The thought of hell being a possibility in our life can make us paint God negatively. Recently, someone drew an analogy for me to help me better understand the judgement of our God, it went something like this:

Imagine you were walking down a street and saw a stranger punching another stranger in the face for no reason. The person who was punched then returns the favor and punches them right back. You might think to yourself that justice was served. The next day you are walking down the street and see another stranger punching a stranger in the face for no reason. However, this time the person that was punched gives $1000 to the person that punched them.

This is the kind of justice that God rules with. With all our evildoings, all our neglect of His word, and our sinfulness; God will still forgive us and bless us. Condemnation to hell is a choice we make to be separate from Him in sinfulness, and when we die God will judge us on our own choice, He doesn’t choose for us! He doesn’t judge us on how perfect we were in our lives, but whether we repent our sinfulness and accept His love and mercy. Jesus assures us that (just as a mustard seed in a garden) with the smallest ounce of faith in Him and humility in ourselves, we can flourish greatly.

I’m intrigued in Jesus’s parable when the slaves ask the master if they should pull the weeds from the wheat field, and the master says, “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest” (Matthew 13:29-30). I think Jesus’s message here is the same that the umpire had to me when I struck out; God does not intend for His creation to be the judge. When Jesus says this, He is emphasizing the same point he made on the Sermon on the Mount:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye (Matthew 7:1-5).

Judging others (and ourselves), I think is one of the hardest sins to avoid. We don’t just tend to judge people for what they do to us, but we judge them for their thoughts, their friends, their race, their clothes, and the way they look. No matter how blatantly wrong actions or thoughts may seem to us, Jesus wants us to know that we should love instead of judge, or else we will do damage to our own soul.

To love is to will the good of another person. When you love someone, you don’t just wish for good in their lives, you will for good in their lives. You help them and care for them and (as Paul tells us in the second reading) you pray for the Holy Spirit to lead them closer to Christ. Let us pray that our judgmental thoughts and actions be replaced with wisdom and love for one another.

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Around 5^th or 6^th grade is when I feel like school started to get serious. You start to learn algebra, write essays, read about the ancient world, etc. The homework also starts to get tough too. Teachers aren’t just trying to give you busy work, but now they want to start challenging you and see what you learned in class. Sometimes they will even give you homework on topics they haven’t taught yet. Every so often my brother and I would be sitting at our dining room table struggling with homework problems, and around 5:30pm my father would get home from work and try and help us. Once there was a question we were working on, and still to this day I remember the gist of what the question was, it went something like this:

Joann had a vegetable stand where she sold tomatoes. She sold 15 tomatoes on the first day. The second day she sold half of what was left. On the third day she sold 12, and on the fourth day she sold half of what was left. On the fifth day there were 4 tomatoes left to be sold. How many tomatoes did she have to begin with?

To me this question now is simple (try working backwards), but at the time I was quite confused. If anyone is confused, don’t feel bad because my father was too! He looked at this problem and got frustrated. Now my father is very smart and solves problems much harder than this on the daily as an engineer. I remember him saying, “man it’s been so long since I’ve done a problem like this, I forget how it’s done”! We eventually figured it out, but the lesson I learned that day that was more important than the amount of tomatoes Joann had (55), which was that much of what we know and the talents we have follow the old saying “use it or lose it”, and that you will never retain knowledge or hold onto certain practices unless you reinforce them.

In Jesus’s parable to the crowd this week, He is emphasizing the same point I mentioned above; we are all seeds, yet only some of us will be fruitful . . . we all learn, yet may eventually forget . . . we do good once, yet fail to reinforce it and make it a habit. Jesus tells us that the scriptures of the Old Testament has already taught us (hence our first reading), but the messages have not stuck. He says, “this is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand” (Matthew 13:13).

You see God does not want his children to only be “sometimes” following His teachings. The way I imagine this is to picture a short picket fence that surrounds a yard (where the soil is rich!!). In that yard is all the good things that God has given us; all His commandments, all His parables, all His mercy and forgiveness, all the saints, the Eucharist . . . all His love. Now outside of the fence is all the things that distract us from being in the yard; money, expensive clothes and shoes, drunkenness and drugs, gossip, popularity, lust, our appearance, etc. Outside of the fence you can still see what is going on in the yard and get a sense of what God’s teachings are. Many of us (including myself) are “on the fence”; sometimes we play in the yard, and sometimes we don’t. We feel satisfied having “been in the yard” and think to ourselves it will be no big deal to jump back in it whenever we want.

What Jesus has taught me through this week’s readings is that He does not want “fence sitters” because the truth is that He did not build the fence around the yard, the devil did. He wants us to know that His teachings and His love is for all the world, and that the devil has led us into sin and built a fence to separate us from the yard. Sin is what separates us from God, and when we die it is important that we are not separated from Him – that we are on the right side of the fence. Going to church only a few times a year, going to confession only every few years, reading scripture only when you had to in grade school, and praying to God only at funerals; is not good enough . . . it’s hopping back and forth over the fence. To be a follower of Christ you are either all-in, or you are not. Take Judas for example. He spent much of his life proclaiming Jesus as Christ and the Messiah, but at the end of his life Jesus tells him it would have been better he never been born. On the contrary, the criminal crucified next to Jesus lived a life separate from God in sin, but at the ending moment of His life he accepted Jesus as his savior and was told he would enter paradise that day – he was on the right side of the fence.

Let us all pray for the perseverance, discipline and wisdom to follow God’s will whole heartedly. Let us strive to make our occasional following become constant obedience and let us make any of our good deeds become good habits. May we all constantly reinforce the word of God in our lives, so we become fruitful messengers of His love and goodness, Amen.

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Last week I went out to a late lunch with my coworker/friend. We just finished a long day surveying electrical equipment for some designs we are working on together. While we were waiting for our food we discussed how tired we were from the day’s work. I told him, “I’m so tired I could nap in this booth right now”. He didn’t believe it, but I assured him that I am a professional napper haha. In fact, every Sunday since I was about 18 years old, I have taken an afternoon nap. Sometimes they last only 45 minutes, other times they go for 2-3 hours. When I wake up from them I usually jokingly think “oof that felt like life or death” and wonder what my body would have done without that rest. I remember when I was young and in school, every day we wanted to get out of the house and do things. We never napped, and could spend all day outside hopping to/from our backyards, the park, the basketball courts, the beach, etc. Now, I look forward to taking Sunday afternoons as a time of complete rest. I’ve learned over the years that rest is not laziness, but essential for physical renewal and spiritual growth.

We all remember in Genesis that God created the world in 6 days and then rested on the seventh, and that He gave Moses the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath holy. Growing up I used to think this meant just going to church on Sunday. I have come to see that God is being more literal than I thought with taking a day of rest; and for good reason. In our constant labor throughout the week (whether it be school, jobs, caretaking, etc.) it’s hard to pray and connect with God and grow our spirits. Sometimes our lives become so busy and absorbed with obligations of the earth that we start to lose our spiritual strength. While on earth God wants us to get a taste of the rest that will come in heaven. Without time for spiritual rest, we may become convinced that the fruit of our labor will only ever be a paycheck, and we will try and seek satisfaction only in the pleasures that come with it. In the gospel, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30). How comforting and assuring this makes me feel. It reminds me of when I would walk into class and a student walking out would say something like “don’t worry Andrew the quiz is super easy”, or when coach would start practice and say, “relax guys we are taking it easy today”. Jesus tells us that following Him will not batter us down (like maybe some other things in our life) or be overwhelming, but that He wants to care for us on our path towards Him. This message always reminds me of what Ben Walther beautifully wrote in the song Make Your Home in Me:

Your burden’s light and
Your yoke is easy
Your name is Love and
Your grace is free
My heart was locked but
You had the key
Make your home in me
Make your home in me

If the peace and comfort of an eternal life with Christ in heaven feels anything like my refreshed and rested body after my Sunday afternoon nap; then I’m onboard! May we all express in prayer this week our desire to rest in the arms of Christ, and let us meditate over the words of St. Augustine, “our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee”.

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Right after the summer of 7^th grade, I remember my friend invited me to come down to our town’s pier. It was my first summer in that town and I had never heard of kids hanging out at a pier before. This pier ran off the rocky shore of the bay some 20 or 30 yards into Boston Harbor. At low tide the water would be about 15ft below the edge of the pier. Someone had removed a piece of the railing and all of us kids would take turns jumping off. Some kids (including me) would jump off just straight down and hold our noses, other kids would do something cooler like do a 360-spin or a cannonball. I remember one kid had an old bike and was going to try and ride it fast off the edge of the pier into the water. He took a long peddling start and raced toward the edge, going as fast as possible. Right after he sent it, he yelled “YOLO” and flipped off the bike and dove headfirst into the water. It was awesome! For those of you who may forget “YOLO” means You-Only-Live-Once. It’s just something people used to say a lot when they did something daring or decided to go somewhere or buy something that might not be the smartest. All of us probably feel some pressure to do cool/interesting things in our lives before we get old and it’s too late. Whether it’s to party more, make more money, sky dive, buy a sports car, go to the SuperBowl, see the Eifel Tower, ride a horse, gamble in Vegas, etc. – we all probably have something we focus on trying to do because after all . . . you only live once?

I think the message of today’s gospel reading (and probably the gospels as a whole) is that Jesus’s sacrifice was to proclaim the news that all of God’s children are invited to live twice! When we place our faith in Christ, repent our sins, and work towards following His message; we are RSVPing to a second life in heaven. Jesus says “whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). It’s so easy to get caught up in the many pleasures we can find in this world, but none of them are worth neglecting our faith in God and a life following His teachings. Please take a moment to read this story about Saints Timothy and Maura, whose lives are a remarkable example of focusing on our eternal union with Christ over our temporary lives on earth:

(2) Saints Timothy and Maura: The Newlyweds Who Chose Martyrdom Over Marriage

I think the best way to keep this week’s readings in mind is to just remember a new acronym “YODO”, You-Only-Die Once; but can live twice.

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When someone asks me what my biggest fear is, jokingly I usually say, “not cooking enough food for everybody”. In the Italian-American culture there is a tradition of overcooking for dinners/parties and sending our families home with tons of leftovers. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve come home with many days’ worth of food after visiting my grandparents. Leaving the house, you would find me muscling shopping bags filled with trays of meatballs and macaroni, and Ziplock bags (or as we call it “italian tupperware”) stuffed with chicken cutlets and brownies. You would think we never even ate looking at all the food we would leave with. I remember a couple years ago when my brother and I visited my grandparents for lunch, there was a spread on the dining room table that could’ve fed a football team. Three or four pounds of lunchmeat, a dozen hoagie rolls, couple pounds of potato salad and coleslaw, and three gigantic stromboli stuffed with sausage and pepperoni (my favorite). My brother and I loved every second of that meal, and lucky for us we were able to enjoy it all over again the next day . . . and the next haha.

In this week’s gospel Jesus instructs his followers, “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matthew 10:28). I think when Jesus tells us to not be afraid, he understands that in our human condition sometimes we can’t help but feel afraid. If a bully threatens to shame us, we may feel afraid to be embarrassed. If a thief threatens to rob us, we may feel afraid to lose our belongings. If a disease threatens to attack us, we may feel afraid to lose our health. Accept Jesus tells us to not be afraid. Being afraid is not just a condition of our bodies, but also of our soul. To “be not afraid” we must accept the peace and comfort that comes from God’s never-ending love for us and our soul’s connection to Him, despite the feelings of fear we may experience. You see, if you want to oppress, hurt or manipulate somebody; find out what frightens them. Our fears dictate our obedience, which is why Christ says to only fear God. During Christ’s Passion, after numerous beatings and the many hours He hung dying on the cross, His only fear was being separated from God. No oppressor can frighten the soul of someone who fears God. From the executions of John the Baptist and St. Paul all the way to modern-day Christian martyrs throughout the world, we know their soul’s were not afraid, for they were willing to endure pain and suffering from others to preserve their soul’s faith in God. A God-fearing Christian cannot be defeated.

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If you are like me, then you can easily talk yourself out of doing things. There are countless times I have turned down invitations to go out and socialize with friends and family. I have turned down music gigs for fear of messing up and not being good enough to play in them. I have turned down vacations for fear of taking off work or school. I don’t like to go to crowded events for fear of getting sick. I’ve lied to get out of going to birthday parties and other celebrations. I’ve made bad excuses for skipping workouts or making poor eating choices. There are clubs that I haven’t joined, sports that I haven’t played, auditions I never took, recipes I haven’t tried, languages I’ll never learn, classes I’ll never take, and friends I won’t make . . . all because I fear the unknown and I fear failure. Above all these things, the aspect of my life that I think weighs me down the most is reflecting on my sins. How often the words “who am I” linger in my mind as I walk into a church and kneel in front of the blessed sacrament. I would be lying if I said that I haven’t felt unworthy and shameful to play music at mass, distribute communion, receive communion, or even write this post. There are times when thinking about my own sins that I can’t even make eye contact with the altar.

This week’s readings I think draw a great distinction from who we are versus who we are willed to be by God. The first reading talks about God’s first covenant with Moses and his people. Simply put, He says to them if they remain holy and follow His law then they would be pleasing to Him and be rewarded. Well as we know things did not work out that way for the Israelites and people still became engulfed in sin and disregarded God’s law. Then our gospel begins with, “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned” (Matthew 9:36). Jesus became our New Covenant. When He looked out at the crowds (at the sinful children of God / at all of us), He was/is not enraged but filled with compassion for them. He didn’t seek revenge for us disobeying God’s first covenant, He sought redemption. Jesus doesn’t see our sins as our moral doom (despite how we may feel about our sins). He looks at our sins as our refusal to be what we were created to be; to take on the divine image of God. Our true identity is that made in the image of God, and our sins create for us a “false-identity” or an “egocentric-identity” that distance us from God’s love and our true selves. This means that our true self can only be found through the mercy of Christ and God’s forgiveness of our sins. As Paul writes, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God loves us even in our sin. He calls us to look in the mirror and see ourselves not with a face of shame but surrounded by a blanket of His grace. All the saint’s holiness was not because they lacked sin, but because they turned to God and focused on His mercy despite their sinfulness. Paul persecuted and killed the first Christians and, through God’s mercy, still became a great saint! While our sin is real and weighs us down greatly . . . to God we are still worth dying for.

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It’s hard to get where you’re going with bad directions. When I was younger, I used to have wrestling tournaments at random schools across the state. Lots of times these schools would be far away and in places we had never been before. So, Saturday morning my father would turn on the computer and go on “Maps” and print out a set of directions. One time, when I was likely 8 or 9 years old, I insisted that my father let me hold the directions and tell him when and where to make the next turns. This went how you think it went hahaha. It started with me telling him to turn right on a street that never came. Then it morphed into me lying and making up my own directions to try and correct the error. To my dismay, my father caught on to what was happening. Maybe the sweat coming from my forehead, the tremble in my voice, and me holding the paper tight to my chest was a dead giveaway? Eventually, he grabbed the paper from my hand and pulled over into a gas station to get help with the directions.

There are a lot of teachings in the Bible that I have yet to understand. When I come across these it’s easy to feel like God’s message is some puzzle or mystery to solve. Why would He do this? Why would He say that? I think there are two ways people approach these difficult topics. In one way we can disregard what we read and hear and inject our own thoughts in place of them. This can lead us down a bad spiritual path that is hard to get back from. Merton calls this “cherry picking”. We don’t like some things (maybe it’s infant baptism, or sacramental marriage, or confessing our sins) and so we disregard them and just stick to the stuff we are comfortable with and understand. The other way to approach teachings we don’t understand is simply this; don’t understand them. Our human understanding or agreement has nothing to do with the objective of God’s will. This week Jesus tells us, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (John 6:54). Despite where we are at in our understanding of the Eucharist, let us be assured that Jesus came with good directions. He wants us to know the Eucharist is the source of life and that if we are not in Him and He is not in us… we do not have eternal life. At mass when we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving the glorified body of Christ, the one that was resurrected, so that we the many also become one body to be raised up and live forever. As St Carlo Acutis taught us, may the Eucharist be “our highway to heaven”.

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I don’t remember much about 5^th grade, but I do remember some small things. My teacher’s name was Ms. Henderson, and we learned prime factorization in math class, and I was on the “Athletics” that year in little league. Now while I couldn’t tell you much from that year, I do have one memory from 5^th grade that I remember vividly. It was January of 2012, and Tim Tebow was leading the Denver Broncos at QB against the Steelers in the NFL wildcard playoff game. As a 10-year-old kid nobody in the world was more famous to me than Tim Tebow was. I can recall that year after every touchdown in the school yard we would all start “Tebowing” (look it up). Tebow was super famous for being the greatest college football player of all time (says me) and for his openness in using his platform to talk about his Christian faith and serving God. I remember during the 2009 National Championship he wore eye black inscribed with the words “John 3:16” that caught everyone’s attention. That wildcard playoff game was the first time I saw a playoff game go into overtime. On the first play in overtime, Tim threw a deep post across the field to Demaryius Thomas for a touchdown to win the game. It was one of the most electric plays I had ever seen and that still holds true today. I think the reason I remember that play so vividly is because of what I found out the next day in class. Our science teacher came over to all of us guys (we were recapping the previous night’s game) and told us something shocking. He said that Tim threw for 316 yards, had 31.6 yards per completion, rushed for 3.16 yards per attempt and that 31.6 million people watched the game. At first, I thought it was kind of cool the coincidence that all those numbers were similar, but then out teacher told us the crazy part. It was exactly 3 years to the day after Tim had worn the “John 3:16” eye black! When I made that connection, I was so shocked. I just kept thinking “wooooahhh what are the chances”! That day, (probably for the first time in my life) I grabbed a children’s bible off the shelf in the classroom and independently searched through it to find that verse.

Readings today’s gospel always overwhelms me with a sense of the Holy Spirit and a feeling of nostalgia. John 3:16 is the first Bible verse I ever memorized and is the beginning of my own personal inquiry into the Christian faith and learning who Jesus is. In fact, if I was to introduce Jesus to someone who had never heard of Him, I think this is what I might do. I would take them somewhere with the most breath-taking views (like the top of a skyscraper in a city, or at the edge of a long wooden pier along the bay at sunset). While looking over the beauty of this sight I would ask them to reflect on what they were seeing and say to them,

“Could all the wonders of the world be a lucky cosmic accident, or is there some creator, an intelligent mind, a God responsible for what we see? There was a man who lived just like us, who felt pain and struggle, who would hunger and thirst. and who would bleed and die. However, during His life He claimed to not just be a man, but to be God! Thankfully people witnessed and recorded all the wondrous things that He did and spoke. If you want to learn more about Him, open your heart and start with John 3:16”.

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The first time I ever experienced a campfire, I was 8 or 9 years old and went camping with my family. I loved sitting around the fire and feeling its warmth cut through the cold night air. Over the years, I have probably sat around a hundred campfires and every single one feels special. The smoky smell and sounds of the wood crackling is so blissful. The feeling I get around a campfire is the same as I get on the beach; calm. I feel so relaxed and mesmerized by the fire dancing in the air that I have no desire to scroll on my phone or watch TV. I will frequently think to myself “man forget a fancy house or car; this is all I need”. I could probably go on and on about how much I love campfires.

It’s no wonder that the Church associates fire with our celebration of Pentecost this Sunday. The Holy Spirit burns like a fire inside of us. Just like a fire, the Spirit can be stoked, fanned and spread all around us. I don’t think words can really describe the feelings the Holy Spirit can have over us. Kinda like a campfire; you just have to experience it to really understand how great it can make you feel. Recently, I heard a priest say that God’s mission is not just to bring you to heaven, but to bring heaven to earth. While earth is filled with all our sins, the Holy Spirit is what enables us to overcome sinfulness. When we finally stand up to a bully for someone, when we decide to stop hating a neighbor, or when we stop being greedy and become more generous . . . it’s the Holy Spirit working within us! When Jesus said for us to be peacemakers and to love thy neighbor and to give more, He knew in our sinfulness it is easier said than done. So, He breathed into us His own spirit so that we too may be blessed with the wisdom and strength to live a life as He did. I encourage you to think of the Holy Spirit as the best version of yourself. When we get depressed thinking about all the things we don’t like about ourselves, be comforted knowing that God is with us and offers His Holy Spirit as the fire to fuel the change.

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While I was playing sports growing up, my teammates and I (and our parents/families) were often tasked with ways to fundraise. The money from these fundraisers went to all the necessities of the team like buying equipment/uniforms, renting practice spaces and paying referees. My favorite fundraisers were always the bake sales. I can still smell the giant boxes of fresh Philly Soft Pretzels and trays of homemade brownies and cookies that would line our folding tables. (Hand-up, I also remember wishing that we wouldn’t sell out so I could have some for free at the end of the day, haha). In high school our football team raised money through door-to-door sales in our town. Local shops and restaurants would give us coupons to their businesses, and we would sell a book of those coupons for $20. We would all meet at the school to get our coupon books, throw on our jerseys, and hit the streets selling for an entire day. At first, I did not like knocking on doors. I thought it would be awkward trying to sell to strangers on their doorsteps, and I probably feared being rejected too. I remember it being annoying when solicitors used to knock on our door, and thought I’d be doing the same thing to other people. However, I quickly learned that selling those coupon books was super easy. Once people saw us in our jerseys they knew we were fundraising for the team and they were always happy to support us. Frequently people would even offer to buy multiple books. They would tell us stories about when they played football or when their kids played, and they would want to know about our team and how we were doing. Our jerseys let them know we weren’t just a group of kids trying to make some pocket money, but we were a team looking for their support.

Jesus’s departing message to us is “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Today we would call this “evangelization” which is spreading the news of Jesus so that others too may be filled with the Holy Spirit. To be honest, until recently talking about Jesus to others (let alone evangelizing) was not something I usually did. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to, but it used to make me feel uncomfortable (or more uncomfortable than it does now). That was until this past year when I heard a priest say something along the lines of, “if I sent a recording of you today to some random person in the world, would they know that you are a Christian?” When I heard this, I developed a new understanding about what Jesus means when He calls us to evangelize. I realized that you don’t have to become a priest, a deacon, an author, a podcaster, an influencer, or a religious teacher to evangelize. You don’t have to bring your friends and family to mass or preach in the streets. Evangelizing isn’t selling yourself; it’s showcasing how the wisdom and love of Christ can transform your life and others. Following His commandments won’t just help you strengthen your own relationship with Christ but draws others to Him as well. I learned that Christian life is not just about what we do, but how we do it. Did you do that good deed with kindness and sincerity? Did you lose your temper trying to help a friend? Christ wants us to know that the way we live (even when you think no one is watching) will be the greatest campaign for making disciples. Just like how our football jerseys attracted people because they showed them what team we represented, the way we live our lives will attract others to the faith we represent. Simply put, let us all strive to wake up every day and put on a jersey that reads Team Jesus; and let the Holy Spirit do the knocking!

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About 6 years ago, my brother, father and I built a raised garden bed for planting vegetables and flowers. The bed is built with two wide boards stacked on top of one another (to make the bed tall) and is about 8ft long and 4ft wide. On the back there are 2 vertical posts at the corners that are about 6ft tall. Across the top is horizontal post to span the gap. We screwed little eyelets into all the posts and ran strings through them in a checkered pattern to create a trellis. We filled the bed to the brim with compost and chopped down some nearby tree limbs to give it more sunlight. In the ground right next to the corner of the trellis we planted a grape vine that has now overtaken the trellis with its branches and produces wonderfully. We would water that bed every day in the summer and fertilize it every few weeks to ensure a plentiful harvest. Over the years we have had dozens of squashes and zucchinis, hundreds of tomatoes and zinnias, and even a few pumpkins (my favorite) come out of that bed. However, last summer we did not have a good harvest. I was confused because the plants had plenty of sunshine and water and did not have any diseases. However, after a few weeks all the plants stopped growing and by the late summer were dead. The only harvest we had was baskets of grapes from the grape vine which produced as usual. I asked my brother what he thought the problem was and he told me to check the soil. I went out into the garden and sunk my hands into the dirt. I was shocked when I pulled out my hands and they were practically clean. The soil had lost all its nutrients and felt like sand on the beach. After so many good harvests, the bed finally became depleted and all we had left was sandy soil. This year I will re-nourish it with fresh compost. I realized then why the grape vine never struggled. It wasn’t reliant on the soil in the bed, but was rooted in the ground where the abundance of nutrients was far greater and more reliable.

In this week’s readings there is a lot of references to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (The Holy Trinity). At the beginning of the gospel Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit saying, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth . . .” (John 14:16-17). Then soon after He says, “I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you” (John 14:20). Christ wants us to know that Him, His Father and the Holy Spirit (all together) are our one true God. He wants us to understand that we worship one God alone who “art in heaven” (the Father), and became man (the Son), and who became a spirit to dwell inside of us (the Holy Spirit). We worship one God in three persons!

To better understand The Holy Trinity, I like to think back on our garden bed. Jesus is our vine who supplies us (the branches) with an abundance of water and nutrients to flourish. We can try and root ourselves in our own “garden bed”, but will ultimately find ourselves in “sandy soil” longing to be fed by Jesus the vine. The Holy Spirit is our trellis who surrounds us and holds onto us and leads us towards more sunshine. Just how grape branches cannot climb without a trellis, we cannot journey up to heaven without following the wisdom and truth of the Holy Spirit. Now wait, aren’t I missing something?? Ahh yes how could I forget! I like to think God the Father is our gardener. He protects His vineyard from harm and “prunes” us to become more fruitful in hopes that we continually grow and join Him in heaven. This week, let us be assured that we are not meant to live distant from God, but that God lives within us. Although we may not see Him with our human eyes, may we feel His presence within our hearts. Let us pray that we stay close to our one true God, and may we grow in the garden of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

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It feels so good to have finally made it to May! If you know me then you know that summer is my favorite season and I can finally start to see it coming. During this time the beauty of the earth is coming to full display. The flowers will bloom, the trees will leaf, the oceans will warm, and the fireflies will shine at night (among many other beauties). Also, in the month of May, the Church emphasizes special devotion to Our Blessed Mother, Mary. I think it’s nice that we use the natural beauties of May as a reminder to admire the faithful beauties of Mary. One of the most admirable displays of faithfulness came when Mary said “Yes Lord” in response to the angel Gabriel’s message. She embodies humility and trust in God’s divine purpose for she believed in Jesus before she ever saw Him. Mary’s faith was in God alone . . . and for that she is beautiful!

This week’s readings challenge us to trust in God the same way that Mary does. In the gospel, Jesus begins by telling us that a ticket to heaven is not some lottery (and that our good deeds in life are not buying more chances in it), and that heaven is not some exclusive club that can sell-out. He says that there are many rooms in heaven, and that our room was purchased before we were even born! There is no battle here on earth to fight for a spot in heaven (like a seat on a crowded train), but our spot was already purchased for us while He was on the cross. We did not earn our room in heaven; it was a gift. Well then, how do we get to our room??? Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Woah!! He’s telling us that our entrance into heaven doesn’t care about what we accomplished in our lives. It doesn’t matter the job we work, the amount in our bank account, the number of followers we have, the clothes we wear, the trips we take, the house we live in, how much we weigh, or how much we workout. All the things we feel pressured to have in our earthly lives mean nothing to Him regarding our heavenly lives. Jesus is looking at our hearts. He wants to see that our faith is in Him, that our lives are seeking a relationship with Him, and that we acknowledge our sins and ask Him for forgiveness. Like some of the first disciples we read about this week, let us pray that all our lives be built on Christ. He is our firm foundation and our cornerstone. He is a rock that when we build our life upon it will never crumble. Amen!

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I absolutely love the imagery that is depicted to us in Jesus being the Good Shepherd. Over the course of the gospel, we hear about all the wondrous powers of Jesus. He turned water into wine, walked on water, fed the five thousand, gave sight to the blind, and even resurrected from the dead. Considering all His mighty powers, Jesus let us know that our relationship with Him is not like a king with servants, but that of a shepherd with sheep. Kings like Ceasar enslaved people and reduced the meaning in their lives. Contrarily, Jesus tells us, “I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). His power over us does not subject us . . . it leads us. Just as a shepherd tends to the needs of their sheep, Jesus will tend to our needs. He will feed us, protect us, and guide us to our next pasture. May we all embrace that we have been called to the flock of Jesus the Good Shepherd!

Side note:

(Why do we still have struggles if Jesus is our Good Shepherd? Think of some of your sufferings. Maybe you are bullied at school, abused at home, can’t afford to pay your bills, or grieving the loss of a loved one. Our instinct might be to say, “what kind of good shepherd would let this happen”? In the second reading, St Peter tells us to be patient in our sufferings because they draw us close to God. Let me try and put this into some perspective: it’s Christ’s suffering on the cross that draws us to Him, it pulls on our heart strings. Think about it, when we look at the crucifix how do we feel? We feel guilty and sad because the sinless Son of God had to unjustly die a brutal death. We think about how He came into the world and brought so much kindness and healing, and in return we still sinned and crucified Him. When we realize that He was willing to endure an undeserved death and immense physical pain for the sake of our lives, our hearts become certain that He loves us. This kind of love is a two-way street! Now in our own lives when we suffer for what is good, we our showing God how much we love Him. We affirm that we will not let our human suffering get in the way of our love for Him. We become Christ-like.)

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I always find it interesting and even a little funny the times that Jesus appears to His disciples and they don’t recognize him. It kind of reminds me of those videos you see online when someone reunites with their dog that they haven’t seen in a long time. Sometimes the dog won’t recognize them and after a minute or so (and some sniffing) the dog realizes who they are and freaks out with affection. The disciples on the road to Emmaus spent the whole day with Jesus before they realized who He was. They missed Jesus and were eager to encounter Him and little did they know they were with Him the whole time!

During this Easter season let us be reminded that God’s grace and mercy is not just a moment in history, but an everlasting wonder that we can experience each day in numerous ways unknown to us. In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus breathed the into us the Holy Spirit, and in this week’s reading He invites us to share in the Eucharist. While the dog above needed to see their owner’s face to feel their presence, we see Jesus’s presence in the Eucharist. He tells us we won’t draw near to him through our sight, but through our spirit; for the Spirit is our lens to face of Christ in the Eucharist. His face is now not on a human body, but a Eucharistic body! If we wait around all day for Jesus to show up in our living room, we are always going to be disappointed. Instead, He wants us to go to mass and receive Communion, and for us to make time to go to Adoration. I like to think of Communion/Adoration as the number to Jesus’s cellphone. Let us go and dial it!

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May all of you be comforted in the peace that the resurrected Jesus brought into our world! When I read today’s gospel I was reminded of a time when I was younger and playing football. During training camp, my teammate Paul got injured at practice. We helped him off the field and then he was taken to the hospital. After practice we heard nothing about his condition, and we all felt bummed not knowing if he would be able to play the rest of the season. He was one of our best players and we knew the team would struggle without him. The next day while we were in the locker room, Paul walked in wearing a giant leg brace. We found out that he had torn his ACL and would need surgery soon to fix it. I remember when he walked in, he was in such a better mood than I would have been. I would have been mad and depressed and jealous of everyone who was still able to play. However, Paul never left our team even though he couldn’t play. He showed up for every practice and never missed a game the whole season while going through rehab. Paul was great at making our team fun and keeping things light in the locker room, but just as good pumping us up during the game (all while on crutches). He never made any of us feel guilty, and despite his injury he returned to the team with a great positive spirit that helped us succeed.

I think Jesus’s reaction when he greets the disciples is similar. After going through immense betrayal and torment and then brutally crucified and killed on the cross, Jesus’s first words to His disciples aren’t “Hey guys why didn’t you help me?” or “This is all your fault!”. Jesus says, “Peace be with you”. Also, Jesus didn’t visit the disciples in some brand-new herculean body. The resurrected Jesus appears wounded and intentionally showing off the holes in his wrists. This is Jesus telling us to look at His wounds and know they were endured for us to bring peace into the world. Jesus came into our world and did so many wonderful things. Numerous times He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He taught us lessons in kindness and forgiveness. He showed us His divine nature and offered us an opportunity to join Him in His divine presence in heaven. And what did His creation do?? We mocked, betrayed and unjustly crucified Him. Despite all of this, the resurrected Jesus returns to us and let’s us know that He still cares about us and forgives us. This is Devine Mercy. He forgives us so much that He even breathes the breath of the Holy Spirit into his disciples so that they may spread the same breath of forgiveness to everyone throughout the world. Therefore, whenever you feel ashamed and completely defeated by your sins, God’s message on Devine Mercy Sunday tells us that there is nothing that we can do to Him to make Him stop loving us. “Give thanks to the LORD for He is good, His love is everlasting” (Psalm 118).

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How fitting it is that I begin this new writing venture in my life on the day in which we celebrate Jesus’s Resurrection that made the whole world new again. May everyone know that despite the darkness that exists in our world, on this Easter day we celebrate a new light that shines over us. A light that breaks every chain of discomfort, that overcomes all fear and anxiety, that rescues us from all our sins and leads us on a path to heaven to unite with our God for eternity. As Paul writes in our readings today, “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth” (Colossians 3:2). If our minds stay only focused on matters of this world, we will always be stressed and dissatisfied. On earth all good things come to an end, but in heaven we are promised a holy and blessed life for eternity! Nothing on earth compares to the happiness and peace we can receive in the eternal life. Let us all be like Mary and run to spread the good news that Jesus is alive! Happy Easter!

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