Bittersweet the Prayer of Jesus

                                  Sunrise Little Tonawanda Creek by Fr. Matt
                               

You know, there's something deeply moving about the words of a person who knows they're about to leave. Whether it's a parent on their deathbed, our son or daughter graduating from college, a soldier shipping out, or a friend moving across the country, the words spoken in those final moments carry a weight that ordinary conversation never does. We lean in closer. We listen more carefully. We remember.

 

That's exactly what we're given in today's Gospel from John chapter 17. Jesus is on the verge of his Passion. The cross looms before him. And what does he do? He prays. But not just any prayer. He prays for his disciples. He prays for those scruffy, stubborn, often-clueless men who had walked the dusty roads of Galilee with him for three years.

 

Now, I want you to think for a moment about the people in your own life who have loved you like this. The grandmother who prayed her rosary for you every single day. The father who worried about you when you made bad decisions but never stopped believing in you. The teacher who saw

something in you when you couldn't see it in yourself. The friend who stuck with you through your worst season. If you've ever experienced that kind of love, you've caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, of how Jesus loves us in this prayer. And if you've never felt that kind of love from another person, then know this: Jesus is praying it for you right now. You are not forgotten. You are not alone. You are held.

 

Think about what that means on your worst day. On those days that you would call "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days." On the day you get the diagnosis. On the day your marriage feels like it's falling apart. On the day you bury someone you love. On the day you feel completely lost

and don't know how you'll keep going. Even then, especially then, Jesus is praying for you. And look at what happened to those first disciples after Jesus ascended. They didn't immediately become spiritual superheroes.

 

Life is full of letting go,, isn't it? We let go of childhood. We let go of dreams that didn't work out. We let go of loved ones who pass on before us. We let go of seasons of life that we wish could have lasted longer. Every goodbye is a small death. And yet, in Christ, every goodbye is also a doorway

to something new. Jesus had to leave his disciples so that the Spirit could come. He had to ascend so that the Church could be born. The leaving was part of the love. And maybe, just maybe, the losses in our own lives

are not just losses. Maybe God is doing something new in the empty spaces.

 

So what do we do with all this? I think we do three things this week. First, we let ourselves be loved. Just sit with the truth that Jesus is praying for you, right now, by name. Don't argue with it. Don't deserve it. Just receive it.

 

Second, we pray for others the way Jesus prays for us. With tenderness. With patience. With a love that does not give up on people, even when they disappoint us.

 

And third, we trust. We trust that the same love that held those frightened disciples in the upper room is holding us now. We trust that resurrection follows every goodbye. We trust that nothing, not death, not life, not angels, not principalities, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ

Jesus our Lord.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that the prayer of Jesus echos in your heart this week. You are loved. You are remembered. You are not alone.

 

A Mother's Heart and the Spirit Within

 

 

You know, there are some words that just don't translate well from one language to another. You can try, but something always gets lost. That's exactly the case with one of the most beautiful words in the entire New Testament. In today's Gospel from John, Jesus promises his disciples something extraordinary. He says, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always." That word "Advocate" comes from the Greek word "parakletos." And honestly, no English word quite captures it.

Some translations call him the Comforter. Others call him the Helper. Still others, the Counselor or the Advocate. The truth is, "parakletos" means all of these things and more. It's the one who stands beside you when you can't stand on your own. The one who whispers courage when fear has stolen your voice. The one who steadies your trembling hands when life feels too heavy to carry.

Have you ever heard someone say, "I just can't cope anymore"? We all have moments like that, don't we? Moments when the burden feels too great, when the road ahead seems too long, when our own strength simply runs out. And this, my dear brothers and sisters, is precisely where the Holy Spirit enters in. The Paraclete is the One who enables us to cope. The One who takes our inadequacy and transforms it into capacity.

Think about what Jesus is really saying to his disciples in this passage. He's essentially telling them, "I'm sending you on a mission that's far too big for you. You'll face persecution. You'll face confusion. You'll face fear. But don't worry. You won't be alone. I'm sending you Someone who will guide you, who will strengthen you, who will make the impossible possible."

And notice where Jesus tells them to find this Spirit. He doesn't say, "Look up to the heavens." He doesn't say, "Climb a mountain." He says something far more intimate: "He remains with you, and will be in you." The Holy Spirit dwells within. He makes his home in our hearts. As Saint Augustine so beautifully wrote, "God is more intimate to me than I am to myself." That's the Holy Spirit. Closer to you than your own breath.

Now, today is Mother's Day. And I couldn't help but notice how perfectly fitting it is that we hear this Gospel on the very day we honor our mothers. Because if you really think about it, the work of a mother is in many ways a living image of the work of the Holy Spirit.

When you fell down on the playground as a child and scraped your knee, who did you run to? When you had a bad dream in the middle of the night, whose voice calmed your fears? When you came home from school in tears because someone had hurt your feelings, whose embrace made everything better? For most of us, it was our mother. She was our first comforter. Our first helper. Our first advocate.

Of course, no mother is perfect. Mothers are human like the rest of us, and some of us carry wounds from imperfect mothering. But more often than not, a mother's love is one of the closest reflections we have on this earth of what God's love looks like.

I came across a beautiful tribute that a son once wrote to his mother. He said something like this to her: "Your gentle guidance has shaped all that I have done, all that I do, and all that I will ever do. Your spirit is indelibly imprinted on all that I have been, all that I am, and all that I will ever be. When I help my neighbor, your helping hand is there too. When I ease the pain of a friend, they owe a debt to you. Because you gave me life, and more importantly, lessons in how to live, you are the wellspring from which flows all the good I may achieve."

Isn't that beautiful? The author recognizes that his mother's spirit is imprinted on everything he does. Her love flows through him into the world. Every kind word he speaks, every act of compassion he performs, carries her fingerprints upon it.

And you see, dear friends, this is exactly how the Holy Spirit works in us. When we open our hearts to him, he leaves his indelible imprint upon our souls. He gradually shapes our thoughts, our words, our actions. Slowly but surely, our lives begin to reflect his presence. Saint Paul describes the result of this transformation in his letter to the Galatians: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Notice that these are also the qualities of a good mother, aren't they? Love. Patience. Kindness. Gentleness. The Holy Spirit doesn't just give us these things as decorations on the outside. He plants them deep within us so that they grow naturally from the inside out.

So on this Mother's Day, I invite you to do two things. First, thank your mother, whether she is still with us in this world or watching over us from the next. Thank her for being, in her own imperfect but beautiful way, a reflection of the Spirit's work in your life. If she's still living, call her, visit her, embrace her. If she has gone home to the Lord, pray for her and remember her with gratitude.

And second, remember that you are never alone. Whatever you are facing this week, whatever burden weighs upon your shoulders, whatever fear keeps you awake at night, the Paraclete is with you. He is in you. He is the Comforter who wipes your tears. He is the Helper who steadies your steps. He is the Advocate who pleads your cause before the Father.

Jesus made us a promise in today's Gospel, and he keeps every promise he makes. "I will not leave you orphans," he said. And he hasn't. He has given us his Spirit, who dwells in our hearts, who guides our steps, who enables us to cope with whatever life brings.

May we, like good sons and daughters, listen to that Spirit's gentle voice. May we let him shape us until our lives become a tribute to him. And may every mother here today, and every mother who has shaped our lives, know that her love has been a living echo of the love of God himself.

Lord, I will continue to pray daily for all my Sonshine Friends. Vineyards and gardens provide time to enjoy nature’s silence, to listen to an inner voice from God communicating a simple message of love: “ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you”……

 

 

Fr. Matt's 49th Anniversary Ordination to the Priesthood

  

“I am the vine, you are the branches…Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”: (John 15:5). This is today’s gospel reading that fits perfectly on this special day.

May 6^th is the 49^th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood in the farming community of Caledonia, I knew very little about farming. This year, I have not yet planted any seeds in my garden because the soil is too cold and the ground too soggy with all the rains. Yet, I have worked over 70 hours preparing for this year’s growing season. In preparing for ministry, I spent 13 years in seminary preparing to work in 50 parishes, hospitals, colleges and reopened a decade closed Catholic parish to bear fruit again.

In the past month, this shepherd could not have completed any of his farm chores without the help and wisdom of my mentors. When the torrential rains created foot deep trenches that destroyed our driveway hill, Cam and Brad came to our rescue to repair the driveway. When I needed Norway Spruce trees, Doug provided seven healthy trees from his tree farm that had a root system weighing over a 100 pounds. After I rolled the trees into position and dug the seven holes, Mr. Milk brought his two young Mexican workers Mateo and Carlos to help plant the trees into the ground. When I needed mulch to spread around our 40 trees, another Doug provided a truckload of natural mulch. After I had spread 500 shovels of natural mulch around our serviceberry trees, my Mexicans helpers unloaded the remaining mulch into the compost bin. Thanks again to Denny for donating four hay bales where I will plant zucchini and cucumbers. However, the real tough job is making holes in those hay bale to put the soil and for this job Jamie let me borrow his reciprocating saw that did the trick but with a lot of sweat and tears.

Ministry demands this same commitment to bear fruit. Thanks to Bishop John, I am grateful to serve as mentor and counselor to 12 men who have been ordained as deacons and priests and look forward to the ordinations of Fathers Val and Steve in San Antonio in June. Or, ministry means helping Maggie, my neighbor, talk with customer service to help pay her phone and utility bills. Or, help find vendors to get quotes to replace her broken gutters and apply for a government grant that’s 20 pages long to qualify for funds to repair her home exterior.

You can’t bear much fruit, if your farm equipment is out of sorts. Thanks again to Jeff, Bethany Fire Chief and master farm mechanic and his son Jamie tuning up the tractor, mower and gator. However, I need to buy parts at the John Deere store to repair the bushhog.

I am humbled o continue to provide critical incident services as a first responder to bring comfort to coworkers who have suffered a trauma. This includes nurses at Rochester General Hospital coping after a visitor pointed a gun at the hospital staff and helping a teacher aide at Mary Cariola find Section 8 housing for her sister who was evicted by the landlord.

“That you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” To serve the Lord for 49 years is a humble privilege. I am grateful for the many blessings in my life that are gifts from God…especially the vineyards/gardens within my life that come in the form of friends and mentors who have helped me tend to the fields in my garden.

Lord, I will continue to pray daily for all my Sonshine Friends. Vineyards and gardens provide time to enjoy nature’s silence, to listen to an inner voice from God communicating a simple message of love: “ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you”……

Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled

  

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  Those words of Jesus, in the Gospel, for many people, are precisely that, troubling.  When you’re sharing your bad news; when you’re weighed down with fear and anxiety, when the depression is deep; when the evil behavior and attitudes of others are seemingly on the march where the wicked prosper, the greedy succeed, and the arrogant increase their power and influence… In the face of any of these things, when we’re reminded of Jesus’ words – “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” it can be troubling if we sense that those words are being, on some level, dismissive.  That we’re being told to pretend things are okay when they’re not.  Or if we allow lies born out of guilt and shame to say to ourselves, “Well, my faith must be too weak” because I’m troubled.  Or if we turn it on God, it becomes anger and indifference where we tell ourselves, “God must not care about me.”

 

In America, we are experiencing a war. In the past 4 short months, 13 service men and women have been killed, over 380 wounded in Operation Epic Fury that results in humiliation, resentment, distrust, and a global economic crisis. So let me share this story about love and sacrifice.

 

Love requires sacrifice is not a message we hear these days. St. Gianna Beretta Molla was an Italian saint who died in 1962 and whose feast day we celebrate on April 28, was a pediatrician, wife, and mother In 1954, she married Pietro Molla and in 1961, they had two daughters and a son, and Gianna was pregnant with her fourth child. During her pregnancy, she developed a fibroma, a benign tumor, on her uterus. Doctors gave her a choice to have an abortion, have a complete hysterectomy, or remove only the fibroma. Gianna, determined to save her unborn baby’s life, chose to remove only the fibroma. Her daughter was born healthy, but Gianna died from septic peritonitis a week later. Saving her daughter’s life, cost her own. She was canonized by Pope St John  Paul II in 2004.

As she once said: “Love and sacrifice are closely linked, like the sun and the light. We cannot have love without suffering, and we cannot suffer without love.”

We continue to struggle with troubling things, like war, the threat of violence, assassination, terrorism, sickness, death and fear of being locked up in an ICE detection center.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who live in fear of being deported, taken from their home and family. May they find strength and courage from the words oif Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” and know that God indeed listens to your prayers simply have faith in Him.

 

 

 

Sheep Lonely No More

 

   When Bob's best friend passed away, the farmer left him all alone in a field for months. This elderly sheep is nearly blind from cataracts. He must have felt so lonely. But now, he’s living in Star Gazing Farm Animal Sanctuary, and is being introduced to new sheep and other rescued farmed animals. Bob is lonely no more.

 

There’s a curious tradition in the Church during the fifty-day celebration of Our Lord’s resurrection. The first three Sundays in Easter always focus on the risen Christ. We see Jesus meeting the astonished women as they leave the empty tomb. We see him appearing to the disciples and “Doubting Thomas.” We see him being made known in the breaking of the bread to the travelers on the road to Emmaus. In the last three Sundays, the focus shifts to Jesus packing his bags and getting ready to return to the Father, making sure that his buddies are ready to receive the Holy Spirit, start the Christian Church, and generally carry on without his physical presence. But in that middle fourth Sunday, we hear about sheep.

Jesus says, “I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” The gate has two functions: it keeps the sheep in the sheepfold where they are safe, and it lets them out to the pasture where they can feed and have abundant life. 

Sheep farmers lovingly point out that sheep enjoy a long and well-deserved reputation for being some of the dumbest animals our good Lord ever created. They’re not particularly adroit at decision-making, so they depend on the shepherd (and often the sheep dogs) to move them from one pasture to another and into and out of the sheepfold. Sheep need to keep moving, and much of a shepherd’s work is managing this locomotion.

A sheep farmer shared when he and the son, attempted to return an errant sheep belonging to a neighbor’s flock. This critter had somehow managed to fall in with the farmer’s sheep. When he attempted to capture it, it ran from them just as Jesus said a sheep would. It didn’t know their voices. Eventually, this farmer managed to grab the outlaw sheep by the fleece while his son put a bag over its head. Blinded, the sheep forgot to keep running away and just laid down. Without vision, sheep don’t move.

Can you guess who we are in Jesus’ sheep metaphor? Yup. That’s right: we’re the sheep. We need vision, and we have to keep moving. The Church is always reforming. Jesus is always leading us to new pastures.

I like to share a vision for the Church. In the years ahead we’ll get away from giant, expensive buildings. Many of our clergy in the Polish Catholic Church are bi-vocational and do not depend on the Church as a source of income. We’ll stop emphasizing individual salvation and we won’t worry about going to Heaven. Our job will be to love and serve our neighbors and bring the Kingdom of Heaven here to Earth.

I am sensing something of a renaissance like Divine Mercy in Las Vegas.  They are getting out of the sheepfold and reaching out to the community with their public events. They are inviting outsiders to participate. Currently, they host an evening grief support group for men and women and thinking about developing a model of worship for Saturday night fellowship. They also are planning for the Feast of Gaudeloupe and want to invite families from the community to attend the services and enjoy a supper at no cost to anyone.

Our Good Shepherd is calling His sheep out of the comfort of the sheepfold and into newer pastures. Jesus is also calling each of us as individuals. We’re called to come to the Gate—either to enter the fold and be part of the flock, or to get out of our comfort zone and explore how our lives can better serve and give glory to God.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, that we hear the voice of our Good Shepherd  telling us to keep moving safely in the knowledge that He is our shepherd, and we shall not be in want.

 

 

How Does God Come to You

  

 

Last Sunday when I came home after attending the cathedral Polka Mass, my wife Sue could barely walk. She had severe pain in her right knee. On Monday, she called the doctor and in an hour she was being examined by Dr. Steve. I was praying up a storm that nothing was broken., He diagnosed that it appeared to be a severe strain of the ligaments but he ordered an Xray to be sure nothing was broken. During this past week, Sue iced her knee, took her pain meds. On the way to the airport, she texted her litter mate, she volunteers at the animal shelter and spoke this message: “I am feeling much better.” When she looked at her phone to see what it recorded, it read: “I am feeling smashed”:

 

Stupid cell phone, she’s not drunk, but feeling better. Sometimes things happen that don’t meet our expectation. That’s what happening in our gospel story about two disciples who are walking away from Jerusalem and heading back to their home in Emmaus. We find them having a conversation about what happened at the crucifixion and they are sadly disappointed and afraid that they might be next.

 

Then this stranger joins them on the road, and they invite him to travel along. They get a little sarcastic because when the stranger asks them “what’s up” their response is a little rude when they say: “Where have you been?”

 

The key words in their conversation was the phrase: “They had hoped.”

They had put their trust in Jesus being a great prophet and teacher that he would liberate the Jews from slavery, from the Roman oppression. Instead, Jesus was crucified and laid in a tomb. Perhaps, they feared for their own lives and wanted to get out of town become they would be killed for being followers of Jesus.

 

Then, this stranger explains the Scriptures, how the Messiah had to suffer and die and rise again. They are impressed by his words and invite him to their home that includes dinner and when he breaks the bread, somehow their eyes are open and they recognize Jesus, He is truly alive. And what do we hear, he disappears.

 

So what does the road to Emmaus have to teach us? On the journey of life, there are many ups and downs. Our emotions range from elation one day to despair the next. For example, our lives are full of expectations, the same expectations - mistaken as they may be - which the two disciples had. "They had hoped" that Jesus would be the one who would restore the rule to Israel. They were disappointed to realize that this was not to be. We too have many expectations for our own lives. As our lives progress, many of the expectations which we originally had remain unfulfilled. Our lives move on in directions which we would never have guessed, almost as if they were being guided by something that is beyond us. We can respond to this unexpected direction in either of two ways: the way that the disciples did, i.e., with disillusionment because our expectations have not been met, or with contentment, because we know that there is a greater force at work, a force in whose hands we will always be safe.

 

On Thursday, I was asked to provide support to employees whose coworker died over the weekend. Tersea came to share that she had worked with Laura for three years as her assistant. Laura was a case worker who worked with disabled adults. She was a compassionate worker, but over the weekend something happened and on Monday the supervisor pulls in her team and shares that Laura suddenly died. How, when, why, no one knows. Teresa is in shock and crying and very sad. Teresa is a caregiver of her 90 year-old dad.  She is exhausted providing meals, cleaning the house, taking him to doctor appointments. So I help her make a plan to get some relief, to help clean the house and suggest take time for herself to rest. She has a brother who she could call to stay with her dad while she gets away with some girlfriends. She always wanted to go to Branson , Kansas for the music festival.

 

So when our expectations are not met, our health goes sour, our jobs are exhausting, our anxiety is out of control because of the war in Ukraine and Iraq, or we fear deportation, or the high price of gas and food and we can’t pay our rent.

So how do we achieve this contentment, this feeling of safety in the midst of all the adversity which life throws at us? We can achieve this contentment by realizing that Christ has stayed with us, just as he did with the two disciples. When we feel overwhelmed by life, when we feel that we just can't go on, when we feel all alone, we need to realize that we are not alone, that Christ is still with us. In the depths of our despair, we need to realize that Christ has been there before us.

How does Christ come to you? Where have you found Jesus? Where do you expect to find Jesus? You may not recognize the Lord at first but keep looking all the same.

Consider the following story. On Friday, I started my day at 6:30am EST, I met the bishop at 1pm to catch our plane from Buffalo to Chicago. At 4pm we are sitting at the airport waiting for next plane connection to Vegas, and Bishop John pulls out a doggie bag in which he made beef sandwiches and chips. I get us some water and soda and we are munching our snacks. This is where I see God. We land in Vegas at 9pm and Bishop John is standing in line for half an hour at the Budget car rental counter, this is where I see God again. We arrive at the Santa Fe Hotel and Monica meets us with our room key with a big welcome hug. This is where I see God. Finally in our room, it’s 2:30 in the morning our time. I have been up for the past 18 hours and we are both hungry so we check our room and head back on the elevator to find some grub, We spot a sub shop in the hotel and I order a beef cheese sandwich for both of us to share and chips and take back to our room. It’s 3am and these sandwiches taste delicious since we were starving. This is where I see God.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that when our expectations lead us to despair we do not give up hope. For God walks with us in because we know that there is a greater force at work, a force that is God’s love in whose hands we will always be safe.

A Faith That Leads to Maturity

     

It’s something of a tradition that the gospel passage we get for Easter 2 is always this story of “Doubting Thomas (John 20:19-31). However, you can hardly blame Thomas for being a little skeptical. It’s not like people get raised from the dead every day!

Yes, poor Thomas looks like a doubting, faithless doofus in John’s gospel. He, therefore, stands in stark contrast to Peter, who looks like a doofus in all four gospels. I mean, how would you like it if the one thing everyone remembered about you was the fact you shot your big pie hole off about being faithful to Jesus even unto death, and then—the second things got a little uneasy—you denied you even knew the guy? And not once, but three times?

I’d hate to have been Good Friday Peter, wouldn’t you? The guy must’ve been feeling a boatload of emotions, and none of them were good. In a braggadocio moment the night before he swore he’d stand by Jesus even if he had to die for him. He was ready to draw his sword and do battle to protect his rabbi, but when the temple police slapped the cuffs on Jesus, Peter ran away like the others. Then he denied he was Jesus’ disciple. I don’t think this was calculated. I think fear just oozed out of him before he knew what he was saying. 

The gospels tell us Peter wept bitterly that night. I imagine him slumped in some dark, dirty corner of Jerusalem ally, his head between his knees, his body heaving with sobs. What were those tears about? Shame and self-loathing when a man sees himself as being weak and cowardly? Disgust at his own hypocrisy? Grief for the certain death of the friend, teacher, and leader whom he so dearly loved? Utter despair and disillusionment for the movement which promised to be about joy and liberation, but which has turned out to be about nothing at all?

But then came Easter. Peter encountered the risen Jesus and something in him was resurrected too. Peter became like an addict who has conquered addiction. Like a woman escaping an abusive partner. Like a hostage set free. In the power of Christ’s resurrection, he shed the demons of fear, shame, guilt, and self-doubt and became the rock Jesus had prophesied he’d become. He’d become a real adult—whatever his chronological age might’ve been at that moment.

It’s believed he eventually left Judea and Galilee to share the joy he found in Jesus around the Mediterranean world. His journey took him to Antioch in Syria, across the sea to Corinth in Greece, and finally to Rome. 

By the time the epistle we call 1 Peter was written (probably sometime in the late 90’s of the Common Era), Peter would be dead. It’s doubtful the Galilean fisherman could write in such sophisticated Greek, so the letter was probably composed by a disciple who had known Peter in Rome. 

The letter would’ve been written to that Roman church, and I’m sure that congregation could relate to Peter’s story. Some of them may have lived through the Great Fire of 64 CE and seen everything they owned destroyed. They may have known the terror of flaming death all around them with no place to run, escaping only by crawling through the sewer. They certainly knew the grief of losing beloved leaders as both Peter and Paul would be executed by the imperial authorities. They also knew disappointment as they waited for Jesus’ return and Jesus appeared to be taking his good, sweet time about coming back. Worst of all, they were living under persecution for their faith, marginalized and even criminalized for loving the Savior they’d never met in the flesh.

But through all of this, they received the outcome of their faith just as their leader Peter had done. Some may have been peasants, and some were even slaves, but they loved Jesus and knew Jesus loved them. In turn, they could love one another. They could rejoice even in their suffering because the earthly authorities which took Peter from them could not take away their baptism, their love, or their hope. 

What is the outcome of our faith? I like to think it’s real maturity—a maturity which leads us to be like those early Christians who so resonated with Peter’s story.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we are to be a community of love; forgiveness for ourselves and others; courage in the face of chaos, doubt, and uncertainty; selflessness; and, finally, peace. May your faith bring you to that peace, my friends.