How's Your Vision

  

There’s just so much I enjoy about the ninth chapter of John’s gospel. It’s rich in characters: a young man who has his life so radically changed that he can get snarky with the religious authorities, religious authorities who are so set in their ways they couldn’t recognize God’s actions if they bit them in the butt, a set of parents so afraid of ostracism they’re ready to throw their formerly disabled son under the bus, some bystanders who don’t believe in miracles even when they see one, and the usual clueless disciples. Also Jesus. 

Anytime I write or speak on John Chapter 9 I feel I have to reference the disciples’ classic question in verse 2: 

“Rabbi, who sinned—this man or his parent—that he was born blind?” 

The disciples have concluded that being born blind has to suck. Admittedly, blindness has its drawbacks. Being a sighted person, however, I may be making a judgment about something I don’t know anything about. If you’re born blind, it’s just part of who you are and how you roll. But, the disciples   think because this poor guy has to sit on the street corner with his Solo cup in hand asking for spare change that God must be mad at him or his folks for something. It must be comforting for the disciples—and for the rest of us, too—to think there’s a reason for everything. 

In this story the Pharisees are again cast in the role of the bad guys, and they really live up to it. In fact, I think their behavior here in John 9 is a quintessential example of what it is to be real dumb-assed jerks. 

So how do these Pharisees see the world? These guys have such a rigid world view that nothing can shake them. Jesus can’t be holy because a truly holy person would observe the Law of Moses and never do any kind of work on the Sabbath. Period. Forget compassion. Forget mercy. The law is the law, and they are its smug and self-righteous guardians.

This makes me ask: what absolutes might we believe? Every word of Scripture is divinely inspired and literally true. All abortion is wrong. There is but one true expression of the Christian faith. Male homosexuals are all pedophiles. Women are not as smart as men. Every American should have the right to own a firearm. My brother-in-law is selfish? Big business is out to screw you. Foreigners sponge off our country. Everybody should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Some people never change. Everything is their fault. 

Conservative or progressive, rich or poor, Black or white, we all have ideas in our heads which we think are unshakable. We think we see it all clearly, but maybe we don’t. And sometimes we just need to surrender. That’s what repentance is—changing our minds. Admitting there’s another way to look at things. Remember, the 18^th century ship captain John Newton once believed it was okay to transport Africans to the New World as slaves, but God opened his eyes to the truth. In return, Newton, who went blind in later life, wrote the poem which became the lyrics for “Amazing Grace:” 

“I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see.” 

Is there a place in your life open to mystery? Or a place in your heart open to change? Can you accept you might be wrong?

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that this Lent is meaningful and brings you a new vision. May you see differently as if looking through the eyes of Jesus.

 

A Woman Apostle

  

The Gospel Reading tells the story of a woman who is worthless by the standards of Jewish society at that time. Jesus has sent his disciples off for food, and he is sitting at a well when she comes to draw water. There is every reason why he shouldn’t talk to her at all.

What Jew or Samaritan would want to invite her to lunch?

First, she is a woman. The disciples are flabbergast at Jesus that keeps them from asking him what he thought he was doing when they return and find him talking to her without even a chaperone by her.

Secondly, she is a Samaritan. As she herself points out to him, Jews don’t talk to Samaritans. Samaritans are outcasts from the Jewish point of view, and self-respecting Jews stay away from them.

And, thirdly, this Samaritan has the sort of history that makes women pariahs even in their home communities. Jesus knows her status, and he lets her know he does. She has had five husbands—five husbands!—and she is currently living with a man to whom she is not married. Even by the lax standards of our own day, this sort of history would make people look askance at her. In her village she is undoubtedly a shamed person.

So, take it all and all, she’s a worthless person, isn’t she? What Jew or Samaritan would want to invite her to lunch?

But, you might be thinking, the savior of the world could certainly spare a crumb even for a shamed Samaritan woman. He could preach to her that her sins are forgiven, you might be supposing, or he could offer her some other kind of pastoral help.

But he doesn’t, does he? No, he asks her to help him. He opens the conversation with her by asking her to give him a drink.

And then look at how this story ends: she brings belief in Jesus to her village, and the villagers come to Jesus because of her.

She isn’t worthless then, is she? No, then she takes her rightful place among the apostles. The evangelization of her village is her accomplishment.

And so when Jesus asks her to care for him, he starts a process that brings her from being worthless to being the apostle to her village.

It was our Lord's belief in her innate goodness that changed her life. It was the love of Christ which changed a Samaritan woman with a checkered past into a future saint of the church.

My question to you today is this: are you an agent of transformation in the lives of others, or do you go around undermining, backbiting, gossiping and otherwise putting other people down.

We are challenged on a daily basis in our homes, in our work places and in our encounters with others throughout our daily lives to see them as Christ sees them: as men and women who are not perfect but in whom God has limitless love. Sometimes, we even need to see that in ourselves.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we act an agents of change to see the goodness of one another and help to bring out the best in one another.

 

Fr. Matt's 76th Birthday Homily-Listen to Jesus and Do Not Be Afraid

                                                           

Antelope Canyon, Arizona by Fr. Matt

There is something deeply human about the desire to capture a perfect moment. I have been learning about the secrets of winning a photo contest, and the lesson is striking: most of us drive to a breathtaking place like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, roll down the window, snap a quick shot on our phone, and drive away. We call it a tourist photo. The odds of winning a gold medal with that kind of effort? About one in a billion.

And then comes the harder truth. A photo judge reviewing 2,600 entries has only three seconds — three seconds — to look at each image and assign a score between one and ten. Three seconds to decide whether a photograph says something worth saying, or whether it is just another snapshot of a place everyone else has already photographed a thousand times before.

Now here we are, on the Second Sunday of Lent, and the Gospel places us on top of a mountain.  Six days after Jesus had spoken plainly about his coming suffering and death, he took Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. There, he was transfigured before them — his face shining like the sun, his clothes becoming white as light.

This is no tourist snapshot. This is the WOW moment. And it raises a serious question for all of us as we make our way through these forty days: what kind of Lent are we planning to live?

Because let's be honest with ourselves. Lent can feel a lot like that tourist photo. We examine our conscience, come up with something to give up — chocolate, a glass of wine, scrolling through our phones — and we hope we can survive forty days without going completely sideways. Habits are hard to break, especially the ones that are not good for us. And if we handed that Lenten practice to the Lord the way a photographer hands a tourist snapshot to a judge, what score do you think we would receive?

The WOW factor in photography, as it turns out, begins with planning. Before going to photograph Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona — a place photographed a billion times by tourists and professionals alike — the serious photographer does the homework first. You study what has already been done. You look for the image that would make someone stop, look twice, and say, "WOW." You plan your shot so that when the light hits just right, you are ready. You are not just pointing and hoping. You know what you are looking for.

Christ's Transfiguration aims at strengthening the apostles' faith in anticipation of his Passion: the ascent onto the "high mountain" prepares for the ascent to Calvary.

That is not accidental. Jesus did not simply wander up a mountain and happen to glow. This was deliberate, planned, purposeful. In other words, Jesus was planning ahead for his disciples. He knew what was coming — the arrest, the trial, the cross — and he wanted them to have something to hold onto when the darkness fell. He gave them a glimpse of the destination before asking them to walk the road.

Jesus was not putting on a show. He was equipping his closest friends with something they would need desperately in the days ahead — the memory of having seen the glory of God with their own eyes.

From the bright cloud came the voice of the Father: "This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him." When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, overcome with fear. But Jesus came up and touched them, saying, "Stand up, do not be afraid."

Notice what the disciples received on that mountain. Not a checklist. Not a set of rules. Two things: a command to listen, and a command not to be afraid. Those two instructions are the entire blueprint for a Lenten WOW factor. Listen to Jesus. And do not be afraid.

In this Transfiguration, the glory on the mountain was meant to carry the disciples through the agony in the garden. It was meant to carry them through Good Friday. It was the image they were meant to hold in their hearts when everything else looked like defeat.

And here is where the photo contest metaphor becomes something more than clever. The photographer who wins the gold medal is not the one who drove to the Grand Canyon and points a cell phone at it. The winner is the one who studied the light, planned the composition, arrived before dawn, waited patiently, and captured something nobody else had seen in quite that way. The winner is the one who was fully present, fully intentional, fully committed.

So what does a WOW factor Lent actually look like? It looks like planning. It looks like asking, honestly and prayerfully, where the Lord is calling you to make a real difference — not just in your own comfort level, but in the lives of actual people around you.

For me, it is reaching out to a family member struggling with dementia and their exhausted caregiver spouse, and not just offering sympathy, but rolling up your sleeves to find them real help — a medical team, a care plan, a safe place to live, a path forward. It might look like connecting my fire chief who has volunteers but no grant funding with someone who can teach him how to apply for what he needs. It might look like standing with our Latino brothers and sisters who are living in fear right now — not just feeling sad about it, but providing them with concrete, practical guidance to protect their rights and their dignity. It might look like protesting unjust policies, volunteering at an animal shelter, or simply helping a neighbor access medical or home care services they cannot navigate alone.

The divine voice commands us to listen to Jesus. But listening is more than hearing. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, building on the rock means not only hearing his words, but acting on them. Lent is not a season for better intentions. It is a season for becoming people who act on what we hear.

I have a good friend 83 years old whose spouse died in 2024, he shared that reading this reflection brought back the loneliness that he felt with the loss of his Rosemary but also the comfort of his family and friends who brought him through the pain and feeling of despair. He wrote: “I will never forget all the love and support I felt. It brought to mind the love and support he felt as a 9 year old when his dear mother died suddenly.  By the grace of God he survived. That is a wonderful feeling."

That hard walk is human life itself, marked by suffering, doubt, broken dreams, anxiety and loss. Without a glimpse of what lies ahead at the end of our striving, despair easily takes hold. And the nightly news gives us plenty of reasons for despair, doesn't it? Violence, injustice, corruption, people living in fear, communities being torn apart. It is precisely for moments like these that we return to the mountaintop. We return to the memory of the Transfiguration — not to escape the valley, but to find the courage to go back down into it.

The Transfiguration serves as a foretaste of the glorified state in heaven awaiting the faithful. It reminds us of our ultimate destiny — to share in the divine life and glory. The glory we glimpsed on that mountain is not just for Jesus. It is the destination to which he is leading all of us.

So what will be the focus of your WOW factor this Lent? What photograph of yourself are you going to hand to the Lord? What image of your life, your love, your service, will make him stop and say — WOW?

The three disciples fell to the ground in fear. But Jesus reached down and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Do not be afraid." Those words are for us too, right now. Whatever feels overwhelming — whatever injustice feels too large, whatever need feels too great, whatever cross feels too heavy — get up. Do not be afraid. You have seen the glory of the Lord. You know where this road leads.

Lord, I pray for all your people this Lent, that we will take the time to search our hearts for a plan that will truly make a difference — not just for ourselves, but for the people you have placed in our lives. Give us the wisdom to make of ourselves a picture that reflects your love and your compassion for all your people. May the light that shone on that mountaintop shine through us, into every dark corner of this world that needs it.

Listen to Jesus. And do not be afraid.

 

Be an Angel

                                            Frozen Rivendale Waterfalls by Fr Matt
  

Up to this point, Jesus has been a carpenter. I’m sure he had plenty of work to do. Now, however, he’s encountered John the Baptist, he’s been baptized, the Holy Spirit has descended upon him, and God’s voice has declared him God’s beloved son. Everything normal and familiar is gone, and the Spirit sends him out into the wilderness, away from everybody and with nothing to eat. 

How would you feel when everything familiar has slipped away? Here’s Jesus in a transitional stage. He’s left his old life. He’s got no one to talk to. He’s got nothing to eat. He’s in a desert and, as far as the eye can see, there’s nothing to look at. Was he frightened, do you think? Was he lonely? Did he feel confused? How would you feel? 

This is the moment when temptation always seems to strike. Whenever we feel we’ve lost something familiar—even if that thing was toxic to us—we become vulnerable. Maybe it was a bad behavior with alcohol or a drug. Maybe it was a job. Maybe it was your health or a favorite hobby you can’t do anymore. Maybe you’ve retired and are sitting at home wondering what to do with your time. Maybe your cognitive skills are waning with dementia and feel irritated and lost. Maybe your children have gone off to college or moved away and you no longer have the identity of being a parent and care-giver anymore. Maybe your spouse has died. At such moments the Devil loves to whisper stupid stuff in your ears. 

Every transition is a little death. It’s always tempting to dwell on what was lost instead of focusing on the possibilities of what may be ahead. Grief can take us into really frightening places, Or perhaps we’re ready to throw ourselves off the pinnacle of the temple. It may not be a temptation to suicide, but a great temptation to think because something that mattered has gone, nothing matters anymore. There may be the temptation to despair.

So here’s Jesus all alone in a wasteland facing the Devil by himself. But I take comfort in two things. First, that Jesus never was really alone. God was always there. In our times of confusion and temptation, Jesus has been where we are. Jesus has felt the loneliness, the emptiness, and the temptation just as we do. There’s no place we’ll go where he hasn’t been. 

The second thing which really jumps out at me is that angels were there to minister to the tempted. People would never have been able to beat their addiction if it hadn’t been for those in whom they confided, to whom they confess, and who were there to say, “Yeah, we’ve been there too.” 

I pray that God will put into our lives the people who need to be there, who will be understanding and supportive during our wilderness time. So often in my own life, in times of transition, I’ve been waited on by God’s messengers in human form. 

Our wilderness times can be challenging and frightening and leave us vulnerable to temptation. But God’s Word dwells within us, and God’s angels are never far away.

Do you know the legend of Saint Lawrence? He was a deacon in Rome back in the 3^rd century when the Emperor Valerian was persecuting Christians. Valerian liked to crucify and behead Christians. It was kind of his thing. Nevertheless, he’d heard of Lawrence’s charity to the poor, so he told the deacon he’s spare his life if he forked over the wealth of the church into his personal bank account. Lawrence agreed. He assembled before the emperor all the sick, the lame, the blind, and the destitute, and told Valerian, “These are the treasure of the church.” I suggest your “WOW for Lent:” might be a donation to support he poor in your community. May our hearts be with these treasures during this holy season.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that during this Season of Lent may we be angels to those in need our understanding and supportive to those people in their time of wilderness.

WOW Factor for Lent

  

  

 

Tourist photo Horseshoe Bend by Fr. Matt 

 

The “Wow Factor.” I am online learning the secrets to winning a photo contest. Let’s be honest, most of us will drive to an exotic location like the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. We get out of the car, point our cell phone somewhere in the distance, take the shot and get back in the car and drive away. The odds of w
inning a photo contest are like a mega ball lottery, one in a billion. Although you might get lucky.

Lent is like taking that tourist photo. We examine our conscience come up with something to give up for Lent like chocolate, drinking or smoking and hope we can survive the 40 days without going insane. Habits are hard to break, especially unhealthy habits.

One judge shared that he was given 2600 photos to review and rank each photo between 1 and 10.  We would like to think that he would take his time to examine each photo for composition, style and color. In reality it would take him days if he could take 10 minutes for each photo to judge. This judge has only “3 seconds” to look and score each photo. Really. He has only 3 seconds to assign a score for each photo between 1 and 10.

So here are faced with another Ash Wednesday, yes we have the sign of the cross placed on our foreheads as a sign of our willingness to do penance or make ourselves the best Christian we can be. Mostly likely we are going to choose a behavior like a tourist shot. If you gave your Lenten practice to the Lord, what do you think your score would be?

The Wow factor to win a gold medal in a photo contest starts first with “planning.” For example, before I went to Page, Arizona last year to photograph Horseshoe Bend that has been photograph a billion times by professionals and tourists, I went online to see what other images had been taken. Online, I click on google images “Fine Art Photo Horseshoe Bend” and instantly you will see what photos have been taken by tourists and professional photographers. You are looking for images that you would be proud to hand up in your living room. Better yet, you are planning your photo tour so when you arrive you have a better idea of the photo you want to take so when the judge reviews your photo they will say “WOW!”

So let’s think about what I am planning to do for Lent this year. I have a brother-in-law struggling with dementia and his caregiver spouse is exhausted and overwhelmed. I offered to find a dementia evaluation team to diagnose the exact cause of his dementia and provide her with a plan how best to care of her spouse now and in the future. Then there is my fire chief who is searching for funding to get needed updated fire equipment. He has volunteers to fire fires but no one to help him get grants to replaced old equipment. I offered to contact a grant writer from my former North Java Fire Department to help the chief learn how to apply for grant funding. Then I think about my brother Latino priests who are serving their Hispanic communities in fear of being deported. Once again, this requires planning but I contacted my brother Hispanic pastor and provided him with guidelines how to protect his Latino parishioners when threaten with deportation. The guidelines have been offered nationwide to all our Latino parishes. Sadly, I learned last night from a brother Latino pastor that a third parishioner has been kidnapped and flown out of state to an immigration prison camp without due process.

The Wow factor might mean you are protesting against immigrant prisons in your community, or you are volunteering at an animal shelter or you are helping a neighbor or family member connect with needed medical or home care services.

So what will be the focus of your “Wow Factor” this Lent?

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends this Lent that they will take the time and search in their hearts for a plan that will really make a difference in their life. Give us the wisdom to make a picture of ourselves that reflects your love and compassion for all your people.

                     WOW photo Horseshoe Bend, Page AZ by Fr. Matt

Valentine-In It to Win It

 

                                               Fr. Matt's Valentine Basket for Sue 
    

Last week’s Sonshine focused on “salt and light” as I shared things that things had been falling apart in our home and the many skilled friends who brought their light “ talents and skills” to make needed repairs. Last night another real scare. Sue and I smelled something smoldering in the house. We discovered that the electrical outlet that had our TV and tuner plugged in was burnt. No damage to the TV and tuner but a call goes out to Brad our Good Shepherd of builders and he calls Tucker his electrician to come to our home to repair the outlet. Lord, it’s a challenge to keep a home in good shape just like it’s a challenge to keep a marriage or relationship in good shape.

Love may be blind, but marriage is sure to restore your sight.

It may look like a fairy tale at the beginning, but eventually you realize that marriage is hard work, however old you are and however long you’ve been married. There is a moment in every marriage that makes or breaks the relationship. It might come early, or it might come late, and it might come multiple times—but it always comes.

That moment is when you have to decide whether you’re really “in it to win it.”

That means that when you see your spouse as a real human being, with flaws and imperfections (even ones that get on your nerves), you commit to making the marriage work no matter what. When bad financial times hit, or one of you has a health crisis, or attraction in the relationship is fading, or yours goals for the future are not in sync —you’re committed to making the marriage work, no matter what. Once you’re in it to win it, there is no taking back that commitment.

Saint Valentine sacrificed his life for young people to be able to make the lifelong commitment of marriage.

Valentine was a bishop in Rome when Emperor Claudius II made it illegal for young people to marry, believing it made the men worse soldiers. Actually, the emperor needed these young men to fight his wars. Valentine disobeyed the decree, and secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young couples. When he was discovered, Valentine was arrested and executed. 

Saint Valentine gave his life for the sake of marriage, even though he himself could never marry. He understood the sacred bond of marriage as a sacrament that joins two persons into one flesh. How would society look if we returned to treating marriage that way?

So, whether you’re married now, or in a relationship with your best friend maybe preparing to get married, or simply want to have marriage or relationship advice at the ready, remember this one question: Are you in it to win it?

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are blessed to have a friend, a partner or a spouse at their side. May you have the grace to accept each other’s uniqueness and be thankful for all their light and seasoning that enriches your life with love, forgiveness and compassion.

 

Anger

  

                                                Reviresco Sunrise by Fr. Matt

Pregnant nostrils. That's what the Old Testament Hebrew Jewish word for anger literally means, pregnant nostrils. Captures it pretty well, doesn't it? In Ephesians it says, "Be angry but do not sin. Don't make room for the devil." Anger can get us in a lot of trouble in a hurry, especially depending on how we express it. Now I know that anger is normal. "Be angry, but do not sin." And it assumes that we'll get angry. There's nothing wrong with anger by itself, anger is normal, and sometimes anger is justifiable.

I mean, most folks know the story of Jesus in the Gospel of John Chapter 2, where he walks into the temple and sees folks who are using the temple for their own personal gain and no interest in the things of God, just motive by pure greed. And Jesus got angry, aggressively so. He turns over the tables, drives out the profiteers, drives out the animals, means justifiable anger. Sometimes we call that righteous indignation. Anger over a senseless shooting. Anger at someone who harms children. But more often than not, our anger is not so pure, is it? There's usually a healthy dose of self-importance or selfishness at the core of our anger. It gets us in trouble, especially when we don't know how to express it well.

Will Rogers was right when he said, "People who fly into a rage seldom make a good landing." So let's look at a few indicators that anger may just be a killer in your life, because when anger is uncontrolled, unbridled, it can lead to more unholy moments than you could ever imagine. Maybe it's trifles. Do you get angry at things that seem small to other folks? Like folks who take a long time at red lights, or days when your chores aren't done just right, or unintended accidents like spilled coffee or flipped over soup, just flip your switch? Do they turn something over inside you that sets off a case of pregnant nostrils?

Or malignant grudges and resentment that are growing within you? Are you still keeping a list of all the people who've ever wronged you? Do you carry it with you everywhere you go? Do you remember every time you've ever felt wronged or anything that's unfair or unjust? That list gets awful long and awful heavy after a while. The funny thing about those grudges, they end up killing us far more than hurting the folks we're holding them against. Or maybe you've got a case of hostility. Are you always suspicious of other people's motives? Do you look for and expect the worst from other people? What happens when you hang on to belignant grudges and resentments long enough, pretty soon you don't trust or like anybody at all?

Or maybe you've got bitterness. That's what grudges and hostilities grow into when they're left unchecked long enough. But today I have good news. There is hope for anger. We don't have to live with resentment and grudges and hostility and bitterness. Hope comes in a single word, grace. The Lord is slow to anger. He's compassionate. Even when we anger Him, He treats us with mercy. He receives us with grace. He is loving toward all that He has made.

And hope comes in a second word, forgiveness. "You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call on you." Forgiveness and anger can't live together. I

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that in our moment of anger we say this prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt, faith, where there is despair, hope, where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.