Immaculate Conception Parish and St. Jude Mission Church | Fr. Jasper's Homily

Never Walk Alone

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 13:04:37 GMT

3rd Sunday of Easter 2026 - Never Walk Alone

On the modern road to Emmaus there is a Franciscan monastery that welcomes retreatants to spend some time in prayer and discernment.

It’s not far from Bethlehem or Nazareth. Allentown, too, is right down the highway.

Obviously, this particular Emmaus is in Pennsylvania, a different “holy land” from where our Lord and his disciples once walked.

According to the retreat master at this Emmaus monastery-retreat, the number one reason why he finds many travelers stop for a day or weekend of prayer these days?

Grief.

“People are just sad, broken and lost,” the friar said. “Everyone is seeking hope and healing.”

As Luke shares in today’s Gospel, there were two other disciples who once shared these same feelings of grief and brokenness: they were looking downcast as the “stranger” approached them to ask about the conversation they were sharing with one another.

We know, of course, that stranger was the Risen Christ. And we know they just didn’t recognize him on their journey … not yet, anyway.

We tend to skip over this part of Luke’s narrative in order to focus on the “really good” part of the story: the Lord Himself breaks open the Word and then breaks the bread in order to open the disciples’ downcast eyes and heart to the reality of His Resurrected Love.

This is key to understanding what authentic Christian discipleship is about: we must be fed by both Word and Sacrament in order to grow … in order to turn around and head back to Jerusalem, the Holy City that symbolizes both our union with God the Father as well as our hallowed place in the Church, Christ’s very Bride.

All of us know the destination.

What we sometimes forget, though, is that the road to get there is just as sacred as what awaits beyond the finish line.

Perhaps one of the greatest messages of this particular Resurrection story is simply this: don’t rush the Emmaus journey, especially in those moments when it is paved with tears:

Tears shed over losing a loved one who meant everything to us.

Tears at the death of a beloved career, at the end of an educational milestone, or at the completion of a task at which one worked under extremely challenging conditions.

Tears at past hurts, destroyed relationships and failed dreams. Tears shed over the present moment in which we are all living.

We need to grieve well, for as motivational speaker Earl Grollman reminds us: “Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”

And notice, that is exactly where Christ entered the story of Cleopas and his friend, two disciples grieving the loss of their Savior and all their misplaced hopes and dreams.

He didn’t rush them to the table to break bread or force them to turn back toward Jerusalem. Rather, he spent time walking with them, listening to their burdened hearts, and then – only then – did he share His own Heart: telling His Story (in Scripture) and feeding them with the bread of His Compassion, His Very Self.

Isn’t that what we are all called to do for one another?

Too often, we rush grief. We tell ourselves or others in a very well-meaning way: “Move on. It will get better. Be happy.”

Jesus didn’t do that here.

He just walked, listened, loved and gave of Himself when he knew His companions were ready to open their hearts. He stayed by their side as long as that journey took them.

And then, strengthened by that patient Love, they could make the U-turn back to Jerusalem: back to God and back to the Church.

Should that not be our call as well?

Shouldn’t we as disciples of the Risen One also walk with others on their own Emmaus journeys, offering a compassionate heart in which comfort is found and through which a gentle, Spirit-led nudge offered: a nudge back to praying with Scripture, back to receiving Eucharist, back to Church?

As Christ shows us, we can’t forget on this journey of grieving that we’ve been given beautiful tools of healing and hope … but we can only give what we ourselves have first come to believe.

“ Were not our hearts burning within us as he spoke along the way ” and broke bread with us?

When we ourselves have walked the Emmaus Road of Grief and been broken-open because of it, then – and only then – can we help others find the same loving God who hasn’t abandoned others’ downcast eyes and broken hearts.

We, too, can share Word and Sacrament in whatever way seems most appropriate along another’s journey …

A journey that may be slow-going. A journey that may meander and be filled with fits and starts.

But it is a journey in which Christ is a constant companion, and Resurrection lighting the way to hope and healing and holiness.

I’ll end this reflection by sharing the words of popular writer and speaker Brene Brown, a professor of social work at the University of Houston. When it comes to grief, she says this: “We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”

Emmaus reminds of us that.

Be a companion on another’s road. Travel gently. And always point the way to Resurrection Hopefulness.

Because I Love You

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:18:40 GMT

Divine Mercy Sunday Homily 2026 – Because I Love You

In an alcove along the side wall of Immaculate Conception Church in Elkton hangs a beautiful, nearly life-sized mosaic image of the Divine Mercy of Jesus, a “portrait” made of tiny tiles that come together to reveal the Love of the Risen Christ as shown to St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun of the early 1900s to whom the Lord revealed the depths of His merciful Love for the world.

At some point in my tenure here as pastor – I know not when it started – every time I pass the image I place my hand on the Sacred Heart from which the rays of mercy emanate and whisper the prayer,” Lord Jesus, hold us in Your Heart,” and then move my fingers to the little visible scar etched into the Hands of Christ and pray: “Heal our wounds in Yours.”

Besides the Mass, it may very well be the most important prayer I pray.

There’s something about the Heart and Wounds of Christ that keep calling out to us, and I believe the Gospel story of Thomas’ faith journey after the Crucifixion speaks to both the mystery and reality of our need for those very gifts in our lives as well.

I always believed “Doubting” Thomas received the disadvantage of an unfair nickname, like the third-grader eternally called “Klutz” for the one time he dropped the 32 birthday cupcakes down a flight of stairs or the high school girl called “the Ghost” because of her fair complexion. Thomas, in all fairness, didn’t doubt any more than the others did, and besides: who can blame him? Would you immediately accept the story told by others that the beloved rabbi whom you saw crucified was now appearing to your friends outside of tombs and along dusty roads leading away from Jerusalem?

So, no, I don’t think Thomas deserves the title we’ve saddled him with. But his journey does teach us an important lesson about a deeper conversion to the gift of Divine Mercy, one which all of us are invited to receive.

Thomas after Calvary was lost and broken, away from the others. That’s not a minor detail to the Resurrection account. He wasn’t out buying groceries or running some pointless errand while the others were locked in the room, afraid for their lives following the Crucifixion. Rather, Thomas chose not to stay with them. To which we must ask: why?

Now I don’t know for certain, but here’s a powerful insight I had as I was offering Bible Study during the Lenten season. The final time we hear from Thomas before Jesus is arrested in the Garden was in John’s Gospel when Thomas confidently claims before the others: “Let us go and die with him.” It was bold and brave. It was a zealous rallying cry of love that was willing to self-sacrifice for the One these disciples were clinging to as their hope for a true Messiah.

Except, when all is said and done, Thomas was nowhere to be found when Christ needed him on Calvary. In fact, Thomas did nothing to rally his brother-disciples to stay united to Jesus in the time of great upheaval and chaos. He who boldly proclaimed “Let’s do this!” instead slunk away like a coward. He couldn’t face them much less the Resurrected Savior they were claiming they now encountered.

Imagine being Thomas at this point, how broken his heart and conflicted his thoughts. He, like Peter and most of the others, has failed royally, and he too is burdened by shame. It is the voice that keeps playing over-and-over in his head: “I let God down. I let my team (disciples) down.” It is a voice that haunts one’s waking thoughts and becomes the echo in one’s nightmares, and it is exactly where Satan wants us to be – trapped by the should’ve and could’ve prison bars.

I know there have been times in my life where those voices of shame have chased me and weighed me down. I suspect most of us can say the same, as well. Why did I do what I did? Why did I fail as I have? Why couldn’t I keep the relationship alive? Why … why … why …???

The very same burden of guilt weighed heavy upon the shoulders of Thomas, too, and so he felt he wasn’t needed or wanted among the very ones he had arrogantly strutted in front of: “Let’s do this – let’s die for the Lord!”

To be a soul without a friend especially in time of sorrow and doubt is a loneliness beyond all telling.

And yet, look at the power of Resurrected love at work as seen in John’s account: As soon as Christ appears, what do the others do? They go find Thomas. They go forth with the Spirit of forgiveness to bring him back into their fold, their fellowship and their collective heart. They seek him out so that he can encounter the Resurrected Love of Christ.

The power of a community living in true Communion – in every sense of that word. Communion brings forgiveness and mercy. Communion brings others to touch the Heart and Wounds of Christ. Communion brings about the living and reconciling Church.

What is so striking about the vision of Church captured in the Acts of the Apostles is the fact that the early disciples “devoted” themselves to the teachings of the apostles, the breaking of bread and to prayer. That doesn’t mean they were perfect at it – but they never gave up in responding to the call of grace and mercy to bring the Church to life in the world. They stumbled and argued; they faltered and doubted. But they stayed together. They didn’t give-up on one another. They sought-out the lost and abandoned. They forgave and welcomed back the ones who walk away.

As Church, they looked for the Thomases of the world to bring them back into communion with the Resurrected Love of Christ. How can we do any less?

We mustn’t ever give up on bringing others – even ourselves – back to the Heart and the Wounds of Jesus Christ. It is commanded of us, and shame on us if we get too comfortable, too close-hearted and closed-gated. How can we live Eucharist if we aren’t becoming the Eucharistic presence for those who feel the most forsaken, forgotten and hated – as Thomas must have felt in the hours following Calvary. We must seek them out in order to bring them back.

For herein lies the power of Resurrection: when Thomas returned and Christ commanded him to place his finger in the side and wounds of God, he was no longer alone or isolated. He was set free and loved unconditionally. He was one-with: communion. Thomas was whole again, whole enough to cry-out: “My Lord and my God.”

Imagine how we can do that very thing for others who are starving for mercy and love that can only be found in Christ and through His Church.

His Mercy awaits both the Thomas who lives inside us as well as the Thomases who stumble through life in fear, self-hatredand shame. May we never be afraid to be the ones who reveal the Mercy of God: Lord, hold us in Your Heart and hide and heal our wounds in Yours.

A Church Shaped by Calvary

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:24:18 GMT

I recently led a 3-day parish mission for a small Catholic community located in the shadow of a once-thriving industrial center outside Philadelphia. The white clapboard church perched on the hillside overlooking Chester Creek harkens back to a simpler time when the world seemed less complicated and neighbor looked out for neighbor. Faith and hard work were valued then as were mutual respect and common courtesy. I can imagine most of us now would say we’ve lost a bit of that original ideal.

But maybe, then again, we haven’t. Not really.

Nearly a week later, I’m still trying to process a moment so simple and yet so beautifully-profound that it has now become the lens through which I’m choosing to celebrate not only Holy Week but ultimately how I envision the Church for which Christ poured out His entire life at Calvary.

At the 8 a.m. Sunday Mass last weekend — known for its no-frills, no-music atmosphere — a young man sat toward the front of the church, the large statue of the Holy Family casting a shadow over the pew where he and his family sat. It was clear that there were some physical and developmental challenges which shaped this parishioner’s life, and I noted from the start of Mass at just how attentive his family was to this man, and how engaged he was with the liturgy. That alone is notable for the attentive sincerity on display so early on a Sunday morning.

But where everything really changed for me was the moment after the Consecration when we stand to pray the Lord’s Prayer as one. With some effort, the young man rose to his feet and then, with a voice both loud and strong, began proclaiming along with the congregation, “Our Father, who art in heaven …”

I didn’t understand one word. No one did. His pace was slow; it didn’t match with anyone seated around him. In fact, there were points when he was the only one who could be heard. As a visiting priest, I was thrown off guard as I tried to process what was happening. It was a lot.

But this I knew: I was witnessing the purest love and purest prayer that I have ever been privileged to be a part of, coming from the heart of one who loves in a way most of us won’t know until we ourselves return Home to the One who created us. His love made me want to love God more than I do, and I can only imagine that this young man’s love was shaped by the cross he and his family carry in caring for him.

For me, that’s really what Holy Week is about: allowing the Cross of Jesus Christ — the Cross in which we all share — transform our lives and hearts in order to become a living witness of a love that chooses life over death and sacrifice over selfishness.

At every turn in this Holy Week drama, Jesus chose to love when everyone else chose to turn away, to run in fear, and to crucify with hatred and bitterness. God could have walked away from all of us at that moment, knowing that our hearts were hardened and we refused to accept the covenant He constantly and continuously held out to us.

He could have turned around and walked away. Instead, He chose the hard way of love. He chose Calvary. He said “yes” knowing that we could still refuse His offer.

He still fed betrayers with His very life. He chose forgiveness and mercy, and allowed those very things to be His “revenge.”

And still to this day we ask why. Why would God do this for us? Why would He choose to love us despite our sinfulness and our turning away? Why would He thirst for us knowing so many would reject such an offer of complete transformative love?

Because He still sees the best in us. Love formed from the lens of the Cross — in the shape of open arms – sees beyond the sin and selfishness, anger and hate, in order to keep calling us back to healing and hope, peace and purity. Calvary-love sees everything good and true and holy in us when we refuse to see it in ourselves or in others.

That’s why Holy Week matters. That’s why this entire week with its tales of betrayal and shouts for crucifixion is really about a love that cries out: “I see you for who you really are, and not for what Satan and the world claim you as being.”

Jesus sees us through the lens of mercy and challenges us to be that for the world. He calls us to be a Church that unites herself at the foot of His Cross, willing to become sacrificial love for the ones with whom we live and work and encounter in our daily lives.

The Passion Week is the week of choosing to say ‘yes’ to a love that isn’t easy, but instead dies-to-self in order that new life and new love can burst forth from the graves we often spend our lives digging.

The Church born at Calvary always calls forth resurrection, even in the humblest of ways.

And make no mistake: it’s still happening, these little moments of new life. I saw it with my own eyes — and heart — in that little church on the hill outside Philadelphia. Maybe for the first time in a long time I finally “got” what Church is supposed to be. It’s not about the administration or the fancy adult ed programs. It’s not about great liturgical music or even stirring homilies … although these things are certainly good.

Rather, it’s the moment when a young man carrying a heavy cross prays aloud to our Father in heaven, and the entire congregation around him lovingly and patiently waits for him to finish, even when the rest of us ended thirty seconds before him.

Church is a love that sacrifices for the other. It’s a love that walks beside and chooses to do so. It invites all, embracing everyone.

It’s a Church unafraid of the ways in which the Passion comes, knowing that Resurrection will always follow.

It’s a Church of Our Father, not just mine.

It’s a Church where a special young man reveals the Heart of God who will stop at nothing in order to love us and make us one in Him.

It’s a Church that chooses a love shaped by Calvary.

You’ve Got Me Feeling Emotions

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 12:32:55 GMT

I read somewhere once — and I don’t know if it’s true or not — that the shortest declarative sentence in all 4 Gospels is this: “And Jesus wept.”

We could spend the rest of our days meditating on that short sentence which holds everything within its very utterance.

And Jesus wept.

Here in John’s account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, we are told the reason Jesus weeps is out of love for the loss of his best friend, whom the grave has claimed.

What a powerful thought to know God wept when his best friend died. Think about what that’s really saying. God’s very Self feels sorrow and experiences a profound agony that came upon him even before Calvary did.

God suffers at the loss of Lazarus.

But it isn’t just Lazarus. After all, when all is said and done, we are all Lazarus — the best friend and beloved of the Lord. To know that God weeps when the grave claims my body is a comfort that words can’t quite capture. God weeps because it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Our sinfulness and disobedience to God’s will made it to be so.

But it’s not the only reason God weeps. Notice, too, that Jesus is weeping at the sight of Mary’s grief. She who mourns her brother with a wailing sorrow (as Scripture describes it) is seen and emotionally embraced by the One who cries with her, who feels what she feels.

What’s so awesome about our God is the very fact that He is willing to get right into the muck with us and feel what we feel. We have a Savior of whom we could never say: You just don’t understand. The truth is — He does, every single time.

One of the Connecticut parents who lost a daughter in the Sandy Hook school massacre writes frequently about what faith feels like after facing such an evil act, one that brought her and her husband to the depths of grief, despair and anger. It took time to begin to heal, she says, but the one thing that she clung to in the storm of such great loss was knowing that Jesus wept with her. “Although I can’t fathom it,” she writes, “Jesus wept even harder because he took on the pain of us all.”

Many preachers this weekend will no doubt focus on the resurrection aspect of this account: how it foreshadows Jesus’ own death and resurrection. It’s certainly true and an important theme upon which to meditate as we get closer to Easter. Death will come for each of us. We must make a choice whether or not to walk in the “light of day” so that we will be truly ready when our journey here ends. Do we want eternity with God? Do we want resurrection?

I pray that for each of us, our answer is one in which it cannot be said: “And Jesus wept.” Today — and every day — we are asked to make a choice either for the Lord or for those things which keep us from loving authentically and righteously, as Paul states in his letter. What will you choose — life or death? The spirit or the flesh?

Choosing life in the spirit, you could say, is an act of great courage, for doing so means one thing: picking up the Cross and following the Crucified One. It means dieing to self. And it means a willingness to show great mercy and compassion to others who suffer and mourn and weep.

When we follow the One who weeps for us, we share in his call to mourn with others, to love them in their Crosses. I can’t help but think that little resurrection moments come whenever we are willing to lift another up after having held their hearts and their pain in ours.

There’s a beautiful scene at the end of the Delco-based HBO drama Mare of Easttown in which the police investigator character of Kate Winslet literally sinks to the ground in heart-wrenching grief with her best friend whose son was just jailed by Kate’s character for murder. Even though Mare was told by her friend she wasn’t wanted, she stayed. Together they wept. And when her friend was ready, Mare lifted her up to stand again. A mini resurrection right in her own kitchen. All because one wept in Mercy with another who grieved.

With Holy Week only one week away and Lent quickly coming to a close, may we find great comfort and hope in the reality that Jesus loves us enough to weep over the very things that break our hearts and crush our spirits. He thirsts to roll back the stone of our decay in sin in order to untie us and set us free. He calls to us in our suffering and pain — in those very places where we feel dead — come out. Be untied.

May each of us, in our own unique way, be like Martha. Once a complainer, now a woman of such incredible faith and love that she never gave up on Christ’s promise that He would provide and raise up to new beginnings, even when it seemed impossible. “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah” whose will is perfect and always done to glorify God the Father.

Martha chose to follow the light of the world, even when surrounded by such great sorrow and darkness. She said yes, not always knowing the outcome. She clung to the One who thirsted for her heart to be all His.

I can’t help to think it’s due to the one moment that made all the difference for Martha and Mary:

“And Jesus wept.”

First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 12:25:32 GMT

For two summers in my early 20s, I worked as a counselor and aide at a Catholic-run group home for men with mental and physical disabilities, many of them quite severe. As these men got older, family visits were few and far between, mostly because their parents had died and siblings rarely came around.

There was one younger resident of the group home, however, whose mom came every week on Friday after work, taking the bus from Chester to Springfield. She was in her late 60s at that point, but looked twenty years older. Like clockwork, she arrived at dinner time for the residents and sat with her son, feeding him whatever soft-food concoction the kitchen staff made that evening. “Momma’s here,” she’d announce as she hugged the 40-year-old man confined to a wheelchair. By this point, Andy was non-verbal, nearly blind and in near-constant pain. Swallowing was difficult for him; personal care a challenge.

I would sit with Andy’s mom on occasion as she fed him, talking to him as she gently asked him to open his mouth for peas or mashed potatoes, his favorite. “Raising him wasn’t easy,” she said. “Everyone told me I was wrong for bringing Andy into the world. My sister-in-law even said to me more than once: ‘You got what you deserved.'”

I asked her what was meant by that. Looking at me intently, Andy’s mom said, “Let’s just say I didn’t live a virtuous life in my younger years. Multiple men. Lots of drugs. Andy was seen as my punishment from God.”

Can you imagine saying that to anyone?

John’s Gospel story this fourth week of Lent is another long and complex one, similar to that of the Samaritan woman at the well from last week. Themes of disability and sin, darkness and light, religious righteousness and excommunication are brought forth as the central question is asked: what does it mean to truly see?

What strikes me in a powerful way throughout this passage is the fact that all who were physically sighted (minus Jesus and the healed man) were actually quite blind in a number of ways:

The neighbors, upon seeing the man no longer blind and begging, asked each other if this was the same boy they knew all their lives. Most weren’t sure, quite frankly. How could it be that they spent years in the company of this man and never really saw him? Because he was considered “less than” or someone to be avoided, no one took the time to really see him and offer him dignity and respect. (How are we in such moments?)

The man’s parents, too, couldn’t even enjoy the miracle of their son’s healing because they were too afraid that their answer to the synagogue officials about Jesus’ healing power would result in their own excommunication. It might be fair to say here that they valued their own standing and reputation over that of living the truth. (How are we in such moments?)

And as for the Pharisees: they’re so easy to dislike, aren’t they? And yet, to be fair, they believed they were obediently following the Law of God, and doing so with precision and perfection would lead to righteousness. No unnecessary work was to be done on the Sabbath – it was the Lord’s Day, and God made that clear. Thus, the healing could have waited until the next day.

What the religious leaders failed to see, though, (pun intended)was the fact that the One who did the healing was actually the Lord of the Sabbath Himself – the very One who came in order that all of us may discover the ways in which we are called to cast-off the darkness of sin and live in the light of mercy and truth.

Time and again – and it has been a problem long after the Pharisees have come and gone – people (including religious leaders) have chosen to live in the darkness of their own hate and from their own misconceived notions of God. They expect a God who makes sinners pay – except when they themselves slip-up along the way. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

All three groups – the neighbors, parents and religious leaders – really are a wake-up call for us who follow Jesus and long to grow in relationship with Him and our faith. Although physically-sighted, they have become blind to the genuine Heart of God present and at work, loving and healing the very ones we think or believe shouldn’t or don’t deserve to be healed.

What Jesus is ultimately doing here is showing us the Face of the Father who loves us, especially in the places where sin has blinded us. The Lord always comes to the sinner (meaning all of us) in order to set us free of the chains that keep us tethered to darkness: the chains of self-righteousness and holier-than-thou attitudes; the chains of jealousy and envy; the chains of fear and of wanting others to pay for their mistakes.

“I got what I deserved. God is punishing me.”

The blind man in this Gospel … Andy’s Mom from modern-day Chester … have been told all their lives that their own sinfulness (or that of past generations) led to the suffering that they experienced, be it blindness or a disabled child. God gave you what you deserved.

But look at how beautiful and merciful Jesus responds to the disciples who pose the very question: “Who sinned to make that beggar blind?” Jesus turns their understanding (and ours) completely upside down: Blindness is not a punishment from God. The Father does not send disability as a “reward” for sinful behavior. That is not the ways of a Loving Parent. It is not God’s way.

While it is true that our sinful actions can (and often do) result in consequences that lead to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual harm for ourselves or others, God does not sit in His Heaven plotting ways to punish us for the wrongs we’ve done. Love, when it is authentic, course-corrects always from the space where mercy-and-justice combine to help and heal the one who has gone astray. Everything about God is about healing, never punishment for punishment’s sake. Jesus Christ willingly suffered and died at Calvary on our behalf so that Mercy has the last word, not revenge or anger or “justice” that aims to crush one’s spirit. That’s not God, because that’s not love.

Rather, our Father through Christ in the Spirit is One who loves us unconditionally and calls us back to the eternal forgiveness that He offers in Eucharist and Confession, and He reminds us that even the crosses we sometimes carry as a result of sin (our own or others’) can be used to reveal the true glory of God at work, saving us and calling us back to wholeness.

Isn’t it interesting that the sighted man who once was blind could see in his physical blindness what others could not see: that Jesus puts a relationship of healing and mercy as top priority, and that even the most wounded or challenging parts of our lives can be used by God to reveal His love and care for us. Meanwhile, those who should have seen that forgiveness and mercy are, in fact, the true living-out of the Sabbath in its fullness were blinded to the truth that God’s definition of justice for our sinful ways always involves a way back to Love and wholeness – a way back to Him – always.

I got the sense from my encounters with Andy’s Mom those two summers long ago that she came to understand this very thing.

“My family considered Andy a punishment,” she told me that night at dinner. “But he is my greatest gift. God didn’t punish me with him, and Andy’s challenges allow me and others who know him to love selflessly and authentically. Andy shows us who God is, and my boy taught me that I am worthy – even with all my past faults – to love and be loved. I am blessed.”

And Jesus said: “I came so that those who do not see might see, and those who [think they] see might become blind …” in order to really see as God does.

All through the lens of Mercy poured out on the Cross …

All Is Well

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 14:46:20 GMT

Of the many stories that have captured my heart over the years, this one stays with me:

Back in late 1990s, a freshman at a large suburban Los Angeles high school had decided one day in mid-November to pack-up his book bag at the end of the day and head home. At least that is what he told others he was doing should they ask why he seemed to be carrying every possession he owned on his back and in his arms.

The truth is: he had decided to check-out not only from school but from life. He was tired of all of it. He was done.

As he was crossing the large expanse of neatly-manicured athletic fields – unsure of where he would go next: maybe home? Maybe the bridge that crosses the aqueduct? – thefreshman was suddenly blindsided by the football team who wasrunning past him, practicing their drills. One player shoved him to the ground, his book bag and the sundry items cradled in his arms flying across the turf. Others laughed and mocked him as they ran past. In this moment, everything inside him was shattered: his pride, his heart, his dignity.

He truly had reached rock-bottom.

This high school freshman had much in common with the Samaritan woman who came to the well at noon to fetch water, the one Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel. The time mentioned – noon – is not a throw-away detail. In some ways, it says everything: no woman came in the blistering heat of the desert sun to gather water; that task was done in the early morning as the sun was rising. It was a social gathering spot for all the women of Samaria: they chatted about their families and frustrations; they gossiped and laughed.

This woman, however, was not a part of that. She always came alone. She was isolated and shunned. She had her own demons and struggles that kept her apart.

And it is exactly where the Lord met her … and he came there first. He waited there, knowing that she would be coming with a heavy heart and crushed spirit. And into that space, he asked for a drink of water.

Should he have? No. Jews and Samaritans didn’t engage for a variety of religious, political and social reasons, many of them based on past hurts and prejudices. Nevertheless, Jesus was not afraid to break that taboo because he knew that one’s heart being healed was much more important than a religious custom being followed. He knew that she needed God – even though she herself didn’t know it – and so he asked her for water.

She questioned and challenged this man, of course. Who does he think he is? What is this water that he keeps talking about? Doesn’t he know that she thinks his religious beliefs are stupid and wrong, often both at once? He didn’t care: all he wanted was her heart. And so, he kept asking if she would accept that which was “living” and flowing from him.

Her response is telling: “Please, sir, give me this water so I don’t have to keep coming back here again.”

This was more than the woman turning Jesus into the local public water supply company. She was not asking for a convenient water-gathering system. Rather, her heart was expressing the depth of pain she was carrying around that no one else could see: “I don’t want to keep coming to the place where I feel so alone and abandoned; the place where I come at noon because I am shamed and hated and ignored.” In that moment at the well, His heart cradled her broken heart and began the healing process in order to set her free to run.

First, he asked her for her complete honesty: to turn over to him anything and everything that was weighing her down, including – and most especially – her broken and messy relationships. Yes, it can come across rather harshly that the Lord is calling her out on her 5 past husbands, but he was not doing this to embarrass her: he was doing it so that she could honestly bring to him the very things that chained her to shame. And give her credit: she was honest with him. She shared her truth and her pain.

Isn’t that exactly where the Lord meets us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation?

And once this grace came to her alongside the well of her brokenness, she left all of her past sin and shame behind and went running with joy, symbolized by the bucket she left behind. One can’t soar if one is weighed down to the past or to sin. One can’t find resurrection and new life if one isn’t given the freedom to move forward untethered.

Back in Los Angeles, that freshman who struggled to get-up from the ground that afternoon, who was shamed and broken in every way possible, suddenly had a moment in which another football player – a different one from the shover and themockers — came to the spot where he lay, offered his hand and lifted him up, not only putting him back on his feet but also beginning to heal him with these words: “I’m sorry that happened to you. We’re not all like that jerk who shoved you. You’ll be okay, I promise.” Then, very quietly, that player trotted back to the line where his teammates continued to practice.

Something right then shifted in the wounded heart of that 14-year-old. He felt seen. He felt respected. He was no longer lost. Someone came to his well and rescued him with the simple act of an outstretched hand and gentle word.

Four years later, that same freshman was now a graduating senior, and was standing before hundreds of his peers and their families as valedictorian of the high school he had once hated. To them, according to the account of that day, he stated: “I shouldn’t be here right now. Four years ago, I was ready to check-out of life, and was truly at my lowest when one act of humble, simple love met me and lifted me up. One brave football player unafraid to step-out of the crowd saw my pain and rescued me. From that moment on, I knew my life’s mission – to do the very same.”

That mission is the very same for us, too, as disciples of Jesus Christ. Like the unnamed LA football player and the Samaritan woman who went running from the well, we too must go into the hearts and lives of those who are hungry for God’s mercy, many of them unaware of what it is they really seek. We mustn’t be afraid to run to the very ones who often have shown us hatred or who have caused us hurt, even if that “running” to them is offered as a prayer that they find God and the healing they need. There all, after all, many ways to run from the well and bring new life in God’s Name.

Almost thirty years later, I sometimes wonder whenever I retell this story whatever happened to that LA freshman. What became of him? Has he spent his life meeting others at the wells of their brokenness? It is, after all, not an impossible task: we already have been given the Living Water in the One who gives us all we need from the Cross, from this Altar and from His Merciful Heart. Like the Samaritan woman, let’s go running! There’s an entire town and university awaiting us.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 14:09:10 GMT

Jesus helps me not to be afraid.

Well, not fully. I am not quite there. But He’s working on me.

I had a friend in high school who was so adventurous – nothing stopped him. There were roller coasters to ride, the loopier the better. There were cars waiting to be driven fast along the winding backroads of Valley Forge. Sky-diving and rock-climbing were on his list of things to do before he turned 18. He lived his life boldly and sometimes recklessly. Fear was not in his vocabulary.

And yet, it was my middle name. I would have wanted beyond a shadow of a doubt to live in the shade of Peter’s tent.

I really do love Peter: I am he in so many ways. He means well, doesn’t he? He loves this Jesus who he can’t quite figure out half the time. He says something so beautifully holy one minute; the next minute he’s telling Jesus what to do. (I think I tell God what He should do at least ten times a day!) He is a man of action, but action that is often based on what Peter needs for himself, not what God wants for Peter.

Thus, the tents come out.

Something beautiful happened on the Mount of Transfiguration that day. To explain it would take a lifetime, and even then we’d only scratch the surface. But it is enough to say that our Lord in his great Love wanted to share his divinity and glory with the disciples who would soon see him dying on a Cross. He wanted this one mountain to prepare them for the next mountain to come, that of Calvary.

And lest we forget, Peter and the others knew that Jesus at this point had spoken of his pending death. They wanted no parts of that.

They also knew that the world from which they just climbed – the one they momentarily left behind – was one filled with sickness, pain, hatred, evil, the possessed and the unloved. It had to exhaust them. Heck, it exhausts us …

So, it makes total sense for Peter to want to build tents: yes, to honor this moment where Jesus becomes an indescribable radiant light in front of their very eyes, as well as to recall the beyond-the-grave return of their two holy heroes, Moses and Elijah. The Law and the Prophets right there chatting with their rabbi.

Who wouldn’t want to stay forever? No worries. No anxiety. No messy world. No fear.

No fear. “Let’s build tents,” Peter says, “so we can stay here.” So we keep Jesus as a permanent Holy Glow: something safe and warm. Something that really doesn’t challenge us.

But then – as Peter is babbling – the Voice breaks in: “Listen to him.” Listen.

I haven’t. We often don’t. Because if we did, imagine how we’d be living. He tells me not to sin – I don’t listen. Forgive – I don’t. Serve the least – I serve myself. Feed and clothe the least – but Boscov’s awaits me …

The Voice that commands us to listen also says to each of us: Follow. And not just follow in some easy, breezy sort of way. Follow this Beloved Son all the way to the Cross.

Yes, it’s easier to stay safe on a mountaintop in the shade of a religious memorial tent. But, Jesus challenges us otherwise: climb back down the mountain. There’s work to be done for Him and with Him. We can’t stay here.

That’s why I truly love what happens at the end of the Mass. Each of us receives Christ Himself in Eucharist, and while He is still truly present within us – literally – we are blessed and sent forth to serve the very people and situations for which God poured-out His Life at Calvary. Transfiguration moments should strengthen us to want to return to the good fight, not stay safe under a tent where we only bask in a holy glow.

I often ponder what that descent was like as the disciples followed Jesus down that mountain and back to the village, where the suffering and possessed awaited them. Were they afraid of what was coming next? Where they still basking in the mountaintop experience? Did they know what really awaited the One they were following?

Ultimately, Scripture is silent on this. But we do know that the minute they descended, they were faced with needs and hungers and pains that cried out for compassion and understanding and love. I can’t help but think they were better equipped now to enter into the lives of those who really needed them, disciples who were willing to roll-up their sleeves and serve, not stay safe under tents of their own safe making.

Disciples who were willing to go to the Garden of Agony with their beloved Lord and come as close as their faith and courage allowed to the foot of Christ’s Cross. Yes, Peter and James ran away in fear, but maybe – just maybe – they remembered the Transfiguration moment and were willing to come back to the Crucified and Resurrected One, seeking mercy and forgiveness. Willing to try again.

We are called, of course, to do the same. In a half-hour’s time, we will return down the mountain to the places where others suffer – our relatives, friends and even strangers. With the Presence of Christ in us leading the way, we follow Him into the hearts and the crosses of all those who need Him. We don’t have to do it all, nor are we the saviors of them. Christ alone does it all.

But He does ask us to take down the tents of our own safe making and be willing to go the Calvary we find wherever the roads take us after Mass. “Go the land I will show you,” the Lord said to Abram (in our first reading), “and I will bless you and make of you a great nation.”

He has done exactly what He promised. That great nation is that of his own Jewish brothers and sisters. And it is also His Church – one, holy, catholic and apostolic. It is a flawed but divinely-inspired Church filled with saints and sinners who struggle and fall but rise again with His grace to feed and shelter, listen and forgive, love and sacrifice. She is a Church – a Bride – that stands at the Calvary of every one of us who cry out for God, who recognize we are all in need of a Savior. A Church that says that no matter how bad it is, we (the Body of Christ) will never abandon you.

This Body of Christ tells us: We will face our fears together. We refuse to stay safe in tents. We will come down the mountain and walk with you as you face your own Calvary. We will love you in it all. We will not leave. And we will not be afraid.

Better yet: the Beloved Son will help us face our fears in order to love as He does … all the way to the Cross.

If

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:51:53 GMT

I could hear the desert in her voice.

She told me she was quickly approaching her 90s, having spent a lifetime caring for an alcoholic husband. “I thank God,” she said, “that his disease really only manifested itself in depression and little bursts of anger from time to time.” Now he’s slowly slipping away as a result of Alzheimer’s. She’s left to care for him on her own; her children never come anymore. Too busy. Too angry. No faith.

She tired and scared, she admitted. “If I were a better wife and mother, we’d all be in a better place.”

If. The word Satan loves the most.

In the desert, he tells Jesus: If you are the Son of God, you’ll turn rocks into bread, jump and be caught, bow-down in order to be worshipped.

If – meaning: prove it, because I don’t think you’ve got what it takes.

How many times have we spoken to ourselves, or have had others speak to that insecure space that lives inside each of us: “If you really loved me, you’d (fill-in-the-blank).” “If I were a better person, spouse, student, I’d (fill-in-the-bank).” “If I was only better-looking, richer, had more power, I would be able to …”

If.

Satan knows exactly when to throw the “if’s” at us. He did the same to Jesus. They always come when we are exhausted, scared, or at the end of our rope. Notice that Satan waited to manifest the “ifs” to Christ when he was nearing the end of the desert-journey, not at the beginning.

When we entertain the “ifs” too long – and when we let Satan keep whispering the ifs into our lives – then we run the risk of allowing the ifs to become sins.

If I wasn’t so lonely … but I am, so I will turn to mindless hours of scrolling or pornography.

If I wasn’t so sick … but I am, so I will complain and be bitter and take it out on my loved ones.

If I wasn’t struggling financially … but I am, so I will lie and cheat and do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Perhaps the whole point of this First Sunday of Lent – maybe even the entire journey of Lent – is to allow our deserts to change us from living in the constant “ifs” to fighting back with the “get aways.” It is the last word Jesus spoke into the desert: “Get away, Satan.”

Because He went to the desert for us – experienced the very desert moments and the “ifs” that we ourselves would face on our journeys – Jesus showed us how to fight back.

The ifs have no power when we send Satan packing. Truly, the gift of Lent – and the time we spend in the desert of these 40 days – is meant to be the way grace and the Holy Spirit transform our desires to live in sin and run from God into the means by which we stand-up to the forces of evil that long to drag us away from healing and hope, light and love.

We fight back when we spend time in the Word. We fight back when we make the effort to pray daily. We fight the “ifs” when we go to receive the Lord’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Jesus equips us with everything we need to speak into the lies of Satan. What Adam and Eve wouldn’t do in the Garden, we must say (and say often) in the desert: “Get away, Satan.”

Many years back, I met a young father raising quite a few young children. By all accounts, he seemed happily married and successful in his line of work. He coached Little League for his oldest; drove his youngest to her weekend dance recitals. “Everybody’s ready to nominate me for ‘Man of the Year,’” he said, “but there’s one problem: I’m a train wreck inside.”

As he revealed his heart, he shared that he had been unfaithful and selfish. He worked too much and put wealth above all else. He was judgmental and hateful – always stuck in his own head. He put on masks of having it all together, but in the depths of reality he lived in the ‘ifs’. Satan fought hard to make him lose his way in the desert, and he nearly won countless times.

I asked this Dad why he keeps fighting, why he doesn’t just give-in to the “ifs” of Satan. He answered by pointing to the crucifix that hung on the wall behind where I was sitting. “His Love there [on the Cross] makes me not give-in or give-up.”

And thus, the final piece of understanding the fight in the desert: No matter how rough or long the journey; no matter how many “ifs” Satan throws at us – Christ has already won the battle on our behalf. We win because He went there for us.

The desert prepared Jesus for the ultimate battle, and it was a battle of love: a battle to break the chains of sin and death; a battle to conquer all the ‘ifs’ that speak lies into our lives. God Himself faced the temptations we face so that He could show us that the desert doesn’t end in defeat. With Him, it ends in Resurrection and new life. Always.

But we have to be willing to go there with Him. Into the desert. Up the road to Calvary. When we go, He is already there beside us, and we find victory in Him. Satan may want us to live in our shame, but Christ will always lead us to the healing that comes when we are willing to fight back in the desert and come to the Cross, which is Love and Mercy itself.

As we begin Lent, don’t be afraid of the desert. The ifs can’t hurt us, especially when we have our battle plan: The Word and Eucharist; prayer; Confession; the intercession of Mary, the saints and this faith community.

Speak back to the “ifs” with the “Get away, Satan” tools we’ve been given: the sign of the Cross; the words of absolution; the willingness to offer our deserts and crosses to be united to His, the One where we find hope and truth – a way forward.

This Lent can be a powerful time to put the ifs to rest forever, to lay them at the Cross. Speak back to the lies of shame by coming to Confession and to Mass. The desert can actually be the beginning of incredible healing if we are willing to enter it with Jesus. Let Him lead and heal as you go.

For that sweet 90-year-old woman who lives the Cross of a family torn-apart as well as for that father who lived hidden lies for so long, they responded to the grace God gave each of them to turn away from the ifs and use their voice to proclaim: “Get away, Satan. You’ll never win.”

Love already has – on the Cross. And his name is Jesus Christ.

Allow that Love to transform your “ifs.”

No One Ever Told Me

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 16:40:48 GMT

“No one ever told me.”

From the other side of the Confessional screen at a parish not in this diocese, these were the words I heard and will never forget:

“No one ever told me that what I was doing was destroying bothmyself and other people.”

What was it that this gentleman was doing?

He had spent decades looking at images that caused his heart to harden … that turned women into nothing but objects to be used by him … that made him live-out love in a very broken way.

He was addicted to pornography, and he lived his daily life in a haze of lust.

When he was a teen, his father never saw a problem with it or told him of its dangers. Neither did Hollywood or Heffner or the Internet.

And yet, Jesus was very clear in today’s Gospel, and it’s a side of Christ we don’t often see – the One who makes it clear that He calls us to a higher-standard:

“Everyone who looks at another person with lust has already committed adultery in his or her heart.”

Any time any of us turns another person into an object to be used to our own advantage or for our own pleasure, we need to re-examine how we are travelling through life.

Quite frankly, fallen human nature being what it is – and Satan always being on the prowl – we are all tempted to destroy the inherent goodness and dignity of other human beings.

So if we are lonely or frustrated or stressed, we turn to images that cheapen both the viewer and the ones being viewed.

If we don’t like where another stands politically, we destroy them on social media.

If we have been slighted by another person, we ignore them … spread gossip about them … refuse to forgive them. Swear to both God and others that we are right and the other person is wrong without ever really looking at our own inner-motives.

And Christ is reminding us:

You’re better than this. Please don’t give in to the ways in which the world tells you that you’re free .

Because truth be told, all these “Catholic Church rules” that we hate or complain about? The rules and commandments that we think are keeping us chained to archaic ways of living? They aren’t just about NOT doing something so we don’t end up in hell: (Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal or lie or what have you.)

Rather, they are really calling us to something greater: a greater dignity and a greater freedom that the human person has been created to possess – SO THAT WE DON’T CREATE HELL RIGHT WHERE WE FIND OURSELVES NOW.

God is reminding us: You are greater than the Evil One makes you out to be. You are greater than the negative recording that keeps playing over and over in your heart and mind and soul: that you are no good. That you need to use others to find self-satisfaction. That the only way you win is by putting others down.

When we live this way, hell starts right where we are standing.

Are you … am I … living in a suburb of hell right now by our actions or our words? Are we purposely fooling ourselves into thinking that we know better than God?

THIS is the wisdom that Paul talks about in his letter to the Corinthians. He calls it a mature wisdom … a wisdom that the Father reveals through the Spirit:

True human dignity is found only when we trust in God and choose to follow His ways, not just our own.

Our Lord and His Church wants us to be truly free, not slaves to our passions, our hatreds and our selfishness.

It will take work, of course. Freedom doesn’t come easily. But we must not forget that Someone already paid the price for our freedom. Jesus Christ died so that we might truly live.

Live in truth. Love authentically.

That’s really all the Commandments are about. Not to keep us down … but to raise us up to where we are called to be.

If you are stuck right now: if lust or lying or gossip or hate has you heavily-burdened, please don’t think that this is where you have to stay.

Come back to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Give your fears and struggles to our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament today at Mass. Tell that liar Satan that you are better than he’s trying to make you believe you are.

Never forget: Jesus Christ has already won the battle for us …

All we have to do is keep letting Him lead us to true freedom, and then keep fighting for it.

Christ is THE ONLY WAY to healing and hope for whatever keeps us chained … for whatever keeps us living in a hell of our own making.

Give Him everything this very day, especially the things that keep you from true freedom. DO WHATEVER IT TAKES! KEEP FIGHTING TO LIVE FREELY!

For now we can no longer say: “No one ever told me.”

Salt Shakers

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:31:12 GMT

The comedienne Catherine O’Hara died last week at the age of 71. To many of us, she will always be immortalized as the Home Alone mom who left her son behind on a family vacation as well as the quirky character actress in a handful of TV sketch-comedies and films. But that recognition is about where I thought it would end: a brief blip on the pop-culture radar that forever changes in our celebrity-obsessed world.

It seems like I might have been wrong about Ms. O’Hara’s lasting impact, however.

Two of Catherine’s quotes have been circulating on social media as of late, and both speak powerfully to how she saw herself and her vocation. To one reporter, when asked about her favorite role of the many she has undertaken in life, her response was unexpected: “Being a mother to my children.” And to another talk-show host when asked about acting, Catherine said something quite profound (which I paraphrase): “It’s our responsibility when given such an opportunity with the talents and gifts we’ve received to share them with others and bring them joy.”

For Ms. O’Hara, her vocation was one built on salt and light, and she realized she had an obligation to live from that space where God was glorified and others were recipients of love.

I always found “salt” quite a peculiar example for Jesus to use when commanding us to live our lives as servant-leaders. For the modern hearer, salt is either something to cut from our diet or an icy-sidewalk savior. We don’t think much of it otherwise.

Yet in antiquity, salt was a commodity that was more precious than silver and gold – it’s how our modern word “salary” came about. It preserved food; it was considered vital to health; and it lasted forever, pure and perfect. Unless …

Unless someone or something tampered with it.

Thus, when Jesus challenged his disciples to be salt, he was boldly telling us to live from that place where we preserve what has been handed onto us and then go and flavor the world with it. He wanted his life, his love, and his Cross to be ours as well, so that we become ones who transform the world around us in God and through Him.

Imagine living life in such a way that faith is more than simply a few prayers and attending Mass on Sunday (as good as these are). Rather, to echo the words of the Jesuit superior general Father Pedro Arupe, our Catholicism determines (or should determine) everything we do: why we get up in the morning; how we work; the ways we vacation; what we read and watch; and who and how we love. Jesus and His Good News should be the salt that preserves the world around us from decay; it should be the very thing that flavors life with taste.

It’s the same taste that the prophet Isaiah brings to bear in our first reading: The taste of genuine and lived faith should be the very thing that heals, saves, feeds, rescues the poor, and speaks out against injustice and on behalf of the ones who have no power and voice. Faith’s role is to be the very weapon that blows the lid off the keg of dynamite that the Church has sat-on and kept under wraps for far too long.

Could you imagine if we all lived our Catholicism from that place of realizing each of us – and all of us together as a parish community – are meant to be salt shakers – saving culture and seasoning it with the love and joy of Christ? Could you imagine how the Lord could use us right now to help build His Kingdom?

He is crying out from the Cross: be salt. And we can be, each in his or her own way. It doesn’t have to be earth-shaking, either – at least as we imagine that it should be. What if you and I committed to praying a decade of the Rosary each day for peace and reconciliation in our families and our communities? What if we donated $5 extra dollars to Outreach or the church each week? How about adopting a family and committing your Lent to make little sacrificial offerings for them? That is being salt for the world.

And when we are salt, we are light – a light so beautiful and lovely that it reflects Christ, for when all is said and done, it really is Him that shines through us. It is He who radiates to others, so that they, too, want to bask in that light to find healing and love and peace. Salt and light go hand-in-hand, and should never be hidden.

At the same time, however, know this: the more we try to shine His light and the more we try to spread the salt of His love, we will hit roadblocks. Satan doesn’t want this to be, and so he will attack: telling you and me that it’s not worth it and that we are doomed to living a life stuck in the muck of our sinfulness.

Don’t let the power of evil make your salt lose its taste. Fight back. Call on the name of Jesus. Run to His Mother. Go to Confession. Speak back to the lies that Satan wants to sow in your own hearts and minds. He can’t win. He’ll try, of course, but we know who has already won the Victory.

Therefore, Paul gives us the answer in his letter to the Corinthians: In humility, ask the Spirit of God to give you everything you need and to live your faith and life in such a way that God acts and speaks and moves in us. For in the end, it is never really about what we do; rather, it is about letting the Lord use our lives to glorify Him and to be the salt and light for His world. When we let His Divine and Perfect Will live within us, we will never be led astray.

We will live boldly and confidently as salt and light – HIS salt and His light for the Kingdom.

In watching the retrospectives on Catherine O’Hara’s life and body of work these past days, I was captivated by something in the actress that I guess I never paid too much attention to before. Watch her. She’s genuinely joyful. The Spirit was alive in her, and it wasn’t phony.

In saying that, I believe it comes back to the very things she indicated were the source of her life’s journey: her lived vocation as mother and her understanding that everything she had been given was a gift to be used to glorify God and bring joy to others.

Living our faith and our vocation fully – whatever that may be – is the very salt and light needed in the world today. Especially now.

Who knew that the Mom from Home Alone would be the one to make that lesson of Christ’s so very clear?

City of the Waters

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 20:40:06 GMT

I heard him before I saw him – a customer who had just come into the sketchy Route 40 Wawa and was

making noises of pain mixed with surprise, like a child who had just scraped his knee after unexpectedly

falling from his bike.

When this man came into my line of vision, he looked from the waist-up like one who spent his life in

the trades industry – barrel-chested, bearded, gruff. Not one to be messed with. (Yes, I know I am

stereotyping.) However, the lower-half of this same customer was clad in hot-pink tight pants covered

in sequins – the kind women wore to the discos and roller derbies of the late-1970s – and stiletto-heeled

boots that made it next to impossible to walk, even in the best of weather conditions. Hence, his little

grunts of pain.

As this man walked near the coffee kiosk, he slipped on the floors that had become somewhat dicey due

to the snow that was falling outside. He went down hard and struggled to get back up, mostly because

of the footwear that provided no traction. Those around him just sort of stared at the floundering body

on the floor.

But then, darting from beyond the Utz potato chips rack came an older African American woman,

dressed in the uniform of one who works at the supermarket down the road. “Sugar, let me help you,”

she says, lifting him up and taking his arm. “Where do you need to go?” she asked, guiding him as one

would a senior citizen using a cane. Although I didn’t hear his response, she was loud enough that her

advice to him made me smile: “Now you know you can’t wear those boots in this weather – what were

you thinking, love?”

During this past week, my mind and prayer-time has brought me back quite often to this scene at Wawa

for a number of reasons: the fact that I didn’t help the man off the floor; the ways in which I was so

quick to judge him based on his appearance; and perhaps most significantly, I have been pondering the

unflinching willingness of the supermarket cashier to enter the world of humiliation and pain faced by

the man wearing the stiletto heels.

She was willing to leave the circle.

Jesus is asking us the very same question through our Scriptures today: are we willing to do the same?

Should we really be okay with letting others live outside our circle?

Those two cities we hear mentioned in the First Reading and the Gospel – Zebulun and Naphtali? They

were in an area of Galilee that was filled with outsiders – those who were Gentiles; foreigners. They

didn’t practice the dominant Jewish religion or follow all the rules and laws of faith. So they lived

outside the circle of faith which, by the way, is what “Galilee” means – the Circle District.

So anyone who practiced his or her faith wouldn’t be caught dead in this region of northern Galilee,

especially Zebulun and Naphtali – “the region of darkness,” as Isaiah says.

And did you notice? IT’S THE FIRST PLACE JESUS WENT TO BEGIN HIS MINISTRY. Jesus went to the

outsiders. And it was those very outsiders whom he called and said “Follow me.”

To fishermen who may not have gone to synagogue ever – follow me. To a tax collector who cared

more about money than God the Father – follow me. And to women who made a living as objects to be

used by others – follow me.

Of course Christ came to remind His own people of faith that they were live the covenant they have

been given by God. But He also came to reach those who never heard that God the Father loves them –

truly loves them, even in their sinfulness and brokenness.

So, we as disciples – we who stay in the Circle of faith, so to speak – must ask ourselves: who among us

are living in Zebulun and Naphtali today? Who are always on the outside, believing that they no longer

can sit with us in these very pews or belong in the Church? The last time I checked, the word “Catholic”

means: universal, as in “ALL are welcome into the Heart of God.”

Now that does not mean anything goes; live your life however you want. Not at all. That’s hogwash.

God has commandments He calls us to live and laws that help one lead a life of righteousness, virtue and

holiness. They are vital to entering the Narrow Gate … for our own good.

But let’s be honest: no one will even look for the narrow gate if he or she first isn’t loved into the circle.

When Jesus walked into those outsider towns, he didn’t first yell out: “Hey, listen up: The first

Commandment states …” or “the dogma proclaims that one must first …”

What did he do? He saw them and went to them. He loved them. He walked outside the circle to the

outsiders and he let them know they were beloved by Him. And then, gradually, when they followed

more closely – entered a deeper relationship with Jesus – THEN they could hear the loving advice:

“Repent for the Kingdom is now here.”

If we first love those who are outside the circle, then God can be God and begin to work on their hearts

and lives, calling them into deeper relationship with Him and with the Church.

We don’t always do a great job with that as Church, but it doesn’t mean we stop trying. We must do it

together as the “institutional” church, of course. There are still far too many who think they don’t

belong here because of the choices they’ve made or the sins they’ve committed. Nothing could be

further from the truth. They are wanted here because they can find healing and hope and mercy here.

They can find Him here – in our Sacraments and in each other. It’s why we are here: because it is what

we ourselves have found.

At the same time, let us never forget that each of us is tasked with being missionary disciples – as were

the first disciples -- going outside the circle to reach those whose hearts are broken and whose lives are

a mess. We are called to bring them back to Jesus, back to a Love that heals and forgives; a love that

sees and respects.

It’s the very thing a supermarket cashier showed me by lifting-up a man found struggling on a dirty, wet

convenience store floor wearing hot pants and high-heeled boots. She loved him in his brokenness and

pain, and wasn’t afraid to go there.

Nor should we – as Church and as individual disciples in love with Jesus Christ. We lift up. We open

doors. We walk with. We listen. We speak the Truth in love and leave the judging to God.

That’s going outside the Circle District.

The District

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 20:26:01 GMT