A Heart Open to God’s Message

Readings 043026

A heart open to God’s message
is never a proud heart.
It is a heart that kneels.
A heart that listens.
A heart that lets Jesus wash away
the dust we pick up on the road.

In today’s Gospel,
Jesus bends low before His disciples
and teaches something simple and demanding:
“No messenger is greater than the one who sent him.”
Let that humility shape the way we love.

And today at Our Lady of Fatima School,
we saw that same humility in a quiet, beautiful way.
Children came forward with flowers—
simple, bright, unselfconscious—
to crown the statue of Mary.
A small act,
but beneath it was a deeper truth for us adults:

A heart wide open
is where grace begins.

To those hearts Jesus says,
“Whoever receives the one I send receives me.”
And who did He send first?
His Mother.
Jesus loved Mary.
Mary loved Jesus.
And from the Cross He gave her to us—
not as decoration,
not as sentiment,
but as a living gift
meant to draw us closer to Him.

When we honor Mary,
we are not stepping away from Christ.
We are stepping toward Him.
Because her yes, her courage, her tenderness
always lead us back to His heart.

So ask for the grace of an opened heart—
a heart that listens,
a heart that welcomes,
a heart that lets Mary guide us
to the One who kneels to wash our feet.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, 

Open my heart.
Let Your Word find room in me, deep and steady.
Clear away whatever keeps me guarded or afraid.
Teach me to welcome Your presence with trust.
Shape my choices with Your quiet courage.
Make my heart wide open to Your love and Your call.

Amen

The Grace We Hand On

 Readings 042926 

I dropped my daughter off at the airport.
Heading off to work,
doing what she must
to make things better for her little family.
So much like me.
So much like her mother.

My wife and I are proud of our daughters—
Both are strong women of faith.
I see that.
But what moves me even more
is when others see faith alive in them
and they tell me.

They’ve stepped from their parents’s shadow,
found their own parish home,
their own circle,
Walking in the light of Christ.
And as a deacon, I get around.
In grocery aisles, parking lots, and church halls,
people stop me and say,
“Your daughters live their faith.”

And my heart goes back—
to the grace that shaped all of us:
the prayers whispered in the dark,
the hopes we carried,
the sacrifices made in love,
the lessons we tried to live
more than teach.

Because this is the sacred work of every Christian:
to share the faith we have received,
to let Christ’s light pass from life to life,
to hand on the Gospel
in quiet, steady ways.

Just as the Church in Acts
laid hands on Barnabas and Saul
and sent them forth,
trusting the Holy Spirit
to guide what they could not control,
so we, too, release the faith we share
into the lives of others.

And when someone recognizes that grace—
in our children,
in our friends,
in our communities—
we glimpse the truth of it all:
that the seeds planted in love
belong first to God,
and God makes them grow.

May the light we share
continue to move from heart to heart,
bearing fruit in God’s good soil.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,
Your grace is the light we walk in.
Strengthen the faith we share as Your people.
Let Your Word shape our hearts in quiet, steady ways.
Keep us rooted in Your mercy and truth.

And draw us deeper into the life of Your Spirit.

Amen