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

A Kingdom Built on Broken People

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The Kingdom of God is not built on the strong,
the polished,
or the self‑assured.
It is built on those whom the Shepherd calls.

In Antioch, the hand of the Lord rested upon ordinary people —
men and women with mixed stories, mixed wounds, mixed pasts —
and a great number turned to the Lord.
There, in that imperfect community,
the disciples were first called Christians.
Not because they were flawless,
but because they belonged to Christ.

Jesus speaks with a steady, searching honesty:
“My works testify to me… but you do not believe
because you are not among my sheep.”
The dividing line is not brilliance, heritage, or success.
It is simply this:
Do we hear the Shepherd’s voice,
and do we follow where He leads?

Yet over the centuries, the flock has wandered.
Some chased other voices,
some sought other pastures,
and now many flocks stand divided,
scattered,
and vulnerable.

But Christ never spoke of many churches
competing for truth or splintered into tribes.
He spoke of one flock under one Shepherd,
one Body, one Bride —
a living Church born from His pierced side
and sustained by His Spirit.

And who stands at the foundation of this Kingdom?
Not the perfect —
but the broken who turn to the Lord.
Not the powerful —
but the ones who hear His voice
and rise when He calls their name.

This is the miracle of the Gospel:
Humanity in all its frailty
becomes the very stones
with which Christ builds His Church.
A Kingdom rising from mercy,
held together by grace,
gathered by the Shepherd
who knows His sheep
and calls each one home.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, 

Shepherd of the broken,
gather us again into Your one flock.
Call our names until our hearts awaken.
Bind our wounds with the mercy of Your Cross.
Build Your Kingdom upon our humble lives.
Lead us home by the sound of Your voice.

Amen

One Flock Before My Eyes

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Yesterday at Mass,
I looked around the church
and saw the Kingdom of God
right in front of me.

There I stood —
a 65‑year‑old man
whose ancestry never fits neatly
into anyone’s old categories.

At the altar was our visiting priest,
a young African‑American man
in his thirties.

Our cantor lifted his voice
with the warm tones
shaped by a childhood in El Salvador.

Around me were faces
from Nigeria,
from Vietnam,
from the Philippines,
from every shade
and every story.

And I found myself asking:
Where is the Kingdom of God found?

It is found
right here —
in this gathering of nations,
in this family not built by bloodlines
but by baptism,
by grace,
by the call of Christ.

For the ministry of Jesus
is a blessing for all peoples.
The Church teaches it clearly:
the Kingdom is open to all,
the Church is sent to the whole human race,
and God desires every soul to be saved.

So the Lord asks us again:
Will you let Me be God,
even when I act outside your expectations?

Because Jesus envisions a Kingdom
bigger than tribe,
bigger than race,
bigger than history —
a Kingdom made of all
who hear His voice
and follow the one Shepherd
into one flock.

Prayer 

Lord Jesus,
gather us again into Your wide‑open Kingdom.
Let every face and every story
find a home beneath Your mercy.
Teach us to welcome as You welcome,
to love as You love,
and to follow You as one flock under one Shepherd.

Amen

The Shepherd Who Comes Looking for Us - A Good Shepherd Sunday Reflection

 

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Blessed be God.
Praise be to Jesus Christ, forever and ever. Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit—
fill us with joy,
set our hearts ablaze with Your presence.

My brothers and sisters,

When I was a young teenager,
the Baptist church I attended expected you to evangelize.
Knock on doors.
Invite people to church.

I hated it.
Not because I didn’t love God—
but because I didn’t know how to be that kind of bold.

And my mother…
Lord, she would hold me up against every other kid in that church.
“You should be like Johnny.
Susie is such an angel.”

But I knew the truth.
I had a couple of real friends—
the kind who knew my heart.
The rest…
they weren’t bad people,
but they had habits that could pull you off the path
before you even realized you were drifting.

And I had eyes on me everywhere.
My mother.
My father.
My coach—
who lived right across the street.
I couldn’t hide if I tried.

But then I got to college.
And like a lot of us…
I went a little wild.
Freedom can feel like a wide‑open pasture
with no fences
and no shepherd.

I remember one guy pulling onto campus
in a station wagon
packed with a keg,
hard liquor,
and girls.
He was ready to live it up.
He ended up playing in the NFL, the USFL—
and now he’s an evangelical minister
preaching Jesus with fire.

Because the Shepherd never stops calling His sheep.
Even the ones who sprint in the opposite direction.

Scripture says:
“Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”
Not by hiding from the world—
but by running toward the Shepherd
who alone can save.

Peter stood up and cried out:
“Repent and be baptized…
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
This promise is for you,
for your children,
and for all those far off.

And then Peter speaks the line
that shakes the soul awake:
“Let the whole house of Israel know for certain
that God has made both Lord and Christ,
this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Beloved…
that’s not condemnation.
That’s revelation.
Because the One we wounded
is the One who heals us.

As Saint Peter says:
“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,
so that, free from sin,
we might live for righteousness.
By His wounds you have been healed.”

We were all lost sheep. 

We have all walked through dark valleys.  

 Every one of us.
Some of us wild.
Some of us pretending to be angels.
Some of us hiding behind good behavior.
Some of us hiding behind bad behavior.

But the Shepherd—
the Good Shepherd—
does not wait for perfect sheep.
He calls us by name.
He walks ahead of us.
He leads us out of the places
where we do not belong.

And the sheep follow Him
because they recognize His voice.

That is the heart of Good Shepherd Sunday.
Not that we are good sheep—
but that He is a Good Shepherd.
A Shepherd who goes after the lost.
A Shepherd who carries the wounded.
A Shepherd who stands at the gate and says,
“Come through Me.
Come into life.
Come into safety.
Come into grace.”

And maybe you’ve been the teenager
not bold enough to knock on the door
Maybe you’ve been the college kid
who ran a little wild.
Maybe you’ve been the one
who drifted farther than you meant to.

But hear this:
The Shepherd has not stopped calling your name.
He has not stopped walking ahead of you.
He has not stopped opening the gate.

We were all lost sheep.
But in Christ—
we are found,
we are forgiven,
we are led home.

Be good.
Be holy.
And preach the Gospel
by your life,
your forgiveness,
and your love.

Praise be to Jesus Christ, forever and ever.
Amen.

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd,
call my heart back when it wanders.
Lift me when I fall
and heal me when I am wounded.
Guide me through every shadowed valley
until I rest in Your peace
and walk in Your love.
Amen.