Author: admin

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Exodus: 3:1-6, 9-12

Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.
Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb,
the mountain of God.
There an angel of the LORD appeared to him in fire
flaming out of a bush.
As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush,
though on fire, was not consumed.
So Moses decided,
“I must go over to look at this remarkable sight,
and see why the bush is not burned.”

When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely,
God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He answered, “Here I am.”
God said, “Come no nearer!
Remove the sandals from your feet,
for the place where you stand is holy ground.
I am the God of your father,” he continued,
“the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
The cry of the children of Israel has reached me,
and I have truly noted that the Egyptians are oppressing them.
Come, now! I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people,
the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God,
“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh
and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
He answered, “I will be with you;
and this shall be your proof that it is I who have sent you:
when you bring my people out of Egypt,
you will worship God on this very mountain.”

The Word of the Lord.

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“I will be with you,” the LORD promises Moses in our first reading.

Moses faced an impossible task – he was called to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land. 

Such a mission demanded miracles – breaking the bond of Pharaoh, outrunning his army, parting the Red Sea, and bearing with Israel’s repeated complaints and infidelity to God during their forty-year-long sojourn in the desert.

Although Moses couldn’t foresee all that he would have to endure, he was overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.

But the Lord promised him, “I will be with you.. and when you bring my people out of Egypt, you will worship me on this very mountain.”

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We’ve all been in a position like Moses before, feeling like we’re being led to do the impossible.

Think of first-time parents laying eyes on their newborn child. “How can we give this child everything he or she deserves?” they must wonder.

Or the moment you show up for your first day on the job; when extra responsibility is placed upon your shoulders; your first day of retirement; when your doctor reads a poor health diagnosis; when you lose a loved one.

Or, in my case, both the day of my priestly ordination and the day I became pastor here at St. Pius X. I wondered, in the words of Moses, “Lord, who am I?”

In each of these cases, God whispers to us what he once said to Moses, “I will be with you.”

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As we navigate our way through life, we must also remember to do what Moses did: return to this “mountain” to worship the Lord whose love never fails.

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Image credits: (1) revPACman (2) Moses Leading the People of Israel, Adobe (3) Worship Leaders University

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Gospel: Matthew 11:20-24

Jesus began to reproach the towns
where most of his mighty deeds had been done,
since they had not repented.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
And as for you, Capernaum:

Will you be exalted to heaven?
You will go down to the netherworld.

For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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A few years ago, the average cost of raising a child in America rose to nearly a quarter of a million dollars. If you had two children, half a million. Four? Over a million. Today it’s even higher. That’s excluding luxuries like beach vacations, private schools, and college tuition.

It’s nearly impossible – and ludicrous – for a child to imagine repaying their parents for every penny and dollar spent.  Not to mention the “intangibles” parents give: love, peace, security, hope, and wisdom.

While we cannot repay our parents in dollars and cents for our childhood blessings, we can do two things: Say, “Thank you.” And pay it forward. 

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In today’s Gospel, Jesus chastises several towns he visited after performing miracles of healing and forgiveness.

While he wasn’t expecting to be repaid in terms of dollars and cents – he couldn’t be – Jesus did expect the townspeople to repent, to be thankful, and to pay his goodness forward.

But to his chagrin, they take him for granted by returning to their old ways of life as if the Lord was never there. 

“Woe to you!” he says. 

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Like the townspeople of Chorazin and Bethsaida, Jesus has done good things for us – both as individuals and as a community of faith.

Perhaps the Lord is prompting us to consider: In what ways do we pay it forward? 

Maybe we extend his forgiveness to a neighbor after being forgiven ourselves… We feed the hungry after being fed by Christ… We intercede on another person’s behalf knowing both the Spirit and this community of faith intercede on our behalf.

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Much like children who cannot repay their parents, we cannot repay the Lord for his goodness to us. But we can pay it forward. 

How might we do that today?

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Image credits: (1) Jesus Follower (2) USDA Institute for Family Studies, 2017 (3) Impact 100 Cincinnati, Pay it Forward

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Gospel: Matthew 10: 34-11:1

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is righteous
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because he is a disciple–
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples,
he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.

The Gospel of the Lord.

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There’s one thing that all parents, grandparents, priests, and ministers of the Gospel have in common: We plant seeds.

Seeds of kindness, hope, wisdom, love, and faith, often, in the hearts of younger generations – children and grandchildren. 

Sometimes we live to see the fruits of our labor. Other times, we don’t.

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Such was the case for Father Isaac Jogues.

Isaac was a French Jesuit, who was one of the first missionaries to bring the Gospel to the Native Americans in the 1600’s. Four years before he was martyred, Isaac was beaten and tortured so badly that he was already regarded as a “living martyr.” 

He spent his ministry in America planting seeds of faith without seeing its fruit.

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Ten years after his death, a girl named Kateri, whose feast day we celebrate today, was born in the village where Isaac was killed. Her parents and brother died in a smallpox epidemic when she was four. Raised thereafter by her uncle, Kateri was left nearly blind with scars across her face.

The locals called her, “Tekakwitha,” which meant, “she who bumps into things.”

Throughout her childhood, Kateri listened to other French priests who passed through her village, following in the footsteps of Fr. Isaac. 

Although she said nothing to them as a child, when she turned eighteen, she sought to be baptized. In a village that gave no welcome to Christians, Kateri became a Christian.

After enduring a year of abuse by her relatives for professing her faith – as Jesus predicted in today’s Gospel – Kateri decided to make a 200-mile journey on foot to a Native and Christian village outside of Montreal. 

There she embraced a life of penance, praying for the conversion of her people, accepting Christ as her Spouse.

Almost 350 years later, in 2012, Kateri was canonized as the first Native American Saint.

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While Fr. Isaac died without ever seeing the fruit of his labor, he reminds us that some of the seeds we plant will, in time, bear good fruit. 

May we all plant a seed of faith today.

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Image credits: (1) emmausbiblechapel.net (2) Saint Kateri Catholic Church(3) Heart Treasure, WordPress