Daily Reflections with Fr. John

I belong to the Lord. My time, my choices, my words, my relationships, even the wounds I carry, all of them must be placed under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

What fruit is my life producing? And is there one teaching of Jesus that I have heard many times but still need to put into practice?

How do you come to make the decisions in your life?

What does it actually mean to love an enemy?

Today we celebrate Saint Peter Claver. He was born in Spain and became a Jesuit priest. He did not come to the United States. He served as a missionary in Cartagena, in what is now Colombia.

The people have arrived. The church is filling. Someone may be greeting a friend. A family is settling children into the pew. Another person has come alone. Someone is joyful. Someone else is exhausted, grieving, anxious, distracted, or unsure why he or she came. Then the bell rings, the music begins, and the procession starts.

On this Labor Day, we remember these three truths: through our work, we participate in God’s creation; through our work, we serve others and the common good; and through our work, we learn to trust God rather than living in constant anxiety.

Saint Paul tells us what a transformed Christian life looks like in practice.

The Sabbath was God’s gift to his people. It was meant to provide rest, restore their relationship with God, and remind them that their lives belonged to him.

Jesus says, “New wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.”

"At your command"

Jesus enters the home of Simon. Simon’s mother-in-law is very sick with a high fever. The people in the house tell Jesus about her.And what does Jesus do?Jesus notices her. He goes to her, stands beside her, and heals her.

Before the first hymn is sung, before the priest reaches the altar, before anyone makes the Sign of the Cross, something important has already happened: God's people have gathered.

Familiarity can sometimes close our hearts to grace.

Do not let the culture around you set the pattern for your life. Do not let power teach you how to treat people. Do not let status determine your worth. Do not let anger, division, retaliation, or prejudice shape the way you see others. And above all, do not give your deepest loyalty to anything that belongs to this world.

When the truth becomes costly, will I still remain faithful?

Keep your lamp filled

Monica spent many years praying for her son Augustine. She watched him wander away from God, pursue an immoral life, and embrace beliefs far from the Christian faith she cherished.

Your outside is spectacular but what about the inside?

Jesus calls every one of us to become His disciple.There is an enormous difference between being a Catholic and being a disciple.

Saint Bartholomew reminds us that discipleship begins when we allow ourselves to be known by Christ.

Relationships grow because we spend time together. We talk. We listen. We share what is going on in our lives. We begin to know what matters to the other person, what brings them joy, what hurts them. And over time, that relationship begins to shape us.

Mary our queen who humbled herself and said yes to God.

How do we bring people closer to Christ?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of a king who prepares a wedding feast. Everything is ready, the invitations have gone out, and yet many of those invited simply do not come.

We often say that we want God to be generous but sometimes we mean generous to us. When God is generous to someone whom we believe has done less, arrived later, or deserves less, we can begin to complain.

Every believer eventually reaches a moment when inherited faith must become a personal choice.

The problem is not simply that the young man possesses many things. The deeper problem is that his possessions possess him.

“Send her away.”

Mary’s Assumption is not something she accomplished by her own strength. It is something God did for her. It is the final fruit of God’s grace in the life of a woman who opened herself completely to his will.

Today the Church celebrates Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest whose life reveals what it truly means to belong completely to Christ.

Every time we come before God, we come as people who have been forgiven an enormous debt.

Today’s Gospel gives us a clear and practical teaching from Jesus about how we are called to live together as a community, especially when things go wrong.

Today, I want to reflect on faith in suffering and on the places where Catholicism became real for me.

Lawrence was a deacon in the Church of Rome during the third century. As a deacon, he was entrusted with serving the poor and caring for the material resources of the Church.

My prayer this week is not that all our storms disappear. My prayer is that, whatever storms we face, we keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Because the One who calls us out of the boat is the very One who reaches out His hand when our faith begins to fail. And His hand has never failed to hold those who cry, “Lord, save me.”

St. Dominic was known not only as a great preacher but also as a man of deep prayer.

Jesus says that real life is not found in grasping but in giving.

Jesus is transfigured. His face shines like the sun. His clothes become dazzling white. For just a moment, the veil is pulled back, and the disciples glimpse the glory that has always belonged to Him.

As we meditate on these verses may we be inspired by the Canaanite woman's faith and persistence, and may we be reminded of the transformative power of God's love and grace in our lives.

“If people outside the Catholic Church can be saved… why would anyone want to be Catholic?”

You can be doing everything right and still find yourself battling strong headwinds.

The beautiful truth of today’s Gospel is this: Jesus sees you. Not just the crowd. You. He knows your story. He knows your fears. He knows the burdens you brought into church this morning. And His first response is compassion.

St. Alphonsus never separated truth from mercy. He defended the moral teachings of the Church while constantly reminding people that God never tires of forgiving those who turn back to Him.

Sometimes we become so familiar with Jesus that we stop being amazed by Him.

The Church is not a museum of saints. It is a fishing net. It gathers sinners, saints, doubters, seekers, the holy, and those still struggling.

Service Prayer and Friendship

How can the Church claim to be holy when so many of her members, including some of her leaders, have sinned so gravely?

From that tiny beginning grows a large shrub, strong enough that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its branches.

What are you buying with your life? The Gospel invites us to make the wisest investment possible. To invest our lives in the one treasure that can never be stolen. The one pearl that never loses its value. The one kingdom that never passes away.