. Today, Pentecost Sunday, Easter’s 50th day, we pray for a fresh stirring of the gifts of the Spirit so that we can fulfill our mission to witness Jesus to others in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus consecrates us in truth, in God’s word, and His own word to us. We bring His Name and His Word to places where the great drama of life is played out. A new way of encounter, with the possibility of life-giving hope, for the sanctification of a wounded humanity.
Brothers and sisters, “what are you waiting for, there’s work to do.” There’s a world waiting to be made whole and holy.
Jesus stands before the Father for our sake where our new existence is rooted and grounded. The love by which we live should be the disposition and the strength in our relationships with all people, and with all creation.
True “abiding” in Christ is borne of prayer: Lord Jesus, without You we can do nothing. You are the true Gardener, Creator, Cultivator and Custodian of Your garden, which You plant with Your Word, irrigate with Your Spirit, and cause to grow with Your grace.
God loves my story and God loves your story, not because our stories are perfect (they are not), but because they are our stories. And God loves us. It is in and through the stories of our lives that God meets us, and makes His home in our hearts, and saves us.
For many people, a pilgrimage is a time of renewal. Going to a specific, holy place, often walking more than usual, praying in a place that is made significant by who has been there and what has happened in the past, any one of these things would help us to reflect on our lives, and a pilgrimage usually has all of them. ...
Conversion, commission, and crucifixion initiated your Christian existence, your Franciscan vocation. In your Baptism you died to sin and self, you rose to God, to “newness of life.” At your profession you said—three times—this is what I want!
God’s mercy is manifest in the Church, being the fruit of the Paschal Mystery, preaching and confessing mercy, recalling it and imitating it, realizing it and making it present in the sacrament of salvation.
On this blessed day you and I thank God for the incredible grace to declare in the Sunday Creed: “On the third day He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” Jesus is alive, alive in His humanity and in His divinity—the very same person who was born in Bethlehem, walked the dusty roads of Palestine, died in anguish on Calvary’s cross.