From Season to Season

Below is the link to my reflection on this Sunday's Gospel and First Reading.  Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler by Heinrich Hoffman   Like Saint Francis and Blessed Teresa, the young man of today’s Gospel is faced with an opportunity and a choice. Already a righteous, faithful man, he seems to recognize that something more was being asked of him. Perhaps it was a sense that simply keeping the commandments wasn’t enough or he might have seen the joy in Jesus’ closest followers and wanted that for himself. Regardless of the reason, he approached Jesus and asked what more was required of him and Jesus clearly told him the cost of being a disciple: let go of everything that was holding him back from giving himself completely to God. We can understand the man’s frustration and confusion. Although he had always observed the commandments, “he went away sad, because he had many possessions.” Jesus was asking him to shift his focus from earthly possessions and concerns to the thin...

We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his decree. —Romans 8:28   When many of us think of saints, our minds most often go to European or American models of holiness. However, recent years have seen an explosion in the number canonizations and beatifications of women, men, and children from Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. The small country of Madagascar (off the southeastern coast of Africa) has given the Church three new models of holiness since 2002, including Saint Jacques Berthieu , a French Jesuit missionary who was martyred in Ambiatibe in 1896, Blessed Jan Beyzym , a Jesuit missionary from Ukraine who died in Marana in 1912,   and Blessed Raphaël-Louis Rafiringa , a native-born Christian Brother who died in Fianarantsoa in 1919. But honored alongside these male religious is a remarkable laywoman and Church leader who was beatified more than a decade before her male counterpa...

Included in a collection of essays entitled A Maryknoll Reflection on the Liturgical Year is this story from Father Ken Tesing, a Maryknoll priest who spent decades serving in East Africa: I came back to the United States from my mission in Tanzania, and I was visiting my brother and his family at their farm. As farmers always do, we went out to look at the fields and crops. My brother asked me, “Look, do you recognize those weeds?” I replied, “No, I don’t think I have ever seen them before; how did they get into your fields?” He said, “Some years ago herbicides were developed; the weeds and grasses we struggled with in the crops when we were just growing up have all been eliminated. All these seeds were just lying dormant in the ground; they could not compete earlier with the dominant weeds and now they have sprouted and come forth.” We talked about this. My brother said farming is like life; there will always be challenges, always be differences. We need to be patient and t...

During the Last Supper, Jesus gave his Apostles a very specific instruction: “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). These words, spoken to his closest companions on the night before he was to offer his life for them, are not just a pious admonition. Instead, they are an indication that Jesus’ sacrifice was itself an act of love (cf. Jn 13:1 ), and an example of the way they should love one another: “In this way, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn. 13:35).   Crucifixion by Rembrandt     Reflecting on this love, Father Romano Guardini wrote: Love proceeded from Him everywhere. We encounter love all about Him. But we want to seek it out in the flaming, radiant center. Love is what He showed toward the delicate blossoming of His Father’s creation, when He speaks of the lilies of the field, and how God has clothed them more magnificently than Solom...