God has set aside home places for all of us in the Promised Land.

Friday.  5/1/15

In his Gospel John showed us that Jesus had a pattern he followed through his ministry for us. That pattern had him copying each step by which God took through Moses, leading the people out of slavery, through the desert, and into the Promised Land.

Just as God gave the people bread from heaven, Jesus said, “I am the true bread from heaven.“ Just as God gave them water from a rock, Jesus said, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me.” Just as God gave them a fiery cloud to lead them at night, Jesus said, “Anyone who follows me will not walk in darkness.”

Finally, for the Israelites, when they came to the crossing into the Promised Land, Moses had surveyors map out the land, giving a permanent portion for each tribe to inhabit forever. In today’s Gospel Jesus said there is a portion of the Promised Land set aside for you.

By that he was speaking of each of our heavenly dwelling place. However, we might also regard the homes we have had here below as God’s gift to our family.

Even tough we have moved about through our lifetimes, some of the places that were home to us in the past, in our memories live on as our homes. In our memories they are sill peopled by the dear families we had back then. 

No one is above the law.

Thursday, 4/30/15

Our first reading gives us an account of Paul’s words to the Jewish community in Antioch. He introduced Jesus to them by showing them that Jesus was not apposed to their beloved traditions, but rather, that their old traditions led up to Jesus.

That story might have you think about how, as old time Catholics, we don’t like being told about new ways in our religion. I was just reading a magazine story about a priest friend of mine who got into big trouble by sticking to old ways.

When I’d visit with my sister in St. Louis, I often went to Mass, sitting in her pew with her. The priest, Father Bob Finn, used to say that to uphold the dignity of our priesthood I should be on the altar, not out in the pews like a layman. I didn’t like differing from him, because he was a highly respected young priest.

Bob got to be bishop of Kansas City, where he championed the Church’s old way of doing things. When he got word that one of his priests had been molesting children, he was saddened deeply, but he didn’t was to make the matter public. Our seminary training had repeatedly told us “we don’t wash our dirty linen in public.”

One of our great saints, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been feuding with King Henry II who wanted priests to be tried by the civil law. When Thomas a Becket would not give in to that, King Henry had him cut down at the altar.

Bishop Finn was deeply saddened by the abuse the children suffered from one of his priests, but in the tradition of St. Thomas a Becket, he protected the offending priest  by transferring him to another parish. That freed the priest to repeat his crime.

There have been centuries when priests were like nobility who were above the law. Pope Francis, by accepting Bob Finn’s resignation as bishop of Kansas City, signaled us that we do wrong by following any ancient customs that put anyone above the law.

On saying he came into the world as light, Jesus was saying he came so that we might know truth.

Wednesday, 4/29/15

Our religion is based on the Mystery of the Incardination. (Remember: A mystery is a truth that we cannot fully understand.) But, doing our best, we  honor the one true God, while at the same time we honor  the Son of God as he became fully human in the person of Jesus. Today’s Gospel speaks of the earthly mission of that God made man.

In Chapter Ten of the Gospel according to John Jesus said, “I came into the world as light.”

There Jesus was speaking not as God, but as God made man in the person of Jesus.

We might compare that with something that John wrote in verse four of Chapter One of his Gospel speaking of God the Son. There he wrote, “In him was life, and the life was the light of the world.” 

In that verse in Chapter One of his Gospel John was speaking about the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word. Analytically, the Second Person of the Trinity can be compared to our sun. Just as every last bit of energy in our solar system comes from the sun, so all mental energy in the world comes from the Son.

When Jesus said, “I came into the world as light,” he was speaking not as God, but as the man-God who has taken on humanity to show us what we should do with our humanity, namely, that we should use it to know truth. 

It was in fourteen years of silent prayer that Paul came by his deepest insights.

Tuesday. 4/28/15

After St. Stephen was stoned to death in Jerusalem, a general persecution broke out, and a good number of Christian Jews moved two hundred miles north to the Syrian city of Antioch. It was there that we came to be called Christians. Our first reading today tells us that Jews from the island of Cyprus and from the Egyptian port of Cyrene who had settled in Antioch had embraced the Faith. Following on that, those converts began bringing Gentile friends into the Church.

Th Apostles looked for a man who could represent them there, and they settled on Barnabas, and they had three reasons for that choice.  First, he had standing, since he was a Jewish priest. Next, as a man from the isle of Cyprus, he could mix with foreigners. Lastly,  although his real name was Joseph, he had been nicknamed Barnabas, which literally means “Son of kindness.”

On setting out for Antioch Barnabas thought of Saul of Tarsus as the perfect companion for him in dealing with a mixture of Jews, Gentiles, and men from many different ports.

The last we heard about Saul, or St. Paul, was the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus. However, recently in rereading Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, I came across his own account of the years between his conversion and that visit from Barnabas. I was surprised to read that after his conversion he spent three years around Damascus before going to meet Peter in Jerusalem. But what stunned me to read was that after visiting with Peter he returned to his father’s house in the Turkish town of Tarsus, and he spent fourteen years there.

In reading Paul’s letters we have come to regard him as perhaps the smartest man who ever lived. The depth of his ideas is matched with the beauty of his words. At first I was thinking of those fourteen years at his father’s house as a waste of a marvelous talent. But, we should see those silent years as having been necessary for Paul. The depths of insights and the beauty of phrasing we find in his letters to the Corinthians and the Colossians were all carefully worked over hundreds of times in his years of silent prayer.

It is the same with us. Our most productive hours are the ones we spend in silent communion with God.  

It wss in fourteen years of silent prayer that Paul came by his deepest insights.

Tuesday. 4/28/15

After St. Stephen was stoned to death in Jerusalem a general persecution broke out, and a good number of Christian Jews moved two hundred miles north to the Syrian city of Antioch. It was there that we came to be called Christians. Our first reading today tells us that Jews from the island of Cyprus and from the Egyptian port of Cyrene who had settled in Antioch had embraced the Faith. Following on that, those converts began bringing Gentile friends into the Church.

looked for a man who could represent them there. They settled on Barnabas, and they had three reasons for that choice.  First, he had standing, since he was a Jewish priest. Next, as a man from the isle of Cyprus, he could mix with foreigners. Lastly,  although his real name was Joseph, he had been nicknamed Barnabas, which literally means “Son of kindness.”

On setting out for Antioch Barnabas thought of Saul of Tarsus as the perfect companion for him in dealing with a mixture of Jews, Gentiles, and men from many different ports.

The last we heard about Saul, or St. Paul, was the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus. However, recently in rereading Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, I came across his own account of the years between his conversion and that visit from Barnabas. I was surprised to read that after his conversion he spent three years around Damascus before going to meet Peter in Jerusalem. But what stunned me to read was that after visiting with Peter he returned to his father’s house in the Turkish town of Tarsus, and he spent fourteen years there.

In reading Paul’s letters I have come to regard him as perhaps the smartest man who ever lived. The depth of his ideas is matched with the beauty of his words. At first I was thinking of those fourteen years at his father’s house as a waste of a marvelous talent.

Now, though, I see those silent years as having been necessary for Paul. The depths of insights and the beauty of phrasing we find in his letters to the Corinthians and the Colossians were all carefully worked over hundreds of times in his years of silent prayer.

It is the same with us. Our most productive hours are the ones we spend in silent communion with God.  

Parents giving their all for their kids are the real Good Shepherds in our lives.

Sunday, 4/26/15

Often enough, the people in our lives whom we see as embodiments of the Good Shepherd are the priests, especially the ones  who have been our long-time pastors. They knew their flock, and their flock knew them.

Good enough. However, I have come to see the real Good Shepherds in our lives to be mothers and fathers, who little by little give up their own lives to make the lives of their children complete.

It’s wonderful to see them at their work at being parents. This young woman who used to be such a clotheshorse, is searching for something just right for her darling, while she herself has thrown on a skirt and a sweater she wouldn’t have been seen dead in four years ago.

Her husband has given up his nights with the boys. Mindful of what his kids need, he is working all the overtime he can get.

Jesus said, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” As unmarried people hungering to be successful, they never got anywhere. Now, that they have given up their future for the sake of their kids, the miracle has happened. They have become the best they could be.

St. Mark's Gospel was an eyewitness account of the way Jesus saved us by heroically suffering for us.

Saturday, 4/25/15

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Mark who wrote the first of the four Gospels. He  might have been the only writer of a Gospel who was actually an eyewitness of what his Gospel described. We take him to have been the boy who followed the soldiers who led Jesus from the Garden of Olives to the home of the high priest. We see him as the cousin of Barnabas, and as the companion of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. To his shame, partway through that journey he became homesick, deserting the apostles. Then, after he matured, he became a valuable companion to St. Peter, going on to found the Church in Alexandria.

A careful reading of his Gospel leads us to suppose he wrote it to silence those who were saying that because he was executed as a criminal, Jesus could not be the Messiah.

Mark’s Gospel of sixteen chapters breaks evenly into two halves. His first eight chapters gives all the miracles and fulfillments of prophecies that show that Jesus had to be the Savior. The second eight  chapters of his Gospel, leading up to his hanging naked on the cross, far from showing that Jesus was not the Savior, actually dramatize the heroic way he saved us by willingly undergoing unspeakably humiliating and painful suffering to save us.

Am I kicking against the goad?

Friday, 4/24/15

There are three places in the “Acts of the Apostles” where we have this story of Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus. With Jesus asking, ”Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me,” the accounts are the same in Chapters 9, and 22; but the account  in Chapter Twenty-Six includes something else Jesus said to Paul that day. He said, “It is hard for you to kick against the goad.” Isn’t that interesting?

A goad is a pointed stick you’d carry riding a animal. You'd use it to poke your beast to get it to obey. When he or she, not obeying, kicked back,  you would keep poking till one of you gave.  

  

Apparently, the beautiful behavior of the Christians was giving Saul doubts about the rightness of his persecuting them; but he had just kicked back, resolved not to change his ways.

Seeing Saul’s stubbornness, Jesus threw the goad away, seeing he needed to knock Saul down.

This reading is meant to ask us if we have been kicking against the goad. Will we give in to Our Lord’s goading us to be more temperate and understanding, or does he need to knock us down?

It took the Catholic Church twenty-five years to answer Martin Luther.

Thursday, 23/15

Our homilies, should not be sermons that wander all over the place. Rather, they should highlight the beautiful lessons in that day’s readings. Today I am going to break the rule.

I have been doing some research on Martin Luther’s break with the Catholic Church. I had noted that he took his stand in 1520, and how the church replied to him at the Council of Trent in 1545. Then, I started wondering what caused that twenty-five years delay in answering Luther.

I found that there was great turbulence during those twenty-five years, with most of it brought on by the rivalry between the king of France and the king of Spain.

Back then, Spain had owned part of northern Italy, including the city of Milan. In 1523 Francis I of France led an army into northern Italy to snatch Milan, but Charles V of Spain had thirty thousand mercenaries waiting for him. They captured Francis, sending him off to imprisonment in Madrid.

Things got worse in Italy when Charles hadn’t the money to pay his mercenaries. Like those ISIS bands roving around Europe now, those mercenaries became cut throats, and they did something  I had never heard about.

Those mercenaries sacked Rome, stabling their horses in St. Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel. After ripping apart most of the treasures of the High Renaissance, they turned on the people. They reduced the population from 55,000 to 10,000. The bodies they left rotting in the streets brought on deadly diseases.

That was part of what took us so long in answering Luther.    

It took the Catholic Church twenty-five years to answer Martin Luther.

Wednesday, 4/22/15

There were early Christians who altogether rejected the Old Testament. They felt that it presented them with a stern, unforgiving God. They wholeheartedly turned to Jesus as their loving Lord.

However, today’s Gospel throws a different light on the matter. Jesus said, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.” 

There, he was saying that if he had his “druthers,” he would get rid of some of us, but he will put up with us because the Father wants us.

We should make more of Jesus telling us to address God as “Our Father.” There were six kids in the family I grew up in, so I didn’t have our dad to myself; but there were times when he took me up on his knee, and nothing has ever felt so good to me.  

St. John opened his Gospel by telling us, “all things came to be through him.” That means that God has been versatile enough to plan his creation of trees, birds—the whole of the world’s wide inventory.

Through history people have had it hard to picture how the mind of God could stretch itself so far. But our scientific discoveries have told us that God’s mind stretches unbelievably further.

His mind has devised the billion cells that make up your body. His mind has devised the billions of atoms ticking away in each of your cells.

Certainly, the Father’s lap is commodious enough for you and me and all of us to snuggle up there.

It took the Catholic Church twenty-five years to answer Martin Luther.

Wednesday, 4/22/15

There were early Christians who altogether rejected the Old Testament. They felt that it presented them with a stern, unforgiving God. They wholeheartedly turned to Jesus as their loving Lord.

However, today’s Gospel throws a different light on the matter. Jesus said, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.” 

There, he was saying that if he had his “druthers,” he would get rid of some of us, but he will put up with us because the Father wants us.

We should make more of Jesus telling us to address God as “Our Father.” There were six kids in the family I grew up in, so I didn’t have our dad to myself; but there were times when he took me up on his knee, and nothing has ever felt so good to me.  

St. John opened his Gospel by telling us, “all things came to be through him.” That means that God has been versatile enough to plan his creation of trees, birds—the whole of the world’s wide inventory.

Through history people have had it hard to picture how the mind of God could stretch itself so far. But our scientific discoveries have told us that God’s mind stretches unbelievably further.

His mind has devised the billion cells that make up your body. His mind has devised the billions of atoms ticking away in each of your cells.

Certainly, the Father’s lap is commodious enough for you and me and all of us to snuggle up there.

Jesus can't reject us, because his Father won't let him.

Wednesday, 4/22/15

There were early Christians who altogether rejected the Old Testament. They felt that it presented them with a stern, unforgiving God. They wholeheartedly turned to Jesus as their loving Lord.

However, today’s Gospel throws a different light on the matter. Jesus said, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.” 

There, he was saying that if he had his “druthers,” he would get rid of some of us, but he will put up with us because the Father wants us.

We should make more of Jesus telling us to address God as “Our Father.” There were six kids in the family I grew up in, so I didn’t have our dad to myself; but there were times when he took me up on his knee, and nothing has ever felt so good to me.  

St. John opened his Gospel by telling us, “all things came to be through him.” That means that God has been versatile enough to plan his creation of trees, birds—the whole of the world’s wide inventory.

Through history people have had it hard to picture how the mind of God could stretch itself so far. But our scientific discoveries have told us that God’s mind stretches unbelievably further.

His mind has devised the billion cells that make up your body. His mind has devised the billions of atoms ticking away in each of your cells.

Certainly, the Father’s lap is commodious enough for you and me and all of us to snuggle up there.

Paul watched the coats of the men stoning Stephen.

Tuesday, 4/21/15

The day after Jesus fed them, those five thousand followed him around the lake, catching up with him in Capernaum.

Along the way they had been discussing how Moses had once said that God would raise up a prophet like himself to whom  the people would need to listen. They were saying that Jesus could be the prophet like Moses, because  Moses gave them bread from heaven, and Jesus was like him in giving them miraculous bread.

The more cautious ones in the crowd were saying that they needed further confirmation of Jesus being that promised prophet. So, they asked him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe?

That question launched Jesus into his long sermon about himself as the bread of life.

We should spend a few  minutes picturing the first reading's account of the crowd around Stephen, stoning him to death. 

We should take time to fully picture the scene: asking how fiercely the stones were flung, asking which ones of them cost him his life. We should also note how Saul, later Paul, watched the jackets of the stone throwers.

The men of the Synagogue of Freedmen thought they were doing God's will when they persecuted Stephen,

Monday, 4/20/15

It the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Stephen was brought for trial before the Sanhedrin. His accusers were “certain members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedman,” and I think we should stop to consider who those men were.

The Roman Empire had Jewish communities in all of its provinces, and the empire had a trick for preventing those scattered populations from rebelling. They took, as hostages, a few young Jews from every port, and they detained them in Rome for five year stints. After freeing them, then, Rome pulled in other young Jews as hostages for five years.

In most cases the teenage Jews they turned into hostages were not particularly religious to start with; but during the five years of being detained because they were  Jews, they often became so religious that on release, instead of returning to their homes. they joined the Synagogue of Freedmen to participate in temple worship.

In Jerusalem they would be won over to the Pharisees’ point of view that despised the Christians for not keeping kosher, so, in persecuting Stephen, they felt they were standing up for God.

St. Stephen asked God to forgive those young men, and we should follow his example in seeing that the people who oppose us often are doing what they think God want them to do.

Since frustration comes from not getting what we want, we find peace by not wanting.

Sunday, 4/19/15

After Jesus rose from the dead he appeared to the disciples, and he said, “Peace be with you.” St. John, in his account of that appearance told us that Jesus twice said, “Peace be with you.”Since Jesus has conquered death, what more do we have to worry about? We should be at peace.

In 1618 the Carmelite Order published our church’s finest book on leading the Christian life to its fullest. It was St. John of the Cross’s Ascent of Mount Carmel. In it St. John pictured the attainment of heaven on earth as climbing to the peak of Mt. Carmel where for thousands of years saints have sought God in solitude.

The first chapter in that book by John of the Cross was about our need to have peace. That chapter goes on to tell us how we can attain peace. Its message was simplicity itself. John of the Cross wrote that frustration comes from not getting what we wish for, so we can be free from frustrations by not wishing for anything.

Sixty-eight years ago when I read The Ascent of MountCarmel, I tried out its theory. I nipped all my wishes in the bud. I wouldn’t let myself wish for easy exam questions, or for pitches I could hit, or for sunny days, or for creamed corn for dinner. It worked, and I began experiencing extra happiness with whatever just came along., and I got good grades. I only stayed that way for a short time, but I had come to realize that peace came from not wanting.

The notion of exhausting ourselves wanting things has me recalling a neighbor of a friend of ours in St. Augustine. The lady invited me down to her apartment to see her fine china. I went down, and I was amazed at the table, cabinet, and floor space loaded with the finest china from Japan, Holland, and France. Those stacks of dishes left not even a few feet of clear space not loaded with table settings.

The lady showed me her finest Noritake from Japan, her Limoges and Haviland from France; but she said she would never have true peace of mind until she got her hands on a discontinued pattern of Irish Belleek.

I was hoping she wouldn’t get those pieces, because I suspected that she would feel terribly empty after acquiring them. I knew she would feel cheated. She would be left asking, “Is that all there is?" And she would be saying, "Oh, what a fool I have been!”

Jesus coming to his disciples over the stormy waters is a parable that tells us he will come to us at the moment of death.,

Saturday, 4/18/15

Jesus walked over the water to the disciples who felt they were in the grip of death. This story is a parable that tells us Jesus will come to us at the hour of our death. He will take us safely to the other shore.

The meaning of the story becomes clear when we consider what body of water it was that threatened the life of the disciples. It was called the Sea of Galilee, but actually it was just a wide place in the Jordan River. (Much as a hundred miles south of Jacksonville a wide stretch in the St. John’s River is called Lake George.)

In the Book of Joshua, Chapter Three we have the story of the people wanting to pass over into the Promised Land after forty years of wandering in the desert. It was springtime, and the snows from Lebanon have turned the Jordan River into a mile-wide barrier.

The people who had survived those forty years in the desert were a remnant who had proved themselves obedient. Joshua had the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant take a stand next to the flooded Jordan. Then he had the people line up four abreast in a line back from the ark. At Joshua’s command, the priests carrying the ark stepped into the flooded river, and as the people followed, the waters backed up, clearing the river bed.

The priests carried the ark down to the middle of the riverbed, then, they took their stand there. The long line of Israelites passed by them, mounting the shore into the  Promised Land. For us in death Jesus on the cross will take the place of the priests carrying the ark. We will pass by, mounting the far shore. 

The storm at night in Chapter Six of John’s Gospel is a picture of our death. If we have been true to him Jesus will come, and take us to the far shore.

The Paschal Mystery rejoices at Jesus leading us into the Promised Land.

Friday, 4/17/15

Our Gospel today gives us the first fifteen verses of Chapter Six of John’s Gospel -- a chapter  concerned with Jesus being the true bread come down from heaven.

I want you to note how it says, “The Jewish feast of Pass over was near.” Let me point out  that St. John also made that comment at the beginning of his Gospel, and then again at the end.

Now, if you pour over John’s Gospel you will become aware of how John had an  underlying plan for his Gospel. He wanted to show us that just as God chose Moses to lead his people first from the slavery in Egypt, then through the desert years, and finally into the promised land; so God chose Jesus to lead us out of slavery to sin, through our desert years, and into our promised land of heaven.

In writing his Gospel, John marked the entry into each of the three divisions of his story by dropping the phrase, “The Passover of the Jewish people was near.

John first inserted that phrase in Chapter Two when he echoed the break with the slavery of Egypt with his story of Jesus driving the dealers out of the temple. He dropped that phrase again here where the story of Jesus being the true bread from heaven echoes the manna from heaven in the desert years in Exodus. He inserted the words “the Passover of the Jews was near” at the end of Chapter Eleven when Mary of Bethany is about to anoint the body of Jesus for its passage from this world.

When the readings at Mass following Easter speak of our joy at taking part in the Paschal Mystery, they are referring to the way that Jesus leads us into the Promised Land of Heaven.

We love being Catholics.

Thursday, 4/16/15

I have been invited for lunch with some people who have left the Catholic Church, and, although I doubt that we will talk about our religious differences, I think that will be uppermost in our minds.

Rome, before Vatican II, removed Father Henre de Lubac from teaching and publishing. He had written a book saying the Apostles had not held that original sin kept unbaptized babies from heaven. A friend of his wrote asking him if his banishment had turned him against the Church.

Father de Lubac wrote back saying he could never turn against the Church. She was his mother. He lived to see Vatican II publish the following sentence he had written:


“The dignity of man rests above all in this, that he is called to communicate with God, and this invitation to converse with God is addressed to him at the first moment of his being.”

If I were asked about it tomorrow, I might come up with different reasons for my love of the Catholic Church, but right now it is these three reasons that  come to me.  

First, I love our dependence on the clear thinking of Thomas Aquinas who said that God is pure beauty, goodness and truth; so that we can see anything beautiful as Godlike, anything good as Godlike, and anything true as being at one with the mind of God.

Second, I love our ancestors who kept the Faith alive, and who were kept alive by our Faith. Among them I particularly admire America’s early Irish Catholic bishops, Carroll, Kenrick, Purcell and Gibbons.

Third, and above all, I love renewing the Last Supper at Mass seven mornings a week. Rather than seeing Jesus giving us his body so that we might enthrone it for adoration, I see him giving himself to us so that we might be physically as well as spiritually one with him in the Pleasing Gift, in the Eu-charis, at the sacrificial moment of the Mass.

The Sadducees traced their class back to the heroic priest Zadoc.

Wednesday, 5/15/15

The readings today introduce us to the Sadducees. And to get a fix on them, we must go back to 967 B.C. when King David was dying. He had promised the throne to Solomon, but a stronger son named Adonijah had raised a private army, and he was forcing people to recognize him as the new king.

To forestall Adonijah, a dying King David ordered the priest Zadoc to anoint Solomon king. Zadoc, although he was certain he would be killed for doing it, out of reverence for King David, anointed Solomon king.

Surprisingly, the whole nation began shouting, “Long live King Solomon,” and Adonijah had to run for his life. The people chose Zadoc to be their high priest, and for the next eight hundred years, only a direct descendent of Zadoc could be acceptable as high priest.

Then, in 152 B.C. there was no worthwhile man among Zadoc’s descendents, and so the post was given to Jonathan, the brother to Judas Maccabeus, and a national hero.

Now, Jonathan had a group of irreligious young friends who were very good businessmen. With their buddy Jonathan taking over as high priest, they used his position to gain valuable temple contracts for themselves.

Their answer, when the conservatives complained about Jonathan not being a descendent of Zadoc, was: “Zadoc was the high priest back then, now Jonathan is the high priest. So, if not by blood, at least by his sharing the same office, Jonathan is Zadoc’s descendent.” 

They went further, saying, “Since Jonathan is the new Zadoc, we, his buddies, are the Zadoc-ites.” In time that title Zadoc-ites, morphed into the word Sadducees.

The Sadducees, who were rich from profits from the temple, did not want Jesus and the Apostles rocking their dreamboat.

The Holy Spirit is like Wifi everywhere for prayer.

Tuesday, 4/14/15

Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born from above.” 

To explain how one might be born from above Jesus said, “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”

There, Jesus said that there is a hidden world of prayer and grace that surrounds us. Unless we become part of that hidden world we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus gave Nicodemus and explanation of that hidden world. He compared it to the warm and cool air currents that move invisibly about us, affecting every aspect of our lives.

If Jesus were making the same explanation to Nicodemus today, he might use a more modern example to explain the movements of prayer and grace.

When I ride the bus to church mornings most of the people on the bus are making use of invisible sound waves. Some bus passengers have ear-phones for music on their I-Pods. A passenger here and there is engaged in a too-loud conversation with someone at home or the work-place. Another reads electronically transmitted books  on a Kindle. They are electronically contacting the internet. When I am saying my Rosary on the bus I am prayerfully contacting heaven.

Sometimes I take my I-Pad with me. While I am on the bus I can’t get an image on it because the busses are not equipped with Wifi routers. But I can turn it on at Panera’s where they are Wifi equipped. The world of prayer and grace is like heavenly Wifi. Through it you can be born from above, and introduced into the heavenly kingdom.