Gospel Reflections for Challenging Times

  17 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel – John 6:1-15 It’s the Little Things… Loaves and Fishes, Tabgha   Familiar story!!!   A young boy is walking along the beach when he sees hundreds of starfish washed up on the shore. In dismay, and realizing that many of them are still alive, he begins chucking them back out to sea so they won’t die on the beach. A man comes along and asks him, “Why are you throwing those starfish back out into the sea? You can’t possibly save all these starfish! What difference can you make when there are so many to be saved?” After thinking about it for a moment and throwing one more starfish back out into the water, the boy replies, “I just made a difference for that one!” We’ve heard today’s Gospel story countless times!   The Apostles complaining that Jesus should send the huge crowd away! The multiplication of the loaves and fishes!   The abundance of the leftovers.   But what about that little boy?   He was part of that huge crowd.   He kne

  16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel – Mark 6:30-34 Stop, Slow Down, Go Church of Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem A simple stoplight!   You know the routine.   Slow down, stop, go!   We are all used to it but I wonder how often we apply it to our daily life.   I wonder how often we all approach life and work with just one simple word – GO!!   No stopping!   No slowing down!   Just go, go, go!   Is it any wonder then how bone-tired we can get and the only reason we stop is our body just shuts down and refuses to cooperate! After so many hospitals visits these past 9 months, I am reminded of a sign I saw on a patient’s door.   Pause!   Reflect!   Heal!   And it reminds me of Jesus’ words to the disciples in today’s Gospel. “ Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” After weeks on the road, preaching, teaching and healing, the disciples have returned home to Jesus, excited and most definitely exhausted in body, mind and spirit.   And Jesus’ respon

  15 h Sunday in Ordinary Time Gospel – Mark 6:7-13 Packing for the Journey The Two of Us Let’s be very clear about this!   I HATE packing for a journey!   Truth be told, I simply amass my pile of clothes and then leave it to Ginger to figure out how to fold, pack and probably cram it all into a suitcase.   But not this time! After 40 years of living in our Chicago home, it’s time to pack it all up and move to our new home in Tennessee.   40 years of papers, books, yearbooks, teaching notes and birthday cards, 40 years of accumulated ‘stuff’!   40 years of memories!   And for a lot of reasons and circumstances, the job falls to me!   So how to proceed?   Basically, I’m creating 3 piles:   keep, trash or donate!   And how do I decide?   Easy!   Do we use it?   Will we ever use it?   Can someone else use it?   I admit that I have been quite heartless and brutal in the whittling-down process, but I think it’s important to stay focused on what lies ahead.   You can’