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“God is ever-faithful.”  I can’t tell you how many times in my years here at Saint Jude I have made that statement in a homily.  “God is ever-faithful.”  I would ask you two questions today: do you believe it?  And, if so, what does that mean to you?  Because we often feel our trust in this promise being put to the test. 

As Jesus walked about in Galilee, many knew who he was.  The fact that he was out in the open was confusing to them, as they also knew there were those who intended to kill him.  He was in Galilee and not Jerusalem, because, as scripture says, “his time had not yet come,” and they could not understand why he was taking such a risk.

These past few days, there have been a couple of recurring themes in the words of Jesus.  First, we have his repeated testimony of, “I can do nothing apart from the Father.”  Second, he is addressing and challenging those who will not accept him. 

We may not realize it, but there are a lot of things in life that we try to do on our own.  In doing so, we’re fooling ourselves.  Our world offers us so many resources to aid us in daily living: GPS, text messaging, social media postings, ordering pretty much anything and having it delivered to our front door, automated car washes, placing your grocery order, prescription order, or office supply order online, and then just walking into the store and picking it up. 

When it comes to sin, forgiveness, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we’re all probably pretty good at the examination of conscience, coming up with a list, and the “telling” part (the confessing part) of the sacrament.  We’re probably pretty good at that with any experience of forgiveness, whether in the sacrament or otherwise. 

When you walk away from Mass, what do you take with you? When you walk away from any moment of prayer, reflection, or reading of scripture, what do you take with you? How about when you walk away from a retreat or the Sacrament of Reconciliation, what do you take with you? That’s the way in which I feel I need to be challenged. We experience a lot of feel-good moments, even what you could call holy moments.

I rarely offer a daily reflection for Mass based on the psalm response.  Today’s words, however, always challenge me.  For many years, the words from Psalm 95, included above, confused me. I would often say to myself, “How could hearing God’s voice result in a hardened heart?”  Then, not too many years ago, it hit me.  Sometimes we’re just not ready to hear what God has to say to us.

I learned about forgiveness, not from good books, but from good forgivers. Looking back on my childhood and adolescent years, I think my parents were good forgivers. Like every family, we had our issues. We had our arguments, misunderstandings, and blow-ups. Every time, though, we got up the next day and moved on. We were still family, and we were still loved.

Who do you trust?  Like, really trust?  Think of someone like that in your life.  Then ask yourself, “Why?  Why that person?”  If you’re married, it has to be more than, “…because she’s my wife…he’s my husband.”  It needs to be a little more than, “…because he’s my Dad…she’s my Mom.”  If you really, trust them, why do you trust them, and what does that mean?  I don’t mean to overcomplicate it, but it seems to me that there are 3 aspects to trust.  One, you can trust them to not repeat what you tell them, if you ask them to keep if between the two of you; two, you trust that, if you ask them what they think, they’ll give you honest feedback and not just tell you what you want to hear; and three—the aspect that I want to focus on in this reflection—you trust that, no matter what you share with them, they will love you still.  No matter what the weakness, mistake, even your sin, and anything about yourself, they will still love you. 

(In this reflection, I’d like to also offer a preview to Sunday’s Gospel.) What’s greatness? Seriously. How would you define it—at his point in your life? Is it money? Is it popularity? Where you live or what you drive? Is it good looks? Today’s Gospel passage takes us directly to the heart of the matter when Jesus says to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant.” And there you have it. Greatness is rooted in humility, genuine humility. It’s the kind of humility that says, “I’m not that concerned about what other people think about me…say about me…how they look at me…” and so on.

After trying several daily planners, I finally settled on one and have been using it for almost a year now. Of all the planning systems I have used, this one is a great tool for helping me be effective in daily living. There is one thing, however, that it has in common with many of the others.  Most planners these days have a section at the top of each daily page entitled something like, “My Daily Top 3.”  Then beneath that, you see your schedule for the day and your task list.  I find this format particularly helpful, because it keeps before me that which needs to be done first.

I want to return for a moment to this past Tuesday morning when I celebrated Mass with the thirdgraders from our school. The readings that day were all about prayer. The Prophet Isaiah assured us that no prayer goes unanswered, and in the Gospel, Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer. For the homily, I asked the students to share with each other their thoughts in response to 2 questions: how do you like to pray? And what, at times, makes it difficult to pray? Then I asked some of them to share with the whole class. Their responses were genuine and very inspiring.

In priestly ministry, people will sometimes ask if I am available for what we commonly call spiritual direction. This consists of one-on-one conversations on a regular basis with them to help them discern the movement of the Spirit in their life, their vocation, prayer life, and so on. Here in Saint Jude Parish, this is a common request from college students. Often, they’re not necessarily sure what their looking for but feel they lack something. This aspect of ministry, as with the others, is something very special. A while back, during one such conversation, a young man shared with me that the older he gets, the more he recognizes what he calls “God nudges” in his life.

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