Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

It's interesting to keep our eyes on Jairus during the reading of today's long Gospel. It begins with the synagogue official's desperate plea for Jesus to come and heal his 12 year-old daughter, who is dying. As they are on the way to Jairus's house, Jesus gets detained (one could argue unnecessarily). Yet Jesus allows himself to be detailed so that he can dialogue with this woman who had been healed by touching his cloak. In the meantime, Jairus's household sends word that his daughter has indeed died. Jesus has a plan for Jairus through all of this, and it does include raising his daughter from the dead, but it also includes a lot of walking with Jesus through the darkness as we do not understand what He is doing. Pope Francis says that faith is not a light that scatters all of the darkness but rather a lamp that accompanies us faithfully through the darkness. May we learn to ask for the healing we desire and to trust during the ensuing darkness!

In today's Gospel, while the disciples and Jesus are crossing the Sea of Galilee for their first missionary journey, a violent storm arises that throws the disciples in a panic. Where is Jesus? He is sleeping comfortably on the boat. This is not because he is aloof to the storm but rather because at every moment Jesus knows that he lives within the protective love of his Heavenly Father. There is simply nothing to fear. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus, he wants to help us to rest during our storms as he rests, confident that we too, God's beloved son or daughter, are at every moment being held by his protective love.

Today's parables have to do with planting and seeds help us to remember that it is the death of the seed -- in silence and secret -- that produces the harvest. We can live this Gospel by remembering that it is the little prayers and offerings that we make in silence and secret that are the foundation of our faith and that produce fruit in the Church and in the world.

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the ordination of three new deacons for our local church, and part of the privilege was watching these three young men promise celibacy and obedience to the bishop, effectively giving their lives away. Jesus says, "He who saves his life will lose it. But he who loses his life for my sake, finds it." How can any of us, regardless of what vocation we're called to, make a complete gift of our life to God? I would say that it is by receiving the gift that Jesus makes of his life that we are able to make our own lives a gift. This is precisely what the Eucharist and Holy Mass are: The gift of self that the Divine Bridegroom makes to the Church. Receiving Christ's self-gift, we can have grace to do the same.

Today I was blessed to have Mass in my parents' chapel with some family and some of the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus. Here's my off-the-cuff homily -- a reflection on how the Visitation brings us back to the Old Testament and helps us see how we are to be as members of the Church.

Today we take a little plunge into the theology of the Church on the Trinity, which only serves to articulate how it's possible that the One God can be called "Love". For in God there is a Lover whom we call the Father and a Beloved whom we call the Son and their shared Love whom we call the Holy Spirit. God loves to share His own life with us -- and He does this in the Sacrament!

A fascinating and strange exchange occurs between Mary Magdalene and Jesus outside of the empty tomb. Jesus says to Mary, who has been searching desperately for his body, "Stop holding onto me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father." What beguiles us is that union with Jesus -- holding on to him and being held by him ("remaining" with him, as he puts it) is the goal of our spiritual life. So why this remark from Jesus that seems to contradict this spiritual truth? At Pentecost the Church will discover the answer. Jesus goes to the Father not to leave us but to send the Holy Spirit -- the Spirit of Love he shares with the Father -- right into our hearts. So its not less intimacy that Jesus wants with Mary but more intimacy. And the way that he will achieve it is by not remaining at an arm's distance from her (which he necessarily does while he remains bodily on earth) but by sending his Spirit into her, achieving the intimate union he desires with her from within.

Our readings for the Mother's Day remind us of the truth that "God is love." Three mom saints help us to discover how we can lose ourselves in love... and find ourselves in the process!

Today's second reading from the John's first letter opens like this: "Children, let us love not in word and speech but in deed and truth." St. John is telling us not so much that we shouldn't express love with our words, but that, for our love to be authentic, it must be backed up by deeds. This is hugely important in a culture where to "love" someone is thought to mean to have warm feelings for them. It follows then that if someone makes me feel bad there cannot be love there. What John puts into focus for us is that our love is proven when we do for each other what is best for each other (through actions), which is consistent with Aquinas's definition of love: "Willing (choosing) the good for the other".

Today's second reading from the 1st Letter of St. John begins like this: "Beloved, see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God." We are God's children through baptism, although, while we were children, we often heard from the adults in our life, "Grow up!" Or, "Stop acting like a child!" Yet Jesus says in the Gospels, "Unless you become like a child you will not enter the Kingdom of God." We are children on God in fact through our baptism. But how are we to be like children? What qualities does Jesus see in children that He wants us to emulate?