Gospel Reflection - Fast Acceptable to the Lord (3/7/2025)

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Click to listen: https://phucphan.podbean.com/e/gospel-reflection-fast-acceptable-to-the-lord-372025/ #GospelReflection #diakonia

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Last year, I did not fast like I normally do every Lent and, I have to admit, my Lenten experience was not the same as years past because I was not denying myself like I would when I fasted. This Lent, I decided to return to fasting until dinner time in the evening.

So how am I using my lunch hour during the day, you ask? Well, I have been writing and recording Gospel reflections for my blog and podcast. It has been wonderful to spend the lunch hour reflecting on the words of God and sharing Scripture with those who read my blog or listen to my podcast.

In today's first reading, from the Prophet Isaiah, we hear the Lord God tell us how we should fast, saying:

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:

releasing those bound unjustly,

untying the thongs of the yoke;

Setting free the oppressed,

breaking every yoke;

Sharing your bread with the hungry,

sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;

Clothing the naked when you see them,

and not turning your back on your own.

Believe me, this is a daunting list of to-do's from our Lord that reminds me of Christ's teaching on the Final Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) (which we will hear proclaim this coming Monday). However, do not be discouraged or feel overwhelmed.

So, how are we to approach these tasks that the Lord God asks of us? We do not shy away when the opportunities are presented to us. How so? We pray for those who are "bound unjustly" and the "setting free [of] the oppressed. In other words, we can pray for the end of wars (especially in Ukraine and the Holy Land) and the health and well-being of the Holy Father Pope Francis. We participate in our parishes' Lenten Projects, like this one that the Social Ministry team at my parish is organizing to help the homeless within our parish boundaries: https://saintalbert.org/news/parish-lenten-project-blessing-bags-soap-socks-snacks.

When we do these things, we give our fasting purpose and meaning because we free up our time and resources to help those less fortunate (almsgivings) and pray for those in need of our prayers. Perhaps then, our Lord and our God will say to us in our time of prayer and service:

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your wound shall quickly be healed;

Your vindication shall go before you,

and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,

you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs, pray for us!

. . .

Gospel of the Day (Matthew 9:14-15)

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,

"Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,

but your disciples do not fast?"

Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn

as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast."

Gospel Reflection - Take Up Our Cross and Follow Jesus (3/6/2025)

#newPODCAST Gospel Reflection - Take Up Our Cross and Follow Jesus (3/6/2025) 🙏❤🕊

Click to listen: https://phucphan.podbean.com/e/gospel-reflection-take-up-our-cross-and-follow-jesus-362025/ #GospelReflection #diakonia

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In today’s first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, the Lord our God, through Moses, set before us the choices that we have to make in our life.

I have set before you

life and prosperity, death and doom.

The Lord God also said:

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

The Lord God desires us to “Choose life. . . For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live”

We do this when we:

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,

which I enjoin on you today,

loving him, and walking in his ways,

and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,

And when we do, the Lord promises us that:

you will live and grow numerous,

and the LORD, your God,

will bless you

This Lent (and going forward), let us turn to the Lord and be

like a tree

planted near running water,

That yields its fruit in due season,

and whose leaves never fade.

Whatever he does, prospers.

Let us turn away from temptation and sin because:

Not so the wicked, not so;

they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

For the LORD watches over the way of the just,

but the way of the wicked vanishes.

Through the Lent disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we can be equipped to deny ourselves of worldly attachments and yolk ourselves to our Lord Jesus Christ whose yolk is easy and burden light.

Let us take up our cross daily and follow our Christ through the desert, to the Cross, and to eternal life because our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life.

Jesus asks us an important question in today’s Gospel:

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world

yet lose or forfeit himself?

Every day, we have a decision to make, to follow God and lead others to our Lord Jesus Christ or not and continue on the path that will only lead to our destruction. . . in this life. . . and lose eternal life with our Lord and our God forever. . .

Let us pray. . .

Lord Jesus Christ, send your Spirit to be with us and grant us the wisdom and courage to deny ourselves of those things that lead on away from you but cling on to the heavenly treasures that you have blessed us with in our lives. Help us to grow in faith, hope, and love this Lent through the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Amen.

. . .

Gospel of the Day (Luke 9:22-25)

Jesus said to his disciples:

"The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected

by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,

and be killed and on the third day be raised."

Then he said to all,

"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world

yet lose or forfeit himself?"

Gospel Reflection for Ash Wednesday (3/5/2025)

#newPODCAST Gospel Reflection for Ash Wednesday (3/5/2025) 🙏🕊️❤️

Click to listen: https://phucphan.podbean.com/e/gospel-reflection-for-ash-wednesday-552925/ #GospelReflection #diakonia

. . .

Gospel of the Day (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18)

Jesus said to his disciples:

"Take care not to perform righteous deeds

in order that people may see them;

otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.

When you give alms,

do not blow a trumpet before you,

as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets

to win the praise of others.

Amen, I say to you,

they have received their reward.

But when you give alms,

do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,

so that your almsgiving may be secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

"When you pray,

do not be like the hypocrites,

who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners

so that others may see them.

Amen, I say to you,

they have received their reward.

But when you pray, go to your inner room,

close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

"When you fast,

do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.

They neglect their appearance,

so that they may appear to others to be fasting.

Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you fast,

anoint your head and wash your face,

so that you may not appear to be fasting,

except to your Father who is hidden.

And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you."

Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030525.cfm

Homily for Monday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time (Year C - 3/3/2025)

Good morning. As we prepare for the penitential season of Lent, which starts this Ash Wednesday, the man in today’s Gospel gives us a perfect question to reflect on and take to prayer. He asked our Lord Jesus Christ, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He then answered Jesus by saying that he observed all the commandments from his youth. What did Jesus do? He affirmed the man for all he had done from his youth. We can know this  because Scripture tells us that our Lord looked at him and loved him. Then, and here is the hinge, Jesus said to the man, “You are lacking in one thing.”

This is important for us to meditate on in our spiritual life, especially for us here who faithfully come to Mass every morning at 6:30 to pray before our Eucharistic Lord and to receive him at Holy Communion during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Our prayer ought to be: “Here I am, Lord. I have come to do your will. What am I, or where am I, lacking in my life when it comes to honoring you. . . when it comes to giving you all praise and glory, Lord?” Then, be prepared for God’s answer and, more importantly, pray for the courage to follow His will. I did this spiritual exercise last week and this was what the Holy Spirit revealed to me in prayer of that one thing that I was lacking. I received my answer through this reflection that I read:

“Perhaps we are more available to those outside our family than we are to our family members. Over the years, Pope Francis has often encouraged parents to “waste time” with their children—to be available to them in unstructured ways. Marriage Encounter addresses the challenge of “married singles”—spouses each so busy with their own lives that they don’t share the intimacy they are meant to experience. Do we give those in our family focused attention? Attention and availability are concrete ways of loving and serving as Jesus did.”

My sisters and brothers in Christ, when we discover that one thing that we are lacking, then perhaps, we can come closer to finding the answer to the question: “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Therefore, this Lent, if this one thing that we lack is a habitual sin that we fall prey to over and over again, then let us not be afraid to confront that sin with the help of God, bring it into the light, and allow Jesus to heal us and the Holy Spirit to help us overcome the sin. This is what our Lord Jesus Christ desires for us, as we heard in today’s first reading:

“To the penitent God provides a way back, he encourages those who are losing hope and has chosen for them the lot of truth. Return to him and give up sin, pray to the LORD and make your offenses few. Turn again to the Most High and away from your sin, hate intensely what he loathes, and know the justice and judgments of God, Stand firm in the way set before you, in prayer to the Most High God. . . How great the mercy of the LORD, his forgiveness of those who return to him!”

Saint Katherine Drexel, pray for us.

. . .

Gospel of the Day (Mark 10:17-27)

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,

knelt down before him, and asked him,

"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good?

No one is good but God alone.

You know the commandments: You shall not kill;

you shall not commit adultery;

you shall not steal;

you shall not bear false witness;

you shall not defraud;

honor your father and your mother."

He replied and said to him,

"Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth."

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him,

"You are lacking in one thing.

Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor

and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

At that statement, his face fell,  

and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,

"How hard it is for those who have wealth

to enter the Kingdom of God!"

The disciples were amazed at his words.

So Jesus again said to them in reply,

"Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves,

“Then who can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said,

“For men it is impossible, but not for God.

All things are possible for God.”