"I want this light in me to show"

Fridays have become, to use a word I don't like very much, a little "triggering" for me. But then, 2026 has not been a great year, as both my of readers know. Nonetheless, with the aid and support of a very good spiritual director, I feel alright about how, by the grace of God, I have handled things, generally speaking.

For me, the hardest of the works of mercy to perform is one of the spiritual works: bearing wrongs patiently. If you don't like getting all Catholic, this is basically the scriptural injunction not to return evil for evil, forsaking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (see 1 Peter 3:9- for one example). It means working to forgive and laying your anger, hurt, discouragement at the foot of the cross.

Both with my discernment to make a major life change a few years earlier than planned and dealing with the things that have happened since actually making the change, the Lord has sought to draw me closer to him. My own take on what evangelism, which I've shared many times, is being able to tell others what difference knowing Jesus Christ makes in the nitty-gritty of your own life.

It's easy when talking about the Holy Spirit to glomb onto signs and wonders. I am not a cessionsationist, far from it. In being something of a traditional-leaning charismatic, I take a pretty critical approach to signs and wonders. I make a distinction between being charismatic and full-blown pentecostal. What is usually overlooked when talking about the Holy Spirit are the fruits of the Spirit.

The fruits of Spirit are set forth very clearly by Saint Paul in his Letter to the Galatians. The pneumatology of Galatians is a topic worthy of scriptural deep-dive. According to the apostle, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22-23). A life that bears these fruits is life in the Spirit. It is a life of grace, not of works.

“If, when stung by slander or ill-nature, we wax proud and swell with anger," Saint Francis de Sales insisted in his spiritual classic Introduction to the Devout Life, "it is a proof that our gentleness and humility are unreal, and mere artificial show."

Living in the Spirit requires you to let God work first in you and then through you. There is a supernatural change that believers need to experience. Usually, this change is slow and not a straight line. This where patience comes in. You need to be patient with God, with other, and with yourself. Saint Francis de Sales, on whose Memorial I was ordained, also exhorted: "Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself…do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage."

Living my faith is challenging, even provocative, at times. It is especially during these times that I can't excuse myself with that ominous disjunction "but." It's easy to follow Jesus when the ground is level and smooth. It becomes more difficult when the trail becomes steeper and perhaps even a bit rocky.

Anyway, lately I have been thinking about my faith during my younger years, in the years after really coming to the Lord, giving myself to him. Looking back, things almost always seem simpler. In addition to being a bit charismatic, I am very evangelical!

To honor memories of those simpler, more enthusisatic days, our Friday traditio for this week is the original lineup of the Newsboys, the Christian garage band from Down Under, perform the title song of their 1992 album Not Ashamed at the sadly now defunct Cornerstone fesitval in 1993.

Rest in the Lord

Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 145:1-2.9-11.13-14; Romans 8:9.11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

"See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he."¹ "The LORD is gracious and merciful."² "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."³

Because the Lord is gracious and full of mercy, he comes to save us, to give himself "the just" savior for us, "the unjust," who need to be saved.⁴

We burden ourselves with so many things. We not only lay heavy burdens on ourselves but we lay them on others too. This is even true when comes to our spiritual/religious lives.

As Catholics, it may well be the case that this is especially true of us. There are rules to keep, laws to follow, and sin when rules are broken and laws ignored. Later on in Saint Matthew's Gospel, speaking about the Pharisees, Jesus says, "They tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them."⁵

While it's great to witness more people coming into the Church, it's easy to lose sight of the reality that more people are still leaving than coming in. Why? There is probably no single reason. But certainly one reason is that religion easily becomes neurotic, demanding, impossible. This lies at the heart of a lot of deconstruction narratives.

Let's face it, life is often difficult. Because he is gracious and merciful, Jesus offers us his easy yoke in exchange for our heavy one. He asks you lay down your heavy burdens and take up his light yoke, one that is much easier to carry.

Jesus' own yoke was the cross. The weight of the cross, which doesn't only refer to the heavy wood but to our burdens that he took upon himself, is the Lord's yoke. Its weight was crushing. While he urges us to take up our crosses, he helps us carry them, making them lighter, even light.

You may have heard the phrase "a yoke of oxen." A yoke is a wooden harness of sorts, slipped over the head of at least two oxen so that together they can pull something heavy. Both the yoke and what the animals pull are heavy, requiring a lot of energy and labor.

Our Lord carried your heavy burden so you don't have to. He didn't do this because you deserve it. Rather, he did it because you don't. He did it because he loves you; mind boggling.

Most if not all of us have experienced life's burdens. I am not writing here about the burden of those things we do wrong, which are burdensome. I write about all of life's burdens: disappointments, illness, disllusionment, job worries, financial pressures, concerns for children, self-doubt, the death of a loved one, etc.

What is it the Lord teaches the one who seeks to learn from him? First and foremost, it is to trust him, to place your worries, cares, that is, your burdens before him. This requires meekness and humility. It also requires honesty with yourself and with him.

Elsewhere, scripture urges us to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, which is not meant to be threatening but rather ressuring us that it is God who is in control. And so, the passage continues, "Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you."⁶

I am currently reading through Scott Sauls' book The Mercy King. While I am reading it as part of my preparation for a retreat I am leading this fall, I am finding it very personally beneficial. "Jesus," Sauls notes when writing on this passage from Matthew, "doesn't approach us as a harsh taskmaster, pointing out flaws or keeping score." Rather, he issues each one of us a deeply personal invitation.⁷

Sauls rightly points to the fact that at the heart of the Lord's invitation are three words (it is also three words in the original Greek): "Come to me."⁸ Jesus doesn't say, Come and wow me with your intelligence, creativity, diligence, or even any virtue you've maybe acquired. No. He says, Come to me just as you are, the more tired the better, and I will give you rest.

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For some reason, this summer I am really inclined to stick with the basics of the Gospel. My focus is on the great love the Father has lavished on us in Christ Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who pours God's love (which is nothing other than God, who is love) into our hearts.⁹ This is the sure foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You can't earn this. You can only respond in love with thanksgiving.

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1 Zechariah 9:9.^↩
2 Psalm 145.8.^↩
3 Matthew 11:28.^↩
4 1 Peter 3:18.^↩
5 Matthew 23:4.^↩
6 1 Peter 5:6-7.^↩
7 Scott Sauls. The King of Mercy: How the Kindness of Jesus Heals Your Sin, Shame, and Weakness, page 123.^↩
8 Ibid.^↩
9 Romans 5:5; 1 John 4:8.16.^↩

"I raise my hands to the sky as I climb to higher ground"

It's been awhile since I posted a Friday traditio. This is largely due to the changes brought about by my major transition in work this year. Frankly, I am still trying to find both balance and rhythm.

One day last week, between things, I had the opportunity to go to a bookstore located in the neigborhood where our first house was in Salt Lake City. Doing this brought back a flood of good memories from when our two oldest children were very young. Boy, did I need that!

Driving from there to where I was attending a meeting, as I stopped at a stop sign, the thought occurred to me that, as an adult, the most vexing things I have experienced have been in the Church, things that would likely never occur in any other setting. This is simply an indisputable fact based on my experience. I will readily admit that at this moment in time, I don't care much for belonging to "the Church," however you want to interpret that little phrase "the Church."

It is far from the first time I have felt this way. To employ what is rapidly becoming an overused allocution, this time it "hit" differently. What I mean by this is that it's been impossible to pray, think, talk myself out of this for the past two weeks.

Even after a long session with my spiritual director, who is wonderful, I'm still not feeling it. There is the sinking realization that I'll probably never feel the same way again. In and of itself, this is probably not a bad thing. How else would I grow? I get it, growth can be painful.

Like many people who've had similar experiences, this realization in no way impinges upon my faith in God nor my love for Jesus Christ. If forced, I would admit it doesn't even really damage my faith in "the Church," when I think about it ontologically and in the abstract, that is, idealistically. In reality, the Church is far from this ideal (hardly a new or unique insight). And I am not so self-absorbed that I don't realize I contribute to this incongruity.

Yesterday, I finally picked up N.T. Wright's little book on Ephesians, which I acquired a few months ago. It is entitled The Vision of Ephesians: The Task of the Church and the Glory of God. Being a short commentary of sorts on what Wright insists was a circular letter (encyclical) written by Paul to the Churches he founded in what is now western Turkey, it is very much about the Church, her mission, her calling, her destiny. I suppose right now I need to some theological, ecclesiological idealism. The risk is, it might make my desire to disconnect even worse.

I am eager to get to the parts of Ephesians in which Paul (Wright, a leader among the new perspectives on Paul scholars, insists Ephesians was written by Paul) in which the apostle addresses how we are to treat one another, behave toward each other, forebear with one another. But then maybe this is just grasping at straws.

"This too shall pass" is the mantra for what I'm currently experiencing. A pious platitude for sure but what else can you say or perhaps even hope for?

You see, even as a member of the clergy (that deacons are clergy, at least from a Roman Catholic perspective, is itself vexing to some, foremost among whom are many priests), I am often disappointed by "the Church." Of course, some people, perhaps many people, are disappointed with me. Maybe being disappointed with one another is as good as it gets this side of the eschaton.

In my view, many recovery communities better model what the Church needs to become. This is due to the honesty that prevails in those groups. Their focus is reality as it is, not as we want it to be. Too often in Church we're all pretending things are as they should be.

This pretense pressures too many people to try to appear how they think they are expected to be at expense of how they really are. This gets tiresome and it is dysfunctional. Healthy people, yet broken, people realize this and either just do their time or look elsewhere. Rather than a convention of older brothers, the Church needs to be more of a gathering of grateful, gracious prodigals, with some of us still squandering our rich inheritance or hemming and hawing about returning to the Father. As Jesus clearly showed during his ministry, self-righteousness is the bane of religion.

Our Friday traditio is a great song by the inimitable Colin Hay. "Come Tumblin' Down" off his amazing Fierce Mercy album is the choice.

Receive Christ, receive his love

Matthew 10:37-42

Our Gospel for this Sunday is provocative. But it's important not to change it from a provocation into a scandal. In this passage from Matthew, the Lord is not putting his followers on the horns of a dilemma.

Jesus is not saying, you can either love your father and mother or you can love me. He is not telling his disciples, you can either love your children or love me. This would hardly be teaching worthy of the same God who made the fourth of his ten commandments the command to honor your father and mother and making that the only commandment with a promise attached for those who keep it.

It's often noted that the ten commandments are about loving God and neighbor. This is true. The first three are about loving God and final six are about loving our neighbor. But that's only nine, you might say.

While making clear that love is not a feeling but an act of the will, that is, a decision that shapes one's words and actions, the fourth commandment, falling as it does between the commandments about loving God and those about loving your neighbor, places your parents between God and other people. There is a corollary to this in how we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, which falls between worshipping God and venerating the saints.

For those of us who are parents being between God and other people when it comes to your children, is quite daunting, even distressing. This should also be daunting for children. While all of us are not parents, each of us is a child of parents.

As is usually the case, what the Lord is saying is profound and points to a number of things at the same time. One of those things is that no other person can bear the weight of your need. One of the easiest ways to weigh down or even break a relationship is to require more of another the s/he can realistically give.

With that in mind, consider what we hear Jesus say today as an extension of last week's Gospel. If you remember he taught of God's unfailing love, of his care and concern, for each of us. I think today's teaching is also linked to something found in the next chapter of Saint Matthew's Gospel, namely the Lord's invitation to take up his easy and light yoke.¹

Experiencing the love of God is life-changing. Once you experience God's unfailing and unconditional love, you can't help but understand the core of Jesus' teaching in our Gospel passage today: it is only by loving him more than anyone and everyone, which love can only ever be a response to his love, that you can love others as you should.

No matter how you want to "frame" it, loving Christ first and foremost is the foundation of the ordo amoris. As the Lord's teaching in our passage shows, genuine love of Christ inevitably overflows to love of neighbor, be s/he prophet, thirsting disciple, righteous person, or, anyone you might encounter.

To receive Christ is not in the first place (or in the last place) to assent to a set of Christological propositions carefully formulated and philogically honed. To receive Christ is to open yourself to receive his all-encompassing, all-consuming love. It is then that, to paraphrase the Rule of Saint Benedict, you can receive others as Christ himself.²

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1 Matthew 11:28-30.^↩
2 Rule of Saint Benedict, Chapter 53.^↩

Year A Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Jer 20:10-13; Ps 69:8-10.14.17.33-34; Rom 5:12-15; Matt 10:26-33

In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul asks, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”¹ If you take experience as your guide, or even today's first reading and Gospel, this question may not be as rhetorical as it seems. In short, there is plenty of opposition, both individually and collectively.

In our first reading, Jeremiah faces the reality that his former friends have now become his enemies. Listening to his every word, watching his every move, they wait for him to say or do something for which they can condemn and attack him. Nonetheless, the prophet, mining the same vein as the apostle, is convinced that God is with him.

Both Paul and Jeremiah speak in ultimate, not temporal terms. This is indicated by what Jesus tells the twelve in today’s Gospel. As he prepares them for the mission, he tells them they will face opposition and exhorts them not to fear those who might kill their bodies, reassuring them that they cannot kill their souls.

Our souls, the aspect of our being that bears God’s image, are immediately created by God and belong to God. Because it isn't yours, you can't sell your soul. Everyone’s soul is precious to God. Everyone is loved by God without exception.

I know we’re used to hearing things like, “If everyone is special, then no one is special.” I suppose there is a sense in which this is true. This reversibility depends on the adjective, doesn’t it? It also depends on context. For example, it's true that everyone is unique. And so, it makes perfect sense to say that God loves everyone without exception.

It’s important never to lose sight of the reality that you are included in everyone. To catch at least a glimpse, not only of the fact that God loves you, but also of the all-encompassing and unconditional way he loves you, even fleetingly, is life-changing. Father’s Day seems like a great day to contemplate the perfect love of God the Father.

Being human, we’re weak and forgetful. And so, it’s important to experience God’s unconditional love over and over again. It’s especially important to experience God's love during times of grief, pain, and suffering, that is, during life's inevitable lows. Grief, pain, and suffering can result from events beyond your control, from things done to you by others (like Jeremiah), or from personal failures.

I know quite a few people today dislike images like this, perhaps seeing them as "very seventies." But I think such pictures convey, as they were designed to, something important: even during our worst times, Christ is with us

None of these weakens or alters God’s love for you in the slightest. In an important sense, “grace” is merely a name for the many ways God makes his love manifest in our lives. Grace cannot be earned. God’s love cannot be earned. There’s no need to earn what you always already have. As we heard in our second reading, the grace of God overflows from the cross of Christ.

Seeing a crucifix should always remind us that God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. In no way is God’s grace made more manifest in our lives than through the mercy given us in Christ. Christ’s cross is the mercy seat. It is the throne of the King of Mercy.

We can truly love only because we are first loved.² Because of our distorted perception, it's hard to make God's love the foundation of our daily lives, especially when this means bearing the cross.

While we hope for, expect, and even eagerly await something far better, it is this life with all its joys and sorrows, victories and defeats, suffering and elation that prepares us for an eternity in God’s kingdom. This is why scripture urges us to encounter life’s various trials with joy. Yes, trials can and do test faith. But testing, scripture teaches, “produces perseverance.” Persevering through “various trials” perfects faith.³

Perfection of faith by persevering through trials, far from being a magic formula, is about facing reality head-on, knowing that God is with you, come what may. It enables you to see for yourself not just that God is with you but how God makes himself present when you’re struggling. This experience makes something that is all too easily abstract very concrete.

During his recent Apostolic Journey to Spain, Pope Leo warned against the danger of efforts, usually well-meaning, to “spiritualize pain, superficially attributing it to 'God's will' or to some mysterious plan of his.” To do this, he noted, runs the risk of minimizing or silencing suffering, thus hurting people. God neither wants nor wills human suffering.

Yet, suffering exists, it’s real, as we all know. Christ, the Holy Father insisted, “carries [suffering] with us and invites us to trust in him with perseverance,” hopefully noting that “with God, life is always reborn.”⁴

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1 Romans 8:31.^↩
2 1 John 4:10.^↩
3 James 1:2-4.^↩
4 “Christianity is not about perfection, no one is defined by suffering, mistakes, pope says,” Carol Gltaz, Catholic News Service, 11 June 2026.^↩

An ecumenical note

When it comes to Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, Catholics understandably tend to focus intensely on his presence in the consecrated, transsubtantiated, elements of bread of wine. We often do so to the exclusion of the other ways Christ is present in the Eucharist. To be clear, by "Eucharist," I mean the Mass, the Eucharistic liturgy.

That Eucharist can refer exclusively to the consecrated elements, strikes me as another indication of what is perhaps too concentrated a focus. According to Sacrosanctum Concilium, while he is "especially [present] under the Eucharistic species," Christ is also present in the Eucharist(ic liturgy) in three other distinct and integral ways: in the gathering of the baptized, that is "when the Church prays and sings," in the person of the priest, in the proclamation of Sacred Scripture (sec. 7).

It is also important to note that the high point of the Eucharistic liturgy is not the priest speaking the words of consecration. As necessary and vitally important as this is, it is not the high point. The Eucharistic liturgy "builds" toward the Communion Rite. It is our reception of Christ's body and blood that makes us Christ's Body in and for the world. Eucharist leads to mission, which is why we call the Eucharistic liturgy "Mass." From the Latin root missa, it relates to missio, or mission.

In terms of liturgies and worship services celebrated by other duly baptized Christians, I frequently hear Catholic comments along the lines that Christ is not really present in these celebrations. But can he be truly absent? Is it possible that the Lord is not true to his word that where two or more are gathered in his name, he is present (see Matthew 18:20)? If we take our cue from a dogmatic constitution approved by an ecumenical council and promulgated by the Roman Pontiff, which gives said constitution a very "high" authority in terms of the Church's magisterium, Christ is present in these celebrations.

When and where the baptized gather to pray and sing, Christ is present. When and where the scriptures are proclaimed in a gathering of the baptized, Christ is present. Let's not forget, all the baptized in some way belong to the one Church of Christ. It is a matter of great importance that the Catholic Church does not rebaptize those who are truly and duly baptized when they seek to be in full communion. It's hard for many not have a monopoly on Jesus Christ.

Then, of course, there is the Orthodox Church, which, from a Catholic perspective, celebrate valid sacraments. When someone who is Orthodox seeks to come into full communion with the Catholic Church, s/he is not only not baptized, s/he is not reconfirmed.

Baptism is the basis of ecumenism. Ecumenism differs from other ways the Church dialogs, like interreligious dialogs or discussions with new religious movements (interactions with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc., fall into this category, not full-blown ecumenism).

Ecumenism is Christians working together to foster communion of all who believe in Christ, all who are baptized into his death and resurrection.

First among "the initiatives and activities planned and undertaken" with regard to ecumenism, the Second Vatican Council, in its decree Unitatis redintegratio, is that Catholics should make "every effort to avoid expressions, judgments and actions which do not represent the condition of our separated brethren with truth and fairness and so make mutual relations with them more difficult" (sec. 4). Insisting there is no way Christ is present when they gather to worship seems to me very much a violation of this principle.

A corollary

This post is a corollary to my Sunday reflection on the epistle reading from Romans 5:6-11. The following also arises from the liturgy. It was prompted by Morning Prayer, traditionally called Lauds, one of the offices that comprise the Church's official prayer, known as Liturgy of the Hours.

Two things in Morning Prayer for Tuesday, Week III of the Psalter linked to the connection between faith and works that is so crucial for living a genuinely Christian life. But before getting to parts of this morning's prayer, there was something else that helps make that connection. It is a clip I watched last night from a standup performance by comedian Aaron Weber.

In course of talking about an interaction he had with a homeless man he'd come to be acquainted with in Nashville, where he lives, he said something like, "As a Christian, I try to help the poor." He then noted, "But I'm a Catholic, so I like them to earn it." This encapuslates precisely the attitude I was trying address, one that, to repeat, is so vital to understanding where Pope Francis was coming from.

Now, don't get me wrong. Grace is not opposed to effort. Being a Christian is not a passive endeavor. Far from it. Being a Christian requires one to live very intentionally. Grace is opposed to earning. As noted, the effort (i.e., good works) prompted by grace flow from gratitude. "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give" (Matthew 10:8).

This brings me to the prompt from today's Morning Prayer: the Old Testament Canticle for Tuesday Morning, Week III, is Isaiah 26:1-4.7-9.12. Like the words quoted above from last Sunday's Gospel, what struck me were the final words of the canticle: "LORD, you will decree peace for us, for you have accomplished all we have done" (Isaiah 26:12).

Then, one of the Intercessions for Morning Prayer sort of made this a revelatory moment:

Look kindly upon our weakness and hasten to our aid,
for without you we can do nothing

As Christians, we are not compelled by the Law. Following Christ is not about complying with the checklist of holiness. Rather, as Saint Paul insisted, it is "the love of Christ [that] impels us" (2 Corinthians 5:14). This is not a distinction without a difference. Rather, it is two very different ways of being.