True Wisdom

07-30-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

Our culture seems more polarized and divided than ever. Into this wounded situation, our Catholic faith has a healing remedy to offer: the gift of wisdom. When the Lord offers to give King Solomon anything the monarch desires, he requests “an understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:9). In his polarized situation, the King doesn’t ask for power to defeat his enemies. He asks for a wise and understanding heart to judge right from wrong. This wisdom is elevated and fulfilled in Jesus who teaches us to bring forth “both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).

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Patience is rooted in Hope

07-23-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi — Father John Muir

Life, like the church, is often burdened with evil, smallness, and impurities. The Lord’s parables give us a hope-filled perspective on all three.

Evil: in Jesus’ parable about the good farmer whose enemy plants weeds at night, Jesus tells us that God is not the cause of evil but permits evil to exist with good out of his patient love. He will finally deal with it, but his love lets things stay messy for a time.

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Accept Jesus

07-16-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

It’s not uncommon to hear people complain that we Catholics often fail in communicating our faith. Fair enough. We can and should improve there. But it’s interesting to notice that Jesus himself was implicitly accused by his disciples of a similar failure. This week in Matthew’s gospel they are perplexed that he speaks to the crowds in ambiguous parables. The Lord’s riddles leave many people more confused than before. He responds by pointing out that his parables have an intentional dual purpose: to hide (for some) and to reveal (for others) his Gospel: “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted” (Matthew 13:11). Is Jesus being unnecessarily difficult, obscurantist, or, worse, elitist?

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Renounce Everything For Love Of Jesus

07-02-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi — Father John Muir

As a boy my favorite board game was “Chutes and Ladders.” The players roll dice to move from the start to the finish, from the bottom of the board to the top. If you land on a chute, you slide back and down. It was a bummer. Land on a ladder, and you jump well up the board and near the goal. It was a thrill to find a ladder and draw closer to the goal. That’s life, isn’t it? At every moment, we’re either moving closer or farther from the goal of our lives.

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Boldly Acknowledge Jesus

06-25-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

When I was in middle school, there were times I didn’t want my fellow students to see my parents drop me off or pick me up in the school parking lot. I was embarrassed of my parents. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was our station wagon. Or I didn’t want to look like a little kid. But in retrospect that was a silly thing to do. I was a kid. And I had two parents who loved me and had built a wonderful family. I was afraid of the other kids’ judgment. How silly! I should have been afraid of forgetting or downplaying my family, which is where my identity had its deep roots.

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The Harvest Is Abundant

06-18-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi - Father John Muir

In the backyard of the house where I live with other priests, there is a lemon tree which produces a huge amount of fruit. One evening in the spring I needed some lemons for a chicken dish. I glanced from the kitchen and saw the tree bursting with large, bright, gorgeous lemons, hanging thick on seemingly every branch. Turning to Fr. Bob (I’ll change his name to protect the innocent) who sat on the couch, I said, “Father, could you pick a few lemons for me?” He said sure and into the backyard he went. He returned a few minutes later empty-handed. “John, there’s no lemons. Sorry.” I said, “What are you talking about?” I looked again and saw the grapefruit tree on the other side of the yard, which had recently been picked clean of fruit. He didn’t see the abundant fruit because he was looking in the wrong place!

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The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

06-11-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi — Father John Muir

Years ago, a woman at daily Mass approached me in the communion procession. She had her arms crossed, indicating she wanted a blessing instead of the Sacred Host. She had tears in her eyes. I gave her a little blessing. She returned the next day. And the next. The same thing repeated. After a few weeks, I asked her why she didn’t receive Holy Communion. She said she wasn’t Catholic yet and was preparing to become so. I asked her why she wanted to be Catholic. She said, “Because I long to be in a real communion with Christ and with everyone I love.” That, I submit, is a darn good reason. A few months later, she became Catholic and received the Body and Blood of Christ with unspeakably great joy and still does to this day.

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The Holy Trinity

06-04-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

In my experience, one of the peculiarities of being a man is the somewhat unlikely ability to look into the mirror, no matter how out of shape he may be, and declare with full confidence: “Looking good, buddy!” Ask a man. He’ll probably confirm it.

Therein lies a mystery. You might think I refer to man’s ability to deceive himself or his propensity toward vainglory. But in this case, I refer to the mystery of a healthy and proper sense of selflove. We human beings (both men and women) have the utterly weird ability to look at ourselves as if we were another. Then we tend to love this “other.” Then, somehow, that love becomes a bond between the two. We are three and yet one.

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Speak with the Holy Spirit

05-28-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

I hope you’ll acknowledge with me a simple fact: it’s not normal to have tongues of fire “part and come to rest” on people. It is actually pretty strange. Yet that is precisely what we celebrate in this feast of Pentecost. How can this mean something to us in our daily lives?

Jews had a tradition that heaven is a temple made of bricks of fire. So, through the apostles, the heavenly temple is coming to earth. But this fire looks like tongues, not bricks. That means that heavenly speech will be crucial to building a dwelling place for God on earth among men and women. So, it’s no surprise when the apostles begin to speak in a miraculous way that is understood by all language groups. They are speaking of what God has done in and through Jesus: bringing heaven to earth and uniting all peoples to God and to each other.

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Llamados A Ser Testigos Del Evangelio

05-21-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

El Evangelio de hoy contiene un mensaje im- portante para todos nosotros. Jesús pide por el nuevo pueblo santo de Dios. Pide al Padre que nos guarde en su nombre: “Yo ya no estoy más en el mundo, mientras yo vuelvo a ti. Padre Santo, guárdalos en ese nombre tuyo que a mí me diste, para que sean uno como noso- tros” (Juan 17,11). El Papa Francisco nos dice en su homilía del 16 de agosto del 2014 lo si- guiente: “Es significativo, ante todo, que Jesús pida al Padre que nos consagre y proteja, pero que no nos aparte del mundo. Sabemos que él envía a sus discípulos para que sean fermento de santidad y verdad en el mundo. En esto, los mártires nos muestran el camino”.

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Día de la Madre

05-11-2023Weekly Reflection

En el Día de la Madre, los católicos reconocemos a dos figuras importantes: nuestra madre y María, Madre de Dios. Para celebrar todo lo que hacen las madres, he aquí 12 citas de santos y otras figuras católicas sobre la belleza y el significado de la maternidad:

  1. Santa Teresa de Lisieux: "La obra maestra más hermosa del corazón de Dios es el corazón de una madre".
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Que Tu Amor, Señor, Nos Acompañe

05-07-2023Weekly Reflection©LPi Father John Muir

Tenemos un Padre que nos ama y nos espera siempre con amor, compasión y perdón. En este V Domingo de Pascua, Jesús nos dice que confiemos en Dios y confiemos en él: “En la casa de mi Padre hay muchas habitaciones. De no ser así, no les habría dicho que voy a prepararles un lugar” (Juan 14,1-2). Qué bonito se siente escuchar que Jesús nos tenga un lugar preparado, una habitación completa. Solo nos pide no perder la paz. También, nos muestra su profunda relación con su Padre del cielo, al que ahora regresa. En esta Pascua, Jesús desea que no perdamos la paz a pesar de todas las dificultades que enfrentamos. Ya se sabe el camino para llegar al cielo. No hay que buscar otros senderos: “Yo soy el Camino, la Verdad y la Vida”. (Juan 14,6).

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