News from P.I.T. (Pastor in Training)
March 10 – Fourth Sunday of Lent
You can find many statistics and studies pointing to the fact that faith in first world countries is in decline. The question “why is this happening?” can be asked. How could the cultures and countries that were instrumental in the spread of the Catholic faith now be lacking in faith? One thing I would propose is that we are going too fast. These countries and peoples, which include us, are not taking time to recollect, reflect, and pray.
Have you ever tried to recall an event that happened suddenly in your life, such as an accident? Many times, we struggle to put all the details together. Or have you ever tried to capture information while traveling down a highway? If you aren’t giving your complete attention, you will miss all the details as you go by.
In our first reading, in the midst of the sorrow and sadness of being in exile, King Cyrus issues a decree allowing the Jewish people to return to their land and rebuild their temple. Here the Lord is acting through a world leader. As the Jewish people return to rebuild, they still mourn because the new temple would never measure up to the glory of Solomon’s original temple. The people were failing to see God’s hand in it, despite the fact that he had freed them from years of captivity and oppression.
In our second reading, St. Paul asks the people of Ephesus to recall God’s Mercy in Christ. In a way, they had forgotten about it, maybe due to the busyness of their lives. How many times have we been so caught up in our busyness that we fail to recall God’s Mercy in our lives? Do we fail to reflect on what Christ has done for you and me?
Finally, in our Gospel today Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, a sign that he was searching for the true Light of the World. It was also at a time when there was nobody else around. Nicodemus went to encounter Christ when the world was sleeping; he went to seek him in the silence. This first encounter would lead to Nicodemus’s conversion, and eventually to his acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice, as he would help bury our Lord’s body after the Crucifixion.
What can we do to grow in our faith, especially in the season of Lent? May I encourage us to slow down, take time to recollect, and reflect on the way the Lord has worked, is working, and continues to work in our lives? May we never get too busy to miss the workings of the Lord and his presence in our lives, thanking him for all the good he has done for us.
Father Michael
March 3 – Third Sunday of Lent
When I was a little kid, I would watch a show called The Big Comfy Couch, in which most of the adventures took place on the eponymous sofa. One of my favorite segments of the show was the “Ten Second Tidy.” At the end of the show, the characters would clean up the mess they made in ten seconds by comically shoving everything into the couch cushions. Of course, this show influenced how I cleaned as a child.
One day, as we were leaving a friend’s house, my mom said I had to clean up my mess really quickly before we left. “Ten second tidy?” I said. She nodded, probably thinking I meant that I would clean really fast. When we got back home, my mom received a phone call from my friend’s mom. “We can’t find our remote control. Do you have any idea where it might be?” She looked at me for a second and replied, “Have you checked your couch cushions?”
Even now as an adult, I still do not enjoy cleaning, and much of my “tidying” probably still resembles shoving everything out of sight into the couch cushions. During this Lent, we are called to do a kind of “spring cleaning” of our souls. But left to ourselves, our cleaning might look more like a “ten second tidy,” shoving problems out of sight rather than truly removing them from our lives. So how can we truly clean our souls?
In the Gospel, where Jesus makes a whip and drives all the money changers out of the Temple. What does that have to do with us? John gives us a clue: “But he was speaking about the temple of his body.” Jesus refers to His body as a Temple, and because we are joined to His Body through Baptism, St. Paul can call our bodies Temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).
We need to invite Jesus to cleanse the temples of our bodies and souls of any sin. We do this primarily through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but as we go to receive this sacrament during Lent, we should take Jesus as a model of the attitude we need to have toward sin. He doesn’t allow any of the money changers to remain in the Temple, but drives them completely out. In the same way, we cannot make any compromises with sin, but resolve to drive it completely out of our lives.
This driving out of the money changers isn’t without purpose. The Temple is a place of communion with God, and even more so the Temple of the Body of Christ. So we allow Jesus to cleanse the temples of our souls so that we can enter more deeply into communion with Him, especially through the Holy Eucharist. As we prepare for Easter, let’s remember that going to Confession shouldn’t be a “ten second tidy,” but a true cleansing of our sins so that Jesus can fill us with His Presence.
Father Frank
February 25 – Second Sunday of Lent
Well, we are in the season of Lent again! And for some reason, every year the sacrifices seem to get harder, not easier. The thought might come across our minds: “do I have to sacrifice anything this year?” It sometimes seems that we find ourselves going in circles. As we see in our yearly liturgical calendar, the weeks flow from Advent to Christmas into Ordinary Time, and from there they flow into Lent, Easter, and finally back to Ordinary Time again. We continue to see this cycle repeat each subsequent year.
This repetitive pattern might look like we are going in circles, but what if there is something else going on. What if the Lord is using this pattern to help us enter more deeply into our relationship with Him? One image that was given to me over 20 years ago has helped me tremendously in moving away from only going in circles. Instead, it helped me see the growth and depth that the repetition of the liturgical calendar has in our spiritual lives. All you need to do is go to your nearby garage or wood shop; grab a wooden board, a screwdriver and screw. When you start putting the screw into the board, it seems to simply go in circles if you looked at it solely from the top. You only need to look at it from the side to realize that the screw is not just stationary, but it is going deeper into the board!
People may not like repetition, but it is in the repetition, the going in circles, that we can actually enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of God: his Passion, death, and Resurrection. It’s the constant sacrifices that allow us to enter into the greater joy of Christ’s Resurrection! So, if you are frustrated that it is the Lenten season again, I encourage you to look at the ways the Lord is trying to grow deeper in relationship with you. Then, I guarantee that the sacrifices won’t be so difficult!
“Brethren, Lent is already galloping past and the soul rejoices at the imminence of Easter, because by it, it finds rest and is relieved of many toils.”- St. Theodore the Studite
Father Michael
February 18 – First Sunday of Lent
As a kid, I loved to watch the Tobey Maguire Spiderman with my dad and my brother. Because of this, I was dismayed when they decided to reboot the series with a new actor, Andrew Garfield, and I refused to watch it. After this, it was rebooted once again with another actor, Tom Holland. I thought, “If I didn’t watch the Andrew Garfield reboot, I’m definitely not going to watch this one.” But in the most recent Spiderman movie, No Way Home, something surprising happened. (This movie came out in 2021, so I don’t feel guilty about giving spoilers). The filmmakers decided to bring back the two other Spiderman actors, and make them part of the story, as Spidermen from different universes. As a result, their stories continued and were even able to find satisfying conclusions.
At first glance, it seems like God is trying to reboot humanity in the Great Flood, having Noah replacing Adam in the starring role of the father of humanity. And if this were the case, it would seem to be a mistake. Noah ultimately has his own fall like Adam, and evil still persists in the heart of man. But God is not really trying to reboot humanity. If anything, He is showing us that this is impossible. In the First Reading, God renews the covenant with creation that He had created with Adam and promises never to allow a Great Flood to destroy humanity in the future. He invites Noah to remember Adam, giving him an opportunity to return to Adam’s goodness while also having a chance to move beyond his mistakes.
Throughout salvation history, we see many more figures arise like Noah, receiving a chance to enter into relationship with God, but to greater or lesser degrees falling short. Finally, in the Gospel, we come to Jesus, and perhaps once again, it seems like a reboot. Like Adam, Jesus is tempted by Satan, and like Adam, Jesus lives in harmony with angels and wild beasts. But unlike Adam, Jesus conquers Satan, and as He does this, He is not trying to erase the memory of Adam. Instead, He is beginning a new chapter in the story, in fact the culmination of the story. Jesus takes up everything that has come before Him, but rather than erasing it or repeating it, He fulfills it.
As we begin Lent, it might seem like it’s time for a reboot, to give up what we’ve done in the past and start again. As tempting as it might be, we shouldn’t try to start with a blank slate. Instead, we should see it as a new chapter in our story, a chapter where we begin again, while also keeping in mind all that has gone before us to help us to avoid similar sins in the future. This Lent is the latest part of our story, and with God’s help, we don’t have to reboot it, but instead write the most interesting chapter so far.
Father Frank
February 11 – Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
This weekend, we continue reflecting on the Gospel according to Mark. We reflect upon Jesus miraculously healing a leper and then instructing him to tell only the priests. The leper, in turn, disobeys Jesus and publicizes his healing to the crowds.
The Church invites us to reflect on this Gospel passage in light of the first and second readings. The first reading gives us context for understanding leprosy. Isolating those with leprosy was good for the public health of the community, but in the time of Jesus being afflicted with leprosy was also a spiritual matter. If you were afflicted with leprosy, you could not go to worship. Thus, being afflicted with leprosy meant a disruption in your relationship with God. Leprosy then, is a powerful image of sin. It gradually takes hold of a person, and even those around them become affected after prolonged exposure.
The second reading continues with the idea that our actions have outward effects. It is important to not only consider the good our actions do for us, but also how they can impact others. Effectively, this means there are certain actions we should avoid doing, not because they are bad, but because they may be a source of scandal for others growing in their faith. For example, living a life of extreme luxury without any sense of simplicity or solidarity with the poor can lead to scandal. Others may have a misunderstanding of virtue or be confused on how to live as a Catholic.
It can become easy to feel distant from the sufferings of the poor. That distance can be so great that we fail to recognize that the poor can sometimes be us! The poor can have Christ in their hearts and authentically live from that place of deep freedom, while we can live in a disposition of scarcity despite being blessed abundantly by the Lord. Mother Teresa acknowledged this by saying “The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
This weekend is also significant because Bishop Hicks is coming to dedicate our new Adoration Chapel. My invitation is for us to recognize that perhaps we don’t have leprosy in the physical sense. However, in the spiritual sense, we need his healing touch. Christ in the Eucharist is going to be in our Adoration Chapel. If you desire him and go to pour out your heart, Christ can heal and change you- even in one weekend! Christ is willing to meet us in our poverty, and he has been waiting for us our entire lives. This applies to those who rarely frequent adoration, as well as those like myself who go every day. I will leave you to reflect on this theme in general: Have you have been living from a place of scarcity with the Lord? And if so, what is he inviting you to do about it?
Jonathan Hernandez