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‘Many are awed by His miracles; few accept the shame of His Cross.’ Thomas a Kempis From the beginning of His adult ministry, Jesus set His face like flint toward Jerusalem. He lived, breathed, and progressed Cross-ward. His destiny was death. For the life of the world. This Good Friday, we may be less inclined to leap over the Crucified for miracles of new life. His broken Body stops us in our tracks as we wonder if we’ve a fever, or worse yet, if the mourner next to us is b

My dreams reveal one frustrated guy. I wake up half-smiling at the heart’s antics: I can’t get out of the room or parking lot, no exit, strange humiliations where others have the upper hand and I am out-of-control. This lockdown may just make me loony. In that way, I am a thoroughly fallen American—you know, manifest destiny, don’t fence-me-in, smaller-the-government-the-better kind of stuff. I am glad for Jesus’ mercy on my stalled but seething heart. And for His Church. On

Adjective: causing someone to feel deeply hurt or angry. Noun: an organized campaign to achieve something. Jesus’ healing ministry satisfies both definitions of ‘offensive.’ His authority to restore lives enraged the religious while establishing the rule and reign of His Kingdom among the admittedly sick. Jesus knew that healing would separate wheat from chaff. Why else would He say poignantly (in the Gospel reading for the third Sunday in Advent): ‘The blind receive sight,

Jesus is good news for the sexually broken. As a mere member of His, deeply flawed, I fall short. I guess that explains the title of our upcoming 40-days of prayer: ‘Becoming Good News’. We begin by admitting limited love for difficult beloved ones then seek to become more apt representatives of Jesus for them. Our prayer? ‘Jesus, make us more like Yourself toward _____’ Annette and I got hammered yesterday by a series of tough things. We both experienced a kind of wearisome

‘The poor and needy search for water but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst, but I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them…’ (IS 41:17) It was a good sign. As I greeted my Thai colleague Sue and team at the Kolkata Airport, I looked behind her in line and saw a dozen Missionaries of Charity (St. Teresa’s team) gleaming in white robes, their eyes bright with Jesus as they awaited baggage check and a fresh advance in another regi

‘You are no longer aliens but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone’ (Eph. 2:19, 20). Mexicans do it better. Living Waters anyway. Attribute it to truer body/spirit integration. Or greater openness to the Spirit. Or deeper awareness of poverty, submitted to God. All I can say is that I left Guadalajara full of hope (‘esperanza’ in Spanish) for a

Reflecting on my 60th year, I was beautifully interrupted by a snow storm that knocked the power right out of us; we were babysitting grandson Jacob while his parents cheered the Kansas City Chiefs onto victory in their division at the local stadium. (Congratulations to The Chiefs for nearly making the Super Bowl.) Annette and I shivered, laughed, and bathed Jacob in the kitchen sink by candlelight. We love our new digs but it seems we moved into the Bermuda triangle of power

I prepared myself for the worst last Sunday, the Feast of the Holy Family. I prophesied a dismal homily on the too-radiant-to-be-believed triad: you know, ‘be holy as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are holy’, piercing neither the surface of family nor holiness. Wrong on all counts. My pastor pointed out the disparity between our generosity to family members and to strangers. We write big checks to orphans then all but get restraining orders on family members who ‘trigger’ us. Overly

‘No-one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. Only those who need someone to come on their behalf will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us…Without poverty of spirit, there can be no abundance of God.’ St. Oscar Romero Christmas is for people in need. All of us. No matter how seasoned the saint, each of us possess an ache only Jesus can fill. In other words, knowing the One who is our home doesn’t mean we have arrived home; we ar

‘The joy of a saint is not to draw people to himself…but to cast his crown before God.’ Father Richard Veras This fall I’ve faced the down-drag of affliction—my Church’s tendency to look good rather than to become good, and my mother who shattered her shoulder in August. In the face of her mortality (resilient and recovering 93-year-old that she is!), I uneasily check my own and am tempted by resignation rather than resurrection. A young Filipina woman reads the Old Testament

In the swirl of Church abuse scandals and the Kavanaugh political drama involving #MeToo’s legitimacy and overreach, I urge you to pray. Virtual headlines pummel us; setting down the cell phone in order to center on Jesus’ Divine Mercy for all the wounded and accused, starting with ourselves, is a good beginning. We descend into that infinite pool of love and find renewed hope for all persons. Would you join us from Oct. 10th-Nov. 18th as we cry out together for a sexually br

As I prepared to run the inaugural half-marathon in Kansas City for 2018, I reflected on the river of mercy Jesus released for us in Lithuania. We drove half the night from Latvia to Vilnius, Lithuania’s biggest city and source of the Divine Mercy devotion initiated by an uneducated nun in the 1930’s. God gave St. Faustina a vision of His mercy for the whole world, a world on the brink of WWII which would prove especially devastating to Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and the surro

I woke from a fitful sleep, jet-lagged and already critical of the things that awaited me at morning Mass. I countered with a prayer for humility and tolerance of things I dislike like dour congregants and uninspiring music. After all, it is Easter! Jesus is walking through walls and telling folks to get their hands off Him then insisting that they lay hands on Him—all kinds of messy, unpredictable stuff. I cringed slightly as I eyed the cantor for the morn; golden in her int

‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me; He has sent Me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty for the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication from our God’ (IS. 61:1, 2). I just read an essay in the New York Times with an all-too-familiar narrative: man divorces pretty good wife and kids in order to hook up with others, in this case, o

‘Let the dead bury their own dead. You go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.’  (LK 9:60) Resurrection flies in the face of the sorrows we nurture and the Jesus we tend to conform to the image of our sorrows. Jesus on the other hand broke the back of grief by assuming it at Calvary. If the Gospel accounts of His rising are true, He does not tolerate for long our weeping at His Cross and tomb. He simply has too much for us to do. He conquered death and wants us to join in the dan

‘After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied.’ (IS 53:11) God surrenders to man’s sin and death in order to vanquish his sin and death. Forever. Today and for as long as we live on earth, Jesus desires that our lives declare that truth. He is reunited with the Father! He lives to intercede for us! He pours out His Spirit upon us continuously, and provokes us with the fruit of His suffering–the expansive, generous, inclusive union He now sha

Emptied and wearied by well-doing, I subjected myself to fools—fantasies that rushed into my void like sewage. I was as wanted and exciting as were those around me. I wanted my dream to come true. Barely able to choose otherwise, I did. By grace alone (and a friend’s help), I made my way to Mass in a strange town and locked eyes with the Crucified over the altar. Bearing my little cross, I embraced Jesus and hid myself in His wounded side. When the priest read the Gospel—John

‘Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.’ (LK 2:19) Many of us experience a tension between prayer and action. We may know well the value of pondering the mystery of God-with-us, this baby Jesus who wants to ‘tabernacle’ with us. Prayer is the main way we become that home where God dwells with us through His Spirit. Yet we are surrounded by many homeless ones who are clueless that God became flesh and now wants to dwell with them. If you are like m

‘The Word became flesh and made His dwelling with us’ (JN 1:14). In youthful efforts to find ‘home’, a place of belonging where my part of the social equation fit and totaled something valuable, I failed. As ‘gay’ relationships faded, reliance on pills and powders grew. I wondered why I could not deliver on the good I possessed. That depressed me—I wasn’t being true to myself and others. I had a pretty good home life but that did not make me a good child. I never swallowed th

‘I heard birds sing for the first time today.’ So testified a woman from our Mexican Training whose ears had echoed with demonic accusations. As the Father sought after His daughter, members of the leadership team prayerfully spoke a few true words to her about her status as His beloved one. God’s real confirming presence delivered her from torment. One Voice prevailed over many false ones and freed her to listen, to hear in silence God singing over her through a bird. Not al