AD SENSE

13 Sunday B: Talitha Kum


Sickness and death have a way of shearing through the veneer of our self-importance and social status. These things touch us at our most vulnerable point. Sickness and death strip us of our illusions and remind us that, no matter how important we are in the eyes of others, we are still human—still very limited and transient citizens here on earth.

Fathers' Day

Hear – Paul Anka’s song dedicated to fathers:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=CpQIfuxmgT4&NR=1
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ6LwbmlZ-E&feature=email



Father after God’s own heart: From Virtual Preacher

12 Sunday B: Jesus In the Storms of our Life



Michel DeVerteuil
Scripture comments
Unlike the passages of the last two weeks, this Sunday’s passage is, in one sense, a single story and we must read it as a whole. But in another sense, it tells two stories – one of Jesus and one of the apostles. Each has its movement that we can enter into, and there is a striking contrast between the attitudes shown in each.
it's nowAs you meditate, observe how you are situating yourself in relation to the passage: which of the two stories are you identifying with, the one of Jesus or the one of the apostles? Is it your personal story or the story of someone who has touched your life? Does Jesus remind you of some person or of God himself? Is this something that is happening now or something that has happened in the past?
Answering these questions will help you enter into the story.

11 Sunday B Liturgy

 From Claretian Liturgy Alive:

Greeting

Glory to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus. May the Lord Jesus be with you. R/ And also with you.

Introduction by the Celebrant

 A. Patience: These Are Only Seeds (Option 1) We live in a time that expects efficiency and immediate results. But a plant or a tree needs time to grow; and human relations cannot be built nor our problems solved overnight. People too need time to grow and change. Fortunately, God is patient with us. But we must become patient with one another and, with God's help, give people and the Church and God's Kingdom of justice, peace, and love the time needed to grow. We can just sow the seed and then wait in hope. If it is a good seed we sow, it will certainly grow. Jesus assures us that it will sprout and bear fruit. 

11 Sunday B - KOG Tiny Seeds

Michel DeVerteuil
Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels

Textual Comments
We see Jesus in this passage searching for the right metaphors to illustrate the concept of the kingdom of God, and we are reminded that today we need to find new images to illustrate our own vision of God’s kingdom.
Verses 26b to 30. A farmer has sown a tiny seed; he now watches and waits for it to bear fruit. Jesus makes a comparison between the small and negligible start and the extraordinary results. The farmer is in no hurry, he simply waits and lets things happen. Whatever happens will take its own time and he must certainly not try to hurry it. He does not try to find out how this happens, but allows things to develop as they will. When the time is ripe the farmer knows that he must get to work. Stay with the slow movement, the first signs of the crop before it is harvest time. Experience the contrast in the last verse when the time comes and everything seems so easy and natural.

Corpus Christi 2015




Understand the difference: Trans-substantiation; Trans-signification; trans-finalization; Catholic belief in Real Presence and transubstantiation (Term from St. Thomas Aquinas).

Why bread and wine:
  1. Creator God is also the provider God, provide food and sustenance to the creation (also protector and the facilitator): in the desert: manna and water. Parents who bring up children have also similar responsibility.
  2. Food; sacraments from bread, water, oil, wine; daily necessities; grace is built on nature
  3. We never forget to eat: Nothing becomes so biologically part of us. We become what we eat. Junk food, not caring for God's creation. Bodies neglected. Abortion, old people, children abandoned. Our younger years are spent losing health to make wealth and our older years are spent losing wealth to get health.
  4. Food is nourishment (energy), life, growth and gives joy and is eaten in fellowship, Companion = the one who breaks bread with me (Latin meaning) Food is best taken in fellowship: companion; sharing
  5. Food should be eaten as a family. Unity
  6. It takes sacrifice to prepare it
  7. Many ingredients to make it; complementing
  8. Food has to be broken down to assimilate or digest – process of breaking
  9. How can we each become Eucharistic people? Don’t adore and worship hours bodies – naked, vulgar  - on the screens of computer and TVs, but a little time with the Lord in the Eucharist. What do we hunger for? What tables do we sit to fulfil that hunger?
  10. Each sacrifice is an expression of becoming body & blood. We live by what we get, but we give life by what we give.
  11. Social Dimension: Aren't we surprised on Holy Thursday to note that the reading was not the institution of the Eucharist, but washing of the feet. Again today, the context was the multiplication of the loaves. We become what we eat. We become part of the mission of Jesus. It's all about mercy and justice.
Tony Kayala, c.s.c.

Holy Trinity -2015



He recalled the husband, who said when he became a father, he better understood the Trinity. When he and his wife had their son, they had evidence of their love for each other. There was the lover, the beloved, and the love, each distinct and yet one.

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I enjoy the playful description of Daniel Durken of the Trinity. The Father played creator and was overjoyed that the world turned out so attractively. The Son played redeemer and put everything right again in the wounded world by stretching out His arms on a cross. The Spirit played sanctifier. He made room in the heart of each of us for the Trinity. "Today," says Durken, "the Trinity invites us to keep playing with them this delightful game of life and love." And why not?  We have nothing to lose but our chains. 

Pentecost - B 2015

Happy Birthday, Church

Starters from Fr. Tony Kadavil:
 
Pentecost  literally  means  50th.  It  is  a  feast  celebrated  on  the  50th   day  after  the Passover feast by the Jews and a feast celebrated on the 50th day after the feast of the Resurrection of Jesus by the Christians. The Jewish Pentecost was originally a post- harvest thanksgiving feast.   Later it was celebrated to remember God’s covenants with Noah after the Deluge and with Moses at Mt. Sinai
 

The event
On the day of Pentecost
1) The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and Blessed Virgin Mary as fiery tongues.
2) The frightened apostles were transformed into fiery preachers and evangelizers by a special anointing of the Holy Spirit.
3) The audience experienced a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit with the gift of tongues, hearing Peter speaking in their languages.
4) The early Christians became powerful witnesses and brave martyrs for faith.

Ascension 2015



Starters: From Fr. Tony Kadavil:
Anecdote 1) God’s love in action: The disciples who completed Puccini’s opera Turandot. The Italian composer Giacomo Puccini wrote La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Tosca. It was during his battle with terminal cancer in 1922 that he began to write Turandot, which many now consider his best work. He worked on the score day and night, despite his friends' advice to rest, and to save his energy. When his sickness worsened, Puccini said to his disciples, 'If I don't finish Turandot, I want you to finish it.' He died in 1924, leaving the work unfinished. His disciples gathered all that was written of Turandot, studied it in great detail, and then proceeded to write the remainder of the opera. The world premier was performed in La Scala Opera House in Milan in 1926, and Toscanini, Puccini’s favorite student, conducted it. The opera went beautifully, until Toscanini came to the end of the part written by Puccini. He stopped the music, put down the baton, turned to the audience, and announced, 'Thus far the master wrote, but he died.' There was a long pause; no one moved. Then Toscanini picked up the baton, turned to the audience and, with tears in his eyes, announced, 'But his disciples finished his work.' The opera closed to thunderous applause, and to a permanent place in the annals of great works. Jesus instructs us in his Ascension message to finish his work of saving mankind by proclaiming His good news by words and deeds.


Easter 6 B - Love One Another


Starters from Fr. Tony Kadavil's Collection:
1) God’s love in action:
When Fr. Damien arrived in Molokai to assemble a prefabricated church for the lepers, he spent the first few weeks sleeping out under the trees, because he was unable to cope with the stench in the hovels of the lepers. He certainly wouldn't dare preach to them about God's love for them, because, as they saw it, that would be offensive. But slowly he opened his heart to the grace of God which enabled him to see the suffering Jesus in them. In no time, he was washing them, bandaging them, and burying them. He came to love them, and, through him, they came to believe that God loved them. He smoked a pipe to counteract the stench, but he soon was passing the pipe around for others to have a smoke. He ate food with them from a common bowl, out of which they scooped the food with hands that had no fingers. He caught the disease himself, and he was happy to be able to live and to die for them. Greater love than this no one has…