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Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
Hospitality | Jesus | Learn more about our faith
Hospitality: An Expression of Love We do have someone here who handles hospitality for the Center. She welcomes visitors to The Father Peyton Center and ensures they feel genuinely cared for and welcome. She is charged with arranging hospitality meals and sending invitations weeks in advance so people can indicate whether they will attend. When those meals are finally served, we all agree that they demonstrate great attentiveness and wholehearted care in their preparation. We can say that her hospitality reflects no other nature than love. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is at a dinner with the Pharisees and the experts, who are always at loggerheads with Him because of their stubbornness and refusal to accept Him as sent from God, let alone His teachings.
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Jesus | Learn more about our faith | faithfulness
Yesterday we celebrated with joy the Solemnity of All Saints, and today the church gives us a special day to remember the dead with gratitude: our family, relatives and friends, and those no one else remembers, but who are still held in the memory and mercy of God. We do pray for the souls just in case they have not attained complete union with the Lord, that they would pass through the purification of purgatory and enter into heaven. This is a day also for us to remember our own mortality, that we are a pilgrim church on our way to the next life. The day invites us also to reflect on how we are currently living our faith.
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Jesus | Learn more about our faith | faithfulness
Jesus presents us with two parables to illustrate the nature and growth of the Kingdom of God. He compares the Kingdom of God to a tiny seed that grows into a large tree where birds can build nests in its branches, showing us that the Kingdom has humble, insignificant beginnings yet expands into something that impacts many people. Jesus also compares the Kingdom of God to yeast mixed into dough that works its way into a loaf of bread, enjoyed by those who eat it. Jesus uses these two parables to highlight the subtle, internal, and pervasive influence of Jesus' teaching in our lives. God's Grace Works from Within We just had ordinations of nine young men in the Province of East Africa two weeks ago. I lived with them for the last four years as their director in a formation house. One of them, when he was being vested with the chasuble, just started crying, with tears streaming profusely down his face.
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Jesus | Learn more about our faith | faithfulness
Charity and love are core virtues of our Christian faith. They are foundational in helping us noticing those who tend to be invisible in society. Through kindness and love we can see and acknowledge individuals with whom society, daily routines or systematic prejudices routinely overlook. In today’s gospel, we have a woman described as having a spirit that crippled her for 18 years, leaving her bent over and unable to stand up right. Jesus notices her in the middle of teaching, interrupts himself, calls her to him, and lays hand on her and heals her. This woman was invisible to the religious structure around her, and yet Jesus stopped his teaching to see her, call her forward and even addressed her a daughter of Abraham in a way of restoring her dignity. Jesus’s love for this woman in her disability led him to heal her, setting her free from her infirmity, even when he knew that would make the religious leaders indignant, mad at him for breaking the sabbath law. While others walked past her or looked down, Jesus was able to notice her predicament.
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Jesus | Learn more about our faith | faithfulness
“Faithfulness is not doing something right once but doing something right over and over and over and over.” — Joyce Meyer We all appreciate people who offer genuine, consistent support and prove themselves worthy of our trust. These are the people who keep their promises and fulfill their responsibilities. Perhaps many of us, if not all, have experienced the heartbreak of discovering that someone we depended on was unfaithful. When faithfulness is lacking in a marriage, a family, a friendship, or a relationship between an employer and an employee, the pain can be profound, and the damage can be widespread and long-lasting. Why begin with this? Because faithfulness is essential to our relationships. It gives us a sense of security, confidence, stability, and comfort. Like an anchor, it helps us remain steadfast through the challenges and uncertainties of life.
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Faith | Learn more about our faith
Michael Cavanagh, in his book The Effective Minister, talks about different types of “self” that can either enhance or hinder a minister’s effectiveness in ministry—behaviors that can help or hinder the minister in reaching out and touching people in ways that really matter. And one of these hindrances is “the narcissistic self.” This is a quality in which seeking self-enhancement becomes the overriding goal in nearly all situations. Ministers self-aggrandize by wearing their virtues and successes on their sleeves to receive validation and compliments. “I did this, I built this, I am the one who organized that successful meeting,” you name it. They find security and fulfillment in galvanizing people to recognize how much they are performing, but not genuinely. I am sure you have encountered such individuals in your life, if not yourself.
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