Reflections of a Simple Priest

Over the course of the last week, we had a very exciting event happen.  Every year at this time, we start to hear the "year in review" things happen in the media.  We look back as a nation and ask…what was most significant this year?  What happened?  Then, I think one of the events we all take notice of, is when Time Magazine releases it's person of the year.  A lot has happened with a lot of people this year, and the list of potentials ranged from Edward Snowden, who told us about the government's spying program, to Miley Cyrus, to Kathleen Sebellius, who came under fire by our Church as the government person forcing us, who believe contraceptives are wrong and harmful, to cover them in our insurance plans.  Thankfully, we found a little ground on that issue and it's finally being heard in court.  Also on the list was our President, a gay rights activist, and Pope Francis. If we've been watching the news, I think we know who won, and we're ...

Most of us, I think, don't like to be told what to do.  Over the last few days, I was at the National Catholic Youth Conference with about 25,000 high school teens from around the country.  It was a wonderful experience, and I'm sure I'll have lots to say about it as time goes on.  Yet, like any trip with teenagers, of course, there's always a few that don't listen.  At the same time, we had a wonderful group of kids who were well behaved, listened, and enjoyed themselves.  Some of us were talking about previous trips we had run, and we all agreed, one of the great thing about taking teens on a trip is that when they're asked to do something, for the most part they listen.  Adults, on the other hand, aren't quite so used to taking orders from someone else.  Half the time they wander off, and the group leader is pulling their hair out to figure out where everyone has gone. Reflecting on that and on the fact that today we celebrate the feast o...

Growing up in the 1980s, If there was a movie that defined that era, it was probably the movie "wargames."  In the movie, a teenage boy hacked into a millitary supercomputer thinking he's playing a game, a war simulation between the US and Soviet Russia.  Without realizing he was doing it, he had unwittingly convinced the millitary supercomputer that Russia was going to launch an attack.  Ultimately, just as the computer is about to launch missiles and start World War 3, he convinces the computer to actual calculate the outcome.  When the computer realizes that no matter what it does, everything would be destroyed, no one wins in nuclear war, it decides to stand down. If there's one thing that's new and present to us in the modern world, even if we don't always think about it, it's the clear and present reality that as a human race, we've come very close, far too many times in the last century to wiping ourselves off the planet, to bringing ...

I remember a few years ago, in the age before internet memes, we had popular t-shirts with saying on them.  There was one brand, "no fear" that came up with all sorts of interesting sayings.  There's one I always remember.  "It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end." There's no doubt that we live in a crazy world.  Most of us stress each day about how we're doing to make ends meet, about how we will manage tomorrow.  Sometimes the whole world can seem so overwhelming that it's hard to grasp next month or next week, let alone eternity.  Yet, at the same time, there something fundamentally different when we really think of eternity.  Every year, during November, our Church asks us to confront the harsh realities of life, our mortality, the end of our lives, the end of the world, and what eternity really means. Think of the times in our lives if we've really ever be confronted face to face wi...

I'm not usually one to talk a whole lot about politics, and there's a certain reticence in the Church to take any real sides in politics.  Mostly it's because it's very difficult to endorse this or that position without giving the appearance of endorsing a whole party platform.  I think it's fair to say that the Church has some serious concerns about both party platforms.  Neither party really reflects the Church's teachings.  Both had pluses and minuses in different areas.  Of course some issues are most certainly more important than others, but that doesn't give us cause to simply ignore one area of Church teaching because another might seem more critical right now. Now that was an awful long disclaimer before I make this statement.  It's been a while since we've heard much from the occupy movement, and I certainly think we could find any number of issues with what they say, yet, there was one cry they kept making.  They kept talking about ...

I think when we hear the beatitudes, we all seem to love those words that Jesus says, we all like to say how wonderful of an idea it is, blessed are the poor, those who are weak and hurting.  Yet, do we ever stop for just a moment to think about just how absurd that idea really is.  Sometimes, when we hear Jesus's words over and over, they can become familiar and lose the sting that they would have originally had. Having just lost someone close to us, what would we say to someone who said that we were not blessed?  How about the meek person who keeps getting stepped on by everyone, how are they blessed for being meek?  Perhaps we can understand hungering and thirsting for righteousness, or the merciful, those make sense to us, or even the clean of heart or peacemakers, but what about the persecuted?  How much sense does it make that someone is blessed specifically because others are mistreating them.  Imagine then, when Jesus first told this stor...

What do we think of when we think of a Miracle, I think we immediately think of something like the miracle at Fatima, where the sun dances in the sky, fireworks are going on and everyone .  That's what we expect when we think of a miracle.  We expect things to be flying around the room, booming voices from heaven, and all that goes with them. Today we hear two rather interesting stories, one in the old Testament, one in the Gospel.  Whenever we hear the stories in scripture, often they're modeled on older stories, but he gives them a new twist, makes them into something that no one was expecting.  Of course there are all sorts of stories of healings throughout the scriptures.  On the other hand, throughout history, even when we look at other faiths, even ancient mythology, there were all sorts of healings there too.  So when we think of that...it's good for us to take a moment and really ask...so what is special here.  What makes this story differ...

There's an old story about a boy walking along the shore of a beach.  On the beach, the tide was starting to go out.  The beach was lined with starfish.  As the boy walked along, he saw an old man.  The old man was picking up a fish, one at a time, and setting it back in the water.  So the boy ran up to the man and asked what he was doing.  The man said.  These starfish have washed ashore, if they don't get back in the water, they'll dry up and die.  The boy said, there are thousands of starfish on the beach, you can't possible make a difference here.  The old man calmly walked over to the next starfish, picked it up, set it in the water, and said…."it made a difference to that one" Isn't it amazing how we can choose to see things the way we want to see them.  When something is presented in front of us, we can decide how we choose to see it.  Sometimes we can get lost in how big the world is, how things seem to be crashing d...

It was only a few short weeks ago when we had the massive student move-in days happen here on campus.  It's hard to imagine the volume of people moving the volume of furniture, books, computers, and all sorts of crates of their belongings into town in, for the most part, the span of a single day.  I remember as I talked to one student who had asked her friends to move her rather large bookcase around in her apartment.  This one tiny little girl asking two very large guys if they could move it for her.  One of the boys looked at her…and simply said…So what's in it for me?  The girl thought for a minute until she finally said….umm, I can make brownies…and so the bookcase was moved. I think a lot of times in our own lives we seem to ask ourselves that question any time we decide to act.  If we're doing what we want to do, well, great.  If we're going to work…of course, ultimately we're working to get a paycheck, and feed our family.  If we're...

As the Gospel begins today, we hear about how our Lord is eating with sinners and tax collectors. Now I must admit that as much as I'd love to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, it seems like there must not be very many sinners and tax collectors in state college, because I never seem to get invited out to dinner…. But back to the Gospel, we've heard today's Gospel so many times….The story of the prodigal son is probably one of our favorite stories. So many of us can relate to the story. There are so many in our church who have had incredible conversion stories and returned to the Church. Yet, at the same time, we do always seem to talk about the story as if we were the boy who squandered his inheritance. Certainly, that's one very good way to look at the story, but I'd invite us today to look at it just a little differently. For a while now, Our Lord has been preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the sick, and the people are starting to really follow hi...