Author Archives: Friar Musings

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About Friar Musings

Franciscan friar and Catholic priest at St. Francis of Assisi in Triangle, VA

A passing interest

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It is a quite Sunday afternoon in space between the last morning Mass and the 5:30 pm evening Mass. Outside the people of Northern Virginia are attentively watching emails and text messages to see if their place of work, their children’s school, or their plans are on hold while the stream of closures begin to digitally arrive. A winter storm this way comes. It brings back memories of the “traffic armageddon” in Northern Virginia during this first week of January 2022. It was a perfect storm of events: (a) rain preventing salting the roads, (b) suddenly turning to snow, coupled with the (c) extremely hilly area around Quantico (Occaquon to Rappahannock Rivers) and (d) a super-heavily traveled truck route – and the back up was 65 miles with people stranded 15-24 hours.

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Rise Up!

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“Rise up in splendor! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you.” So proclaims the opening of our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 60. Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet spoke to the people returning to Jerusalem from more than 40 years in exile in Babylon. Then his words were to give praise and glory to God for they had been redeemed and delivered from the sins that led to their exile. But now, the prophet tells them it is the time to rise up because the glory of the Lord is radiating from them to the whole world. They are like a city gleaming in the light of the newly risen sun, shining with a beauty that is not their own. And the world is responding: “Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.”  The reading paints a vivid picture of people coming from the four corners of the world, drawn by the light and glory of God, bringing their riches – not to the people of Jerusalem – but as gifts to the Temple where they can proclaim “the praises of the Lord.”

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The Fullness of Time

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What would you say if someone asks, can you prove that God exists? Can you provide an empirical, scientific or mathematical proof of the existence of God? St Thomas Aquinas understood that strict proofs in the empirical sense are not possible, he would point out that theological or philosophical arguments, while not strict “proofs,” point to important things. Here is another question: can you prove the existence of love? I’d be surprised if you can offer a consistent, repeatable, and full proof of love, but I have no doubt that you can offer experiences, insights, and examples of the incarnation of love in one’s life. Neither can I prove that God or love exists – all I can do is reflect upon the world that God created and see the argument for God and love in life itself.

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Coming into the World

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“When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4).

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God a part of the Octave of Christmas. We continue to celebrate the birth of God into the World. The Word come into the world, fully God, fully human – not on the great rolling thunder clouds with the heavenly hosts at full strength. Rather, Christ came into our lives at the end of a very human process: conception to birth – i.e., When the fullness of time had come… Continue reading →

Resolutions and habits

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In what has become a New Year’s Day “tradition”, I again offer this post for your consideration.

Unless you happen to be like my muse, Calvin, in the comic strip, I suspect you are about to make some New Year’s resolutions. How did you do on last year’s resolutions? About the same as the rest of us? One ad hominem wisdom saying defines “insanity” this way: to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. Perhaps 2022 is a time to consider changing the way resolutions are considered, made, and hopefully, kept. Continue reading →

Part Time Believers

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Today’s gospel is the Prologue from the Gospel of John. In part, it reads: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” … “What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”… “…to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.” (John 1:1, 4-5, 12)

It is a glorious and amazing passage which promises the “power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.” Here in the shadow of our celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family, it speaks to the everlasting Holy Family of God in eternal life. Here in this life it asks that we clothe ourselves in the Word of God so that we focus our life on the will of God in the here and now, to become witnesses to the love and embrace of God that all might “believe in his name.”

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Family Holiness

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Is your family holy? What makes a family holy?

Most often when we think of families, we think of what makes them healthy – and that’s a good question, a good goal, and something worth time and energy to ensure. A family should want to be a place where its members feel welcomed, warm, embraced, safe, supported, loved and so much more.  But do all those things – as good as they are – make a family holy?

Is your family religious? Of course one answer is – “why sure…we are here at church.”  And if you are here to give praise and worship to God, then St. Thomas Aquinas would hold that your family is religious in that you possess the virtue to give God that which is fitting worship and praise.

Is your family holy?  Aquinas makes a distinction between being religious and being holy. Holiness is the virtue by which we make all our acts in accord with the will of God. 

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Holy Family – closing thoughts

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This coming Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Family with the gospel taken from Luke 2:41-52. This pericope is unique among the canonical gospels. While apocryphal gospels (e.g. Gospel of Peter, Protoevangelium of James, others) purport to convey stories of the child Jesus, they are all late 2nd century and later manuscripts of doubtful provenance. One of the development processes of growing up is individuation in which one discovers their identity apart from that described as “child of…”  It does not mean that one discards family ties, religious experiences, and what came before, but it inevitably means taking on a new dimension of being an individual. It is a process of coming to know who you are and “whose” you are.

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Joy Complete

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Today we celebrate the Feast of St. John the Evangelist. In the midst of the Christmas season today’s gospel seems out of place. It recounts Mary Magdalene’s experience of Easter morning when she reports to Peter and the other apostles: “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they put him.” In that scene she is the first witness to the Resurrection, the first evangelist proclaiming the Good News to those who would be charged with carrying that news to the end of the earth. The scene is as foundational to evangelization as can be.

Evangelization, bringing the “Good News” to the people of the world is something that has always been wrapped up in promise. From the very beginning, even as Adam and Eve were being expelled from the Garden of Eden, there was the promise of a son who would come to restore. In a certain sense, the entire Old Testament has the echo of the promise, given through the prophets, that the promise holds and God is faithful to His word. In that light, the Christmas Nativity gospel can be thought of as “Hope has arrived.”

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John the Evangelist

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Today is the feast of St. John the Evangelist, the name traditionally given to the author of the Gospel of John. John was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, the youngest apostle, son of Zebedee and Salome. His brother was James, who was another of the original Twelve. According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20; Lk 5:1-11), Zebedee and his sons fished in the Sea of Galilee. Jesus then called Peter, Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee to follow him. Continue reading →