Category Archives: Musings

The Sure Foundation

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from last week… “We have certainly grown as a parish in every way conceivable… The potential and opportunities are amazing.” And we have a vision to meet the challenge of amazing. Our Vision: True North for the North Campus re-development will expand our ability to more fully be a parish that offers holiness, hospitality, healing, and hope. Already more and more ministries are meeting and operating out of the North Campus facilities – and the months and years to come will bring more improvement, enhancements, and opportunities for outreach. It will be remarkable to watch the vision come to fruition in the next few years. When I stop and think about what will grow and flourish, I can’t help but think of the path and the people that brought us to this point in time. Continue reading →

Looking back

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May the grace and peace of Christ be with you. It is hard to believe that it has been 13 years since I arrived here at Sacred Heart in Tampa. Back in 2007 I was expecting to be assigned to our N.C. Franciscan parish in Raleigh. Tampa and  Sacred Heart were not on my radar at all. Although perhaps it should have been! Afterall I was baptized at a Sacred Heart and in Kenya served for several years at Parokia Moyo Mtakatifu (Sacred Heart). They say good things come in threes, so perhaps I should have expected the assignment. What a blessing it turned out to be in my life, my life as a friar, and my life as a priest. Continue reading →

Muchness

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The daily prayer of all faithful people of the Jewish faith is the Shema: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength“. (Dt 6:4-5).  The prayer takes its name from the first word “hear” or “listen” – and that simple word is deep and complex. In our translation, the last word is “strength” or in the Hebrew me’od. What is the true meaning of this word?

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God and St Francis on Lawn Care

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In cleaning up files from my computer, I ran across this classic bit of saintly humor. Enjoy!

GOD:   Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles. Continue reading →

Leadership

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What kind of leaders do we want? Certainly, a good question here with the 2020 election approaching. It is always a good question for the Church. I have lived during the pontificates of seven popes and, in my lifetime, we have certainly had a wide variety of types and styles of leaders. In our history, we have had 266 popes. We have had some spectacularly amazing leaders, saints in the making, and we have had some spectacularly horrific leaders, who would have been quite at home in Game of Thrones (so I hear, I actually haven’t seen it.) All took up the Keys of Peter, with the same job description given Peter: Feed my sheep; tend my lambs. The Pope is the most visible of leaders in the Church, but not the only ones with that same job description. The simple mandate, “feed my sheep; tend my lambs” applies to priests, pastors, parents, principals, police, and anyone who would lead – anyone who would answer the call to minister in the Holy Name of Jesus. Continue reading →

Letter to the Ephesians

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Ephesians is the great Pauline letter about the church. It deals, however, not so much with a congregation in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor as with the worldwide church, the head of which is Christ (Eph 4:15), the purpose of which is to be the instrument for making God’s plan of salvation known throughout the universe (Eph 3:9–10). Yet this ecclesiology is anchored in God’s saving love, shown in Jesus Christ (Eph 2:4–10), and the whole of redemption is rooted in the plan and accomplishment of the triune God (Eph 1:3–14). The language is often that of doxology (Eph 1:3–14) and prayer (cf. Eph 1:15–23; 3:14–19), indeed of liturgy and hymns (Eph 3:20–21; 5:14). Continue reading →

What good can come…

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Today is the Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle. We know very little about the saint other than In the New Testament where Bartholomew is mentioned in the lists of the apostles. Some scholars identify him with Nathanael, a man of Cana in Galilee who was summoned to Jesus by Philip. It is thought that Jesus paid him a great compliment: “Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him” (John 1:47). The encounter continues with some unmentioned event that lead Nathanael to exclaim, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel” (John 1:49). Jesus promised even great revelations. Those revelations drove him to mission. The Roman Martyrology says he preached in India and Greater Armenia, where he was flayed and beheaded, dying a martyr’s death.  Many of the images of the saint show him with the skin of his body and legs, flayed open. Very gruesome. Continue reading →

Bourbon and the Spiritual Life

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(This is a reprint of a column from last year.  In these days a good bourbon augmenting the Spiritual Life seemed somehow appropriate – Fr George)

Bardstown, Kentucky, is not a large town; the population is only 12,000 or so. It was the first center of Roman Catholicism west of the Appalachian Mountains in the original western frontier territories of the United States. The Diocese of Bardstown was established on Feb. 8, 1808, by Pope Pius VII to serve all Catholics west of the Appalachians. The diocese served Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and parts of other states. This area is now served by 44 dioceses and archdioceses across 10 states. Bardstown and the local surrounds are home to the Basilica of St. Joseph (the first Cathedral before the diocese center moved to Louisville), the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse and the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane, the Trappist monastery that was home to Thomas Merton. If that weren’t enough, several distilleries operate in and around the Bardstown area, including Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Barton 1792 and Maker’s Mark, among others, and thus the town is known as the Bourbon Capital of the World. And perhaps bourbon and the spiritual life are connected and not just a consequence of history. Continue reading →

The Wisdom of Generosity

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In the well known parable of today’s gospel, the landowner goes out to secure laborers for the harvest. At the end of the day, all laborers are paid the same regardless of the time of day at which their labor began. Some complain that they worked from sunrise, while the ones who only began day’s end are paid the same. This has been a week of teachings on wisdom and riches…. what is today’s lesson?

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Eye of the Needle

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In today’s gospel we have the famous expression: “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” It is a continuation of the encounter with the rich young man of yesterday’s gospel.   In other form, the expression also appears in the Jewish Talmud and in Qur’an 7:40: “Indeed, those who deny Our verses and are arrogant toward them – the gates of Heaven will not be opened for them, nor will they enter Paradise until a camel enters into the eye of a needle.” Continue reading →