I remember when I was young, my limited spiritual life revolved around worrying about whether or not I would go to heaven after I died. Even though I wasn’t too sure what heaven was like, I was scared to death of going to hell and wanted to avoid it at all costs. Fortunately, I came to learn (meaning this is what I was taught) that there were ways that I could manage this. If I could obey all of the rules – okay, most of the rules – and do a lot of extra devotional things like going to Confession, Mass and receiving Holy Communion on nine First Fridays of the month in a row, I would go straight to heaven. As a student in Catholic school, that was worked into the curriculum! This was gonna’ be easy.
And then I got older and slowly came to the realization that all the above was rather “quid pro quo” and almost seemed as though I could go before God and say, “Hey, I followed the rule, let me into heaven!”
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” I think the human condition is that we fall short on the “all”. And that raises the question “do we love someone or want something more than we love God?” Tough question. But think how much time, energy and emotion we spend on other things. Seems to me that time, energy, and emotion poured into a relationship will give you some inkling of the degree to which you are in love. Consider what part of your day and week you give over to God in terms of time, energy and emotion.
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Do we love someone or want something more than God? “Love more than God?” that doesn’t seem right, but then again, think how much time, energy and emotion we spend on other things. Seems to me that time, energy, and emotion into a relationship will give you some inkling of the degree to which you are in love. Take a minute and consider what part of your day and week you give over to God in terms of time, energy and emotion. Perhaps a simple measure of your being in love with God – or at least a way to think about it.
I am often given to repeating St. Bonaventure’s wise counsel: humility is the guardian and gateway to all the other virtues…and the first evidence of it is gratitude. We can all have moments in which we are profoundly grateful, but are we grateful people? The first is a description of a moment in time, deeply remembered; the second is an intrinsic condition of who you are as a person. It is at the root of your being, it is the lens through which you see the world, and it is the mode by which you engage the world. Even as I write that last sentence, I am thinking, “Gosh, I want to be that person!” 
Today’s 
It is a quiet morning before the sunrise. I am getting used to the change of parish, locale, and of course weather. The autumnal days of Virginia in October are far different than those in the Tampa Bay region. Since Virginia is not a “swing state” for the upcoming elections, I am also getting used to being able to watch television without the bombardment of political ads. I am not sure what is more refreshing the lack of political ads or the autumnal days and nights.
Yesterday in Philadelphia, former President Barak Obama gave a speech in support of his former Vice-President, Joe Biden. I have no doubt that potential GOP voters dismissed the speech without listening to it or reading it. I have little doubt that potential Democratic voters accepted it in glowing terms, even if they also did not listen to it or read it. And I have no doubt that some now reading this post will think, “I knew it, he is a ______” (please fill in the blank as you see fit; for the record I am unaffiliated and quite independent). But, one might wonder why I posted this. The reason is simple and has come out in many homilies over the years. “The thoughts we have become the words we speak. The word we speak shape the actions we take. The actions we take form the habits we develop. The habits we develop reveal the character we possess. The character we possess shapes our destiny.” We Christians are asked to take all that and ask, “Do the thoughts, words, actions, habits and character we display reflect the 
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Luke 12:49) Our 
One of the themes of this week’s gospels asks if the Lord, at his return, will find faithful people: “You also must be prepared,for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” (Luke 12:40 from 
One of the great communal celebrations is to welcome an infant into the community through the waters of Baptism. There are many ways in which the celebration occurs, depending on the construction of the church – especially the location of the baptismal font. At my previous parish, to give you an idea, there was no 
friarmusings 