29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

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Simply put, the message we hear in the first reading and Gospel today is that we are to persevere in prayer.  In the first reading, Moses perseveres in prayer in the battle between the Israelites and Amalekites.  When he lowers his hands from prayer out of weariness (which perhaps we might interpret as ceasing to pray), the battle goes poorly for Joshua and Israel.  When he resumes raising his hands in prayer, the battle turns, and Israel has “the better of the fight.”  We are to apply this reading to our own earthly battles: the battle between good and evil; between pride/ego and — as Abraham Lincoln wrote — “the better angels of our nature.”  We too are encouraged to persevere in prayer.  Persevering in prayer is nothing less than relying on the Lord’s help, and is an act of humility, recognizing that, as the saying goes, “God is God and we are not.”  In this way, perseverance in prayer is the antidote to pride and selfishness.  It is also our act of faith and trust in God: that God has a plan which has our best interests at heart and that God’s action in response to our prayer will happen, in the right time, God’s time, which may not be our time!  In the Gospel parable, Jesus assures us that God’s response to our petitions will be speedy, but God’s time and our time are not always measured by the same clock!  Hence, we need to persist in prayer when God’s answer to our prayers comes more slowly than we would hope for. 


What are we to make of what seems to be a delay in God’s response to our sincere prayers?  Sometimes the case may be that God has already answered our prayers, just not as we were expecting, and we failed to see the response.  However, it could be the case that God’s delay in response to our prayers is preparing us for God’s response when it comes.  St. Augustine of Hippo wrote: 


If God at times seems to be slow in responding, it is because God is preparing a better gift.  He will not deny us…Ask, seek, insist.  Through this asking and seeking you will be better prepared to receive God’s gift when it comes.  God withholds what you are not yet ready for.  God wants you to have a lively desire for the greatest gifts.  All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart.


So, in persevering in prayer, there is patience and trust — patience in waiting for the right time, God’s time, and trusting in God’s action in our hearts while we wait.


We should note something else that happens in the midst of that battle scene that teaches us how we are aided in persevering in prayer.  When Moses, Aaron, and Hur realize that the battle turns against the Israelites when Moses grows weary and lowers his arms in prayer, Aaron and Hur hold up Moses’ arms so that he may persevere in prayer!  We can, and should, hold each other up in prayer and in presence as we together persevere in praying, especially through difficult times in our lives when we grow weary in the battle of earthly life.  This can take the form of praying for each other, but equally if not more important, being present to each other, encouraging each other and praying with each other.  Often that companionship is exactly what we need to persevere in difficult periods of prayer!  And that should come as no surprise, for Christ himself told us that "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20).  We are strengthened with the presence of Christ himself when we gather together physically in prayer.  And let us not forget that we have a God who is fundamentally a God of and in relationship — Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity — and that made in the image and likeness of that God, we are fundamentally wired to be in relationship with our God and each other.  It is no surprise that we would be aided in persisting in prayer by being in community with each other while we pray!  Sometimes we ourselves need to seek out the community to pray together, to push back against the choice to remain isolated, praying (or not) on our own when we are able to gather with others.  But you and I are here today, and the fact that we have chosen of our own will and ability to come into community to pray invites us to consider who in our lives is not here today, or at all recently.  Perhaps we need to seek them out, to be present to them.  To encourage them, and invite them to join in prayer with us.  Perhaps we bring presence and prayer to them, if they are homebound.  In either case, in so doing we are lifting the arms of a weary sister or brother in prayer and making Christ present to strengthen us all, a presence the world so desperately needs.   

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • June 7, 2026
Once a year the church asks us to remember how important the Eucharist is to our faith life. Each year we pause and celebrate this feast, The Body and Blood of Christ. We are given the words of Moses on this feast. Moses said to the people: "Remember” and “Do not forget." He is speaking of the lessons learned in the desert, but he could be speaking about today’s feast. It is too easy to forget the gift of the Eucharist, how in our celebration at the Mass each week we become the body and blood of Christ. It is so easy to forget the importance of being a member of the body of Christ. Mass attendance and honoring the Sabbath is a good habit to nurture. Too often I hear from people who say to me, “I get nothing out of Mass.” This is the consumeristic attitude of our culture. The attitude that says something is worthwhile only if it is of benefit to me. I do not attend Mass simply for myself, but I attend Mass as a member of the body of Christ. It is so easy to forget that the body of Christ contains me and many other members. If I choose to exempt myself from the body of Christ, the body suffers. Those who say “I get nothing out of it” are unwilling to put anything into it. How often have I asked a person to tell the name of the person who they have sat next to for many years and they tell me I don’t know his/her name. How hard is it to introduce yourself to another? He/she is a member of the body of Christ. Each time we come to Mass, we have many opportunities to engage with the body of Christ. Before Mass begins, we have an opportunity to greet members of the body of Christ. As we pray the Mass, there are many opportunities for what the church calls “full and active participation”. When we sing the songs we pray twice, and the music makes our worship more joyful. As we respond to the prayers, we participate in the Mass. Each time we gather for Mass we gather as a part of the body of Christ. The priest or deacon may lead us in prayer, but we members of the body of Christ we are part of the prayer. Our participation is needed. In the liturgy of the Word we gather around the word of God as found in the scriptures, the psalms, and the words of Jesus in the gospels. In the liturgy of the Eucharist, we hear the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. The prayers of the priest and the congregation allow the bread and wine to become the body and blood of Christ. As the congregation comes forward, as the body of Christ, we receive the body of Christ. The time we spend in church is time well spent as we go forth to bring the body of Christ to others during our week. At the end of each Mass, we are instructed to take what we have received and bring it to others. Our weekly participation in the Body and Blood of Christ helps to remember who we are and helps us to nurture well the body of Christ we meet in our daily lives.

Trinity Sunday, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • May 31, 2026
The passage we are given from John’s Gospel says, "God so loved the world…" I would rewrite it as, "God so loved me ….” I often find myself wondering how God could love me so much. How can God love me so much and each other person so much. There are so many people God has loved into being. So many people loved by our God. There are times I do not feel so loveable. Yet our faith reminds us that God loves each one of us. There are many people I do not know or am not sure I like but I am reminded that, like me, they are created in the image and likeness of a loving God. The feast we celebrate today is a feast of love. The love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. An ancient image given to us by the Eastern fathers speaks of the Trinity as a dance among the three persons. The dance is a circular dance with each one of us invited to join in the dance. This is a dance of love that includes each one of us. The hand of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit reaches out to us in love, inviting us to join in the dance. This is how Barbara Reid describes the dance: The dance is an open circle that invites all onto the dance floor, drawing them right into the midst of the energetic flow of divine delight. If some hesitate, preferring to sit on the sidelines, the Three-in-One circle back again, extending the invitation over and over to each and to all, changing the pace and the rhythm, so that even the most clumsy of us can learn the steps in the dance of divine love. Paul suggests some practice steps for the dance: rejoice, mend your ways, encourage one another, seek agreement, live in peace, greet one another with a holy kiss. In these ways, we help one another onto the dance floor, where we become one with the very source of grace, love, and communion. (1) The divine dance reminds me of the song of the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland: Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? (1) Barbara E. Reid, O.P., "A Dance of Love". America Magazine, June 6, 2011.

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • April 26, 2026
When C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia , he wrote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe first. In the old order this was the first book in the series. Today The Magician's Nephew is placed first, since it tells of the creation of Narnia by Aslan. In The Magician's Nephew we met Digory, who meets Aslan for the first time. Digory’s mom is ill and Aslan tells him about a fruit that may heal her. It is found in a walled garden. Jadis the White Witch also wants the fruit. She climbs over the wall to get it. The fruit gives her eternal life, but hers is a life of despair and hurt. She acquired the fruit by climbing over the wall; as in today’s Gospel, she is a thief. She did not enter through the sheep gate. The Tree of Youth (also, the Tree of Life) was the first, largest, and most spectacular Silver Apple Tree in existence. It grew at the very centre of the Garden of Youth, and bore shining, silver apples that had wonderful, powerful magical properties, and gave off an ethereal, breathtaking, almost irresistible smell. The tree was enclosed within the Garden, and roosting in its branches was a single Phoenix (and the only one ever seen in Narnia). Though the apples were silvery and incredibly beautiful, their juice was darker than one would expect. The first person to eat the Apples of Youth was Jadis who, dismissing the written warning that the fruits should only be plucked to help others, and not to be eaten for oneself, climbed into the Garden over the wall, and plucked a fruit for herself. After she had greedily eaten the fruit, Jadis claimed that she felt such changes within her that she knew that she would never grow old or die. When Digory spotted her throwing away the core of the apple she had eaten, and saw how the dark juice stained her mouth horribly, he guessed - rightly - how she had entered the Garden, and thought he understood what the last line: For those who steal or those who climb my wall, shall find their heart's desire and find despair meant, for, despite the fact that Jadis looked "stronger and prouder than ever, and even, in a way, triumphant", her face was "deadly white, as white as salt". Presumably ignorant of what she had doomed herself to, Jadis tried twice to tempt Digory into disobeying Aslan: first, by encouraging him to eat the fruit himself, telling him that it would make him alive and young forever. Second, telling him to give the fruit to his ill, dying mother instead, assuring him that it would cure her of her illness. Digory, very fortunately for him and his mother, was able to resist both temptations, and even angrily rebuffed Jadis, who retorted by calling him a fool to throw away his one and only chance of endless youth. When Jadis began to feel the dark and cold inside her, she fled from the Western Wild, to the far north, to presumably begin creating her army. However, as Aslan said, it was actually Jadis, not Digory, who was a fool, given that the fruit would never work happily for any who pluck it at their own will, and that "length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery, and already she begins to know it" - Jadis' immortality meant that the misery that constantly plagued her because of her dark, evil heart would never end. Digory, by resisting the two devastating temptations, actually saved himself and his mother from terrible fates that would have definitely befell them if he had succumbed to either one of the temptations. When Digory returned to Aslan with the Apple of Youth, Aslan told him to throw it on the bank of the Great River of Narnia, where it grew into the Tree of Protection that protected the Kingdom of Narnia from all enemies for 898 years. In just a matter of days the tree along with the rest of the garden presumably disappeared into Aslan's Country. (1) There is a warning posted on the wall of the garden: Come in by the gold gates or not at all, Take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair. (2) The witch did not enter by the gates. She used the fruit for herself and will spend her days in despair. Those of us who enter through the sheep gate via the waters of baptism use the fruits of the Holy Spirit to help others. They are not for our use. Many will testify that what we do for others comes back to us in abundance. On this “Good Shepherd Sunday", we enter through the sheep gate and we share what we have found with others. Each time a person is baptized in this space, we gather as a community to help that person in his/her journey as a member of the body of Christ. We come not as thieves; we enter through the sheepgate and, in doing so, we find immortal life and joy and not immortal life and despair as did Jadis the witch. (1) https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Youth (2) The Magician's Nephew (1955), page 185