6th Sunday C - February 16, 2025

6th Sunday C

February 16, 2025

We are already well into the Jubilee year that began on Christmas 2024.  The theme of the year is Hope.   Hope is also what our psalm speaks of today. Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.

How do we find hope?  One way is to look at what hope does for us.  Hope is gained by trusting in God.  When I stop trying to control all life and circumstances around me I find hope. Hope is seeing the world as cared for by our God.

Hope is nurtured by planting one near God.  The image from Isaih and the psalm are images of trees planted by running streams.  When we plant our lives trusting in God, we find ourselves growing as a tree near running water.

Where do we find this running water?  One way is to live the beatitudes as found in today’s gospel.

“Blessed are you who are poor,

                        for the kingdom of God is yours.

            Blessed are you who are now hungry,

                        for you will be satisfied.

            Blessed are you who are now weeping,

                        for you will laugh.

            Blessed are you when people hate you,

                        and when they exclude and insult you,

                        and denounce your name as evil

                        on account of the Son of Man

Poverty of spirit is the quality of trusting in God.  When we place our trust in God we find satisfaction, laughter, and persecution.  In the midst of persecution, we find the streams of God feeding us what we need.

This image of a tree by running water is an image we can work with as we search for hope.  Hope is that quality that arrives when we let go and let God. When we recognize our poverty of spirit and rely upon God, we begin to be people of Hope. 

• Hope is poverty of spirit.

• Hope is being hungry for justice.

• Hope is finding laughter rather than despair.

• Hope is the antidote to oppression.

• Hope is found as we focus on how our God is at work in our lives.

• Hope is found when we trust.

• Hope is found in the hands of a friend who reaches out to us in our need.

• Hope is found as I recover from an illness or a situation that makes me feel weak. 

Two weeks ago, SUNY had a broadcast of the play Uncle Vanya.  I often think about the last scene as Vanya and Sonya consider their lives at the estate. Sonya gives Vanya hope as she touches into her faith.

SONYA: What can we do? We must live out our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live all through the endless procession of days ahead of us, and through the long evenings. We shall bear patiently the burdens that fate imposes on us. We shall work without rest for others, both now and when we are old. And when our final hour comes, we shall meet it humbly, and there beyond the grave, we shall say that we have known suffering and tears, that our life was bitter. And God will pity us. Ah, then, dear, dear Uncle, we shall enter on a bright and beautiful life. We shall rejoice and look back upon our grief here. A tender smile -- and -- we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate faith. We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see evil and all our pain disappear in the great pity that shall enfold the world. Our life will be as peaceful and gentle and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have faith. [Wiping away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are crying! [Weeping] You have never known what it is to be happy, but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. We shall rest. We shall rest.

I find myself thinking of the words of Lisel Mueller when I consider hope.

Mueller wrote a poem called Hope.

It hovers in dark corners

before the lights are turned on,

it shakes sleep from its eyes

and drops from mushroom gills,

it explodes in the starry heads

of dandelions turned sages,

it sticks to the wings of green angels

that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye

of the many-eyed potato,

it lives in each earthworm segment

surviving cruelty,

it is the motion that runs

from the eyes to the tail of a dog,

it is the mouth that inflates the lungs

of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift

we cannot destroy in ourselves,

the argument that refutes death,

the genius that invents the future,

all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear

not to betray one another;

it is in this poem, trying to speak.

Let us find hope as we trust in the Lord and drink from the stream of our faith.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • October 19, 2025
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • September 21, 2025
Language scholars who have studied the origins of the word mammon in Hebrew and Aramaic have found clear association with words meaning wealth, riches, money, profit and possessions. But there is also evidence that one of the root words for mammon also means “that in which one trusts.” On all of our US currency — each coin and paper bill — is a simple (and, I suspect, often overlooked) phrase: “In God we trust.” This phrase was added during the Cold War to distinguish our currency, and nation, from that of the atheist Soviet Union. On each of our denominations of currency, both coins and paper bills, we have this simple reminder in whom we should be placing our trust in — God — and not what we should be placing it in: the fruit of our human activity, especially money. It is a poignant reminder to us today in light of the Gospel passage we hear and our current experience. This reminder begs us to ask two questions of ourselves and collectively as a country and society: Do we trust in God first? Always, everywhere, in everything? Or do we place our trust first in small-“g” god, or gods of human origin? In answering those questions, we might ask ourselves, what do our actions say about whether we place our trust first in God, or in humans? Where are we spending our time and treasure? This past month has brought us yet more tragic and traumatic reminders of our society’s misplaced trust. The recent spate of wounding and taking of innocent lives through gun violence in service of an ideology of retribution is just the most recent in a continuing human saga of such behavior, behavior that places trust in leading with human action to resolve differences, over our openness and trust in allowing God to lead us to a conversion of heart and to reconciliation. There is more that could be said about the responsible use of wealth in service to God. About detachment from ‘goods’ of this world — goods that God gives us out of love to draw us closer and more deeply into love with God, that we might revere God and God’s creation, but not take those goods in place of God. But in light of our continuing tragedies and the lack of reverence for human life, created by God in the image and likeness of God, of which they are clear evidence, the most important response we can offer is what St. Paul exhorts us to in his letter to Timothy, when he writes: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. And so we will pray to God, as St Paul asks. Pray collectively for those who have suffered violence in all forms against humanity. We will pray collectively for those wounded, those who have lost their lives and their families. And then perhaps most difficult of all, we will pray for those who perpetrated this violence, and all who are tempted to perpetrate violence against humanity. We should be challenged in our prayers to pray for people we don’t want to pray for. We may find the heart that is converted is our own. In all these prayers we place our trust first and foremost in God, who desires to save us, and who “proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). In this is our act of Faith. In this is our act of Hope.

Solemnity of Peter And Paul - June 29, 2025

By Fr. Chris Welch • July 1, 2025
Solemnity of Peter and Paul June 29, 2025 Peter and Paul are called the saints of Rome. Partly this is because, both died in the city. You may visit their burial places. The grave of St Peter is under the Basilica bearing his name and St. Paul is buried under the church of St. Paul outside the walls. (Being a Roman citizen Paul was buried outside the walls of Rome, while Peter was killed and buried in the city of Rome.) More about the churches later. Paul and Peter couldn’t be more different. It is said “God draws straight with crooked lines”. Why did God choose these men? A good question. It has been said “God doesn’t call the qualified, God qualifies the called.” Paul was a well-educated, Pharisee. An official of the temple. Paul spent his early career persecuting the followers of Jesus, until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Peter was a simple fisherman. He often said the wrong things and at times had flashes of insight, as in today’s gospel. Peter spent time with Jesus and denied knowing Jesus the night before his passion and death. Later Peter was asked 3 times “do you love me” by Jesus. Peter was the apostles to the Jews, while Paul was the apostle to the gentiles (the non-Jews). The Basilica of St. Peter is probably the most famous church in the city of Rome. For years it was thought that the church held the remains of St. Peter. This was confirmed in the 1940s when excavations took place to find more room to bury popes in the crypt of the building. Workers found and ancient cemetery under the church. Today we can take the tour, often given by seminarians from the North American College Seminary. Be sure to reserve the tour before you arrive in Rome. The tours are limited. At the end of the tour, you will come to the Marble box with the bones of St Peter in it. When the bones were tested, they were found to belong to a man from the first century. After Constantine made Catholicism the official faith of the republic, He constructed a simple church over the cemetery. Later it was added to and today it is the large church we know of as St Peter’s Basilica. You may visit the Constantine chapel in the crypt of the church to see where the first church was located. When I was on my sabbatical in Rome in 2008, I invited my family to visit me and I arranged to offer mass in the Clemintine chapel. After mass I noticed that one of the metal doors on the wall was open. We crawled in and went behind the altar to tough the marble box where the bones of St Peter were placed. What a thrill to be so close to the great saint’s remains. To visit the tomb of St Paul you need to travel outside of Rome to the church of St Paul outside the walls, most of the tour buses do not go here, so be carful which tour bus you take. The church is next to a monastery with a nice cloister garden. On the base of the dome are faces of the popes. Years ago, excavations took place, and the bones of St Paul were found in the base of the church. Today we honor the great saints of the early church. It is due to the preaching of St Paul that we the gentiles, non-Jews are here. A few months ago the successor to St. Peter was a man from our nation, Pope Leo the XIV. Let us give thanks for these great man and these great saints.