SINCE the launch of the daily Now Word Mass reflections, the readership to this blog has skyrocketed, adding 50-60 subscribers each week. I am now reaching tens of thousands each month with the Gospel, and several of them priests, who use this website as a homiletic resource.

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WHEN you are overwhelmed with your sinfulness, there are only nine words you need to remember:

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. (Luke 23:42)

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Birth/Death, Michael D. O’Brien

WITHIN only a week of his elevation to the Seat of Peter, Pope Francis I has already given the Church his first encyclical: the teaching of Christian simplicity. There is no document, no pronouncement, no publication—just the powerful witness of an authentic life of Christian poverty.

With nearly every passing day, we see the thread of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio’s life-before-pope continuing to weave itself into the upholstery of Peter’s seat. Yes, that first pope was just a fisherman, a poor, simple fisherman (the first threads were mere fishing net). When Peter descended the steps of the Upper Room (and began his ascent of the heavenly steps), he was not accompanied by a security detail, even though the threat against the newborn Church was real. He walked among the poor, the sick, and the lame: “Silver and gold, have I none, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rises and walk.”  ^[1]cf. Acts 3:6 So too, Pope Francis has ridden the bus, walked among the crowds, lowered his bullet-proof shield, and let us “taste and see” the love of Christ. He even personally phoned to cancel his newspaper delivery back in Argentina. ^[2]www.catholicnewsagency.com

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Audience with Pope Benedict XVI — Presenting the Pope my music

Eight years ago in 2005, my wife came bounding into the room with some shocking news: “Cardinal Ratzinger has just been elected Pope!” Today, the news is no less shocking that, after several centuries, our times will see the first pope to resign his office. My mailbox this morning has questions from ‘what does this mean in the scope of the “end times”?’, to ‘will there now be a “black pope“?’, etc. Rather than elaborate or speculate at this time, the first thought that comes to mind is the unexpected meeting I had with Pope Benedict in October of 2006, and the way it all unfolded…. From a letter to my readers on October 24th, 2006:

DEAR friends,

I write you this evening from my hotel just a stone’s throw from St. Peter’s Square. These have been grace-filled days. Of course, many of you are wondering if I met the Pope… 

The reason for my trip here was to sing at a concert October 22nd to honor the 25th anniversary of the John Paul II Foundation, as well as the 28th anniversary of the late pontiff’s installation as pope on October 22nd, 1978. 

A CONCERT FOR POPE JOHN PAUL II

As we rehearsed several times over the course of two days for the event which will be televised nationally in Poland next week, I began to feel out of place. I was surrounded by some of the greatest talents in Poland, incredible singers and musicians. At one point, I went outside to get some fresh air and walk along an ancient Roman wall. I began to pine, “Why am I here, Lord? I don’t fit in amongst these giants!” I cannot tell you how I know, but I sensed John Paul II reply in my heart, “That is why you are here, because you are so small.”

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Jesus Meets Veronica, by Michael D. O’Brien

IT was a noisy hotel. I was eating some lousy take-out, watching some lousy television. So, I turned it off, set the food outside my door, and sat on my bed. I began thinking about a broken-hearted mother I prayed with after my concert the night before…

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HEAVEN’S treasuries are wide-open.  God is pouring tremendous graces upon whomever will ask for them in these days of change.  Regarding His mercy, Jesus once lamented to St. Faustina,

The flames of mercy are burning Me — clamoring to be spent; I want to keep pouring them out upon souls; souls just don’t want to believe in My goodness. —Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary of St. Faustina, n. 177

The question then, is how to receive these graces? While God may pour them out in very miraculous or supernatural ways, such as in the Sacraments, I believe they are constantly available to us through the ordinary course of our daily lives. To be more precise, they are to be found in the present moment.

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The Rescuer, by Michael D. O’Brien

THERE are many kinds of “love” in our world, but not all triumph. It is only that love which gives of itself, or rather, dies to itself that carries the seed of redemption.

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. (John 12:24-26)

What I am saying here is not easy—dying to our own will is not easy. Letting go in a certain situation is hard. Seeing our loved ones go down destructive paths is painful. Having to let a situation turn in the opposite direction we think it should go, is a death in itself. It is only through Jesus that we are able to find the power to bear these sufferings, to find the power to give and the power to forgive.

To love with a love that triumphs.

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Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. (Rev 3:20)

 
JESUS addressed these words, not to pagans, but to the church in Laodicea. Yes, we the baptized need to open our hearts to Jesus.  And if we do, we can expect two things to happen.

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ARE you feeling the weariness of the battle? As my spiritual director often says (who is also a diocesan priest), “Anyone who is trying to be holy today is going through the fire.”

Yes, that is true at all times in all periods of the Christian Church. But there is something different about our day. It’s as if the very bowels of hell have been emptied, and the adversary is disturbing not only the nations, but most especially and implacably every soul consecrated to God. Let us be honest and plain, brothers and sisters: the spirit of antichrist is everywhere today, having seeped like smoke even into the cracks in the Church. But where Satan is strong, God is always stronger!

This is the spirit of the antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world. You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:3-4)

This morning in prayer, the following thoughts came to me:

Take courage, child. To begin again is to be re-immersed in My Sacred Heart, a living flame that consumes all your sin and that which is not of Me. Remain in Me that I may purify and renew you. For to leave the Flames of Love is to enter into the cold of the flesh where every misdeed and evil is conceivable. Is it not simple, child? And yet it is also very difficult, because it demands your full attention; it demands that you resist your evil inclinations and tendencies. It demands a fight—a battle! And so, you must be willing to enter upon the way of the Cross… else you be swept away along the wide and easy road.

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THE heart is a finely tuned instrument. It is also delicate. The "narrow and rough" road of the Gospel, and all the bumps we encounter along the way, can throw the heart out of calibration. Temptations, trials, suffering… they can shake the heart such that we lose focus and direction. Understanding and recognizing this innate weakenss of the soul is half the battle: if you know your heart needs to be recalibrated, then you’re halfway there. But many, if not most professing Christians, don’t even realize their hearts are out of sync. Just as a pacemaker can recalibrate the physical heart, so too we need to apply a spiritual pacemaker to our own hearts, for every human being has "heart trouble" to one degree or another while walking in this world.

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