12 SPIRITUALITY

June 19 , 2018 | The Valley Catholic

By Father Brendan McGuire

Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish , San Jose , and Vicar General for Special Projects , Diocese of San Jose . Email him at bmcguire @ dsj . org .

Sunday , June 24 , 2018 Harden Not Your Hearts

“ If today you hear the voice of God , harden not your hearts .” Today , we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist . We might wonder why John holds such prominence in our faith . He was considered to be the last of the Old Testament prophets . His message was this : The people of Israel had completely failed in every way possible , they blew it . The only way out for them now was to ask God for forgiveness , go out to the desert and then re-enter the Promised Land with new faith in a God who has mercy on them , a baptism of repentance .

In the midst of that , along comes the Messiah . And John is thrown back . He says the moment is here . That he of whom I have spoken is now among us .

Jesus ’ message is so different and hopeful . God is a God of love and is willing to forgive ; he sent Jesus , the Messiah , and he said . “ I am the Son of God . I am He . So , come back to God . Now come into the new Promised Land in this new covenant .”

The Psalmist says , “ You will hear the voice of God because if God created the whole world then the whole of creation is screaming with God ’ s voice .” The whole of creation is whispering , shouting , singing and dancing with his voice and his presence . Our role then is to look again at what God has given us and to listen to the voice within our own heart so that we can see God ’ s wonderful creation , the grandeur of his creation .

Now that takes effort . There are lots of other noises out there that drown out that whispering song of God . We get busy so we think that in the midst of our life we do not have time to listen . But we need to find the time to listen to the whisper of God in our own heart , to listen to the prophetic voice that now dwells within each and everyone of us so that we can see and interact with everything with new eyes of faith .

We are called to see it time and time again . It is not that it is not there , but for some reason we cannot see it . And so , we must look and look again . And then we will see . We will see God ’ s fingerprints in our life every single time .

So today as we recognize that if Christ is the bridegroom , then John must be the best man . And if he is the best man , he has something to say to us . That God ’ s presence is very real in the world now . And that Christ came with an even more powerful message saying that presence it is not just in the world , but that it is within our own hearts . Today may we recognize Christ ’ s best man in the Nativity of John the Baptist . And do so by looking again at creation and seeing God ’ s hand in the midst of everything ; God ’ s fingerprints are here ; let us watch ; let us attend to it and let us celebrate .

Sunday , July 1 , 2018 Give Life , Not Take It Away

The Gospel for today has many layers and it is about the flow of life . It is about what gives life and what stifles life . Jesus , no matter what he touches or whoever touches him , gives new life . He gives healing to those with those he comes in contact . And that is the flow of life , life flows through Christ into all who connect with him . We are called to be part of that flow of life ; we are called to be life-giving and not be life-stifling .

We all know people , who come into our lives , who come into our room or our house and when they leave , we think , “ Oh , gosh , Lord .” And we are exhausted from having entertained them or handled them . We think , “ Oh , my Lord , I could not live with that person .” They just suck the life force out of us ; they are life-stifling . They just draw energy away from us . We know other people in conversation , who always seem to have a negative thing to say about everything and everybody . And again , they draw life out of people .

Equally , we know people , who when in their company , we feel like we are a little bit lighter . Somehow , they energize us . I do not mean on a social level . I mean in a spiritual level . We become somehow bigger in their presence ; we become better . We become somehow more whole when we are around them . Our conversations with them enrich us . They enliven us . They build us up , not tear us down . When we come in contact with one of these people , we want to be around them more . We say , ‘ How can I be with them a little bit more ?”

The question is “ Which one are we ?” Do people , when they come in contact with us , feel like we have sucked the life force out of them ? Or have we added life to them ?

When we come to the Eucharist , we come to touch Jesus . In fact , that is exactly what we do . We receive the Eucharist in our hand ; we touch Jesus . But we also come to be touched by Jesus ; in this case to receive Jesus ; to be completely taken over by Jesus . If that is why we are here , we are called , as soon as we go out those doors , to be life-giving ; to be healers of sorts ; to be kind ; to be loving ; to be forgiving ; not to be judgmental ; not to tear down ; not to have that one negative comment that we know might be funny but sucks the life force out of one person .

Jesus did not attend to the rules . Jesus attended to the person . The person in need was healed when necessary . These two women were considered unclean yet Jesus dispensed with the rules and reached out to them and brought healing to their souls and to the world . He gave life to them . Which do we choose ?

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