Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, October 4, 2026

“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests

known to God.”

Paul’s letter to the Philippians encourages us to give thanks.  He tells us that we should begin prayer with “An attitude of gratitude.”  How different would our lives be if we did not wait for the outcome of prayer to be thankful, but, instead, were actually thankful just to have the opportunity to pray?  If we approach prayer with thanksgiving, we give thanks in all circumstances instead of grumbling, complaining, and whining.  We change the focus of our prayer from what we want or need or expect, to gratitude that we have a God who listens to our prayers, cares about our lives, and loves us with perfect love.

Experts say we can train ourselves to become more grateful. This is the way that we develop any of the virtues. The more we practice gratitude, the more it will become a habit. Researchers have discovered that gratitude leads to joy and that people for whom gratitude is a habit tend to be healthier and have stronger relationships.

Feeling and expressing appreciation are good for us.  Yet, today, ingratitude is far too common. Society today seems to be based on an odd mix of selfishness and entitlement. Many people put themselves and their needs before all others.  Children forget to thank their parents for all that they do. We take for granted the ways that others help us. Above all, we fail to thank God for His blessings.  It’s a “me first” approach that forgets about the relationships that bless our lives and help us each day.  Without gratefulness, we become arrogant and self-centered.  We begin to believe that we have achieved everything on our own or that we are entitled to the gifts we have received.

Thankfulness keeps our hearts in right relationship with God as well as with one another.  Giving thanks also reminds us of how much we have instead of focusing on what we don’t have. When we start thanking God for the people and things we usually take for granted, our perspective changes.  When we focus on blessings rather than wants, we are happier. Our struggles may not disappear, but we are better able to appreciate God’s presence, His support, and His love.Fr. Mike

Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, September 27, 2026

At a recent school mass, the Gospel reading was Luke’s version of the Beatitudes – the series of statements from Jesus that begin with the words, “Blessed are…” What follows are a list of ideal behaviors that focus on others rather than ourselves. Jesus never says, “blessed are the selfish, the self-important, the self-righteous, or the self-centered.” In the beatitudes, He blesses those who make the needs of others their most important priority.

During my homily, I spoke to the students about having “Be Attitudes.” That is, attitudes that help us to be the person that Jesus wants us to be. Simply put, a “Be Attitude” is an attitude that is outwardly focused.

Nowadays, “me-centerdness” seems to be a common default mode of operation. It’s one thing to know that the Gospel urges us to hold others in higher esteem than ourselves. It’s quite another to put that into practice. This weekend, Paul explains a foundational “Be Attitude” when he instructs the Philippians to “humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.” It is a matter of considering every single human being as superior to us, so that we can reflect the attitude of Christ who came to serve ALL. The words “regard others as more important” is a statement about an ATTITUDE. We freely choose to look at others as superior to us so that we can serve them with joy. We consider each person as worthy of our service, so that we can live what Scripture says, “each looking out not for his own interests, but everyone for those of others.”

Fr. Pedro Arrupe, former Superior General of the Jesuits, once challenged a group of high school students to be “men for others.” The hard part is asking for God’s grace to let go of ourselves completely, to “empty” ourselves for others. Living for others is the height of humility and of love. It is, Paul says, the same attitude Christians are to have. The root of humility is humus (dirt or earth). We are all children of earth. Jesus chose to become a humble child of the earth, to show that we are all equal, deserving of mutual respect and care. That is the way He pioneered for us to follow. That is how we can be a ray of light in our dark world.

Fr. Mike

Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, September 20, 2026

In this weekend’s parable, men who worked part of a day get the same wage as those who worked the whole day. Those who worked all day cried, “That’s not fair.” Many of us feel the same way when we believe that others are getting more than we think that they entitled to get. Even if we get exactly what we bargained for, we simply don’t like other people being treated better than we are treated. This is especially true if we believe that the other person is not as deserving as we are or did not earn the benefit in the way that we did.

This is often the way that we think about the Kingdom of God. We ask, “Why should a person who has been evil all of his life be able to repent on his deathbed and go to heaven?” That’s simply not fair. Like the laborers, we are more concerned with the perceived unfair advantage of others than we are grateful for our own opportunity to enter God’s kingdom.

Once again, Jesus tells us to worry about our own path to heaven rather than judging whether others are entitled to go to heaven. Who are we to question or even resent those who might be saved even though we determine them to be beyond saving? Fortunately, access to heaven is not about what we think! Throughout the Gospels, we read that God’s love extends to many unlikely candidates. His Kingdom likely includes many of those unlikely folks.

Of course, there are people in this world who use their free will to reject God and to abuse, ignore, hate, kill, and torture their fellow man. It is easy for us to decide that “those people” are simply not worthy of God’s Kingdom. After all, life makes sense if the “bad” people go to hell and the “good” people go to heaven. However, we are all sinners to some extent. Since we don’t know the standard by which God will judge us, we cannot be certain that we will be among those who are saved. God is free to open the narrow gate to anyone He chooses. We would do well to hope that it is wide enough to include us, even if that means that it also includes those we deem to be undeserving.

Fr. Mike