Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, September 13, 2026

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

I am writing this just before boarding a plane for vacation to spend time with my family at a cottage that my wife’s grandfather built nearly 80 years ago.  As you read this, I will be celebrating Sunday mass on a tiny island in view of passing Great Lakes freighters.  Yet, we are in communion with one another because, for Jesus, the Catholic Church is not a building, like a temple, but is, instead, a way to bring together those who love Him and love one another.

A biblical definition of love must start with God. Whether that love is romantic, or the bond between friends, love that is genuine comes from God because, “God is love.” If God is love, then we love others best by loving Him most.

The Psalmist tells us not to harden our hearts to God’s voice.  That’s one beautiful concept of Church. It’s a place where we can hear God’s voice and, hopefully, respond to it with our actions. If we are Church, we should both accept and reflect God’s perfect love.  Agapē love is sacrificial, unconditional love. It is the human version of the perfect love that God has for us as well as our attempt to mimic that love as we deal with one another.

Jesus commanded His followers: “Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The word Jesus used for love is the verb form of agapē. The pattern of our love is as He has loved us.  In other words, we are to be known by our self-giving, sacrificial, unconditional love for one another.

As Jesus also tells us, this love must be forgiving.  We must not harden our hearts against someone who has offended us. We must forgive and also seek to correct that person. Jesus lays out the steps in the Gospel this week.  If the offender ultimately refuses to listen, Jesus says, “treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” Just remember, Jesus cured Gentiles and forgave them. He ate with tax collectors and invited one of them to become an apostle. As I mentioned above, His view of love is unconditional.

Fr. Mike

Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, September 6, 2026

This weekend we celebrate Labor Day.  Early leaders of the labor movement established the holiday in the late 19^thcentury as a day celebrating the commitment and effort of workers and giving them a day of rest.  On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law establishing the federal holiday of Labor Day on the first Monday in September.  Informally, Labor Day also marks the end of summer.

The Bible often refers to labor and work.  From the earliest verses of Genesis, we hear of God’s work of creation and his rest: “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.”  God’s pattern of work followed by rest became Jewish law: “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest…”

Many of us respect and appreciate those who “work hard.”  We recognize their contributions whether they are young students who devote time to their studies, or athletes or musicians who put in extra practice, or parents who work two jobs to pay rent and put food on the table.  In both our secular lives as well as in our spiritual lives, hard work and dedication are critical. 

However, sometimes we can be overwhelmed with the challenges that we face in our family lives, our careers, and our spiritual lives.  Sometimes we may feel that it is impossible to balance all of the competing priorities that we face.  Between our kids, extended families, jobs, and social commitments, spending time with Jesus can seem like one more obligation piled onto all our other obligations.  But Jesus is not an obligation, He is a loving relationship who is also a resource.  We invite into our lives not as one more distraction or obligation, but as a relief to our burdens.  It may seem counterintuitive that adding one more thing onto our list of “to-do” items can actually ease our burdens, but that is precisely what happens when we invite Jesus to help us to carry our load.

So, as we celebrate Labor Day, let’s consider not only our physical labors, but also our spiritual labors.  Let’s turn to the One who is always ready to guide us and assist us in our struggles. 

Fr. Mike

Fr. Mike's Gospel Reflection for - Sunday, August 30, 2026

“[I say] I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart.”

This quote from Jeremiah speaks of an overwhelming interior longing for God. At first, Jeremiah wants no part of speaking about God. He claims that God has tricked him. However, when he tries to escape his destiny as a prophet, his heart burns with the desire to tell the world about the wonder of God. We hear these same words from the two apostles who encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus on that first Easter Sunday. Their hearts were “burning” as they listened to Jesus.

There is a description of love of God that is attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, a former Superior General of the Jesuits. He says, “What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything…it will decide everything.” We see this happen frequently when two people fall in love. They cannot stand to be apart. It also happens between a parent and a newborn infant. Neither the father nor the mother wants to be apart from the child for any length of time.

The Psalmist puts it this way, “For You my flesh pines and my soul thirsts.”

Could we ever imagine speaking about Jesus in these terms? Does our love for Jesus consume us? Is Jesus all that we think about in our quiet moments? Sadly, the answer for most of us is, “No!” We are passionate about many things, especially our families, our friends, and our careers. Sadly, Jesus Christ is rarely at the top of our list. For many of us, Jesus may be ahead of golf or college football or a house at the beach, but for most of us, He would be farther down the list than we might be willing to admit.

What consumes us? What are we passionate about? What drives our decisions and our being? Are we more passionate about some of our sins than we are about Jesus? When we are being tempted to engage in a particularly bad sin (one that is also a frequent sin), does our flesh “pine” or our soul “thirst” for Jesus or for the pleasure of the sin? Does our love for Jesus drive our decisions? Does it stop us from sinning? Does it “decide everything?”

Fr. Mike