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