Finding God In Our Hearts with Msgr. Don Fischer

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Feast of Saint Mark, evangelist

Gospel Mark 16:15-20 Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs. Reflection Imagine yourself in this scene. The resurrected Jesus is standing there before you. You understand him. He's been teaching you since he rose from the dead, and he's been amazingly clear to you as to what it is he wants from you. It's not just that you have this gift for you, but you must give it to other people. Speak a new language to them. The language of love, not the language of law, and heal them from their darkness and from their depression. And most especially from fear. This is the beginning of the work that we have promised we will participate in to establish the Kingdom of God here and now. Closing Prayer Father, often we're timid about proclaiming you to other people, but help us to realize that you gave us such a perfect model. It's not so much of what we say, it's but who we are when we resonate a joy, when we resonate, a feeling of hopefulness. And when we resonate love, we are doing the work of speaking a new language. We are doing the work we're called to do. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Friday of the 3rd Week of Easter

Gospel John 6:52-59 The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Reflection It’s fascinating to me that when Jesus comes to the end of his ministry, he reveals the essence of the mystery that is the hope of all of us. God living in us. God guiding us, God using His power to help us heal one another. And he uses such a dramatic statement about standing in front of a crowd in the synagogue, and he's already a sort of a questionable character. And he screams out something that nobody would be able to make sense of by hearing it. Eat my flesh, drink my blood. I mean, that's that's really a bizarre thing. It's almost like he's stirring their imaginations on purpose so that they can say, this man who now has the authority of miracles, is claiming something that is absolutely out of our categories, because this new category that they are bringing into the world, this category of God living in you is radical. Closing Prayer Father, the words that Jesus spoke to us were so difficult in one sense to understand, but at the same time so rich, so loaded with meaning that when we ponder them, we grow slowly into the fullness of what it really means. You are choosing to live within us. You dwell in our hearts, You are in me and I am in you. That is a mystery that I can only surrender to without really understanding exactly how it works. But to know that it is changes everything. Because I'm no longer doing what I do alone, out of my own understanding or my own strength. It is you in me that does the real work. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Thursday of the 3rd Week of Easter

Gospel John 6:44-51 Jesus said to the crowds: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” Reflection Jesus makes clear that the work that we are called to in this process of growing and evolving into who we are intended to be is a process of receptivity. The father is doing something for us that he's never done before. And it's interesting the way John says very clearly that those of you who've lived with the Old Testament, you've never really seen the father and I'm the one who will reveal for the first time who the father is. And when you eat of that, when you take it in, it's more than the signs of the Old Testament. But it's something that changes you. You will never die. You will live forever. Closing Prayer Father awaken us to the newness of the New Testament. So often we cling to so many images from the Old Testament that it clouds the vision that you, God, has revealed to us, as to who you are through Jesus. You are beyond our imagining. You are so generous, so loving, so forgiving. It's hard for us to grasp. We feel comfortable and we earn things. It's difficult for us to accept gifts. Help us, help us to receive. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Wednesday of the 3rd Week of Easter

Gospel John 6:35-40 Jesus said to the crowds, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” Reflection The Old Testament is filled with requirements, laws, regulations that if one followed them, they would receive a blessing from God. Now as Jesus proclaims the New Testament, it is clear that this is not something that you work for and that you try to earn. It is something given, and you need to understand the greatness of this gift. You need to feel the power that it offers you in order to surrender to it and say yes. Yes to the will of my father. That Jesus, the image, the truth. When I receive it, it will bring me to eternal life, to goodness, to love. Closing Prayer Father, we are filled with longings. We hunger for truth. We hunger for peace. We hunger for all those things that we believe will fill us and give us meaning and purpose. Help us to believe that you are that source, and that these are things we need to believe you can give us. And when we turn to you expecting that gift, we are a perfect disposition to be filled with life, nourished, strengthened. And we asked this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Easter

Gospel  John 6:30-35 The crowd said to Jesus: "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat." So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." So they said to Jesus, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” Reflection The interesting thing about the crowds question Give us a sign. And then they go on to say that God gave us a sign. And why won't you give us a sign? And what an opportunity for Jesus to make a statement that is so profound when he says everything that pointed to something for life in the Old Testament is about me. I am the one with the authority. If you witness me, you will receive all that you need. I am the sign. I am life. I'm the bread of life. Closing Prayer Father, you have authority. You have within you the spirit of truth that you long to share with us. Help us get past all the times in which we're asking for more than we really need in order to enter into your life. Let it be always a decision, not necessarily a feeling or a logical conclusion, but let it be our desire to believe in you. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]