Finding God In Our Hearts with Msgr. Don Fischer

PRI Reflections on Scripture | Thursday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time

Original Post Date: June 6, 2024 === Gospel Mark 12:28-34 One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." And no one dared to ask him any more questions. Reflection It's important to realize there were those who lived by the rules and laws of the temple that recognized in Jesus who he was. He had truth. He had wisdom. And in this story, when it comes down to what is really the temple there for? What is religion's goal? What is it asking of us? It's asking us to enter into a way of life that's called the Kingdom of God. And it's all about love. Loving God, loving ourselves, loving each other. And that's not a feeling. That's not an emotion. It's a powerful force that lives within us, that heals and transforms. Everything depends upon love. It is the power of God in the world. Closing Prayer Father, awaken us. Open us always to the simplicity of the message of God and the mystery that it contains. When we open ourselves to a gift that is the beginning of our ability to be who God calls us to be. We're called to allow him to be a source of love to all those around us, and thereby establishing his kingdom here. 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 9th Week of Ordinary Time

Original Post Date: June 5, 2024 === Gospel Mark 12:18-27 Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone's brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants. So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants, and the third likewise. And the seven left no descendants. Last of all the woman also died. At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be? For all seven had been married to her." Jesus said to them, "Are you not misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told him, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.” Reflection The audience in this story is different than those that we've just reflected upon. The Sadducees were a group of Jews who simply did not believe that there was such a thing as life after death. What I think is interesting about Jesus response to them is that he's simply saying, you know you're greatly misled. You have been taught poorly and you don't understand. There's a gentleness in the way he treats them compared to the way he treated the scribes and Pharisees. He is more compassionate and understanding. That's what he does whenever we don't understand. He gently says, you were misled and let me lead you. Let me show you the truth, and I will do that for you. Closing Prayer Father, give us the courage to look at the things that we don't fully understand, and turn to you and ask you to explain. You long to lead us into a place of truth and life. Let us never hesitate to admit that we do not understand. But we long to understand. And when we ask, you will answer our needs. 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 | Tuesday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time

Original Post Date: June 4, 2024 === Gospel  Mark 12:13-17 Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent to Jesus to ensnare him in his speech. They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion. You do not regard a person’s status but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or should we not pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” They brought one to him and he said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They replied to him, “Caesar’s.” So Jesus said to them, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” They were utterly amazed at him. Reflection To live in the world is to live in a society where there are regulations and rules and we follow them. And Jesus is pointing that out to the Herodians and to the Pharisees, because what he's saying, look, okay, I'm not really engaging so much in how the world is working around you. I am working on establishing a different kind of kingdom, a kingdom of love, a kingdom of truth, and it dwells in people and will change the world. But it is not the world or society that will change us. It is God's truth that changes the world. Closing Prayer Father, we spend a great deal of time evaluating the way the world is going, but the Kingdom of God is inside, and that is the place where God is asking us to wait for and to experience the Kingdom of God, the peace and the joy that it promises. 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 | Monday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time

Original Post Date: June 3, 2024 === Gospel Mark 12:1-12 Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders in parables. "A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey. At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them another servant. And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully. He sent yet another whom they killed. So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed. He had one other to send, a beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, 'They will respect my son.' But those tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture passage: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes?" They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd, for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them. So they left him and went away. Reflection The frightening thing about this passage is that we begin to see that the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders knew what they were doing. They saw in Jesus a truth that they knew they should be listening to, but they refused to because they had invested so much in a way of life that was comfortable and easy for them, that they could not let go of it. And when they realize that Jesus is addressing these words to them, that they are guilty, and so they simply went away, staying in the shame that they felt. Closing Prayer Father, over and over again you show us in subtle ways, and sometimes not so subtle, where we are wrong, where we are off. Give us the kind of openness to being found out in a sense. There's nothing wrong with admitting that we have made mistakes. There's something terribly wrong with not facing them. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

HOMILY • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Original Airdate: June 7, 2020 Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9 | 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 | John 3:16-18 Opening Prayer Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we who have come to know the grace of the Lord’s resurrection may, through the love of the Spirit, ourselves rise to newness of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen. Closing Prayer Father, your greatness is too much for us.  All that you’ve planned, all that you have invited us into seems beyond our comprehension and beyond our abilities, and yet you continue to call us into places where your power works through us beyond anything we could ever do on our own.  Open us all to this great gift of your presence in our life.  Help us to be encouraged and enlightened and empowered so that we can accomplish all that you ask us to do, and we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]