This Pentecost, I‘m in touch with some of the wounds of the past year, but I also feel the Spirit moving, calling me forth, and releasing some of what I’ve been holding onto. The Spirit shows me what I need and what I value.

As grown-up disciples in the faith, we also must step up and step out to do the work of love and service that Jesus started. We have a whole lot of proclaiming to do. How is God calling us to serve now? How must we respond to this call?

Love is mutual. In our giving and receiving love, God’s love is apparent too.

We know that Christ remains in us because of the Spirit Christ gave us, and we know the Spirit is with us in the ways it makes itself known.

I have no control over the future. However, if I respond wholeheartedly to life’s events, both good and challenging, I’ll continue to grow into the person God created me to me, never really getting there but growing closer to God in the process. What I shall be has not yet been revealed. I do know that when it is revealed I shall be like Christ.

You and I are witnesses of Christ, the one whom we also seek. We continue the work of Christ’s first community because we are part of it. In our love for God and each other, in our care of people in need, we see how Christ is in our midst now. How can we best be present to each other in this moment?

The Triduum, the three days leading up to Easter (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday), are some of the most beautiful liturgies we have through the church year. Here are some reflections on these holy days.

The Passion of Christ is the ultimate human story that gets played out again and again in our lives; it’s a mirror for the human story that we are living through and that others have lived through for all time. And it played out very clearly this year.

The invitation of Holy Week is to pray through the suffering of the living Christ, the Christ who loves, suffers, and rises in us individually and communally.

Let’s hold out hope for the day when the stone will be rolled away for us too, and we can safely come together unmasked in the sunshine.

God is present to the reality of who we are, even as God calls us to grow. God is certainly in our midst.

God is a God of rainbows, not destruction. If you need a sign to reassure you, go ahead and ask. Our God who loves us always wants to assure us. Even now.

The more that I, and we, live and grow into the fullness of being to which God calls us, the more we belong to God and ourselves. When we belong like that, we’ll find belonging wherever we go.

When it turns out that I have withdrawn too much, I need God’s help to make a deposit. I need God to restore me when I’m depleted and to help me set boundaries when I feel pressured to be too much to too many.

In this story, the people are astonished. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time I was astonished by something Jesus said or did – in Scripture or in my life. But I want to feel amazed again! How do I open myself to astonishment?

The Kingdom of God is at hand now. All around us there are people in need. Do you feel like running away like Jonah or running toward mission like Jesus?

If I’m struggling to make a decision, it’s usually because I’m distracted by scenarios of possible outcomes, other people’s expectations, worries and doubts. However, if I can stop ask myself that question – really, what am I looking for? – I can get back to the heart of the matter.

The story of Jesus’s baptism is a story about us too; the voice of God is meant for us too. God wants us to know that we’re beloved.

We don’t have a big, obvious sign in the sky inviting us forward, but if we look carefully, we can notice subtle signs of God leading us. As we move away from despair and anxiety and toward compassion, connection, and love, we are following God.

They are the holy family, not because their life was idyllic but because, despite their difficulties, they kept going, loving God and each other. One could even say their life was “unprecedented.” Except that it wasn’t. As Christmas goes, it was the first, but families have been living with uncertainty, disappointment, and loss since the dawn of time. Our broken and imperfect families are holy in our striving, not in our perfection. It’s God who makes us holy.