God blesses those who are faithful to him, who trust and love him even in the face of opposition, humiliation and death.
And what is it to be faithful? It is to love God with your whole being, with your life and your death. But also to love your neighbor, and more, to love even your enemy, to pray for them, to forgive them, even as Jesus did. Indeed, to be like Jesus in every way.
And so we pray today to be faithful like Stephen, that we may share the beatific vision he was graced with, and be welcomed into the company of angels and ancestors around the throne. To see heaven in the midst of the ugliest of life.
Stephen saw the spiritual Reality behind the grittiest of the material world. He saw heaven in the most hellish of human experiences. He saw Jesus alive and standing with him as he was buried beneath stones. He saw beloved children of God even in those who were throwing those stones at him.
The beatific vision is not so much seeing into heaven as it is seeing into life here and all its people and seeing there God and his Son Jesus.
Matthew 8:5-11. The Capernaum Centurion. “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but say the word and my servant will be healed.”
His house was messy. Dishes all over, dirty clothes on the couch, blood-stained armor lying unscrubbed on the floor. His life was a mess. He didn’t deserve to have the holy one come into his house. He would have been embarrassed to have anyone come in and see what he was really like.
And yet, that was where Jesus wanted to go. He didn’t care if the guy’s house was a mess. He looked upon the heart of this soldier and he knew what it was like already. He wanted to come in anyway – to his house and to his heart – he didn’t care. Indeed, that was why he had stopped here. To set right his heart, cleanse his guilt, bring peace into the clutter and disorder.
Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof either, or anywhere near where I live, for I am a sinner too and my heart is filled with greed and guilt and fear and all sorts of turbulence. I would be embarrassed to have anyone see what you have seen in me. And yet, you do not turn away. You knock on my door, “let me in.”
Come in then, Jesus. I need your help. I command a hundred others but I cannot command my soul. Have mercy on me, Master. It’s a mess, but come in. Welcome.
2025/11/2025— Image generated with ChatGPT (OpenAI). Today’s Word from today’s daily mass reading. Other words by Tim Booth.
There’s no pleasing some people. If Jesus had come like John the Baptist, fasting and furious, they would have said he was possessed by demons. But if he came eating and drinking, loving life and people, they would say he is a glutton and a drunkard. And in fact, they said both.
How hard it is to please some people.
They want him to lay down the law. They want him to just overlook their sins.
They want him to fix all their problems. They don’t want him to tell them what to do.
They want him to be their good Shepherd. They want him to get even for them with their crabby neighbours and sworn enemies. 
How hard it is to please me sometimes too.
I want what I want and I want him to be what I want. Compassionate, forgiving, caring, providing, kindly old man. But not too demanding. I want him to dance to my tune, too, and do what I want him to do.
How hard it is to let Jesus be Jesus. I want to shape him after my image, not me after his.
But Master, you will not be tamed. Which is scary because, given my sinfulness, I am afraid that you will pounce on me and eat me. Please forgive me. Help me to trust in your goodness and accept what you will do with me.  Help me to accept you for who you are. And do what you would have me to do.
For though you are not tame, you are good.
2025/09/17 — Image generated with ChatGPT (OpenAI). Today’s Word from today’s daily mass reading. Other words by Tim Booth.
Jesus stopped everything he was doing and where he was going because he saw a widow weeping for her son, her only son, her only means of support. Not to say she was crying because she was alone now and had no income, no hope. I’m sure she loved her boy and missed him.
But Jesus, when he sees her, knows everything about her, knows her broken heart, her love for her son, her grief. But he also knows the dire straits now that she has to traverse without him. There were lots of other mothers mourning sons and daughters, but this one now was without hope to uphold her and family to help her through the days ahead. So Jesus stops his march and does what he can, provides for her, comforts her, raises her son. Answers her prayer even before she asks. She is his first priority. Before arriving on time at his destination. Before hanging out with his friends. Before supper.
And so the Bible is filled with injunctions to the faithful and the followers, love as I have loved you. Care for the widows and the orphans, those without hope and help and resources. See them. Make them your priority too.
I would guess that includes immigrants, strangers, the poor, all those who are alone, except for the Christ who loves them and those who are his hands and feet here near by and far away. He is here for them and his Body is to be too.
But do we even see? They are here. We drive by them on the street corner, hide them away in shelters, deport them, send them sympathy cards and then forget them in assisted living or memory care. Too busy. On our way to home, to church, to work and the bank, to kids’ games. Or to a political rally. Did the disciples see? Do we?
The miracle is that Jesus does.
And so keep your eyes open, Tim. That’s the biggest message here for me today.
The first miracle in Nain the day the widow’s son was raised was that Jesus was paying attention. Jesus looked through all that mass of people, across the town square, across the universe, and he saw this woman weeping. He was paying attention.
It’s a miracle when I am paying attention too. I am so wrapped up in my own life, my own needs, my own prayers. Hurrying through my day to supper.
Lord, help me to stop and pay attention too, not to my stuff but to yours.
2025/09/16 — Image generated with ChatGPT (OpenAI). Words by Tim Booth.
JRR Tolkien died today in 1973. He wrote: “All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
Tolkien went to daily mass because he loved the Blessed Sacrament: “There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth.”
Today’s first reading shined a light on that true way of love: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11God did not destine us for wrath but for salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether awake or asleep we live together with him. Therefore, encourage and build each other up.
It is so easy to forget. The sin and guilt, the violence of the surrounding day, apostasy, ridicule, my own fears, it all clouds the truth. You love us, God. You are not going to reject us or destroy. You created us in love. You continue to sustain us, even though we don’t use your sustenance for the pure purpose of your giving. And then, most glorious of all, there is the love and sacrifice of your Son. A light. The Light. That appears in the darkness. The darkness of noon on the cross. The darkness of the night before around the Table. The darkness of the grave. The darkness of our sin-shrouded souls.
Tolkien loved the Eucharist. I should learn to love it more too. It is where you meet us, Master, with hope, in the darkness, with light, forgiveness, a flicker to light in each of us a tiny flame to carry with us, in us, for others, as we walk and live and encourage in the darkness. The light in the cup, the bread, around the Table, you. Each day renewed again in loaf and wine.
Shine, Jesus. (Maybe you do and I just need to go to mass each day too). Fan into flame the hope, the love, the light, your Spirit, in me.
2025/09/02 — Image generated with ChatGPT (OpenAI). Words by Tim Booth. Tolkien quotes from Give Us This Day.
Acts 1:15-26 Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.
Poor Justus. He wasn’t chosen, not to be an apostle. The lot fell to Matthias. God chose him to be number twelve among the twelve, his name forever recorded in the Book and his throne reserved in heaven.
But that doesn’t mean that Justus wasn’t chosen. He must have had a very privileged position. He had been with Jesus from the time his ministry began and he was there to see Jesus alive and risen from the dead. What greater blessing is there than that? And he was one of the only two men who could have claimed that. What a story he would still have to tell and ministry of witness to pursue. Just not so out there and upfront.
Nothing wrong with that. God calls us all to privileged position. To witness his love and mercy at work. To tell of what we have seen and heard. To love those around us with the love that we have received firsthand and close up in the Risen One.
And then, most wonderfully of all, to point to Jesus with a humble behind the scenes witness that it is not all about me, it is about him. Him who was born in a backwater, died ignominiously as a criminal, rose again before anyone was awake to see.
I don’t have to be acclaimed and the center of attention either. Enough, Father, to just be in the room and doing what I can. Thank you so much.
God shook the house. The people prayed and God shook the house. They prayed to proclaim Jesus. They prayed for boldness to proclaim him in the face of opposition and persecution. They prayed to make him known and experienced in the world.
Fill me again, Master, with your Holy Spirit. Rock my heart and my house that I might proclaim you with boldness too. Or do I need to proclaim you first? Obey first, just do it, and then faith and boldness will follow. Or maybe they come together when you obey.
My problem is that I sit here and do nothing. Praying for boldness, faith, mission. I feel it. A little quivering in the rib just right of my heart. But feeling it will not get me out of this chair. Only standing up will. Or writing it and posting it.
And forgive me, I need to get over worrying about offending people, drop the excuse that I don’t want to turn you off. Did Peter and John worry about offending? Did you worry about offending, Jesus? For me, it’s just a convenient way to just keep sitting here. Speak the word in season and out. Do it with gentleness and tact. But do it.
God is alive, people. We thought we killed him with our science. We cast him aside as irrelevant. We hurried past him to build big houses, drive fast cars, and party too late on Saturdays to get up and go to church on Sundays.
They thought they had gotten rid of him back in 33 AD too.
But surprise! He is alive. He is risen from the dead. And he is coming for us. Coming to love you and forgive you and welcome you into an everlasting community of love, of people like you, of people who really do need people, of people who really do need God.
And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well. (Mark 6.)
Jesus had marveled at the unbelief of the scribes and Pharisees, The important religious people. But these folk, the sick and hurting and hopeless, they knew they needed help and could not, were powerless to, help themselves. Desperate, they reached out and just touched the fringe of his prayer shawl and they were healed.
We must be desperate it seems, or at least we need to know that we need help. As long as I think that I can solve my own problems, I am not looking to God, trusting in Jesus.
But God doesn’t really want us to be so dependent and weak, does he? Doesn’t he want us to stand on our own two feet, be men and women, grow up, take care of ourselves? That’s what our culture says, what we say to our children. Because we don’t want to be bothered as parents? Because we want to be free of having to help? Because we don’t love others as much as we love ourselves, even our children?
But God does. He is always the parent, the loving and present caregiver. Who knows us, sheep without a shepherd, wandering, lost, in need of help and guiding. He created us, maybe he feels responsible for us. Can we ever stop feeling responsible for our children? Always ready to help if they just text even, SOS, reach out and just tap us on our elbow.
And I care too. I would do anything for my kids, anytime, and come from anywhere to do it. And my parents would do the same for me. The problem is not in the parent or in Jesus; the problem is in me, in the child too eager to be “grown up”. I don’t want to be needy. I want to be self-sufficient, take care of myself, be grown up and not dependent on anyone else. Be free. Be a self, an individual. But the truth is, we are all one, all connected, interdependent, reliant on one another. We are not made to be individuals but to be whole. Needing and giving help. Wrapped together.
Jesus, I need you. I know that others may read this and I don’t want them to think that I am weak, a wimp. But I am. I cannot exist on my own because I don’t. I am warped and woofed in a web, the divine tapestry that is the universe you made, and try as hard as I might, I cannot escape it. I can only live in it. I live in you. In you, I live and move and have being. In you, attaining full beauty and purpose not as one solitary thread, but achieving fulfillment as a part of the whole weave. Touching the fringe, woven into the prayer that you are.
There is no soil that is totally one type or another. Totally hard, totally rocky, totally thorny and lost, or totally good and loamy either. The good-earth people do a disservice to others and run the risk of losing their fruitfulness by thinking otherwise. Like Solomon in the first reading for today. No one started more blessed and wise than he. But he failed to tend his garden, to stir up the earth, pluck the rocks, pull the weeds. And so he died and was buried among the thorns.
The thorns have grown up in my life too. I am constantly finding dandelion seeds sprouting in my heart and creeping Charlie spreading to choke out the grass. And, of course, there are rocks to pick and stones to pile up (not to throw) as memorials of the grace of God who has churned up my heart and planted his seed here and continues so graciously to tend me and not just bulldozer me over and plant a parking lot over my soul.
So I guess it should be no surprise when I find sin sprouting over and over again in my life. Over and over again I have to bend down, get on my knees, and pull out the failure and guilt and temptation, lift it up and pile it up at the foot of the Master Gardener’s cross. And pray. No wonder: we were gardeners before we were ever anything else.
Lord, forgive me. Lord, renew me. Lord, plant your love and grace here again. To you I offer the fruit and the flowers that your love has tenderly planted and nourished; and yes, there is that too in my life growing by your grace even in the midst of the rocks and the thorns. But it doesn’t grow all by itself, Tim, without any work. Don’t be surprised and don’t give up. Just get out the hoe.
Luke 2:16-21. “When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus – the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”
During the eight days after the baby’s birth and the shepherds’ startling visit, Mary recollected all that had taken place in the past nine months. Then when her child was eight days old, she said “Yes” again – this time yes to the name Jesus.
A most common name – Jesus, Joshua in Hebrew – a name on the top 10 list of baby names that year. A common boy, her boy. Cute, cuddly, full of promise like every other boy, the guarantee/protector of her old-aged widowhood. But a piercing, painful name, too, every time she would utter it to call him in for supper, or tuck him in at night, or pray for him; for Jesus meant “he will save his people from their sins.” It meant a sword in his side and through her heart. Was it tempting to call him Joseph or Joachim instead? But no. She draws him tight close to her heart and whispers his name, Jesus. Yes.
There is for all of us in this name both joy and pain too, both comfort and challenge. Jesus belongs to us but he also belongs to the world. He invites us this year to hold him close, to lose ourselves in his gaze, the divine rapturous, life-affirming love of this Child, but to let him go too, and follow him to more difficult, painful places: to welcoming, healing, feeding, embracing others; to giving and sharing and serving, and finally, dying for others.
Help us, God, that we might have the same grace as Mary, that we will ‘Yes’ to his name too, every time that we say it.
To You, O Lord 