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Transforming the world may sound like a tall order for just one person. But imagine the good that can happen when each of us takes on the role of missioner and proclaims the joy of our faith. That’s what we celebrate today on World Mission Sunday: the good we have accomplished… and the good yet to be.Our calling in baptism is to go beyond our personal boundaries and engage with people and communities at all levels. Our gift of faith is precious. How can we not share it! The story of Bartemaeus in today’s Gospel is a good example of the power of faith—and the spirit of mission.Jesus encountered Bartemaeus on the road home from Jericho. A blind man, anxious to be healed, Bartemaeus repeatedly called for Jesus, probably disturbing the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus preach. But Our Lord acknowledged Bartemaeus and rewarded his faith by restoring his vision. For present-day missioners, the eyes of faith are a window to the soul. Like Bartemaeus, we believe because we have experienced God’s love in deep and intimate ways.In proclaiming today World Mission Sunday, Pope Francis, too, is as overwhelmed as Bartemaeus, by the goodness of God. This is how he invites us to mission: “Dear brothers and sisters, when we experience the power of God’s love, when we recognize his presence as a Father in our personal and community life, we cannot help but proclaim and share what we have seen and heard.” Friend, on World Mission Sunday, this is my personal take-away: Like Bartemaeus, never be afraid to raise your voice in search of Jesus or in proclaiming his mercy. Let the world know the depth of your faith. Be the missioner you were called to be. And celebrate with joy because one day your reward will be very great.

“Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”Mark 10:43-45Servant leadership is our meditation of the day… the calling we each have to play a lead role in responding to God’s presence in the world by imitating Christ himself: alleviating suffering, building up our Church, and honoring the gifts of natural and human life that surround us. These are all ways to serve and lead as faithful followers of God’s Word… and all ways we can live our baptismal call to mission.Think of servant leadership as an opportunity to express the fullness of our lives in Christ by using our unique gifts. With today’s Gospel in mind, I am inspired by some of the greatest examples of servant leadership in our Church. St. Oscar Romero, the Bishop of El Salvador, is one, a man who ultimately died for preaching the social Gospel of caring for the poor. Not only did St. Oscar lead his flock with complete trust in God but he preached with courage as well as humility.

“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundreds times more now in this present age.”Mark 10:29-30Give a lot. Receive a lot in return. I think that is what Mark’s Gospel is trying to tell us today. When we care for one another in Christ’s name… when our only motivation is to proclaim the gift of salvation… God showers us with countless blessings.But, you say, we are only human! We have good days when being generous and caring is the easy thing to do; and we have challenging days when we wonder if our efforts have any meaning at all. That’s when I find it’s helpful to remember one important thing: we’re in good company. The apostles were just like us. They needed Jesus to reassure them. He told his followers that their faith would be rewarded many times over, and that living out of love for others, rather than in isolation or fear, is life-giving. The message is clear: love is both the gift and the reward.Witnessing love isn’t always easy or even simple. It can involve sacrifice and placing someone else’s needs ahead of ours. That is the nature of sacrifice. Like Peter, we may want to rebel or find another way out. But like Peter, we can find comfort in the words of Our Lord who only asks us to be open to the Spirit and the ultimate destination where God is taking us. And that is eternal life with the Father. Friend, just before the scripture line I shared with you above, Jesus tells a rich young man, seeking salvation, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. “Rich” can mean financial wealth—that’s obvious… but it can also mean anything that seemingly masks our need for God. So decide how you will enter the Kingdom of heaven....

We know they have a special place in our lives. But what is it about children that makes them so privileged in our world?For God, it’s their innocence—something Jesus says we adults should emulate if we wish to enter the Kingdom. For us, I think it’s their vulnerability. Whether we are concerned because a child is ours through parenthood or family, or just because all children everywhere are reflections of God’s love, we know that protecting the youngest is what we are called to do. How difficult that becomes when we see children suffer through no fault of their own from poverty and neglect, or from violence and natural disasters. Yesterday was the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, a celebration of our belief that we are strengthened in our faith by the presence of angels just as Christ was during his lifetime. So I wonder: Is it possible to think of ourselves as both having a Guardian Angel and being someone’s angel, too?I believe we can. The role of a Guardian Angel is to enlighten and protect—to offer guidance and support when it is needed most. Our challenge is to find ways to live our deepest Christian values in a world that doesn’t always value children. And in doing so, to discover that by modeling the role of a Guardian Angel, we are witnessing God’s love in dynamic ways. Here are some suggestions:

Traditional Western theology, according to O’Murchu, has been rooted in an understanding of sinful humanity in a flawed creation. Over the centuries this paradigm has engendered co-dependent relationships among the people of God. Even worse has been an imperial image of God, which, after Constantine, which affirmed imperial models of human authority, whether in the church or society.Get your copy today >> https://maryknoll.link/poc

Today’s scripture offers us a “Moses moment,” if you will, an insight into good leadership when it really counts.Two of the men who had left Egypt with Moses were visited by the spirit and began to prophesy in camp. That alarmed a young man who told Moses to intervene and have them stop. But Moses answered by saying, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!”That’s our cue to welcome the Spirit into our lives—the presence of God that is always available to us—and, yes, to preach in word and deed the Good News of our faith. No need to react to what other people are saying or doing. As Moses suggests, better to focus on our own gifts and capabilities and share them in the same spirit in which they were given—freely and generously by a loving God.A challenge worth contemplating at the beginning of a new week is just how we see God’s presence at work in the Church today. Is it a broad vision or a narrow one? Are we each a humble reflection of God’s eternal love, or are we more concerned with the doings of other people?Friend , now is a good time to become the prophet that Moses talked about, and to let God’s love overflow from you in all directions. Through baptism and the sacraments, each of us has the capacity to do great things. Now is a good time to show the world how.

“They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent.” Mark 9:33-34The song says: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” What could be simpler—or more profound?This Tuesday, people the world over will celebrate the International Day of Peace, an initiative of the United Nations General Assembly. In pronouncements and special events, nations of Good will be encouraged to strengthen the ideal of peace by observing 24 hours of non-violence. Our Holy Father Pope Francis often talks about “a culture of care” that emanates directly from our relationship with God—something he calls a privileged path to peace. “In many parts of the world,” says the Pontiff, “there is a need for paths of peace to heal open wounds.” Then he puts the burden on each of us: “There is also a need for peacemakers, men and women prepared to work boldly and creatively to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter.”Are you up to the task? I hope we all are. Conflict and struggle are inevitable when one side, or one person, must prevail over another. It took the apostles a long time to figure this out. But once they did they became great missioners. So if we need a guide to peacemaking, I suggest the teachings of Our Lord himself. Jesus understood that peace can only be achieved when the weakest and most vulnerable are protected and valued.Friend, we don’t have to transform the whole world. Just ourselves. When we act out of love and compassion, when we build communities that accept and care for one another, we become the peacemakers that Jesus called us to be. And that’s when the world can’t help but become more just, more inclusive, more respectful… and more a reflection of the image of God. So as the song says, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me…” That’s when we will have done our job.

“But who do you say that I am?” Mark 8:29The question of the day may surprise you: Who is Jesus? Is he a prophet? A great teacher? A political disruptor? Is he really the Messiah?In today’s Gospel, Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ, and says so reassuringly. But when Jesus tells his disciples—for the first time—that the Son of Man must suffer and die, then rise after three days, Peter has second thoughts. In fact, he rebukes Jesus perhaps wanting to keep his own vision for a Messiah intact—and denying a future that includes pain and suffering. At this moment, Peter was channeling things of this world and not the divine plan of salvation that Jesus had been preaching. So the Lord had to bring his disciple back to reality with a few admonishing words. And doesn’t this all sound a little familiar? Sometimes we lose our focus, too, straying away from God’s plan in favor of our own. That’s rarely a good idea.So the question we must ask ourselves today comes down to this: Who is Jesus in our lives? Like Peter we can say, “You are the Christ.” But, just as it was ultimately for Peter, the proof will be in the ways we express our faith… how we live family life, how we raise our children, how we treat our neighbors… how we live our lives in all the big and small ways of being good missioners. We know that Peter took a while to express his faith fully. But even after denying Christ three times, he returned to give his deepest devotion to his Lord. The truth is, like Peter, we will always have moments of confusion and doubt, too. Especially if God’s plan is not our plan. But with confidence in the promise of salvation—and the belief that God is always with us—we can be worthy of our calling to eternal life. Friend, living our faith is not a one-and-done kind of experience. The commitments we make to one another—and to God—must be renewed throughout our lives otherwise they weaken and fray. Affirm who Jesus...

For most of this nation’s history, religious socialists made their case to a population that was, for the most part, hospitable to religion and resistant to socialism. Today, those trends are moving in opposite directions. A majority of young people and persons of color in the U.S. express support for socialism. At the same time, even as religious affiliation has dropped, most Americans still say religion is important to them.Get your copy today >> https://maryknoll.link/3gx

I love a saying commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Doing your best means never stop trying.” It’s the striving that distinguishes what we do in life—and as believers, it also means the way we share our gifts with the less fortunate.Tomorrow is Labor Day, a great American holiday that honors the workers and the strivers who labor each day on behalf of their families and their communities. For people of faith, we know that the tasks we perform with the intention of honoring our call to mission are another way of participating in God’s creation. The work we do each day has the potential to transform the world. And that’s not a fanciful thought. We each have a role to play—whether we’re bankers, homemakers, astronauts, or public servants.The promise fulfilled in Christ is the gift we strive for: eternal life when our work in the here and now is completed. Our role as missioners is to make the world we live in a better place by witnessing God’s love and the gift of salvation. That means laboring in all the ways we know how: laboring to support our families… laboring to make our neighborhoods stronger and more livable… laboring to protect our environment… and laboring to build up our Church. We all have jobs to do. And every job counts.This Labor Day I am especially grateful for our scientists and doctors… for our dedicated healthcare professionals… and for the combined forces that gave us a COVID vaccine in record time. Thanks to them, more people are returning to work each month in good health, and many of our service businesses are rebounding. Thank God for the labor that has made our fall season so hopeful.Friend, this Labor Day stop and think about the work you are doing to transform the world. And don’t forget the day-to-day tasks that tell us who you really are in God’s eyes. Tasks like taking care of a sick family member, babysitting a grandchild, or sitting down to pray the Rosary. When we take care of one another in the company of Our Lord, we...

“One who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.”Responsorial Psalm 15We often talk about justice with words that “feel right” to us—words of balance and proportionality. Tit-for-tat. Insult for injury. But what exactly is the right response to a human failing, including ones we ourselves commit? What will satisfy an injury, if that’s even possible?Balancing the scales is not what God is about. Rather God’s justice is rooted in mercy and love—in unquantifiable ways. That’s why when we seek justice with God in mind, the strategies we learned as little children can’t work any longer. We need another way to heal from injury and fulfill the law at the same time.Maybe the best way to practice justice is to build bridges. I am not saying that rules don’t matter because they do. The law was important to the Jewish people and to Jesus as well. But he also gave us the greatest commandment: Love God with all your heart; and love your neighbor as yourself. In today’s Gospel Jesus says the evils that come from within us—malice, greed, deceit and many more—are what defile us. What enters from above—gifts from the Father and the commandment to love one another—are what bring completeness. We cannot fulfill the commandments while practicing insult for injury. So the bridges to justice that I’m talking about are built with mercy and love. In the face of injustice, always choose love. Sometimes justice and love are understood as opposites, one extracting harsh judgment, the other excusing a wrong without any consequence. I don’t see it that way. Good and right relationships are fundamentally built on justice. Both justice and love serve the process of restitution—for the victims, the wrongdoers, and the communities where we live. And both are in God’s nature. Friend, one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s favorite bible verses is from the book of Amos 5:24: “Let justice surge like waters, and righteousness like an unfailing stream.” And may reflections of God’s love—the ones you witness—accompany those healing waters.

“We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”John 6:69 The apostles started to have doubts. Could they accept the things Jesus was saying? Today’s Gospel is a good starting point for our weekly meditation. After all, we have doubts, too… Isn’t the “formula for success” too hard at times? Maybe even a little unreasonable?In truth, a life of faithfulness isn’t always easy. In fact, it can even be painful. Forgiving someone who has hurt us is hard. So is being generous when we feel needy ourselves. And is it really true that the more we give, the more we get? Is God actually listening to our prayers?Life is a journey with its own rhythms. Just like the apostles, we don’t always see the straight line to our goal when there are so many challenges. But doubt does not damage faith. What damages faith is taking the path that’s easier and less complicated. And that’s just what some of the disciples did. I am reminded of the saints who had doubts and even great crises of faith. Saint John of the Cross wrote poignantly about his “dark night of the soul.” And in more modern times, Mother Teresa revealed a deep despair in letters to her spiritual advisor. But she never wavered in her dedication to serving the Gospel and the destitute poor. Today we know her as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.Friend, when Jesus asked the remaining twelve apostles if they, too, would leave him, it was Peter who spoke up. He said they believed that Jesus spoke the words of eternal life. “We have come to believe, and are convinced, that you are the Holy One of God.” May these words sustain you on your journey.