Reflections

Finding the Fountain: Lessons from Saint Bridget

Open Bible on green cloth with wooden cross and lit candle on altar 
Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Bridget of Sweden, Religious
Patron of Europe — Widow, Mystic, Foundress

First Reading: Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 36:6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11
Gospel: Matthew 13:10-17
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072326.cfm

God speaks to his people through Jeremiah like a spouse remembering the beginning of a marriage. I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. There was a time when you walked with me through the desert and it was enough. And then — you entered the good land, ate its fruits, and forgot where the water came from. My people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug for themselves cracked cisterns that hold no water.

That image is worth sitting with on a Thursday morning. A cracked cistern looks like a solution. You dig it yourself, you fill it yourself, you manage it yourself. But it leaks. And no matter how diligently you maintain it, it cannot hold what only the fountain gives freely. The things we go to instead of God — the busyness, the screens, the approval, the plans we grip too tightly — are not evil in themselves. They are cracked. They cannot hold what we are actually thirsty for.

Then Jesus explains why he speaks in parables. To those who have been given to see, more will be given. To those who have closed themselves off, even what they have will slip away. Gross is the heart of this people — they have shut their eyes, stopped their ears, because if they saw and heard, they would have to turn, and be healed. And then the gift in the middle of that hard word: "But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see and did not see it." The seeing is a gift. The open heart is already a grace.

Saint Bridget of Sweden knew both. She was a Swedish princess, wife, mother of eight children — an ordinary layperson by the world's measure. After her husband died, she gave herself entirely to God. She received mystical visions of the Passion so vivid they marked her physically. And she prayed with the simplicity of someone who had found the fountain and drunk from it: "O Lord, say to my soul that nothing happens without You permitting it, and that nothing You permit is without comfort." That is a prayer from someone who has stopped drinking from cracked cisterns.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. What are the cracked cisterns in my life right now — the things I keep going back to that look like they will satisfy but keep leaking? Am I being honest about what they are?

2. "I remember the devotion of your youth." Is there a way I followed God more simply and freely at an earlier point in my life that I have drifted from? What happened?

3. Jesus says blessed are your eyes, because they see. Do I treat the gift of faith — of actually believing, of actually seeing — as the extraordinary privilege it is? Or have I gotten used to it?

4. Bridget prayed: "Nothing You permit is without comfort." Is there something hard in my life right now that I have not yet brought to that kind of trust? What would it take?


One small thing for tomorrow:

Identify one cracked cistern — one thing you keep reaching for that doesn't actually satisfy — and tomorrow, when you reach for it, pause and say: "Lord, you are the fountain. What I am looking for is you." That is the whole practice.


Lord Jesus, Jeremiah says you are the fountain of living water, and I know that is true — and I also know how often I walk past the fountain to dig at something I built myself. Forgive me for the cracked cisterns. Help me to remember the devotion of my youth, the simpler trust, the following you through the wilderness when it was enough just to be near you. And help me to see — to have the open eyes and ears that receive what you are giving, rather than the closed ones that miss it. May Bridget's prayer be mine: nothing happens without you permitting it, and nothing you permit is without comfort. May Mary, who followed you from Nazareth to Calvary without a cracked cistern in sight, pray for me when I forget where the water comes from. Amen.


If you'd like to share: what is one cracked cistern you keep returning to — and what do you think you are actually thirsting for underneath it?

Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles

Person wearing a cloak standing in a cave doorway looking at sunset over desert landscape 
Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene
Apostle to the Apostles — First Witness of the Resurrection

First Reading: Song of Songs 3:1-4b
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
Gospel: John 20:1-2, 11-18
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072226.cfm

The Song of Songs opens with a woman searching. On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves. I sought him, but I did not find him. I will rise and go about the city, in the streets and crossings. I will seek him whom my heart loves. I sought him, but I did not find him. The watchmen found me — have you seen him whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found him whom my heart loves. The whole arc of it — the seeking, the not-finding, the darkness, the questions to strangers, and then suddenly, without drama: I found him — is the arc of Mary Magdalene's morning at the tomb.

She came while it was still dark. She saw the stone moved and ran to tell the others. She came back, stayed outside weeping, bent over into the empty tomb. Angels ask her: woman, why are you weeping? She says the same thing twice, to the angels and to the man she thinks is the gardener: they have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him. She is not looking for proof of the resurrection. She is looking for him. She wants to know where he is so she can go there and be with him.

And then he says one word: Mary. That is all. Just her name. And she knows. She turns and says: Rabbouni. Teacher. Jesus elevated Mary Magdalene to Feast — from the Memorial she had been for centuries — because Pope Francis wanted to honor her as the Apostle to the Apostles, the first to hear the resurrection and be sent to announce it. But what makes her great is not the title. It is what she did in the dark, while the other disciples had gone home: she stayed. She kept looking. She would not leave without him.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. Mary did not know what she was looking for — she just knew she wanted to find him. Is there a place in my prayer life where I am still searching in the dark, not yet finding, but willing to keep looking? Am I still showing up?

2. Jesus says her name and she knows him immediately. When was the last time I felt personally known by God — not as a member of a group, but by name? What was that like?

3. Mary's love was not afraid of the dark tomb, the emptiness, or the not-knowing. Where in my life am I avoiding a dark or empty place instead of staying and searching?

4. She was sent to announce what she had seen. Is there something God has shown me — a consolation, an experience of his presence, a moment of grace — that I have been keeping to myself instead of sharing?


One small thing for tomorrow:

Say your own name quietly in prayer tomorrow and let God say it back. You do not have to feel anything. Just offer him the moment: "Here I am. I am the one looking for you." Then listen. Mary heard one word. You may not hear anything — but you will have stayed.


Lord Jesus, Mary would not leave the tomb empty-handed. She stayed in the dark and kept asking strangers if they had seen you. And you said her name, and that was enough. Say my name today. Help me to recognize you when you speak — in the people around me, in the Scripture, in the quiet moment I almost skipped. Give me Mary Magdalene's courage to stay in the hard, uncertain, dark places and not give up looking for you. And when I find you — help me to announce it, the way she did, without needing it to be impressive or tidy. I have seen the Lord. May Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles, pray for all of us who are still searching in the dark. Amen.


If you'd like to share: is there a place in your life right now where you are searching and not yet finding — and are you still willing to keep looking?

Embracing God’s Mercy: Cast Your Sins Into the Sea

Winding dirt path surrounded by trees and grasses at sunrise with soft mist 
Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, Priest and Doctor of the Church

First Reading: Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 85:2-4, 5-6, 7-8
Gospel: Matthew 12:46-50
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072126.cfm

Micah ends his book the way Isaiah ended his — not with warning, but with praise. And the praise is for something specific: God's willingness to remove guilt. Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance? Who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency? You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins. Not set them aside. Not file them away for later. Cast them into the depths of the sea.

There is a phrase worth sitting with this Tuesday morning: God delights in clemency. Not tolerates it. Not manages it. Delights. Showing mercy is not a reluctant concession — it is the thing that gives him pleasure. And the image of our sins being thrown into the bottom of the ocean is one of the most complete pictures of forgiveness in all of Scripture. Not buried somewhere you might dig back up. Into the sea. Gone.

Then Jesus extends family. His mother and brothers are outside, asking to speak with him. Someone interrupts to tell him. And Jesus stretches out his hand toward the crowd of ordinary people around him — not relatives, not the religiously credentialed, just people who have been listening — and says: here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother. The family of God is not defined by bloodline or pedigree. It is defined by orientation — by the direction you are pointed and the one you are trying to follow. And the door into it is open, right now, to whoever will walk through.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. God casts our sins into the depths of the sea. Is there a sin — something old, something I have confessed, something I thought I was past — that I keep pulling back up from the bottom? What would it mean to actually let it stay there?

2. God delights in clemency. Do I extend that same delight to others — am I someone who enjoys showing mercy, or does it feel more like a difficult obligation?

3. Jesus says whoever does the will of the Father is family. Do I actually live with that sense of belonging — that I am a member of something much larger and more permanent than my household or my parish? Or does it remain an idea I believe without feeling?

4. Micah asks God to shepherd his people, to show them wonderful signs as in the days of old. Is there something I have stopped expecting from God — a kind of faith or hope I have quietly set aside as naive — that I might be invited to pick back up?


One small thing for tomorrow:

Sometime tomorrow, bring one specific sin or failure to God — something you have been carrying with some guilt — and say plainly: you promised to cast this into the sea. I am letting go of it now. Then try, for the rest of the day, not to fish it back out.


Lord Jesus, Micah says God delights in clemency. I want to believe that all the way down — not just as a doctrine, but as something I feel when I come to you. You have cast my sins into the sea. Help me to stop wading in after them. And thank you for calling me family — for stretching out your hand toward ordinary, distracted, imperfect people and saying: here are my brothers and sisters. I want to live like I belong to something that large and that permanent. Help me to do the will of the Father today, in the small ways that are in front of me. May Mary, your mother and ours, pray for all of us who are trying to find our way into the family. Amen.


If you'd like to share: is there something you have been pulling back up from the sea — a guilt you keep returning to — and what would it take to let it stay at the bottom?

Reflections on Micah: Walking Humbly with God

Interior of a Gothic church with wooden pews, stone arches, and colorful stained glass windows casting light patterns on the floor. 
Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr

First Reading: Micah 6:1-4, 6-8
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 50:5-6, 8-9, 16bc-17, 21, 23
Gospel: Matthew 12:38-42
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072026.cfm

God takes his people to court — and the charge is not that they have stopped performing their religion. The charge is that they have missed the point of it entirely. Micah imagines the mountains and hills as witnesses. O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me. It is the voice of a parent, bewildered and grieving, asking the child who has wandered: what went wrong between us?

And then the people's response — which Micah dramatizes as a desperate negotiation. Shall I come with burnt offerings? Thousands of rams? Rivers of oil? My firstborn child? The escalation is almost frantic, as if the answer must be something enormous, something dramatic, something that proves how serious they are. And then God's answer, which is so simple it almost goes past us: you have been told what is good. Only to do right. To love goodness. To walk humbly with your God. Three things. Not a temple program. Not a performance. A direction of life.

Then Jesus speaks to the scribes and Pharisees who are asking for a sign. Give us something to see. Give us proof. And Jesus names what they cannot seem to do: the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah — a foreign city, a reluctant prophet, a three-day warning — and they turned. The queen of the south traveled to the ends of the earth to hear Solomon's wisdom. And something greater than Jonah is here. Something greater than Solomon is here. The sign they are demanding is standing in front of them. They are looking past it, looking for a spectacle, looking for something other than the ordinary man speaking ordinary words who is, in fact, everything they are waiting for.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. Micah asks: O my people, what have I done to you, how have I wearied you? If I am honest, is there a way my faith has become burdensome — something I perform or manage rather than a relationship I walk in? What happened?

2. "Only to do the right, to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God." Of these three, which one am I most neglecting right now? Not the dramatic version — the daily, ordinary version?

3. The Pharisees had Jesus in front of them and kept looking for something else. Is there a way I am doing the same — waiting for a sign, a feeling, a confirmation — while missing what is already present and given?

4. The Ninevites repented at Jonah's preaching. Jonah was not impressive — he was reluctant, resentful, and barely faithful. But they heard the word and turned. Am I hearing what I have been given and actually turning toward it?


One small thing for tomorrow:

Take Micah's three things and apply just one of them to your Tuesday: do one right thing you have been putting off, love goodness in one concrete act, or walk more humbly in one conversation where you usually need to be right. Pick one. Just one. That is enough.


Lord Jesus, you are something greater than Jonah, something greater than Solomon, and I confess that I sometimes pass right by you looking for something more impressive. Forgive me for the times I have turned your friendship into a performance, when you have only ever asked me to do right, love goodness, and walk humbly with you. Help me to hear the word I have already been given and actually turn toward it — simply, today, without waiting for a sign. May Mary, who recognized you in the ordinary and said yes without needing more proof, pray for me when I am tempted to keep looking past what is already here. Amen.


If you'd like to share: of Micah's three — doing right, loving goodness, walking humbly — which one feels most alive in your life right now, and which one feels most distant?

Quiet Growth: Parables of Patience and Faith

Shepherd walking on a path with a dog herding a large flock of sheep in a grassy field 
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

First Reading: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Second Reading: Romans 8:26-27
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16
Gospel: Matthew 13:24-43
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071926.cfm

The Book of Wisdom opens today with a portrait of God that is worth sitting with slowly. There is no god besides you who has the care of all. Your might is the source of justice. And then the line that reframes everything: you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us. You taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind. God's power and God's patience are not in tension — the patience flows from the power. He can afford to wait. He does not need to rush to judgment. And he teaches us, by the way he treats us, how to treat each other.

Paul continues that thought in Romans. The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we ought — and the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. The one who searches hearts knows what the Spirit intends. This is a remarkable thing to hear on a Sunday morning. You do not have to have your prayer together before you come to God. The Spirit is already inside the silence, already groaning with what you cannot find words for, already bringing it before the Father. You just have to show up.

Then Jesus gives three parables in one Gospel. The wheat and weeds — let them grow together, do not rip out the weeds or you will uproot the wheat alongside them. The mustard seed — the smallest of seeds becomes the largest of plants. The yeast — a woman hides a little in the flour and the whole batch rises. All three say the same thing from different angles: the kingdom works quietly, patiently, from within, over time. God is not in a hurry. He lets the field grow. He trusts the yeast. He knows what a mustard seed can become. And he is patient with the weeds — patient with what is mixed and imperfect and still sorting itself out — because he can see the harvest clearly even when we cannot.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. God judges with clemency and much lenience. Do I extend the same to myself — or do I demand a faster, harsher accounting of my own failures than God does?

2. Is there someone in my life I have been impatient with — wanting to pull up the weeds before the harvest — when God's way is to let things grow together and trust the sorting to him?

3. Paul says the Spirit intercedes when we do not know how to pray as we ought. Have I been staying away from prayer because I do not feel ready or articulate? What would it mean to just show up anyway?

4. Where in my life is God working like yeast — quietly, invisibly, slowly transforming something from the inside? Am I noticing it, or have I given up because I cannot see it yet?


One small thing for tomorrow:

Before you open your phone tomorrow morning, sit for two minutes in silence and simply say: "I do not know how to pray as I ought — but the Spirit does. Come." That is enough. Let the Spirit do the groaning. You just have to be there.


Lord Jesus, you are patient with the field. You see the weeds and the wheat growing together — in the world, in your Church, in me — and you do not pull everything up in frustration. You wait. You trust the harvest. Teach me that patience, especially with myself and the people I love most. And on the mornings when I do not know how to pray, when the words do not come and the silence feels empty, remind me that your Spirit is already there, already interceding, already bringing what I cannot say before the Father. I just have to show up. May Mary, who trusted your slow, hidden work from Nazareth to Calvary, pray for me when the harvest feels far away. Amen.


If you'd like to share: where do you sense God working slowly and quietly in your life right now — something that has not bloomed yet but feels like it might be growing?

Daily Reflections: Healing the Bruised and Smoldering

Swirling streams of green and gold light with sparkling particles 
Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Camillus de Lellis, Priest
Patron of the Sick, Nurses, and Hospitals

First Reading: Micah 2:1-5
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 10:1-2, 3-4, 7-8, 14
Gospel: Matthew 12:14-21
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071826.cfm

Micah opens with a woe against those who lie awake at night planning how to take what belongs to others. They covet fields and seize them. They cheat owners of their houses. When morning comes and the power is theirs, they act. It is not a portrait of violent criminals — it is a portrait of the quiet, calculated accumulation of those who have enough and keep taking more anyway. The psalm continues the thought: do not forget the poor, O Lord. The wicked man boasts that God will not avenge it. He lurks where the unfortunate cannot see him. The poor are caught. The fatherless have no helper.

Then comes the Gospel — and Jesus, who has heard the Pharisees plotting to kill him, quietly withdraws. Not in defeat. He goes on healing. He heals them all, Matthew says. But he warns them not to announce it. No fanfare. No triumph. No street-level performance of power. And then Matthew reaches for the servant song from Isaiah: he will not contend or cry out, no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break. A smoldering wick he will not quench.

That phrase is worth sitting with this Saturday morning. A bruised reed — still technically a reed, still shaped right, but damaged, bent, barely functional. Jesus will not break it. A smoldering wick — still technically burning, but just barely, more smoke than flame. He will not put it out. He comes toward the ones who are almost done and does not finish them off. He comes toward the bent and the barely-burning and he heals them.

Saint Camillus de Lellis was both the bruised reed and the one who refused to break others. He was a soldier, a gambler, twice rejected from religious life because of an incurable wound on his leg. He lost everything — his money, his weapons, his shirt — gambling. He found himself destitute and took a laboring job at a Capuchin friary, where a sermon broke him open. His conversion did not make life easy. His leg never healed. He suffered for forty-six years with that wound. But he devoted himself entirely to the sick, and when a cross in his chapel seemed to speak to him — "Why are you afraid? This is not your work but mine" — he understood. He crawled from bed to bed when he could not walk. His last words: "I rejoice in what has been told me. We shall go into the house of the Lord."


A few questions to sit with today:

1. Is there someone in my life who is a bruised reed right now — barely holding together, bent but not broken — and have I been treating them with the gentleness Jesus shows, or with impatience and frustration?

2. Am I the bruised reed? Is there a part of me that is smoldering, barely burning, and have I let Jesus near that part — or have I been hiding it, managing it, pretending it is fine?

3. Micah and the psalm speak about those who scheme against the vulnerable. Is there a way I have been complicit in systems or habits that ignore the poor — not out of malice, but out of inattention?

4. Camillus heard: "This is not your work but mine." Is there something I am carrying — a burden, a mission, a relationship — where I need to hear the same thing and loosen my grip?


One small thing for tomorrow, Sunday:

At Mass tomorrow, look around. Notice if there is someone who seems to be barely holding on — an elderly person, someone sitting alone, someone who looks worn out. Offer one small act of presence: a smile, a word, holding the door. That is the whole thing. A bruised reed you will not break.


Lord Jesus, you withdrew quietly and went on healing. No fanfare, no announcement — just mercy, moving through the crowds. A bruised reed you will not break. I bring you the bent places in me — the parts that are barely holding, the places where the flame has gotten low. Do not quench what is still smoldering. Tend it. And make me, like Camillus, someone who does not break the bruised reeds around me. Give me his gentleness toward the sick, the struggling, the almost-done. May Mary, who stood beneath your cross without flinching, pray for us who find it hard to stay when things are hard. Amen.


If you'd like to share: is there a bruised reed in your life right now — someone barely holding on — and what is one way you could offer them gentleness this weekend?


Finding Grace in Idle Hours

Open book with a mug labeled New Mercies on wooden table by window at sunrise

There have been seasons in my life when I showed up to work geared up to grind.

You probably know the feeling: mentally ready for overtime, braced to stay late, skip breaks, power through deadlines. I came in with that mindset more than once… and then discovered there was almost nothing to do. A project delay. A maintenance freeze. A reorg. Suddenly, the engine I had revved up had nowhere to go.

Instead of the frantic busyness many of us complain about, I found myself facing something different: idle hours. Time on my hands. Space. You’d think that would feel like a gift. But at first, it didn’t. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, because somewhere along the way, I had made continuous motion the proof that I was advancing and achieving.

In Father Mark’s homily, Isaiah’s words captured that tension in a way that startled me: “We conceived and writhed in pain, giving birth to wind. Salvation, we have not achieved for the earth.” Israel had been working hard, worrying a lot, trying to make something happen—and discovering that all their effort hadn’t produced salvation. They had given birth to “wind.”

For me, those quiet seasons at work were a mirror image of the same truth. Whether our days are jam‑packed or oddly empty, neither busyness nor productivity nor “high‑achiever identity” can produce what our hearts most need. Salvation is not something we manufacture. It is something we receive.

Isaiah doesn’t leave us in despair, though. He turns quickly to hope: “But your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise, awake and sing.” In other words, the life we’re aching for will come—from God’s side, not ours.

When grace walks into idle hours

In my early career, when the internet was still blossoming into what it is today, that “idle time” began to change color for me. At first, the lack of tasks at work drove me mad. But then, curiosity crept in. Those quiet hours opened up space for exploration: online classes, message boards, trying to build websites, tinkering around with new tools and creative projects.

It felt like discovering new worlds. I started to realize that these unplanned pauses were not proof that I was failing; they were invitations. In hindsight, I can see God’s grace in them: “Here,” He seemed to say, “play, learn, create. Let your soul breathe.” That time became part of how God shaped me—my love for technology, my desire to help people, even the way I now use online tools to share reflections about faith and grace.

Those seasons helped me see something I’m still learning: sometimes grace looks less like God fueling our productivity and more like God disrupting it. Not to punish us, but to free us from thinking that our worth—or our salvation—is measured in completed tasks.

Scripture puts it in very clear terms: “For by grace you have been saved through faith… it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Salvation is a gift, flowing from Christ’s love on the cross, not a reward for our spiritual or professional performance. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”—that’s the heartbeat underneath all of this.[esv]

Grace doesn’t erase the value of good works; it changes their role. Paul goes on to say, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” We are not saved by good works; we are saved for good works. The works are fruit, not currency.

Trading yokes: from fear to love

Father Mark invited us to listen again to Jesus’ words: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest… Take my yoke upon you… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” If I’m honest, the idea of a “yoke” can sound like just more work. But as Father Mark reminded us, we carry a yoke either way.

The world’s yoke can look like:

  • Anxiety about hitting numbers and proving ourselves.
  • Perfectionism—trying to look flawless and keep everyone’s opinions of us positive.
  • Guilt over past mistakes, replayed again and again.

I’ve worn that yoke. My “high productivity” mindset has often been driven by fear: fear of falling behind, fear of being seen as lazy, fear of not becoming the person I thought I had to be.

Jesus offers a different yoke, one built out of love. It is “well‑fitting,” crafted for who we actually are, not who the world pressures us to be. With His yoke across our shoulders, our work—at the office, at home, in our parish—stops being a desperate attempt to earn salvation and becomes an ongoing conversation with Him: “How can I walk with You here?”

Justice in the help desk queue

This shift from fear to love has changed how I see justice in my daily work as an Infrastructure Services Technician.

Justice, in the Christian sense, means giving God and other people their due—treating others fairly and respecting their rights. In a technical support role, that often looks surprisingly small and human: an email response, a tone of voice, the patience to explain something for the third time.

I regularly receive support requests that, from my vantage point, look “obvious” or “simple.” The temptation is to respond with impatience or subtle shame: “You should know this by now.” But grace keeps nudging me to remember that every person is in a different place in their journey as a technology worker or staff member.

So I pause. I try to frame my language in a way that preserves their dignity. I gently point them in the right direction or help them discover the answer themselves, instead of making them feel small. That, to me, is where justice shows up—not only in big issues of fairness, but in small decisions about whether we will use our knowledge to serve or to intimidate.

Justice also shows up at home. In our family, we’re learning (imperfectly) to practice fairness in the way we listen to one another. When someone offers a comment or criticism, we try to see it through the lens of what that person is going through—what they’re learning “on the fly,” where they’re stretched or tired. We don’t always get it right, but grace keeps inviting us to ask, “How can I give this person space to grow, rather than shutting them down?”

These are not glamorous moments. No one is handing out holiness trophies for how you replied to an email or listened to your spouse. But in the quiet, they become part of how we “walk in” the good works God prepared for us—works that flow from grace, not from a performance checklist.

Fortitude at 2 a.m.

Then there’s fortitude: courage and inner strength to face difficulties, temptations, and hardships without giving up. In my life right now, fortitude looks less like facing external persecution and more like facing my own habits.[lifehopeandtruth]

Specifically, the habit of burying myself in endless side‑projects, staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning when I don’t actually have to. There’s always “one more” thing to tweak, optimize, build, or learn before I call it a day. It’s that old high‑productivity identity again, whispering: “Just a little more. Then you’ll be enough.”

Grace has been gently confronting me there: “You don’t have to earn My love by staying up late. You don’t have to prove your worth by never resting.” Fortitude, for me, is starting to look like learning to say “no” to that inner drive—not because work is bad, but because I want to say “yes” to healthier rhythms, deeper prayer, and more presence with the people I love.[inspiritencourage]

This is hard. It feels like stepping off a treadmill that I’ve lived on for years. But again, Jesus doesn’t just tell us to stop; He invites us to come: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… you will find rest for your souls.” Fortitude isn’t gritting my teeth alone—it’s letting Him be with me in the moment when I close the laptop and choose sleep, or choose conversation, or choose silence with Him instead of yet another task.[bible]

Friendship with Jesus in the gaps

You’ve probably noticed that my days aren’t perfectly ordered around prayer and Scripture. Some moments are planned—Mass, set prayer times. Other moments are stolen: a few minutes in the car, a pause between tickets, a quiet corner at home.

Over time, I’ve started queuing up prayers, reflections, and spiritual content on my phone. That way, any small gap in the day can become a chance to read a psalm, whisper a prayer of gratitude, or offer a simple, “Lord, here’s what I’m thankful for right now.” Some days it’s just ten minutes for God; other days, it’s more. But it’s in those scattered, ordinary moments that my desire for friendship with Jesus finds a home.

I share that not as a model to copy perfectly, but as a way of saying: grace can meet you in the real shape of your day, whatever it looks like. You don’t have to have a monastic schedule to walk with Him. You just have to be willing to let Him into the pockets of time you already have.

You are enough—grace first, then fruit

If there’s one tone I hope you hear in all of this, it’s relief.

You are enough—not because you’ve done everything right, but because Christ on the cross says exactly that. Salvation is not something you have to earn to the very end. Through accepting Christ—through trusting that “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)—you’re already held, already loved, already invited into His life.[openbible]

Does that mean there will be no works for you to do? No, there will be plenty. But they will be fruits of an aligned spirit, not mandates from an earthly yoke. Justice at your desk. Fortitude at 2 a.m. Listening fairly at the dinner table. Saying “no” to the old narratives that measure your worth by productivity. Saying “yes” to rest, to grace, to a yoke that is kind and a burden that is light.[gotquestions]

All the things that might enslave us—anxiety, perfectionism, the fear of never doing enough—begin to lose their grip the moment we accept Jesus into our hearts and let His grace be the starting point, not the reward.[gotquestions]

My hope is that as you read this, you feel less pressure and more invitation. Invitation to walk with Him. To repent where you need to. To change your ways not to earn His love, but to better receive the graces He’s been offering all along. To let your good works—justice, fortitude, everyday kindness—grow naturally from a heart that knows it is already loved.

If there’s one small step you take today, maybe it’s this: pause for a moment, wherever you are, and simply say, “Jesus, thank you that I don’t have to earn salvation. Show me one place in my day where your grace is already at work, and one small good work you’re inviting me to walk in with you.”

And then trust that He’ll be right there, in the very real ground of your life, bearing fruit in His time.

The Invitation to Come: Jesus’ Promise of Rest

Interior of a historic stone church with wooden pews, stained glass windows, and an altar 
Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

First Reading: Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 102:13-14ab and 15, 16-18, 19-21
Gospel: Matthew 11:28-30
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071626.cfm

Isaiah opens with a soul that is awake in the dark. "My soul yearns for you in the night, yes, my spirit within me keeps vigil for you." This is not poetry about pleasant meditation. It is the prayer of someone who has been pressing and straining and working and still comes up empty. The people have conceived and writhed in pain — and given birth to wind. Salvation we have not achieved for the earth. We tried. We failed. We cannot bring it forth on our own.

And yet: "But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust. For your dew is a dew of light, and the land of shades gives birth." The resurrection promise lands inside exhaustion. God does not wait for us to have it together before he speaks life. He speaks it precisely into the dust, precisely into the failure, precisely into the night where we have been keeping vigil and coming up empty.

Then Jesus speaks three sentences that the whole Church has been returning to for two thousand years. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Not: figure it out and come to me. Not: get your act together and come to me. Come. Now. As you are. The yoke he offers is not no yoke — there is still something to carry. But it is his yoke, shaped for you, and the one carrying it with you is meek and humble of heart.

The Carmelite tradition, whose feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel we honor today, has lived inside that invitation for centuries. Mary is their model — not Mary the warrior or the strategist, but Mary who sat at the foot of the Lord and received. Who kept all things and pondered them in her heart. The Carmelites built a spirituality on that: contemplative rest in God, letting him do what we cannot do ourselves, keeping vigil in love rather than in anxiety. Isaiah's night-vigil, Jesus's rest — Mary shows us what it looks like to hold both at once.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. What am I laboring under right now — what is the burden I am carrying that I have not yet brought to Jesus? Have I actually come to him with it, or am I still trying to manage it alone?

2. Isaiah says "salvation we have not achieved for the earth, we cannot bring it forth." Is there something in my life I am still trying to bring forth by my own effort, when God is waiting for me to let go of it?

3. My soul yearns for God in the night — but do I know what that yearning feels like in my own life? When did I last feel it? What does it point toward?

4. What would it mean today, practically, to take Jesus's yoke instead of the one I have been carrying — to do the same things but with him, in his way, at his pace?


One small thing for tomorrow:

At some point tomorrow, stop whatever you are doing for two minutes and say these words slowly: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." Say them as if Jesus is saying them to you, right now, about the exact thing you are carrying. Then just sit for a moment. You do not have to do anything with it. Just receive it.


Lord Jesus, I am tired in ways I do not always name. The labor is real, and the burden is heavy, and there are nights when my soul keeps vigil and comes up empty. But you say come — not after I have figured it out, not after I am rested enough to pray well, but now. I come. Take this yoke I have been carrying alone and replace it with yours. Teach me to be meek and humble of heart the way you are. And let Mary, who knew how to rest in you, pray for me tonight when the vigil is long and the dew has not yet come. Your dew is a dew of light. I trust that. Amen.


If you'd like to share: what burden have you been carrying that you haven't yet handed to Jesus — and what would it feel like to finally set it down?

The Wisdom of Being Childlike: Reflections on Today’s Readings

Open ancient religious manuscript on wooden desk with candle, bishop's crozier, rope, ink, and quill 
Memorial of Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

First Reading: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 94:5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15
Gospel: Matthew 11:25-27
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071526.cfm

Isaiah gives us a portrait of a man at the height of his power. Assyria has conquered nations, seized treasures, moved the boundaries of peoples. And the king's explanation is simple: by my own power I have done it. By my wisdom, for I am shrewd. Nobody fluttered a wing, nobody opened a mouth. I took all the earth. It reads like a performance review where everything is five stars and the only name in the document is your own.

Then Isaiah asks the question that punctures the whole thing: will the axe boast against him who hews with it? Will the saw exalt itself above him who wields it? The Assyrian king is an instrument — powerful, yes, but an instrument. The glory he is claiming belongs to someone else. And the cost of missing that is not just theological. It is the kindling of fire where his glory used to be.

Then Jesus prays — and what he praises God for is remarkable. Not for revealing these things to the powerful, the successful, the wise and learned. For hiding them from the wise and revealing them to the childlike. The word is nepioi — infants, little ones, those with no credentials. The things of God are not unlocked by intelligence or achievement or the right kind of resume. They are received. Given. The childlike do not grab them — they are handed to them, because their hands are open.

Saint Bonaventure was one of the greatest minds of the medieval Church — theologian, philosopher, Minister General of the Franciscans, Cardinal. He could have worn his learning like armor. Instead, he wrote: "The beginning of wisdom is to know yourself as you truly are before God." When the pope sent messengers to tell him he had been made a cardinal, they found him washing dishes at the friary. He asked them to hang the cardinal's hat on a nearby tree and come back when he was finished. The greatest scholar of his age met the Gospel of the childlike and took it seriously.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. Where in my life am I most tempted to say, even quietly, "by my own power I have done it"? Is there a success, a skill, a way I present myself that I have stopped referring back to God?

2. Am I approaching God with open hands — ready to receive — or with my credentials and achievements already listed, trying to earn my way into the conversation?

3. What would it look like for me to be more childlike in my prayer today — less polished, less managed, more simply present and open?

4. Is there someone in my life I have underestimated spiritually because they are not educated or accomplished? Have I missed something God was revealing through them?


One small thing for tomorrow:

When you sit down to pray tomorrow, resist the urge to make it impressive — no long petitions, no careful vocabulary. Just say something simple and true, the way a child would. "I don't know what I'm doing. I need you." Three sentences is enough. Let your hands be open.


Lord Jesus, you praised your Father for hiding these things from the wise and learned and revealing them to the childlike. I want to be among the childlike — but I know how often I approach you with my hands full of my own competence, my own plans, my own explanations. Empty my hands today. Let me come to you the way Bonaventure came back to his dishes — not impressed with himself, just faithful to the small thing in front of him. You have been handed all things by the Father. I do not need to hold anything back from you. Receive what I bring, and give me what I cannot earn. May Mary, the most childlike of all the disciples, teach me how to say yes with open hands. Amen.


If you'd like to share: where do you find it hardest to come to God with open hands — and what are you usually holding onto instead?

Faith Under Fire: Lessons from Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Person walking dog on rural path through grassy fields at sunset 
Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin
Lily of the Mohawks — First Native American Saint

First Reading: Isaiah 7:1-9
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 48:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Gospel: Matthew 11:20-24
Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071426.cfm

Isaiah stands before a terrified king. Two armies are camped outside Jerusalem. The king's heart is shaking like trees in the wind. And God's word through Isaiah is not a battle plan or a diplomatic strategy: take care you remain tranquil and do not fear. These enemies are stumps of smoldering brands. They are already burning out. And then the line that closes the reading like a hinge: "Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm."

It is not a threat. It is a description of how things actually work. The ground you stand on in a frightening moment is made of what you have been standing on all along. If faith has been your foundation — quietly, daily, in ordinary life — you will have somewhere to stand when the wind picks up.

Then Jesus weeps over Chorazin and Bethsaida — towns that saw miracles and still did not repent. The mighty deeds were done. The grace was present and visible. And it was not enough to move them, because they had already decided not to be moved. Proximity to the holy is not the same as receiving it.

Kateri Tekakwitha knew how to receive it. She was born in 1656 in a Mohawk village in upstate New York, orphaned at four by smallpox, her face scarred, her eyes damaged. She grew up in the home of an uncle who hated the Jesuit missionaries. She had every reason to never encounter the faith at all. But when she met a priest and asked for baptism at twenty, her faith became the firmest thing about her. She was pelted with stones walking to the chapel. She was given no food on Sundays because she would not work. She walked two hundred miles through wilderness to find a place to pray freely. Her last words: "Jesus, I love you." She died at twenty-four. Her scarred face became radiant.

She never saw a miracle done for her. She simply believed, and stood firm, and that was enough.


A few questions to sit with today:

1. In the frightening or unstable moments of my life right now, what am I actually standing on? Is my faith firm enough to hold me, or have I been neglecting the daily practice that builds it?

2. Has grace passed through my life recently and I decided, like Chorazin, not to be moved? What held me back?

3. Kateri was given every reason to give up. What obstacles am I using as excuses not to go deeper in my faith?

4. What would it look like for me to say, simply and completely, "Jesus, I love you" — not as a formula, but as the truest thing I know?


One small thing for tomorrow:

Find one moment to do something for God that costs you a little — skip a convenience, give something away, make time for prayer you would normally skip. Not dramatic. Just a small act of faith that says: this is the ground I am standing on.


Lord Jesus, Kateri stood firm when almost nothing supported her standing — no family, no community, no comfort, no health. Her faith was the firmest thing about her. I want that kind of faith, but I know I have been building on softer ground. Help me today to tend the foundation — prayer, Scripture, the sacraments, small acts of love — so that when the wind comes, there is somewhere to stand. Let Kateri's last words be my prayer right now: Jesus, I love you. May that be true enough to hold me. And may Mary, who also stood firm at the foot of the cross when everything was shaking, pray for me when my own courage fails. Amen.


If you'd like to share: what is one small practice that has helped you stay firm in faith — something ordinary that has become real ground under your feet?