I tell you that story today because I want to talk about forgetting. And not just the kind that comes with age or illness — but the kind that seems to be a fundamental condition of the human soul.

When we hear the story of two disciples walking the road to Emmaus, I need you to notice something remarkable: these are not strangers to Jesus. These are followers. And yet they walk away from Jerusalem in grief and confusion, unable to recognize the Risen Lord walking right beside them. Why? Because they forgot.

Earlier in Luke chapter 24, the women at the tomb — Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James — had to be reminded by two blazing angels: “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

Remember.

It keeps coming up. And Jesus, walking to Emmaus, says it with a kind of holy exasperation: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!”

He is not being cruel.

He is being pastoral.

He is doing what he always does: walking with the forgetful, the confused, the brokenhearted and helping them remember.

But I want to suggest to you that we are not just dealing with two forgetful disciples in this story on a dusty road. We are dealing with a collective dementia, a cultural, civilizational forgetting of who we are and what we are called to become.

Rumi, a great mystic poet, wrote of this ache with devastating beauty. He described the human soul as a reed cut from its reed bed, crying out for what it has lost, not because it is broken, but because it remembers, somewhere deep, where it came from.

He wrote of love’s longing as a fire that burns away everything that is not essential, until what remains is the truth of who you are.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.”

— Rumi

That field Rumi speaks of — that is where we began. Children of one God, brothers and sisters under one sky. And we have forgotten it. We have forgotten the Holocaust. We have forgotten the millions who died because we forgot the commandment to love our neighbor. We have forgotten what is written on the very doorstep of this nation: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Emma Lazarus, a jewish woman, wrote those words as an echo of Matthew 25 — “when I was thirsty, when I was hungry, when I was a stranger.” If we claim to be a Christian nation and behave as we do now, we are not just forgetting a poem. We are forgetting the Lord himself. We are forgetting our identity.

Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that every human being carries within them a natural orientation toward the good, toward truth, toward God — what he called the natural law written on the heart. Aquinas believed that we do not reason our way into knowing that we should love our neighbor. We remember it. Yes, We remember it!

It is already there, inscribed in the very nature of what it means to be human. Sin, for Aquinas, is not so much rebellion as it is a kind of forgetting. Sin is a turning away from what we already, at the deepest level, know.

Father Richard Rohr puts it this way: that the spiritual life is not about climbing to some new height, but about returning to the ground of who we already are: “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”

That is what Jesus does on the road to Emmaus. He does not hand those two disciples a theological argument. He walks with them. He listens. He breaks bread. He lets the truth catch up with them from the inside, not the outside. And their hearts burn within them not because they learned something new, but because they finally remembered what they already knew.

So what does this mean for us? It means we are called to two things simultaneously, and both matter.

First, we are called to speak. When leaders or anyone deliberately deny the truth — when the poem on the Statue of Liberty is treated as an inconvenience rather than a calling — we must name it. We must call out the intentional forgetting with the same clarity that Jesus called his disciples foolish. Not from anger. From love. From the grief of someone who remembers what was forgotten.

But second — and this is the harder thing — we are called to walk with. Because there are many people, like my father, who genuinely do not remember. Who have been so formed by fear, by noise, by the relentless pace of the world, that they have lost the thread back to their own humanity. These people do not need our condemnation. They need someone to walk beside them, to break bread with them, to stay patient and present until something in them begins to stir.

That is ministry. That is what the angels did at the tomb. That is what Jesus did on the road. That is what the angels did again at the Ascension, when they looked at the disciples staring into the clouds and essentially said: “Stop gazing upward. Get on with your lives. Walk with each other.”

Be the Reminder

The world around us is suffering from a kind of spiritual amnesia. It has forgotten that we are all children of one God, made for love, made for each other. Our calling is not to have all the answers. Our calling is to be the reminder.

When you sit with someone in grief, you are reminding them they are not alone. When you welcome the stranger, you are reminding the world of what it forgot. When you break bread with someone whose politics infuriate you and find the image of God still there — you are doing exactly what Jesus did on that dusty road to Emmaus.

You are not just helping them remember. You are helping yourself remember too.

“Were not our hearts burning within us

while he talked with us on the road,

while he opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32.

May your heart burn again this week.

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There is a useful distinction worth making at the outset. Animals operate by instinct — they react, they survive, they pursue. No one blames a wolf for what it does. But human beings are different. We possess rationality, and from that rationality flows something instinct can never produce: character.

Character is not what we feel. It is what we choose — especially under pressure, especially when no one is watching, especially when we have every reason to do otherwise.

The oldest literature in the world understood this. Joseph, sold into slavery by his own brothers, falsely accused, imprisoned and forgotten, eventually rose to power in Egypt. When famine brought those same brothers to his feet — desperate, unrecognizing, utterly vulnerable — he had every reason to be vindictive. The instinct would have been revenge. Instead, he wept. He fed them. He said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” That is not instinct. That is character — rationality shaped by something larger than the self, expressed through conduct when conduct was costly.

This is precisely why the philosopher Hannah Arendt’s warning carries such weight today. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, she observed that the most dangerous leaders are not openly monstrous, but those who have convinced themselves — and their followers — of their own righteousness. Let us take a pause to see if we know someone like that today.

When a leader borrows the imagery of Christ’s self-sacrifice to decorate a project built on self-interest, we are not witnessing faith. We are witnessing the absence of character — instinct dressed in borrowed robes. Pure absense of Character!

Cornel West puts it plainly: “You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people.” Love, in any serious moral tradition, reveals itself in conduct. It shows up in policy, in sacrifice, in the willingness to bear cost for others. It does not announce itself with a golden Bible or a messianic pose. When actions consistently contradict the image being projected, we are not dealing with a failure of messaging. We are dealing with a failure of character — which is simply to say, a failure of the rational, moral self to govern.

James Baldwin saw this self-deception with devastating clarity when he says, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” A nation that cannot name what it is witnessing — the weaponization of the sacred, by those who govern against the poor, the immigrant, the vulnerable — cannot begin to correct it. Let us not condone the failure of nerve among the leaders and pastors, rather let us remember this as character shown plainly and openly for us to be the judges of it.

I will put it in the words of philosopher Simone that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Pay attention now, because there will be a day when this attention we pay, will pay off the attention we give to it now. Truly seeing another person — their dignity, their suffering, their humanity — is itself a moral act. I want to say that again. Seeing another person — their dignity, their suffering, their humanity — is itself a moral act.

Its opposite, the studied indifference of the powerful, is a form of violence dressed in fine clothing. Joseph paid attention to his brothers’ hunger even when their cruelty was fresh. That attention was the proof of his character, not his words about himself.

What does it mean when the symbols of self-giving love are borrowed to dress up self-interest? It means we have arrived at a moment that demands not outrage alone, but clarity. Chisholm was right about profit. Baldwin was right about facing things. And Joseph — three thousand years removed — remains an example precisely because character, unlike instinct, does not expire. Character does not expire!

What was she doing, really? She was restoring the love of God to those from whom it had been stolen — stripped away by poverty, by caste, by cruelty, by neglect. She was not simply performing charity. She was performing resurrection.

The True Meaning of Resurrection

This Easter, I want us to wrestle with what resurrection actually means

. Because if we reduce it only to the miraculous resuscitation of a single body — Jesus walking out of a tomb two thousand years ago — we may be missing the far greater and more urgent miracle it announces to us today.

The resurrection is not merely about restoring life to one dead man. It is about restoring life — hope, dignity, belonging — to every human being who has been made to feel that their life does not matter. It is God’s declaration that hope cannot be buried. That love cannot be entombed. That no human being, however abandoned or despised, is beyond the reach of the divine.

The recipients of resurrection hope are not the triumphant. They are the ones who have run out of hope entirely. The feast of Easter is the feast of those who had nothing left to believe — and then found that God had not finished with them yet.

God Shows No Partiality

In our reading from Acts, the early church was forced to confront one of its deepest assumptions. Peter — a devout Jew, a follower of Jesus — stood in the home of Cornelius, a Roman Gentile, and announced words that must have startled even him: “God shows no partiality.” Not to the Jew over the Gentile. Not to the Roman over the Samaritan. Not to the powerful over the poor. Not to the citizen over the stranger.

The reason God shows no partiality is not a matter of policy — it is a matter of identity. We are all children of God. Every last one of us. The architecture of divine love has no walls, no gates, no checkpoints. There was not a person on earth who did not have room to dine with Jesus — not even Judas, who still found his place at the table on the night of the Last Supper.

Resurrection Is Universalism, Not Exclusivity

The resurrection proclaims a radically inclusive God. And this brings us to a profound irony at the heart of our national conversation.

There are those who insist this is a Christian nation — and in one sense, they are more right than they know. Because the founding vision of this nation, whatever its many failures in practice, was stamped with the very logic of resurrection. Emma Lazarus gave it voice in the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This is resurrection language. The tired. The poor. The wretched. The homeless. These are precisely the people Easter is for. Emma Lazarus, herself Jewish, envisioned America as a place of refuge for all people, regardless of origin, religion, or status — a nation built not on dominance but on the dignity of the displaced.

The Dangerous Heresy of Christian Nationalism

Here is where we must speak plainly. Christian nationalism — the ideology that fuses the Christian faith with ethnic, cultural, or political dominance — does not merely misunderstand American history. It misunderstands the very Christ it claims to follow.

“Christian nationalism confuses the flag with the cross, the nation with the Kingdom of God, and the powerful with the blessed. But Jesus did not rise from the dead to crown an empire. He rose to call a marginalized woman by name and send her — above all the men — to announce the news of new life to the world.”

Consider who witnessed the resurrection first. Not the high priest. Not the Roman governor. Not the powerful disciples who had access and influence. The first witness to the resurrection was a woman — Mary Magdalene — someone the world had cast aside. Jesus called her by name. He did not call Peter first. He did not appear first to those in power. He appeared to the marginalized, and he commissioned her as the first evangelist in history.

The poor, the fisherman, the tax collector, the farmer, the prostitute — those who knew they needed God — were the ones who could see the risen Christ. Those who clung to power and status fell over at the sight of truth, dignity, and divinity.

Our Easter Calling

So this Easter, let us be clear about what we celebrate. We celebrate a God who shows no partiality. A love that cannot be entombed. A hope that belongs to those who have none. A resurrection that is not the property of any nation, race, or political movement — but belongs to the whole of humanity.

Like Mother Teresa, may we find the crucified Christ in the faces of those the world has thrown away. And like Mary Magdalene, may we be the first to run and announce: Hope is not dead. It never was.

Did you know that God Has Always Met Us in Gardens?

God did not place humanity in a temple. He placed us in a garden.

From the very beginning, the sacred has been woven into the sensory — into soil and seed, into morning light through leaves, into what the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins called “the dearest freshness deep down things.” The divine has always smelled like earth after rain.

And here is what I want you to hold today: the first time God called someone by name — the very first time — was in a garden. Not from a throne. Not through a prophet at a distance. God walked in the cool of the evening and called: “Where are you?”

That question was not about geography. God knew exactly where Adam was. It was an invitation. A reaching out. The theologian Walter Brueggemann reminds us that this God is not “a static, settled deity,” but one who moves toward us, who enters our hiding places and calls us out of them.

The Bible opens in a garden and the resurrection happens in one. That is not coincidence. That is architecture.

In the first garden, God found a person in hiding — ashamed, afraid, covered in fig leaves and excuses. Adam had broken trust. He flinched at the sight of the One who loved him most. And yet — God came looking. God always comes looking.

In the Easter garden, Mary Magdalene stood weeping among the flowers, so consumed by grief she could not recognize the Lord standing before her. She took him for the gardener. Maybe, she was not entirely wrong. He is, after all, the one who tends us. Who kneels in the soil of our grief. Who coaxes life from what we were certain was dead.

And then, as the novelist Marilynne Robinson writes of grace, it simply “arrives.” Not announced. Not argued. He speaks her name: “Mary.”

That is the whole of Easter, isn’t it? One word. One name. Everything changes.

Notice what both gardens offer us: a choice. In Eden, Adam heard God coming and hid. Fear was his first response to Love. In the Easter garden, Mary heard her name and turned. She ran — not away, but toward.

The poet Wendell Berry says: “It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”

Both Adam and Mary had reached the end of what they knew. One flinched. One turned.

The difference was not their worthiness. The difference was the name they heard.

No matter which garden we find ourselves in today — the garden of our hiding, or the garden of our grief — God meets us there. In our vulnerability, not our performance. In our natural environment, not a cleaned-up version of it.

Easter is not merely a date on the calendar. It is an invitation. Like Lazarus stumbling from the tomb, still wrapped in grave clothes, we are called to let ourselves be unbound. The fears, the old stories, the shame we have carried so long we have forgotten it is not our skin — these are linen wrappings.

The Risen Christ does not ask us to have shed them already. He asks us to come out while still wearing them, and he will take it from there.

Frederick Buechner wrote: “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”

You were called by name this morning. That call will tremble outward. It always does.

The stone is already rolled away.

The gardener is standing in the morning light, saying your name.

The only question left is the one that matters most:

Will you come out?

On Holy Monday, I sit with one of the most jarring scenes in the Gospels. Jesus enters the Temple — the holiest place in Jerusalem — and what he finds there is not worship. It is a marketplace. Merchants hawking animals. Money changers turning profit from pilgrims. The sacred has been colonized by the transactional, and I am struck by how deeply I recognize this — not only in history, but in the institutions of my own time, and if I am honest, in myself.

Jesus overturns the tables. Not calmly. Not apologetically. He acts from righteous anger — the anger of love confronting betrayal. And I hear his words as if they are spoken directly into the noise of my own life: “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.”

I believe this is what the Lord is asking me to see today. The exploitation of the sacred is not only a first-century problem. When the Church — when I — allow what is holy to be crowded out by power, performance, or self-protection, the tables need overturning still. So many people are disoriented because the places meant to offer refuge became places of transaction. I feel that disorientation too. And I believe the Lord is inviting me, on this Holy Monday, to let him in to do the same work in me.

“The soul is the temple of God. If you defile that temple, God will destroy you — not out of vengeance, but because what is corrupted cannot house what is holy.” — St. John Chrysostom

This lands heavily with me. Because I, too, am a temple. St. Paul writes that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within me. And if that is true, then the question the Lord presses upon me today is one I cannot avoid: what has crept into the temple of my heart that does not belong there?

When I look honestly within, I find my own money changers. Resentments I have nursed for years. Anxieties I have mistaken for wisdom. Distractions I invited in and never asked to leave. The low hum of bitterness, the clutter of false identities, the noise of a life that has slowly, without my fully noticing, become very crowded. These are loud. They take up space. And I know they make it harder for me to hear the still, small voice of God.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless, until it rests in you.” — St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

Augustine names what I feel. When my interior life feels like a crowded market — noisy, exhausting, never quite at peace — I am beginning to understand that this restlessness is a signal. Something has taken up space that belongs to God alone. Holy Monday does not ask me to be perfect. It asks me to be honest. And I believe the Lord is asking me today to name what tables need overturning in me.

Jesus did not destroy the Temple. He restored it to its purpose. That is what I believe he wants to do in me. Not to condemn me, but to clear me. Not to shame me, but to sanctify me. A house of prayer is not an empty house — it is a house filled with the right Presence. And I want that. I want to be that.

A Question for Holy Monday

Sit in stillness for a moment. Ask yourself: What in my life has turned the temple of my heart into a marketplace? What is taking up sacred space that belongs to God alone? What one thing, if cleared away, would make more room for prayer, for rest, for love?

I do not have to clear everything at once. I only need to begin. Let Jesus turn one table today.

Let me be honest with you — I feel it too. The quiet ache for something that will not slip through my fingers. You may have felt it standing in a home you love, wondering how long you will be able to keep it. Or sitting across from someone dear to you, silently hoping this — this person, this warmth, this moment — will somehow stay. We are creatures who crave permanence in a world that seems allergic to it.

We upgrade our phones knowing there is already a newer model in a lab somewhere. We buy cars and watch them age. We build families and grieve when they scatter. We are living in an age of breathtaking, relentless change — and if we are truthful, it is exhausting. The world moves fast, and the fear of being left behind is very real. Technology does not wait. Culture does not pause. And yet, deep in the human soul, there is this ancient, stubborn longing: we want something to last.

This is not weakness. This is not nostalgia. This is something God placed in us — a homing signal pointed toward eternity.

There Is Something That Lasts

The scriptures speak directly into this hunger. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:20-23). Read that again slowly. Never ceases. Never. Not slowing down, not being replaced by a newer version, not contingent on how well you have kept up with the times. God’s love is not a product. It does not depreciate.

The psalmist declares, “His steadfast love endures forever” — and remarkably, that phrase appears over two dozen times in Psalm 136 alone, as if God is saying: in case you missed it, let me say it again. And again. And again. This is not accidental repetition. It is pastoral reassurance for people just like you and me, people who live surrounded by things that fade.

Here is what moves me most: God’s love is described as both eternal and new every morning. It does not grow stale. It is permanent and fresh simultaneously. In a world that forces us to choose between the reliable and the relevant, God’s love refuses that false choice. It is the one thing in the universe that is both.

But How Do We Actually Experience This?

This is the pastoral question that matters most, isn’t it? It is one thing to say God’s love is eternal. It is another to feel it on a Tuesday morning when the news is bad and your anxiety is high. So how do we move from knowing this truth to living inside it?

First, we must practise returning. Every morning is a mercy — and mercy, by its nature, must be received, not just acknowledged. Try beginning each day with a simple, honest prayer: “God, your love is new this morning. Help me receive it.” Not a long prayer. Not a polished prayer. Just an open hand.

Second, we must learn to notice. Where has God’s steadfast love shown up in the last twenty-four hours? In a conversation that surprised you with kindness? In a moment of unexpected peace? In the fact that you woke up at all? Gratitude is not a spiritual nicety — it is the practice of training our eyes to see what is lasting underneath what is changing.

Third, we must sit with scripture differently. Let Lamentations 3 or Psalm 136 wash over you not as information, but as a letter from someone who loves you. Read it aloud. Let it speak to the part of you that is tired of things not lasting.

Now — Become the Permanence Someone Else Needs

Here is the invitation I want to leave with you, and I say it as a challenge as much as an encouragement: the world around us is changing at a pace that leaves people disoriented and lonely. People are hungry for something steady. You can be that for them.

When you are rooted in a love that does not change, you become a person whose presence is itself a gift. You are not swept away by every cultural tide. You do not love people only when it is convenient. You show up — again, and again, and again. You become, in a small but profound way, a living sign of God’s steadfast love.

Practically, this looks like keeping your word even when it costs you. It looks like being the friend who checks in a month after the crisis, not just the week of. It looks like resisting the urge to move on from people who are slow to change or heal. It looks like being present — unhurried, undistracted, genuinely there.

The world does not need more noise or more novelty. It needs more people who are not going anywhere. More people who love like God loves — persistently, tenderly, new every morning.

So here is my gentle challenge to you this week:

Receive God’s love as something new each morning — not just a doctrine, but a daily gift.

Notice where permanence already shows up in your life, and give thanks for it.

Choose one person this week and be steadfast toward them in a specific, practical way.

In a world that is always changing, let us be anchored in the one thing that never does. And from that anchor, let us become a lasting presence for the people around us.

His steadfast love endures forever. And so can ours.

There is a field outside Bethlehem where a young man tends his father’s sheep. He smells of livestock and dust. He is sunburned and overlooked.His own father did not think to call him when the prophet Samuel arrived.

And yet — God said, “This is the one.”

In 1 Samuel 16, when Samuel comes to Jesse’s house to anoint the next king of Israel, he surveys seven impressive sons — tall, strong, ready.

And every time, God says no. Then Samuel asks, “Are these all the sons you have?” And Jesse, almost as an afterthought, mentions David — the youngest, the shepherd, the forgotten one.

God’s response is one of the most powerful lines in all of Scripture: “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

God saw David before anyone else did. And God sees you, too — not as the world sees you, but as He made you.

“God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.” — Max Lucado

Max Lucado reminds us that God’s method of choosing people has never been about credentials or competence.d

It has always been about willingness, availability, and a heart turned toward Him. David was not ready to be a king. He was ready to be faithful. And God honored that.

II. THE DANGER OF FORGETTING HOW WE WERE FOUND

Here is the truth we must hold carefully: none of us are fully prepared for the mantle God places upon us. No one wakes up fully equipped to be a prophet, a priest, an apostle, or a teacher. We step into these roles trembling, uncertain, aware of our limitations. And that is exactly where God wants us. Because when we remember that we were chosen — not discovered — we remain humble.

When we forget it, we become proud.

When we lose sight of the field where God found us, we begin to act as though we built the throne ourselves.

There is a story told of a young minister who, early in his calling, kept a piece of dusty old cloth in his Bible — a fragment from the worn shirt he wore the day he first preached.

When people would praise him, he would quietly open his Bible, look at the cloth, and remember: “I was just a shepherd once. God came to me.”

That small act of remembrance kept his heart soft for decades.

Pride says: “I achieved this.”

Humility says: “I was chosen for this, and I am still learning how to carry it.”

Let us be people of holy humility.

III. THE MAN BORN BLIND: WHEN ANOINTING OPENS OUR EYES

In John 9, we meet a man who has never seen a sunrise. He has never looked into the face of someone he loves. His whole life, people have debated the cause of his blindness rather than addressing the reality of his pain.

Even the disciples ask Jesus: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

And Jesus reframes everything. He says: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Notice what Jesus does next.

He makes mud — simple, earthy, unremarkable mud.

He anoints the man’s eyes with it.

He sends him to wash in the Pool of Siloam.

And the man comes back seeing.

This is not just a healing story. This is a story about anointed purpose bringing clarity.

The man did not know who Jesus was when his eyes were opened.

But as the story unfolds, his sight deepens — first he sees a man named Jesus, then a prophet, then the Son of God. Each encounter brought greater revelation.

“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Teilhard de Chardin understood that the interior life is the truest life.

The blind man’s physical healing was a doorway to something far more profound — the recognition of who Jesus truly is. And that is the invitation for every one of us.

IV. RECOGNIZING OUR OWN BLIND SPOTS

The most sobering figures in John 9 are not the blind man’s neighbors. They are the Pharisees. They have full use of their physical eyes. They can read the Torah. They can argue theology with precision. And yet they cannot see what is right in front of them. They choose not to.

Jesus says something striking at the end of this passage: “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

The Pharisees ask, “Surely we are not blind?”

And Jesus answers: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

The most dangerous blindness is the blindness that does not know it is blind. It is the kind that comes from certainty without surrender. It is the kind that comes from religion without relationship. Friends, we all have blind spots.

Places in our lives where we have not yet asked God to open our eyes. Assumptions we hold about our own calling, our own limitations, our own worth. Perhaps today is the day the mud touches your eyes. Perhaps today is the day you walk to the pool and wash.

V. RECOGNIZING GOD’S HAND IN DAILY LIFE

David did not become king overnight. Between the anointing in that farmhouse and the throne in Jerusalem, there were years of waiting, wilderness, and war. But throughout all of it, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. And David learned to recognize God’s hand in each season.

To lead a fulfilled life — an effective life — we must develop eyes to see God at work in the ordinary. In the shepherd’s field.

In the muddy pool.

In the quiet morning before the battle.

In the conversation that shifts everything.

Recognizing God’s hand is not a passive act.

It is a discipline.

It is the practice of pausing, of paying attention, of asking — “Where is God in this moment?”

It is the difference between a life that is merely lived and a life that is truly led.

VI. THE INVITATION: WILL YOU BE FOUND?

You may be standing in a field right now. You may feel overlooked, unprepared, unqualified. You may be carrying a blindness you haven’t named yet. You may be wondering whether God has a purpose for someone like you. The answer, always and without exception, is yes. God chose a shepherd boy and made him a king.

God chose a blind man and made him a witness.

God chooses ordinary people with ordinary lives and does extraordinary things through them — not because they are ready, but because He is faithful.

Embrace your unique calling.

Trust that the God who anointed David will equip you.

Trust that the Jesus who opened blind eyes can open yours.

Come to Him with your limitations, your uncertainties, your unfinished story.

He has seen you from the beginning.

He has not overlooked you.

He has been waiting for you.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you. Will you rise and answer the call?

Amen.

We live in a world unrecognizable from even a year ago. Wars rage across continents, people flee their homes in desperate waves, and uncertainty hangs over the future like a storm that will not break. In times like these, the human heart naturally cries out: Where is God?

But before we look outward for answers, we must look inward — because much of the turmoil we see in our world is, painfully, self-inflicted.

We behave poorly toward one another. We fail to recognize the faces across from us — across the border, across the aisle, across the street — as our brothers and sisters. We have forgotten our shared humanity. We build walls where we should build bridges, and we wage wars where we should wage peace. The displacement of peoples, the fracturing of nations, the cruelty we inflict on one another — these are not merely the consequences of political failures. They are the consequences of spiritual ones.

Mother Teresa understood this with piercing clarity. She taught that the reason there is no peace in the world is because there is no peace within ourselves and within our homes. Peace is not first a political achievement — it is a personal one. It begins at the kitchen table, in the marriage bed, in the way a parent speaks to a child. When the interior life is disordered, the exterior world reflects that disorder. The chaos we see globally is, in many ways, the sum total of our private brokenness multiplied across billions of lives.

This is why the dark night of the soul, as described by St. John of the Cross, is far more than a spiritual concept confined to monasteries and prayer rooms. It is a physical concept and a lived reality. It plays out in refugee camps and bombed-out cities. It lives in the grief of a mother who has lost a child to violence, in the despair of a man who has lost his home, his country, his dignity. The darkness is not abstract — it has an address, a face, a body that aches.

St. John of the Cross described the soul’s passage through desolation not as punishment but as purification — a stripping away of everything false so that what is true and eternal might remain. That process is happening not just in individual souls today, but collectively, in civilizations. We are being invited, perhaps forced, to examine what we have built and why it keeps collapsing.

St. Teresa of Ávila, in The Interior Castle, described the soul passing through shadowed and disorienting rooms before reaching the innermost chamber where God dwells in perfect peace. The journey inward is not a retreat from the world — it is the most urgent work for the world. Because a person who has found interior peace carries that peace outward. A home rooted in love becomes a community rooted in love. And communities rooted in love do not start wars.

What St. John, St. Teresa, and Mother Teresa all understood is this: the darkness — whether of the soul or of the world — is not the end of the story. It is an invitation. God does not cause our suffering, but He enters it. He walks in the rubble with us, closer than breath, faithful when all else crumbles.

The night of our world is long. But it is not without God. And it will not last forever. Yet waiting is not enough — we all have a part to play in ending the darkness, both within ourselves and in the world we live in. That responsibility is mutual, personal, and corporate. It belongs to each of us and to all of us together. Let us pray that in this season of penance and prayer, that is precisely what we choose to do.

My dear, think back to the day you were born. Not one of us entered this world with a map. None of us knew what life would entail, the heartbreaks we would endure, or the heights we would reach. We simply stepped into the first day, and we have been stepping into new days ever since.

If you feel the weight of uncertainty today—if you are looking at a future that seems veiled in mist—take heart. You are in good company. You are in the company of Abraham.

In Genesis, God comes to Abram with a radical command: “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” Notice the lack of details. God didn’t provide a GPS coordinate or a five-year plan. He provided a Promise.

Abraham wandered through the wilderness of life long enough to realize something we often struggle to admit: God has a better handle on life than we do. Abraham learned through trial, error, and waiting that it is better to trust God’s word than his own works. Stepping into the unknown is not a sign of a lost life; it is the very definition of a Biblical life.

How did Abraham keep walking when the horizon stayed empty? He had to believe in the reality we find in Psalm 121: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Friends, you can only experience the protection of God if you believe in it. If you don’t live by faith, you will call your blessings “coincidence.” You will call your narrow escapes “luck.” But the more you acknowledge God acting on your behalf, the more you will see His presence everywhere. You will begin to notice the subtle, powerful ways He moves the pieces of your life to shield you and guide you.

We call Abraham the “Father of Faith” and the “Father of Righteousness.” Why? Was it because he was perfect? No. It was because his righteousness was credited to him through faith, not works.

Abraham didn’t “earn” his way into God’s favor by being the most successful or the most powerful. He became the heir of the world because he stopped over-relying on his own strength and started relying on God’s guidance. This is the foundation of our relationship with Christ. It is grounded in Grace, received through faith. This universal promise isn’t just for Abraham’s physical descendants; it is for you. It ensures that you have a secure place in God’s unfolding plan for the nations.

We often think of “Transfiguration” as a blinding light on a mountain, but true transfiguration happens when we trust God enough to see Him in our everyday surroundings. This is what made Jesus an exceptional leader. He didn’t just see a storm; He saw an opportunity for peace. He didn’t just see a crowd; He saw sheep in need of a Shepherd.

When you live by faith, your world is transfigured. The “unknown” stops being a source of terror and starts being a playground for God’s providence.

So, I am calling you today to live into this faith. Stop pretending you have to have it all figured out. Stop faking a strength you don’t possess.

My challenge to you is this:

Surrender the Map: Tell God today, “I don’t know where the road goes, but I know who holds the map.”

Reject “Luck”: This week, every time something goes right, don’t call it a coincidence. Say out loud, “Thank you, Lord, for your protection,” or maybe simply, “Thank You, Lord.”

Walk Faithfully: Do the best you can with the day you are given. That is all Abraham did. That is all Jesus asks.

The inheritance of the world belongs to the faithful. Step into the unknown. The Lord is your keeper; He is the shade at your right hand. You are safe in the company of the Father.

But we live in a world obsessed with “projecting power.” We are surrounded by people who think that wealth, abundance, and authoritarian strength are the markers of success. They build monuments to their own egos and use fear to control those around them. But Jesus warns us: if the salt loses its flavor, it is good for nothing. And what is the “flavor” of a Christian? It is humility.

Why did Jesus come to us as a helpless babe in a manger? Why was He born to a poor family in an overlooked village?

If God had arrived with thunder, lightning, and overwhelming celestial glory, we would have been paralyzed by terror, not moved by love. We wouldn’t recognize Him as a Father; we would see Him only as a Dictator. God is not shy about being poor. God is not worried about being simple. Our God does not boast about being “wealthy” or “successful” by human standards.

We follow a God who, in the eyes of the world, “failed.” He suffered. He struggled. He had no place to lay His head. This was not an accident; it was a choice. Jesus came down to our level because that is the only way we could ever truly understand the heart of the Father.

Anytime you see someone pretending to be untouchable, powerful, or superior, know this: They are faking it. Throughout His life, people tried to get Jesus to “project” power. Herod wanted a magic show. Pilate tried to intimidate Him with the state’s authority. Even His own disciples tried to talk Him into a worldly kingship. Jesus resisted every single time. Even on the Cross, when they mocked Him saying, “If you are the Son of God, come down,” He stayed.

That is what real power looks like. It is the power to stay humble when you have the right to be proud. It is the power to be simple when you have the means to be flashy.

Fake powers—those built on narcissism and bullying—always fail. They are eventually caught, exposed, and brought to justice because they have no foundation. As Jesus told Pilate, “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above.” True authority doesn’t need to shout; fake authority never stops shouting.

I cannot “relax” the commandments of Jesus to make them more comfortable for our modern egos. Jesus is clear. Anyone who tries to water down these truths or teaches others to ignore the “least of these” will be called least in the Kingdom.

I cannot save someone from the consequences of their own prideful stupidity. I cannot condone a mistake as “truth” just to be polite.

We are called to a higher standard—the standard of the salt. To be salt, we must be lowly. To be light, we must be transparent so that His glory shows, not ours.

So, here are some practical suggestions. May be useful, may be not. But at least something for us to do and live into the call.

To live a truly spiritual life, we must stop pretending. Here is how we practice the humility of Christ in a world of “fake” power:

Practice “Downward Mobility”: Instead of asking how you can get ahead, ask who you can get beside. Seek out the person in your neighborhood or workplace who is being ignored and sit with them.

Speak Truth without Posturing: You don’t need to be loud to be right. Like Jesus before Pilate, let your character be your defense. Avoid the “boasting” culture of social media.

Audit Your “Strongholds”: Are you trusting in your bank account, your status, or your political “team” for security? If so, you are leaning on fake power. Repent and return to the Lord as your only stronghold.

Value Simplicity over Success: Intentionally choose the simpler path once a week. Whether it’s where you eat, what you buy, or how you spend your time, prove to yourself that you don’t need “wealth and abundance” to be the light of the world.

Who was Jesus? This is the question that stands at the center of our faith and our history. We believe Jesus is the Son of God who came down to earth to become part of the human race. In a profound act of love, the Creator decided to become the creature.

But we must be very clear about the nature of this arrival: Jesus came for the human being. Everything else—religion, country, language, and social status—came after. These are what we might call the “accidentals” of history. The “essential” is humankind. God attached supreme importance to humanity, while man has attached supreme importance to everything else.

This is the great reversal of our spiritual lives. We tend to focus on the rules, the regulations, the boundaries, and the labels we have created. Our worldview is limited by what we know and what we have constructed to make ourselves feel secure. But God’s worldview is limited only by what God knows—which is all of us, without exception. If we do not grasp this, we will continue to mistake the accidentals for the essentials and the essentials for the accidentals.

To recognize the dignity of a human being, we must understand what Jesus came here for. To understand human worth, we must see what God sees in each of us. This is the litmus test for the believer: If you find a human being—no matter their politics, their country, their language, their color, or their creed—you have found the person for whom Jesus came.

The scriptures bear witness to this universal reach of divine love:

* “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son...” (John 3:16). Note that it does not say God so loved the “religious” or the “citizens,” but the world.

* “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This is the dismantling of the accidentals in favor of the essential unity of the human family.

* “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). His mission was defined not by boundary lines, but by the shared human condition of need.

What Jesus preached was justice, kindness, mercy, honesty, and forgiveness. These are the virtues the world has misplaced as “unimportant” or “weak.” In their place, the world has elevated power, arrogance, and domination as the most important goals.

Today, I invite you to see the “politics of Jesus.” His politics will always side with the human being. As the Suffering Servant, He attached Himself to the poor, being born as one and dying as one. We must never forget that real politics is the art of relationship—a sacred exchange in which the “other” is served so that the best in everyone can be achieved.

As the mystic Meister Eckhart once said: “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.” We must subtract the labels to find the human.

And as St. Catherine of Siena whispered: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” God meant for you to be a human being, reflecting the divine image, free from the accidentals that divide us.

Reflect with me and share your thoughts in the comments!

* What “accidental” labels (political, national, or religious) have I allowed to become more important to me than the “essential” humanity of my neighbor?

* If I were to view every person I meet today through the “litmus test” of the Incarnation, how would my interactions change?

* How can I practice the “politics of Jesus” by prioritizing a relationship of service over the pursuit of power or being “right”?

I generally make it a point to stay away from the “drama” and the “spats” that often define our social media landscape. I know that people come to the digital square from vastly different emotional spaces and lived experiences and they are all valuable. However I often feel my time is better spent watching Tom and Jerry!

However, I am writing to you today because something I read last day broke my heart. I have heard the same from many others including my scared and differently abled friends.

I came across a note from a young woman who is in a state of profound spiritual grief. She is not only heartbroken by what’s happening on the streets of Minneapolis; she is deeply hurt by the attitude of the pastors in churches. She wrote of hearing sermons and reading posts from leaders who attempt to justify subhuman behavior —who remain silent while the innocent are struck down, or who prioritize the wealth and security of a nation over the sanctity of the human beings.

She is confused, and rightfully so. So am I. She looks at us and asks: What happened to the Christ who told Peter to put his sword away? What happened to the instruction to turn the other cheek? She had many more questions! Why are the ones who promised to lead us in the way of Jesus now failing to find their nerve when the blood of the innocent is spilled on American streets or people arrested and deported without the rule of law?

Her grief forced me to look in the mirror. It forced me to ask: Where am I? Where are we as Episcopalians?

At every baptism, at every confirmation, we make a public promise. We vow to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” These are not hollow scripts for us. Right? It is a sacred promise. May be it is time to remind ourselves what we promise so that we can live into it fully. In another words we are called to live into the prophetic words of Simeon to Mary, “a sword will piece your heart,” for living into the truth, meaning, our hearts will be broken when we stand up for the marginalized. As a church We can not afford to stay silent like in the times of slavery, displacement and murder of the indigenous people, and LGBTQ+ persecution.

We are standing at a crossroads that is eerily familiar to the students of history. We are standing in the same intersection that led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to his martyrdom. In his day, many clergy in Europe failed to uphold the basic teaching of Christ—that every person is the beloved of God, regardless of their status. They chose the security of the state over the demands of the Gospel that led to the slaughter of over six million innocent people. State sponsored and justified murder, beginnings of which we see in America now!

I know firsthand the terror of these times—when someone looking straight into my eyes and said, “You do not belong in this country.” I know the terror of it when my baby is threatened day after day within an Episcopal institution, and when my transgender child is forced to absorb slurs hurled at their very existence, written without shame and spoken with contempt.

This is not merely personal pain; it is a moral crisis. I grieve and I fear for our clergy and their families, for people of color, and for all who are marked as expendable. I am anguished for those who carry no guilt, no crime, no cause for fear—yet are made to live in it simply because of their skin, their identity, their disability, or whom they love.

This is not the way of Christ. To deny another’s belonging is to deny the image of God itself. And the Church must decide—now—whether it will bear witness to love, or remain silent while fear is preached from the streets.

We, as a church, can no longer pretend that predatory behaviors are “acceptable” norms within a democracy or a church. If we believe that these things are compatible with the following of Jesus, then we have already lost our way.

It is time for us to draw a line in the sand—not a line of hatred, but a line of truth, goodness and grace. When Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of New Hampshire told his clergy they might need to prepare their wills, many called him hyperbolic. But look at the reality: just a week ago, over one hundred clergy and leaders were arrested in Minneapolis for standing up for truth. This is not a nightmare or an alternate reality or a feeling. It is a fact.

I do not wish for any of us to be martyrs not even in my worst dreams. But I do wish for us to be faithful. We have a responsibility to respond to that young woman and to all those like her. We must show them that none of us, in the Episcopal church at least, believe cruelty is the norm or lawlessness or absence of the rule of law is security.

We better take heed when people who walked before us, gave up their lives for justice, call us to wake up.

In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Let us remind the world that we are the children of God everywhere!

And finally, hear the words of Jesus, who stood before the powers of his day and said: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:6, 9). It is easy to bring peace. “Peace begins with a smile,” (Mother Theresa). I know we can do that.

I urge you to pray. I also invite you to stand up for me, a person of color and my children, clergy, my differently abled and LGBTQ+ friends and family, the immigrants, marginalized and scared. Let us be a church that stands with the marginalized, even when it costs us our comfort. Let us be the answer to that young woman’s heartbreak, proving that our lives themselves become evidence that Christ’s love outlasts oppression, corruption, and intimidation.

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Before you drew your first breath, before the world could label you, define you, or limit you, you were known.

The prophet Isaiah tells us, “The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name” (Isaiah 49:1). This is not just a poetic sentiment; it is a fundamental theological truth. You are not an accident. You are not a biological afterthought or a random occurrence in a chaotic universe. You were fashioned by the hand of the Almighty with a specific intent. God’s knowledge of you is intimate, exhaustive, and filled with a terrifyingly beautiful love.

This personal call is a profound honor. To be known by the Creator is the highest dignity a human being can possess. But, as Isaiah learned, this honor is inseparable from responsibility. To be “named” by God is to be drafted into His service. We are called to be His servants, not in some distant, abstract future, but in the gritty, complicated reality of our unique lives and contexts.

Today, that context is increasingly shadowed. We look around and see the rising tide of white supremacy, the rigid walls of fundamentalism, and a narrow-mindedness that seeks to shrink the Kingdom of God into a gated community. Let us be clear: these ideologies are not merely political differences. They are antithetically opposed to the heart of Christ. They are the antithesis of the Gospel.

When we see the “other” as a threat rather than a brother or sister known by God, we deny the very image of God in which we were all created. When we remain silent while innocent people are murdered in our streets—whether by the hands of hatred or the machinery of neglect—we are not being “neutral.” We are being complicit.

The great martyr and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who stood against the tide of the Nazi regime when many in the church remained silent, famously warned us:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

To be a follower of Christ today requires the same fire that burned in the hearts of the early Christians, the reformers of the Middle Ages, and the resistors of the Second World War. We cannot afford the luxury of complacency. We cannot sit comfortably in our pews while the world burns with injustice. The prophet Amos cries out across the centuries, piercing our comfort: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

How do we respond to such a daunting call? We look to John the Baptist. John knew exactly who he was because he knew exactly who he wasn’t. He didn’t seek the spotlight for himself; he used his voice to boldly proclaim who Christ was in his life. He pointed the way.

We see this same transformative invitation in the encounter between Jesus, Andrew, and Peter. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” it wasn’t a request for a Sunday morning commitment. It was a call to a new way of being. Andrew didn’t keep this encounter to himself; his first instinct was to find his brother and say, “We have found the Messiah.”

Discipleship is not a solo journey. It is an intentional, community work. It is a journey of walking, listening, and bringing others into the light of Christ. But to bring others to the light, we must first be willing to stand in the light ourselves—even when that light exposes our own fears and our own silence.

Modern prophets like Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded us that “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Being a disciple in 2026 means moving beyond “thoughts and prayers” into the prophetic action of “presence and protest.” It means shining God’s light in the specific corners of the world where you have been placed—in your workplace, your schools, and your neighborhoods—wherever fundamentalism and hate seek to take root.

You were called from the womb for a time such as this. You were given your unique voice, your unique experience, and your unique context so that you might reflect a specific ray of God’s glory that no one else can.

Do not let the world’s “insanity” of repeating the same mistakes of hatred convince you that change is impossible. We are a people of the Resurrection. We believe that life comes from death and light overcomes darkness.

So, I challenge you today: consider your discipleship journey. Who are you being called to reach? Where are you being called to speak? Like the first disciples, let us drop our nets of complacency. Let us reject the false gospels of supremacy and exclusion. Let us follow the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and in following Him, let us bring the world along with us into the healing, justice, and peace of His Kingdom.

We often move through our lives under the delusion that because we share a vocabulary, we share a reality. In the midst of the misunderstandings, anxieties, and fears that have defined recent years—particularly surrounding the complex conversations going on around illegal immigration—it has become clear that while we are all speaking English, we do not actually know what the other is saying.

Most failures in marriages, relationships, and even our churches stem from this single point: we understand words, but we do not understand the language. We miss the nuance, the underlying emotions, the hidden fears, and the past experiences that give a speaker’s words their weight. Our own biases act as heavy filters, pre-deciding what we hear before the sentence is even finished.

If we cannot reach that level of nuance, perhaps it is better for us to be silent. It is better to simply listen and wonder.

The remedy for this disconnect is a radical, intentional silence. When someone speaks, the most powerful thing you can do is wait. Even if you feel certain you know their heart, you must pause. Listening with the heart means acknowledging that you are a guest in someone else’s internal world.

This shift from certainty to curiosity is not an easy one. It requires us to step back from our own internal noise and examine the architecture of our listening. Before we can truly hear another, we must confront the habits that keep us deaf to their nuance by asking ourselves:

Am I hearing the person standing before me, or merely the ghost of a past argument?

Is my silence a genuine space for them to breathe, or just a waiting room for my own next point?

Do I have the courage to admit that even after they finish, I may still only understand them partially?

Reverend Taylor poignantly observes that many people speak of God as if the Divine were made of steel rather than air. We do the same with our daily discourse. We treat our opinions as rigid, cold, and unyielding structures—tools for building walls or weapons for defense.

But words are breath. They are made of air—fluid, moving, and life-giving. When we treat language as steel, we crush the very connection we seek to build. When we treat it as air, we allow room for the other person to exist.

In a world filled with noise, the most “God-like” thing we can do is offer one another a listening silence—a space where words are allowed to be as light, and as deep, as the air itself.

Stop building walls of steel; start breathing the air of understanding.

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Last Sunday, as I stood before our congregation in Nampa, Idaho, my heart was heavy. I found myself navigating a narrow, difficult space—simultaneously angry and afraid. The Gospel reading anchored us in a pivotal moment: “When Jesus heard that John the Baptist was arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.”

Initially, the word “withdrew” can feel like a retreat of fear. We might ask: Why did He leave? Why didn’t He rush into the heart of the action to confront the powers that had snatched John away for the wrong reason? But as I listened to the Spirit, I realized the profound strategy of the soul. Jesus did not withdraw because He was afraid; He withdrew into the silence to prepare. He moved into a sacred space where He could gather the strength necessary to take on the unjust, to stand for truth, and to eventually emerge with a call that would shake the foundations of the world. “Repent.” Later, he turned the tables upside down! Remember that!

Violence against violence is never an option for the believer. Yet, the presence of Christ-like peace does not mean a lack of conviction. When we see cruelty and murder committed against the innocent—in our country or around the world - as we have seen in the tragic cases of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti—we are under a holy mandate to call the perpetrators to repentance. I promise you, there will be a day of reckoning. But before that, I invite you to hold your elected leaders accountable for their atrocities against people, children of God.

We are being told by those in power that these actions are about “illegal immigration.” But you and I must have the discernment to see through the veil. This is not about immigration; it is about power. It is about the desperate holding on to power by creating an atmosphere of fear and mistrust of each other.

During the election, some candidates were startlingly open about this goal. The hallmark of authoritarian ambition is the belief that real power is found in the ability to terrify one’s own people. These ambitions are now being played out in plain sight. I invite you to open your hearts and minds. Do not dupe yourself into thinking this is about the safety of the people, because the actions we are witnessing prove otherwise.

PLEASE, believe your eyes!

When fear is the primary tool of the state, it is not safety they are building—it is a dungeon. History proves it over and over!

Like Jesus, we must check in with ourselves. We must withdraw into the discipline of the spirit so that we can emerge with clarity. I ask you to pray. I ask you to fast. I ask you to find your voice and take a stand for your own dignity, the dignity of your children, and the dignity of your neighbor.

We do not seek conflict, but we cannot sleep through the dismantling of mercy. I pray for calm, but more than that, I pray for a justice that refuses to be silenced by fear.

So, today, we remember these people killed or died in ICE custody in 2026!

Alex Jeffrey Pretti — January 24, 2026 (Patrol/ICE personnel) Shot and killed by ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Renée Nicole Good — January 7, 2026 A 37-year-old woman shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Geraldo Lunas Campos — January 3, 2026 A 55-year-old detainee died in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas; his death has been ruled a homicide by the county medical examiner.

May the souls of these beloved ones Rest in Peace! May God do justice and show mercy to those who perpetrated them!

I invite you to ask yourself in prayer these questions.

* When I feel the urge to “withdraw” from the news or the suffering of others, am I retreating into a shell of apathy, or am I entering a silence that prepares me for action?

* How can I distinguish between the “safety” promised by power and the “peace” promised by Christ?

* What does “repentance” look like in a society that has begun to justify the mistreatment of the innocent, and am I brave enough to speak that word aloud?

On Christmas day, I shared how “It always starts with a list.” How King Herod began his work by making a list. That list ended in the mass murder of innocents. It is a sobering realization that Jesus began his life in the shadow of trauma caused by an evil thug, a leader who became so consumed by his own insecurity that he used administrative tools to facilitate slaughter.

History tells us that when the Nazi leadership began their work, the lists were often framed with the best of intentions—for administrative order, for census, for “organization.” Then, this past Wednesday, the news broke. The administration has directed the University of Pennsylvania to submit a list of Jewish students and faculty. The stated reason? To “protect” them.

I read those words and the hair on my arms stood up. This is exactly, word for word, the logic used to round up people in 1930s Germany.

As the lawyers for the American Association of University Professors and the American Academy of Jewish Research wrote in their response: “Compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history.”

I am not here to interpret anyone’s private intentions. I do not know what is in the hearts of those making these demands. But I do know how evil works. Every great evil in history presents itself first as a great good. If it were ugly and obvious, we would run from it. But evil is clever; it dresses in noble clothing. It presents itself as desirable, as protective, as the only way to lead a “lawful” and “dignified” life.

People often ask me, “Bishop, does the Devil exist?”

I have no clearer answer than the words of Jesus. If I were to paraphrase the scriptures, I would say: The deceiver is a liar. The deceiver is the one who misleads us so that we no longer see humanity—the image of God—in the “other.” The deceiver makes us believe that a list is a shield, when history proves it is usually a target.

I want to be clear: the notes I have been posting these days are not intended to add to our collective anxiety. My goal is not to stir up fear for fear’s sake. Rather, I share these thoughts to keep us awake to the reality unfolding around us. We cannot afford to be sleeping through these moments as many did in Germany, simply because the reality was couched in the language of law, order, and national security. When injustice is dressed in the suit of a gentleman, it is easy to nod off. But we must stay awake.

I am reminded of the words of the German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who watched his own church fall silent as the lists were being made:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

The scriptures warn us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Wisdom requires us to look past the “protection” and see the precedent.

I leave you with these reflective questions:

* How do I see evil when it wears the mask of safety? Am I able to look past the “noble” intention to see the destructive power hiding beneath the surface?

* How do I see suffering in my neighbor? Do I recognize their pain as my own, or does a government label make it easier for me to look away from their individual face?

* How do I see disrespect when it is coded as “policy”? Do I notice when a human being is reduced to a data point, and does that loss of dignity bother my soul?

Martin Niemöller, a prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor who famously confessed his own initial complicity in the rise of the regime, famously wrote about the creeping silence of the “normal” class:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist... Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

I pray that I am wrong. I pray that my anxiety is misplaced. But I see the ledger being opened, and I hear the scratching of the pen. I cannot be silent. We must see the image of God in every person, not as a name on a government list, but as a beloved child of God.

The Ledger of Good Intentions: A Warning.

How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith Bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde

It is a question that follows me, and no matter how I answer it for others, I always end the day asking it of myself. Did I pray today? What did I ask for? Did God listen to my woes, or was I simply talking to myself? When someone asks me to pray for them, I always say yes. And I do. But how I pray for them has changed deeply over the years.

I have learned that prayer is not an attempt to change the heart of God, but to change mine. It is not a tool to alter my circumstances, but a grace to help me accept them. It is not a bargain I strike with the Divine, but a conversation I have with myself about my next action, realizing my God is with me through it all. In a strange way, prayer has become more about me than it is about God—because God is already there.

The more I ask for something, the less interested I become in the specific outcome. It’s a paradox: the less I am attached to the “result” of my prayer, the better my attitude becomes. Prayer has become a daily walk, much like Enoch, who “walked faithfully with God” (Genesis 5:24). It has become the wonderment of Noah and Abraham, who questioned God, struggled with God, and eventually came to accept the reality of the path set before them. My Franciscan brother, Richard Rohr, often reminds me that prayer is not a way to get God to do what we want, but a way to become the person God wants us to be. It is that movement from my small, ego-centered world into a much larger, Christ-centered one.

For me, prayer is now the intentional choice to sit in a place where I can simply relax and be at peace. It is the practice of becoming fully aware that God is walking with me through the good and the bad times—not just the crises, and not just the celebrations, but the messy middle of life. I find myself leaning on the wisdom of Cynthia Bourgeault, who teaches that this kind of centering is a discipline of intentionality; I am not trying to make my mind go blank, I am simply practicing the art of letting go.

I am learning not to put pressure on what I ask for. Instead, I put the pressure on my own discipline. Am I faithful enough to give my time to the One I love? As I often say: Time is Love. Love is Prayer. Prayer is Commitment. That is the beginning and the end of it. Even Saint Francis of Assisi understood that the goal was never the words themselves, but the transformation of the heart. He knew that the greatest gift Christ gives us is the grace of overcoming the self.

I am learning to stop worrying about whether I am “doing it right.” I am choosing to stop worrying if my list of requests is long enough or holy enough. I want to simply offer my presence to the Presence. I am making a commitment to myself to stay on the walk, even when I amn’t sure where the path is leading. I am searching for the peace that comes when I stop bargaining and start simply being.

I hope I can walk with God and be enough. What else is there to pray for than being with God in all things in life?

Yes, there are plenty of things to worry about and pray for. I realize. In the end, crying through what I can’t deal with, laughing through what I rejoice in, and finding the center through it all is prayer, and the whole process, when I am aware that I am not alone. He is walking with me, holding me on his shoulders, as the classic Jesus walk on the beach! I learned that prayer is simply letting God shoulder me!

Realizing God is shouldering me along with the weight of my burdens is plenty of prayer. What a relief!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man whose pastoral identity was inseparable from his theology. For him, the Gospel was not a static doctrine to be admired, but a command to be obeyed. His life serves as a haunting mirror for modern Christians, particularly those in the West who find themselves tempted by the same political adulation that once paralyzed the German church. Bonhoeffer’s journey reminds us that when a nation begins to look toward a political figure for “salvation,” the Church has reached its “eleventh hour.”

The transformation of Bonhoeffer from an academic theologian to a radical disciple was forged in the United States. In the early 1930s, Bonhoeffer encountered the reality of American racism. Immersing himself in the Black church in Harlem, he witnessed a faith that was vibrantly alive because it was rooted in the experience of the oppressed. When his friends in that community pleaded, “Make our sufferings known to the people in Germany,” they were handing him a mandate.

He realized then that a faith which does not concern itself with the suffering of the “least of these” is a hollow shell. He saw a shallow faith in America—one that lacked a fundamental understanding of the source of salvation—and he recognized that same shallowness in Germany upon his return.

By 1933, the German public held an expectation that the salvation of the people would come from Adolf Hitler. The greeting “Heil Hitler” was not a benign social convention; in its linguistic and theological context, it was an act of worship. “Heil” carries the weight of “Salvation.”

Bonhoeffer saw the danger of this political messianism immediately. He insisted that “Salvation comes from only Jesus Christ.” He understood that the moment the Church begins to equate a political leader with a savior, it has abandoned the Cross. We see glimpses of this same shallowness today, where political adulation mimics religious fervor. But as Scripture reminds us in Acts 4:12: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Bonhoeffer’s most famous critique was directed at “cheap grace”—the idea that one can claim the benefits of the Gospel without the burden of the Cross. He wrote:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

In contrast, he championed Costly Grace. It is costly because it calls us to follow; it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it may cost a man his life; it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. This theology was not merely preached; it was lived. Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the resistance against Hitler was an act of obedience to the God who died for him—a God whose power is made perfect in weakness, not in the conquering might of a political system.

Bonhoeffer paid for his resistance with his life, executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945. He understood Matthew 16:24: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” His legacy is a powerful charge to all who follow Jesus: do not be deceived by the trumpets of the world. A fanfare of trumpets is no comfort to a dying man, nor can a political system save a soul. We must seek the silent companion, the Mother of Sorrows who stood at the foot of the Cross, and the Savior who occupied it. True discipleship demands moral courage—even unto death.

The first truth we must grasp is that God does not show partiality.

No matter who you are, or where you have been, you are the beloved of God.

When we look at the stories of the Bible, we see a gallery of the “unqualified” according to world standards.

God chose them, prepared them, and then sent them out into the harvest.

Their backgrounds were messy, their status was low, and their standing was often compromised.

Think of the tax collectors like Matthew, the prostitutes like Rahab, the murderers like Moses, and the doubters like Thomas.

The list goes on: sinners, saints, kings, and outcasts.

They were all chosen, and they were all prepared for a specific purpose.

There is a divine reason why God chooses the broken and the overlooked.

It is because they can understand others better; they have walked the dusty roads of failure and know the scent of shame.

Because they have been mended, they know how to handle the shattered pieces of another person’s soul.

This unique preparation leads to a specific charge, which we hear in the soaring words of the prophet Isaiah.

“Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it...”

“...who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it.”

The One who holds the cosmos also holds your specific, fragile life.

“I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you.”

“I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations.”

This is not a call to sit in a comfortable pew, but a call to be a “covenant” for others.

God’s chosen ones are sent “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

As the poet Mary Oliver once asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

God answers that question by pointing us toward those who sit in darkness.

We see this most clearly in the baptism of Jesus, where the heavens open and a voice declares, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

Jesus did not wait until he had performed miracles to be called beloved; he was beloved before he ever started his ministry.

You, too, are chosen and beloved before you “do” anything for the kingdom.

The late Henri Nouwen wrote, “Being the beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.”

If we don’t believe we are beloved, we will try to use our call to prove our worth.

But when we know we are chosen, we can give our glory back to the One who called us.

As Isaiah reminds us, “I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols.”

God is doing a new thing in you, even if you feel like you are still standing in the old wreckage.

“See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

You are called to be a light to the nations precisely because you know what it feels like to be in the dark.

Your scars are your credentials.

Your past is the soil in which God is planting a new future.

The world may see a sinner or a failure, but God sees a light-bearer.

Do not be afraid of your brokenness, for it is the crack where the light gets in.

Walk out into the world knowing you are taken by the hand by the Creator of the heavens.

Open the eyes of the blind with your kindness.

Bring out the prisoners with your compassion.

Be the beloved community that God intended from the beginning.

Amen.

They know me well. They know I have no use for trinkets or things that gather dust. I am a man of utility and simple rhythms. So, I tell them the truth. Give me a box of tea candles. Give me some snacks from the Indian grocery store—maybe some spicy murukku or sweet ladoos. If you want to make them yourself, even better.

The snacks are for the body, but the tea candles? They are for my soul.

Every morning, the rhythm is the same. I wake up. I brush my teeth. I wash the sleep from my face. My body starts its trek toward the kitchen, toward the coffee pot. It is the destination we all seek in the early gray of the morning.

But before I reach the coffee, I make a mandatory stop. On my wall, there is a small sacred space. It is a simple circle—an image of Our Lady of Lourdes. This is where the tea candle finds its purpose.

I strike a match. I watch the wick catch. I say nothing.

Most days, it is just a ritual of centering. I stand there in the silence before the world starts screaming for my attention. I look at her, and I find my core. Occasionally, I speak the names of my children. I don’t get to see them daily, but in that flickering light, they are right there with me. I pray for my wife. I pray for my family. I name the people in my church and those who have sent me frantic texts asking for a “word with God.”

But then, I do something that has become the most important part of my day. I say the names of those I have hurt.

I never wake up with the intention to cause pain. I want to be the best version of myself for this world. I want to build, to care, to love. But I am human. I fail. Sometimes I say things without thinking them through. I get caught up in the momentum of that moment, and I leave a sting behind. It is a sad. Really. But it is my reality.

So, I stand before the Blessed Mother, and I say, “I am sorry for the pain I caused.” I place that burden in the flame.

Then, I turn the coin. I say a word for those who hurt me.

I am learning something as I get older: they are just like me. They didn’t mean to hurt me, either. They got caught up in their own emotions. They were drowning in their own experiences, their own bad days, their own private storms. They acted out of their own “caught-up-ness.”

I choose to let it go.

I don’t do this for them. I do it for me. I do it because when I let go, my heart feels lighter. My mind becomes a clear pool instead of a muddy swamp. My spirit becomes... light.

Saint Francis de Sales once said:

“The person who possesses Christian liberty has no other property than the spirit of God. If we are truly free, we do not care if we are corrected or ignored, for we only seek to be right with the Divine.”

That is what that little tea candle represents for me—liberty. The freedom to not carry yesterday’s grudges or yesterday’s guilt into today’s coffee. I am reminded of a few lines from the poet Mary Oliver:

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It was what I was born for — to look, to listen, ... to lose myself inside this soft world — to be empty and filled.

I found this morning ritual of candle lighting is nothing other than a way to slow me down a bit. I wonder sometimes where I am going with this practice. I wonder if there is anything truly profound in it, or if it is just the habit of an old man.

It doesn’t matter finally, I’ve realized. After all, the Blessed Mother of Lourdes didn’t count my actions or my rituals. She doesn’t need a perfect prayer. She just wants me to be there—faithfully and every day. I am at peace with that. I am empty, I am filled, and then, I go make the coffee.

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Among the book’s many haunting passages, one phrase pierces through: “Clench your teeth and wait.”

This advice came to young Elie when the anger, pain, and struggle of the Jews in Germany reached its crescendo. An inmate offered these words as counsel, as comfort, perhaps as the only wisdom left when the world has abandoned reason. Clench your teeth and wait. Endure. Survive. This too shall pass.

But I find myself asking: should we simply clench our teeth and wait?

There was a woman on the train to Auschwitz. She cried out all day, and the others grew irritated. They thought her mad, hallucinating. “I see fire! I see fire!” she screamed into the suffocating darkness of the cattle car.

Her fellow prisoners wanted her to stop, to be quiet, to not disturb what little peace they could manufacture in their terror. Then they arrived. The crematoriums blazed. Bodies burned. There was the fire she had foreseen—the fire no one else could see until it was too late.

I think of her often now. I see signs.

Not to the extent of Nazi Germany—not yet, perhaps never. But I see patterns, and they are deeply uncomfortable. I smell the fear of those forced to carry documents to prove their right to exist in places they’ve called home. I feel the anger and trauma of those afraid to speak against atrocities. I hear the silence of those who witness the unlawful treatment, the deportations, the deaths at sea. I see the loss of freedom to speak, the fear that keeps people inside their homes.

James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Yet I watch as we collectively refuse to face, what is unfolding before us. I see the struggle of good leaders, trying to become great leaders, their voices caught in their throats. Even presidents remain quiet. For a long time, I believed they knew better than I did—that their silence meant they understood something I couldn’t grasp. Now I realize they are as afraid as I am.

I see a judiciary that claims to correct past wrongs, while falling into the same patterns of lies and deceit that corrupted the courts of Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Maduro’s Venezuela. The list grows longer.

Margaret Atwood reminds us in The Handmaid’s Tale: “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” This is the truth I cannot escape. It happens slowly, then all at once. Overnight, people are rounded up. Citizens deported within twenty-four hours. Then the news cycle moves on, and we fall into complacency, because our memories are short, and our capacity for horror is limited.

It happened to the Jews this way—slowly, methodically, lawfully for those who didn’t fall into the targeted class. It didn’t affect them, so they couldn’t see. It was for those people. People without faces. People who weren’t friends. Someone convinced the “normal” class that nothing would happen to them—only to those who looked different, talked different, believed different, those who didn’t fall in line with what the leader demanded.

W.H. Auden, understood this pattern when he wrote in “September 1, 1939”:

“I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.”

Like the woman on that train to Auschwitz, I find myself crying out: “I see fire. I see fire.”

Even writing these words frightens me. I have no criminal record, no pattern of dangerous behavior. But when power consolidates, when truth becomes negotiable, these facts can be erased and rewritten. A man wrongly deported suddenly becomes a human trafficker in official records.

A young girl arrested becomes a national threat, because she wrote in a university journal her views about atrocities in Gaza. A child brought here as an infant becomes a criminal for lacking papers. The machinery of injustice works efficiently once it begins turning.

I could fill pages with examples, but today my intention is simpler: to say aloud what I see. To refuse the comfort of silence. To be the woman on the train, however unwelcome her message may be.

I pray that these are merely my own fevered imaginings. I pray that I am delusional, paranoid, wrong. I pray that the patterns I perceive will dissolve into nothing more than anxious speculation. But history teaches us that the woman who saw fire was not mad—she was prophetic.

So I keep trusting that God remains present in the midst of suffering, as He was for the Jews, the Arabs, the Mexicans, the poor around the world. I pray for goodness and mercy to prevail. I pray for kindness to resurface in hardened hearts. I pray we might yet become, as Dr. King envisioned, the Beloved Community.

But I will not clench my teeth and wait in silence.

I see fire.

“I want Greenland. I want Venezuela.”

Whether it is a literal island, a neighbor’s oil, a distant water source, or the very autonomy of other human beings, the cry of the powerful remains the same across the centuries. We live in a world where we always seem to want more than we need. We have given it many names—colonialism, manifest destiny, national interest, economic security—but beneath the polished vocabulary of statecraft lies a very old and very simple sin: Greed.

Greed is the act of coveting what belongs to another. It is the restless energy that looks across a border or a fence and decides that “what is mine is not enough.” This human desire to possess what is not ours has existed since the beginning. It is why the Ten Commandments explicitly warn us: “Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Deuteronomy 5:21).

The rich and the powerful will always find a way to justify their hunger. They will wrap it in theology, dress it in economic necessity, or mask it behind financial projections. This is not a problem unique to one president or one nation. We see it in the halls of power in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi. The list goes on, but the story is always the same: the strong devouring the weak.

I am reminded of the story of King David and Naboth’s vineyard, or even more poignantly, the parable told to David by the Prophet Nathan after the King had taken what did not belong to him. Nathan spoke of a rich man with many flocks who took the single, beloved ewe lamb of a poor neighbor just to feed a traveler. When David grew angry at the injustice, Nathan leveled the finger of truth: “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Wars do not start for the well-being of others. Let no one fool us. When a nation is invaded, or a smaller people group is absorbed, it is not an act of charity; it is an act of theft. From the Old Testament stories of capturing tribal lands to the conquests of Alexander and Caesar, to the Popes and Kings of the Middle Ages who carved up the world in God’s name—it is all a fraud. We either stand with the fraudster or we stand with the Truth.

Why are we so greedy? Why are we not satisfied with the abundance within us—the unique, God-given soul that no one can ever steal? We are truly rich only when we care for those who need love. Material possessions are not transformational; they cannot change the rhythm of a heart.

The Bible is clear on the cruelty of this path: “He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich—both come only to poverty” (Proverbs 22:16).

In the Middle Ages, the poet Dante Alighieri envisioned the greedy in the Divine Comedy, forced to push heavy weights against one another, forever trapped by the very things they sought to possess. St. Thomas Aquinas warned us that greed is a “sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of things temporal.”

I wonder, what if we stopped looking at “Greenland” and started looking at the person beside us? What if we realized that when we take what is not ours, we lose the only thing that actually matters—our own integrity?

I pray that we find the courage to be satisfied. I pray we find the strength to protect the “ewe lambs” of our neighbors. In the end, we take nothing with us but the love we gave away.

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The Day of Epiphany is often celebrated as a feast of pure radiance—the “Great Manifestation” of a star so bright it pulled men across deserts. We are taught that light makes life easy; it reveals the path, clarifies the destination, and fuels our imagination. But as I look at the stars in my own life, I’ve begun to realize that the light is only half the story. There is a profound, necessary imagination that can only be found in the darkness.

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I find myself wondering about the Magi. We focus on the star, but they spent the vast majority of their journey in the dark. They traveled by night, after all. The light was their guide, but the darkness was their container. It was in the cold, silent expanses of the desert night that their hope had to mature.

A good life, I’ve discovered, is not the absence of shadows, but a mixture of light and dark moments. It is the awareness that both are required to truly experience “seeing.” Without the velvet backdrop of the night, the star is invisible. Without the struggle of the journey, the arrival has no weight. The Magi didn’t just find light at the end of a tunnel; they found a way to let the light and the dark work together to bring them to the Divine.

It is easy to cast Herod as the personification of pure darkness, the villain of the Epiphany story. He was a man consumed by the fear of losing power, planning the unthinkable to protect his throne. Yet, as I reflect personally, I have to admit that Herod lives in me, too. We all struggle with moments of jealousy, possessiveness, and the urge to “kill” the things that threaten our ego or our comfort.

Does this mean I am devoid of light? I don’t think so. Even Herod was aware of the prophecy; he was aware of the “King of the Jews.” He saw the light of the Magi’s arrival, but he tried to weaponize it. My own struggle with the darkness within is not a sign of failure, but a sign of my humanity. The theologian Paul Tillich once wrote, “The light of the eternal shines through the darkness of the temporal, but the darkness does not comprehend it.” I feel this tension constantly—the eternal light of God shining through my very temporal, very flawed shadows.

I used to think that the goal of the spiritual life was to eliminate the dark, to reach a state of perpetual noon. But I now see that such a life would be blinding and flat. To enjoy the light, I must respect the dark. The darkness is where the seeds germinate; the light is what calls them toward the surface.

My personal wonderment today is that God chose to manifest in a world that was—and is—deeply dark. The Epiphany isn’t about the light winning a war against the night; it’s about the light being born into the night. It is about the courage to keep walking when the star is obscured by clouds, trusting that the “God within” is holding both the shadow and the flame. I am learning to stop fearing my own dark moments and instead see them as the very places where the imagination of God is most active, preparing me for the next dawn.

Love

Bishop Jos

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I was a child, maybe four or five years old, when I first met her. The Blessed Mother of Lourdes. I was a tiny member of the Sodality of Mary, wearing a ribbon that felt far too grand.

I didn’t know what that was for or why! Ha. But it was amazing. We stood before the grotto, a cool place of stone and shadow. We prayed like a bullet train—Hail Mary’s rushing past like heavy wind. The scent of beeswax and the blue of her sash were etched into my mind. A permanent, gentle mark. That smell and color, still create calmness.

I have never been a fanatic. Nothing in this world is so perfect that I can’t live without it. I have never sought the loud or the dramatic in my faith. But in times when the world feels sharp and loud, my feet find the old path. In moments of anxiety, I find myself back at the grotto. Wherever I am, I look for a candle. I strike a match, and the small flame dances. I stare at the candle. I say the Hail Mary, and the frantic speed of the world begins to slow. My heart finds its rhythm again. My spirit finds a soft place to land.

Now, years later, I am evaluating these quiet practices. I share them with folks who look to me for wisdom. I ask myself: Why do I do this? I don’t have a complex theological map. I don’t have a lecture prepared on the mechanics of intercession. The honest truth is much simpler: It calms my nerves. It gives me a center to hold on to. Life is chaotic most of the time, but with this moment at the inner grotto, I have learned to manage it.

Every morning, I have a ritual. A sacred spot with the image of the Mother of Lourdes on the wall at home—a tiny island of peace in a sea of emails and appointments, there I light a candle. I watch the smoke curl upward like a silent thought. I stand there for a few seconds. I ask for nothing. I don’t even “pray” in the way people expect a Bishop to pray. I just stare at the dancing candle. I stare at her gentle face, bathed in the glow. Occasionally, I whisper to the silence. “Blessed Mother, I am anxious.” “Mother, I am worried today.” “Blessed Mother, I simply don’t know what to do.”

Then I move on into the day. I pass that altar several times. Each time, I leave a few words behind like petals. “That was a stressful meeting.” “I don’t know why he said that.” “I don’t know why I feel this way.” I don’t dare to judge anyone, because I don’t know the secrets of their hearts. Heavens, I barely know the secrets of my own.

I have come to a place where I don’t want to analyze. I just want to acknowledge. The Blessed Mother is the perfect listener. She is like the moon—reflecting a greater light, steady and quiet. She doesn’t talk back. She doesn’t offer feedback or a list of things to fix. She simply lets me hear myself.

And most of the time? That is the greatest mercy. I need to hear my own words in the air. I need to feel how small a worry becomes when it is placed in her lap. In the stillness of her presence, my own noise turns into music.

My devotion from age four to now is a simple thread. I don’t always know what I am asking. But I know I am standing in her light. I know she is watching over me with a mother’s patient eye. What else does a child of God really need?

I think of St. Bernadette, who saw the Lady in the hollow of the rock. She was a child of simple grace, and she once said:

“I shall do everything for Heaven, my true home. There I shall find my Mother in all the splendor of her glory.”

I don’t need the splendor yet. I pray I never need it. I am happy with the candle-light. I am happy with the quiet corner. I choose to let my religion be a soft place to rest. A mother who listens while I find my way home.

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I often find myself caught in the struggle of trusting the “God within.” We are conditioned to look for the Divine in the spectacular, the external, or the historically sanctioned. We look for God in books, in cathedrals, or in the advice of others. But Mary’s motherhood demands a different kind of orientation. She had to trust her inner being first. She had to believe in the resonance of her own soul before she could believe the words of the messenger standing before her.

For me, this is the most daunting part of the spiritual journey: the call to self-awareness. To be truly aware of God within is to acknowledge a presence that is more intimate than my own breath, yet often more foreign than a stranger. It requires me to trust my own intuition—that deep, quiet hum of “this is true”—even when the logic of the world shouts that it is “outrageous.”

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I wonder at the weight of that internal alignment. Mary brought the Son of God into the world not because she was a passive recipient of a divine decree, but because she was an active participant who trusted her inner landscape. She owned her agency. She felt the stirrings of the Infinite in the center of her own humanity and decided that her internal reality was more authoritative than the external expectations of her culture.

The contemporary poet Denise Levertov captures this beautifully in her poem, The Annunciation:

“She was not chosenbecause she wasmore naive than the rest of us...

She was chosen becauseshe was able to sayYes.”

That “Yes” is what I am seeking in my own life. It is the power that comes when I stop outsourcing my faith and start inhabiting it. When I look at Mary, I see a woman who dared to believe that her inner self was a fit temple for the Creator.

There is a staggering power in that level of self-trust. When I finally stop doubting the “still small voice” and treat my inner stirrings as holy, I begin to realize that I, too, am called to bring something of the Divine into the world. It may not be the Savior of mankind, but it is a unique expression of Light that only I can carry. The struggle to trust God within is really the struggle to believe that I am worthy of such an indwelling. Mary’s life is the radical proof that we are.

I often ask myself, “do I trust my inner landscape?”

I often find myself wondering, “if I could say YES when asked.”

I am not looking back to extract a lesson or to offer a theological explanation of the priesthood. Instead, I am simply sitting with the wonder of it all—marveling at the staggering depth of what I did not know, the distance I have traveled, and the quiet, persistent grace that has held me together when I felt myself coming apart.

The memory begins in the pre-dawn darkness. I remember the drive from Bishop Joseph Kundukulam’s house. It was a sixteen-mile journey that took over an hour, a slow procession through the waking world. The silence in the car was heavy, charged with an electricity I couldn’t quite name. With every mile, the anticipation tightened in my chest. When we finally approached the village, the world seemed to burst into color and sound. People lined the streets, a living corridor of faith. We paused repeatedly to receive their blessings through the car window. Even then, a mile from the church, the weight of their expectations began to settle on me.

When we finally stepped out of the car at the entrance to the church property, the air was thick with the scent of jasmine from the garlands placed around our necks. A children’s band played, their notes bright and slightly out of tune, and a thousand faces turned toward us. It was grand—undeniably grand—but oh, how heavy that grandness felt on my young shoulders. I felt like a small boat being launched into a sea far too vast for its hull.

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I look back at my parents, seated at the front. They were the only two given chairs, a mark of honor that, in that moment, felt like a separation. I can still see their faces: the shimmering pride, the genuine happiness, and something else—a shadow I didn’t have the vocabulary for then, but which I recognize now as grief.

It was the gentle, holy grief of letting go. The old saying echoed in the chambers of my mind: “A priest is lost to the family, but gained to the world.” I saw my mother’s eyes and realized that, in her heart, she was performing her own sacrifice. The Franciscan nuns moved through the crowd with meticulous care, ensuring every ritual detail was perfect. But as I stood there, the center of all that perfection, I felt profoundly, terrifyingly far from perfect.

St. John of the Cross once wrote,

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

On that Friday morning, I had no idea what love would eventually cost me. I only knew the immediate weight: the hopes of a community, the traditions of the Church, and my own paralyzing sense of inadequacy.

When Fr. Raphael Thattil—now the Major Archbishop—stood to preach, his words cut through the ceremony like a bell.

“Jos is no more yours,” he declared. “He belongs to the Lord forever, and he is called to serve the world for Him.”

I watched my mother cry, and I felt his words settle into my soul like stones dropped into deep, dark water. They didn’t float; they sank, changing the topography of my inner self forever.

The moment of consecration remains etched in my spirit. As I held the bread and wine for the first time, I cried in my heart. The burden felt unbearable. Lord, what does this mean? Where are you taking me? Am I prepared for this? A legion of fears gathered around that altar. I was too naive to know the specific trials that lay ahead—the dark nights, the institutional struggles, the personal failures—and perhaps that was a mercy.

Thomas Merton’s wisdom comes to me now, forty-five years into this calling:

“We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!”

How true those words have proven to be. Even now, I am still learning. I am still stumbling. I am still beginning.

Looking back, I am struck by how utterly unprepared I was. I was unprepared for the days when the silence of God would feel like a deafening roar. I was unprepared for the moments when I would question the very foundations of my belief. There were so many times when I simply did not know what I was doing, when I could only hold onto a thin, frayed thread of hope that this path was indeed what God intended.

Yet, thirty-one years later, I am more convinced than ever. Not because of any achievement, nor because I have found all the answers, but because I see the world’s brokenness—and my own—so much more clearly. In that shared woundedness, I have discovered a God who does not demand a polished vessel, but a cracked one that lets the light through.

I understand now that I am not called to be a paragon of perfection. I am called to love—daily, imperfectly, and as honestly as I can manage. St. Teresa of Ávila’s words, “Christ has no body now but yours,” used to frighten me with their responsibility. Now, they comfort me. This broken body, these uncertain hands, this weary heart—this is enough.

What gives me peace today is the simple, liberating truth: I cannot do it “right” by the world’s standards. But I am doing the right thing by continuing to say yes. It is alright that I stumbled. It is alright that I doubted. It is alright that fear walked beside me for three decades.

Julian of Norwich promised that “All shall be well.” I am finally learning to trust this, not as a shallow optimism, but as a deep, tectonic truth. God’s love holds everything—the failures, the confusion, and the moments I felt most lost.

Thirty-one years. The grand ceremony of that Friday morning has morphed into the quiet, daily walk of a servant. The unbearable burden has, by some mystery of grace, become a gift I am deeply grateful to carry. Thank you, Lord, for calling someone as unprepared as I was. Thank you for the journey I could never have imagined. Thank you for teaching me, slowly and patiently, that being a beginner is not a stage to pass through, but a holy place to dwell.

I am still learning.

I am still beginning.

And finally, that is enough.

Two thousand years ago, a young couple, Joseph and Mary, were doing exactly what we do. They were law-abiding, kindhearted, and obedient. They had enough with them for the trip. They were traveling to Bethlehem because a census had been called. On the surface, a census is an ancient and practical thing. It is how we know who is who, where they come from, and what they do. But beneath the surface of that decree by Caesar Augustus was something far more cynical and cold: it was an accounting of bodies for the sake of empire.

It started slowly. It started with a list.

We have seen this before in the mirrors of history. Before forty million lives were lost in the nightmare of the Second World War, there was a census. Names were noted. Histories were documented. People walked gently into those moments, reporting to authorities, believing that if they followed the rules, everything would be alright. They showed up to the courts and the stations just as Mary and Joseph showed up to Bethlehem—innocent, following the law of the land.

But as the Magi learned, and as we have learned through the centuries, the census is often the precursor to the consolidation of power. When a ruler feels the ground of their authority shake, they do not reach for kindness; they reach for control. They seek to ascertain the livelihoods of the people so they can better grip the throat of the nation.

We see this pattern in the ghosts of the past—in the shadows of Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Idi Amin. And if we are honest, if we are truly awake, we see it in the “strongmen” of our own day. We see the same hunger for selfishness in leaders who look more like Herod than like servants. We see it in the actions of those like Putin, Orban, and others who equate leadership with the removal of hurdles and the silencing of threats.

I will tell you plainly: I am scared to say these words to you today. I am afraid for myself, for my family, and for the friends I hold dear. We live in a world where power-mongers are once again hunting the vulnerable. We are closer to those dark times than we have been in generations.

See, Christmas is not about a white-bearded man sitting in a plush chair saying “Ho, ho, ho.” That is a comfortable distraction. The real Christmas is a radical, uncomfortable truth. It is the story of a Child who was a prisoner of the war against selfishness and brutality before he could even speak.

Jesus did not come to a palace. He did not come with an army to dismantle the legions of Rome. He came as a “weakling” child, a helpless infant laid in a manger among mute and innocent animals. He came to a world that was—and is—broken and lost.

The power of the Baby in the manger is not the power of the sword; it is the power over your heart. It is the power over your dreams and your hopes. The tyrants of this world can take your livelihood, they can take your country, and they can even take your life—but they cannot take the Christ who dwells in the courage of those who stand up for what is true.

As poet and mystic Rumi once wrote:

“The lion who breaks the enemy’s ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.”

The leaders of this world are busy trying to overcome the “enemy” or the “foreigner,” but they have failed to overcome their own greed. Their end is written in the very scriptures they often pretend to honor.

The Bible warns us in the book of James:

“Now listen, you people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you... Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire.” (James 5:1, 3)

The consolidation of earthly power is a vapor. It’s a mist. It vanishes. But the “powerlessness” of the manger—the goodness that refuses to hate, the love that refuses to be silent—that is eternal.

I think of the words of Dorothy Day, a servant of the poor and the immigrant, who said:

“The Gospel takes away our right to forever complain about the world. We must simply work to change it; we must help the few who are near us.”

My dear sisters and brothers, let us wake up! Let us see that Jesus came at a time when leaders were selfish, angry, and scared of God. Let us look at the families today who have no place to lay their heads, the children separated from parents by cruel decrees, and let us recognize the Christ at the borders of Egypt, Gaza, El Salvador, Mexico, but they are all too far, let us get a little closer: America.

True leadership is not found in the palaces of the powerful; it is found in the manger of the marginalized. This Christmas, let your heart be the place where that “weak” and “helpless” power is born. Do not be afraid to speak. Do not be afraid to love. For the light is to be born from darkness. Darkness is pregnant with light, waiting to be born. Darkness—no matter how many names it takes or how much power it consolidates—has not, and will not, overcome it.

I wish you a Blessed and Merry Christmas, where Christ will be seen and heard, for he is around you in the weak, the lost, the scared, the immigrant, and the vulnerable! Merry Christmas.

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These days, I don’t find myself thinking much about heaven or hell. That surprises me. There was a time when those ideas felt urgent, even central, but now they seem distant—almost like echoes from another season of faith. What occupies my mind instead is the question of why they no longer hold my attention. I think about that more than I think about heaven or hell themselves.

Perhaps it is because my heart has become deeply attached to the people who are here, now. My energy, my concern, my love are invested in those whose faces I see, whose struggles I know, whose joys and burdens unfold in ordinary time. I don’t feel built to carry the emotionally charged finalities of life when the unfinished, fragile realities of today already ask so much of me. What matters most seems to be right in front of me.

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Sometimes I wonder if this is why Jesus came at all. Not to pull our imaginations away from earth, but to step fully into it. Not to offer escape, but presence. I don’t know how to describe the incarnation in precise theological terms. Whether it was a “trip” from heaven to earth or something far more mysterious, I know this much: it was beyond my understanding, and it was for us. No one seemed excluded from his coming. No one was too insignificant, too broken, too ordinary.

What I notice when I read the Gospels is how focused Jesus was on the people around him. He noticed hunger, illness, grief, isolation. He paid attention to who was overlooked and who had learned to look away. Occasionally, he spoke about the afterlife—as if to catch attention, to awaken imagination—but that was never his main emphasis. More often, he acted. He fed the hungry. He healed the sick. He touched the untouchable. He sat with sinners. He noticed widows. He gave water to the thirsty. He spoke of visiting those in prison, but even more than speaking, he lived as if every human life deserved dignity and care.

It seems to me that people were rarely interested in what he said about caring for others unless something extraordinary happened first. A miracle. A sign. A moment that jolted them awake. Then, for a brief moment, they listened. And yet Jesus didn’t stay long enough to bask in their attention. He slipped away from crowds. He avoided applause. He resisted being turned into a spectacle.

I find myself wondering why. Was he an introvert, overwhelmed by attention? Or was it something deeper—that public opinion simply didn’t matter to him? Maybe he wasn’t concerned with how his actions were received, only with whether they were right. He did what love required when he could, and then he moved on. No explanations. No concern for how he would be judged. No need to manage his image.

These thoughts come to me in the quiet of early morning, when I sit alone on my couch before the day begins. It is my favorite part of the day. Silence gives me permission to wander. My mind goes in many directions, sometimes without landing anywhere. I don’t come away with answers, and I’m not sure I’m even making sense most of the time. But the thinking itself feels like a gift.

In that quiet space, I invite myself to live with the same attentiveness. To worry less about distant outcomes and more about present faithfulness. To care deeply for those in front of me. To do what is right when I can, and to walk away without needing affirmation. I may not know exactly what all of this means, but I know it matters. And for now, that feels like enough.

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I carry so much noise. There are the echoes of my history, the lingering voices of those who taught me to be afraid, and the heavy, rhythmic thrum of my own failures. It is a cacophony that drowns out the very thing I long for most. I keep forgetting the truth I’ve heard since childhood: “The Spirit of God is within you.” If that is true, then the Presence I am searching for is not an arrival I have to wait for; it is a resident reality I have to wake up to. I wish I knew this long ago. Very long ago, so I could have just calmed my fears all these years.

I think of the woodcock in the forest at dusk. It is a small, unassuming bird that performs a “sky dance” in the fading light. It doesn’t wait for a spotlight or a stage; it follows an internal rhythm, a silent, ancient pull that tells it exactly when to rise and when to fall. It moves with a confidence that isn’t born of looking around, but of listening deep. I find myself longing for that kind of trust—to move through the darkness of my own fears by leaning into the quiet “knowing” that God has already planted in my chest.

I wonder if the miracle of the first Christmas was less about a star in the sky and more about the quiet surrender in the hearts of Joseph and Mary. It wasn’t found in the marble halls of Herod’s palace, but in the “quiet turmoil” of a carpenter and the openness of a young girl.

The Divine took root in their goodness, their character, and their willingness to be a home for the Infinite.

My hope this year is to stop waiting for the flash and the fire. I want to learn to recognize the subtle, restorative Presence of God in the “cracks” of my own life. I want to believe that this Presence is like a gentle stream—not smashing through my problems, but flowing into the deepest, most unexpected parts of my suffering, healing the places where I’ve felt most broken.

I am beginning to see that the sign of God’s intervention isn’t always a miracle; it is a movement of the heart. Where I find Love, God is there. Where I find Kindness, God is there. Where I offer Forgiveness, God is there.

I want to stop looking for the sign I expect and start living in the light of the sign I already have. That quiet moment of selfless patience? That sudden, unexplainable peace in the middle of a storm? That is Immanuel. My prayer is simply this: Help me be still enough to hear the Guest who is already home.

And how much I long for it and how easy it is, now I know, to find my Guest!

Bishop Jos

The Power of Loving, Living, and Life-Giving!

I see it even in my faith. I hate to say it. There were moments when I expected God to act decisively, unmistakably, almost dramatically. I admit, I want doors broken down, problems solved quickly, injustice corrected with clarity and force. I understand now why John the Baptist, sitting in the silence and uncertainty of prison, asked his aching question: “Are you the one, or should we wait for another?” I recognize myself in that question. When life presses hard, I, too, wonder why God does not shout.

What unsettles me—and also draws me deeper—is that God rarely answers with noise. Instead of fire and axes, John heard reports of a man lingering at dinner tables, walking dusty roads, touching those everyone else avoided. Jesus Christ did not arrive with spectacles. He arrived with presence. And somehow, that presence changed lives.

I am learning that this is the quiet strength I often overlook: soft power. The power of Christ does not resemble the blunt force I am accustomed to trusting. It is more like water. Water doesn’t shatter a mountain in a moment; it finds its way patiently into cracks. It reaches places force never could. That image stays with me, because I know how many hidden, dry places exist within my own soul.

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Redemption, I am realizing, rarely happens in a single dramatic instant. More often, it unfolds through small, restoring encounters. A wound noticed. A word spoken gently. A dignity returned. Jesus did not demand submission; he invited transformation. He knelt in the dirt of people’s lives, and in doing so, healed infirmities they had learned to live with.

When I look at the posture of Jesus, I am challenged. He did not rule from a distance or protect himself with titles. He washed feet. He withdrew from applause. He spoke not in the earthquake or the fire, but in what Scripture calls the sheer silence. God’s power, it seems, is most active after the noise fades.

This kind of strength asks something difficult of me. Soft power cannot be exercised from afar. It requires nearness. To be redemptive, I must be willing to enter another’s reality—not as an expert or judge, but as a servant. That kind of presence costs more than authority ever does.

Advent—and really, every season of faith—confronts me with a quiet warning: “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” I admit that I sometimes stumble over a God who refuses to dominate, a King who wins by losing, a Savior who heals instead of conquers. Yet I am slowly persuaded that this is the only power capable of saving anything at all.

Blunt force may change behavior, but only gentleness changes hearts. Force can silence, but mercy restores. Soft power does not break what is wounded; it heals without shattering what remains.

So I ask myself, honestly and without defensiveness: Where am I trying to fix my life with force? Where am I pushing, insisting, controlling, rather than allowing mercy to flow into the cracks?

Today, I invite myself to trust a different strength—the strength of presence, patience, and compassion. The Spirit does not arrive with spectacle, but with a quiet assurance that says, I am here with you. And perhaps that is the power I need most.

Love

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Bishop Jos