Author: Franciscan

Good morning. Hope you all are doing well.

We read over and over again in the writing of the saints and other spiritual authors, that Jesus saw in the people he encountered, His Father. There was something about Jesus which enabled him to look beyond the broken and imperfections of the people he lived and ministered to the perfect creation His Father fashioned from the dust of the earth and breathed into it His breath of life. It was in His image and likeness that He created man as revealed in the opening pages of the Book of Genises.

Franciscan Father Richard Rohr tells us, “The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection – and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.” 

As we read these words we need to remember and never forget, that we too are disordered and imperfect. 

What we see in others is exactly what they see in us. It is only when we are able to look beyond the broken and see the Divine, it is only then we are able to live in peace and feel at home on this earth. It is then that we need to come to understand that we all are sisters and brothers and the Breath of Life the Father breathed into Adam is the same breath that He breathed into each woman and man from that point on.   

May God give us peace.

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning. I hope you all had a good week.

Today, once again, the Lord gives us a lesson about being a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  

We, I am sure, have encountered persons who have to be the “leader of the band.” These are people who have to have their egos stroked all the time. They have to get the adulations of those around them. They have to be the “hit of the party”, if not, they are not “happy campers.”

C. S. Lewis tells us today, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.

Lewis goes on to remind us that “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

Remember what the Lord told us last week. The entrance to the Kingdom is through the “narrow” door. One who is filled with pride will never be able to bend their head low enough to get through that narrow door.

A good and blessed week to you all and pray for peace in our country. 

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer. 

Good day to all. I hope you are enjoying the long weekend.

It seems just like yesterday that I was saying that the summer was upon us. Here we are at the end of summer and heading head-long into Autom. 

We have all heard the question posed to us, “What would like for . . . .. ” You can fill in the blanks. It could be for Christmas, you birthday, your anniversary, and so on.

We all would like something. But sometimes that “something” is not within our grasp. So, we just have to accept that we must live without it. 

But for some people, “they want what they want when they want it.” And once they attain it, they are already looking for something better, bigger, brighter and so on.

Our friend Thomas Merton gives us this thought today. “Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.”

So, do we continue to go after what we want what is bigger or better? Or do want to live a life filled with love that will outshine anything this world has to offer?

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer. 

Good day to all.

Today we remember the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist.

As the story goes, he got caught up in a situation with King Herod who married has brother’s wife. And then we all remember the “Dance of Seven Veils” that resulted in John’s head being presented to Saloma as a gift.

I often wonder how many of us would be attractive to a person coming out of the desert, clad in camel’s hare and eating bugs. It was not so much what he looked like as what he had to tell the people. “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Matt4:17, Mk1:15)

Over and over again, John told the people that he was not the Messiah. John was the one who pointed Him our when he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.”(Jn1:29)

The writer James Green has this to say to us today, “John the Baptist was supposed to point the way to the Christ. He was just the voice, not the Messiah. So ever bodes calling has dignity to it and God seems to know better than we do what is in us that needs to be called forth.” 

If these words are true, then it is ALL of our vocations to POINT the way to Christ to others.  Again, not by what we say, but more importantly as how we LIVE Christ – like lives. 

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.   

Hello. I hope you week is going well. 

Yesterday, we remembered St. Monica and today we comminate he son St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.

Augustine was one of those success stories in the history of the Church. It was through the prayers and tears of his mother Monica that brought Augustine to become a Christian. 

Augustine, like some other saints, led a rather “foot lose and fancy-free” life. But it was through his mother’s example, that he gave in to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and converted to the faith. He is seen as one of the Doctors of the Church and has left us a great number of works on Christianity. One of his better-known writings called “Confessions” which is an autobiographical work of his conversion to the faith. 

Augustine’s words to us today should give us much to ponder, “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him the greatest human achievement.”

What I have said before and I say again, the words of Oscar Wilde, ring so true about Augustine, “Every saint has a past, every sinner a future.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer. 

Good day.

Today we remember, St. Monica, one of the most tenacious woman saints in Church history. She is the mother of St. Augustine who became one of the Church’s scholars. 

St. Monica was a Christian married to a pagan, who because of her prayers and example, was baptized one year before his death. Their son, Augustine was one of three children of Monica and Patricius, and again through the prayers of his mother, Augustine was converted through the preaching of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. 

Monica gives us this thought for today. “Faith is the strength that carries us through the challenges of life.” 

Monica stands before us as a true model of what prayer and strong faith in God can bring about. If there is someone we can pray to in times of challenge in our lives, Monica surely would be there to intercede for us. 

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning.

As I read this writing by Dominican Father Paul, I could not help but to remember the times I have been this situation. 

Now that I am the age I am, I don’t feel that I have to impress anyone. I am who I am. But there were days that I tried to “put my best foot forward” to impress the person I was speaking to.

Fr. Paul Murray OP gives us this thought today. “Life makes fools of all of us sooner or later. But keep your sense of hummer and you’ll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, you know it’s our own expectations that crush us.”

Fr Paul is not saying that we should not set our expectations for ourselves just a little out of our reach. It we set the bar to low; we will never work just a little harder to reach just a little higher. But if we set the bar too high, we can very easily become discouraged and not try at all. Just remember the story of the “Little Engine Who Could.” He kept saying “I think I can, I think I can.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Hello. I hope all is well.

Given the fact that we had a long message yesterday, I thought I would give you a thought from Pope Francis, one that echoes the thoughts of yesterday’s Gospel reading.

                                                      “Today the Lord repeats to me, to you. . .

Follow Me!

Waste no time in questioning or in

useless 

chattering.

do not dwell on secondary thing but look

to what is essential and follow Me.

Follow Me without regard for the

difficulties. 

Follow Me in preaching the Gospel.

Follow Me by the witness of a life shaped

by the grace you received in baptism . . . 

Follow Me by speaking of Me, to those 

with whom you live, day after day,

in your work, your conversations and 

among your friends.

Follow Me by proclaiming the Goepel to 

all, especially to the least among us,

so that no one will fail to hear the word of 

life,

which sets us free from every fear

and enables us to trust in the faithfulness

of God.

Follow Me!”

Pope Francis – Homily 29

June 2014.

Peace and All Good, 

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good day to you all. 

As we have gone through our summer and head into the fall, we are also looking forward to the different sports that will take place. For some of us, a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is a time to watch our favorite sports team and maybe a “cold one”.

As we sit and watch the game, do we ever consider what it might take for these players to be able to be on the team? Or how long it may have taken them to reach this point in their athletic career? If we were to ask them, they would likely tell us of the hours of disciplinary work they had to put in to reach this point of being a professional athlete.  

(It is like the joke, ‘ A visitor to New York stops a person on the street and says, ‘ Excuse me, can you tell me how get to Carnage Hall? The man looks at the visitor and simply says, ‘Practice, practice, practice.’)

The long and short of today’s Gospel is that getting into the Kingdom is not just following the “rules and regulations” of one’s faith. It is not just “being a nice person.” It is by being humble, recognizing that it is through the discipline of living the Christian life, not just when it is convenient, but every day, every minute of our lives. The athlete keeps up a life of “self – denial” not just when it is convenient, not just when one feels like it.   

It is like our good friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost your life.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning, happy Saturday.

When we think of saints, our minds turn toward Europe. But today we remember the first named saint of the New World. 

Rose’s parents were not happy about her entering a convent. In obedience she continued to live a life of prayer and penance at home as a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic. 

In the last years of her life, she set up a place in her home where she cared for homeless children, the elderly, and the sick. St. Rose gives us this thought today. “When we serve the poor and the sick we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus.”

Oh, how often the Lord reminds us “the poor you will always have with you.” (Matt. 26:11)

I hope you all have a good weekend.

Peace and All Good,

Fr Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.