Author: Franciscan

Good morning.

As we go through our liturgical year, we will encounter a number of persons who have made their mark on our Church. We call these people saints. This means

that the Church proclaims that they are in heaven and their lives worthy of example. 

We need only to remember our childhood and think of those who were our “heroes”. It might have been Superman or Superwoman. It could have been the Lone Ranger, or some other TV personality that we grew up with. 

In school we studied people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and so on. We all need someone to look up to who we would like to be like. Well, the saints of our Church are heroes  

Today we turn our attention to Peter Claver, a member of the Society of Jesus who was a missionary in Columbia, South America and was so moved by the plight of those who were brought to the New World to be sold as slaves. Peter spent his time caring for their needs. In the process, he was able to convert a number of these men and women to the faith.

One of the first things missionaries learned when they went off to proclaim the Gospel was that they had to answer the physical needs of the people before they were able to preach the Gospel. The word of God is a might force, but it is not as near as forceful to the growling of an empty stomach. 

St. Peter Claver makes this perfectly clear when he tells us, “We must speak to them with our hands by giving, before we try to speak to them with our lips.”

As I have said before, the mission of preaching the Good News has not came to an end. Each one of us are to preach this Good News more by how we live then what we say. The old adage tells us, “Actions speak louder than words.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. 

Today we celebrate the Birthday of Mary.  As we know, Mary was born in a “back water” town of Nazareth. Not much there. A small village not far from the city of Capernaum which sat on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. 

We are familiar with Mary’s story, the visit of the Angel Gabirel, and her engagement to a local named Joseph. 

Pope Benedict XVI takes this story to another level. He tells us, “Her (Mary’s) example of faithful perseverance in doing the will of God and her heavenly reward are the source and hope for all of us.”

This woman, not from a priestly family, not sure what her father Joachim did, and her mother Anne. We are not really sure if that were their names. But that is not the point of the story. it is what Benedict tells us about Mary and her YES to Gabirel. That faithful perseverance. That eternal YES uttered from the depth of her being. Mary did not have a script that she should know the role would play, the pain she was to endure, nor the end that would have “blown her mind”. 

Sisters and brothers, the play is still on the stage of life. We are all actors in this play call life, and the Almighty God who wrote the play and His Son, Jesus who is the director still needs us to play our part. It may not be a solo part; we may be just a member of the chorus. But remember, if we do not play our role, the play will not be as perfect as God intended. 

Remember what Constantine Stanislavski of the Moscow Theatre said, “There are no small parts, only small actors.”

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Greetings.

Today we the Church welcome a new saint on our roles. His name is Carlos Acutis born in London and raised in Milan Italy. He was 15 years old when he died of Leukemia. He had a great devotion to the Eucharist. He spent hours designing a website devoted to recording hundreds of miracles of the Eucharist.  God continues to use the least among us to proclaim His love and presence. 

St. Carlos, pray for us, especially for our young people that they will come to know God as you have.

Today our Mass readings continue on the theme of discipleship. Here, once more, the Lord does not paint a rosy picture of women and men walking through flowered fields with the sun shining on them and smiles on their faces.

Raher once again, Jesus spells out the cost of discipleship. Taking the words of the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer who tells us today, “The life of discipleship can only be maintained as long as nothing is allowed to come between Christ and ourselves, nether the law, nor personal piety, not even the world. The disciple always looks only to his master, never to Christ and the law, Christ and religion, Christ and the world. Only by following Christ alone can he preserve a single eye. “

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.  

Good day to all.

We have, I am sure, heard the term, “Put your best foot forward”. In other words, try to impress the one you are meeting. We do this when applying for a job, meeting persons of power or wealth, or just trying to make the best impression we can.

The problem with this can be that we do present the REAL self and in time this “real” me will come out, and usually at the wrong time.

This can happen when we pretend to be better than we really are. We present a false self and that is something that can be very hard to maintain over a long period of time. Sooner or later the REAL me makes a showing and as is said, “our cover is blown.”

Kurt Vonnegut, the American novelist tells us, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” 

Putting or best foot forward is OK, but we need to allow the real me to present itself. We know this if we have ever been in any relationship with another. A relationship cannot exist when it is based upon lies and falsehoods. 

Keep in mind that God created us the way he did because he saw from all eternity that we are the one He has fallen in love with. We, yes, with all our faults and failures, were from all eternity the perfect you, the perfect me. We need not have to impress God, He knows who we are and loves us just the same.

Peace and All Good

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good day to you all.

I am sure the person we remember today is no stranger to us. We have all heard or read about Mother Teresa of Calcutta. 

Here is a woman who belonged to the Sisters of Loreto whose work was in education. Teresa was stationed in Calcutta and taught in a private school for girls. These girls were from well to do families.

The story of her life was not so different from many of us. That is when we think we are on the right path that God has sent before us we discover that there is a twist or turn we were not expecting. As we read the story of the life of Teresa we see how God has another mission in mind for her. As she tells us on her way to make a retreat, she says that she received “a call within a call. . . “to follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.”

It was here that she established a religious community to minister to the poorest of the poor. So was born the Missionaries of Charity. In time the community also included contemplative sister and brothers and a community of priests. 

Mother Teresa offers us this thought today. “Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do nothing for you.”

Now I know as well as you we all cannot be like Mother Teresa. But we can do our part to hear the cry of the poor and offer them what they need. And in doing so we, as Teresa tells us, are able to serve “those who can do nothing for you.”

P. S. In your prayer, please remember Fr. Victor and the community of our sister parish of St. Teresa of Calcutta in St. Petersburg FL.

Peace and All Good, 

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Hello, hope all goes well.

Do you have a place where there is absolute silence ? I would dare to say that we would have to stuff cotton in our ears to achieve true total silence. 

We understand that silence just does not mean that the TV is off, as well as the radio. We would find it difficult to avoid the noise from outside. But have you ever wished that there would be a place of silence.

I remember, a number of years ago, I preached on the subject. In the middle of my homely, I stopped. I just stood there and said nothing. I could see that the congregation began to feel uncomfortable. Some looked at the person next to them, others just began to wiggle in the pews. 

I began and said to them, silence is something we are not all too comfortable with.   

The spiritual writer Fr. James Martin, SJ, says to us today, “We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that “still small” voice. What might it say? Might it ask us to change?

Maybe we all, myself included need to sit in that silence in the presents of God and allow Him to speak to us. He has so much to say, as one lover to another. Let us “lend an ear” to the Father every now and then.

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the 

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.

Good morning. 

Today we once again remember one of the “pillars” of our Church. Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604).

Gregory held a number of offices of authority before being elected pope. Before his papal election, he founded a Benedictine monastery in his own home in Rome.

Gregory was born when the Church was going through her “growing pains” There was a great amount of strife that he had to deal with. One Anglican historian wrote, “It is impossible to conceive what would have been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the Middle Ages without the medieval papacy; and of the medieval papacy, the real father is Gregory the Great.

St. Gregory gives us this thought today, “The proof of love is in the works. When love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.”

Our Church has been blessed by men and women of the caliber of St. Georgy. But that does not mean that today we do not have men and women who measure up. You and I are among these pillars of the Church today. Our lives may be quiet and our Christian love towards others may go unknown to the world, but our Christian love is truly made known to those who receive our smallest acts of kindness.

Peace and All Good,

Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the

Bros and Srs of the 

Franciscan House of Prayer.   

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.