So, were you aware that the new pope is an art critic? Pope Leo XIV, in his first-ever Wednesday audience, used a painting from Van Gogh called “Sower at Sunset.” In this painting, Pope Leo explains that the sower, the one who plants the seeds, is not the focal point of the painting. The focal point of the painting is the sun. It is the sun that produces the fruit. It is the sun that creates the life. And that is our relationship with God. We are called to toil, to work, to labor, to plant seeds, but it is God that produces the fruit. It is God who brings about the life. It is God who brings meaning to our work. You no longer have to worry about success or failure in your work. We must make God the focal point of our lives.
This is Spirit Juice. Peace.
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Infinite Incomparable Love
Every time I read the Prodigal Son story, I get misty-eyed. My heart is leaking. It’s so beautiful because this passage reveals the absolute, incomparable love of the Father, which transcends reason. It transcends mathematics. It transcends politics. It transcends everything in the world. We cannot calculate it. We cannot understand it, but we can receive it. In the gospels, if Jesus were speaking to a hundred…
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Glass Half-Empty or Overflowing
Okay, so maybe you are a glass-half-empty kind of person, or you are like me, and you are a glass overflowing. Everything is awesome all of the time, and nothing is ever wrong kind of person. But in the Gospel for this Sunday, St. Thomas the Apostle is a glass-half-empty kind of person. He is very skeptical. Something is intriguing happening here. Thomas, a man…
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We Need Both
Watching food shows can be frustrating, you can see the food, but you can’t taste it, and it never truly satisfies.
In this Sunday’s Gospel, the disciples on the road to Emmaus experience something similar. Their hearts burn as Jesus opens the Scriptures, but they don’t fully recognize Him until the breaking of the bread.
That’s the invitation for us. We don’t just study Jesus, we receive Him. Scripture and the sacraments go together, and when they do, we encounter Him fully.
