Tag: Susan Ciancio

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus went into the synagogue and read this passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

He then looked at all those who sat listening to Him and proclaimed: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Wow! We hear that and we feel excited. But the people listening then were astounded—so astounded that they became furious. They drove Him from the temple believing He had committed blasphemy. But we know that He did not. We know that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the promises in the Old Testament. 

As Christ said, He was sent to “proclaim liberty to captives.” We desperately need this liberty, for we are all ensnared and held captive by something of this world—our jobs, our friend groups, social media, the news, even our phones. We allow these things to take the place of Jesus in our hearts and minds. We allow these things to fill us, and often they fill us with anger, resentment, anxiety, sadness, or more. 

But Jesus is here—and has always been here—to free us from the chains that come with these things. He doesn’t just fill us, as these things do, He brings us joy, peace, love, and harmony.

Nothing of this world can do that. Sure, many can bring happiness, but happiness is fleeting. Happiness doesn’t last. But a joy in Christ lasts. 

So let us take time to reflect on how we spend our days. Where is our focus? Are we spending so much time watching the news, playing on our phones, or scrolling through social media that Christ becomes secondary in our lives? Are we letting the world fill us with an anger that threatens to destroy the joy we have? 

Because of sin, our world is broken. This should—and often does—bring us sadness, but it’s a sadness we must not dwell upon. Instead, we must turn this sadness into an awareness that only loving and God-centered actions can effect the change we need in this world.

So, as we begin this new year, let us allow God to liberate us from our captivity and truly make this a year acceptable to the Lord. 

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In today’s Psalm, we hear the phrase “praise and exalt Him above all forever.” 

Our lives can get pretty busy. From work, to family, to running a household, to everything we need to do on a daily basis, we often forget to spend time with God and praise and exalt Him. And sometimes, even if we don’t intend to, we put other things above Him. 

What would our lives look like if we followed the words of that Psalm every single day? We would undoubtedly feel more joy. We would feel at peace. Our relationship with Christ would be stronger. And we would grow spiritually.

So how do we implement this Psalm in our lives? 

First, we must pray. Prayer is not something we should do just before bed or at Mass. In order for it to be an integral part of our lives, prayer must be something we do many times throughout the day. We wake up, and we pray. We see something beautiful, and we say a prayer of thanks. We look at our children, our spouse, or a friend, and we thank God for blessing our lives with them. We encounter something irritating or bothersome, and we say a prayer thanking God for being there with us. We suffer, and we offer it up for others, giving praise to God even during the difficult times. When we make praising God a regular part of our day—even for just a few minutes here and there—we will see our attitude change. We will feel happier. And, in turn, we will act happier.

Next, we must continually learn about our faith. We can listen to Catholic podcasts, read books, study Scripture, go to Bible study classes, or watch religious programming. No matter which combination of these we do, our lives will become richer, we will feel closer to God, and our relationship with Him will be strengthened.

In addition, we must surround ourselves with people who exude the joy of Christ. And we must strive to be more like them. Maybe this is a friend, a parent, or a grandparent. Choose someone you want to emulate, and then examine how they act and what they do. Then follow in their footsteps. For me, this is my mom. She has a quiet joy about her—a peace. She proudly stands up for what she believes in, she never stops learning, and she is one of the kindest people I know. Choosing one special person to emulate will make your life richer and will help you focus on praising God more frequently.  

God wants to be close to us. He loves us more than we can ever know. That is why we must put Him first—always and everywhere. 

When we surround ourselves with holy people, when we pray, and when we continually learn about our faith, we can’t help but glorify God in all we do.

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In today’s gospel, Luke tells the story of Jesus healing ten lepers. All the lepers walk away, and only one returns to thank Him. Jesus says to him, “Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”

Imagine being given such a gift and not thanking God for it!

We’re sometimes like the other nine lepers, aren’t we? God has given us so many gifts that we can’t even count them. Our gifts come in varying sizes. Some are tiny, some are huge, and some are in between. Yet we often get so bogged down in our daily lives that we go off and do things and forget to “return” to thank God for all He has given us. 

As we approach Thanksgiving and Advent, let us try something new. Just as we do an examination of conscience before confession, let us do a daily examination of blessings. Maybe we do this every morning, during an afternoon break, or before bed. Or better yet, maybe we keep a notepad nearby and jot down ideas throughout the day. But the point is to focus on the many, many blessings God has given us—and then to simply say “thank You, Lord.”

And as we focus on our blessings, let us also examine our difficulties and thank God for them too, for we can ask Him to help us use them for good. If we let them, our sufferings can turn into blessings. We can use them to grow closer to God. We can use them to grow spiritually or emotionally. We can offer up our sufferings for someone else to lessen his suffering. 

When we open ourselves up to goodness, a whole world of possibilities is available.

And when we do so, our attitude starts to change. We are no longer greedy and seeking “wants” but appreciative that God has taken care of our needs. We no longer see trials and tribulations as things that make us angry or bitter, but as ways to strengthen our relationship with God, as we work together—as a team—to create good.

My parents have a painting that hangs in their kitchen that features an older man praying over a dinner that consists of a simple loaf of bread and some soup. The caption reads: “In everything, give thanks.”

Let that be the principle we live by—today and every day.

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Today, in the Gospel of Mark, we read that the scribes asked Jesus which was the first, or most important, of the commandments. To this, Christ responded: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Love of God and love of our neighbors aren’t simply abstract thoughts or feelings. In order to truly love, we must show that love with our actions. That means that we put Christ first all day, every day. We wake up with a prayer on our lips. We ask God for His help when we need it, but we never forget to whisper prayers of joy, of thanks, or of happiness throughout the day as well. 

And part of showing our love for God is loving those we share the world with. We love our neighbor as we want to be loved. Our neighbors don’t just include the people we like. Our neighbors include every person we encounter. They’re the slow cashier at the grocery store. They’re the grumpy coworker in the next cubicle. They’re the irritable person down the street. 

God didn’t instruct us to be kind and love only our friends. That’s easy! He wants us to be kind to everyone. And when we do, we have the beautiful opportunity to change hearts and minds, to inspire, or to help someone feel important. Too often, people express their sadness or loneliness through negative actions. They’re grumpy or irritable because of something inside that really bothers them or because of the way they’ve been treated by others. It can be very difficult for them to break this cycle when people react to their negativity with negativity.

Sometimes, in order to make a change, people need just one person to treat them with kindness.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch taught Scout an important lesson when he said that we never really understand someone until we “climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Isn’t climbing into someone’s skin—seeing something from his point of view—putting love into action?

When we do this, we show people that they matter. 

As we approach the holidays and Advent, let us remember these two commandments, and let us reflect on the importance of loving others and treating them well. 

We all matter to God. We are all loved by God. And He calls us to help shine His love to others. 

So how will you put love into action today and every day?

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The Responsorial Psalm for today says: “I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in His word. My soul waits for the Lord.”

Trusting in the Lord is often easier said than done. We live in a world filled with people who say things like “Your God must not care if He allowed [fill in the blank] to happen,” or “How could a merciful God allow [fill in the blank]?”

And then we begin to wonder Why does He allow that? It’s almost like those words take over our thoughts and stifle our faith. 

During the easy times in life, trusting in God is easy. But during the hard times in life, trusting in God is difficult. We wonder why He is allowing our suffering or the suffering of others. 

Realistically, suffering is a part of life. It has been a part of life since Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. 

Further, people have choices. And often they make bad choices—choices that hurt others. In addition, diseases, accidents, famine, sickness, and natural disasters happen on a daily basis.

We have to understand that God allows us to endure suffering in this world so that we become stronger and so that we grow closer to spending eternity with Him. When we suffer, we can—and should—unite our suffering to Christ’s on the cross. We can also offer up our suffering for someone else—a soul in purgatory or someone here on earth. When we do this, we grow spiritually. 

But God can—and will—help us make something good happen from the bad. We just have to be open to the good. We have to look at the bad and not allow it to beat us. Sure, we can stumble or even fall for a short period, but it’s that trust in Christ that will help us get back up and that will help us derive something good from the situation. Maybe we learn something. Maybe we can educate someone else. Maybe through the ordeal, we meet a new friend. Maybe we find a disease we didn’t know was there.

This very thing happened to a friend of mine who had been hospitalized with COVID. He struggled greatly with the illness and overcame it, but on a follow-up exam, the doctor found a cancerous mass in his kidney. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he felt grateful—and grateful he had COVID. For had he not had it, the doctors would not have found the cancer. 

Today, he is cancer free, recovering, and very thankful. 

Our God is a wonderful God who leads us out of life’s difficulties and closer to Him. We just need to accept His offer.

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In the Gospel reading today, Jesus ate a meal with a Pharisee. When they sat down to eat, Jesus did not go through the washing ritual that was appropriate for Jews of the time, and the Pharisee commented on it. Jesus replied: “Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.”

Could Christ say that to us?

Could Christ look at us and see a washed, well-groomed body that looks beautiful and spotless but one that is filled with bitterness, anger, resentment, or even hatred?

We all feel those feelings at one time or another. People have hurt us. Their actions have left scars. Because of that, we hold onto anger and can’t seem to let it go. It begins to weigh us down. 

Not only does it weigh us down, but it starts to bubble out of our polished exterior. No matter what we do, it comes out—in both little and big ways. Maybe we’re rude to the cashier at the grocery store. Maybe we’re unkind to a coworker. Maybe we snap at our children or spouse. We don’t mean to, but the festering wounds take over.

It’s so difficult to keep this from happening, and some circumstances require us to seek professional help. 

But sometimes we just need to make a conscious decision to clean the inside, to purge those negative feelings, and to forgive. For that’s what it comes down to—forgiveness. Whether we must forgive ourselves or forgive the person who hurt us—or both—we will feel freer, lighter, and more at peace when we let go of those feelings that keep us from being our best selves.

It’s not easy. In fact, forgiveness is really hard! But it starts with small steps. And it starts with the realization that we are only responsible for our behaviors. We can only control what we do. We cannot control the actions of other people.

So today, think of that person (or people) who has hurt you. Take a deep breath and say aloud: “I forgive you.” And try to mean it. It may take days or weeks of saying these words, but you will soon feel the weight lifted.

You can also seek help in the confessional. Speaking with a priest, telling him that you’re holding onto these feelings, seeking his advice and encouragement and asking God for forgiveness can really go a long way toward actually forgiving someone. Tell him you’re having a difficult time. Ask for his prayers.

But most important of all, ask God for His help. Tell Him you want to forgive, that you want all those negative feelings on the inside to be washed away. Tell Him that you are trying to make the inside as clean as the outside. 

God is there with open arms. He will help you. You just need to ask. 

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The Responsorial Psalm for today talks about hope in the Lord. It implores: “Do me justice, O God, and fight my fight against a faithless people.”

It seems our world today is full of faithless people—people who place possessions over others, people who devalue human beings, people who spend days mired in anger, people anonymously spitting vitriol online, and so much more.

We see them and their behaviors, and it literally hurts.  

But the Lord wants us to remember to always have hope in Him and hope that our culture can return to a culture of life. 

He knows how tired we get. He knows the weariness of living in a world where human beings rejoice at the “right” to kill vulnerable people—whether they be in the womb or a hospital bed. He understands that sometimes we have no fight left in us to battle the evil of today. 

But the Psalm continues: “You, O God, are my strength.”

And in that, we must rejoice! Like a cold drink of water on an extraordinarily hot day, that realization renews us.

What an amazing feeling it is to know that God wants us to lean on Him. He wants us to seek Him out when we feel like we have nothing left to give others. 

So that is what we do. We go to Him in prayer. We sit quietly in Adoration. We say a decade of the Rosary. We read His words in the Bible. We talk to Him like a friend.

And we become energized. We realize that hope is more than just wishing for things to change. Hope is rooted in Christ.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can put away the hopelessness we feel and replace it with hope. We can stop looking at all the negative things in this world and create positive things. We can stop focusing on evil and instead be that source of good that the world so desperately needs.

In short, we must stop allowing the bad things of the world to consume us. Christ does not want that for us. That is why He gives us strength. That is why He wants us to have hope. 

So when you feel weary, when you feel exhausted, or when you look around at the world and feel utterly hopeless, remember that Christ fights for us, and He will never stop. His love is unending, and you matter to Him. We all do.

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In the Gospel reading today, we hear a very fitting line for 9/11: “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil.”

Today, we remember with incredible sadness the events of 20 years ago, where evil took so many lives.

That day, and on every anniversary since, the people of this country have mourned as one. The tangible evidence of evil and hatred took root in our hearts that day, leaving us shaken and unable to forget what happens when evil rules.

But evil doesn’t have to have the last word. Nor does it have to rule us.

There were so many heroes that day—too many to count. But we thank God for them. And we know that we must focus on their actions as examples of what humanity is capable of rather than on the wicked actions of terrorists.

Through tears of grief, many of us found that we could lean on our families, lean on each other, and lean on God. We found that we didn’t want to allow evil to take hold. And we found that we can create good from something horrific.

So we take action to make today a brighter day because of the heroes. We make the world—or our small part of it—kinder so that we honor them and their sacrifice. 

And we hope that this day becomes so much more than a remembrance of evil. We hope that it becomes a celebration of the people we lost that day and a celebration of the heroic acts of so many. And we hope that it serves as a reminder that life is short, that life is precious, and that God wants us to shine forth His goodness no matter what happens in life.

This day has become bittersweet in my family, for it is also my dad’s birthday. But since that day in 2001, I get the feeling that he doesn’t like to celebrate. Maybe he thinks: How can I be happy on the day something horrible happened?

I’m sure that is the feeling of anyone who remembers that day and who also shares a birthday today. It’s only natural to think that. 

But we cannot allow the hatred of terrorists to outshine the life and love of people in our families. The celebration of someone’s birth is a tremendous blessing. And if we allow evil to take over a day so special, then the terrorists truly are winning.

So as we reflect on this tragic day, let us remember that a store of goodness produces good. Let us be that goodness—to our families, to our coworkers, to strangers, and even to people we don’t like—so that it can spring forth and bless the world around us.

And let us never forget to celebrate the lives of the people we love!

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The First Reading for today is from Colossians, and it’s just one sentence long. But it’s a powerful and thought-provoking sentence. In part, it reads: “You once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds; God has now reconciled you in the fleshly body of Christ through His death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before Him, provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.”

Let us take just a few moments throughout the day today to reflect on that fact. Indeed, God sent His Son here to redeem us. He didn’t do this because we deserved it; He did it out of pure love. 

God’s love for us is so powerful, so unending, and so beautiful that He allowed His Son to die a horribly painful death on the cross for us. 

Despite this knowledge, and despite this immense gift God gave us, we sometimes reject His gift. We permit worldly things to come before Him, allowing them to hurt the relationship Christ sought to establish when He came.

Furthermore, we know that what we must do for Christ and what we actually do are often two very different things. We know that, as St. Paul says, we must “persevere in the faith,” but we find ourselves ensnared by sin, falling repeatedly into the same worldly traps of vice. Though we don’t have the same kinds of idols that the people of the Old Testament had, we do have the idols of society today. And often they do get in the way of our relationship with Christ and keep us from persevering in faith. 

These things include the trappings of modern life like the Internet, TV, video games or games on our phones, and so forth. Or maybe these “idols” are more serious addictions like drugs, alcohol, gambling, or something else. 

Anything that we put first or before Christ is an idol that keeps us from persevering and firmly grounding ourselves in our faith. They take us back to the time where mankind was alienated because of evil deeds.

The amazing thing is that we have the power to stop this alienation. We can decide to make changes anytime we want. It begins with identifying these “idols” and demoting them. Unless they are seriously hurting us or our relationships with others, we don’t have to totally give up things we enjoy, but we must not allow ourselves to be consumed by them. 

God must always come first in our lives. 

So, starting today, let us reflect on our lives and on what the “idols” are that we must reject so that we can start rebuilding and renewing our relationship with Christ. 

He’s waiting with open arms.

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