​The readings for this weekend bring forth a difficult message about the need for decisive and sometimes drastic decisions that discipleship requires. Elisha had to abandon his peaceful farming occupation to become a prophet. Paul had to renounce a way of life rooted entirely in the Jewish law. Jesus made his own difficult decision to face the cross that waited for him in Jerusalem. 

​The word heart is used over 1000 times in the Scriptures. The wonder of revelation is that God has a great Heart for us. He cares for us a million times more than we would dare believe! This amazing love and devotion for us is demonstrated in today’s Solemnity of the Sacred Heart. Today’s readings focus on the love God has for those whom he has called to be in relationship with himself.  

​Today we celebrate the solemnity of the most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. A little story can help us enter into the historical aspects of this feast and to see why it was instituted.

​There’s a story about Phillip, a young boy who goes and climbs up a mountain in what is now Turkey. He meets Evagrius of Pontus, a Greek monk of the 4th century. And the boy wakes the monk up because the monk is half asleep. And the monk says, “What can I do for you, young man?” And he says, “I want you to explain God for me.” And the monk smiles and he says, “God cannot be grasped by the mind. If God could be grasped, he is not a God that you should worship.” And he smiled and went back to sleep.

​Today we celebrate Pentecost – the coming of the Holy Spirit, the birthday of the church, the end of the Easter season. Pentecost comes from a Jewish harvest festival called Shavuot. It represents the first fruits gathered as the result of labor of those who completed the spring grain harvests. God chose the first Pentecost after Jesus Christ’s resurrection to demonstrate that God is harvesting the first fruits who came into the Kingdom as a result of Peter's preaching that day.