Fr. Paul's Meditations for Church Year C

Third Sunday After Pentecost: Jesus took legalistic words and gave them the grace meaning to consciously feel the difference being in the Presence of God in Him. Legalism and grace work in opposite ways to get into God’s grace. See James 2:10 Legalism is idolatry, depending on something outside ourselves to get what God has already given to us inside our selves. Grace is self-correcting.  Read more

A centurion’s servant was about to die. The centurion sent some elders of the Jews to Jesus, asking Him to come and heal his servant. When they came, they pleaded earnestly with Jesus, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” The centurion told Jesus just to say the word and his servant would be healed. Jesus said, “I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” The servant was found healed. Is this the same Centurion as in Acts 10:1? It tells us of a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.  Read more

Second Sunday After Pentecost: Jesus took legalistic words and gave them the grace meaning to consciously feel the difference being in the Presence of God rather than rationally thinking out. What we value determines who we are. Rationally we value the external physical things around us. Jesus teaches us to value the spiritual things we feel within us.   Read more

Most people have a better knowledge and experience with God the Creator and Jesus the Savior than the Holy Spirit the giver of Truth. Trinity Sunday is a time to emphasize the Spirit. St. Augustine wrote that the first two thousand years were the years of the Father. The next two thousand years were the years of The Son. He then prophesied that the third two thousand years will be the years of the Holy Spirit. We are now at the very start of the coming Age of the Holy Spirit.  Read more

Trinity Sunday: Jesus took legalistic words and gave them the grace meaning to consciously feel the difference being in the Presence of God rather than rationally thinking out.   Read more

It has been almost a year since I was inspired to start the Bottom Line Meditations series for your study. In this series, my desire has been to lead you to the “how” to unlock the Gospel secrets of spirituality. Recently, I received inspiration that it is time to “upgrade” the focus of the Bottom Line Meditation series from discovering spirituality to understanding the grace language of Jesus. Perhaps I could call this spirituality 2.0! Or, probably more appropriately, you have graduated from undergraduate spirituality school and are now beginning your graduate studies on spirituality.   Read more

Pentecost. The need to witness today is the same as it was in the time of the first disciples. How we witness must be updated. We have computers, cell phones, Facebook, Twitter. How do we utilize them to witness? We need to make a paradigm shift. It is called DISCIPLE‑SHIFT. The DISCIPLE‑SHIFT offers an inventive way to grow spiritually and to witness to others about the grace of God within us all.  Read more

Pentecost: What we value determines who we are. Rationally we first value the external physical things we see around us. Jesus teaches us to first value the spiritual things we sense within us. (Luke 12:31)   Read more

Seventh Sunday of Easter. Rationally, this prayer is the Mother Lode. It is filled with golden nuggets. It would take a theologian a life time to mine the nuggets and still they would not have come near the finish. It is really loaded. Spiritually it raises some real questions. Who wrote it? Jesus never wrote anything.  Read more

Seventh Sunday of Easter: Worldly believes rationally to be saved. Godly experiences belief spiritually to be saved. Worldly believes righteousness is doing the right thing. Godly believes being in a right relationship with Jesus, you will do the right thing.   Read more