Find Jesus in the Storms

Deacon Kevin Gingras

Aug 9th, 2026

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080926.cfm

1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a       Psalm 85:9, 10, 11-12, 13-14 

Romans 9:1-5      Matthew 14:22-33   

When I go too long without confession - I start to sink.  When I go too long without time in adoration - I start to sink.  When my prayer life is scattered and not focused - I start to sink. When I focus too much on the storms of the world around me instead of Jesus - I start to sink.  For a moment, think about what, in your life, takes your focus off of Christ and causes you to sink.

Remember, when you go to confession, the priest is in the person of Christ; in the confessional you are reaching out to Christ as Peter did and crying out “Lord, save me!”  That’s just what Jesus does through the priest as he says: “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  

Adoration is another life preserver that is at our disposal when we start to sink.  Remember how Elijah found the LORD.  The LORD was not in the strong and heavy wind.  The LORD was not in the earthquake.  The LORD was not in the fire; no, the LORD was in the tiny whispering sound. I find that the quiet of our adoration chapel is where I can hear that tiny whisper.  Where the noise of the world around me subsides in the true presence of Christ, even if just for an hour or so, so that I can hear the voice of the LORD speaking to me as I pray.

My prayer life always needs work; it’s another area that might cause me to sink.  There are times I feel I only give God the last few moments of my day when I’m tired and not really focused.  It’s something that I once confessed to a priest many years ago, and he knew, based on my confession, that I had a wife and kids and a full-time job.  He told me that those things are also my prayer life.  I must bring Jesus into those moments as well.  If all I did was to spend all day in prayer and adoration, I’d lose my job, my kids wouldn’t know me, and my wife would not be too pleased.  He told me to pray about ways to bring Jesus into all the areas of my life.  I needed this advice, especially when I went to work.  A month or so before this confession, a guy in the office was talking about his son getting Confirmed.  My boss said to ask Kevin; he’s “wicked” Catholic.  The man responded, “Oh, I didn’t even know he was religious!”  The words cut to my heart!  At the time, I thought I was very religious, teaching confirmation, helping with youth ministry and VBS and all that.  Clearly, I left Jesus in the car when I went into the office. I was sinking all day long! Fortunately, Jesus was my life preserver, and when I reached out to Him, He saved me.  Now I make sure that everyone in the office knows I’m “wicked religious”!

Correcting these little errors in our lives can make us spiritually strong for the big storms that will come. They will,  because life inevitably brings storms: storms of illness, grief, uncertainty, family struggles, and fear.  It is then that we really have to work hard to focus on Christ.  Back in 2015, just as I was starting the diaconate, I thought for sure it would be smooth sailing in my life as I was answering God’s call.  Alas, that wasn’t to be so!  There was a bad mental health crisis in my family, my father was dying, and my bank account was gasping for help; we were bordering on bankruptcy.  Each week as I went to put gas in my car, I pleaded with God to let my bank card work so I could fill up and drive to work.   There was even one night I went to angry adoration.  I was mad at God!  I was answering a clear calling to become a deacon; why wasn’t it smooth sailing?  I brought all those storms to some quiet time in adoration so I could hear what the Lord had to say. I went in angry with God but was soon at peace.  The peace of knowing that a sailor doesn’t learn how to sail with no wind on a calm lake.  My gaze focused back on Jesus, away from the storm for a while. Jesus calmed that storm inside of me, not the storm outside. It was exactly what I needed; I was assured all would be ok. 

A few days later, I had to pull my brothers aside to tell them why I wasn’t at the hospital by my mom’s side as much while my father was dying because of this other family crisis. They asked me how I was getting through all of this.  Jesus - that was my one-word answer.  Jesus was getting me through this storm.  

  When we hit the storms of life, we are in good company!  Saint Paul lamented to the Romans in our second reading that he had “great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart”.  Paul’s mission did not give him clear skies and calm seas!  Our storms aren’t always taken away, but with Christ and the Sacraments we can better navigate the storms, learn from them, and offer them up in prayer.  

This week, think about where we can focus our eyes better on Jesus in the storms.  Where can we find Him waiting to rescue us?  Confession?  Adoration?  Quiet prayer at home? Here at Mass? 

St Padre Pio reminds us:

The storms that are raging around you will turn out to be for God's glory, your own merit, and the good of many souls.

We Are All Connected to Each Other

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

April 13, 2025

Palm Sunday

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041325.cfm

Procession with palms: Luke 19:28-40

Isaiah 50:4-7   Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24

Philippians 2:6-11    Luke 22:14—23:56

And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’  Mathew 25:40

When praying about today’s Gospel that scripture verse would not get out of my head.  It was clear the Holy Spirit was nudging me.  I didn’t know why at first but after praying over it I realized I live some days like today's Gospel storyline.

I wake up, praise God for the day, and thank Him for keeping me safe through the night.  As I prepare for the day I keep God on my mind, in prayer and thanksgiving.  Jesus is my King for the day, I’m throwing my cloak on the road for Him! Blessed is the King and all that!  Next, I get in my car, I start the rosary and then it all falls apart as I merge onto Route 24 and head to work.  Crucify Him! Crucify Him! I think as that person cuts me off on the road or tailgates me as I drive in the middle lane.

and the Lord turned and looked at Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.  He went out and began to weep bitterly.

I get into the office and I do a "sort of" spiritual reset. I recite the Liturgy of the Hours and morning prayer, and then I set my eyes on God again.  I get a new task to work on, it’s from that person that just really annoys me - the cycle starts again!  Now I know why that scripture came to me so quickly:

And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

I’m not really living up to what Paul writes to the Philippians (2:5):

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus

Through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, we are all connected to Jesus, even those who deny Him.  Therefore, if we are all connected to Jesus, then we are all connected to each other.

As we begin Holy Week let us put ourselves aside and truly strive to love everyone we encounter this week on our way towards the Triduum.  

As Saint John the Apostle said: 

No one can love God whom they have not seen if they do not love their brother who they have seen.

Trust in Jesus Loving Forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession

 Deacon Kevin Gingras

February 9th, 2025

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020925.cfm

Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8     Psalm 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8

1 Corinthians 15:1-11    Luke 5:1-11

Peter fell to his knees as he exclaimed: 

"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."   

Isaiah says:

"Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Paul tells the Corinthians:

Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

It’s this kind of unworthiness thinking that almost kept me from the call to the Diaconate. To take today’s readings out of context like I just did is to be cheated of the truth.  That’s what Satan does to us. He lies to us. He points out only our failings, sins, and faults to make us feel unworthy. Satan knows our names but calls us by our sins.  God knows our sins but calls us by our names.

So instead, let’s finish those lines from today and see what God did for them.  First Isaiah:

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it, and said, "See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?" "Here I am," I said; "send me!"

Now Paul to the Corinthians:

But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective. Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them; not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.

Finally, Jesus says to Peter:

"Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men." When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. 

Being passionate about fishing that last one really gets to me!  Anyway, Isaiah, Paul, and Peter’s lament haunted me when I began the diaconate. They reminded me of my past sins and my unworthiness for the call. At times, they almost made me give up! I sometimes needed that reminder that Jesus doesn't call only the qualified or the perfect; he calls each of us in our ordinary lives, with our flaws and imperfections. He invites us to follow him, leave our comfort zones, and embark on a journey of faith and mission.

Have any of you ever played video games and been doing well on your mission when suddenly, out of nowhere, somebody walks in (for me, it was usually one of my kids) and terminates your character?  It’s okay, you’ve got extra lives, so you can respawn and continue playing!  

Sometimes I wish life had a reset or respawn button when your quest is going well.  Well, it does, as Catholics, we call it confession.

Here are a few thoughts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on confession - first is why we need confession after Baptism since Baptism removes original sin:

CCC 1426 Nevertheless, the new life received in Christian initiation has not abolished the frailty and weakness of human nature, nor the inclination to sin that tradition calls concupiscence... This is the struggle of conversion directed toward holiness and eternal life to which the Lord never ceases to call us.

Concupiscence is the big Catholic word of the week.  Our tendency, even after baptism, is to find sin still attractive at times, and even alluring.

Next from the Catechism is how often should we go to confession:

CCC 1457 each of the faithful is bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins at least once a year." Anyone who is aware of having committed a mortal sin must not receive Holy Communion, even if he experiences deep contrition, without having first received sacramental absolution 

As we reflect on this Gospel, let us ask for the grace to hear Jesus' call to repentance in our lives, trust in his loving forgiveness in the sacrament of confession and respond with open hearts and willing spirits. May we, like Simon Peter and the apostles, become fishers of men, bringing others closer to God's love and mercy.

Remember these words from St. John Paul II:

Confession is an act of honesty and courage – an act of entrusting ourselves, beyond sin, to the mercy of a loving and forgiving God.

Use the Holy Spirit as our guide

Deacon Kevin Gingras

May 19, 2024

Pentecost Sunday

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051924-Vigil.cfm

Gn 11:1-9     Ps 104:1-2, 24, 35, 27-28, 29, 30

Rom 8:22-27     Jn 7:37-39

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/pentecost-sunday-mass-during-day

Acts 2:1-11      Ps 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34

1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13    Jn 20:19-23

When we adopted our daughter Faith from China we started in America with China Adoptions with Love. They were one of our guides in this overall process getting us to the point where we finally went to China.  Once there, we went to three major cities.  

In Beijing, we were a group of ten American families and we were tourists for that leg of our journey. The entire time we were there we had a guide who would translate anything we needed, answer questions, and help us understand the culture and history of China in the places we visited such as Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden or Temple Gardens, and the Great Wall.

Wuhan was the next city.  Only Allison and I traveled there and that was where we met Faith, our daughter.  We had our own personal guide there who helped us with adoption-related things like going to the agency and being able to understand what the man there was explaining.  She was also helpful when I had to go to two Chinese banks to exchange our 5,000 US Dollars for Chinese Yuan.  I even had to open a bank account for a few hours to do one exchange so you could say I’m a worldwide banker now!

In Guangzhou, the families met back up and we all shared a guide. She was very helpful with our clinic visits when the kids needed shots and checkups.  Our guide was also helpful in getting our issues fixed when it was realized Faith’s birth certificate was wrong. Without our guides in China, we would have been lost and could easily have failed in our adoption process! 

The Apostles also needed an earthly guide that Jesus promised to send in John 14:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.

That first Pentecost is when the Spirit, comes to them, to guide them out of their fear and hiding and to go boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone.  Without this guide, the Church would have never been born. Pentecost is the birth of the Catholic Church and at the first Pentecost Peter gave quite the homily:

Peter testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.

I’d be happy if one of my homilies got two or three people to be baptized, imagine three thousand!  Anyway… the Holy Spirit has played, and still plays a huge role in the Church.

In Luke, we read how the word became flesh, and how Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit:

the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

Matthew tells us how the entire trinity was present at the Baptism of the Lord:

After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Holy Spirit, through the priest, comes down, in a special way, at this mass and all mass throughout the world at the epiclesis, where the priest joins his hands and, holding them extended over the offerings of bread and wine, he says:

Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts that we have brought you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ…

Now comes the big question for us - How do we use the Holy Spirit as our guide through our journey on this crazy Earth?  How does the Spirit guide us to our ultimate, - please God - destination of Heaven?

Using the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, we can indeed be guided towards our goal.  Wisdom gives the ability to see God at work in the world.  Understanding helps us realize how we need to live as Christ’s followers.  Counsel lets us see right from wrong.  Fortitude helps us take risks as Christ's disciples and live as Christians even when it’s not easy.  Knowledge helps us better understand what God means to us.  Piety gives us the respect we need for God, the Church, and the Eucharist.  Fear of the Lord reminds us to be aware of the glory and the majesty of God.

Pray to the Holy Spirit to be your guide on earth.  Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you remain holy and humble.  Pray to the Holy Spirit for the strengthening of all seven gifts in your life.  Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you on your journey to Heaven.

I always end with a quote and today I have to leave you with this quote from St. Ephram because in my opinion he kind of sounds like Yoda when he says:

Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy. Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Spirit and raises man to Heaven. 

Fishers of Men

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

January 21, 2024

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012124.cfm

Jon 3:1-5, 10    Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9

1 Cor 7:29-31   Mk 1:14-20

Follow me and I will make you fishers of men - boy have I been waiting to preach on this Gospel for a long time so let’s get right into our first reading. Jonah was called to be fishers of the entire city of Nineveh.  We all know that story, he refused to fish for people so a large fish fished for him instead!  Ultimately he he did go to Nineveh, prophesied about the destruction of Nineveh and they all repented and lived happily ever after…well, they weren’t destroyed immediately, not yet, that happened in 612 B.C. by the Medes around 140 years after Jonah.

We now go to today’s Gospel, John has recently been arrested and Jesus is about to bring John’s preaching to the next level, it’s time to proclaim the gospel of the Son of God, the Evangelium, the words of the very Son of God.  Jesus sees Simon and Andrew and speaks to them one of my favorite lines in scripture:

"Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men."

They immediately do just that!  God bless them for that, I probably wouldn't have been so quick to drop what I was doing to follow Jesus to become fishers of men, especially if the bass were hitting that day.  I probably would have said, “Be right there Jesus, just one more cast”! 

Our first reading from Jonah foreshadows the eventual successful preaching and teaching of Jesus and his apostles to sinners and Gentiles.  This preaching is just beginning in today’s Gospel.  They were indeed to become fishers of many men, women, and children.

By our Baptism, we are reborn as members of Christ’s Church.  As members of this Church, the Catechism tells us (1267):

Its mission is to be the salt of the earth and light of the world. This people is “a sure seed of unity, hope, and salvation for the whole human race”.

Further along, when talking of Baptism the Catechism states (785):

 "The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office," above all in the supernatural sense of faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy … when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ's witness in the midst of this world.

It is a difficult world to do that in but think back to Jesus, Peter, and the Apostles, it was even tougher back then, all but one of them were put to death for preaching the Good News!

Now about that whole fishers of men/people thing.  How does one go about that and what does that have to do with today?  I want to talk a bit about a fly fishing phrase: “Matching the hatch” and a day I was fishing the Battenkill River in Vermont.  The phrase matching the hatch means the fake fly you tie to your line should look like whatever the trout are eating that day, whatever bug is hatching.  Most bugs spend their infancy living in the water, come to the top of the river, and “hatch” by sprouting their wings and flying about for a bit to mate and die within a day or two.  What a life!

Several years ago one of my employees was an avid and experienced fly fisher.  He taught me a lot about the sport (yes, fishing IS a sport, so therefore I’m an athlete).  He had booked a trip to Vermont to fish the Battenkill and invited me to go.  I got there a day earlier than everyone else to scout out the area.  My first stop was a local fly shop to get my license.  I also asked the man working there what the trout would be eating for the weekend.  He showed me two hand-tied flies that should do the trick.  I bought 10 of each and excitedly hit the river.  The first fly I tried seemed to do the trick and I was quickly getting hits (and lots of misses) and even managed to land a few.  Suddenly around three pm, I got to witness a massive hatch.  The fly I was using matched perfectly to what was suddenly buzzing all around me by the thousands!  The fish were going crazy!  Thanks to that guy at the shop I had a great night fly fishing and indeed matched the hatch!

Ok, back to God and Jesus and all that again (however I could talk about fishing all day)!  We too are all called to be fishers of men and women by our baptism.  We are grafted on to Christ and His Church and must participate in its mission.  From the Catechism 849:

The missionary mandate. "Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men"

To catch men and women we must match the hatch!  What lures do we have to do this?  The first lure we should use must be our joy in the message and hope of Jesus Christ.  The joy and hope of our salvation.  This lure of joy, sadly, I tend to leave in my fly box far too much!  We should be so joyful that people want what it is we have, they want to have what Catholics have.  

The second fly in the box we must use is the truth.  We need to always teach and speak the truth to others, the truth of how Jesus Christ is our salvation.  The truth of what Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels. Put the lures of truth and joy together and it’s a winning combination for sure!

Don’t be afraid to talk about the truth and joy of our faith. Remember, none of us are all-knowing experts.  We are all walking the road to our salvation together, share that journey with as many people as you can and share it joyfully!

Mother Teresa of Calcutta tells us:

"Joy is prayer–Joy is strength–Joy is love–Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls…. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Christ risen.”