Be strong, do not fear! I don’t know a single person who doesn’t need to hear these words. This has been such a challenging couple of years for all of us. Besides the obvious looming struggle with the pandemic and its accompanying issues, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t experienced additional challenges. That’s life in some ways — the pandemic has in many ways amplified those challenges, but they were with us before that.


I remember the first time I heard this exhortation from scripture — be not afraid! I was 16 years old, at a pilgrimage to Rome with over a million other young people as part of World Youth Day. I was there not because of any faith or conviction, but because I loved the idea of a trip to Italy and the related travel. I had been confirmed and was right on track to check out of Church as soon as my parents looked the other way. But there was this trip and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. So, I kept playing Church so that I could go on the trip. The decision to go on that trip was then followed by chaos in my life. I was hit by a car while crossing the street (which payed for the trip), there was drama at home and at school. Several friends experienced acute depressive episodes. High school was challenging.


I left for Rome tired, overwhelmed, and anxious, but also excited to have this break from everything. I threw myself into the fun as much as I could, but even then was experiencing it from the outside. A new friend pointed out I was taking pictures of everything, but that I wasn’t taking any with me in them. The trip had started out like an out of body experience. I was playing the part of a pilgrim — making new friends, taking the requisite pictures — but wasn’t allowing myself to really be present to the moment.


After a bit of touristy stuff, we went to an event where Pope John Paul II was speaking to the attendees, offering encouragement in various languages. It had been chaotic trying to get there. A few of us didn’t make it into the square but wandered around until we found a spot with a loud speaker. We got there in time to hear his English remarks, which included the powerful declaration, “Do not be afraid!”. I don’t know what it was, but those words disarmed me. They soaked into my very soul. It was in that moment that I was afraid of everything — being hurt, losing the people I loved, allowing myself to be free, allowing myself to let God in. When the Pope said those words, I began my journey to listening, and later believing in God. They changed me from the outside in. Ever since then, when I face the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of life, I try to face them in the spirit of that moment. God, through His servant, invited me to be free of fear. May I always have the courage to live in that moment.




Stephanie Potter

I sometimes live — act, behave — out of my brokenness. The things that come from within sometimes defile me — and I find myself wondering how they got there. 

As I grow into my identity as a daughter of God, I see more and more the ways in which I have been, and continue to be, encouraged by the norms of society and by people around me, to embrace evil intentions. I also see the ways in which the purity of my heart has been wounded, either by others or by my own actions, and evil intentions have sprung up from those wounds. 

I believe that, as Jesus says here, none of these societal norms or heart wounds have defiled me in and of themselves. What strikes me is that even though there was a long time when I didn’t know it, what to do with these things is ultimately a choice that belongs to me.  

But if I were to stop there, I would easily become overwhelmed! Some heart wounds, some bodily wounds, some events of my life and the lives of those around me, have effects that seem so far beyond our control that it seems almost ridiculous that we have any choice in the matter. Even still, I said I believe the choice belongs to me, and that is true.

I believe this because of the clue that Jesus gives us here as He quotes the prophet Isaiah: “This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” 

Whether I bring my heart near to Him is ultimately a choice that belongs to me. Whether to bring Him my pain, my guilt, my shame, my anger, my hopelessness, my fear, and even my joy, is a choice that belongs to me. 

It is our choice whether to bring to Him the injustice, suffering, and violence we witness and experience as we go about our lives. He can handle it — indeed, He can change our perspective, He can lend us strength, He can send us people to help us and even to speak to us on His behalf. 

He can heal our hearts, and He can clean our hands.




​Lindsay Elford
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As part of my healing journey, I had to learn that most people are well-intentioned. If given the choice, most people, including myself, would choose to do what is loving and helpful to others. Unfortunately, sometimes our good intentions get mistranslated by fears, insecurities, unresolved trauma, and by the way we believe the world, and people, work. As a result, what starts off as a desire to introduce good into the world, can be transformed into actions that produce the exact opposite.

In this week’s second reading, I was reminded that God alone exists with perfect intention. His pure and good desire is expressed perfectly, and the challenge, as I’ve experienced it, has been to attune myself to understand and recognize it.

Living Christ’s teachings has been an essential component of my attunement process. Pushing myself outside of my pre-conceived ideas and expectations and then watching the outcome — not only as it plays out around me, but also the consequences within myself — has been deeply informative. I’ve become aware of many hidden and mistaken beliefs I’ve had about the way the world works, including myself and my place in it, and I’ve also learned that even the smallest of gestures can produce an abundance of good.

Trusting in God has been another important component. Particularly when it comes to facing my fears, trusting that God is looking out for me and that He’s working behind the scenes to make something good come out of my imperfect actions, gives me the reassurance I need to let go of the desire to control situations, and other people’s perceptions of me. As a consequence, I’ve been able to make choices and act in ways that would have been too overwhelming and frightening for me otherwise.

Hardest of all but likely the foundation for everything else, is believing that I am intentionally made, for good and to do good, and am deserving of love, kindness, and compassion. In other words, receiving God’s love, not only by believing that He loves me, but also by loving myself with gentleness, compassion, and mercy, has introduced new ways to act in my everyday life. Choosing to believe the best about myself, choosing to give myself the benefit of the doubt, choosing not to burden myself with unrealistic expectations about how I should look, act, and feel, gives me the mindset to make those same choices about others. Receiving God’s love has taught me that the only way that I can be sure my actions actually produce joy, love, and peace in others, is by experiencing the joy, love, and peace they produce in me when I enact them upon myself.

Also, by knowing that I’m deserving of love, I’ve learned not to take others’ unloving actions personally, regardless of their intentions. I no longer search for a problem in me that causes them to act the way they do because I now know that there is none, and that’s true for all of us.




Laura Dysart

What does it mean to have integrity? I suppose if a person is perfectly integrated, they are a complete whole. Without fragmentation or duplicity, those with integrity live simply—undivided from Goodness. When I think of integrity, the Eucharist comes to mind. In a simple, unbroken circle of Bread, we find the opportunity for a deeper integration with our true selves because of the consumption of the One who is True. This ongoing communion with Christ, whether through the sacrament, or in walking with Him in prayer and practice, is our only way through to the sacred wholeness of the virtue of integrity. Because integrity doesn’t simply involve being integrated, it involves acting it out with others.


This Sunday, we commemorate the Passion of Saint John the Baptist. Though certainly a well integrated man—certain of his purpose, and walking through his life pointing to Christ all along the way—he was not perfect. Perhaps at times, he could have enacted the virtue of gentleness (Think: When he called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” in Matthew 12:34). Even so, we can speak truth in love and gentleness, but many will still be repulsed by it. According to Adam Young in his podcast, The Place We Find Ourselves, it is a wicked person who is repulsed by truth. He says, “If you confront a wicked person about their sin or failure—instead of examining their heart and feeling sorrow and guilt for how they have hurt you—a wicked person will somehow shift the blame onto your failure and your sin.” This has been my experience at times, and it was John the Baptist’s experience with the Pharisees as well. But John didn’t pull back from his convictions, he “[stood] by [his] oath, even to [his] hurt.”


“John boldly stood up to Herod about Herod’s immoral relationship with Herodias, evidently rebuking Herod about this multiple times.

Matthew 14:4 – For John had been saying to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

It was extremely dangerous to take such a bold public stand against such a powerful man who had the authority to arrest and kill you. The result was John’s arrest and subsequent murder. This account shows us again his great example of courage. He spoke forth the truth even when it was dangerous. He did not sugar coat it, or hide it. He said what needed to be said. He stood on what was right and didn’t compromise.” (John the Baptist Character Bible Study Background and Lessons)


Living with integrity doesn’t mean never faltering or messing things up. It definitely doesn’t mean never hurting others, because at times, pain is necessary to reveal the truth (And personally, I would rather suffer the pain of truth than be deceived by what is hidden). It simply requires the regular examination of our intentions, and an extension of our selves to repair any fragmentations when it is prudent to do so. The simplicity in this formula, though we humans are quite complicated, lies in its solution: Jesus. The one fully integrated being. The One with arms held wide, ready to embrace us regardless of the number of times we splinter. And as John the Baptist did, the quicker we point our lives back to Him, the more readily we will become integrated in Him.




Lori MacDonald