Our Lady of the Valley Parish, Hornell

05/08/2026

When Robert Francis Prevost stepped onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica one year ago May 8, he carried with him a piece of paper on which he had carefully written the first words he would utter as Pope Leo XIV. His first speech was, in ways that would only become clear over the year that followed, a preview of what was to come.

“Peace be with you all,” the newly elected Pope Leo said.

Get the rest of the story: https://catholiccourier.com/articles/pope-leos-first-words-were-a-roadmap-for-his-first-year/

05/08/2026

Friday, May 8, 2026
Fifth Week of Easter
John 15:12–17

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us his friends.

Psychologists tell us that a true friend is someone who has seen us at our worst and still loves us. If you have encountered me only on my best days, I have no guarantee that you are my friend. But when you have dealt with me when I am most obnoxious and you still love me, then I am sure that you are my friend.

The old gospel song says, “What a friend we have in Jesus!” This is not pious sentimentalism; it is the heart of the matter. What the first Christians saw in the dying and rising of Jesus is that we killed God, and God returned in forgiving love. He saw us at our very worst and loved us anyway.

Thus they saw confirmed in flesh and blood what Jesus had said the night before he died: “I no longer call you slaves. . . . I have called you friends.” They realized, in the drama of the paschal mystery, that we have not only been shown a new way; we have been drawn into a new life, a life of friendship with God.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

05/07/2026

Many people eat whatever is leftover in the refrigerator and call it “Leftover Night.” As frugal newlyweds, Ed and I saved and ate our leftover food on what we creatively called “Buffet Night.”

Read the rest of the latest "To Have and To Hold" blog from Leonor Rivera here: https://catholiccourier.com/articles/familys-leftovers-tradition-sparks-gratitude-for-many-things/

05/07/2026

05/07/2026

Thursday, May 7, 2026
Fifth Week of Easter
John 15:9–11

Friends, the two most important words in our Gospel today are joy and commandments. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” And “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.”

These are not terms that we would readily juxtapose. We usually associate commandments with the carrying out of duty and responsibility, or with moral rectitude, and that normally seems opposed to joy.

However, in Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of human behavior, the first question raised is not about law or virtue, but rather joy. Thomas wonders what the nature of true happiness is. What all of us seek, whether we are young or old, Christian or non-Christian, male or female, rich or poor, is joy.

The whole point of the moral life is to make us happy. So how do we become happy? Thomas’s answer, which is in line with the great tradition, is through the proper ordering of one’s desire, through learning how to desire the right things and in the right way. And that’s precisely what Jesus commands us to do.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

05/06/2026

Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Fifth Week of Easter
John 15:1–8

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that he is the vine and we are the branches who must remain in him. If we ourselves do not participate in who Jesus was, we miss the spiritual power that he meant to unleash.

If John’s Gospel is any indication, Jesus does not want merely worshippers but followers, or better, participants: “I am the vine, you are the branches; remain in me; my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink; whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”

The beautifully organic images that John presents are meant, it seems to me, to communicate the life-changing power of the incarnation: the Logos became flesh, our flesh, so that we might allow the divine energy to come to birth in us.

Much of this is summed up in the oft-repeated patristic adage that God became human that humans might become God. Many of our great theologians and spiritual masters speak unselfconsciously of “divinization”—that is to say, a sharing in the symbiosis that is the incarnation—as the proper goal of human life.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

05/05/2026

Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Fifth Week of Easter
John 14:27–31a

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus promises his second coming.

In one sense, Christianity is a religion of fulfillment (the Lord has come), but in another sense, it is a religion of waiting, for we expect the second coming of Jesus in the fullness of his power. We wait and watch and keep vigil.

What we all know is that great things take time. When a kid comes to an artist’s studio to apprentice, he has to submit to a long and difficult discipline; when a young man enters a monastery or a seminary, he has to do a lot of waiting; when a woman becomes pregnant, she has to wait nine long months before the baby is ready; when a gardener works, he waits and watches and cultivates; when an author writes a book, he has to let it come on its own terms and in its own time.

“How long does this analysis take?” a woman asked Carl Jung. He replied, “Just as long as it takes.” Gestation, growth. So we endure the harsh and the sweet processes that make growth possible.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries

05/04/2026

Monday, May 4, 2026
Fifth Week of Easter
John 14:21–26

Friends, we see in our Gospel reading that the Holy Spirit’s principal sign is love. The night before he died, Jesus told his friends the deepest truths. He spoke of himself, his Father, and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the love that connects the Father and the Son. From all eternity, he is breathed back and forth between the Father and the Son, and hence he is nothing but love. When therefore he comes to dwell in you and me, he turns us to the path of love. “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father.”

God has created a dynamic universe, moving restlessly and relentlessly toward a goal, and this goal has been disclosed to us in Christ: the sharing in the love between the Father and the Son. Therefore, if we wish to know the creaturely realm in all of its complexity and multiplicity, in both its coming and going, we must immerse ourselves in the stream of the Spiritus Sanctus.

Word on Fire Catholic Ministries