Yet if we do not repent
we cannot know the true measure of happiness
and will settle for superficialities
that cannot stand up to the storms of life.

Repentance
can be as refreshing as a shower,
as purifying as oxygen from the forest,
as freeing as an open meadow.

The disciples repented
and as a result they could share
the benefits of repentance with others.

They were able to expel demons,
anoint the sick with healing oil
and work cures of body and soul.

Repentance is not morbid introspection
that immobilizes a believer in a mire
of moody melancholy.

Repentance has the sharpness of a laser beam
to root out maladies that have been suppressed
and be free at last
to hear the sounds of joy and gladness.
The tears that fall
swiftly become bright rainbow droplets
that put a curtain over the tormented past
and an unveiling of a cheerful future,
and spreads sunshine to others.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

Daniel, the prophet, has a humble, healthy attitude for us to adopt.
We should not be afraid to admit our errors.
It does not hurt us to be shamefaced. It can only help us acknowledge our sins yet honestly see that you are “a God of compassion and forgiveness.”

Revelation helps us to see God with such clarity
we recognize we are not God yet we are challenged to be like God.
If we aim high we will reach a higher level of living.
If we are complacent we sink further from God.

By studying the contrast we find God wants us to grow in his
likeness or otherwise we can become iconoclasts and break
the image for the sheer savagery of it.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

The “appearance” of John in the desert was impressive. He had a magnetic personality even though he had a stern message and wore severe apparel. He was a man of the desert, shaped by the austerities of the desert. There was no excess in his appearance or his message. He could cut to the bone quickly. There was no fat on his words or his body. He was transparent. He was his message. He was the voice of one crying in the desert. There was no conflict between his preaching and his person. He practiced what he preached and all honored him for being an authentic prophet. Nothing false about him. He was worth belief. He did not even have to work miracles. His words were like darts that pierced any defenses and hit the heart.

He says succinctly, “Reform your lives!” He does not say reform your rituals, reform your schedules, reform your reading habits, reform your diet, reform your clothes. He just states reform your lives. In other words reform your heart, your attitudes, your inner persons. Secondary reforms will follow.

He was especially severe with the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees were lay people who had become legalistic and pietistic about the law. The Sadducees were priests who had become ritualistic and self righteous. Both groups were a brood of vipers poisoning religion itself. They had lost the spirit of religion. It would do them no good to go through the motions of John’s baptism if their hearts were not repentant. If they were out of touch with God no ritual would avail them. They would remain barren of good fruit. Even their connection with Abraham was barren. Mere blood-ties with Abraham were of no consequence because the faith-ties had been broken.

John’s promise of a mighty Savior was enough to convert even this brood of vipers if they would but repent. John was magnetic but Jesus was the magnet. Jesus baptizes “with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Vipers evaporate before the fiery Spirit. Jesus separates the faith person from the fake person like wheat and chaff are separated. He can shake the chaff of hypocrisy from the wheat of integrity. These are stern warnings to stony hearts. Yet they can change. They can reform. They need to be as honest about their sins as John was honest about exposing them. They need to turn to Christ with absolute confidence and admiring adoration like the Baptist and they will receive the kingdom and its supreme happiness. We can hope that our repentance will be sincere, sacrificial, sacred. It will be acceptable. The fire of the Spirit will purge the evil and glorify the good in our lives. We have a Savior. We are not lost.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

John is a prophet greater than Isaiah
because his presence in the desert
is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
No other prophet had such power and privilege and place.

John is powerful and he knows it
else how could he say Christ is more powerful?
He is powerful in his fasting.
He is powerful in his word.
He is powerful in his endurance.
He is powerful in his magnetic personality.
He is powerful in his voice and message.
He is powerful in his persuasiveness
not even needing to work miracles.
He is powerful in exciting repentance.
He is powerful in bringing forth the confession of sins.
He is powerful in his confrontations.
He is powerful even in his humility.

Yet with all the power that his desert personality displays
he is quick to proclaim Jesus as more powerful.
The Christ is more powerful because he baptizes with the Spirit
while he, John, baptizes only with a symbolic water.
John has the symbol. Jesus has the substance.

In the world there is abuse of power.
In our individual lives there has been abuse of power.
The Baptist did not abuse his power.
Jesus did not abuse his power,
indeed he shares his power by sharing the Spirit.

We can also abuse powerlessness
by whining about our helplessness
in the midst of an oppressive society.
We are not powerless nor should self-pity move us to grovel in it.
Jesus has full authority in heaven and earth
which he shares with each one who is baptized.

We have power to suffer and die with dignity, to serve society with a “strong arm,” to celebrate life with a mighty dance.
The Baptist was honest. He did have power. So do I.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

Another experience I have enjoyed is the daily hour of adoration silence which I had with my Jesus Caritas fraternity during our Month of Nazareth. Each morning we are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament as a group to adore the Eucharistic presence of Jesus. This had the high value of bonding us as a group. The fraternity requires each one of us to make an hour of solitary silent adoration each day before the Silence of Jesus in the Sacrament. I am alert for the sounds of silence that can come from many sources in this prayer time. During one of the Months of Nazareth I made in California we were in a small chapel with windows open and we heard the sounds of birds singing as well as the peaceful sounds of carpenters with their hammer and tools constructing new homes. It was easy to think of Joseph at work in Nazareth. There is something unique about a group together in silent adoration. All of us have the same focus on Jesus in the Sacrament and Jesus returns our gaze with communication to each one in a special way. It does weave a holy web of unity for all of us. We are spiritual brothers who become one in Eucharistic prayer.

When in solitary, silent adoration in the church it helps me to pull myself together, makes me feel more compact, more in touch with my inner self, more easily surrendering myself to the Lord of Love.

I have an epitaph on the footstone of my grave in my hometown cemetery which has a short five word quotation of Jesus in John’s gospel, “Live on in my love.” Deep silence, even the silence of death, lets me live on in the love of Jesus. There is no more death, only Life and Love.

When my best priest friend was dying in 1998 his breath became softer and softer until in the middle of the night it became “Silent night, holy night.” No more breathing, only the passage from mother earth to bosom of God where love reigns supreme and we know at last, and fully, like St. John, that “God is love.”

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

It is a purification not to be feared
because it brings joy to the human heart,
just as knowledge frees from the pain of ignorance
or medication frees from the drag of disease.

The metaphor of fire
should not be taken literally,
but only in the sense
of the fire of God’s love
purifying the believer
to total charity.

It is not a dread experience
but one of sweet yearning
that brings full liberation,
and astonishing beauty.

Nor is the metaphor of days or weeks or years
literal time because eternity has started.
It is a matter of suddenness
as sudden as the flash of light
that purified Saul from persecutor,
to Paul, the zealous apostle of Christ’s love.
As sudden as Mary Magdalene’s sobs of sorrow
dissolving into gasps of ecstatic joy
at the sound of the Master’s voice, “Mary!”
and the sight of the risen Lord before her eyes.

Purgatory is a pearl of great price,
part of the package of paradise divine.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

When I try to manage my own spirit
I imprison myself in my own narrowness,
in my own frail, tiny hands.

“The Father is greater than I.”
That truth gives me space
and wide, unlimited margins
in which to romp and roam.

There is security
in the hands of the Father
even when adversity strikes.
Jesus was nailed to a cross
but his spirit was free,
free in the hands of the Father.

The hands of the Father
are large enough to hold me
and my history and destiny,
my follies and my blessings,
my contradictions and my consistencies.

There is no snatching
from the hands of the Father.
It is a place of security and peace,
celebration and serene safety.
The very depth of the security
bestows the energy and compassion
to serve and risk for others.

Security leads to risks.
Insecurity leads to immobility.
To be secure in the hands of the Father
mobilizes the believer for mission.
To seek security in one’s own hands
is to be immobilized in a tiny world.
Better and braver the hands of God
than my own hands bound to severe confinement
and fearful frontiers of suffocation pressures.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

I know when I kneel
in the midst of this St. Mary’s gathering
I expect to feel surrounded by the mercy of God
as it is breathed forth from my worshipping
brothers and sisters in faith.

I, in turn, hope to rise from that experience
to be a more forgiving person and pastor.

As a priest
I have known the forgiveness of the people
for over forty years.
I sometimes wonder what treatment
I would have received
in another context.

Many people have been broken
for lack of signs of sorrow and forgiveness,
broken to become rebels or slaves
with loss of friendship, love, trust, dignity.

The communal celebration of reconciliation
will teach us afresh and at some depth
that we are not abandoned or unbonded.
We belong together in our new creation.
We are the people of God, forgiven and forgiving.
Like Mary
we can feel the power of the Most High
overshadow us, full of love and mercy
empowering us to be a reconciling community.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

Ministry
to the sick becomes mature
when the sick minister to the comforter.

Jesus laid the foundation for this twist.
“I was ill and you comforted me.”                                      Matthew 25:36
St. Camillus cherished this truth so much
that each patient became another Christ.
He saw Christ so clearly in their wasted frames,
so transparent in their suffering features
that he begged them the gift of forgiveness for his sins!

It is not too hard,
to sit by the bed of the sick,
gaze on their countenance,
and begin to hear those
inspiring, grateful words
“I was ill and you comforted me.”
The transformation becomes complete.
The sick person is Jesus.
The visitor is the visited.
It is Jesus once again
shifting from guest to host.

Ministry is mutual.
In giving there is receiving.
Jesus is present to the sick
in the visiting minister
in the suffering sick.
“I am with you always,”                                                       Matthew 28:20
every day and every way,
in the sick, in the healthy.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

My soul proclaims
the greatness of the Lord

by being on the verge of prayer,
by being Christ for others,
by causing others to leap for joy,

by helping others to pray,
by suffering for others,
by ministering to others,
by sacrificing for others,

by journeying with others,
by worrying with others,
by being ear for others,
by being empty for others,
by being tears for other,

by giving and receiving Love,
by revealing Truth in honesty,
by confessing sins in adoration,
by breaking the word,
by loving bride-church,
by sympathy expressed.

The Lord loves me for my own sake,
not because I succeed,
not because of my lineage,
but because I am loveable.

He has done great things for me
simply because he loves me
and even at my worst.
I do not have to bargain for that
or earn it, or whine for it.
It is a gift, revealed, bestowed.

The Lord has helped me
love beauty and truth and revelation.

The Lord creates me anew, every day
by forgiveness,
by sending me the Spirit
that brings breath, vision, embrace.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe