A Positively Poetic Priest

For the first time in my life I have been given land to care for.  Its not a big backyard, and I think at one point in the last fifty years it was a playground. Indeed, I think it has been many things in its lifetime.  Before Europeans arrived, this land belonged to the Lenni-Lenape.  Over the years as Morristown grew, someone built a house on this land, which at some point was bought by St. Peter's.  I hope as I live here, I will be able to fill in this sparse history with more details, as I fill in this yard with love and plants.  Right now, with the current freeze, it is hibernating. Waiting to come alive again. 

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This is a quote with many authors, because the sentiment is true.  We remember how others make us feel long after we have forgotten what they did to us or said to us.  This is why many people have very strong reactions to Jesus' Good News. Love offered always makes us feel. Even when we are angry about offered love because it comes from the 'wrong' person, Love, once offered, is never forgotten, because it makes us feel.  Unfortunately, we cannot all rush out of here and love our enemies and change the world.  I wish that we could!  Most of us are not in a place yet where we can offer love to our enemies, as Jesus teaches this morning in our Gospel passage, or even to our neighbors, as he says many other times.  We haven't done the steps we need to get to a place to be able to really offer love to those against us. We haven'