I love to watch YouTube videos of babies with their (exhausted) and thrilled parents.

They can sit for long periods of time, just gazing at their new baby, cheering at the slightest signal that their newborn recognizes their voice. They lovingly stroke their baby’s hair, and I’m confident that, should a single hair on baby’s head go missing, they would search for it and put it in the Baby Book.

Babies grow into adults, of course, but never forget this: Each of us is adored in the same way. Jesus assures the disciples today that Even all the hairs of your head are counted. Drink that in for a minute. Just as new parents know every strand of their newborn’s hair, so our Heavenly Father knows every strand of ours.

And yes, our aging male friends will ruefully observe that those strands of hair are fewer and fewer, and we can all rue our rapidly greying hair. But it’s a comfort to know that God is in the process.

But what of the real fears in our lives—bodies that can’t retrieve the strength of their youth, illness, loss of dear ones, and the random violence that terrifies us all?

What a comfort to take in Jesus’ words to his disciples as he sent them out into the frightening Roman world: Do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Take Jesus at his Word every day. Wrap yourself up in the promise that you are a beloved child of an endlessly loving Heavenly Parent.  

Hold us tight, loving God. Touch the wounds that bind and betray us. We gaze at you, God, as you gaze upon us.

In what ways this past week did you experience the warm embrace of God?  

Kathy McGovern ©2026      

Reflecting on 1Peter 3: 15-18

Remembering the Pandemic.

How often do you cry these days? I admit that I cry nearly every day, always in response to some heroic act I see featured on tv. When I hear the first responders—the ambulance drivers and EMTs, especially–describe desperately trying to get a patient to the hospital before they die, I can barely watch.

But when they interview the exhausted nurses and doctors, and hear their answers to the inevitable questions about how they are getting through their shifts without breaking down, I long to hear just one of them reference that scripture text we have today from I Peter: Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.

In Catholic New York, I Iong to hear at least one baptized and confirmed health care hero say, “Well, I’m Catholic. That means I’m never alone. I bring the whole Body of Christ with me when I put on my protective equipment and enter the ward. And, of course, I have all the angels and saints holding me through my shift every day.”

In my daily prayer I picture those angels and saints holding parents tight, giving them patience and strength as they face another ALL KIDS ALL DAY marathon. I picture angels guiding and holding every kind of First Responder . The reason for our hope, right in the middle of this terror, is that the Holy Spirit is guiding the researchers and every person placing their precious lives on the line. Where is God in all of this? Right there in the ambulance, right there in the ventilator. God did not make death. That is the reason for our hope.

Do you ever share with anyone the reason for your hope?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on Acts 6: 1-7

That first reading from Acts always makes me cringe. It’s at the very beginning of the section, where it says, “…the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”

That’s so evocative of the cultural blindness that continues to plague the Church and society. Can you imagine this? It’s just months, or a very few years, from the resurrection of Jesus. Communities of faith have joyfully sprung up all over Jerusalem and parts of Asia. They are so on fire with Jesus that they even share everything in common. Except, apparently, when the members of the community are Greek (not Jewish) women. Then it’s okay to ignore them at the distribution of food. I’ll bet it was less being ignored and more just not being seen at all.

Thank God for Rosa Parks, who sat in the “White’s Only” part of the bus until she was “seen.” Her courage and witness paid off fairly soon. It was exactly one year later that the Supreme Court ruled the law allowing racial segregation on buses to be unconstitutional.

I remember a sad scene from my years as an elementary school teacher. Taking my turn on lunch duty, one day a group of distraught little girls came to me and said, “Miss McGovern, Elliot is crying!” Sure enough, there was little Eliott, crying, while his “friends” were utterly oblivious, throwing their lunch bags around and doing the things fourth-grade boys do. It took the girls from a table across the cafeteria to see this poor child in his misery.

Good for those Greek husbands who stood up for their wives. Who should we “see” today?

Do you feel seen by everyone in your life?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on Jn. 10: 1-10

I have come that you might have life and have it in abundance.  Who can resist the One who promises that to each of us? I can’t. I never have been able to resist Jesus, and that grace has brought me nothing but blessing every day of my life.

Imagine Jesus, using the language of sheep-tending, trying to draw the Pharisees into the new life that is their inheritance. He reminds them of the sheep-gate, and how the sheep won’t enter until the gate-keeper opens it. The Pharisees just stare at him. Okay, he says, let’s try this: the sheep will only follow the good shepherd. They know the voice of the shepherd who truly cares for their welfare, and they won’t follow the thieves and robbers. The Pharisees look dumbly ahead. They’re just not getting it.

LOOK, says an exasperated Jesus. I AM THE GATE. I AM YOUR LIFE, YOUR HOPE, YOUR SECURITY, YOUR PEACE. He can’t say it more clearly than that. But how can he be the long-awaited Messiah when he has no army, no generals to command, breaks the laws of the Sabbath, he let that adulteress go free, and he eats and drinks with sinners?

Oh, says Jesus, if today you would just hear my voice. I’m calling you―that’s YOU he’s talking to, by the way. Dig deep. Listen with all your heart. Tune out all soul-deadening clamor of the culture. If you seek me, says Jesus, you will find me. If you seek me with all of your heart I will let myself be found by you.

Abundant life? Oh, yeah. Call us by name, Good Shepherd. You’re coming in loud and clear.

In what ways are you tuning in to the voice of Jesus?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on Luke 24: 13-35

My husband Cleopas and I decided to leave Jerusalem. We were heartbroken. We had hoped that Jesus, our beloved friend, would redeem Israel. But instead, the Romans crucified him. The Romans are beasts.

Our group spent the next hours huddled together, terrified of the soldiers. This morning, three of the disciples went to the tomb with spices to anoint his body. They came running back with the wildest tale! They were screaming that his body is gone, that he has been raised! And even Peter ran to the tomb and found the burial cloths just lying there in the empty tomb.

People are crying and laughing and screaming and singing, “He has been raised!” But we aren’t naïve. We won’t be taken in by wishful thinking. The Jerusalem group can keep their joy. We saw him crucified. He had no power over the Romans. He wasn’t the one we’d hoped for after all.

But here’s the thing. On the road back to Emmaus, a stranger appeared on the road. He asked us why we were weeping. How could he not know? We started from the beginning, from the day three years ago when we heard about Jesus, and came to find him, and fell so in love with him. We told him about the friends we had made, friends we thought we’d have forever. It felt good to tell the story. In fact, our hearts were burning within us, just remembering him.

That Stranger was a good listener. Ha! How did we not recognize him? It was Jesus! As usual, we thought we were running away from him, but he was running towards us the whole time.

How does remembering the Story bring Jesus nearer?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on John 20: 19-31

This Divine Mercy Sunday gives us, once again, the touchingly familiar story of Thomas coming to faith through the invitation of the Risen Lord to touch his wounds. Put yourself in that room—probably the same room where they had gathered for the Last Supper, and the same room where Mary joined the apostles to wait for, and experience, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Imagine that you are heartbroken Thomas, wanting so badly to believe the report of the others that the Risen One had appeared to them, but deeply afraid to find that the reports of his resurrection were just group hysteria.

And then, there he is, standing in your midst. “Peace be with you,” he says. Try to imagine that moment. Try to imagine your heart, bursting from your chest with joy. And then, because he knows YOUR wounds, he tenderly places your fingers in his hands, and your hand in his side.

He knows all the times you’ve been disappointed in life. He knows the times you’ve been betrayed, and the times you’ve been the betrayer. He knows the sicknesses you’ve suffered, and the times you’ve wept at the graves of your loved ones.

He holds you as you touch his wounds. He grabs you to keep from falling from astonishment, and joy.

Can you imagine the joy in that room? The One for whom they had grieved so hard, the One they had longed to see just one more time, was standing in their midst. And then, this: Thomas, you believe because you see me. But blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.

That’s you. That’s me. Jesus, we trust in You.

What wounds will you let Jesus touch with his divine mercy?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on John 20: 1-9

It’s Easter.  Can you feel it?  Here in Denver, we don’t feel as if we earned it, because it’s been deliciously warm all winter. Our friends back east, though, really worked for it this year. But, whether we deserve it or not, birds have suddenly found their way back to our back yard and are greeting us with Easter song.  Every spring it’s a delightful surprise when the perennials pop up on the south side of our driveway. You again!  We forgot all about you.  How sweet of you to keep popping up in our neglected yard, reminding us that Easter happens, ready or not.

How was your Lent?  Was your fast helpful in pulling you back from the things that are hurting you?  Are you more who you want to be, more determined to “not go back to that place of slavery” that keeps you dependent, or powerless?  That’s always my goal, and once again I didn’t achieve it.

But God brings Easter anyway, whether we had a successful Lent or not.  Our relentlessly loving God keeps sending flowers and rains, lilacs and lilies, baby chicks and baby humans.  An endless Lent is just not in God’s nature.  Easter is God’s nature, with its resurrections and Alleluias, its promise of new life, its memory of an empty tomb, and our Christ, whose triumph over the grave has opened the graves of all believers.

So once again I’ll shake off the ashes of failure, lift my face up to the sun, and hold my hands open wide.  It’s Easter, and the powers of hell cannot prevail against it.  Let the feast of the forgiven begin.

How will you celebrate this Fifty Day Feast?

Kathy McGovern c. 2026

Reflecting on Matthew 26: 14-27

Where to begin with this rich gospel? Matthew, ever the teacher, gives us so many iconic moments in Jesus’ passion that it’s hard to just zero in on one or two.

Now that three years have come and gone since we last read St. Matthew’s Passion, it’s interesting to find the passages that stand out to us today, that didn’t necessarily land in our consciousness three years ago.

I find myself drawn to one moment in particular. It comes early, at the Passover meal. How strange it must have been to hear the Teacher recite the traditional blessing over the bread, but then to seem to extemporize: Take and eat, this is my Body. What? That’s not in the Passover script! And what does he mean? And then he did the same thing with the Cup, giving the traditional thanks, and then saying, Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed…for the forgiveness of sins.

There must have been an awkward silence after those strange, completely mysterious, words. His Body? His Blood? Like so many things in the gospels, those words were not understood until after the resurrection. But we know that the earliest Christians who escaped to Syria in Antioch after the resurrection prayed those exact words as they celebrated the Eucharist “early in the morning on the first day of the week.” So, it appears to have been almost immediately after the publication of the gospels—or even earlier— that those infant Christians grasped the great truth of the Real Presence.

Poor Judas. He took his life before he could realize what “new and eternal covenant” really meant.

Give thanks on this Palm Sunday for all the days you have received the Eucharist.

Kathy McGovern ©2026

One of my favorite moments of the long liturgical year is coming up soon. I’m thinking of the drama of the Easter Vigil. As we listen to the many readings, we can sense that something’s up. That dark altar looks laden with some kind of sweet perfume. All around the dark sanctuary we can see shadows of things wonderful and wise. What are these silent sentinels saying to us? We just commemorated The Triumph of the Cross the day before, with its terrifying Good Friday Passion. When we left the church, the altar was empty and stark. But now…

As soon as the last Old Testament reading is read, and the accompanying responsorial psalm is sung, something shifts. Like a heavy rain moments before the first sound of thunder, the smell of resurrection stirs in us. Could it be?

And then the lights begin to lift the darkness of Good Friday. We see now what was just shadows before. The sanctuary is filled with glorious lilies. The bells begin to ring. The first notes of the Gloria, not heard for forty days, strike up. Easter banners, hidden in darkness, are unfurled. The Elect come forward, beaming, in their beautiful Easter clothes. Spring flowers of every hue appear all over the church.

And then the fortunate reader charged with reading the first New Testament reading, the reading that precedes the Easter gospel, proclaims “Are you not aware… that if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection?”

Lazarus, come out. All of our beloved dead, come out. Our broken hearts, come out. It’s Easter. You don’t’ want to miss it.

Do you sense that you are being united in Christ’s resurrection?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on John 9: 1-41

It’s only in recent times that we have documented cases of adults who have lived their entire lives without sight, and then, through surgery, are able to register “optical phenomena.” Unlike the man born blind in today’s gospel, though, they don’t register what they’re seeing right away. They know there is some kind of invasion of their retinas, but it takes patience and therapy for their brains to learn the codes of color, shape and form. It takes time to learn how to see.

One of the commentaries on this gospel suggests the reader should watch the beautiful 1999 movie, At First Sight, based on the true story of a sighted architect who fell in love with a man who lost his sight as a toddler, then, through her encouragement, had surgery in New York and, to the thrill of everyone who knew him, regained his sight.

The movie is filled with touching insights into the challenges he faced in learning to read his girlfriend’s facial expressions once he could see her. We get the majority of our data about our loved ones from a lifetime of looking at them in sickness and in health, in sadness and in utter joy. At first he couldn’t get enough information from her face to know what she was feeling, so he had to close his eyes so he could see her better.

We have to really feel sorry for all those blind people in today’s gospel. You know, the ones who had sight from birth, and still couldn’t see Jesus.

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).

What are you seeing about yourself this Lent that is improving your vision?

Kathy McGovern ©2026