Surrendering (C.S. Lewis)

     Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement; he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life all over again from the ground floor – that is the only way out of a “hole.” This process of surrender – this movement full speed astern – is repentance. 

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 

Image source: William Blake, God Judging Adam (1795), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_man#/media/File:God_judging_adam_blake_1795.jpg 

Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 21, 2024: A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep...

A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…

Are you ready to surrender to the will of God? 

    We know that Jesus is often called the Good Shepherd, but what does that mean? In John’s Gospel, Jesus explains, A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. Jesus will die for our sake; he will surrender himself to the Father’s will out of a deep and abiding love for us, his sheep, with whom he feels an intimate connection: I know mine and mine know me, he says. We are baptized into the life that Jesus shares with the Father; he also shares that life with us. And we are not the only ones; Jesus will lay down his life for all sheep, even those who do not belong to his fold. In the process, Jesus will be, in the words of Psalm 118, the stone which the builders rejected that becomes the cornerstone. In its original context, that stone was a reference to the people of Israel, to whom God gave the strength to be victorious, so long as they surrendered to God’s will and held fast to their confidence that his mercy endures forever. 

    In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter will similarly ask that all who hear him preach the good news of salvation surrender to God’s will through belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, for there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. God works outside our rules, allowing his Son to be rejected and crucified, that we might be saved. In baptism we pass from death into the life we share through Jesus with God. For to be called the children of God is to share in Christ’s resurrected life. This is our first identity, the primary way we are to understand ourselves, though it is not the fulfillment of all the promises. We are still becoming: what we shall be, the First Letter of John reminds us, has not yet been revealed. Our journey toward the fullness of life is predicated on our surrender to the love the Father has bestowed on us, that we may be called the children of God. This is God’s will for us; we have but to open to it. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Christ moves the believer (Bishop Robert Barron)

     Christianity is, first and foremost, a religion of the concrete and not the abstract. It takes its power not from a general religious consciousness, not from an ethical conviction, not from a comfortable abstraction, but from the person of Jesus Christ. 

     It is Christ—in his uncompromising call to repentance, his unforgettable gestures of healing, his unique and disturbing praxis of forgiveness, his provocative nonviolence, and especially his movement from godforsaken death to shalom-radiating Resurrection—that moves the believer to change of life and gift of self. 

  

     And it is the unique Christ—depicted vividly in the poetry of Dante, the frescoes of Michelangelo, the sermons of Augustine, the stained-glass windows of the Sainte Chapelle, and the sacred ballet of the liturgy—who speaks transformatively to hearts and souls across the Christian centuries. 

--Bishop Robert Barron, Gospel Reflection, July 6, 2020 

 

Image source: Michelangelo, Mary & Christ, detail of The Last Judgment, fresco, Sistine Chapel (1537-1541), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Judgment_%28Michelangelo%29#/media/File:Michelangelo,_Giudizio_Universale_03.jpg

God's faithfulness (Henri Nouwen)

   The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life’s struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness to Jesus and to all God’s children. Through the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, “You are indeed my beloved Son, and my love is everlasting,” and to us God has said, “You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting.” The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost — not even our mortal bodies. The resurrection doesn’t answer any of our curious questions about life after death, such as: How will it be? How will it look? But it does reveal to us that, indeed, love is stronger than death. After that revelation, we must remain silent, leave the whys, wheres, hows, and whens behind, and simply trust. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://www.iwnsvg.com/2020/04/12/resurrection-sunday-jesus-love-for-souls/
Quotation source

My goal is to share good news (Sr. Thea Bowman)

   My goal is to share good news. I want people to know that happiness is possible. 

   Traditions and rituals that embody that faith, values, and love have to be worked on, and so we have family histories, memories, prayer, and catechesis, and celebrations as well as family dreams, goals, and plans. In faith we remember our history; we remember that we've come this far by faith. We celebrate that faith in our liturgies. We pass on our values when we dream and plan and work together. We celebrate the love we bear for one another in family fun, being together, enjoying one another, and in family ministry. We minister to our family, we minister within our family, we minister within the Black community. We, as church, minister to our brothers and sisters, wherever we find them. 

--Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman 

Image source: Br. Mickey McGrath, Sr. Thea Bowman, https://www.loyola.edu/department/campus-ministry/justice/spirituality-sister-thea-bowman
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Bearing witness (Pope Francis)

  Like the first disciples, do not neglect to nourish your life and your apostolate with the Word of God, the Eucharist and prayer. For the mission, like communion, is first and foremost a mystery of Grace. It is not our work, but God's; we do it not alone, but moved by the Spirit and docile to his action. Mission and communion spring from prayer, are shaped day by day by listening to the Word of God - listening in prayer - and have as their ultimate goal the salvation of the brothers and sisters the Lord entrusts to us. Without these foundations, they become empty and end up being reduced to a mere sociological or welfare dimension. And the Church is not interested in providing welfare… helping, yes, but first of all, evangelizing, bearing witness: if you give assistance, let it come from witnessing, not from proselytizing methods. 

--Pope Francis, Audience to the members of

Missionary Institutes in Italy, May 13, 2023 

Image source: Nicolas Poussin, Sts. Peter and John Healing the Lame Man (1655), https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/are-the-acts-of-the-apostles-examples-for-us-to-follow/
Quotation source

Speak about Christ (Paul Claudel / Daniel J. Harrington SJ)

Speak about Christ only when you are asked,
but live so that people ask about Christ.

 

--Paul Claudel 

   The thrust of Jesus’s teaching is not esoteric, the preserve of the initiated few. Rather it was intended from the start to be public property. 

--Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, Sacra Pagina 

Image source:  https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/barron/how-to-preach-like-the-apostles/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2