Wednesday, February 26, 2025

You say I am loved (Lauren Daigle)

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low
Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know 

   Ooh-oh
   You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing
   You say I am strong when I think I am weak
   And you say I am held when I am falling short
   And when I don't belong, oh You say I am Yours
   And I believe (I)
   Oh, I believe (I)
   What You say of me (I)
   I believe 

The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me
In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity 

   Refrain

Taking all I have, and now I'm laying it at Your feet
You have every failure, God, You have every victory
Ooh-oh 

   Refrain 

To hear Lauren Daigle sing You Say, click on the video below: 


Image source 1: Paul Gauguin, Christ on the Mount of Olives (1889), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_on_the_Mount_of_Olives_%28Paul_Gauguin%29 
Video source

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

The measure you measure (St. Francis de Sales / Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

Above all, avoid false accusations
and the distortion of truth,
regarding your neighbor.

--St. Francis de Sales 

    The universe gives back to us morally exactly what we give to it. As Jesus worded it, the measure you measure out is the measure that will be measured back to you. 

   What we breathe out is what we’re going to inhale. If I breathe out selfishness, selfishness is what I will inhale; if I breathe out bitterness, that’s what I’ll meet at every turn. 

   Conversely, if I breathe out love, gracious, and forgiveness, these will be given back to me in the exact measure that I give them out. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,
Facebook, October 18, 2019 

Image source: https://usw-womensministries.org/the-measure-of-god/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Monday, February 24, 2025

Loving our enemies (Bishop Robert Barron)


    Jesus commands us to love our enemies. 

    And Jesus showed us how to do it. Immediately after being fixed to the cross, he said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." One of the most important elements of Jesus’ kingdom ethic was, accordingly, the praxis of forgiveness: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." 

    As Walter Wink has pointed out, these recommendations have nothing to do with passivity in the face of evil. Rather, they embody a provocative but nonviolent manner of confronting evil and conquering it through a practice of coinherent love. By forgiving those putting him to death, Jesus is awakening them to the truth in which they already stand: their connectedness to him and to each other in God. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, February 19, 2023

Image source: Marion Honors, CSJ, Crucifixion: The Tree of Life,  
https://www.instagram.com/jamesmartinsj/p/CMOGoFVhdfY/?img_index=1
Quotation source

Sunday, February 23, 2025

A path to our own mercy (Elizabeth Scalia)

   Jesus did indeed recognize that there are such things as enemies—and we are not meant to wander through our lives reckless and unaware of what or who can threaten us or do us harm. Certainly, we should not turn a blind eye to evil, which is the true enemy.

    But Jesus’ command to love those we perceive to be our enemies is actually a tool for discernment, and for our own salvation. To love our enemies means a great deal more than to simply not wish evil upon them; it means making a conscious effort to find a path to our own mercy, for their sake and our own. That path is found, Jesus tells us, through prayer: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). 

--Elizabeth Scalia

Image source: https://mariacollege.edu/blog/mercy-the-principal-path
Quotation source

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Doing good to those who hate us (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   Where Jesus stretches us beyond our natural instincts and beyond all self-delusion is in his command to love our enemies, to be warm to those who are cold to us, to be kind to those who are cruel to us, to do good to those who hate us, to forgive those who hurt us, to forgive those who won’t forgive us, and to ultimately love and forgive those who are trying to kill us. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser OMI,
Facebook, October 4, 2024

Image source: Melani Pyke, Love Your Enemies, https://www.melpyke.com/blog/184567/love-your-enemies-feb-11-daily-painting-jesus-sermon-on-the-mount
Quotation source

Friday, February 21, 2025

When we make our enemies part of ourselves (Takashi Nagai / Henri Nouwen)

Love everyone and trust his Providence,
and you will find peace.
 I have tried it and can assure you it is so.

 --Takashi Nagai,
Japanese convert to Catholicism
and survivor of the atomic bomb

    Christians mention one another in their prayers (Romans 1:9; 2 Corinthians 1:11; Ephesians 6:8; Colossians 4:3), and in so doing they bring help and even salvation to those for whom they pray (Romans 15:30; Philippians 1:19). 

    But the final test of compassionate prayer goes beyond prayers for fellow Christians, members of the community, friends, and relatives. Jesus says it most unambiguously, “I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44); and in the depth of his agony on the cross, he prays for those who are killing him, “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). 

    Here the full significance of the discipline of prayer becomes visible. Prayer allows us to lead into the center of our hearts not only those who love us but also those who hate us. This is possible only when we are willing to make our enemies part of ourselves and thus convert them first of all in our own hearts. 

--Henri Nouwen

Image source: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Christ on the Cross (ca.1660-1670), https://www.somethingstillsacred.com/reflections/father-forgive-them
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Thursday, February 20, 2025

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 23, 2025: Love your enemies, and do good to them...


Love your enemies and do good to them…
Is it really possible to love one’s enemies? 

   When, in the First Book of Samuel, David spares his king and enemy Saul, David proves by his actions what he believes: if the Lord has appointed a man to be king, then it’s the Lord’s call to remove that individual when necessary. Do not harm him, David says to his nephew and commander Abishai when they have the opportunity to eliminate Saul, for who can lay hands on the Lord’s anointed? By not taking Saul’s life, David shows himself to be a man in relationship with the Lord, a man who trusts in the Lord, knowing that the Lord will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Ultimately, it is through David that the Lord spares Saul, because, as Psalm 103 reminds us, The Lord is kind and merciful, and thus it is the Lord who allows David to be merciful and compassionate. 

   In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will take this lesson to another level as he tells his disciples to love their enemies, and do good to those who hate them. God loves everything he has created, including our enemies; our lives therefore have to be consistent with the God-life given to us. If we are to learn how much God loves us, we are going to have to participate in that life and in that love, with no half-measures possible. Moreover, Jesus encourages his disciples to not even judge others, for the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you. If our measure of one another is the love God has for us, an absolute love with no limitations, then that love should not limit us either – indeed, that love should approach, as closely as possible, the limitless love God has for us, and for all of our world. 

   We bear the image of the heavenly one, Paul tells the Corinthians. We share in the humanity that Christ took to death and hope that we might share in his divine life in the future, if we but put our faith in him, if we trust in his promise, if we open to being transformed by his sacrificial death and resurrection. In this way, step by step, God draws us into eternal life. But today? We can carry paradise with us, right now. We carry the love of God with us at every moment. We must live in the contradiction, knowing that the world that does not know Jesus is steeped in judgment and condemnation, whereas we, assured of his love, must be steeped in all that heals, all that makes whole, all that builds one another up, until there are no enemies, only brothers and sisters in Christ. 

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