The Father celebrates! (Pope Francis)

   God does not know how to forgive without celebrating! And the Father celebrates because of the joy he has because his son has returned. And then, like the Father, we have to rejoice . When someone whose heart is synchronized with God’s sees the repentance of a person, they rejoice, no matter how serious their mistakes may have been. They do not stay focused on errors, they do not point fingers at what they have done wrong, but rejoice over the good because another person’s good is mine as well! And we, do we know how to look at others like this? 

--Pope Francis

Image source: Marion Honors, CSJ, Prodigal Son, https://x.com/JamesMartinSJ/status/1369463340007886853?mx=2
Quotation source

We need to die to the brokenness (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

   Unless we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and to be mistaken, Jesus doesn’t die in us. Unless we don’t recognize that we are imperfect, Jesus doesn’t die in us, and he doesn’t rise in us either. We need his death in us. We need to die to the brokenness within ourselves so that we can rise from it, so that he can lift us up. It’s not something we’re doing for ourselves; it’s something he is doing in our lives, but we need to let him. When we are vulnerable and we know that we don’t have all the answers, when we know that we need him in our lives, we can allow him to die in us and then raise us. But if we don’t, it’s not going to happen. So we need to take the Penitential Rite seriously at Mass—as a moment when we allow Christ to die in us, so that he can lift us up through the Eucharist, gather us together, unite us in his infinite love. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Scripture Class, March 24, 2022

Image source: https://orthochristian.com/68270.html

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 30, 2025: But now we must celebrate and rejoice!

But now we must celebrate and rejoice!
How often do we celebrate God’s love and mercy? 

   When, having circumcised all of the men and thus removing the reproach of Egypt from them all, Joshua leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, the people celebrate! Covenant has been restored between the Lord and his people through this clear transition in identity, and God’s goodness and love are revealed in the bountiful produce of the land, which the people eat in the form of unleavened cakes and parched grain. They can now, as Psalm 34 suggests, taste and see the goodness of the Lord! The psalmist himself knows that he has been redeemed by God’s goodness and proclaims his faithfulness to God by glorying in the Lord and inviting all others to join him: Glorify the Lord with me, let us together extol his name, he sings. The psalmist celebrates God’s care and grace, radiant with joy! 

   In Luke’s Gospel, when the father of the prodigal son has his servants bring the finest robe, a ring for his son’s finger, and sandals for his feet, he is in essence reinstating his son in the family, restoring him to relationship through forgiveness and mercy. Notice that the father doesn’t even let his son finish the statement he has prepared, Father, I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers. Rather, filled with compassion, the father forgives the son the moment he catches sight of him; he does not wait for him to grovel and be penitent. In spite of all of his son’s transgressions, he father celebrates and rejoices, because this son was lost and has been found! 

   Like the compassion of the father for his son, God’s forgiveness reaches out to us when we turn in his direction; as soon as we begin to move back towards him, God’s compassion can reach us. Jesus, through his death and rising, came to reveal a love greater than any we can imagine. Jesus wants God’s love to be accessible to us. He wants all of us to know how much God loves us. We are therefore, as Paul tells the Corinthians, called to be a new creation through our baptism in Christ. Whatever we have been, we can leave behind, that we might be reconciled to God, for God reconciled the world to himself in Christ, that we might be the Body of Christ in the world. Behold, new things have come! Let us rejoice! 

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

Let us cherish the afterflow of grace (Dr. Alice Prince)

   After the overflow of grace, there is an afterglow. 

   The overflow then the afterglow of grace! When we talk about the afterglow of divine grace, we’re referring to the lasting impact of God’s blessings in our lives. It's that lingering presence of divine love and mercy, illuminating our path even after the initial moment of blessing has passed. Just as the sky retains the warmth of the sun after it sets, our hearts carry the light of God’s grace. The afterglow also deepens our faith. 

   

   Let us cherish this afterglow, allowing it to remind us of God's unfailing love endures forever. 

--Dr. Alice Prince

Image source: https://laymansbible.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/a-land-flowing-with-milk-and-honey/
Quotation source

How can this be? (Fr. Paul Murray)

It opens like a river
in full spate, or like a window
with a gust of wind.
And it’s as if an archangel
had entered the room. And
everybody has to stop what they’re doing.
And the air is a river of words.
And all of a sudden you see
– and with a start –
that an archangel has entered,
and your heart is in your mouth.
And you feel you are drowning
in a river of divine words, and hear
yourself saying, over and over,
‘How can this be?’ 

 --Paul Murray OP

Happy Solemnity of the Annunciation!

Source of images: Annunciation, Notre-Dame de Banneux, Liège, Belgium, https://banneux-nd.be/fr/neuf-jours-pour-preparer-la-belle-fete-de-lannonciation/
Quotation source

One more chance (Bishop Robert Barron)

     [Sunday's] Gospel includes the parable of a fig tree that bears no fruit. This is a standard trope in the theological literature of Israel: the tree that bears no fruit is evocative of the moral person who bears no spiritual fruit. Every single person has a mission: to be a conduit of the divine grace into the world. Planted in God—think of Jesus’ image of the vine and the branches—they are meant to bring forth the fruits of love, peace, compassion, justice, nonviolence. 

    And notice that this should be effortless. The closer God gets, the more alive we become. But the mystery of sin is that we resist the invasion of God; we prefer to go our own way; we cling to our own prerogatives and our own narrow freedom. And the result is lifelessness. It feels like depression, like your life is going nowhere—in Dante’s language, like being "lost in a dark wood." 

    In Jesus’ parable, the one caring for the tree begs the owner for one more chance to manure the tree and to hoe around it, hoping to bring it back to life. But if no life comes, the tree will be cut down. This is the note of urgency that is struck over and again in the Bible. We can run out of time. We can become so resistant to God’s grace that our leaves dry up. This is not divine vengeance; it is spiritual physics. So don’t be afraid of God! Surrender to him. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, October 25, 2019

Image source 1 & Quotation source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2548195388552906&set=a.343034215735712
Image source 2: https://bible.art/gallery/the-fig-tree-cursed

Acting the barren fig tree's part (Robert Murray M'Cheyne)

Within a vineyard's sunny bound
An ample fig tree shelter found, 
               Enjoying sun and showers -
The boughs were graceful to the view,
With spreading leaves of deep-green hue,
               And gaily blushing flowers. 

When round the vintage season came,
The blooming fig was still the same,
               As promising and fair;
But though the leaves were broad and green,
No precious fruit was to be seen,
               Because no fruit was there. 

"For three long years," the master cried,
"Fruit on this tree to find I've tried,
               But all in vain my toil;
Ungrateful tree! the axe's blow
Shall lay thy leafy honours low;
               Why cumbers it the soil?" 

"Ah! let it stand just one year more,"
The dresser said, "till all my store
               Of rural arts I've shown;
About the massy roots I'll dig,
And if it bear, we've gained the fig -
               If not, then cut it down." 

How many years hast thou, my heart,
Acted the barren fig tree's part,
               Leafy, and fresh, and fair,
Enjoying heavenly dews of grace,
And sunny smiles from God's own face -
               But where the fruit? ah! where? 

How often must the Lord have prayed
That still my day might be delayed,
               Till all due means were tried;
Afflictions, mercies, health, and pain,
How long shall these be all in vain
               To teach this heart of pride? 

Learn, O my soul, what God demands
Is not a faith like barren sands,
              But fruit of heavenly hue;
By this we prove that Christ we know,
If in His holy steps we go -
             Faith works by love, if true. 

--Robert Murray M’Cheyne,
The Barren Fig Tree

 

Image source 1: https://pastormartinsmyopia.blogspot.com/2015/07/prayer-cursing-fig-tree-and-all-that.html
Image source 2: https://www.ticanots.com/blog/Figuier-Maudit-Martinique-arbre-magique-ou-malefique_a21.html
Poem source