Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 6, 2025: The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad indeed!

The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad indeed!
Do we perceive what God is doing right here, right now? 

    When you’re living in exile under foreign domination, it’s hard to imagine things can get better. But God sends the Prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel in Babylon to encourage them to pay attention to God’s activity right here and now. See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? The people mistakenly believed that the God of Israel had no power outside of their land, but Isaiah sets them straight: God has not abandoned them and will not abandon them in the future. If they pay attention, if they are aware right here, right now, if they are sensitive to God’s activity in the present moment, they will see that things are changing, the world is transforming. God is at work in their lives right now -- do they not perceive it? It’s hard to imagine that they will soon be home in their own land, praying Psalm 126: The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy! They will be grateful for all God has done and hopeful that God will continue to work in their midst, filling the empty wadis with water and helping the seeds to be sown to prosper. God will be at work then, too. Will they perceive it? 

    Certainly the woman who had been caught in adultery in Luke’s Gospel will quickly become aware of what God is doing in the present moment. The scribes and Pharisees who bring the woman before Jesus feel challenged by him, because Jesus challenges Judaic law in ways that none of them can argue with. What they don’t perceive, however, is that God is at work even in their bringing the woman to him; it is an opportunity for Jesus to reveal God’s love and compassion for God’s people – even the scribes and Pharisees themselves. But do they perceive it? If they continue to pass judgment, reserving judgment for themselves, they are not going to see God at work. And so Jesus commands, Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. Jesus hopes to change their perception, not only of God but of themselves, for they too are sinners! And once all the scribes and Pharisees have left, the woman herself has an opportunity to see things differently: Has no one condemned you? Jesus asks. Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more. It is hard to imagine that her perception could possibly remain unchanged after such a stunning intervention by Jesus in her life! 

    St Paul himself had a similarly stunning conversion moment. Having been sold on the tenets of Judaic law, Paul was ready to defend its finest details and force others to obey it. In his Letter to the Philippians, however, Paul looks back upon that part of his life as so much rubbish, because it kept him from recognizing Jesus and finding salvation. Like Paul – and the woman whose life is saved by Jesus – we need to pay attention to what God is doing in our midst, right here, right now, and strain forward to what lies ahead. We have gained Christ; let us now be found in him, that he might take possession of us and continue to transform us, as we dwell in his grace and in his presence. For he is at work at us, if only we make the effort to perceive it! 

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

Re-awakening to spiritual brotherliness (Anne Celestine Ondigo FSJ)

   The father keeps watching and waiting for the return of his wayward son. The father sees him from afar and is filled with compassion. He runs to embrace him with open hands. He makes a banquet in his honor. 

   The elder son unaware of his father's depth of compassionate mercy sees this and is indignant, saying “I have been faithful all these years, you have not thrown a party in my honor.” He seemed to have a calm spirit before the brother arrived, however, as the African proverb puts it, ‘calm water does not mean there are no crocodiles.’ At the same time, wise men avow that faults are like a hill, you stand on top of your own and talk about those of other people. The elder brother wants retributive justice applied on his brother-he wants to see some kind of punishment. 

   However, the father’s justice is different because it is based on mercy, love and forgiveness that leads to restoration. The father intervenes by re-awakening his conscience from a selfish spirit and rebuke to the marvels of a sincere re-entry of his lost brother who has returned, a dead brother who is alive and a repentant brother who needs love, mercy and restoration to the family. 

   Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti, exhorts us to this kind of re-awakening to spiritual brotherliness, sisterliness, to the sense of one family of God, a reconciled human race. In this sense, God the father draws the elder sons’ attention to true repentance and reconciliation where the old passes away and we are recreated anew. 

--Anne Celestine Ondigo, FSJ 

Image source: James Tissot, Prodigal Son, The Return (1882), https://www.wikiart.org/en/james-tissot/prodigal-son-the-return. For an in-depth analysis of this painting by Fr. Patrick van der Vorst, go to:  https://christian.art/daily-gospel-reading/luke-15-1-3-11-32-2025/
Quotation source

He was dead and has come to life again (St. Francis de Sales)

   Such was the prodigal son, when, quitting the infamous company of the swine, amongst which he had lived, he returned into his father's arms, half-naked, unclean and bemired, and smelling most offensively of the filth which he had contracted in the company of those vile beasts. 

   For what is it to forsake the swine, but to withdraw from sins? And what is it to return all ragged, tattered and unclean, but to have our affections engaged in the habits and inclinations which tend to sin? Yet still was he possessed of the life of the soul which is love; and as a phœnix rising out of its ashes, he found himself newly raised to life. He was dead, said his father, and is come to life again, he has revived. 

--St. Francis de Sales,
Treatise on the Love of God,
Book X, chapter iv 

Image source: John August Swanson, Story of the Prodigal Son (1984), https://johnaugustswanson.com/catalog/story-of-the-prodigal-son/
Quotation source

This holy season of Lent is passing quickly (Henri Nouwen)

O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly,
I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations.
I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart;
I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace of darkness would be left in my soul.

But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning.
Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness
before they could see your light.
Let me be thankful for your gentle way.
I know you are at work.
I know you will not leave me alone,
I know you are quickening me for Easter –
 but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament. 

I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter
more fully into the mystery of your passion,
will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way you create for me
and to accept the cross that you give to me.
Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own cross. 

You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you. 

Be with me today, tomorrow and in the days to come,
and let me experience your gentle presence.
Amen. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://www.rapidcitydiocese.org/bishop-column-march-22/
Prayer source

God rejoices (Henri Nouwen)

    Celebration belongs to God’s Kingdom. God not only offers forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing, but wants to lift up these gifts as a source of joy for all who witness them. In all three of the parables that Jesus tells to explain why he eats with sinners, God rejoices and invites others to rejoice with him. “Rejoice with me,” the shepherd says, “I have found my sheep that was lost.” “Rejoice with me,” the woman says, “I have found the drachma I lost.” “Rejoice with me,” the father says, “this son of mine was lost and is found.” 

    All these voices are the voices of God. God does not want to keep his joy to himself. He wants everyone to share in it. God’s joy is the joy of his angels and his saints; it is the joy of all who belong to the Kingdom. 

--Henri Nouwen

Image source: https://www.christthesavioroca.org/prodigalson
Quotation source

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 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