Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 3, 2024: Lord, you have the words of everlasting life...

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life…

What is the purpose of the commandments? 

    When, in the Book of Exodus, God delivers God’s commandments to the people of Israel, it is understood that this list of precepts is meant to be a set of instructions, a kind of guidance for worshipping God. Each commandment calls the people to responsibility to God and to their own people. God is reminding the people that their lives are not lived out for themselves alone, but rather in a context outlined by the Lord, a context of which they must remain aware as they live in community with one another. God’s commandments are the words of everlasting life. All of them listed in Psalm 19 – laws, decrees, precepts, commands, and ordinances – are a revelation from God, meant to guide us, to lead us, and to offer us insights into our human existence. Each is an invitation to take in and internalize God’s instructions, that we might embody them and thus know intimately the fullness of God. For this reason, they are more precious than gold, for they connect us to the God who loves us. 

    But misunderstandings of the law are always possible. In John’s Gospel, when Jesus overturns the tables of those who sold oxen, sheep and doves, and of the moneychangers, he is making it clear that their practices are incongruous with relationship with God. Doves were all the poor could afford, but what if they could not? Is God meant to be expensive? The temple was supposed to give all people access to God; the vendors, who are in fact following the law, nevertheless stand in the way of that access. Jesus wants them to see that they have made a business out of worship, that they are putting barriers between the people and God. Jesus makes it patently clear that he has come for change, for transformation – he is challenging them all to a renewal, to a deeper realization of God’s love in people’s lives. And this includes a new understanding of temples itself, one that replaces the edifice in Jerusalem with Jesus’ own body: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. 

   The people of Corinth are looking for power and wisdom, but Paul tells them, we proclaim Christ crucified, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. We use laws to define our hierarchies and our structures so that they can claim to afford power, but this is foolishness in Paul’s terms. Christ crucified means God offered himself entirely for our sake; raised up in three days, Christ demonstrated that the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Paul is calling the Corinthians to transformation, to a deeper realization of God’s love in their lives. 

    If we are to appreciate all that Jesus Christ has done for us, we have to get past our own limited understanding of his ways, for Christ challenges us all to renewal. Every moment is a call to transformation, to conversion, to change, to a deeper awareness of God in our lives and a fuller awareness of the depth of his love for us. We are on our way, but we have not yet arrived. Let us embrace the one commandment, the greatest commandment, the commandment to love, for only love will move us forward on our journey of transformation. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life… 

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

Let us go up to the mountain (Susan Butterworth)

   May our prayer be a time of rest and retreat, seeking the powerful presence of God. Perhaps we will not see a glorious light, nor emerge with our faces shining because we have seen God. We may speak words in hopes that God will listen to us. In fact, our task is to listen to God. 

 

  Come Holy Spirit, let us go up to the mountain. Let our hearts become quite calm so that God’s spirit may fill us. Give us such fineness of hearing that our hearts may listen. Grant us patience, inspiration, a glimpse of God’s glory. Amen. 

--Susan Butterworth 

Image source:  Sadao Watanabe, Transfiguration (1971), https://scriptum.com/artwork/14897-transfiguration?artistsid=1505
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A transfigured, elevated beauty (Bishop Robert Barron)

   Christ came not just to make us nice people or morally upright folks, but rather to give us a share in his divine life, to make us denizens of heaven, people capable of living in that new environment. 

   What gave the first Christians this conviction? The answer is the Resurrection—and the great anticipation of the Resurrection, which is the Transfiguration. This ordinary Jesus somehow became transformed, elevated, enhanced in his manner of being. 

   The first thing we notice is that his appearance becomes more beautiful. These somewhat grubby bodies of ours are destined for a transfigured, elevated beauty. 

   Secondly, in his transfigured state, Jesus transcends space and time, since he is talking with Moses and Elijah. In this world, we are caught in one moment of space and time, but in heaven, we will live in the eternal now of God’s life. 

   Have you ever noticed that even as we appreciate all that is wonderful about this life, we are never really at home? There is a permanent restlessness about human life. But a higher, richer, more beautiful and spiritually fulfilling life awaits us. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, June 30, 2023 

Image source: Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/CHURCH_OF_TRANSFIGURATION_-_MOSAIC_%287723782958%29.jpg

Free to reveal himself where and when he wants (Henri Nouwen)

   God cannot be understood: he cannot be grasped by the human mind. The truth escapes our human capacities. The only way to come close to it is by a constant emphasis on the limitations of our human capacities to “have” or “hold” the truth. We can neither explain God nor his presence in history. As soon as we identify God with any specific event or situation, we play God and distort the truth. We only can be faithful in our affirmation that God has not deserted us but calls us in the middle of all the unexplainable absurdities of life. It is very important to be deeply aware of this. There is a great and subtle temptation to suggest to myself or to others where God is working or where not, when he is present and when not; but nobody, no Christian, no priest, no monk, has any “special” knowledge about God. God cannot be limited by any human concept or prediction. He is greater than our mind and heart and perfectly free to reveal himself where and when he wants. 

--Henri Nouwen      

Image source: Armando Alemdar Ara, Transfiguration of Jesus (2004), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Transfiguration_of_Jesus.jpg
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Jesus takes them up the mountain (Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP)

God’s Word belongs to God.
Listen to him.
We do not own the truth.
The truth owns us.

    The Transfiguration is the retreat Jesus gives to his closest disciples before they embark on the first synod in the life of the Church, when they walk together (syn-hodos) to Jerusalem. This retreat was needed because they were afraid of this journey they must make together. Until now they have wandered around the north of Israel. But at Caesarea Philippi, Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ. Then Jesus invites them to go with him to Jerusalem, where he will suffer, die and be raised from the dead. They cannot accept this. Peter tries to prevent him. Jesus calls him ‘Satan’, ‘enemy’. The little community is paralysed. So Jesus takes them up the mountain. 

   This retreat gives them the courage and hope to set off on their journey. It does not always go well. They immediately fail to free the young lad from the evil spirit. They quarrel about who is the greatest. They misunderstand the Lord. But they are on their way with a fragile hope. 

--Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP 

Image source: Giovanni Bellini, The Transfiguration of Christ (ca. 1478-1479), https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/transfiguration-of-christ/IAEAQTF0ega6cA?hl=en&ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5%2C%22y%22%3A0.5%2C%22z%22%3A9.106882842623245%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A2.0444398021884025%2C%22height%22%3A1.2375136977882655%7D%7D
Quotation source 1
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We are transfigured (St. Anastasius of Sinai)

   The spirit is the mind’s eye through which we see God, face to face, and by which we partake of the divine nature, and are transfigured, in this life by degrees, through our participation in the mystical body of Christ. 

--St. Anastasius of Sinai   

Image source: Icon, The Ladder of Paradise as described by St. John Climacus (ca. 7th c.), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_%28Christian%29#/media/File:StJohnClimacus.jpg
Quotation source

What Abraham did (Søren Kierkegaard)

     The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he meant to murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he meant to sacrifice Isaac—but precisely in this contradiction is the anxiety that can make a person sleepless, and yet without this anxiety Abraham is not who he is. 

―Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling 

Image source 1: Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac (14th c. Missal), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac#/media/File:Abraham_about_to_sacrifice_Isaac.jpg
Image source 2:  Sacrifice of Isaac, mosaic, Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy (547 AD), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac#/media/File:Sacrifice_of_Isaac_mosaic_-_Basilica_San_Vitale_(Ravenna).jpg 

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 25, 2024: He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified...

He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified…

Is God’s plan clear to us?

    Imagine the plight of Abraham, who, in the Book of Genesis, has just been told that he is to take his son Isaac, his only one, whom he loves, and offer him up as a holocaust. He must be terrified! Can Abraham possibly understand God’s plan? God promised Abraham countless descendants; how can this promise be fulfilled if Isaac dies? But Abraham trusts in God’s promise and does as he is told, to the point of taking the knife to slaughter his son. Only the messenger who calls to him from heaven can stop Abraham’s action. Abraham has demonstrated that he is, at every moment, completely present, both to Isaac and to God. Here I am, he answers at every turn. Like the psalmist in Psalm 116, Abraham believed even when greatly afflicted. Abraham knows that Isaac’s very existence was God’s work to begin with, and he does not hesitate to do all that God asks of him. 

    The disciples witnessing the Transfiguration of Jesus in Mark's Gospel are no more clear about God’s plan than Abraham was. Jesus has just told them (for the second time) that he will suffer, die, and be raised from the dead, but they do not understand; indeed, they are terrified. They have nothing to relate this to; the idea of resurrection is beyond their experience, and they must have had so many questions! The Transfiguration is a clear statement that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises; Jesus’ visible, radical transformation – his clothes became dazzling white – is a promise of the glory of resurrection, a vision of the glory Jesus will enter into even though he must first suffer and die. It is not surprising that, upon coming down from the mountain, they kept the matter to themselves. Who could believe such a story? Was its import fully clear to them? One doubts it. 

    How much of our faith is born of what we understand? What God did not demand of Abraham, God demands from himself: He did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, Paul tells the Roman community. Like Abraham, this community, now experiencing persecution, must have faith: If God is for us, who can be against us? Paul asks them. The Roman Christians are to remain true to God, for it is God who will carry them through, just as God carries us through, giving us his own Son as the source of our salvation. We may not fully understand this extraordinary gift, an expression of God’s deep love for us, but we don’t need to, so long as we have faith in his promise, enough faith to respond, Here I am! 

 

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

You are not alone (Casting Crowns)

Oh, my soul
Oh, how you worry
Oh, how you’re weary, from fearing you lost control
This was the one thing, you didn’t see coming
And no one would blame you, though
If you cried in private
If you tried to hide it away, so no one knows
No one will see, if you stop believing 

Oh, my soul
You are not alone
There’s a place where fear has to face the God you know
One more day, He will make a way
Let Him show you how, you can lay this down
‘Cause you’re not alone 

Here and now
You can be honest 

I won’t try to promise that someday it all works out 

‘Cause this is the valley 

And even now, He is breathing on your dry bones 

And there will be dancing 

There will be beauty where beauty was ash and stone 

This much I know 

Refrain 

I’m not strong enough, I can’t take anymore 

(You can lay it down, you can lay it down) 

And my shipwrecked faith will never get me to shore 

(You can lay it down, you can lay it down) 

Can He find me here 

Can He keep me from going under 

Refrain 

To hear Casting Crowns perform Nathanael: O My Soul, click on the video below: 

Image source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=La_-wcHhEq0 

Video source

We let God recreate us (Fr. William Nicholas)

   In the forty days of Lent, we enter into the desert, with its penances and sacrifices, and not idly. We let God recreate us; we allow that ongoing conversion that allows us to live more fully our lives that God is calling us to live. We overcome our sins and shortcomings. We are formed, as the holy people were in the desert; we are not the same people, individually and as a Church, that we were at the beginning. We are renewed in our commission to live that faith on Easter Sunday; after forty days, we celebrate new members of our Church and we ourselves renew our baptismal promises, which were confirmed at our Confirmation. And we confront temptation head on in this season of Lent. We give things up in order to invite temptation, to invite the test not to take them up again. It's not just a period of deprivation and self-punishment; we are remembering God forming his people and we ask him, throughout these forty days especially, to form us, continually, into the people collectively and as the individuals he has created in his image and likeness, and we pray for grace and for the success of our time in the desert during these forty days of Lent. 

--Fr. William Nicholas, Homily,

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley,
February 25, 2023 

Image source: https://www.backroads.com/trips/WPJI/californias-palm-springs-joshua-tree-walking-hiking-tour-4-day-getaway

Lent is a journey (Pope Francis)

   Lent is a journey that involves our whole life, our entire being. It is a time to reconsider the path we are taking, to find the route that leads us home and to rediscover our profound relationship with God, on whom everything depends. Lent is not just about the little sacrifices we make, but about discerning where our hearts are directed. This is the core of Lent: asking where our hearts are directed. 

   Let us ask: Where is my life’s navigation system taking me—towards God or towards myself? Do I live to please the Lord, or to be noticed, praised, put at the head of line? Do I have a “wobbly” heart, which takes a step forward and then one backward? Do I love the Lord a bit and the world a bit, or is my heart steadfast in God? Am I content with my hypocrisies, or do I work to free my heart from the duplicity and falsehood that tie it down? 

 --Pope Francis, Ash Wednesday Homily 2021 

Image source: https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2020/03/01/reckoning-in-the-desert/

Who are the angels that are surrounding you? (Crystal Catalan)

   I am so grateful that the Gospel passage for this Sunday does not end with Jesus suffering in the desert. Rather, the passage ends with, “Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.” For me, this is the beauty of our faith. That we absolutely cannot exist without being in relationship with others, and angels are sent to aid with our healing. 

   And so I ask, Who are the angels that are surrounding you? Who are the people in your life who have ministered or are ministering to you now? 

   When we are in the desert, when we are hungry, not sure where to turn, we are sent angels in our lives who will come to our aid, if only we let them. And if we are open to the Spirit, and ready to receive those moments of grace. 

   Though at times it may seem easier to hide away and withdraw from others, no doubt that God sees you and desires to draw you in from the desert of where you may find yourself this Lenten season. There is no place God will not go to find us and reach us. 

   And the challenge is this - to enter the desert, knowing that we will encounter temptation, suffering, despair, and sadness, but we will have faith, knowing that Jesus already knows, and God is with us every step of the way. Even when it is dark, when we are famished and at a loss, God sees us - you and me - and always sends angels.

--Crystal Catalan 

Image source: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Temptation of Christ, Baptistry (North Doors), Florence (c.1401-1424). This and many other representations of Jesus ministered to by angels in the desert can be found here: https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/02/and-angels-ministered-to-him.html
Quotation source

This desert time of Lent (Megan Westra)

   What if we view this desert time of Lent as not just a time to reflect or to lament or to confess or to fast, but a time where we learn to be free? 

--Megan Westra       

Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/4thglryofgod/8461067536
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The Spirit hurls Jesus into the desert (Ian Paul)

   Mark uses the most forceful of images: the Spirit hurls Jesus (ekballo) into the desert. [Here] we understand the spirit of God to be God’s dynamic presence and power, sovereignly pushing, pulling, lifting and driving people here, there and everywhere. It becomes clear that the affirmation that Jesus has been given by the heavenly voice is not for his comfort and ease, but to prepare him for what is to come. And sonship is less about privilege and more about unflinching obedience in the face of trial and challenge. 

   Jesus has undone the failures of both Israel and Adam; when we are incorporated into Jesus, we are incorporated into this victory, and we share in it by grace rather than by our own efforts. Mark’s account, by omitting the details of the threefold temptations recorded in Matthew and Luke, encourages us to read in this way. 

   That does not mean, as we face temptations and challenges this Lent, we can avoid the challenge of discipline and effort. But we face these things knowing that Jesus conquered them, in the power of the Spirit, and that the same Spirit is God’s gift to us, and it is his presence that brings victory. 

--Ian Paul 

Image source (with quotation from same site): Stanley Spencer, Christ in the Desert, 

https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/the-temptation-and-preaching-of-jesus-in-mark-1/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 18, 2024: This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come...

This is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come…

How do we know when the Lord is with us? 

    After the great flood, described in chapter 9 of the Book of Genesis, God establishes God’s covenant with Noah and his sons and their descendants after them, and with every living creature that was with them. It is a promise of safety and security for all God has created, and it is unilateral: God requires nothing from creation; God simply wants to show mercy and care to God’s people, as described in Psalm 25: Your compassion, O Lord, and your love are from of old. God’s promise is sealed by the bow set in the clouds, God’s battle gear reconfigured as a rainbow, which will appear whenever God brings clouds over the earth, a reminder to God and, hopefully, to humankind, of God’s enduring covenant with all creation, a sign that God is always with us. 

    In some ways, Jesus’ time in the desert, in Mark’s Gospel, is rather reminiscent of the story of Noah and the ark: Jesus remains in the desert for forty days, as Noah and his family spent forty days on the ark. Jesus, too, is among wild beasts who do him no harm, as was the case with Noah. Most significantly, however, Jesus, like Noah, knows that the Father’s love, in the form of the Spirit, will get him through, whatever he might face, no matter how dangerous life might become, for the angels minister to him throughout his forty days, while in the meantime he is tempted by Satan. And danger there will be: the First Letter of Peter reminds us that Christ suffered for sins once, that he might lead us to God. But Jesus is never alone; his Father is always with him.

 

   Our baptism is a sign of our fidelity to covenant; we pledge to God a clear conscience, and seek to be humble as we open to God’s presence with us and God’s action in our lives. Like Noah, like Paul, we are given an opportunity to cultivate an open heart; it is up to us to maintain that openness to the Lord, who is with us always, guiding us in his truth and teaching us his way. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Even the clover is made of hearts (Kayleen Asbo)

Our days are fleeting,
And soon we shall be dust,
But I want to be the kind of person
Who leaves behind in the ashes
Seeds of hope and love
That might sprout in the years to come. 

So while daylight is here,
And while I still have any struggling breath within me,
Let me give myself again and again to beauty
Over and over opening my eyes
To bow at what is right here before me. 

Let me make a wreath of roses
To crown a passing stranger in friendship.
And if there are no roses,
Let me extend my hand with dandelions,
So that we might make a wish together for a
World of peace.
And if there are no dandelions to be found,
May I remember that
Even the clover is made of hearts
And can become a doorway to hope
If only I have the presence to pay attention and give thanks. 

--Kayleen Asbo, Ash Wednesday

This year Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine's Day!

May it be a doorway to hope for you and yours...

Image source: https://catholicexchange.com/the-treasure-of-four-leaf-clovers-and-man/

The path we must take (St. John Vianney / Teresa Marie Cariño)

Lent stimulates us to let
the Word of God penetrate our life and
in this way to know the fundamental truth:
who we are, where we come from,
where we must go,
what path we must take in life.

 --St. John Vianney 

Reciting her poem [at the 2021 presidential inauguration], “The Hill We Climb,” Amanda Gorman concluded on this message of hope. She proclaimed, 

The new dawn blooms as we free it 

For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it 

As we enter into this season of Lent, let us turn our whole hearts to God and place in God our trust. Let us give alms not just by giving money to the poor but by working for economic security of all. Let us pray not just by reciting rote prayers but by opening our hearts to listen to the Spirit. Let us fast, not just from food and drink but from the privileges we have been given to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. Let us work together to repair relationships and co-create systems of economic and social justice. Let us be brave enough to be the light as we free a new dawn. 

--Teresa Marie Cariño

Image source: https://understandingfaith.edu.au/lent-and-social-justice/
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A wholeness we must seek (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

   We often set limitations, we set up barriers, we decide who belongs and who doesn’t, we decide who’s worth our while and who is not. In Christ’s perspective, everyone is worth our while, because it is everyone we hope to see in the life to come. It’s everyone we hope to be joined to in the life to come. 

   Our lives don’t lend themselves very well to unity. We live in pieces. Sometimes we live in those pieces very well. But it’s not the piecemeal to which we have been called, but a wholeness which we must seek. If we wish to understand God’s mystery as it unfolds, we are going to have to seek that wholeness that includes us but also the rest of the world. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels
Homily, November 7, 2023

Image source: https://www.newemangelization.com/uncategorized/catholic-mens-daily-devotional-and-bible-study-6th-week-in-ordinary-time-sunday-cycle-b-mark-140-45/

That touch is what heals (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

     To receive the Eucharist or to touch the community of believers is to be touched by Christ, just as surely as if we had been touched by Jesus himself. And that touch is what heals us, and links us to the community of salvation. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser 

Image source: Mariotto Albertinelli, The Visitation (1503), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitation_%28Albertinelli%29
Quotation source

May your touch change me (Maria Anne McGuire)

Loving God, I come before you in all my woundedness
I bring you my pain
My imperfections
The hidden, festering places within me.
I open myself to your healing touch.
May your touch change me
Inspire my voice
Animate me to full participation
Remind me of my worth.
Pour out your love through me so that I may take on the mind of Christ: 

To love the leper back to health
To remind them who they are: welcome, included, valued, necessary,
Beloved Children of God.
Amen. 

--Maria Anne McGuire         

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/christthekinghp/photos/a.2965606743462985/4717340544956254/?type=3
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All we want (Oliver Putnam)

That’s really all we want, isn’t it?

More time with the people we love. 

--Oliver Putnam, a character in
Only Murders in the Building

Image source 1: Morning coffee, O’Brien Hall, November 7, 2023; picture kindly provided by Steve Reiter during the Reiters' recent visit to Mill Valley.

Image source 2 & Quotation source: https://www.magicalquote.com/seriesquotes/thats-really-all-we-want-isnt-it/

The leper's beautiful plea (Bishop Robert Barron)

     Jesus healing a leper [is] an icon of the spiritual life in general. 

     Once in the Lord’s presence, the leper kneels down and begs him. The suffering man realizes who Jesus is: not one prophet among many but the incarnation of the God of Israel, the only one before whom worship is the appropriate attitude. 

     In our sickness, our weakness, our shame, our sin, our oddness—lots of us feel like this leper. We feel as though we’re just not worthy. Whatever trouble we are in, we have to come to Jesus in the attitude of worship. He is the Lord and we’re not. This is the key step in getting our lives in order: right praise. 

     Consider the leper’s beautiful plea, essential in any act of petitionary prayer: "If you wish, you can make me clean." He is not demanding; he is acknowledging the lordship of Jesus, his sovereignty. "Thy will be done" is always the right attitude in any prayer. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, January 12, 2023 

Image source: Pieter de Jode, Christ Healing the Leper, https://www.ncronline.org/feb-14-2021-sixth-sunday-ordinary-time

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 11, 2024: Unclean, unclean!

Unclean, unclean!

How hard it is to be cut off from community! 

   We all remember what it was like to be separated from one another at the height of the pandemic, and the profound effects of such separation on our souls and spirits. It was difficult not to despair. The leper in Mark’s Gospel must know similar despair. Following the rules found in Leviticus, the leper has been taken to the priest and declared unclean, not as a punishment, but as an invitation to do the right thing and accept separation from the community for the good of that community. The leper acknowledges his responsibility to others and cares enough for those in his community to respect the rules of distance and separation. 

   But Jesus’ appearance in Galilee gives the man hope, and he reaches out – an extraordinary gesture, given his condition – with humble faith in Jesus’ ability to heal him: If you wish, you can make me clean. Jesus accepts his request: I do will it. Be made clean. Once the man shows himself to the priest, he will be restored to community. As in Psalm 32, he has turned to the Lord in time of trouble, and God fills him with the joy of salvation. The man’s liberation, not only from continuous discomfort and pain, but from the necessary separation from those he loved, must have overwhelmed him, giving him an immediate connection to Jesus his savior. Is it any surprise that he publicizes the whole matter, even though Jesus asks him not to? His experience is, from beginning to end, extraordinary. One imagines he can barely contain himself! 

   We all have a responsibility to our community. Think back to all the masks and social distancing and sacrifice of years past. In his Letter to the Corinthians, Paul is grappling with reports of a group of Christians who are manifestly not fulfilling their responsibility to one another. Some Christians have been eating meat sacrificed to pagan idols, showing an unfortunate cultural insensitivity. Their actions belie the fact that their membership in a community requires that they respect all members, care for all members, try to please all members in every way, and all for the glory of God and the benefit of the many. Only then will they truly foster the kind of community they are called to be, a community grounded not in sin but in compassion. For only when we are open to the restoration of all to community can we truly be imitators of Christ. Only then will we know the full joy of salvation Jesus offers us at every turn. Only then can we embrace one another in love and fellowship, a fellowship in which no one is deemed unclean, and all are one, united in our community of faith. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class (February 2021).
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Better than biscuits (Author unknown)

   A pastor asked an older farmer, decked out in bib overalls, to say grace for the morning breakfast. 

   "Lord, I hate buttermilk", the farmer began. The visiting pastor opened one eye to glance at the farmer and wonder where this was going. 

   The farmer loudly proclaimed, "Lord, I hate lard." Now the pastor was growing concerned. 

   Without missing a beat, the farmer continued, "And Lord, you know I don't much care for raw white flour". The pastor once again opened an eye to glance around the room and saw that he wasn't the only one to feel uncomfortable. Then the farmer added, "But Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I do love warm fresh biscuits. So Lord, when things come up that we don't like, when life gets hard, when we don't understand what you're saying to us, help us to just relax and wait until you are done mixing. It will probably be even better than biscuits. Amen."

--Author Unknown

Image source: https://www.biscuitpeople.com/magazine/post/ingredients-for-biscuits-an-introduction
Story source

When we suffer (Victor Hugo / Matt Nelson)

Even the darkest night will end
and the sun will rise.
 
--Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 

   So, when we suffer with Christ, we suffer in and through Christ. Doing so, we are joined to the saving mission of our Savior. He didn’t have to make this possible. He doesn’t need us to redeem the world. 

  But God wants to offer us everything: even the ability to convert the worst of evils in our own lives into acts of charity and salvation. Knowing this, St. Paul rejoiced in his sufferings. 

--Matt Nelson, 
Suffering as Gift:
A Third Layer of Reality 

Image source: Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (2012), https://beyondthesestonewalls.com/posts/les-miserables-the-bishop-and-the-redemption-of-jean-valjean, with movie clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzJYqCsANv8
Quotation 1 source
Quotation 2 source

Your heart is greater than your wounds (Henri Nouwen)

   The great challenge is living your words through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to try to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your hurts to your head or to your heart. In your head you analyze them, find their causes and consequences, and coin words to speak and write about them. But no final healing is likely to come from that source. You need to let your wounds go down into your heart. Then you can live them through and discover that they will not destroy you. Your heart is greater than your wounds. 

--Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice 

Image source: https://ladieslovinggod.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/unpacking-unpeeling-the-process-of-healing-emotional-wounds-part-ii/

Is not man's life on earth a drudgery? (The Bee Gees)

Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?

--Job 7:1 

I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow,
but I was never told about the sorrow 

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again 

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow,
no one said a word about the sorrow 

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again 

To hear the Bee Gees perform How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, click on the video below:

Image source : Sir William Orpen, Job, http://www.sirwilliamorpen.com/job-by-william-orpen-at-christies-london-auction-18th-june-2019/
Video source

Love (St. John of the Cross)

   And I saw the river over which every soul must pass
   and the name of that river was Suffering:
   and I saw a boat which carries souls across the river
   and the name of that boat was Love. 

--St. John of the Cross

Image & text source: https://lovebeingcatholic.com/2015/10/08/saint-john-of-the-cross/
Quotation source

The healing love of God (Bishop Robert Barron)

  Healer: that’s why Jesus has come; that’s who he is. In Jesus, divinity and humanity meet. His hands and mouth and eyes, his whole body becomes a conduit of God’s energy. What’s God’s energy, God’s purpose? To set right a world gone wrong, a suffering world. Out of every pore of his body, Jesus expresses the healing love of God. 

   Jesus’ ministry of healing expresses in history God’s ultimate intention for the world. In Jesus, we see a hint of that world to come where there will be no more suffering, no more sadness, no more sickness. 

   He does not wait for the sinner, the sufferer, the marginalized to come to him. In love and humility, he goes to them. This same Jesus, risen from the dead, present and alive in the Church, is still seeking us out, coming into our homes—not waiting for us to crawl to him but seeking us out in love and humility. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, March 28, 2022 

Source of images: Unknown Illustrator, The Healing of the Blind; The Healing of the Possessed, 1386, https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/astonishing-deeds-christ-healings

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 4, 2024: Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted...

Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted…

 What blessings can you count in your life? 

    The titular character of the Book of Job has been assigned months of misery and troubled nights; Job does not feel he has been blessed by God. Except for his wife, Job has lost everything that made his life prosperous, including his health, and he suspects he shall not see happiness again. Job cannot, for the moment, count his blessings; he sees only the drudgery of his existence. In the end, however, Job’s fortune will be restored, and he will be able to sing Psalm 147, Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted. In it, the psalmist recognizes God’s graciousness, God’s restoration of his broken people. Both Job and the psalmist ultimately trust in God and they will be restored by the God who cares for them. 

   In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is a model of restoration, first healing Simon’s mother-in-law who lays sick with a fever, and then curing many who were sick with various diseases and driving out demons. The people bring all who are broken, and Jesus heals them all; the immediacy of their need drives him on, even after a very long day. Unlike Job, who sees little reason to hope, Jesus, through his preaching, teaching and healing, touches the hearts of all throughout the whole of Galilee, and his work is so moving that they pursue him, holding to the powerful connection they feel to this teacher who has touched their lives, a blessing like none they have known before. 

   God wants to meet us where we are, which is why Paul, in his Letter to the Corinthians, can say that he has become all things to all to save at least some. An obligation has been imposed on him, but Paul knows that he is called by God, sent by God, and he cannot avoid that obligation. Paul thus gives us himself as completely as he can, giving of the Word freely, reaching into his own weakness to preach to the weak. Paul is a blessing to the community he serves because he allows the Lord to work through him, whatever the personal cost might be. 

   Like Job and Paul, we have to choose daily whether to follow through on what the Lord is calling us to. God meets us where we are as well, touching our hearts, inviting us to participate in his work, calling us to serve, blessing our lives, that we might be blessing to all we meet. Will we say yes? 

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