She reached past her fears (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

   So she reached with everything she had–she reached past her fears – she reached past her limitations– she reached past the dirty looks– she reached past 4,383 days of isolation and disappointment and despair – she reached past the hateful things said to her by those who were supposed to help her, she reached past her past. Our sister reached for her own healing and her own dignity and her own wholeness and said if I but touch his clothes I will be made well. 

   That is to say, if I but touch his clothes I will be made me. 

   I will be made me again and not what everyone has labeled me. 

   And immediately her bleeding stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed by the power of Jesus of Nazareth. 

   Everyone else may have called her impure, unclean, and unholy… but he called her daughter. In that one word, Jesus tells her who she really is. A beloved child of God. 

--Nadia Bolz-Weber 

Image source & complete (and amazing!!) article: https://thecorners.substack.com/p/reaching-past-your-past

Only believe (Melanie Rainer)

   I long for faith and love to chase away fear (1 John 4:18), to trust the character of Jesus, to believe that He will accomplish all He has promised to do. I long to believe that the promise revealed to John in Revelation 21:4 is true: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.” His words are my only hope in life and in death: “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” 

--Melanie Rainer 

Image source: Vasily Polenov, Raising of Jairus’ Daughter (1871), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Jairus%27_daughter
Quotation source

Stop living in the space of death (Bishop Robert Barron)

   In light of the Resurrection, we know that God’s deepest intention for us is life, and life to the full. He wants death not to have the final word; he wants a renewal of the heavens and the earth. 

  Therefore, we have to stop living in the intellectual and spiritual space of death. We have to stop living intellectually in a world dominated by death and the fear of death. We have to adjust our attitudes in order to respond properly to what God really intends for us and the world. 

   Though we rarely admit it, we live in a death-haunted space. The fear of death broods over us like a cloud and conditions all of our thoughts and actions. What if we really believed, deep down, that death did not have the final word? Would we live in such fear, in such a cramped spiritual space? Or would we see that the protection of our egos is not the number one concern of our existence? 

 

--Bishop Robert Barron,

Gospel Reflection,
Holy Saturday 2022

Image source: Icon of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Teplodar, Ukraine, https://www.godwhospeaks.uk/the-resurrection-in-art/
Quotation source

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 30, 2024: The child is not dead but asleep...

The child is not dead but asleep…

Is it hard to have faith in the face of death? 

    The Book of Wisdom reminds us that God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. Indeed, God formed humankind to be imperishable; God created us to live in his presence forever. Everything that God created is wholesome and good, the very image of God’s own nature. It is when we choose self-focus over God that death enters the world, in the form of a struggle between our selfishness and God. If God created us, loving us into existence, then only our choices can get in the way of our experience of being close to God. As Psalm 30 reminds us, so long as we have faith, God will rescue us, that we might remain close to him, changing our mourning into dancing! 

    Such is the case, in Mark’s Gospel, for both the synagogue official Jairus and the woman afflicted with hemorrhages. Jairus believes that Jesus can effect change, whether his daughter is ill or at the point of death; Jesus assures Jairus by saying, Just have faith. When the woman touches Jesus’ cloak, immediately her flow of blood dried up. Jesus recognizes her faith as well:  Daughter, your faith has saved you. Both Jairus’ daughter and the woman move from death (spiritual or physical) to life in Jesus, a life that lasts forever – precisely what God intended when he created us. Jesus has chosen a physical healing and a physical raising from death to extrapolate something eternal. 

    We are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, that we might share in eternal life with him forever. Like the woman who touches his cloak or the girl whom Jesus takes by the hand, we share in spiritual life with him, a connection with him and in him. He remains in us, and so, as we face issues in this life, we face them in company with his presence and with his promise of life eternal. We understand our own story of life differently because he remains in us; we are aware that God dwells in each of us and in our community, in a life larger than any individual life we could imagine. May we thus excel in the gracious act of generosity, as Paul tells the Corinthians, reaching out to all those in need as we recognize our shared life in Christ. 

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

Am I sailing with him? (Pope Francis)

   How do I react when I am afraid, in difficulties? Do I go ahead alone, with my own strength, or do I call on the Lord with trust? And what is my faith like? Do I believe that Christ is stronger than the adversarial waves and winds? But above all: Am I sailing with him? Do I welcome him? Do I make room for him in the boat of my life – never alone, always with Jesus? Do I hand the helm over to Jesus? In the dark crossings, may Mary, the mother of Jesus, Star of the Sea, help us to seek the light of Jesus. 

--Pope Francis, Angelus, August 13th, 2023 

Image source: Eugène Delacroix, Christ Asleep During the Tempest (ca.1853), https://sdcason.com/paintings-of-jesus-calming-the-storm/; see also:  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436176 
Quotation source

To feel infinite love (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   God is ineffable, unimaginable, and beyond conception and language. Our faith lets us bracket this for a while and lets us picture God as some idolized super-hero. But eventually that well runs dry and our finite minds are left to know the infinite only in darkness, without images, and our finite hearts are left to feel infinite love only inside a dark trust. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI

Image source: Cover, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, https://www.flickersinthedark.com/2018/10/20/an-examination-heart-of-darkness-and-feminism/
Quotation source

Something very deep and mysterious (Mae Jemison / Henri Nouwen)

Never limit yourself because of
others’ limited imagination;
never limit others because of
your own limited imagination.

 --Mae Jemison, NASA Astronaut 

    Something very deep and mysterious, very holy and sacred, is taking place in our lives right where we are, and the more attentive we become, the more we will begin to see and hear it. The more our spiritual sensitivities come to the surface of our daily lives, the more we will discover—uncover—a new presence in our lives. 

--Henri Nouwen

Today we celebrate the Nativity of St. John the Baptist,
whose imagination was not limited by his own self-focus... 

Image source: Image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, https://www.space.com/best-hubble-space-telescope-images.html
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

He commandeth the stormy wind (Henry Purcell)

   They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
   These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
   For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
   They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
   They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.
   Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
   He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
   Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. 

--Henry Purcell, Psalm 107 

To hear Henry Purcell’s beautiful setting of Psalm 107 as sung by the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, click on the video below: 

Image source: https://www.reform-magazine.co.uk/2013/01/abiding-peace/
Video source (including an explanation of the origins of the piece as well as an analysis of the music itself)

Troubled water (Cheyenne)

   I asked God, Why are you taking me through troubled water? 

    He replied, Because your enemies can’t swim. 

Christ is with us wherever we go,
but we must listen to his voice and
follow him wherever he may take us!

--Cheyenne 

Image source: Clark Little, The Art of Waves, https://www.treehugger.com/surfer-photographer-captures-power-beauty-waves-5224466
Quotation source

What are the limitations that we place on God? (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    What are the limitations that we place upon God? Where do those limitations come from? Are they a failure of our imagination, or are they a failure of our vision? Are they our own inability, projected onto God? 

    What circumstances do we decide that God is unable to address? How many situations in our own lives or in our own world do we think are beyond God’s abilities? Our lack of faith makes us think this way. 

    But Jesus says to us, Wait until you see what is possible for God even when mankind is sinful. What is possible for his forgiveness? What can it do? What can it create? What can it recreate? 

    Don’t set limits on God and on God’s ability simply because you know the limits of your own existence. Each of us needs to expand our heart to take in all that God is capable of, and trust that God can. For his will will be done, and if we believe, it will be done in us. 

--Fr. Patrick Michaels, Homily, March 13, 2024 

Image source: William Blake, illustrations of the Book of Job, The Lord Answering Job out of the Whirlwind (1805-1806), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake%27s_Illustrations_of_the_Book_of_Job#/media/File:The_Lord_Answering_Job_Out_of_the_Whirlwind_Butts_set.jpg For additional commentary on this passage, see: https://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2015/06/22/commentary-on-job-38-42-job-meets-god/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 23, 2024: Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?

Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?

Do we trust the Lord? 

    How often do we question the Lord’s wisdom? When the innocent man Job is at the end of his rope, having lost almost everyone he loves and nearly all he owns, Job begins to question God’s wisdom. Speaking out of the storm, God responds to Job’s challenges with his own spectacularly vivid questions: Who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling bands? It is as much as if to say, I set order over chaos and created more than you can imagine; how dare you second guess my work? The Lord God is the source of mysteries we cannot understand, and wants us to see him at work and marvel at it, without imposing our own limited parameters on him. God is exploding all Job presumes to know because God doesn’t want Job to live within the limitations of his own way of thinking. If Job can stretch beyond those limitations, he will have a more accurate (albeit still incomplete) understanding of God, whose love, as Psalm 107 tells us, is everlasting. But first, Job needs to open his vision to see that love in all of God’s activity. 

    Jesus’ disciples will have similar difficulty opening their vision to see what Jesus is truly capable of. In Mark’s Gospel, when the disciples take Jesus into their boat just as he was, he falls asleep on a cushion, where he will remain even when a violent squall comes up and waves are breaking over the boat. Such a tempest terrifies the disciples, who still do not seem to trust that Jesus is capable of calming any storm without even leaving his seat. Faith is not speaking to their hearts; faith has no access to their hearts. They, too, need to open their vision to see Jesus, not just as they initially believe him to be, but as a divine force among them, with gifts they cannot begin to imagine. 

    We who are baptized, and who have thus become a new creation, Paul tells the Corinthians, must be similarly open. We are not what we were before; we are more, for God sent his Son to die for all, to broaden our vision. Our baptism impels us to take up our life for others, allowing Christ’s love to change us, expanding our perspective. Now one with him, we must recognize that God’s vision is so much bigger than anything we could possibly understand… and yet, so long as we embrace the mystery and trust in the God who saves, we will know that we can get through any difficulty, for God’s love never fails. 

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

Yearning for the kingdom (St. Charbel Makhlouf / Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

Do not start anything on earth,
if it does not end in heaven;
and do not walk on a path on earth
that does not lead to heaven.

 --St. Charbel Makhlouf 

       The kingdom of God is about immortality and consummation, and knowing and being known, about luxuriating in ecstatic embrace, and it is precisely these things that we dream of in our most uncensored daydreams. It is indeed toward these things that we are relentlessly propelled by every aching cell inside us. Yearning for the kingdom is written into our very DNA. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI,
Facebook, December 4, 2023 

Image source: https://www.igenomix.net/blog/what-is-dna-made-of/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Birds in its branches singing Mozart (Fr. Isaac Hecker / Frederick Buechner)

The kingdom of heaven is brought about
not by the alteration of one's circumstances,
but of one's self.

--Fr. Isaac Hecker, CSP,
Thoughts on the Spiritual Life

    They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour's work as for a day's.  They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart.  They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb...

--Frederick Buechner,
Telling the Truth:
The Gospel as Tragedy,
Comedy, and Fairy Tale

Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/mustard-seed/ 
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

To point to the signs of the kingdom to come (Henri Nouwen)

    Life is “a little while,” a short moment of waiting. But life is not empty waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. The knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a “new heaven and a new earth,” makes the waiting exciting. 

    We can already see the beginning of the fulfillment. Nature speaks of it every spring; people [speak] of it whenever they smile; the sun, the moon, and the stars speak of it when [they] offer us light and beauty; and all of history speaks of it when amid all devastation and chaos, men and women arise who reveal the hope that lives within them… 

    What is my main task during my “little while”? I want to point to the signs of the Kingdom to come, to speak about the first rays of the day of God, to witness to the many manifestations of the Holy Spirit among us. I do not want to complain about this passing world but to focus on the eternal that lights up in the midst of the temporal. I yearn to create space where it can be seen and celebrated. 

--Henri Nouwen

Image source: Sunset, Muir Beach Overlook, https://nomanbefore.com/muir-beach-overlook/
Quotation source

Earthly models of God's paternal love (Mary Gordon / Bishop Robert Barron)

A fatherless child thinks 

all things possible
and nothing is safe.

--Mary Gordon,
qtd. by Anderson Cooper

    Today, we celebrate Father’s Day and honor all those who have been an earthly model of God’s paternal love for each one of us. 

    We offer our prayers of gratitude for the vocation of fatherhood in its various forms and uphold its mission: bringing souls closer to our heavenly Father, who teaches us the true meaning of love. 

 

    Please join me in praying for all these men, that they continue living out their profound vocation with wisdom and joy. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Happy Father’s Day to all
who fill the role of fathers in our lives,

including our pastor Fr. Pat
and priest in residence Fr. Bill!

Image source 1: https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-mystery-of-fatherhood/
Image source 2: https://matthew.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/fatherhood-among-the-highest-of-callings/
Quotation source 1 (Anderson Cooper speaks with Stephen Colbert about the loss of their dads at a very young age, and how this loss influenced them.)
Quotation source 2

Starting from small things (Pope Francis)

   The Lord can do a lot with the little that we put at His disposal. It would be good to ask ourselves every day: “What do I bring to Jesus today?” He can do a lot with one of our prayers, with a gesture of charity for others, even with one of our sufferings handed over to His mercy. [We give] our small things to Jesus, and He works miracles. This is how God loves to act: He does great things, starting from those small things, those freely-given ones. 

--Pope Francis, July 16, 2023

Image source: https://themindfool.com/acts-of-kindness-to-improve-social-ties/ 

Quotation source

To build the reign of God (Gina Scaringella, OP)

   In reality, it’s unlikely that birds would build a nest in a mustard plant, but the reach of the mustard plant does stretch far and wide—all from a tiny seed. Wild mustard is nothing if not invasive! So, when Jesus compares the potential of this tiny seed to the potential of God’s reign, he calls us to know the expansiveness and invasiveness of God’s plan for good. And he calls us to know that we have a role in making the reign of God happen. God’s reign is where no one goes without. It’s where there’s love, where there’s peace. God’s reign is where right relationship is the only kind of relationship. 

   We’re not there yet, but in God’s design, our mustard-seed steps to get there all have value. Life insists because God insists. Indeed, it’s painful when we look at the amount of need in our world and know that most of us can fill only a tiny part of that need. But since we know that each person has untold worth in the eyes of God, we trust that whatever we do to help even one person does have value and does help to build the reign of God. 

--Gina Scaringella, OP 

Image source: https://blog.nature.org/2022/04/04/beginners-tips-for-identifying-backyard-bird-nests/
Quotation source & complete article

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 16, 2024: Of its own accord the land yields fruit...

Of its own accord the land yields fruit…

So, what is our role in the kingdom of God? 

    The prophet Ezekiel was called to be a prophet to a people already in exile, a people utterly disheartened by the loss of their land and the fall of their king. Through Ezekiel, God informs the people that he intends to restore Israel at some unspecified future time: I will take from the crest of the cedar a tender shoot, and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. It shall put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar. One day, Israel will again be a place where others will come to witness and recognize the greatness of the God of Israel. However, the people need to understand that such restoration will be God’s work, not their own; their role will be to give thanks to the Lord in the temple, as Psalm 92 suggests, and to be just, so that, through their prayer, they may draw closer to God. Prayer is the way they will participate justly in God’s kingdom on earth, and flourish like the palm tree. 

    Jesus similarly seeks to explain the kingdom of God to his disciples. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ parables on the kingdom frequently reference growth and harvest: it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day, and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how, he tells the crowds. Humankind can choose to participate in the planting and harvesting, but while we sleep, the kingdom continues to grow, for God is always at work. The kingdom of God is thus an ongoing miracle in which we have the opportunity to participate, and it behooves us to do so. Even the tiny mustard seed can spring up and become the largest of plants in God’s hands. In every endeavor, then, we must put God’s plan at the center of anything we might hope to accomplish, aspiring to please him, as Paul tells the Corinthians, remaining courageous during our time on earth, with an eye to salvation, to the fullness of the kingdom ahead. 

    God is at work, relentlessly, endlessly, to bring forth salvation. Our role is to proclaim the kingdom which is unfolding, trusting in God’s promise of salvation for all, confident that we will be safe in the branches of his kingdom as we participate in praise and thanksgiving for all God promises to accomplish in our lives. Lord, it is good to give thanks to you! 

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

That my words might reveal your truth (John Birch)

I enter this day with joy 

knowing that you are with me 

every step of the way, 

knowing there is a purpose 

to each breath that I take, 

knowing there is hope 

toward which I walk. 

 

I enter this day with faith 

knowing you are the strength 

which I depend on, 

knowing you are the love 

that is all embracing, 

knowing it is your peace 

which calms my soul. 

 

I enter this day with praise 

knowing that I worship 

with service as with voice, 

hoping that my words 

might reveal your truth, 

hoping that your grace 

might touch another heart. 

--John Birch, Faith and Worship            

Image source: https://www.picaboo.com/inspired/6-tips-for-capturing-a-sunrise-5/
Poem source

An invitation to step out into the light (Fr. Timothy Radcliffe)

    How should conversations begin? In Genesis after the Fall, there is a terrible silence. The silent communion of Eden has become the silence of shame. Adam and Eve hide. How can God reach across that chasm? God waits patiently until they have clothed themselves to hide their embarrassment. Now they are ready for the first conversation in the Bible. The silence is broken with a simple question: ‘Where are you?’ It is not a request for information. It is an invitation to step out into the light and stand visibly before the face of God. 

--Fr. Timothy Radcliffe 

Image source: Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, bas-relief on the Portail de la Vierge, Notre-Dame de Paris.  Photo by Fr. Patrick Michaels.  To see the other sides of this trumeau, go to:   https://jalladeauj.fr/portailsndparis/styled-3/
Quotation source

The waterspouts of God (William James)

    There is a state of mind in which the will to assert ourselves and hold our own has been displaced by a willingness to close our mouths and be as nothing in the floods and waterspouts of God. 

    In this state of mind, what we most dreaded has become the habitation of our safety, and the hour of our moral death has turned into our spiritual birthday. The time for tension in our soul is over, and that of happy relaxation, of calm deep breathing, of an eternal present, with no discordant future to be anxious about, has arrived. 

--William James,
The Variety of Religious Experience

Image source: https://www.waterfallkeepersofnc.org/waterfall-healing/

The demonic tendency to divide (Bishop Robert Barron)

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus is accused of being in league with Satan. Some of the witnesses said, "By the prince of demons he drives out demons." 

    Jesus’ response is wonderful in its logic and laconicism: "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand." 

     The demonic power is always one of scattering. It breaks up communion. But Jesus, as always, is the voice of communio, of one bringing things back together. 

     Think back to Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. Facing a large, hungry crowd, his disciples beg him to "dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves." But Jesus answers, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves." 

    Whatever drives the Church apart is an echo of this "dismiss the crowds" impulse, and a reminder of the demonic tendency to divide. In times of trial and threat, this is a very common instinct. We blame, attack, break up, and disperse. But Jesus is right: "There is no need for them to go away." 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, January 24, 2022 

Image source: Hieronymous Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/lists/the-10-worst-ways-to-die-in-a-hieronymous-bosch-painting-53872

The center of my life (St. Bede the Venerable)

    I was no longer the center of my life and therefore I could see God in everything. 

 --St. Bede the Venerable

Image source 1: https://nnart.org/fractals-in-nature/
Image source 2: https://skywaterearth.com/2018/11/16/ancient-fractal-beauty/
Quotation source

Adam, where are you? (Pope Francis)

 
   “Adam, where are you?” (cf. Gen 3:9). Where are you, o man? What have you come to? In this place, this memorial of the Shoah, we hear God’s question echo once more: “Adam, where are you?” This question is charged with all the sorrow of a Father who has lost his child. The Father knew the risk of freedom; he knew that his children could be lost… yet perhaps not even the Father could imagine so great a fall, so profound an abyss! Here, before the boundless tragedy of the Holocaust, That cry – “Where are you?” – echoes like a faint voice in an unfathomable abyss… 

   Adam, who are you? I no longer recognize you. Who are you, o man? What have you become? Of what horror have you been capable? What made you fall to such depths?

   Certainly it is not the dust of the earth from which you were made. The dust of the earth is something good, the work of my hands. Certainly it is not the breath of life which I breathed into you. That breath comes from me, and it is something good (cf. Gen 2:7). 

   No, this abyss is not merely the work of your own hands, your own heart… Who corrupted you? Who disfigured you? Who led you to presume that you are the master of good and evil? Who convinced you that you were god? Not only did you torture and kill your brothers and sisters, but you sacrificed them to yourself, because you made yourself a god. 

--Pope Francis,
Address at the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Memorial Museum,
May 26, 2014

Image source 1: Giovanni di Paolo, The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise (1445), http://www.worldsbestpaintings.net/artistsandpaintings/painting/29/ 

Image source 2 & quotation source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-pope-franciss-speech-at-yad-vashem/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 9, 2024: Why did you do such a thing?

Why did you do such a thing?

How often do we fail to take responsibility for our actions? 

    Beginning with the story of Adam and Eve, it has often been difficult for human beings to realize that their actions have consequences. In the Book of Genesis, the story of the Fall reminds us that neither Adam nor Eve is willing to take responsibility for eating of the tree of which God had forbidden them to eat. The woman whom you put here with me, Adam says, she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it. The woman also refuses to acknowledge her role: The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it. Adam and Eve could have all they want and yet they want more, and they deceive themselves by shifting blame away from themselves. Once that happens, divisions begin, as each becomes increasingly self-focused, no longer relying on one another, and no longer open to God working in their life. Unlike the psalmist in Psalm 130, who knows that with the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption, neither Adam nor Eve asks for forgiveness or has any hope of salvation from God. 

    In Mark’s Gospel, the scribes similarly fail to see that God is at work among them, and do not take responsibility for their imposition of an unwieldy set of laws upon the people, which has had disastrous consequences. Instead, the scribes accuse Jesus of doing evil: He is possessed by Beelzebul, they say. By the prince of demons he drives out demons. Their comments are blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and Jesus calls out their guilt and their self-focus. Even Jesus’ own family members seem not to understand what God is doing and so try to intervene: He is out of his mind, they say as they set out to seize him, fearful that he is risking his life by provoking the scribes. Jesus will forgive them for not understanding that the most important thing of all is to do the will of God. He came to save all mankind by binding up Satan, by binding up evil and replacing it with God’s love. If this requires giving his life, so be it: Jesus wants both the scribes and his disciples to have faith and to recognize what God is doing in and among them to effect their salvation. 

    If we are open to what God is doing in us, then we know to look not to what is seen but to what is unseen, as Paul tells the Corinthians. We are to look within, to the faith growing with in us, at work in us, rather to give in to self-focus. God calls us to draw closer and closer to the eternal life within us, that we might open to the salvation he offers and be a conduit of that life to all. 

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

Sacrifice (St. Padre Pio / St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata)

The most beautiful act of faith 
is the one made in darkness,
in sacrifice, and with extreme effort.

 --St. Padre Pio

    A sacrifice, to be real, must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness. 

--St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata 

Image source: Luis de Morales, Ecce Homo (1560-1570), https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/ecce-homo/14b075b3-5205-42fb-9a9c-0ac3302704e2?searchid=f91274dd-5155-eb59-bd75-1232d8de812a
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2

Nourished with his own blood (St. John Chrysostom)

   Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” 

    As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death. 

    Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life. 

--St. John Chrysostom, Catecheses 

Image source: Holy Blood, Weingarten, Germany (1489), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_of_Christ#/media/File:Heilig-Blut-Tafel_Weingarten_1489_img01.jpg
Quotation source

This is my blood, which is for you (Celeste Mueller)

   The blood of the covenant, in our reading from Exodus, marks the eternal relationship between God and the people who, by their assent to this covenant, make their unity visible. The blood poured out on the people and the altar signifies the blood of their communion. They are one. 

   Jesus’ free gift of his body and blood, the night before his own unjust and violent death, forever tears away our illusion of separateness and the illusion that the violence in the world is not also in us. 

          This is my body, which is for you
          This my blood, poured out for you and for the multitudes. 

   In this act we see, we know, we receive that we are one body, with one river of blood flowing through the veins of all. 

   This is not simply a poetic or spiritualized notion. Our faith is incarnate, corporeal, lived out in our physical bodies — and the blood that flows through the veins of every human person is one: 

           The bodies broken daily by violence are our bodies; it is our blood spilled out.
           The enraged, or perhaps cold, blood that flows through the veins of the perpetrators of violence, is pumped by our hearts as well. 

And together we receive, our common healing and transformation through our participation in the free gift of Jesus: This is my body, This is my blood, which is for you. 

--Celeste Mueller

Image source: Roger van der Weyden, The Descent from the Cross, detail & full painting, (1435), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent_from_the_Cross_%28van_der_Weyden%29#/media/File:Rogier_van_der_Weyden_-_Deposition_(detail)_-_WGA25580.jpg
Quotation source & complete article

The bread that saved his soul (Fr. Timothy Radcliffe)

    In Auschwitz, Primo Levi was given a share of bread every day by [an Italian bricklayer named] Lorenzo Perrone. Levi later wrote: ‘I believe it was really due to Lorenzo that I am alive today; and not so much for his material aid as for his having constantly reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still exists a world outside our own, something and someone still pure and whole, not corrupt, not savage… something difficult to define, a remote possibility of good but for which it was worth surviving. Thanks to Lorenzo I managed not to forget that I myself was a man.’ The small portion of bread saved his soul. […] 

    At the Last Supper, the disciples received a hope beyond all that they could have imagined: the body of Christ and his blood, the new covenant, eternal life. In the light of this Eucharistic hope, all their conflicting hopes must have seemed as nothing, except to Judas who despaired. This is what St Paul called ‘hoping against hope’ (Romans 4.18), the hope that transcends all of our hopes. 

    Our hope is Eucharistic. 

--Fr. Timothy Radcliffe 

Image source: Primo Levi with his children; he named his daughter Lisa Lorenza in honor of the man who had offered him salvation in his darkest moments. https://storygenius.it/2023/02/25/primo-e-lorenzo/
Quotation source

The sacrament of love (St. Thomas Aquinas)

 

   The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life. 

 --St. Thomas Aquinas

Image source: Kallan Stout, Divine Love, http://www.lcdiocese.org/3-news/3627-eucharist-in-art-inspires-devotion-to-real-presence
Quotation source