You will eventually find God (Frederick Buechner)

   Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit are the words C. G. Jung had chiseled into his stone lintel in Switzerland, which mean, freely translated, that you will eventually find God whether you want to or not. If you want to (even if you don’t happen to believe He exists), all you have to do is find some quiet place, be quiet inside yourself, and ask Him to let you find Him (or Him you). As far as I know, it is a prayer that is always answered. 

--Frederick Buechner 

Image source: https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/11/11/carl-jungs-gravesite/
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Gracious uncertainty (Oswald Chambers)

   Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life – gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. 

   When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God– it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, “…unless you… become as little children…” (Matthew 18:3). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. 

   But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, "...believe also in Me” (John 14:1), not, “Believe certain things about Me”. Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in– but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him. 

--Oswald Chambers,
“Gracious Uncertainty”

Image source: Jae Ko, Drift (2022), https://bmoreart.com/2022/05/sitting-in-uncertainty.html
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Discernment (Dr. Kathleen Hope Brown)

     Discernment is an attitude of the heart, an openness to learning God’s will and to making all of our decisions in accordance with God’s will. A discerning attitude of the heart is the way to healing. 

--Dr. Kathleen Hope Brown,
 Memorial for Fr. John Crossin,
April 18, 2024 

Image source: https://thejewishstudio.org/spiritual-open-heart-surgery/

Recognize the precious gems (Anne Lamott / Pope Francis)

You can safely assume you’ve created
God in your own image when it turns out
that God hates all the same people you do.

 --Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

    Every day, at home, on the street, at work, on holiday, we have the possibility of discerning good. And it is important to know how to find what counts: to train ourselves to recognize the precious gems of life and to distinguish them from junk. Let us not waste time and freedom on trivial things, pastimes that leave us empty inside, while life offers us every day the precious pearl of the encounter with God and with others! It is necessary to know how to recognize it: to discern in order to find it. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source: https://www.aliciajdiamonds.com/journal/complete-guide-to-gemstones/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 29, 2024: Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name...

Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name…

Isn’t it amazing how often we question what God is doing? 

    When, in the Book of Numbers, the Lord comes down in a cloud and, taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, bestows it on seventy elders, Joshua is immediately concerned: Moses, my lord, stop them, he says. Joshua seems to think that his own judgment trumps God’s judgment. But not only is Moses unwilling to question the Lord, he is also thrilled to have a greater and more diverse group of leaders to take some of the burden of leadership off of himself. Indeed, Moses is thrilled that the spirit moves the elders directly into action: Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Moses says. Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all! 

    Jesus’ disciples similarly question what the Lord is doing in Mark’s Gospel. When John brings it to Jesus’ attention that someone is driving out demons in Jesus’ name, Jesus does not want the disciples to intervene: Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. John’s narrow vision precludes him from seeing the full extent of what the Lord can do; John lacks clear discernment and misunderstands his own responsibility to God and to others. 

    If we limit God and what God is able to accomplish in our own minds, then we will be seriously limited in what we can do on God’s behalf and how will we will respond to God at work in our lives. Such vision extends to any activity of our own that affects others’ lives. The Letter of James decries those who work for riches – treasure for the last days – rather than addressing the needs of the community. This community is not allowing God to work through them; indeed, all of their actions are contrary to God’s will. They lack the discernment sought by the psalmist in Psalm 19: Cleanse me from my unknown faults, he prays, for who can detect failings? The psalmist clearly desires God to lead him in right paths, guided by those precepts of the Lord that give joy to the heart. 

    We, like Joshua and the disciples, need to learn to discern where the Lord is working in our lives and where our own lives might be prone to error and sin, that our conscience and consciousness might lead us to recognize our responsibility to God and to one another. Only then can we grow past the limitations we place on God and fully appreciate those precepts of the Lord that give joy to the heart! 

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

To serve others (St. Catherine of Siena / John Roedel)

To the servant of God,
every place is the right place,
and every time is the right time.

--St. Catherine of Siena 

whenever I feel helpless
in this overwhelming world 

I become a helper 

oh, oh,
my love 

on the days
when it feels like
I have no power 

I serve others 

you see,
whenever I wash
the world’s feet 

my hands
immediately
stop shaking 

 --John Roedel 

Image source: https://possesshispromises.com/2018/10/19/washing-feet-3-lessons/ via www.LumoProject.com
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We are all called to serve (Elizabeth Bonker)

 
    We are all called to serve, as an everyday act of humility, as a habit of mind.  To see the worth in every person we serve... Whatever our life choices, each and every one of us can live a life of service — to our families, to our communities and to the world. And the world can't wait to see our light shine. 

--Elizabeth Bonker,
Valedictory Speech,
Rollins College

Image & quotation source: Rollins College Valedictorian Elizabeth Bonker, who is a non-speaking person with autism, gave her commencement speech using text-to-speech software. You can hear her speech here: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/12/1098506522/nonspeaking-valedictorian-autism-college-commencement-speech

We're called to be wise (Sarah J. Hauser)

    All over Scripture, we’re called to live a life that loves God and loves others. We’re called to be wise, which is shown by our humble conduct. We don’t get wrapped up in things that don’t matter, and on things that do matter, we speak boldly but with love. We don’t act out of jealousy or selfish ambition but out of love for God and love for our neighbor. 

    Our efforts will not be for naught. Sometimes it feels like pursuing peace and taking the road of humility gets us nowhere. But James says otherwise. For those who live out true wisdom, for those who demonstrate their faith in the way they conduct themselves, there will be a harvest of righteousness. 

    We’re in this for the long haul, and while we may not see that harvest immediately, it will come. So let’s let go of our selfish ambition and bitter jealousy. Instead, let’s cling to that which is true and good and peaceful. 

    Let’s be people who demonstrate the meekness of wisdom. 

--Sarah J. Hauser 

Image source: Giotta di Bondone, Charity and Envy (1306), https://www.muddycolors.com/2014/09/the-7-deadly-art-sins-envy/
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Who was the greatest? (Bishop Robert Barron)

    In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus presents a child as an archetype to his disciples who were arguing about who was the greatest. 

    How so? Children don’t know how to hide the truth of their reactions. They haven’t learned yet how to impress others. In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals, things that are what they are, unambiguously. They are in accord with God’s deepest intentions for them. 

    Children haven’t yet learned how to look at themselves. Why can a child immerse himself so eagerly and thoroughly in what he is doing? Because he can lose himself; because he is not looking at himself, conscious of the reactions, expectations, and approval of those around him. 

    The problem is that, from a very early age, we learn not to be ourselves, and this is a function of the sinful human construct of the ego. We convince ourselves that joy will come only when we become like someone else, only when we receive the applause of the crowd, only when we live up to the expectations of our group, family, or society. 

    This causes that terrible cramping of the soul which is pride, the deadliest of the deadly sins. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection,
February 21, 2023 

Image source: https://recoletos.ph/2021/09/17/lectio-divina-xxv-sunday-in-ordinary-time-cycle-b/

Xenophilia (Sr. Joan Chittister)

    Our goal in life is to convert ourselves from the pernicious agenda that is the self to an awareness of God’s goodness present in the other.

 -- Sr. Joan Chittister,

Xenophilia: The Love of Strangers 

Image & quotation source: https://thevalueofsparrows.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/wisdom-xenophilia-the-love-of-strangers-by-joan-chittister/

Reducing the presumption of self-sufficiency (Pope Francis)

   Entering into the project God proposes for our life requires that we restrict the space of selfishness, reduce the presumption of self-sufficiency, lower the heights of arrogance and pride, and that we overcome laziness, in order to traverse the risk of love, even when it involves the cross. To belong to Christ means to follow him, to commit one’s life to love, in service and in giving oneself as he did, who passed through the narrow door of the cross. 

--Pope Francis, June 14, 2023 

Image source: https://www.missiodeicatholic.org/p/through-the-narrow-gate
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 22, 2024: The wisdom from above is pure...

The wisdom from above is pure…

Do we trust in the wisdom of God? 

    In the Book of Wisdom, the wicked do not understand how God works, and so they rely on their own so-called knowledge when making and defending their own choices. They beset the just one because he is obnoxious to them; they do what they like because they have no sense of life after death. They feel no connection to their community, but simply give free rein to their own ambition. The community to which the Letter of James is addressed must take care not to follow this model: Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice, James tells them. Any community, like that of the Book of Wisdom, that has defined its own notion of what is acceptable without taking into account God’s wisdom, will result in conflict: war within their members. 

    The ambition of the disciples becomes clear in Mark’s Gospel when they begin to discuss among themselves who is the greatest. Jesus has much to share with them, and this knowledge is crucial, pertaining to his coming passion and death. But they are hung up on their own selfish ambition, competition, and jealousy. Jesus must place a child in their midst to get them back on the right track: Whoever receives one child such as this receives me, he says. Who is the greatest? The one who serves the needs of the least, who works to redress the imbalances of the world through kindness and compassion, according to God’s wisdom from above, which is pure, peaceable, gentle and compliant. 

    The psalmist knows better than the wicked or the disciples: The Lord upholds my life, the psalmist proclaims in Psalm 54. His heart is faithful, grounded not in his own self-constructed wisdom, but in the wisdom of God, and he is ready to praise the name of the Lord for his goodness. Would that we might do the same! 

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

We too are redeemed (Karl Rahner)

   We too are redeemed, saved, marked with God’s indelible seal. We too have been made the holy temple of God. In us too the triune God dwells. We too are anointed, hallowed, filled with the light and life of God. We too have been sent by him, from this beginning, into our life, that we too may carry the light of faith and the flame of love through the world’s darkness, to the place where we belong, in his eternal radiance, his eternity. 

--Karl Rahner, Mary Mother of the Lord

Image source: Salvador Dalí, Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951), https://www.english.op.org/godzdogz/art-of-the-redemption-4-christ-of-st-john-of-the-cross-by-salvador-dali/

God-who-suffers-with-us (Haley Stewart / Henri Nouwen)

The more we learn to imitate God’s generous self-gift,
the closer we get to becoming the people we are designed to be. 

 --Haley Stewart “’The Lost Daughter’
and the Self-Gift of Motherhood”

   God sent Jesus to make free persons of us. He has chosen compassion as the way to freedom. That is a great deal more radical than you might at first imagine. It means that God wanted to liberate us, not by removing suffering from us, but by sharing it with us. Jesus is God-who-suffers-with-us.

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Artist unknown, Christ Bearing the Cross (early 15th c.), https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-our-collection/highlights/context/subjects/the-suffering-christ
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Dying to self (Fr. James Martin)

    Dying to self as a spiritual practice means letting go of an unhealthy attachment, pattern of living, or even an entire way of life, to experience fuller life. 

    All of us need to “take up our crosses” and “deny ourselves.” But not out of some sick, twisted or masochistic desire to punish ourselves. No, what Jesus offers us, finally, is freedom. His invitation to Peter, to the disciples and to us is not meant solely as a sacrifice, but as the path to new and more abundant life. 

--Fr. James Martin,
Reflection, Outreach,
September 2-3, 2023

Image source: https://allelouscg.com/2021/07/03/does-the-command-to-take-up-your-cross-no-longer-apply-to-us-today/

Dying in love, to love, by love, for love, and of love (St. Francis de Sales)

   Our divine Lover died amongst the flames and ardors of love, by reason of the infinite charity which he had towards us, and by the force and virtue of love: that is he died in love, by love, for love, and of love. For, though his cruel torments were sufficient to have killed anyone, death could never have entered into the life of him who keeps the keys of life and death, unless divine love, which handles those keys, had opened the gates to death, to let it ravage that divine body and despoil it of life. 

   

   [C]rying out with a loud voice he gives up his spirit into his Father's hands, to show that, since he had strength and breath enough not to die, so had he love so great that he could no longer live, but would by his death revive those who without it could never escape death, nor have the chance of true life. 

    Wherefore our Saviour's death was a true sacrifice, and a sacrifice of holocaust, which he himself offered to his Father for our redemption: for, though the pains and distress of his passion were so great and violent that any but he would have died of them, yet he would not have died of them unless he himself had pleased, and unless the fire of his infinite charity had consumed his life. 

    He was then the sacrificer himself, who offered himself unto his Father and immolated himself, dying in love, to love, by love, for love, and of love. 

--St. Francis de Sales,
Treatise on the Love of God,
Book X, Chapter 17 

Image source: School of Bellini, Christo Morto, Scuola Gande di San Rocco, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SCHOOL_of_Bellini_-_Christ_in_devotion_%28San_Rocco%29.jpg

We've all got wounds (Flannery O'Connor / St. Padre Pio)

What people don’t realize is
how much religion costs.
They think faith is a big electric blanket,
when of course, it is the cross. 

 --Flannery O’Connor 

      We’ve all got wounds. We all bear the stigmata. We’ve all got the wounds of the cross. Mine, for some strange reason, happen to be visible, but so what? You’ve got them, too. You’re carrying some. I can see them. 

--St. Padre Pio 

Image source: Timothy C. Schmalz, Homeless Jesus, statue, Buffalo, New York, https://buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/s/stig.html
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Taking up the cross (Bishop Robert Barron)

   Jesus says that a disciple must carry his own cross and follow him. All of us sinners tend to see the universe turning around our ego, our needs, our projects, our plans, and our likes and dislikes. True conversion—the metanoia that Jesus talks about—is so much more than moral reform, though it includes that. It has to do with a complete shift in consciousness, a whole new way of looking at one’s life. 

    Jesus’ teaching must have been gut-wrenching to his first-century audience: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” His listeners knew what the cross meant: a death in utter agony, nakedness, and humiliation. They knew it in all of its awful power. 

     If God is self-forgetting love even to the point of death, then we must be such love. The cross, in short, must become the very structure of the Christian life. This is just what Jesus shows on his terrible cross. And this is just what we, his followers, must imitate. Taking up the cross means not just being willing to suffer but being willing to suffer as he did, absorbing violence and hatred through our forgiveness and nonviolence. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,

Gospel Reflection,

November 8, 2023

Image source: Image source: Norman Adams, Second Station: Jesus receives the Cross, St. Mary Catholic Church, Manchester, England, photo courtesy of Fr. Patrick Michaels, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2290515747797273&set=pcb.3525178114425932

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 15, 2024: The Son of Man must suffer greatly...

The Son of Man must suffer greatly…

Why did Jesus have to suffer? 

    When the disciples learn, in Mark’s Gospel, that Jesus will have to suffer greatly and be killed, they are astounded; Peter even begins to rebuke him. But Jesus rebukes Peter in turn, and clearly speaks of the inevitability of the cross as part of God’s other-centered plan for salvation. As the Christ, Jesus did not come to save the Jewish people from Roman power or to restore self-governance; Jesus came so that he can rise and bring his disciples from death to life. In so doing, Jesus will be fulfilling the words of the Servant Song in Isaiah: I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard. As a prophet, Jesus has already suffered a great deal for proclaiming God’s Word, yet he also gives his disciples reason to hope: whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Like the Suffering Servant, the disciples must open their ears, that they might hear, knowing that, as Psalm 116 assures us, God will incline his ear to their voice in supplication, ever there to uphold their right. Jesus needs the disciples to embrace this very different version of how salvation comes, and to participate in it, taking up their own cross and following him. 

  

    What might that cross look like? Like Jesus’ cross, it must be other-centered, grounded in faith and enriched by works: What good is it if someone says he has faith but does not have works? The Letter of James reminds us that any works we might do can reveal our faith, if they flow from that faith. Our works are not a ticket to heaven, but faith must somehow be lived out, and the visible manifestation of faith is works. If such works require suffering for the sake of other, so be it, for we too know that the Lord God is our help; we have but to call upon his name, that we might participate in salvation, taking up our own cross and following him. 

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

Out of the smoke and ashes (Grace A. Johnson / Pope St. John Paul II)

I want to be able to look at the sunrise
and think about the new day ahead of us –
to rebuild our broken lives,
fallen towers, and kneeling country.
 To start over and make something bright
and beautiful out of the smoke and ashes.

--Grace A. Johnson 

    Yesterday was a dark day in the history of humanity, a terrible affront to human dignity. How is it possible to commit acts of such savage cruelty? The human heart has depths from which schemes of unheard-of ferocity sometimes emerge, capable of destroying in a moment the normal daily life of a people. 

   But faith comes to our aid at these times when words seem to fail. Christ’s word is the only one that can give a response to the questions which trouble our spirit. Even if the forces of darkness appear to prevail, those who believe in God know that evil and death do not have the final say. Christian hope is based on this truth; at this time our prayerful trust draws strength from it. 

--Pope St. John Paul II, September 12, 2001 

Image source 1: https://johnbaptistchurch.org/biblical-meaning-names/phoenix
Image source 2: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/11/christ-the-phoenix
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Those who work for justice (Albert Schweitzer / Cecila Espinoza)

The great enemy of morality is indifference. 

--Albert Schweitzer 

    Pope Francis reminds us that “God will destroy the barriers created between nations and replace the arrogance of the few with the solidarity of many. The marginalization painfully experienced by millions of persons cannot go on for long. Their cry is growing louder and embraces the entire earth.” (Message for 3rd World Day of the Poor, no. 4) 

   “Commitment to the promotion of the poor, including their social promotion, is not foreign to the proclamation of the Gospel. On the contrary, it manifests the realism of Christian faith and its historical validity. The love that gives life to faith in Jesus makes it impossible for his disciples to remain enclosed in a stifling individualism or withdrawn into small circles of spiritual intimacy, with no influence on social life” (cf. Exhort. Ap. Evangelii Gaudium, 183). 

   So where is Jesus Christ today? Without a doubt, where two or more gather in his Name! In those who work for justice and the common good: in those who work for the protection of the rights of workers, for the access of the poor to health, for the reform of the judicial and criminal system, for improving living conditions, overcoming poverty, reducing violence, guns, and drug use, etc.

--Cecilia Espinoza 

Image source: https://cfc.sebts.edu/faith-and-economics/what-did-jesus-really-teach-about-wealth-and-poverty/
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Jesus opens ears (Pope Francis)

   The disciples went out with Jesus, who can open the ears and the mouth, thus, the phenomenon of mutism, of deafness, which is also metaphorical in the Bible, signifying being closed to God’s calls. There is a physical deafness, but in the Bible, the one who is deaf to the Word of God is mute, and does not communicate the Word of God. 

--Pope Francis, December 15, 2023 

Image source:  https://young-catholics.com/21634/friday-of-the-5th-week-in-ordinary-time-2/
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The lame shall move with the gait of kings (Peter Steele, S.J.)

If you watch as you have not watched before 

you will see the morning 

begin to lace the darkness 

If you turn from the trail that has drawn you for ages 

and gaze at the fringes 

you will see the timber budding. 

If you lean from the place of your balance, 

your arms uplifted 

a rhythm will catch and lift you. 

For the Lord has come to his people, 

and the earth trembles with joy, 

the Father is kindling his fire on the earth, 

the Son is roving with life in his touch, 

the Spirit is rising though we are falling 

And the promise come true that brought us to birth 

the promise that lingered in the young and feeble 

the promise that drove us from evening to morning 

And the lame shall move with the gait of kings 

the broken flourish, the bound step forth 

and God exult among his children 

So name him, and find your name in his. 

Seek in the needy the light of his face 

lift up your hearts, today and forever. 

--Peter Steele, S.J. 

Image source: https://bible.art/meaning/isaiah-35%3A6
Poem source

Once we shut our hearts (Sr. Joan Chittister)

   Once we shut our hearts to the other, we have shut our hearts to God. 

 

--Sr. Joan Chittister 

Image source: http://www.ahearteninglife.com/2014/10/only-god-can-unlock-your-heart-31-days.html
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Jesus heals a deaf man (Bishop Robert Barron)

    [In this week’s] Gospel, Jesus heals a deaf man who had a speech impediment. 

    Mark tells us that he took him “off by himself away from the crowd.” Jesus then “put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (that is, ‘Be opened!’).” Looking up to his Father and inserting his fingers into the man’s ears, Jesus establishes, as it were, an electrical current, literally plugging him into the divine energy, compelling him to hear the Word. 

    Now for the healing’s spiritual significance. The crowd is a large part of the problem. The raucous voices of so many, the insistent bray of the advertising culture, the confusing Babel of competing spiritualities—all of it makes us deaf to God’s word. And therefore, we have to be moved to a place of silence and communion. 

    Jesus draws us into his space, the space of the Church. There, away from the crowd, we can immerse ourselves in the rhythm of the liturgy, listen avidly to Scripture, study the theological tradition, watch the moves of holy people, take in the beauty of sacred art and architecture. There we can hear. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, February 9, 2024 

Image source: Mark Hopkins, Faith, bronze sculpture, available for purchase at: https://www.markhopkinsart.com/art.asp?!=W&ID=22928

Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 9, 2024: Ephphatha! Be opened!

Ephphatha! Be opened! 

What would the world look like if all barriers disappeared? 

    In the midst of their Babylonian exile, the people of Israel look to God for some hope of vindication, and the Lord, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, assures them: Say to those whose hearts are frightened, Be strong, fear not! The Lord will vindicate his people by conquering their enemies; they will one day be released and restored to their land. But that restoration will be to a world that is as yet unknown to them, one in which all barriers – physical, personal, financial – are removed: then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared, Isaiah tells them. Even the desert will be transformed and become fertile once more, for springs will burst forth there and the burning sands will become pools. At that time, the people will have every reason to praise the Lord, as in Psalm 146, for the Lord sets captives free, removing every barrier between them and every barrier that keeps them from God himself. 

    Jesus similarly removes barriers that keep us from him, as in Mark’s Gospel, in which Jesus heals a deaf man who had a speech impediment. As Isaiah had predicted, Jesus does indeed make the deaf hear and the mute speak. He can do so because, in him, the fullness of God’s will and of God’s intent is not limited by human vision. In a moment both miraculous and intimate, Jesus reaches beyond the barriers of the deaf man and restores him to life: Ephphatha! Be opened! Jesus says. This is what it means to save people in truth: not the way they want to be saved, but in a way perfectly in line with God’s will and and intent. 

    If only humankind were as adept at removing barriers as Jesus is! In the Letter of James, it is clear that if God loves all equally, then we should also: show no partiality as you adhere to the faith, James exhorts his readers. We are not to erect barriers between peoples; we are not to discriminate, but to welcome rich and poor alike. In God’s kingdom, no prejudice of any kind is permitted, for God’s love is equal, and equally accessible, to everyone. In that ideal world of the fullness of the kingdom that is our hope, all are equal and all barriers are removed. Can you imagine? Try! And then… work for it! 

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

Living lives that reflect justice (Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

   The demand to live lives that reflect justice and real concern for the poor is an integral and non-negotiable part of Christian discipleship. It’s not something that is grounded in some particular ideology which I can buy into or neglect, as long as I am living honestly and prayerfully in my private life. It’s an essential part of the gospel, equal in demand to praying, going to church, and keeping my private moral life in order. For a Christian, it is not enough just to be pious, good, and church-going. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI,
Facebook, October 12, 2022

Image source: President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes the hand of a resident of Appalachia during an official tour to assess poverty in America, 1964, https://appvoices.org/2014/04/09/appalachias-place-in-the-war-on-poverty/
Quotation source

Finding sweetness in God's commandments (St. Francis de Sales)

    Many keep the commandments as sick men take medicines, more from fear of dying in a state of damnation than from love of living according to our Savior's pleasure. But as some persons have an aversion for medicine, be it ever so agreeable, only because it bears the name of medicine, so there are some souls who abhor things commanded simply because they are commanded. There was a certain man, they say, who, having lived quietly in the great city of Paris for the space of fourscore years without ever going out of it, as soon as it was enjoined him by the king that he should remain there the rest of his days, went abroad to see the country, which in his whole lifetime before he had not desired. 

   On the other hand, the loving heart loves the commandments; and the harder they are, the more sweet and agreeable he finds them, because it more perfectly pleases the Beloved, and gives him more honor. The loving heart pours forth and sings hymns of joy when God teaches it his commandments and justifications. And as the pilgrim who merrily sings on his way adds indeed the exertion of singing to that of walking, and yet actually, by this increase of labour, re-energizes himself, and lightens the hardship of the way; even so the sacred lover finds such sweetness in the commandments, that nothing so much eases and refreshes him, as the gracious load of the precepts of his God. 

--St. Francis de Sales,

Treatise on the Love of God,

Book VIII, chapter 5 

Image source: https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/better-tasting-medicines-improve-treatment-outcomes/
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Work is a thing of awe (Fr. Louis Brisson)

    When we work, when we set our hands to these material things that God has created, we return praise and honor to God, and we cause creatures to render this homage to the Creator, in their own secret and wonderful language. Work makes us sharers in the divine action, and, consequently, in the holiness and grace that emanates from God the Father and that communicates itself not only through the ordinary means of the Redemption, but by the special channel of work – by contact with material things that are for our use. With us, work is a thing of awe, of blessedness. By work, we cooperate with God and with the Word. Work with our hands is our way of honoring God the Father. 

    In that it comes from God, all work is excellent. By steeping ourselves in this doctrine, it will come to pass that our work of each day, whatever it may be – whether manual or intellectual – will take on a character so elevated, so complete in its union with God that we will treat all things as holy and sacred and as requiring our attention, our care, and our devotion. And in their turn, these things will bring us grace, the grace of God the Father. 

--Fr. Louis Brisson, O.S.F.S.,
The Nineteenth Century Salesian Pentecost

Image source: Ford Madox Brown, Work (1865), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28painting%29 
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To go deeper into the heart of God (Crystal Caruana Sullivan)

    We must approach [the law] with discernment, that process of decision-making where we prayerfully, patiently, seek relationship with God to understand God’s mysterious and hidden wisdom – that we may know how it is we are called to live.

*Discernment, a gift from God leads us to God’s wisdom.
*God’s law can be trusted
*Jesus invites us to go deeper than the legalism of the Pharisees
*The spirit leads us in discernment to God’s wisdom 

   These are lessons for our spiritual journey. None of them simple. But all of them important as we cultivate a life of prayer and response to God. A “rule book” may work as a moral guide for a three-year-old. But we need something more than the prescriptive starting point or set of rules or list of laws. We need Jesus. We need Jesus, who takes us deeper into the mystery of God’s wisdom – who invites us to go deeper into the heart of God as we live into God’s kingdom. And this is the harder route – because it requires that we choose – each and every day – to surrender our complicated opinions and relationship with the law – and to trust in God, to show us how to follow. Amen. 

--Crystal Caruana Sullivan 

Image source: A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah_scroll
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