Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 8, 2026: Hope does not disappoint...

Hope does not disappoint…
What does it take for us to trust in God? 

   As they traverse the desert on their way to the Promised Land in the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel have every reason to grumble against Moses. After all, they are afraid they will die here of thirst with their children and their livestock! It is not an idle complaint. God’s promise was clear; God promised to take care of them. And yet the moment they are afflicted, the promise goes out the window. Their hearts, as Psalm 33 states, are hardened, and they test the Lord, rejecting God and turning on Moses. But Moses turns to God, knowing that God can provide what he himself can’t. Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it, God tells Moses. Moses relies on God to do the unexpected, to lead him where he needs to be, rather than where he wants to be. 

   When, in John’s Gospel, Jesus comes to Jacob’s well in Sychar, a town of Samaria, he plans to call those rejected by the Jews to have faith in him. His encounter with the Samaritan woman is transformative; he is calling her – and her town – to something new, opening her slowly to the revelation present in her midst, Jesus himself, the Christ. Jesus is not caught up in the woman’s possible sin; Jesus is caught up in her personhood and in the dignity of her humanity and in her capacity to give witness. Trusting in the Lord who entrusts her with his presence, the Samaritan woman runs to town filled with the Spirit, leaving behind her water jug but carrying with her living water that she brings to her community to drink. 

    We too are called to trust, to faith, to belief in that which we cannot prove. We are called to take a leap beyond all physical evidence and to trust in all that God has revealed. In his Letter to the Romans, Paul reminds them that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; his is the grace in which we stand, a capacity to stand and give witness. Our struggle is to get past our wants and needs and to remain hopeful for that which is to come, that which is promised – his love for us, a love greater than any we have ever imagined. For that is where true faith leads us, beyond our comprehension, stretching us farther than we ever thought possible, so long as our hearts are open to his revelation and to his promise.

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 23, 2025: A land flowing with milk and honey...

A land flowing with milk and honey…
What gifts God has for us all! 

    Why, in the Book of Exodus, does the Lord appear to Moses in fire flaming out of a bush? Moses has not yet left Egypt; he is tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro when God calls his name, Moses! Moses! In this direct encounter with the Lord, Moses is given a tremendous gift: God’s name, I am who am. The gift of this name will help Moses to convince the Israelites enslaved in Egypt that the God in question here is the one they have always worshiped, the God who has been present, is present, and will be present to them throughout their travails. It is this first encounter with the Lord that will allow the great exodus of the people out of their enslavement to begin. For as Psalm 103 recalls, The Lord secures justice and the rights of all the oppressed. He has made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the people of Israel. God is present to them, and that divine presence is grace. 

    Jesus will similarly share examples of God’s generous presence with those who surround him in Luke’s Gospel. Using the parable of the barren fig tree, Jesus encourages the people to draw nearer to the Lord through the act of repentance. If you do not repent, he says, you will all perish. However, as with the fig tree, God keeps giving his people another chance: the gardener requests more time for the fig tree to bear fruit, and the owner of the tree grants it: leave it for this year also. The gardener shall cultivate the ground around the tree and fertilize it, giving it every advantage, just as God does with his people. God gifts us the wherewithal to change so that we can draw closer to him, so that nothing stands in the way of his love for us, nothing keeps us from that love. God remains present to us, and that divine presence is grace. 

    In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds the community that how they deal with God’s grace will have a lot to do with how their lives turn out. Using the story of Moses in the desert to illustrate this, Paul writes, these things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning for us. Even if we don’t understand God’s way, Paul says, we have to be careful so that we don’t fail to gain the real grace God offers us. Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall. We too drink from the spiritual rock that is Christ. We bless the Lord because we can’t begin to imagine what God is doing for us – not because we’ve earned it but because God loves us, and God’s compassion and kindness is greater than anything we can imagine. God remains present to us, and that divine presence is indeed grace! 

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

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 12, 2023: How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?

How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?

How often do we put up barriers to God? 

    Having left Egypt to escape slavery, the Israelites wander the Sinai Peninsula, destined to spend forty years in the desert for failing to believe in God’s promise to them. Their complaints are manifold. In the Book of Exodus, the people grumble against Moses, blaming their leader for their thirst: Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here? The people fail over and over again to trust in God, constantly questioning God’s care for them, although God has never stopped caring for them. Their quarrels and tests are examples of the barriers the people erect between themselves and God. As Psalm 95 notes, their hearts are hardened in the desert. The psalmist calls his contemporaries to better.  Psalm 95 is an invitation for the people to gather in worship, to give thanks for all God has done: Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, let us kneel before the Lord who made us. But we can only kneel before the Lord if our barriers are removed, if we are open to God’s work in our lives. 

    The Samaritan woman whom Jesus meets at the well in John’s Gospel has put up her own barriers between herself and God. She has been married multiple times and is currently living with a man who is not her husband. In his request to her, Give me a drink, Jesus reaches beyond these barriers, and more. The woman is a Samaritan, and Samaritans were cut off from Judaism; she is a woman not of his own family and yet he speaks to her. Jesus is willing to violate the social customs of Jews and Samaritans alike in order to reveal himself as God in her presence: I am he, Jesus responds when she mentions the Messiah who is coming. Just as extraordinary: the woman believes it!  She is not caught up in the possible blasphemy of the statement or Jesus’ potential overreaching here: rejected by her own society, she is accepted, welcomed, loved by the Messiah himself, and her transformation will be radical. Dropping all barriers, she invites all who will listen: Come and see a man who told me everything I have done. She is ready to worship in Spirit and truth, to worship from the heart, from the source of grace itself, and her community joins her in this worship: we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world. The fields of followers are indeed ripe for the harvest! 

     We believe that Christ’s death and resurrection are effective in our lives, bringing us forgiveness, opening the heart of God to us, dismantling all barriers we might have erected between ourselves and God. Such faith is a gift from God; it is not our own doing. Paul reminds the Romans that Christ’s death and resurrection were salvific for all people, and that we are justified by faith; we know that hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Whatever barriers we might erect, the love of God made manifest, Jesus Christ, has come to remove them. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, indeed, and recognize the God who made us, who saved us, who loves us more than we can ever know. 

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 20, 2022: I am who am...

I am who am… 

Where is God active in your life? 

    When God first calls out to Moses from the burning bush in the Book of Exodus, Moses would have immediately understood fire to be a manifestation of divine power, but he might have been confused by the fact that God was appearing in Midian where Moses is living in exile, rather than in the land of the people of Israel, since that people believed that God was tied to their own land and would only work within it. But God has no limitations about where God works: I am who am is God’s way of proclaiming that God is always, that God exists always as an active presence in our lives, reaching into our human difficulty and changing it. Moses thus acquires a new understanding: God is always with him, kind and merciful, as Psalm 103 reminds us, calling us to relationship and showering blessings on God’s people. Moses is thus called to reclaim his identity within the people of Israel, that he might lead them out of the land of Egypt; Moses’ understanding of God’s active presence has grown immeasurably through his encounter with I am who am. 

    God is always with us, yet each encounter with God is different, because we change, because our understanding of our relationship with I am who am grows. During his journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus works to remind the people that their relationship with God requires an ongoing transformation of the way they live. But if we hold that relationship at bay, refusing to allow God to work in our lives, death will come: if you do not repent, he says, you will perish as the Galileans slaughtered by Pilate or eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Unlike the fig tree that bears no fruit and is threatened with destruction, we must keep deepening our relationship with God, continuing to bear fruit. Or, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall. The Corinthians must be careful not to be like the ancestors whom God struck down in the desert, arrogant about salvation. Christ is a life-giving source to us only if we are open to him, only if we are willing to accept the life he calls us to, and live it. 

    The work of God happens among as we breathe; we must be open to it, cultivating and fertilizing the ground, that we might grow in faith. The Christian life calls us to grow in God’s presence, to live our faith that Christ – I am who am – is alive within us and among us. We are called to openly receive Christ in our lives, ever anew, never the same, and to allow him to work in us, every day, that we might reveal his presence to our world. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s 2013 Scripture class. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 7, 2021: Lord, you have the words of everlasting life...

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life… 

What is the clearest path to God? 

   In the Book of Exodus, God delivers God’s law to the people in the form of commandments, starting with God’s desire for exclusive worship: You shall not have other gods besides me. God wants God’s people to be devoted to God alone. We know that the first three chapters of Genesis focus on establishing relationship: God’s relationship with creation, man’s relationship with creation, and man’s relationship with others. When Adam and Eve choose independence over relationship, this system falls apart; God delivers the Decalogue to reestablish the rules for humankind. Psalm 19 will celebrate the guidance the Lord offers: Lord, you have the words of everlasting life. For the psalmist, God is the source of all true wisdom: the law of the Lord is perfect; the decree of the Lord is trustworthy; the precepts of the Lord are right, and so on. Moreover, following the ordinances of the Lord is more desirable than going in our own independent direction, for God’s ordinances are more precious than gold and sweeter than syrup or honey from the comb. The path to God seems pretty clear. 

   What happens to the law of Moses in the time of Jesus? When, in John's Gospel, Jesus clears the temple of money changers and those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, he does so not because they are breaking any laws, but because he himself is the new law; he is the sacrifice that will end all sacrifices. The laws of Moses have become more of a barrier than a path to God; Jesus comes to change that through his death and resurrection, reminding all yet again that what God truly desires is relationship. Jesus’ death may not make sense to all; Paul tells the Corinthians that, while Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, Christians proclaim Christ crucified. Jesus Christ is the revelation of everything God ever intended; to believers, that is the greatest wisdom and the greatest power of all. To believe in Jesus Christ is to take the path that passes through the cross, confident that resurrection, and everlasting life, lie on the other side. 

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 15, 2020: If you knew the gift of God...

If you knew the gift of God…

How hard is it to recognize God’s gifts?

  In the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel grumble against Moses as they make their way across the desert, believing they are going to die of thirst in a godforsaken land.  Their concern is entirely valid; they do need Moses to find water – tangible, liquid water – to help them survive.  The problem is that they seem to lack faith in God, and in God’s ability to meet their very concrete, physical need.  But God intervenes nonetheless, sending Moses, with some of the elders of Israel and his staff, to a rock from which water will flow when Moses strikes it.  The location for this miracle would become legendary; Psalm 95 reminds the people, Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert.  The people of Israel are called by the psalmist to do better than their fathers did, to improve on the past, and to respond more appropriately to the gifts God provides. 

  In John’s Gospel, the Samaritan woman also comes in search of water – tangible, liquid water – at a well that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  There, she meets Jesus and he, against all social taboos and restrictions, speaks to her, asking her for a drink.  If he drinks from any bucket she has touched, he will be ritually unclean, because she is a Samaritan.  But Jesus subtly shifts the conversation to a new kind of water – not the tangible, liquid water she thinks she needs, but the living water she doesn’t yet know is available to her.  Jesus’ intervention must appear strange to her – he has overstepped every rule of their society and so she challenges Jesus regarding the social taboos associated with Samaritans. Jesus responds, If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.  If only, that is, the woman had eyes of faith to recognize the gift of God revealed to her in that moment!  When, eventually, she thinks to ask about the Messiah promised to the people, he tells her, I am he, who is speaking to you.  She is so moved by his words that she runs to bring others of her community, people who have surely shunned her because of her serial husbands and a lover, to come and meet him as well.  She doesn’t even take her water jar; she has a new gift to share, the gift of faith.

  In the end, it is by her faith that the Samaritan woman will be justified.  In his dying and rising, Jesus aimed to bring all of humankind to faith, where faith is the water that never leaves us thirsty again.  Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we no longer need long for the Lord, because we know intimately the well of the Spirit that overflows with God’s love for us.  Faith, Paul tells the Romans, is a gift, a gift from God, not something we produce on our own, but the gift by which we are saved.  It is Christ through whom we have gained access by faith to grace. We simply need to accept that gift, and to bring graciousness to it, an awe of the gift that is ours.  The story of the Samaritan woman is a story of grace and of conversion – her experience transforms her faster than she can keep track.  This is what Lent is all about: conversion that is being played out in us by the love of God, that gift that transforms us whenever we open to God’s grace and love in our lives.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 24, 2019: If you do not repent, you will all perish!

If you do not repent, you will all perish!

Are you being called to change during Lent?

  When, in the Book of Exodus, Moses flees Egypt, he enters into his own personal exile.  Far from his own people, he marries into a Midianite family, seeking to live peacefully among them.  But God wants to use Moses as his instrument:  I have come down to rescue my people from the hands of the Egyptians… This is what you shall tell the Israelites, God says. Moses, however, resists until God offers him God’s name:  I am who am, that is, I am who has always been and is now and ever shall be, actively working throughout all of time, for you and in you.  God’s self-identification challenges Moses to own Moses’ own heritage – I am the God of your fathers, God reminds him. Moses must now claim his identity as one who is to lead his people to a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where they will bless the Lord with all their being, as in Psalm 103, giving thanks for God for that reclaimed identity:  all their past, all their hope for the future, all their gratitude for what God is doing in their midst in the here and now.  It is as call to radical transformation, first for Moses, and then for the people he will lead out of Egypt.

  In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus likewise calls the people to radical transformation: if you do not repent, you will all perish!  Using the parable of a fig tree, Jesus reminds them that they must not be complacent about their position as baptized people.  The fig tree represents the patience of God; like it, we are to bear fruit.  Years after Jesus’ death, the baptized Corinthians don’t seem to have realized this lesson.  Paul tells them that they must choose active relationship with the Lord.  It is not enough to be baptized into Moses and in the cloud and in the sea; they must take care not to fall, never allowing themselves to become complacent but rather always looking for and embracing the transformation Jesus calls them to.

  The season of Lent is not just a reminder to be good for a time; it is about our own radical transformation, about growth and change, about embracing our full identity as baptized Christians and acting upon it.  We are called to come alive with the Lord, to live with the Lord, doing what we ought in order to live in relationship with the Lord.  Are we being called to change during Lent?  Actually, we’re being called to so much more:  we are called to open to the radical transformation Jesus desires in us and invest our lives in an active relationship with him, one that will bear fruit.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com