Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 21, 2026: Lord, in your great love, answer me...

Lord, in your great love, answer me…
 What does salvation look like? 

    Humankind’s understanding of what constitutes salvation has evolved greatly over time. When the prophet Jeremiah prays to the Lord, he is hoping to be saved from his former friends, now his enemies: Perhaps he will be trapped, Jeremiah imagines them saying, then we can prevail! Jeremiah’s community has no concept of an afterlife, and so Jeremiah believes that any vindication he might see – in the form of verification of his prophecies – needs to happen in his lifetime. Ultimately, however, Jeremiah has confidence in God’s love: to you I have entrusted my cause. Jeremiah has much in common with the author of Psalm 69, who has become an outcast to his brothers, a stranger to his mother’s children. Yet, like Jeremiah, the psalmist knows that he must not change his message simply because he feels threatened. Instead, he will trust in the Lord’s help, for bounteous is God’s kindness and mercy. 

    When, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus sends out the Twelve, his principal request is that they fear no one. Fear makes us defensive, and if the disciples are defensive, then Jesus will not be able to be present to the communities the disciples are hoping to reach. Rather than fear, therefore, the disciples must remain confident that Jesus is with them, present to them at all times, that they might go and love and heal their world. They have entered into relationship with Jesus, and consequently they know salvation. To deny him before others would be to deny their own identity. Clearly, Jesus has every confidence that his Twelve will remain faithful, and thus be effective in their ministry. 

    Paul will remind the Romans that the vindication of all mankind comes from the one God has sent, for the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflows for the many. When Adam and Eve chose control over relationship, sin entered the world, but Jesus’ unselfish, generous gift is not like the selfish transgressions of Adam and Eve. Indeed, God’s response to transgression is a generous and absolute love. We know salvation because we know Christ. So long as we remain in him, we too can trust in the bounteous kindness of the Lord, entrusting our salvation to his infinite mercy. 

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

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 25, 2023: Do not be afraid...

Do not be afraid…

How can God’s great love teach us to live without fear? 

    It’s not by chance that one of the most commonly repeated phrases in the Bible is, Do not be afraid. The prophet Jeremiah knows better than to fear as he prophesies the coming enslavement of the people of Israel in Babylon. Even his friends denounce him, refusing to believe that the terror on every side – the siege of Jerusalem – of which Jeremiah speaks is imminent. But Jeremiah entrusts his cause to the Lord, confident, as Psalm 69 states, that the Lord, in his great love, will answer the prophet’s prayer. The psalmist himself is persecuted because zeal for the Lord’s house consumes him, yet he knows that fidelity to God is the only possible path for one who is committed to a relationship of great love with the Lord. 

    In Matthew’s Gospel, having warned the disciples that they too will need to maintain their courage under persecution, Jesus tells the Twelve to fear no one. The kingdom of God cannot be taken from them, and so all that Jesus says to them in the darkness, they are to speak in the light, without fear. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, Jesus says. It is not fear but love that must be the deciding factor in their life decisions. That love is what Paul, writing to the Romans, calls the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ, a gift of grace that overflows for the many. 

    Our struggle in life is often to turn away from fear and to turn toward the love God has for us, that we might live for God. Jesus makes this possible for us, because his love overflows for the many, and the love of God is the promise of eternal life. Perfect love knows no boundaries, neither of time nor of space. If we truly embrace that love, we can indeed fear no one as we face the trials of the world and even those of our own sinfulness. For, in the eyes of God, we are worth more than many sparrows, and to whom we can always entrust our cause. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 20, 2021: They cried out to the Lord in their distress...

They cried to the Lord in their distress…

Who’s got your back?

   Job experiences all manner of suffering. When his adversary (called the ha-satan in Hebrew) questions the upright Job’s sincerity of heart, God allows many terrible things to befall Job. After much suffering, Job finally begs to be allowed to speak with God in order to understand all that he has gone through, but, rather than offering reasons for Job’s suffering, God speaks of the wonders of creation, and most specifically of God’s bringing order to chaos: Who shut within doors the sea when it burst from the womb? God asks. The ability to set limits on the roiling waters of creation marks the divine; the establishment of order upon chaos is a revelation of God’s saving power.

   When. therefore, Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, rebukes the wind and says to the sea, Quiet! Be still! he is revealing his divine nature. Jesus is not concerned about the storm; indeed, he’s napping as the violent squall comes up and waves are breaking over the boat. The disciples, however, are terrified. Do you not yet have faith? Jesus asks them. With faith comes trust – trust in God’s plan, on God’s time. In the chaos of the moment, the disciples have clearly forgotten the words of Psalm 107: He hushed the storm to a gentle breeze, and the billows of the sea were stilled. Afterwards, they are filled with great awe, asking Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey? They have as yet no idea of the full lengths Jesus will go to to save them all.

   Nowhere is the Lord’s saving power more evident than in the sacrificial death of Jesus himself. Paul reminds the Corinthians that Jesus died for all. Why? So that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Like the new order placed upon chaos in both Job and Mark, Christ’s death produces a whole new order – the old things have passed away, Paul states; behold, new things have come. Leaving behind the chaos of their past lives, Christians are called to live for Christ, aware of the love of Christ that impels them to live for other, trusting that in all they do, the Lord has their back.

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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 21, 2020: Lord, in your great love, answer me...

Lord, in your great love, answer me…

How do our struggles prepare us to turn in love to God?

  The prophet Jeremiah’s experience is painful.  Rejected by the community he loves because he proclaims a message no one wants to hear, Jeremiah is set upon, struck, even thrown in stocks by the temple priest.  Even his friends are on the watch for any misstep he might make.  But Jeremiah does not lose hope in God who will ultimately vindicate him:  the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion, Jeremiah says.  it is to the Lord that Jeremiah has entrusted his cause.  Jeremiah’s plight is echoed in Psalm 69, where the psalmist acknowledges that he bears insult for the Lord’s sake; he has even become an outcast to his brothers, a stranger to his children.  But, like Jeremiah, the psalmist counts on the Lord’s redemption:  the Lord hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not. 

  When, in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus prepares the Twelve to go forth, he recognizes that they too will meet opposition.  However, his counsel to them is, Fear no one!  No one can destroy both soul and body except the God who brought them into existence; if God is conscious of the life of a mere sparrow – not one falls to the ground without the Father’s knowledge – then how much more does God cherish every moment of suffering faced by God’s faithful?  The Twelve are to proclaim all that Jesus has whispered to them, aware that God’s love for them is more powerful than anything.  They may thus face any hardship, even death, knowing life is on the other side, in eternal redemption. 

  Sometimes our opposition comes from within.  In his Letter to the Romans, Paul assures that community that the grace of God is more than we can possibly measure:  the gift is not like the transgression. Sin is our inability to open ourselves to God, to allow God to enter in, but God’s grace is greater than sin, though sometimes our struggles are themselves a vehicle of grace.  God calls us to life without end, to love without limits; we, for our part, are to trust in all humility in God’s grace, knowing, like Jeremiah, like the psalmist, like the Twelve, that, as fragile and incomplete human beings, we need God’s grace and great love at every moment of our lives.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 25, 2017: Answer me, O Lord...

 

 Answer me, O Lord… 

How do we avoid separation from God? 

   Jeremiah doesn’t have an easy time of it.  Called to be a prophet to a people that has returned to its idolatrous ways, he is under constant threat from his persecutors.  It is not surprising that he undergoes an interior crisis of sorts:  you seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced, he laments.  Jeremiah knows his persecutors believe God has abandoned them; they are profoundly self-centered and thus live in separation from the God who invites them to covenant.  But Jeremiah surmounts his own moment of crisis thanks to his returning confidence in the Lord:  to you I have entrusted my cause.  Like the psalmist in Psalm 69, Jeremiah is able to praise the Lord, able to bear insult because zeal for the Lord’s house consumes him.  Unlike his persecutors, who have cut themselves off from relationship with God, Jeremiah resists such separation, putting his faith in the relationship that is at the core of his existence.

   Whenever we put our own self-focus before our faith in the Lord, we are entering into that mode of separation that follows the pattern of the trespass of Adam, as Paul explains to the Corinthians.  Sin – separation – isolates rather than incorporates.  But the death of Jesus restores us to relationship through grace and forgiveness; this is his gift to us, a gift that overflows for the many.  It is also a gift that leaves no place for fear:  Fear no one, Jesus tells the Twelve in Matthew’s Gospel, for no one can take this gift from you.  Instead, go out and share God’s love, proclaiming it on the housetops!  If we do, living from that love, separation diminishes as we move ever closer to the fullness of life in Christ.

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

Image source:  Wordle