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Easter Week 5: Discernment Is Engaging with the Incarnation in Your Life

April 28, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Rohit Tandon on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 9:26–31
  2. Psalm 22:26–27, 28, 30, 31–32
  3. 1 John 3:18–24
  4. John 15:1–8

What this week’s readings say to me:

Last week, I wrote about turning to discernment before deciding who and what to trust. Here I’d like to begin by reflecting on what discernment means to me. It means inviting God to help me use all the tools God puts at my disposal to make a decision. These tools are the gifts of the mind, the body, and the spirit. Realizing this brings me back to the theme that revealed itself in my reflection two weeks ago. discernment encompasses the mind because it asks us to imagine having made each of the choices we’re considering. It encompasses the body because it can be helpful to pay attention to whether we have different physical reactions when imagining the results of choosing each option. It embraces the spirit because it invites God into decision-making and because physical reactions to the various options can correspond to the promptings of the spirit or can call attention to struggles and weaknesses that we can invite God’s grace to work in spite of and through.

Normally, I begin this section of a post by summarizing the reading, but I began this week by laying out my understanding of discernment because the first reading gives an example of how challenging, all-encompassing, and yet necessary careful discernment is. The disciples are understandably afraid of the man they know as Saul because of his history as a zealous persecutor of Jesus’ followers. His history makes it also understandable that they are seriously skeptical that Saul has become a disciple himself. He first counters their skepticism by sharing his experience of a life-changing encounter with the Lord. This experience must have been physically and emotionally searing. After all, we read in Acts prior to this week’s passage that the encounter caused him temporary physical blindness, and for three days after the experience, he didn’t eat or drink. (Acts 9: 8-9). I find it easy to imagine that his dramatic account would have been emotionally and intellectually engaging for the apostles to hear.

But he doesn’t expect them to accept him into their group based on this account alone. “He move[s] about freely with them in Jerusalem, and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord” (Acts 9:28). To share the Gospel message, he subjects himself to the same rebukes and dangers faced by those who walked with Jesus during His time on Earth. Some Greeks even try to kill Saul when he preaches to and engages in debates with them (Acts 9:29). Saul’s willingness to surrender to death in the process of fulfilling the commission the Lord had given his disciples persuades the group in Jerusalem that Saul is now a follower of the Way. The conversion of this man who has been a zealous opponent of the first followers of this Way also seems to provide them with confirmation of the growth-giving and thus life-giving power rooted in service that Jesus has shared with them and asked them to share with others. God has engaged the minds, bodies, and spirits of the apostles to help them in a process of careful discernment.

Saul who would change his name to Paul would have been familiar with this week’s psalm. I imagine that when he read it after becoming a follower of Jesus, he read the words as a means of praise and a promise from him to God through Christ.

The next two passages encourage us to nurture a relationship with God by embracing God’s life in mind, body, and spirit as St. Paul did by accepting the grace and mission given to him by Christ. The third reading urges us to allow others to witness the truth of what we believe by letting it shape our actions and not just our words.

Honestly, whenever I get past the first sentence of the second reading, I’m perplexed. Should I trust what my heart says or not? Would my heart and not condemn me if I had perfect faith? As I sought answers to these questions, I wondered if the passage was telling me I could ensure I’m embracing God in mind, body, and spirit by trusting in the words that have been handed down to me from Christ and by treating others as Christ treats us. I thought perhaps the message was that living a life of service that’s specific to my circumstances and guided by discernment is what’s important. I don’t need to listen to internal or external voices that aren’t guided by the intention to do live a life of service guided by discernment.

My limited experience has taught me that the same passage (in any text, not just the Scriptures) can teach different lessons at different times depending on how I approach it, who I am, and what circumstances I find myself in when I approach it. So I decided to get a little contextual information on this passage and then come back to it. I consulted The Workbook for Lectors Gospel Readers and Proclaimers of the Word for its perspective.

The commentary from this workbook suggests that, as is to be expected when humans gather into groups, there was dissension among the community of Christians that the letter addresses. The members of the community are falling short of loving one another as Christ has loved them. Apparently, some of the community members have recognized they’ve fallen short and are making an effort to live differently, yet they are still haunted by how they treated their spiritual family members. Their “hearts condemn” them (Acts 9:20). The writer reassures them that although they remember how they’ve fallen short, Christ offers them grace because of their repentance, and they should have confidence in that grace.

On the other hand, according to the workbook, it seems that other members of the community aren’t mindful of having sinned in the ways their brothers and sisters have. The writer reminds these members that if they haven’t fallen short of loving one another, it’s thanks to God’s grace. It’s God they should have confidence in. The Holy Spirit allows all members to keep God’s commandments and by keeping them, to receive what they ask God for. The workbook commentary says that according to the Gospel of John and the letter 1 John, a person keeps God’s commandments by trusting Christ words and as a result, loving his or her neighbor as Christ has loved him or her.

This week’s Gospel passage uses the metaphor of a fruit bearing vine to characterize someone who keeps the commandments referred to in the previous paragraph. It describes how Christ touches the mind and the spirit when it says to Christ’s disciples, “You are already pruned because of the word I spoke to you” (John 15:3). The passage includes the body in Christ’s ministry because it says, “Remain in me as I remain in you” (John 15:4). It also includes the body because the images of fruit, vines, and branches are concrete images on the physical world. The passage also focuses on what remaining attached to that vine allows the branches to do and that someone not attached to the vine “can do nothing” (John 15:5). It focuses on actions. Someone who nurtures a relationship with God can nurture the Holy Spirit within him or herself and others. Someone who nurtures a relationship with God gives and receives spiritual and material gifts.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Lisa Merserau, CT reflects on the timeless imagery of this week’s Gospel passage and on what it means what it takes to remain in Christ.

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help us to recognize everywhere Your reminders that You are with us always. Prompt us to treat ourselves and others in ways that honor this reality. Amen.

Works cited (but not linked to):

Barga, Maria Enid, et al. Workbook for Lectors, Gospel Readers, and Proclaimers of the Word. “Fifth Sunday of Easter: Reading II.” Year B, United States Edition, Fixed Layout E-Book Edition, Liturgy Training Publications, 2024, p. 168.

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “5th Sunday of Easter 28 April 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.188, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 15 April 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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Easter Week 4: See and Lead with Help from God Within

April 21, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 4:8–12
  2. Psalm 118:1, 8–9, 21–23, 26, 28, 29
  3. 1 John 3:1–2 
  4. John 10:11–18

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week, the readings say to me that they’re about the frailty of vision that isn’t God’s vision. They’re also about the human struggle to accept that while we can’t understand everything that happens in our earthly lives, our inability to see and to understand what we see doesn’t mean God isn’t present in all circumstances.

In the first reading, we have people trying to figure out how a man’s physical impairment disappeared. The people aware of this occurrence are apparently trying to figure this out after the apostles healed this man and announced that they were doing so in the name of Jesus Christ when they did it. We also see Peter declaring that [Jesus] “is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone” [the italics are from the source and indicate a reference to an Old Testament passage the hearers would have been familiar with.] (Acts 4:11). The passage is a reminder that Someone condemned to die, especially by the most humiliating, agonizing means possible looks like someone whose leadership should be rejected.

But this Someone is Jesus Christ. He had to suffer and descend into death to bring back to life with Him others who had suffered and died because of sin and still others who would have died had He not opened a door on the other side of death for others to walk through into new life. The name of this same Someone with a carpenter’s training — Jesus Christ — didn’t seem like it ought to be able to heal someone’s impairment. But the passage tells me that the name did just that when it was called upon by men who had faith and experience in and with the power that name has.

The psalm warns:

It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.

Psalm 118:8-9

I hear these verses as reminders:

  • not to rush to trust
  • not to base my trust on criteria that are “passing away” (1John 2:17).
  • to invite the Holy Spirit into my decisions about who to trust
  • To allow time for trust to be built and to be earned
  • to practice discernment about my motives when seeking the trust of others
  • to practice discernment about the motives of others when considering whether to follow or to imitate them
  • to ask the Holy Spirit for help with honoring God in others.
  • It’s God’s spirit and having God’s image that makes authentic success and leadership possible.
  • The fact that something has always been done a certain way, or is popular, or is done by those in power doesn’t necessarily mean the action should be imitated or continued.
  • It’s a blessing to follow those who do lead in the name of the Lord; doing so helps us continue experiencing life in the Lord’s presence.
  • Providing holy leaders is one of the ways God cares for us, and this care is one of the many signs of God’s goodness and reasons to thank God.

The last reminder doesn’t mean that everything everyone in a position of leadership does is holy. How could it be when no one is perfect, and everyone’s vision is limited? Furthermore, can anyone truly be a leader if no one follows him or her? I pose this question as I remember that I have roles to play in who leads me, what I follow, and how I lead others. And no matter the limitations and failings of earthly leaders, the Heavenly Leader never stops guiding with wisdom and love and beckoning me to follow.

The third reading reminds me that we’re not only invited to be followers of God. We are children of God and as such, are called to live lives that reflect the dwelling of God’s spirit within us. The passage says that even when we live in ways that reflect our Divine Parent, we aren’t always treated with the dignity we’ve inherited as God’s children, and sadly, we often don’t treat our siblings in God with the dignity they’ve inherited. When we don’t know God as well as we like to think we do, we don’t treat what belongs to God with the dignity that we would if we had God’s unlimited vision. The third reading — the epistle — tells me that if we surrender our vision again and again to God’s cleansing, we’ll better appreciate the gifts offered by the people and things around us, and the more we seek to see as God sees, the better prepared will be to receive gifts we can’t imagine when we pass into the next life. Yet even if we have the grace to open ourselves to these gifts as much as we can, we have no way of conceiving what an eternal life of full communion and total reciprocity of love will be like.

In the gospel reading, Jesus provides additional imagery to convey the lessons of the psalm about who a true leader is and isn’t and what a true leader does and doesn’t do. The true leader isn’t just doing a job. The true leader isn’t playing a role that he’s kept in and out of for his own convenience and benefit. The true leader doesn’t use, abuse, or manipulate those in his care. Instead, he proves himself worthy of their love by being honest with them, serving them, and inviting them to do is he does. He extends this invitation to all. The true leader treats those in his care as beloved family. He gives of himself to those in his care. Jesus is the ultimate leader, who gave of himself to those in his care to the point of offering his very life.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Sharon M.K. Kugler reflects on this week’s readings by exploring how our beliefs about ourselves, others, and God affect how we behave.

Beyond this week’s readings:

In the first section of last week’s post, I described the second reading as a reminder that being in a healthy relationship means (I paraphrase myself) communicating, cooperating, sharing priorities, and life. God’s commandments and Jesus’ teachings and modeling of how to fulfill them reveal God’s priorities and how to share in God’s life.

1 John 2:3–5 says that if we know Jesus Christ, [we] “keep his commandments, and if we don’t “keep his commandments” but say we “know him,” we “are liars and the truth is not in [us]. But whoever keeps his commandments, the love of God is truly perfected in him [or her].”

Elsewhere, the Scriptures tell us we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23). It follows from this understanding that we’re all liars sometimes, in the sense that we say we know God, and yet we don’t act like it, so we don’t know God as well as we like to talk as if we do. I know this is true for me. The love of God isn’t perfected in me, and yet, the Good Shepherd sacrificed His life for hypocrites like me, to help us avoid living double lives and following others who do. I close with the following prayer for all of us:

Lord, I tend to take my relationship with You for granted. Help me not to do this. Set my heart on fire withe love for You so I never give up on reacquainting myself with You as my Good Shepherd. Amen.

Works cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “4th Sunday of Easter 21 April 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.187, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 6 March 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

Posted in Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Easter Journey Continues: The Mind, Body, Soul, and Community Get New Life

April 14, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 3:13–15, 17–19
  2. Psalm 4:2, 4, 7–8, 9
  3. 1 John 2:1–5a
  4. Luke 24:35–48

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings say to me that they are about what it means for us to love God and what it means for God to love us. The first reading reminds us what can happen if we get caught up in the noise, the fear, and the intimidation of chaotic moments. It shows us what can happen if we let a herd mentality confuse our perceptions of what’s holy and what isn’t. The crucifixion is one event that happened in such a climate, the first reading reminds us. But the same passage also gives us Good News. It tells us we can acknowledge when our vision of what’s holy has been clouded, and we can ask the Holy Spirit to sweep the clouds away and help us to refocus our attention on the True Compass. The psalm promises that God won’t abandon us but will give us clarity and healing if we’re open to receiving these gifts.

The third reading says to me that to love means to give to and to receive from the Beloved. It means cooperating and sharing a common purpose. It says that love must be expressed with actions as well as words. It says love that meets these criteria is love of God.

The gospel reading calls attention to some additional characteristics of God’s love. God understands human nature better than any human, so God knows that pleasant surprises are good for relationships, including our relationship with God. Evidence of this knowledge is demonstrated in the way the newly resurrected Jesus enters into situations in which His first followers don’t expect Him to appear. Granted, these followers are surprised to see him largely because they’ve gathered with people who have seen His crucifixion, death and burial, but they might also be surprised because Jesus doesn’t knock on the door and wait for them to open it. I’m imagining He knows they wouldn’t have opened it if He had. They’re too scared of being arrested and meeting the same fate Jesus did. So He seems to simply appear “in their midst,” going around their fear and surprising them to give them what they need (Luke 24:36) — but not before He shows their intellect and their need for food some love. He appears in their midst after two of them have returned from a journey, and He has discussed with them what refers to Him in the Scriptures and then made himself “known to them in the breaking of bread” (Luke 24:35).

I also see this passage as a reminder that God shows Divine love by demonstrating that He knows we need each other. We have opportunities to be for one another a tangible connection to divine love. In this passage, the reports that two followers provide upon returning from the journey are one example of that connection. The other is what Jesus Himself does when he appears in the midst of the group. He points out to the gathering that he has “flesh and bones” he shows them his crucifixion wounds, and he asks for something to eat (Luke 24:39). Once he gives them a tangible connection to his resurrection, he reminds them of what he told them before his death. He reinforces that the physical and the mental/spiritual realms are intertwined and that both are sacred.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Mary Erika Bolaños offers a reflection that reminds us Christ’s resurrection isn’t just an event that happened in the past.

Beyond this week’s readings:

I feel reminded by the first reading that the narrowness of my perspective, my weaknesses, and my sins won’t keep God’s ultimate plan from being fulfilled, but I still need to own my narrowness, my weaknesses, and my sins and resolve to work with the Divine Plan instead of against it. Being a conduit for this plan is how I can experience renewal now and in the future.

The psalm invites me to return to it again and again, praying with its words, asking God to help me make them my own and to live them.

The third reading reminds me to make sure my actions are consistent with what I’d like to think is important to me and with what I’d like to think my relationship with God is. It also reminds me to ask God for help with making sure that what matters to me is what matters to God.

The gospel reading reminds me that God embraces all of me — mind, body, and spirit.

Lord, help me to accept the gifts of that embrace so that I can live them and share them. Amen.

Work cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “3rd Sunday of Easter 14 April 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.187, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 6 March 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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The Easter Season Means Mercy Can’t Be Confined

April 7, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Dan Gomer on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 4:32–35
  2. Psalm 118:2–4, 13–15, 22–24
  3. 1 John 5:1–6 
  4. John 20:19–31

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings provide a variation on the truth that conversion and growth are ongoing processes. I would express the variation that’s introduced today like this: Easter isn’t just one day. Liturgically, it’s a fifty-day season, just as Lent is a forty-day one. Life is a recurring cycle of Lenten seasons and Easter seasons with seasons that connect one to the other. These between seasons called “Ordinary Time” offer gifts of their own that, perhaps, I don’t always recognize. Life presents a series of highs and lows. We don’t get to summits directly from valleys and vice-versa. We can’t teleport ourselves from one to the other. Moving in either direction is a gradual and often painful process.

On this year’s encounter, this week’s readings say to me that the Easter season presents a process. Last week, we read that on the first Easter morning, Jesus’ followers saw the empty tomb with only their physical eyes — at least that’s how I interpreted last week’s Gospel passage. In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus helps those who have locked themselves away after running from the empty tomb to develop their spiritual sight. The first way He does this is by letting them see His resurrected body with their physical sight. Second, He gives them his spirit so they can use it to carry the Easter message beyond their group.

He sends them to take part in reconciling His brothers and sisters to Himself and to each other. He tells them that the process of reconciliation isn’t cosmetic work or lip service. It requires action on the part of both the one who forgives and the one seeking forgiveness. It also requires openness of heart and willingness to support with a combination of honesty and compassion others who want to make difficult changes in their lives. While the passage shows Jesus’ first followers getting the physical proof and spiritual support they need to move beyond the locked doors, it also offers encouragement to the disciples who wait beyond those doors and in the future. “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,” John 20:29 says.

The second reading reminds us what it means to follow Jesus and offers further encouragement to His disciples:

In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

1 John 2-6

The message I’m getting is that the way of the Trinity doesn’t keep people who follow it behind spiritual locked doors. The Trinity helps us see healthy guardrails and giving, not as deprivations but as gains. Giving and living within guardrails are the ways to receive and to share the unending mercy the psalm praises. The first reading describes what living that mercy look liked for the early church. That passage brings to my mind the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy and how the two types of works are inextricably linked to each other. We are called to take part in these works, to do our part in helping the world experience that “[God’s] mercy endures forever” (Psalm 118:4).

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Layla A. Karst shares that this week’s readings explore “what it means to be church.”

Beyond this week’s readings:

It’s easy to read that ” his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith” (1 John: 3-4) But I’d be lying if I wrote that it felt true. I don’t know about all of you, so I’ll speak for myself. Hanging onto can feel burdensome when I’m surrounded by so many events that test faith. And taking part in the spiritual and corporal works of mercy can feel burdensome because they ask me to get out of my comfort zone, to put the basic needs of others ahead of my own wants, to risk being criticized or rejected. The part of my nature that isn’t in union with God’s doesn’t want to do these things, so the necessity of doing them can feel burdensome — even though I feel lighter after doing them.

Lord, help me to accept the crosses You call me to carry for my own sake, for the sake of my brothers and sisters, and for the natural world You’ve given me the privilege of caring for. Because You accepted Your cross, died, and rose from the dead, I can find new life by carrying my crosses, by helping others carry theirs, and by accompanying others into the life of communion and dignity You intend for all of us to have. Thank You.

Give me the courage to trust in Your mercy so that I can seek it, receive it, and share it. Help me to embrace and to extend mercy in all its forms.

Thank You for being with me both in times of faith and doubt and in situations in which I experience a mixture of both. Amen.

Work cited (but not linked to)

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Divine Mercy Sunday (Second Sunday) of Easter 7 April 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.187, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 6 March. 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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Easter 2024: Conversion is a Continual Process

March 31, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 10:34a, 37–43
  2. Psalm 118:1–2, 16–17, 22–23
  3. Colossians 3:1–4 
  4. John 20:1–9

What this week’s readings say to me:

Happy Easter! This week’s readings present me with contrasts. The contrast I find in the first reading is that Jesus came to minister, to suffer, to die and to rise so that “everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness through his name ” (Acts 10:43). Yet relatively few people had the privilege of being witnesses to His ministry, His suffering, His death and His resurrection. Yet the small group chosen for this purpose was “commissioned to preach to the people and testify that [Jesus is] the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42).

The third reading says:

Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:1-3

It sets up a contrast between what’s above and what’s below.

The Easter Gospel reading and that the contrast between what Jesus’ first followers thought the disappearance of his body from the tomb meant — having Jesus taken from them — and what they later came to understand the disappearance of his body from the tomb— having Jesus restored to them in His glory. The third reading testifies to the greater understanding of the events of Easter morning that Jesus’ followers came to over time.

At the same time, I think the contrasts presented in the third reading point to how understandings of Jesus’ mission for us have developed since the third reading was committed to paper. It’s my understanding that the first recipients of the third passage assumed Christ’s return was imminent. I think I’d be a lot less inclined to worry about what’s going on around me if I thought I was about to be taken out of those circumstances.

This is not the only scripture passage that tells Christians what not to worry about. For example, Jesus tells us not to worry about what to wear and what to eat (Matt. 6:31-32). But when looked at alongside other teachings of Jesus and of Paul, I don’t think either person was advising us to be passive and wait for what we need and what others need to materialize from Heaven. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says “… we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.” (As an aside, this verse is often used as a political weapon, so I’d like first to make a distinction between someone who cannot work enough to support him or herself and someone who could but doesn’t. A person on the outside of an individual’s situation is unlikely to have enough information to assess with perfect clarity whether a person is doing all he or she can to support him or herself. Secondly, I’d like to offer that a person who supports others doesn’t necessarily get income from that work with which to feed him or herself. This reality doesn’t mean the person is lazy.) Jesus says, “If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well” (Matt 5: 40). In these examples, Paul and Jesus are concerned with the challenges of life here on earth. They aren’t focused on a future reality where these challenges don’t exist.

So I propose that the lesson of the third reading is not “Think only about God, angels and saints rather than what’s going on around you. Instead, the lesson is to look at what’s around us and what we have and don’t have through eyes of faith. Perhaps the third reading offers a different way of bringing us back to the message we received at the start of Lent. Perhaps we are being reminded that only God is eternal. We are eternal when we unite ourselves to God by trusting Jesus and doing as He does. What we celebrate today reminds us of that promise and that reality.

Some aspects of life are gifts from God — and we can recognize them as such – but aren’t eternal. Other aspects of life aren’t welcome, and the promise that they aren’t eternal is good news. For both cases, perhaps this week’s passage from Colossians is a reminder to discern what’s eternal — the qualities of God — and not to treat what’s not eternal as if it were.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Dr. C. Vanessa White invites us on this Easter Sunday to be to the world around us what Mary Magdalene was for the apostles on the first Easter Sunday.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Here it is, Easter Sunday. Do I feel or think I’ve moved any closer to God than I was at the beginning of Lent? I wish I could say I do, but I don’t. But what I decided to offer to God this Lent did teach me. It taught me how important my favorite free-time activities are in my life and how much they feel like additional ways to express myself. They make me grateful for the many forms beauty takes in this world.

I’m also grateful that taking time away from these activities made me appreciate them more and helped me be more present to what’s happening around me and not to rush to these activities rather than expressing myself through writing first. Still, letting myself be bored and/or uncomfortable, and struggle with practicing the discipline of focus has been a strain.

I think that during these weeks of Lent, I’ve gotten used to making time for ways of expressing myself that have greater potential to serve others than my favorite hobbies do so that now I can continue benefiting from these flexible practices every day while reintroducing other hobbies.

Learning from and living with Jesus changed the lives of those who walked with him on Earth. But experiencing life with Jesus didn’t erase the pasts of His spiritual brothers and sisters, their personalities, or all their concerns. Instead, sharing life with Jesus changed how his disciples saw the other components of their lives. Experiences with Jesus planted the seeds of being open again and again to changes in circumstance and perspective.

The understanding Jesus’ followers had of the significance of the empty tomb and how it related to their mission evolved over time. Similarly, I hope that as time goes by, I’ll recognize that greater spiritual growth and significance came out of this Lent then I can recognize today.

Open my heart to the significance of the empty tomb, Lord. You have left the tomb. Come and fill my heart to overflowing so that I can’t help but share Your love. Amen.

Work cited

The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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Why Did Jesus Suffer and Die?

March 24, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Mark 11:1–10 John 12:12–16
  2. Isaiah 50:4–7
  3. Psalm 22:8–9, 17–18, 19–20, 23–24
  4. Philippians 2:6–11
  5. Mark 14:1—15:47

What this week’s readings say to me:

As I sit with these passages again this year, I find myself paraphrasing something my pastor said. It was in 2021, I think. He said that at various moments in our lives, we are every character in the passion story. I’ve been many of them. I’ve been open about my faith when I was in a crowd who made it easy to be open because they were being just as open. I’ve been silent about my faith when being open felt threatening — even just socially. I’ve asked God to get me out of a difficult situation, and God didn’t. I’ve said, “Thy will be done,” though I doubt I’ve ever been able to mean it without reservation as Jesus did.

Simon of Cyrene was “pressed into service” to help Jesus carry the cross (Mark 15:21). At most, I’ve been volunteered for some tasks I wouldn’t have chosen to do on my own. They were a lot less strenuous and my circumstances a lot less dangerous, yet I doubt I allow myself to be changed for the better as much as Simon must have allowed himself to be for his name to be remembered in accounts of Jesus’ passion (Matt.27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). I’ve betrayed people in my life and been betrayed by them. I’ve thought that if God is real and cares about His children and His creation, why doesn’t He save them from harm in easily recognizable ways all the time? Why would he allow them to suffer? I’ve also been asked the same questions when I’ve undertaken something or accepted a circumstance, and someone else didn’t understand why. I’ve asked now and then why God has abandoned me.

I’ve never been accused and/or sentenced unjustly by anyone charged with enforcing laws, but too many people have been. So many others have stood by someone unjustly sentenced and/or condemned, just as the people at the foot of the cross did for Jesus.

In this week’s readings shows the power of knowing who we are and what our purpose is in pursuing a purpose, regardless of the cost of doing so. The path of learning who we are, of fulfilling that purpose, of sacrificing for it looks different for everyone.

For Jesus, this path meant giving of Himself again and again in prayer, teaching, feeding, and healing. The darkest part of his journey brought him every kind of suffering brought him death. Why did He surrender to suffering and death? Not because God required His suffering and death to save us, but because we required his suffering and death to bring us back into union with God. We walk away from that relationship. God doesn’t. In fact, He never stops pursuing a relationship with us. The cross was the ultimate example of that pursuit, of going after us as we are — in all our fears, doubts, greed, fickleness, cruelty, violence, and even in our mortality.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Sheila Leocádia Pires reflects on Palm Sunday and the holy days that follow it.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Another reflection, “Jesus Did Not Die to Appease an Angry God,” even though it was published as a reflection on earlier Lenten readings, helps me make sense of this week’s readings in light of one core belief that’s been handed on to me — that God is love.

In the last few years, I’ve made my own the prospective on atonement and on the crucifixion that Fr. Terrance Klein expresses in the previous paragraph’s link. It’s been more than a week now since I first read his reflection, but I may have used some of his words in my reflection without realizing it. He explains so well, in my opinion, what I’ve wanted to communicate on this blog, but I never thought my way of communicating it made as much sense.

I hope you can access Fr. Klein’s reflection. I came across it on the website of America Magazine. I think viewing a certain number of articles on that website is free each month before the website invites visitors to subscribe to read more. I’ve tried to put this perspective into my own words at the end of the first section in case you are unable to read Fr. Klein’s words, but I hope you’ll be able to. If you are able to, I encourage you to do so. Fr Klein isn’t the only person I’ve encountered who offers this perspective or a similar one on atonement and the crucifixion, but his article is the one I have most recently encountered on the subject.

This perspective is important because it has the potential to recast who we say God is, what God does, and how God sees us. This perspective helps me see God as a rescuer and a healer, someone who wants to save us from what our own distorted vision, weaknesses and injustices do to us, rather than someone who punishes out of anger, jealousy, or a desire to exact revenge upon us for our lack of obedience. It’s a perspective on the relationship between God and humanity that has taken humanity time to develop. By using the word “develop,” I don’t tend to suggest that humans came up with it, but that each of us is on an ongoing journey to understand reality more fully and thus to know God better.

I also don’t mean to suggest that sins don’t matter to God. I think they matter to God precisely because God understands better than we do how sin hurts the sinner and others affected by the sin. It’s precisely because of this supreme understanding that God goes to battle with all of sin’s damage in the generations before Christ and during Christ’s conception, hidden life, ministry, and passion. God wills restorative justice.

Thank you, Lord for coming to rescue us by living a human life so You could be an example for us and could heal us through Your Divinity, Your human relationships with others, Your ministry, Your intercession, Your suffering, and Your death. Amen.

Work cited (but not linked to)

The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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Lord, What Do You Do with Us and Our Sins?

March 17, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Jeremiah 31:31–34 
  2. Psalm 51:3–4, 12–13, 14–15
  3. Hebrews 5:7–9
  4. John 12:20–33

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings show me from different angles about how to start fresh, how to find renewal, how to be restored. The first reading echoes the message of last week’s third reading — that Christ is the source of renewal in God. This week’s first reading promises the renewal, the reunion with God that the events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday will offer.

The psalm says to me that I might as well be its narrator. “A clean heart” and “a steadfast spirit” are precisely what I long for. As a person who experiences anxiety, has an anxious nature even, the request for “a steadfast spirit” particularly resonates with me (Psalm 51: 12-13).

The third reading urges me to persevere in making the requests I highlighted in the second reading. It also reminds me that receiving that “clean heart,” that “steadfast spirit” will mean facing my fears and in doing so, standing up to my desire to let the comforts of self-preservation and the status quo rule my life (Psalm 51: 12-13). To imitate Jesus, to cooperate with God’s will, to live, is to die to the instincts to preserve a distorted idea of myself and to maintain the status quo. The Gospel passage presents the same message in a different way.

I don’t mean to suggest that this message is telling us that rules are meant to be broken and that systems are meant to be dismantled, or that following a routine should be dispensed with entirely — only that we need to be open always to evaluating how our systems are working, who they are working for, and who they aren’t, and how they need to be reformed, adapted, or adjusted to work better. They can’t work better if they don’t support growth, which means more than being alive, it means living, which means being able to share material, spiritual, and intellectual gifts. It means being able to connect with and care for the world around us.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Susan Nchubiri, MM draws a challenging invitation from this week’s readings to offer to others what God offers us.

Beyond this week’s readings:

God calls us to forgive and forget.

Susan Nchubiri, MM

My immediate reaction to this statement was to push back, partly because of sermons, homilies and other reflections. I’ve often heard that God’s forgiveness doesn’t excuse what’s being forgiven; forgiveness of harm doesn’t erase the harm. And wouldn’t forgetting mean erasing the harm from individual and collective memories? And how can an all-knowing God forget?

I’ve read that Jesus retained His wounds after the resurrection. For many others having, the reality of their wounds and what caused those wounds acknowledged is an important part of the healing process. And yet, too often, societies and individuals have behaved as if healing could be found by pretending harm never occurred.

Maybe we don’t have accurate words for how God sees us and our sins. An all-knowing, all-powerful, all loving God can see in each of us the special ways reflect the Divine Nature if we don’t distort this reflection with sin, or if we allow God to restore the clarity of the reflection by handing over our sin and frailty to Him God knows that, by ourselves, we can’t be completely undistorted mirrors of holiness. Perhaps God also doesn’t unknow each of our sins. But God does transform them into opportunities to receive and to share grace, opportunities to recognize that we need God and others, and that others need us in return. Showing our wounds lets others know him they can uncover theirs as well. Wounds exposed to light, air, disinfectants, and other treatments can close. Them closing doesn’t mean they won’t leave behind scars. It just means they won’t hamper our growth, our very life, as they did when they bled under bandages.

Lord, give us the courage to acknowledge our wounds before you and others, just as you have not hidden your wounds from us. Lord, clean our wounded spirits and restore them to steadfastness. Transform scars into reminders that strength can be found in the vulnerability of openness. Help us not to let whatever we’d rather forget weigh us down. Transform our memories, whether painful or joyful, into means of connection to You through everything that is. We thank You that everything is able to serve this purpose because You came to live, die, and rise among us. Amen

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “5th Sunday of Lent, Sunday 17 February 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.186, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Feb. 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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Lord, Love Me out of the Darkness of Exile

March 10, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by I.am_nah on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. 2 Chronicles 36:14–16, 19–23
  2. Psalm 137:1–2, 3, 4–5, 6
  3. Ephesians 2:4–10
  4. John 3:14–21

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings are about being in exile — far from home, the place where one belongs. The first reading and the psalm teach that God can work, even through those in exile — perhaps especially through the exiled, provided that those in exile don’t lose sight of who they are and where they come from. God works through those in exile precisely because while they hopefully can live in harmony with the people native to the place they now find themselves, they stand out. They can use their visibility to be examples of authenticity and charity. Humility is necessary for authenticity, and authenticity makes room for charity, which is service toward and cooperation with others.

The third reading teaches that we can be neither authentic nor humble if we’re under the illusion that anything we are or anything we do comes from us alone. Setting aside any environmental factors that contribute to who each of us is, none of us would exist without the combined DNA of other people, and none of the people who make up who we are would exist without God’s life giving, sustaining, and restoring love. All that is exists to magnify and to be a channel for that love.

Unfortunately, the magnifying glass or prism that each of us is meant to be gets clouded by things we get tricked into thinking are God. These idols block our ability to see God’s light, to feel its warmth, through and beyond them. Blockers of God’s light that come to my mind are fear, shame, anger, and envy.

This week’s Gospel reading reassures us that Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn us for the very human experiences that I just listed. He came into the world to bear the weight of all our sins, our weaknesses and our pain, to surrender himself entirely to these, going so far as to engage with death itself so that He could neutralize its power and along with it, the power of every other human frailty. The key to experiencing that, as evidenced by His victory over death, He’s stronger than every idol is to hand over the imposters to His custody so they don’t take custody of us. This handing over is so much harder to do than the writing about it was. The imposters still feel powerful, no matter how many times we hear that God has rescued us from them. We let ourselves get trapped by them into believing we should hide from the light because we belong to the seemingly stronger darkness, and that we’ll be set adrift and alone if we come into the light’s embrace and expose the distortions darkness creates as the illusions they are.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Click here to find out how Ogechi Akalegebere sees connections between this week’s readings and the work of Thea Bowman.

Beyond this week’s readings:

It’s one thing to write about not hiding from the light and instead moving forward into its healing rays. It’s another matter to take the risk of coming out of hiding and to trust. One step toward allowing God to embrace me in my weakness and with all the I’m ashamed of is to bring what I’m tempted to hide to God in prayer. Doing this feels like coming to God and asking God to put a spotlight on me. In this situation, I may confront what I’d rather hide, even from myself. But I’ve also been known in times like this to be confused about what God wants me to bring to light. These tendencies are the reason why I need at least one other person to help me lift to God what I’d rather not acknowledge. The first three readings support my need for healing to have a relational component I can perceive with my physical senses.

And yet it’s so hard to seek this help, to put into words what fear warns me keep silent. After all, everyone else is imperfect too, and no one has the unlimited perspective of God. Will my frailty, my failings be understood if I share them? Will they be judged? Can I even put them into words? Will doing so ever bring me closer to spiritual wellness? After years of struggling in the same ways, believing I can be spiritually free and comfortable in the light is so difficult.

Nonetheless, “I do believe,” Lord, [H]elp my unbelief. (Mark 9-24). Help me not to carry burdens you are waiting to take from me. Grant me the grace to seek and to find refuge in Your light along with and in the sight of all your children. Amen.

Work cited

The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

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Wisdom Shakes Up Routines — Sometimes

March 3, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Exodus 20:1–17
  2. Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11
  3. 1 Corinthians 1:22–25
  4. John 2:13–25

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings give specific examples of what wisdom looks like. In general, the readings tell me that wisdom appreciates healthy boundaries and relationships. The Ten Commandments, which are listed in the first reading, help us maintain healthy boundaries and relationships. The psalm celebrates the wisdom God offers us. The third reading acknowledges that humans often don’t recognize God’s wisdom, even though the psalm praises it. The third reading points out that God’s wisdom asks us to do more than accept a set of ideas, aspire to a set of ideals, or simply beg for God to act and then wait for the action.

The Gospel shows Jesus exemplifying that having faith is more than an intellectual activity, and it isn’t a passive activity. either. This week’s fourth reading also exemplifies that living a life of faith means seeking a healthy relationship with God. And a healthy relationship with God is more than a transactional relationship. It means more than going to a specific place and/or performing. Living a life of faith requires the cooperation of the whole person — body and spirit — and the offering of everything he or she has to God.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Vickey McBride reminds me of the importance of being sensitive to the difficulties in the lives of people I come into contact with. She reminds me to be attentive when others share their difficulties. She also acknowledges how challenging attentiveness can be in these circumstances and relates Jesus’ actions in the Gospel passage to the challenge of this part of the human experience. Click here to find out how.

Beyond this week’s readings:

It’s important that I begin this section by revisiting my response to last week’s readings. I learned from my pastor’s homily about last week’s Old Testament reading that the story of the almost-sacrifice occurs at a place in the timeline when Isaac isn’t a child. My pastor said that in the passage, Isaac is a grown man who knows what’s expected of a man in his culture. As a man in his prime, he also could overpower his much, much older father, but he doesn’t. He trusts in the promises God made to his father, so he does what the situation seems to require of him and waits to see how God will work within the situation. He chooses to trust that God is good, even if the circumstances in which he finds himself make it tempting to think otherwise. Another homily about the same reading, this homily from Fr. Mike Schmidt, goes so far as to specify that Isaac would be around the same age Jesus was when he died. (Free podcast episodes of Fr. Mike’s Sunday homilies are also available from your favorite podcast player and Ascension Media.) So there are stronger parallels between Isaac’s almost-sacrifice and Jesus’ sacrifice than I had previously realized.

Feeling called to pursue other projects has led me to focus less of my preparation for these posts on research and more of time on what the readings are saying to me and on how I feel when I read them. It turns out this approach removes some richness from reflecting on the readings because the amount of knowledge I have about the context in which a passage appears affects my response to it.

At the same time, I don’t want to make this blog another place to find commentaries from Scripture scholars. As I’ve written before, I’m not a Scripture scholar. And commentaries are insightful but accessible in many ways. You don’t need my blog to find them. In many cases, you can find them in the introductions to Bible books and in the footnotes within those books, to name just a couple study aids. Rather than seeing this blog a place to find those introductions and footnotes, I’ve always envisioned it primarily as a spiritual journal. Nevertheless, I’d like to do a better job from here on out of putting the readings into their cultural and chronological context as I pray about them by writing here.

With this intention in mind, I’ll start with my gut reactions and my experience with the Gospel passage, and once I’ve laid these out, I’ll bring in some context from someone with a lot more expertise on the topic than I have. I guess my main experience with and response to this passage is to have questions:

  • How often would Jesus have cause to act similarly as He does in the passage if He walked into churches today?
  • If someone were to walk into a place of worship today and behave similarly to how Jesus does in the passage, would we be willing to consider that the person whom many would call a vandal has a point? It’s easy when we recognize the instigator as Jesus to look for righteousness behind the actions. Could we do the same if we weren’t told the instigator was Jesus?
  • How comfortable are we, really, with the reality that Christianity is about worshiping by imitating a person? Believing that God has a body also means that our bodies and spirits are places of worship. We are the church. If the Spirit of God — love — isn’t obviously at work in our actions, the places we worship might be little more than marketplaces — or perhaps worse — they might be just buildings, idols to human achievement or aspirations, vessels that might hold a healing balm but don’t.
  • How well do we think we know God and God’s will? How will we respond if what we think we know or what we’re used to gets challenged?

Like the writer of this post, I’ve heard this week’s Gospel passage explained in terms of the money changers taking advantage of poor worshipers for profit. But according to the perspective on the passage offered by the blog, the money changers may not have been behaving unethically. Jesus’ actions may be less about who the money changers are and more about who He is and who we can become through relationship with Him.

Lord, help me recognize Your presence in my life, even when You’re present in ways I don’t expect You to be and don’t seem present in ways I do expect. Help me magnify Your presence. Help me also to recognize Your presence in those around me, especially when others don’t do what I expect or what I think is best. Amen.

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What’s God Asking of Us and Why

February 25, 2024 by Lisa Rutledge

Photo by Livin4wheel on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Genesis 22:1–2, 9a, 10–13, 15–18
  2. Psalm 116:10, 15, 16–17, 18–19
  3. Romans 8:31b–34 
  4. Mark 9:2–10

What this week’s readings say to me:

The message I first get from the first reading is that the one who withholds nothing from God receives blessings now and into eternity.

The message of the psalm is a challenge to trust God, especially when doing so is most difficult. Actually, the first and third readings issue this challenge as well. The third reading also asserts that God blesses and saves whomever trusts God. And the Transfiguration in the Gospel promises the same. It also reminds us who Jesus is, and who we are. When we listen to Jesus and show that we’ve been paying attention by following Him, we regain a clear perspective of who we are, the perspective that Jesus shared about himself and about us. When we live this perspective, acting as beloved sons and daughters of God, we’re family members connected by more than DNA or choice, and someday, neither time nor any other force will be able to limit the reach of our light or our love. This is a promise that runs through each of this week’s readings.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Selena Ibrahim offers a reflection to help us apply lessons from the first reading to our lives.

Beyond this week’s readings:

I’m grateful to have access to Ms. Ibrahim’s perspective on the first reading, because I find the Old Testament passage disturbing. If someone today said God commanded the literal sacrifice of his or her child, even if the person later said God had stopped the sacrifice, people inside and outside religious communities would express certainty that God had not commanded the sacrifice. They’d say the parent was mentally ill and/or hearing the voice of Satan or a demon.

As with the actions attributed to God in last week’s Old Testament reading, it can be very tempting to smooth over the disturbing content and implications of the passage by saying that the Old Testament reading prefigures God the Father not withholding the sacrifice of his Son on the cross to save the rest of humanity.

But I can think of some differences between the two sacrifices. First, thankfully, in the first reading, God prevents the sacrifice, Second, Jesus is an adult who accepted the cross, not a child, as Isaac is in this week’s Old Testament passage. I see other differences as well, but I think I’ll save these observations for a future Palm Sunday reflection.

Both the crucifixion and the story of Abraham’s almost-sacrifice of Isaac inspire me to pray about violence. Especially on my mind is how these parts of Scripture present violence done in the name of God. I offer the following prayer:

Lord, grant us the grace to trust You to keep Your promises and the freedom to live in friendship with You. Help us to recognize the vulnerable among us. Guide us and to care for them and protect them. Guide us in discernment as we seek to do Your will. Deliver us from temptation and evil masquerading as Your will. Protect us from violence, especially violence that claims to be done in Your name, but only harms the people and other living things and resources that are most vulnerable in this world rather than protecting them. Amen.

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