I hope you’re able to click on the following link for quote for the day from the Hallow app. I had to share it. https://hallow.app.link/AAxfhDCARBb
Archive for July, 2023
The Importance of the Present Moment
Posted in Reflections on Scripture on July 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Seeking to Treasure the Kingdom
Posted in Ordinary Time, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged Kingdom of God, Ordinary Time, Relationship with God, Seeking, Who Am I in God, Who is God, Wisdom on July 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- 1 Kings 3:5, 7–12
- Psalm 119:57, 72, 76–77, 127–128, 129–130
- Romans 8:28–30
- Matthew 13:44–52
This week’s readings are about the value of wisdom, what wisdom looks like — and what it doesn’t look like. They tell me that wisdom means wanting to know right from wrong. It also means knowing that without God’s grace, I can’t know right from wrong. It means having hope because the ultimate form of the many forms this grace takes is that God was carried and delivered by a woman, entering personally into the human experience. God entered into the darkest parts of that experience, giving everything possible to those darkest experiences so the Light could overpower them. Nowhere the Light breaks through can remain as dark as it was before Light’s entry, and the more Light is allowed in, the more darkness is pushed out. The way I’m thinking about this in terms of Jesus is that once the Spirit had left his human body, suffering and death no longer had metaphorical fingers on God.
They still have fingers on God’s creation, but those fingers no longer have a chokehold on it because the darkness cannot be stronger than unfettered Light. Because Light’s now unfettered, it shines on all of creation — or it would if it could shine through everyone.
But we all block the Light in some ways; I know I do. My desire to have only what I want when I want it and nothing I don’t gets in the way of the light shining through me. This desire lets ingratitude and covetousness spread in my heart. From my heart, it spreads to my mouth and comes out as criticism and self-righteousness fueled by unchecked anger and resentment. Fears about not getting only what I want when I want also get in the way of me being a conduit for the Light.
Such desire and fear is selfishness. It’s the result of looking at myself, others, and God only through the lens of my own pain and my desire to avoid it. I can’t honestly say I’m willing to sell everything that seems to allow me to avoid it so that I can make room for the Kingdom of God that Jesus has purchased for me. I don’t honestly trust myself to protect the treasure of the kingdom that is within and around me. I’m not even sure I can honestly say I want to. But I know that I want to want to. So my prayer for this week is for the Spirit to give me true wisdom so that I can recognize in a personal, heart-based way what a treasure the Kingdom of God is. Amen.
I sense that I received one answer to this prayer before putting it into words here. I sense that I may find what I’m seeking by approaching this blog differently in the future. One part of my idea – we’ll see if it’s God’s idea too — is to post links to others’ reflections on the readings each Sunday after this one. I don’t mean to say that I envision this blog becoming merely a place where I post links to other people’s writing and videos. On the contrary, the other part of my idea is to make this blog a place where I journal and pray through what ever form of expression seems most meaningful at a given time.
I feel called to shift what I write here from being focused on interpretation and application to being focused on conversation with God and with you. I suspect I’ll find it helpful to use prayer journaling prompts as inspiration for some future posts here. I hope they’ll inspire me to ask questions and to listen to and look for God. I also hope my exploration will encourage you to explore with God too. I’m discerning that I need more time for this exploration.
Taking this time may mean posting links to weekly reflections from others here and sharing journaling prompts and responses of my own more or less often than I have posted so far. I don’t know which. How often I post will probably vary what I’m wrestling with or sitting with. I’m looking forward to this new approach, this approach of noticing how the Spirit moves within and around me and not being in a rush to interpret what I notice or to tie it up in a very defined bow. Join me on this new adventure of following where the Wind blows and seeking the Light within and at each end of every tunnel. Lead me, Lord. Help me to dive deeper into love of You and everything and everyone that You love. Amen.
A Reflection to Honor Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
Posted in Patron Post, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, tagged Non-Dualism, Ordinary Time, Patron Post, Scripture Reflections from Others on July 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
In addition to Mary of Magdala, Mary and Martha of Bethany, the sisters of Lazarus have helped to shape the vision for this blog. Today, the Church thanks God for the gift of their example as well.
Dr. Shannon Sterringer shared this reflection about these siblings in April 2017.
Let’s Be ” [S]owers of [J]ustice, [P]eace, and [K]indness” with Sr. Erin McDonald
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged Mental health, Ordinary Time, Scripture Reflections from Others, Social Justice on July 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This week’s readings:
- Wisdom 12:13, 16–19
- Psalm 86:5–6, 9–10, 15–16
- Romans 8:26–27
- Matthew 13:24–43
Last week, I wrote about how, being human, I have a tendency to turn flowers into plans that stunt growth. Either that, or I tend to expect weeds to be ugly, and when they aren’t, I let them choke growth. This week’s readings have more to say about these tendencies and how God responds to them. The readings also concerning the weeds I didn’t plant or allow to takeover and yet they still pop up in the fields and gardens of life.
Because I anticipate not having the amount of time this week that I’d normally have to work on this blog, I invite you to join me in being enriched by a reflection on this week’s readings from Sr. Erin McDonald.
I invite you also to join me in this prayer: Lord, I surrender the weeds within me to Your gardening. Thank You for your patience with me. Help me to extend this patience to the people and experiences in my life and to discern how to be just and merciful as You are just and merciful. Amen.
Sr. Antoinette Gutzler Reflects on The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene
Posted in Patron Post, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Ordinary Time, Patron Post, Scripture Reflections from Others, Social Justice on July 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »
In honor of Mary of Magdala, who I consider a patron of this blog, Sr. Antoinette Gutzler reflects on a command Jesus gives in my favorite scripture passage.
Watch Out for Ruts and Weeds That Flower
Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged anxiety, Encouragement, Holy Spirit, Mental health, Ordinary Time, Questions, Reflections on Scripture, Spiritual Challenges, Spiritual Dryness, Trust on July 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This Week’s Readings:
- Isaiah 55:10–11
- Psalm 65:10, 11, 12–13, 14
- Romans 8:18–23
- Matthew 13:1–23
I found myself conversing with what stood out to me in each of this week’s readings, and the conversation felt familiar. The familiarity wasn’t comfortable. It was boring, and the boredom I experienced in response to each reading was a bit anxiety-inducing.
Now that I’ve been writing this blog for a year and a half, I worry I’m the responding to these passages the same way I did the last time I wrote about each one here. And I want to receive and share new insights — for my own sake and for yours.
Nonetheless, I trust that the Spirit is working on me, in me, and through me even when I feel like I’m following the same old tracks and in doing so, may be getting stuck in the same ruts over and over.
The first reading reassures me:
my word shall not return to me void,
Isaiah 55:11
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
This reading suggests that at least I can’t totally stop the ability of Love’s winds from re-forming creation, I said to myself as I read this verse. I can only force these Winds to choose a different tunnel. Yet when I interrupt their course, I miss out on being enlivened by them — maybe more often than I don’t miss out on this gift.
Fortunately, for me, God, I want to be the dirt in the second stanza of this week’s psalm, and I suppose I am. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. The stanza speaks to God as follows:
Thus have you prepared the land: drenching its furrows,
Psalm 65:11
breaking up its clods,
softening it with showers,
blessing its yield.
The question for me is, will I appreciate what it takes to break up or to avoid the unhelpful knots in my life, what the psalm characterizes as clods of dirt? Will I appreciate what it takes to soften what has hardened within me so that it can yield growth? Often not, because spiritual clods and hardness, like muscular hardness, develop over time and in uncomfortable, sometimes extreme conditions. Going through the softening process is no different. This process might mean taking a pounding, like meat that needs tenderizing. It definitely means experiencing rebirth and changing my world.
The concept of rebirth sounds nice. It sounds like a sudden shift, something that happens in between blinks, but the third reading’s characterization of the process provides a reality check. It says:
We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 18:22-23
This excerpt tells me that spiritual restoration is a process, a laborious and often painful one. It also tells me that I’m undergoing the process here and now, but I will also be undergoing it, in what, to me, is the future. To God, everything is happening now and all at once in a way I can’t comprehend.
Because I can’t comprehend not being bound by time, in the reading from Matthew, Jesus uses a parable to compare the process of spiritual growth to the process by which a crop grows — or doesn’t.
In the reading, Jesus gives an interpretation of the parable, and I’m grappling with how to apply this parable and its interpretation my life. I know that, to grow, a seed needs a certain depth of soil that isn’t too rocky for the plant to put down roots. It also needs room to grow. To me, this means the seed that is me needs a deep trust in God to grow. Having such trust would keep the often difficult conditions of life from stunting my growth. Reaching out to God in the midst of difficulties just might transform them from obstacles to opportunities. Spiritual fertilizers, I might call these experiences.
For me, the weeds in the parable are the distractions that take up time I could be using to love God, myself, and others as God loves me. Sometimes these distractions are unpleasant. They feel like the anxieties Jesus says the weeds represent. Other times, they’re harder recognize as weeds because they’re activities I enjoy and use to forget about feelings I don’t want to feel and to put off doing what I don’t want to do.
It’s useful for me to distract myself sometimes, to break myself out of a pattern of unhelpful thinking, a pattern of replaying unpleasant past experiences or of dreading a future experience that I anticipate will be difficult. But there are questions I know I’d benefit from asking myself about my favorite distractions:
- How often am I turning to these distractions?
- How long do the benefits I get from these activities last, and how satisfying are they? Can I do them in moderation, or do they leave me only wanting more?
- How much time are these enjoyable activities taking away from activities that have longer-lasting benefits for me and others?
- What activities with longer-lasting and broader benefits could I use instead to break myself out of unhelpful thinking? (For the record, no, memorizing comforting or inspiring Bible verses hasn’t served this purpose for me, though I’ve tried this approach and won’t rule out trying it again. Getting outside and/or getting exercise have helped.)
- What do I want to avoid dealing with, and how much better have I felt in the past when I dealt with whatever I didn’t want to rather than distracting myself from it?
Lord, open the ears of my heart and mind to hear and listen to Your answers to these questions. Thank You for hearing me. Amen.
Work cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 16 July 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.180, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 29 June 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
Communion Offers Life to All of Everyone
Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, tagged Communion, Discouragement, Encouragement, Holy Spirit, Non-Dualism, Ordinary Time on July 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »
This Week’s Readings:
- Zechariah 9:9–10
- Psalm 145:1–2, 8–9, 10–11, 13–14
- Romans 8:9, 11–13
- Matthew 11:25–30
I read the first two readings and thought it would probably be good for me to read and reread them and internalize their expressions of faith and praise. Maybe if I read them enough, their words would feel more like they could be my own. However, where is my mind is right now, it can embrace them as true but my heart hesitates to do the same, even as I recognize the justice of praising God even when the praise feels inauthentic coming from me. The third reading seems to present the ideal response to faith in another way that I’m discouraged by not living up to.
The Good News for me this week is the Gospel’s affirmation of my feeling that I can’t live up to the ideals of the first two readings. I’m not meant live up to the ideals on my own strength. The ideals aren’t even about doing the right things on my own or even thinking the right things or understanding difficult situations or concepts on my own. Jesus speaks to his Father in Matthew Chapter 11, saying, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you [italics mine] have revealed them to little ones” (25-26). Once I revisited this verse, it helped me see in a new light two verses from the third reading. They say:
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Consequently, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
Romans 8:11-12
I don’t give life to myself. The Spirit “that raised Christ from the dead” and “dwells in me” will give life to [my] mortal body” (Rom. 8:11).
I tend to think of the mind as more closely related to the Spirit than to the “mortal body” or “flesh,” and to sinful actions, what Romans calls “the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8: 13). I don’t think I’m alone in having this dualistic perspective.
However, the reality is that what the mind does is as much the result of brain activity as anything else the body does, whether consciously or unconsciously. And the brain is part of the mortal body. It isn’t necessarily more spiritual than anything else the body does. To say this is not to say that the body is inherently opposed to the Spirit. Rather, the body, which includes the workings of the mind, is healed by the Spirit of the effects of sin. The Spirit restores to each person—each body, mind, spirit combination— to his or her unique way of reflecting God’s image each, provided that the person invites the Spirit in by joining him or herself to His Body.
Because of the doctrine of the Trinity and because of Scriptures that characterize followers of Christ as members of His body, I understand the Spirit’s body in three ways: as the body of Jesus, the body of an individual believer, and as the community of believers. I unite myself to him and become this body, inviting the Spirit to work in my life whenever I trust in these realities and when my life reflects this trust. It reflects this trust when I share the joys and the burdens of Jesus and others, and I find the humility and courage to accept the offers of Jesus and others to share my joys and burdens.
It’s this communion, not being able to handle or understand everything on my own that gives life. I make this statement not to minimize the acquisition of knowledge and expertise or the pursuit of moral and ethical behavior but to reiterate that no knowledge increases or decreases a person’s value from God’s perspective. An article by Guy Consolmagno and Christopher M. Graney inspires me to offer this reminder. It also provides thought-provoking analysis of the justifications humans throughout history have used for thinking and behaving otherwise.
Lord, don’t let me forget your unconditional love for me and for everyone else, indeed for all of Your creation. Don’t let me forget that Your wisdom and understanding is greater than human wisdom and understanding. Also don’t let me forget that though Your wisdom and understanding are greater than human understanding and wisdom, You have given me places and people I can go to for wisdom and support. Thank You for giving life to all of me and to all of Your creation. Amen.
Works cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 9 July 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.
Consolmagno, Guy and Christopher M. Graney “Reject the cult of ‘intelligence.’ You’re worth more than that.” America: The Jesuit Review, 29 June 2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/06/29/consolmagno-graney-cult-intelligence-245530.
Sharing in God’s Vision Requires Perseverance and Humility but Reaps Eternal Rewards
Posted in Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged Endurance, Humility, Love, Ordinary Time, Perseverance, Reflections on Scripture, Relationship with God on July 2, 2023| 1 Comment »
This picture was one of the results when I searched Unsplash.com for “God’s-Eye View.”
This week’s readings:
- 2 Kings 4:8–11, 14–16a
- Psalm 89:2–3, 16–17, 18–19
- Romans 6:3–4, 8–11
- Matthew 10:37–42
I’d say this week’s readings are about how seeing the world through God’s eyes affects a person’s outlook and behavior. They’re also about how seeing this way reaps rewards, though often not one’s that come quickly or easily.
It seems a reward for virtue hasn’t come quickly or easily for the woman in the Old Testament reading. She’s promised a gift that she must worry she won’t receive —a son. The passage tells me “her husband is getting on in years,” and the couple doesn’t have a son yet, so there’s reason to doubt that would change as the husband ages (2 Kings 4:14). And not having a son could mean loss of financial security and social standing for the wife as she gets older, since, it seems, her husband is considerably older than she is. If he dies before she does, and she doesn’t have a son, she won’t have a home or support unless another male relative takes her in or she remarries.
The woman in the story isn’t going to be facing this situation though. Because of the hospitality she shows Elisha, he promises her that “by the same time next year, [she’ll] have a son” (2 Kings 4:16). The next verse reveals the woman’s life changes as Elisha has promised it will , but I think the fact that the reading ends before the prophecy comes true provides a lesson, which is that we can take Elisha at his word because word comes from God. The further message of the passage is that the woman receives her gift from God because she has supported God’s work in recognizing Elisha’s holiness and in offering him hospitality on account of it. In other words, good things happen to people who see the world through the eyes of God and respond to the needs that this way of seeing reveals to them.
This week’s psalm sends a similar message with the following words:
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
Psalm 89: 16-17
in the light of your countenance, old LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
The thing is, if a person doesn’t see through God’s eyes, someone “exalted” through God’s justice may not look “raise[d] on high; elevate[d], as the New World College Dictionary defines “exalted.” After all, Jesus was exalted by God’s justice and yet he grew up in circumstances that were humble, to say the least, and he worked hard, traveling long distances on foot. Then he was subjected to an agonizing death. Furthermore, relatively few people were physical witnesses to the signifiers of his exaltation, the resurrection and the ascension. Not even Paul witnessed these events in the way that people who walked with Jesus while he was alive did. And yet Jesus allowed him to see with God’s eyes and to write:
Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.
Romans 6: 3-4
I don’t know about you, but I usually don’t feel like I’m living in “newness of life” or that I’m going to, so I don’t feel like the people described in the psalm as “rejoicing all the day at [the] name” of God (Romans 6:4). I’ve heard some believers say that the times I least feel like doing this are the times I most need to do it anyway. Come to think of it, a lot of activities and mindsets feel like less of a struggle to me — writing I’m thinking of you here—when I make myself do them even when I don’t feel like it. I suppose this approach to life builds perseverance and resilience. Maybe being intentional about offering gratitude and praise would remind me that God has a broader view of life than I do. God sees which path is best. I can’t on my own, but sometimes, with God’s help, I can. Yet even in situations where the best path seems clear, I need to allow that God sees and knows things I don’t and can’t.
The reality that I’m limited in ways God is why I need God’s help to have healthy relationships. What’s best for relationships and the people in them isn’t always what’s preferred by the people involved. However, when I don’t love God first so that I can see my relationships through God’s eyes, and love the people as God loves them, I distort who the people are. I turned them Into idols. To do so is to give all of us less than we deserve, which is to be seen and treated like the unique reflection of God that each of us is.
Lord, help me to see the world around me as You see it so that I can recognize what reflects You in myself and others and nurture it. Plans whatever is in me and others that doesn’t reflect You, and help me to trust that surrendering to Your vision and Your cleansing will result in an exultation that surpasses anything this world can offer or imagine. Amen.
Work cited
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
Sitting with the Sacred 