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Archive for April, 2024

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

Posted in Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , on April 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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

Posted in Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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.

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

Posted in Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , on April 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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

Posted in Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , on April 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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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