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Archive for May, 2024

Celebrate Today that God Can’t Be Put in a Box — or a Triangle

Posted in Holy Trinity, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Readings for May 26, 2024:

  1. Deuteronomy 4:32–34, 39–40
  2. Psalm 33:4–5, 6, 9, 18–19, 20, 22
  3. Romans 8:14–17
  4. Matthew 28:16–20

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings tell me that the Trinitarian nature of God means that God is more intimate with everything that is than human understanding can conceive of. And even though this is the case, God’s intimacy doesn’t mean that God is too small or too close to us to have a view with more dimensions than we can imagine. God so intimate as to dwell within us and to be discoverable in everything around us while being the source of all that is. God is the ultimate mother, father, sibling, partner, and inspiration.

What concerns us can neither be too big nor too small for God, and with God’s help, what concerns God is neither too unmanageable nor too insignificant for us to be concerned with. God invites us to open ourselves fully to the Trinity and the gifts — relationships, talents, and resources — that come from a God who is both so like and unlike us, a God who is without limits, except to the extent that God limits God’s self.

The following quotations from the readings for May 26 encapsulate for me what The Most Holy Trinity means:

. . . fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below. . . [Italics mine]

Deuteronomy 4:39

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 8:16-17

Does the second quotation mean that we should seek out suffering? No, but it acknowledges that to live as Jesus did during his time on earth, will have to allow ourselves to be inconvenienced at the very least. And we may be asked to endure more than inconvenience. If we never find ourselves inconvenienced by our efforts to follow and imitate Christ, how closely are we following and imitating him? Where are we on the path to becoming the people God can see is becoming if we follow and imitate Christ? Where are we on the journey to becoming undistorted versions of ourselves?

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20

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

Julia Erdlen reflects on the mystery of the Trinity as both comforting and confounding.

Beyond this week’s readings:

When I grappled with what words of my own to use to summarize Julia Erdlen’s reflection, I used “confounding” because it started with the same letter as comforting, which would make the summary memorable and because I thought “confounding” meant “mysterious.”

However, the Oxford Languages dictionary that the Bing search engine defines confounding this way: “cause[ing] surprise or confusion in (someone), especially by acting against their expectations” Considering this definition, “confounding” and is an unintentionally fitting adjectives to use when describing a God who is three persons in one, a God who had us and all that’s good in mind before everything began, who has been with all that’s good in every way since it came into existence, and wants to bring us to be with Him if we’re willing to come and to let go of the work of our hands and let God free us from the clutches of what stands between us and Him. It takes a God who is both indwelling and who was before everything and will be after everything to accomplish all that. It takes a God that we can’t fully understand or describe an entirely accurate way. It takes a God who surprises us by “acting against our expectations” and working beyond our limitations. This Trinitarian God helps us recognize which limitations are real but only temporary and which are illusions God is waiting to help us see through once we ask for and we cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

This week’s prayer:

Lord, thank You for giving us today is a reminder of how surprising, how incomprehensible, and yet how familiar You are. Help us always to grow in familiarity with You until, when we pass from this life, we can fully embrace and understand You and all You have brought into being. We offer this prayer in the name of God who is one in three Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Pentecost: The Holy Spirit Gathers Individuals to Set Them Apart

Posted in Pentecost, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , on May 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 2:1–11
  2. Psalm 104:1, 24, 29–30, 31, 34
  3. Galatians 5:16–25
  4. Pentecost Sequence
  5. John 15:26–27; 16:12–15

What this week’s readings say to me:

What stands out to me about the first reading Pentecost is that the Spirit first draws Jesus’ earliest followers together for prayer. Then it pours gifts on each member of the group. These gifts prepare each person receiving them to share the gifts of the Spirit with other individuals. The Spirit gathers people together to set them apart, to prepare each of them to work with others and to do work that only each one of them can do.

The psalm recognizes that every resource and everything that lives is the work of the Spirit. Nothing exists without the Holy Spirit, though the work of this Spirit can be corrupted by other spirits that tempt us to actions that the Holy Spirit must work around instead of with.

The third reading, the epistle, reminds us that what we do says a lot about which spirit has the upper hand within us. The Holy Spirit is unselfishness in all its forms. It isn’t divisive, but the spirits, attitudes, and actions that oppose it are. The passage also tells us that the Holy Spirit can’t be contained. When we become vessels for it, it fills us up and spills out of us, sharing its fruits with the next person and then the next one and with the tasks we’ve been given. Come to think of it, the first reading also teaches the same lesson.

The Gospel passage reminds us that the Holy Spirit comes from God to dwell within us and among us because Jesus Christ is one of us and lives in union with the Holy Spirit and the Father, which are the active life force and its Source. Christ shares the Spirit with us so that we can live as children of God now and forever and continue to grow in our knowledge and experience of what it means to be children of God.

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

This week’s readings help Maureen O’Connell reflect on what it means to be “a people” and by being “a people,” to evangelize. She also applies the Pentecost Sequence to our present moment in a powerful way.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Almost a year ago, in celebration of Pentecost, I linked to a musical adaptation of the Pentecost Sequence. It’s called “Come Holy Spirit.” Its music is composed and performed by John Michael Talbot. I find this music in these lyrics helpful for letting the words of the sequence sink in. Taking a look at one or the other of the sources linked in this section adds its context to the adaptation of the sequence included in Maureen O’Connell’s reflection.

This week’s prayer:

May my life reflect the fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Work cited (but not linked to)

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

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Easter Week 7: God Reigns and Rains Among and Beyond Us

Posted in Ascension, Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 1:1–11
  2. Psalm 47:2–3, 6–7, 8–9
  3. Ephesians 4:1–13
  4. Mark 16:15–20

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings are the readings that commemorate the Ascension of the Lord. The themes of this week’s passages call to mind themes we’ll revisit near the end of the year, on the last Sunday before Advent, the feast of Christ the King. On this day and on that one, we honor Christ’s kingship.

Today, the first reading gives us a summary of what happened during Christ’s reign on earth. It reflects on the past. In the same passage, the apostles ask the risen Lord what His resurrection means in terms of the prophecies about the Messiah that have been handed down to them. They wonder what the prophecies and the resurrection mean for their futures. He tells them this is no time to sit back and wonder what God is going to do. He tells them instead to focus on what He has asked them to do, which is to do as He has done and to share what He has taught them.

This week’s psalm is one that praises God’s kingship.

In the epistle, the third passage listed above, Paul tells the church in Ephesus how to live as Christ lived and how to teach what He taught. He says the key to communion with others and Christ is practicing “humility and gentleness” so that we might “preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:2-3). Embracing these qualities allows God, who is Love, to reign “over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6).

To me, the passage seems to go on to say that Christ didn’t ascend to reign “over all” without descending into death and into a tomb first so He could loosen the grip of death on creation (Eph. 4:6-10). By ascending He cannot only reign but rain gifts on all of creation. These gifts prepare each of us to grow in union with God, to help others grow in that union and to care for what we have in different ways (Eph. 4:10-12).

The Gospel passage reminds us that if we don’t grow in union with God, we die. Furthermore, if we don’t care for the people and resources we’ve been given, we lose them. We run out of resources. The Gospel passage also reminds us to share what we’ve been given and that the gifts we have possessed great power.

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

This week, Martha Ligas proposes that the natural world can teach us how to live out the mission that Jesus gave the apostles.

Beyond this week’s readings:

These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

(Mark 15:17-18)

The above excerpt reminds me that for we flawed human beings, every gift brings with it temptations. Humans sometimes use this verse and the fact that they can receive, live in, and share God’s spirit as justification to put God to the test. We read that when the spirit drives Jesus into the desert, Satan tempts him to put God to the test by commanding a stone to turn into bread and by throwing Himself off the parapet of the temple and expecting God to rescue Him (Luke 4:3 and 9-11). Jesus responds by telling us and Satan that neither we nor He should put God to the test (Luke 3:12). Possessing God’s spirit doesn’t mean we should act without employing reason and exercising prudence. The rules in place in the natural world are just as much reflections of who God is as are events humans are more inclined to call miracles. Let’s celebrate the beauty of nature and laws of the universe and respect that God works within and beyond these gifts. God’s vision is deeper, wider, and clearer than ours is. To respect and to celebrate this reality is to live with gratitude and humility.

This week’s prayer:

The following prayer has a lot of work to do to come to fruition in me: Lord, may we not invite trouble and danger, fear what trouble may come, or be afraid when You allow difficult times to invite us to turn to you and be transformed into the people we can become in You. Amen.

Work cited (but not linked to)

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

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Easter Week 6: God Proposes Again and Again

Posted in Easter, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , on May 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This week’s readings:

  1. Acts 10:25–26, 34–35, 44–48
  2. Psalm 98:1, 2–3, 3–4
  3. 1 John 4:7–10
  4. John 15:9–17

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings are about who God is and what it means to live with God by living like Jesus did when he walked the Earth. This week’s readings tell us that God doesn’t have favorites. God doesn’t care what country, or culture, or group someone who wants to be in a relationship with God comes from. And God isn’t stingy, selfish, or secretive.

God has invited us into us into a covenant, a bond like a marriage, so God wants to share the present moment and what we think of as the future with us. God asks us to be life partners who can share in God’s dreams and take part in making them a reality. God wants to form and grow an eternal family with us.

God wants all of the above, so God through Christ came and comes to meet us as we are. He holds back no part of himself from anyone who’s ready to commit or to re-commit to Him. Because He wants to share a loving, committed relationship with us, He wants us to choose that relationship and respects our freedom to decline it or to walk away from it. He’s not controlling and knows better than anyone else how important open communication is to the health of that relationship.

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

In Meghan Larsen-Reidy’s reflection on this week’s readings, she includes thought-provoking and provocative contributions from Servant of God Dorothy Day and from David Brooks.

Beyond this week’s readings:

I only really love God as much as the person I love the least.

Dorothy Day, quoted by Meghan Larsen-Reidy

David Brooks writes about the difference between résumé virtues and eulogy virtues. We often worry about appearing the best that we forget we should simply love the best.

Meghan Larsen-Reidy

This week’s prayer:

Lord, I ask You for the grace not to limit through my actions, words, or finite imagination how, where, and through whom You can work. Amen.

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