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Archive for the ‘Lent’ Category

Who Are These People and What Are They Doing?

Posted in Lent, Palm Sunday, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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Readings for April 13, 2025 — Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion:

All in one place:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041325.cfm

In the context of each Bible book:

  1. Luke 19:28-40
  2. Isaiah 50:4-7
  3. Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
  4. Philippians 2:6-11
  5. Luke 22:14—23:56

What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:

It’s daunting even considering writing a post about this week’s readings. They’re so well-known, and I’ve referred to events described this week in a general way in so many other posts. It’s hard to process the events described in them. It’s hard to take the events in on more than an intellectual level. I pray to be able to take some small part of them to heart.

What stands out to me from this week’s readings:

This week’s gospel recalls the past but signals the start of something new. To say that Christ’s Passion, the ultimate passage from the old to the new, will be painful is the epitome of an understatement. And yet it’s a passage that Christ and his disciples cannot avoid. It’s a passage filled with contrasts and contradictions, and it leads us to who Christ and his disciples are.

The following passages stand out to me:

[Peter] said to [Jesus], “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” But he replied, “I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me.”

Luke 22:33-34

[Jesus] said to the [apostles],
“When I sent you forth without a money bag or a sack or sandals,
were you in need of anything?”
“No, nothing, ” they replied.
He said to them,
“But now one who has a money bag should take it,
and likewise a sack . . . .
For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me,
namely, He was counted among the wicked;
and indeed what is written about me is coming to fulfillment.”

Luke 22:35-37


Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

Luke 22:48

When a maid saw him seated in the light,
she looked intently at him and said,
“This man too was with him.”
But he denied it saying,
“Woman, I do not know him.”

Luke 22:56-57

This week’s gospel also presents again and again questions related to identity.

The last quotation I included above is an exploration of both contradiction and identity. Here are some other explorations of identity that stand out to me:

“Blessed is the king who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest.”

Luke 19: 38

Then an argument broke out among them
about which of them should be regarded as the greatest.
[Jesus] said to them,
“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them
and those in authority over them are addressed as ‘Benefactors’;
but among you it shall not be so.
Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest,
and the leader as the servant.

Luke 22:25-26

[The Sanhedrin] said, “If you are the Christ, tell us, “
but he replied to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,
and if I question, you will not respond.
But from this time on the Son of Man will be seated
at the right hand of the power of God.”
They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”
He replied to them, “You say that I am.”

Luke 22:66-70

The centurion who witnessed what had happened glorified God and said,
“This man was innocent beyond doubt.”

Luke 23:47

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

Anne Abrome, SSS presents the events of Holy Week as experiences that we go through with Christ and that Christ goes through with us.

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help us to remember Your presence in our joys and struggles this week. Grant us also the grace to experience Your joys and sorrows in our hearts. Help us to remember that the joys and sorrows of those around us are also Yours. Amen

Works cited:

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion Lectionary: 37 and 38.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033025-YearC.cfm.

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Pondering What’s Left Unsaid

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

April 6, 2025 Readings All in One Place:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040625-YearC.cfm

Readings in the context of each Bible book:

  1. Isaiah 43:16-21
  2. Psalm 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6.
  3. Philippians 3:8-14
  4. John 8:1-11

What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:

I’d be a hypocrite if I wrote here as if the words of the epistle – any of them — could be my own. If there’s one thing it seems like I can never do, it’s “[forget] what lies behind [and strain] forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3:13).

So the approach I decided to take for this week is to focus on one passage. Meanwhile, the journaling prompts I responded to this morning me to consider my relationships. Wilderness asked me to return to the roots of what distorts my ability to reflect God. It prompted me to consider how those roots affect my relationships.

I responded that when I’m paralyzed and silenced by fear, I don’t give others the opportunity to receive grace from what I might contribute — regardless of whether my contribution is flawless. God is present in all circumstances, though two things are often true. The first is that God’s presence can be hard to recognize in the most painful circumstances. The second is that even if we recognize God in such circumstances, what we recognize may not take the form we’d like it to. We may not experience it in the way we’d like to.

When I’m paralyzed and silenced by fear, I also feel ashamed hypocritical, and frustrated by my invisible bindings, frustrated at not making myself seen and heard. I regret. Then I take my feelings out on the people around me, and the crack in the mirror through which I am meant to reflect gets God’s wider and longer.

What stands out to me from this week’s readings:

What stands out to me from this week’s readings is the gospel passage. What stands out to me within that passage is how little Jesus says to the woman who faces being stoned for being caught in adultery. I also notice how little the woman says to Jesus.

We also aren’t told whether Jesus knows that what the accusers say is true. We aren’t told that Jesus tells the woman he doesn’t condemn her because he knows she’ll heed his exhortation: “Go, and from now on do not sin any more” [sic] (John 8:11).

And yet we’re told elsewhere in Scripture Jesus knows things about people without those people revealing those things. The encounter with the woman at the well comes to mind as described in John 4:1-42. She tells everyone about him because, as she says, he “told [her] everything [she] [has] done (John 4:29). As is the case with the woman facing stoning, the text doesn’t tell us whether she ever went back to her previous life. Similarly, in the encounter in which Jesus promises to stay with the tax collector Zacchaeus, we don’t learn whether the tax collector keeps the promises he makes in public after he encounters Jesus (Luke 19:5).

But as I’ve written on this blog before, I heard somewhere that when a name is handed down through Scripture, it’s because the person was well-known to early Christians.

Fewer women are named in Scripture than men. But maybe the fact that the stories of the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery have been handed down means that these women were well known within the Christian community.

Or maybe we have their stories, though not their names or more about what happened before or after these encounters because the primary lessons we’re meant to take from them aren’t meant to be based on what they do.

The story of the would-be stoning is as much about the men who threaten to inflict the punishment as it is about the woman who would have received it. After all, the passage tells us the authorities bring the women to Jesus because they want to “test him” (John 8:6). He takes this test as an opportunity to teach them about mercy.

The encounter takes me think of Luke 6: 41-42:

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”

It also calls to mind a line from the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The key to not being condemned is not to condemn others. Even as I repeat this familiar message, it makes me ask questions:

  • How many cries for justice reveal not only the injustice that’s being called out but also the injustices committed by the person or people whose sense of justice has been violated?
  • How can I ask God for justice without condemning the person or people who participate in injustice?
  • How can I treat myself and others with compassion and humility without making excuses for the harm my choices and the choices of others may cause?

The limited instruction and the few words this passage contains are both an answer to this question and not very much of one. Maybe passages like this invite us to wrestle with the questions, to answer them as best we can and apply the answers as best we can to the situations we encounter. When, whether in the midst of reaching those answers or later on, we decide they’re unsatisfying, maybe recognizing our limitations and our dependence on God’s grace is all we can do.

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

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help me to offer to others what I’d like to receive from you — forgiveness, understanding, and empathy. Amen

Works cited:

Garrett, Sr. Josephine. Wilderness Within. Kindle version, e-book ed., Ave Maria Press, 2024, A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation, Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

“Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C— Lectionary: 36.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040625-YearC.cfm.

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Lost and Found in Scripture

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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Readings for March 30:

All in one place:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033025-YearC.cfm

In the context of each Bible book:

  1. Joshua 5:9a, 10-12
  2. Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
  3. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
  4. Luke 15:18

What stands out to me from this week’s readings:

At the end of the Old Testament reading, when manna is lost, “the yield of the land of Canaan” is gained (Josh. 5-12).

In the epistle, I read that:

“[W]hoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

In the gospel passage, the younger son begins by finding what he thinks he wants and losing the satisfaction he gets from it. He responds by recognizing what he has lost — the experience of belonging to a family and being provided for by his father — and seeking to find these experiences again.

The father begins the passage by losing the portion of his possessions that he gives to his younger son as well as losing the presence of the younger son himself. But he never stops longing for that presence or loving his son. He rejoices in the son’s presence again when the son heads back to the father’s house.

Ironically, once the younger son comes back to the father, the return reveals distance between the father and the older son. By reasoning with the older son, the father does his part to find what has been lost between him and his first son.

What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:

I was away from the blog and from my journaling practice last week. My first impulse was to try to catch up this week so that I would finish all the journaling books by Easter. But I quickly realized I was getting further and further behind and that catching up catching this week was not a realistic goal. I also realized that if I managed to catch up this week, I might not reap the benefits of the prompts. I’d be focused on checking them off my list rather than on reflecting on what they invite me to reflect on.

So now my goal is to journal in the morning before anyone else gets up, for however long that amount of time is each day. Using this approach, I’m setting the intention of writing through my journaling books to their end, no matter how long it takes me to get there. I hate even to write “get there” because I don’t want to think of journaling as something I need to get done. I want it to help me grow in my relationship with myself, with God, and in my relationships with others. This isn’t a desire for one season. It’s the quest of a lifetime. I’ve let go of one idea and taken hold of another — lost one idea and found another.

This week, Wilderness Within invited readers to consider what sins they find themselves confessing over and over. What are the roots of these sins? Sister Josephine Garrett encourages readers not to respond with what they think is the correct theological answer. Describe the roots in your own words (91).

Here’s how I’d describe the primary root of choices I regret making: fear of discomfort, fear of rejection, fear of being alone. Fear.

Garrett also asks readers to consider how they feel before and after they sin. My answers are helpless and trapped and hypocritical. These are the opposite of liberated, open, and honest.

As I write these words, I’ve been tempted to end this section with my paraphrase of the prompt, but that feels like letting the roots grow deeper so that you don’t worry about me, attack me, or reject me. And letting the roots grow deeper isn’t what I sense is best for any of my relationships.

Also as I write these words, I feel nudged to allow a more relaxed publication scheduled for posts on this blog. Taking into consideration other writing-related activities I feel called to, I will publish this post and future posts whenever I finish them. This will probably make the posts less timely. Maybe I can figure out ways to make them less time-sensitive. Now I’ve written similar things in these posts before, so we’ll see what approach I ease into as I let go of another one.

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

Sr. Lynn Marie Ralph, SBS, reimagines the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” as the “Parable of the Prodigal Daughter.”

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help me to discern what’s life-giving and lasting and to let go of what isn’t. Help me to seek and to find strength in you. Give me patience and perseverance amid the challenges of the moment. Help me to trust and to experience that You are the ultimate source of fulfillment. Help me to lay down fear and pick up faith. Amen.

Works cited:

Garrett, Sr. Josephine. Wilderness Within. Kindle version, e-book ed., Ave Maria Press, 2024, A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation, Accessed 23 Feb. 2025.

“Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C— Lectionary: 33.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/033025-YearC.cfm.

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God’s Trust and Care Helps Us Reflect It

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Readings for March 16 and 23, 2025

All in one place — well, two, for this post:

March 16:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031625.cfm

March 23:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032325-YearC.cfm

In the context of each Bible book:

March 16:

  1. Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
  2. Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14
  3. Philippians 3:17—4:1
  4. Luke 9:28b-36

March 23:

  1. Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
  2. Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14
  3. Philippians 3:17—4:1
  4. Luke 9:28b-36

What stands out to me from the readings for the next two weeks:

March 16th:

The Scripture passages for March 16th remind me that each of is born in a particular place and time. This was true for Abraham and Jesus as much as it’s true for each of us. Both Abraham and Jesus understood God had given them the earth’s resources to use wisely while they lived here. They also knew they belonged to God — not to God’s creation. Nothing created would offer lasting satisfaction. Only trusting in God would.

We, Abraham, Paul, and Jesus were given gifts to appreciate and work to do in the times and places we inhabit. In the course of our appreciation and our work, will get glimpses what lies beyond any time and place. As much as we might want to stay in these glimpses, we can’t hold onto them here, while we’re subject to the biological needs and psychological and spiritual pressures that tempt us.

Nevertheless, God invites us not to let these pressures dominate our lives. The March 16th readings promise that if we don’t give up on persevering in spite of these pressures, when we’re finished with life on earth, the challenges of that life won’t be able to keep us down. As the passage from Philippians says:

“[O]ur citizenship is in heaven,
and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified body  
by the power that enables him also
to bring all things into subjection to himself

Philippians 3:20-21

March 23rd

Our understandings of God are works in progress. So is our ability to reflect God’s image without distortion. No one can be sure how or how long God will work to refine each of our reflections. Therefore, this week’s readings urge us to open our hearts to God so that God can clean and repair the mirrors of our souls now. Bringing ourselves to God for this cleansing and repair is what will allow us to become, like God, eternal presence. Each of us needs to undergo God’s cleansing and repair again and again. No one else can undergo this process for us, and the process looks somewhat different for each person. Each of us can only encourage each other to place ourselves in the hands of the One who makes and remakes our mirrors, and we can consider how to avoid what scratches, cracks, and shatters them.

What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:

My journaling this week keeps bringing me back to the idea of trust. Going back to this idea suggests to me that a fruit of trust is being grounded in the present, not needing to escape it. Trust means recognizing what I have the power to change and having the courage to work on changing it. Trust means recognizing that making change happen is a process. It requires being intentional, falling short of the intention, and then being intentional again and again. Trust means not losing hope, not losing faith that change that God wills will happen. It also means recognizing what isn’t mine to change and handing all that over to God, trusting that in the end, justice and mercy triumph.

In writing all this, I don’t mean to suggest that I’ve taken all of it to heart and have found an unshakable peace. I wish. I’m merely in a place of reminding myself of my intention to trust.

What someone else is sharing about the readings for the next two weeks:

Mayella Vasquez’s reflection on the readings for March 16th reminds me that part of trusting is listening. Her reflection also makes me consider that the Transfiguration isn’t just something that Peter, James, John and Jesus experienced. It’s something each of us can experience again and again if we look and listen for it

As I prepare to publish this post on Sitting with the Sacred, there’s no reflection for March 23rd posted on the Catholic Women Preach website.

This week’s prayer:

The Serenity Prayer, and Mark 9:24

Scripture Translations Used:

“Second Sunday of Lent — Lectionary: 27.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031625.cfm.

“Second Sunday of Lent Year C— Lectionary: 30.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032325-YearC.cfm.

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Lenten Journaling Insights: Turning Toward God

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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Readings for March 9, 2025:

All in one place:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030925.cfm

In the context of each Bible book:

  1. Deuteronomy 26:4-10
  2. Psalm 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
  3. Romans 10:8-13
  4. Luke 4:1-13

What stands out to me from this week’s readings:

  • Most of the first reading is a reminder of how God led the people of Israel into the wilderness to deliver them from enslavement in Egypt. Moses reminds the people that because God freed them, everything they have comes from God. Therefore, a portion of whetver they have should be given back to God.
  • The verses from Psalm 91 provide further poetic reminders of God’s providence.
  • The epistle continues and expands theme from last week. Faith and the life that comes from it take root and grow in the heart.
  • In the Gospel passage, Jesus’ example teaches that life comes not from Him serving himself. Demonstrating power or sacrifice just for the sake of sacrifice or power isn’t holy. An offering made out of love is. It has much more potential to heal wounds.

What I’m saying (about the readings and beyond) this week:

It surprised me that God as provider and liberator stood out to me this week. As I got ready to draft this section, thinking about what had surprised me, I went back to the Gospel passage looking for the reference to angels ministering to Jesus. I thought that reference would be another lesson in God’s providence, and it is. But it’s not in this week’s gospel passage. It’s in Matthew 4:11, and it comes after the temptations. That chapter in Matthew begins telling us that “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (1). But the Luke passage begins with “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1). This is Luke’s way of telling readers and hearers that the Son of God is not entering alone into an unfamiliar, harsh environment. He won’t face temptation without providence from God.

Thoughts on my Tuesday journaling experience:

Outside of this week’s readings, I’ve begun the journaling I wrote about in this section last week. A couple of the books, rightly, I think, invite their readers to start the process of using the book before Lent begins. Doing this has given me a deeper appreciation of what the upcoming season is really about. Prompts have gotten me thinking about what actually stands in the way of my relationship with God and with others. Hint: it isn’t chocolate, and it is in the game or a TV show. Prompts have made me want to get begin practices that I’ll (hopefully) continue through Easter and beyond.

Thoughts on my Wednesday journaling experience:

While the journaling prompts in each book is different, each one has tended to draw a similar answer out of me. That’s helpful. It clarifies what I see the need to surrender. It also highlights the areas of my life where I’m seeking renewal. Answering similar questions that are asked in different ways is also beneficial. It lets me see my answers in a different light each time I record them. Maybe recording the same ideas multiple times in different ways will help habits that are spiritually healthier stick.

I’m setting an intention this Lent to see the season or as a continual process of turning toward God rather than away from what is not God. Yes, turning toward one thing often requires turning away from another. However, my desire is to make the acts of turning toward awareness my emphasis.

Thoughts on my Thursday journaling experience:

Try to keep an open mind and heart. Leave room for adjusting your plans. Be careful about not letting your plans take over your life so that they work against their intended purpose. Be careful that your plans don’t take away from the good you are already doing before you began them.

Mindfulness is a lot harder to maintain than the avoidance of chocolate. Distractions are everywhere, all the time, and they aren’t just external. Recommitting to mindfulness is something that happens over and over again throughout the day. It’s not something a person “gets right.” Returning to mindfulness again and again makes sense for Lent. Practicing mindfulness is just that — practicing. Practicing it is like falling and getting up again and again.

Thoughts on my Friday journaling experience:

Silence isn’t always empty or quiet. It can be filled with presence and sounds I rarely notice — like a variety of bird songs.

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

Ana Gonzalez, OP relates this week’s readings to the suffering that goes on in the world around us. Her reflection reminds us of the spiritual purpose behind Lenten practices. They are meant to deepen our relationships with God. By doing so, they deepen our relationships with others.

This week’s prayer:

Lord, you did not make us to die in spiritual deserts. Help us not to wither this Lent but to grow instead. Help us to grow in relationship with you and in solidarity with others. Instill in us gratitude for the ways the natural world and spiritual realms provide for us.

Scripture translation used:

“First Sunday of Lent — Lectionary: 24.” Daily Readings, Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2nd typical ed, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2025, https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030925.cfm.

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Grappling with How Scripture Says to Love God

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Readings for November 3rd:

  1. Deuteronomy 6:2–6
  2. Psalm 18:2–3, 3–4, 47, 51
  3. Hebrews 7:23–28
  4. Mark 12:28b–34

What this week’s readings say to me:

The first reading reminds me:

  • to approach the world around me with humility. Remember that I don’t yet have the fullness of God’s vision or understanding.
  • that God’s vision wants only the prosperity and growth of God’s family. God’s instructions serve only these purposes. With this understanding, we receive the words of Moses to the people of Israel:
  • “[Y]ou shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deut. 6:5-6).

The psalm features the perspective of someone permeated by the above instruction from Moses. The permeation spills into the person’s recollections and words. I imagine voicing the recollections helps them keep their power for the narrator.

The epistle for October 26th focused on Jesus’ humanity in his role as the perfect high priest. The epistle for November 3rd focuses on his divinity in his role as the perfect high priest. He can live Moses’ his teaching more fully than any other human being because of his divine nature. This nature also allows Him to continue living Moses’ teaching. He has conquered death because he is fully human and fully divine. A priest who isn’t fully human and fully divine can’t conquer death on his own.

Often, Gospel passages provide insight into Old Testament passages. However, the November 3rd Gospel passage simply reminds hearers and readers of the central message of the Old Testament passage. It urges hearers and readers to put that message into practice.

What I’m saying (to the readings and beyond) this week:

The commandment from Deuteronomy is beyond hard to live out. If I said “I lov[ed] God with all [my] heart, all [my] soul, and with all [my] strength [emphasis mine],” I’d be lying to myself, to you, and to the Lord (Deut. 6:5-6) .

First, the verse prompts me to think about what it means to love. I’ve often heard in churches that love is an action, not just a feeling. But I experience love as a feeling. It’s a feeling that’s a response to an action or years of actions, but a feeling, nonetheless. And it’s beyond hard to have that feeling for Someone I can’t see. Sure, I can use my mind to accept what I’ve been told about the Lord. I can also accept what I’ve been told the Lord does and has done for me. My heart, however, seems to have a difficult time letting the reality of it all sink in. I have a hard time experiencing it, and I’m a person who wants to experience intense feelings. I long for concrete experiences of God’s presence.

As for a soul, how does it love? By obeying and imitating God? As I consider this as a possible answer, I think of the verse that talks about the disciples being friends of Jesus rather than his slaves (John 15:16). They’re his friends because they know what he’s doing. He’s shared everything with them. They know Him intimately. They collaborate with Him because they want what He does, not because they’re afraid of Him.

When I think of loving with all my strength, I imagine hanging onto the edge of a cliff. I hang there until I have no energy left to hold on. I suppose God is the cliff. However, I can’t lose my grip on God unless I shove myself away from the ledge.

It seems impossible to love God with every last drop of energy, endurance, and maybe even blood. Yet Jesus did it. And I remember reading that “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). I try to think of times in my life when what seemed impossible became possible. Nothing comes to mind right now. I can think of times when I did what was difficult, but difficult is different than impossible.

I wonder when faith softens impossible into difficult and when the impossible becoming possible is nothing less than a miracle. But then I suppose faith is a type of miracle too. Maybe it often goes unappreciated for the miracle it is.

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

Eilis McCulloh, HM reflects on how we can begin loving “the Lord your God with your whole being.”

This week’s prayer:

Lord, may we experience the grace of Your presence in our lives every day. May we recognize that You are the source of all that lives and all that provides. Help us to share everything with You and to receive everything you share with us. Help us to remember that love in all its forms begins with listening. It continues with discerning and is made authentic by responding to careful discernment with action. Amen.

Work cited:

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

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Why Did Jesus Suffer and Die?

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

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?

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , on March 17, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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

Posted in Lent, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , on March 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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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