Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Who Am I in God’ Category

The Romantic Dynamics of God’s Love

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Readings for January 19th:

  1. Isaiah 62:1–5
  2. Psalm 96:1–2, 2–3, 7–8, 9–10
  3. 1 Corinthians 12:4–11
  4. John 2:1–11

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

Today’s readings remind me that God’s nature is relationship – not just relationship between the Persons of the Trinity but with creation. God creates because God’s nature is relationship, and a relationship isn’t something that happens to one person. It’s a bond between at least two.

Today’s readings are about an intimate bond, the most intimate bond, the bond between God and God’s people. The readings characterize this bond as a bond between a bride and a groom. They paint an idealized picture of the bond between newlyweds. In the Old Testament reading, God is the groom who “delight[s]” and “rejoice[s]” in his bride (Isa. 62:4-5). Yes, the bride and groom exchange vows him, but the first reading makes it clear that more than vows, expectations, and a legal bond joins the bride and groom. It’s not a bond that’s imposed. It’s a bond that forms and grows. So is the relationship between God and a person who loves God.

The psalm says the royal groom gives the bride cause to sing His praises and get dressed up. Why? Because the groom is a just and heroic leader who escorts His previously captive, deceived, and abused bride to freedom. When I look at this week’s epistle through the lens of a marriage between an individual and God, the passage says to me that the relationship between God and each person is unique. It comes with pleasant experiences, less pleasant ones, challenges, and surprises. Each person’s relationship with God is unique. Each one of these relationships offers distinct gifts to the world.

Fittingly, given the marriage metaphor developed in the first reading, this week’s gospel passage takes place at a wedding. What stood out to me as I revisited the passage this time was the role of surprise in it. Based on what we find in the New Testament, Jesus knows how his earthly ministry will end, but He’s surprised by encounters He has during it. Maybe he doesn’t know everything all at once. The stories about his infancy and childhood suggest this.

And then His mother comes to Him at a wedding and says the host is out of wine. He seems to wonder what this problem has to do with his ministry and mission. Yet I imagine he knows that any good he does can serve that mission. He also knows relationship is the source and goal of the mission. Interaction between two living beings creates that relationship. So his mother’s request plays a key part in his work on this occasion.

He’s not the only person surprised in the passage. The head waiter is surprised, too, by how much better the second batch of wine, the one Jesus changed from water, is than the first.

And why wouldn’t surprise have an important role in the passage? Continuing to be pleasantly surprised keeps a relationship interesting. Furthermore, being able to accept unexpected developments is crucial in a healthy relationship. Responding to these developments in authentically helpful ways is also essential.

I would think having a basis in more than routine and ritual is also important. When I think about this, it seems significant that Jesus uses jars meant for ceremonial washings. He fills them with the water that will become wine. He takes vessels used for ritual and for external purposes and uses them to provide for the needs of the guests.

A lot of water wasn’t safe for drinking for centuries. Water was for spiritual and practical cleansing, in many cases. According to this source, wine mixed with water was for drinking. So not providing guests with enough wine wouldn’t just have been a serious social faux pas. It was likely also health concern.

Therefore, by making sure the host has more wine, Jesus is providing for those present physically and emotionally. He hasn’t made sure they have more wine so they merely survive. As a good spouse cares, He cares about how the guests feel and wants them to thrive. This passage reminds me of when Jesus says, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10) Like the jars for ceremonial washing, he wants the guests “filled to the brim” with what they need. It’s not enough just to keep the jars – us — from being empty.

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

Claire Erlenborn turns to this week’s readings for help with reflecting on what makes “change for the good” happen.

This week’s prayer:

Jesus, I want to fall in love with You. Help me grow in my relationship with you so our relationship can take part in bringing good change to the world. Amen.

Work cited (but Not Linked to):

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

Read Full Post »

The Challenges and Graces that Come with Commitment

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , on August 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Image Generated by WordPress AI

Readings for August 25:

  1. Joshua 24:1–2a, 15–17, 18b
  2. Psalm 34:2–3, 16–17, 18–19, 20–21
  3. Ephesians 5:2a, 25–32 or Ephesians 5:21–32
  4. John 6:60–69

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings speak to me about commitment. What makes commitment difficult? What’s worth committing to, and what does committing to something worth committing to look like?

The first reading asks me whether I want to commit to God or to something else that’s taking the place of God. It reminds me that when I commit to God, I’m committing to the Source of liberation, the Source of protection, and the Source of perseverance and growth. This Source is Someone worth committing to and imitating so I can be a channel for the qualities of God.

What does the psalm, the same one that’s been used for the past two weeks, have to say about commitment to God? It says that commitment to God means honoring God in word, spirit, and action. Living this way helps others have the faith to honor God in word, spirit, and action as well. This way of living also serves justice, even though serving the causes of justice is seldom easy. Yet a person who serves justice is never alone in his or her work. God always supports those who work for justice.

The choices for this week’s epistle characterize justice in terms of relationship. They compare the relationship between people and Christ to a relationship between a husband and wife.

Now I’m not married, so I’m not going to sit here and write about how Paul says husbands and wives should relate to each other. If I did, the sentences would sound too much like I’m telling married people what to do without knowing the circumstances in which they find themselves. I find that an unhelpful and ineffective way to help myself reflect on how to apply the Gospel message to my life or — God and readers willing — to help others do the same. If you want to read the advice that both of this week’s epistle choices have for husbands and wives, you can look them up here. As an unmarried person, I want to consider what the passage from Ephesians listed at the beginning of this post has to say about what committing to Christ and Christ’s commitment to us means for us.

The passage says to me that committing to Christ means caring for my body and treating it with dignity. My body has dignity and is deserving of care because it’s part of Christ’s mystical body, and it bears God’s image.

The same is true of everyone else’s body. Accordingly, the reading calls me to treat others in ways that reflect this reality. It invites me to do for others what will bring them to God, as Christ has done for me. It invites me to imitate Christ, even though doing so is hard, so hard we that we can sacrifice for others only with help of the Holy Spirit.

As if sacrifice weren’t challenging enough, so is believing in what’s difficult to see and what challenges our instincts. The prospect of it being necessary for eternal life to consume someone’s flesh and blood is instinctively revolting in many human cultures. Apparently, the culture of first century Judaism was no exception. I learned in church recently that consuming blood, a creature’s life force, was considered a pagan practice. This understanding puts the people’s reaction to Jesus’s teaching about the power of consuming His body and blood into perspective. Jesus would have understood as well as anyone the responses of those who were hearing Him.

So what does the fact that he doesn’t back down from the teaching when people object to it say? On this reading and with the bit of context I now have, the doubling down reminds me that committing to live with faith isn’t just about adhering to tradition and avoiding activities that don’t adhere to that tradition. Instead, it’s about being aware of who and what my actions serve, whether those actions are traditional or less so. Jesus’ teaching reminds me that God feeds us and never stops offering to do so.

The same cannot be said of anything else we might confuse with God. By reminding me of this spiritual truth, the Gospel passage circles back to the message of the Old Testament passage.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Do I have an unwavering commitment to serving God in how I relate to the people and use the resources around me? I wish I could say I did. I’m glad making a commitment isn’t a one-time event, an opportunity that appears once and then dissolves. I’m glad that I have opportunities moment by moment to recommit to serving God in the world around me as well as to believe in and receive the nourishment God offers me to power my recommitment.

This week’s prayer:

Thank You, Lord because, as Anna Robertson says, no matter how often each of us wavers in our commitments to what is good, You never waver in Your commitment to each of us.

Read Full Post »

To Receive God’s Provision and Guidance, Notice and Respond to it.

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Image Generated by WordPress AI

Readings for August 11:

  1. 1 Kings 19:4–8
  2. Psalm 34:2–3, 4–5, 6–7, 8–9
  3. Ephesians 4:30—5:2
  4. John 6:41–51

What this week’s readings say to me:

I think I’ll use a very current term to distill what the first reading says to me this time. It’s about the importance of self-care. When the passage begins, it seems like Elijah is physically and spiritually depleted. He asks God to end his life because he’s “no better” than anyone who came before him. (1Kings 19:4). I imagine him thanking that realizing this must mean he’s failed at the mission God has given him. After all, how can someone who’s no better than anyone who came before him be an effective prophet?

The situation is a reminder that God is at work even when we’re depleted. Sometimes, we’re most open to God working within and around us precisely when we feel we have nothing left to give. If we turn to God at no other time, many of us do so when we can’t see anywhere else to turn. I acknowledge this truth of human experience not to say that God wants us to be depleted. The Old Testament passage gives evidence to the contrary.

God knows that we need food, drink, rest, and to feel cared about to do our work and to be whole. God usually doesn’t force what we need upon us. Instead, God offers it, and it’s up to us to receive it. It was up to Elijah to acknowledge to God that he felt defeated and depleted, to rest, and then to take the nourishment that God offered.

The psalm reinforces that God provides for those who are open to receiving what God offers and to doing God’s work. It also reinforces the role the speaker has in finding what he needs, but it does so in a different way than the Old Testament passage does. The speaker says, “I will bless the Lord at all times” (Psalm 34: 2).

I had a gut reaction to this line, especially because it’s the first one included in this week’s psalm reading. I thought, “I don’t, and I won’t because there’s a lot that happens in the world that doesn’t seem like the will of a loving God, and I don’t understand why God, who I choose to believe is love, would allow these things to happen.

Thankfully, because I believe God is love, I also believe that a lot of things that happen grieve God. And I believe that sharing my grief and anger at what happens around me built as much of a connection to God is giving praise for God’s providence does.

My gut reaction also begins to feel different when I read later in this week’s psalm excerpt that the speaker “sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:5). Maybe having a record and so being able to remind himself of the ways the Lord “answered [him] and delivered [him] from all [his] fears is the reason [“God’s] praise shall be ever in [his] mouth” (Psalm 34: 2; 5).

It might be helpful to consider the ways each of us can keep a record of times we’ve felt we’ve had what we needed and were seen and heard. Keeping such a record in whatever way makes sense for each of us may give us strength in those times when we don’t feel we have what we need or when we don’t feel seen and heard.

Maybe keeping a record of those experiences of abundance and connection, of grace, will help us glorify the Holy Spirit rather than “griev[ing]” it (Eph. 4:30). Maybe this practice will help us avoid what the epistle is urging us to avoid and to embrace what the epistle is asking us to embrace. I find the excerpt’s message easy to hear but difficult to put into practice. Maybe keeping track of empowering memories is a way of experiencing God’s presence with us when we find ourselves in situations that feel less empowering.

In the Gospel passage, Jesus’ contemporaries are having trouble recognizing that He’s God in their midst and that learning from Him, imitating him, and taking His words to heart would feed them, giving them life, not only in that moment, but eternally. Listening to Him and receiving what He provides leads to God, and recognizing how God has guided and provided in the past makes God present among us in the current moment. It points to Christ.

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

When we are called on to make sacred sacrifices in order to ‘live in love’ – it is not our very self – our created self- that we are losing. It is the assumptions and projections of who we should be, the expectations and external pressures of others laid onto us by others.

Kasha L. Sanor — in her reflection on this week’s readings

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help us to recognize and to receive You so we can be who we are in You and do what You place on our hearts to do. Amen

Work cited:

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

Read Full Post »

What Being Shepherded Looks Like to Me Now

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

Readings for July 21:

  1. Jeremiah 23:1–6
  2. Psalm 23:1–3, 3–4, 5, 6
  3. Ephesians 2:13–18
  4. Mark 6:30–34

Beyond this week’s readings:

I’m back — a week later than I thought I’d be. The events of the last week or so are reminders that intentions and plans aren’t guarantees. Plans and intentions can come from God. Without them, no one would start anything. So we all make blueprints of one kind or another, but none of us is working on a complete project. Rather, we’re all working on segments of that project, and only God can see what it will look like when it’s complete.

It was a storm that kept me away week longer than I thought I’d be. But because I’d planned to be away, I wasn’t long without comforts my neighbors missed for almost a week — electricity and everything it allows us to have. I’ve also been visited by a respiratory virus, that while it hasn’t required hospitalization or unusual treatment, it also hasn’t been fun. These things usually aren’t, and I’m on day thirteen of the symptoms.

Even so, I have renewed gratitude for the following:

  • the ability to power up the computer and dictate this post.
  • the ability to use my phone and to recharge it when its battery dies without having to prioritize returning my portable battery charger first
  • the ability to watch TV
  • the ability to heat, refrigerate, and freeze food
  • the ability to come out of the heat and into an air-conditioned room
  • the ability to lie down into sleep for an entire night without waking up coughing
  • the ability to breathe through one’s nose, to taste, and to smell. When I fully enjoy the privileges included in this last list item, may I never take them for granted again

I wonder how many people in the world either don’t get to enjoy the comforts I just listed or have much more limited access to them than I do.

I also know that too many people are deprived of even more basic needs, and the following are only a few:

  • the need for food
  • the need for for access to clean water
  • the need for freedom from violence and other threats to safety

This week’s prayer:

And yet, this week’s readings promise a Shepherd who meets the needs of His flock, not the least of which, as Yolanda Chavez says, is to accept the rest the Shepherd offers as we participate in the Shepherd’s work.

Good Shepherd, thank You for the safety, food, and rest You offer. Thank you for your accompanying us as we endeavor to trust in Your providence. May we be sources of that providence. Amen.

Read Full Post »

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 »

Image generated by WordPress AI

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.

Read Full Post »

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 »

Photo by 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝘅 𝘙𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘳 on Unsplash

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.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

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.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »