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God Greets Frailty with Grace Again and Again

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , on June 7, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Readings for the weekend of June 9:

  1. Genesis 3:9–15
  2. Psalm 130:1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8
  3. 2 Corinthians 4:13—5:1
  4. Mark 3:20–35

What this week’s readings say to me:

The first reading says to me that even though God wants us to trust in who He is and what He says so that we can live without shame and without hurting ourselves and others, He understands how easily we can be tricked into not trusting in who He says he is and what He says about how to avoid hurting ourselves and others. He wants to defend us against and protect us from what distorts our vision of Him, of ourselves, and of others.

The psalm is a plea for that defense, that protection from the Lord. It reminds me not to let my weaknesses and the ways I fall short lead me to give up hope but instead, with patience, to ask the Lord to pick me up when I fall and to expect that God will do just that and is waiting to help me avoid falling into the same pits in the future, provided that I trust in the support God offers.

From my perspective, this week’s readings are about what God does in response to what I do and how I can respond so that God works in and through me; the passage from Corinthians is no exception. The passage reminds me to respond with trust in God and to let that trust be reflected in my words and actions. If I do, the letter promises, I’ll help grow a family that recognizes the presence of God and radiates it now and eternally. If I do, my actions will spread gratitude for the gifts and the graces God gives. My own physical and spiritual frailties won’t be able to tempt me to despair. Neither will anyone else’s choices or any other obstacle. Rather than being temptations, weaknesses and obstacles can be reminders that I’m dependent on God’s grace and that nothing the senses detect lasts forever. But God within and God and around me “is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

The Gospel passage says to me that only my attempts and the attempts of others to place limits on what God can do have the ability to limit what God can do. I have the ability to put these limits on God because God isn’t in the habit of overriding free will. God can, and I suppose sometimes does, for the sake of the overall Plan, but God doesn’t seem to prefer to work this way. God is one God in three Persons — relationship by nature. Because God isn’t subject to the limits God has placed on the material realm, God calls me to nurture relationships not only with those connected to me by DNA or with those who can offer me something material, but with everyone who wants to be open to God’s grace and to live by it, and to share it.

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

Find out how, in the words of Terresa M. Ford, this weekend’s readings remind us that “God doesn’t waste anything, even adversity.”

Beyond this week’s readings:

This week’s readings prompt me to ask myself some questions:

What does it mean to trust in God? Does it mean just letting life happen to me and assuming that whatever happens is God’s will?

I don’t think so. Maybe part of trusting in God means trusting that God has given me the ability to look at the effects of my choices, to evaluate the extent to which these effects are positive and negative and to reflect on how I might avoid certain circumstances in the future and/or modify my choices in the hope that their effects will be more positive in the future.

Can I always know whether the results of my choices will be positive or negative? No.

Is my perception of what’s positive and negative always crystal clear?

No.

Will I always see the results of what I do?

No.

My limited perspective is another reason trust, which is another word for faith, comes is important.

Do I have perfect faith?

No. Far from it.

The renewal of my inner self has a long way to go. I take comfort in the reminder this week’s readings provide: God knows I can’t renew myself, so with my help and permission, God is “renew[ing]” my inner self “day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). What God asks of me is that I invite Him again and again to renew me.

I can’t see that day-by-day renewal right now, but I choose to act with trust that it’s happening by inviting God to work in me again and again.

This week’s prayer:

Come, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Work cited

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

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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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The Look and Feel of Being Called

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

Photo by Osama Saeed on Unsplash

For week two of my time away from the blog, I invite to join me in listening to, watching, and/or reading a reflection on this week’s readings from Colleen Gibson, SSJ.

Until next time,

Lisa

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Letting Go to Reach for Something Else

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »

This is the first week of a two-week break from the blog. During the break, I’m turning the focus of this space to reflections on the Sunday readings from two of my spiritual sisters.

This week’s look at experiences of being called comes from Marissa Papula.

I hope you’ll come back soon. I plan to.

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With Whom Do I Belong?

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , on January 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. 1 Samuel 3:3b–10, 19
  2. Psalm 40:2, 4, 7–8, 8–9, 10
  3. 1 Corinthians 6:13c–15a, 17–20
  4. John 1:35–42

What this week’s readings say to me:

Becoming the person I’m meant to be means continually re-examining who and what I need to let go of and who and what I need to take hold of. It’s a continuous journey of discerning what to do when and when to let go of doing so I don’t get in the way of the Holy Spirit’s movement. The psalm says that God calls me to these cycles of surrender and action.

The third reading reminds me that I’m made for relationship — with nature, with others, and with God. It reminds me that to be in relationship means to give and to receive with commitment. A relationship isn’t fleeting, and it takes effort and maintenance. It takes openness.

God demonstrated that I’m made for relationship by living a human life. The relationship between the created and the creator is perfect in Jesus, and the Spirit that joins me to Jesus when I’m open to him can patch the imperfections in my relationship with God.

Because Jesus has a human body and consciousness, the body is just as much a part of God as the spirit. So treating my body and the bodies of others as if I believe this is true is vital. Doing so nurtures relationships between people and God. Treating bodies as and spirits if they are meant for eternal relationship — relationship between body and spirit, between one body and spirit and another, and between those sacred persons made of body and spirit and God — makes them open to eternal relationship.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body,” the third reading says (1 Cor. 6:19-20). I don’t know about you, but thinking of myself as a possession bought by God makes my stomach churn. I’m not comfortable with the idea of a parent buying his or her children. But I guess if a child sold him or herself on the promise of receiving a reward that didn’t pan out, and the only way to get the child back was for the parent to buy him or her, I feel a little better about the analogy.

Nonetheless, I find the analogy of being part of God’s body more helpful. A head and an arm have different functions, but, of course, both are part of the whole that is the body. It makes sense to try to reattach an arm that has become separated from that body. To use another analogy that doesn’t come from Scripture (and, granted, doesn’t quite square with what I understand of Christian theology, but I’m going to use it anyway) the cards in a deck or the pieces in another type of game don’t own each other, they don’t control each other, but they belong to each other. If one piece of the set or one card from the deck is missing, the set or deck is incomplete and the game can’t be played as intended. Unlike a deck of cards or a chess set of which I might be a part, God doesn’t need me to be complete, yet God has a vision in mind, and that vision includes a place and a purpose for each of us.

The Gospel passage reinforces that God calls us to relationship, a place, and a purpose in the Divine plan. In this passage, Jesus doesn’t call his disciples in an obvious way. Rather, he walks by, and John announces who he is (John 1:36). Two disciples respond to the announcement by following Jesus and by asking where he’s staying (John 1:37-38). They aren’t seeking knowledge alone from Jesus. They want relationship with him, to know him, and to be known by him, to go where he goes, do what he does, and stay where he stays. They want to be a part of his group, his set, you might say.

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

Laura Boysen-Aragon reflects on the (anxiety inducing for me) challenges and the opportunities of recognizing and responding to God’s voice reminding us with whom we belong.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Lord, help me to practice listening, to persevere in the practice, and help me also to know what work is — and isn’t – mind to do. Amen.

Works cited

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

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God and Humanity Call on Each Other

Posted in Advent, Advent, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »

This week’s readings:

  1. Isaiah 63:16b–17, 19b; 64:2–7
  2. Psalm 80:2–3, 15–16, 18–19
  3. 1 Corinthians 1:3–9
  4. Mark 13:33–37

What this week’s readings say to me:

I’ve heard of the stages of grief, and after revisiting this week’s readings, I’m wondering if any professionals have ever identified stages for processing guilt. The narrator in the first reading seems to begin processing guilt by blaming God for misdeeds. Why do you allow me to sin, he asks? Come stop me.

Upon making this request, he seems wary about having it granted. And why wouldn’t he be? God’s gaze isn’t a social media filter that can erase any blemishes. It doesn’t allow him to delude himself into thinking he can escape the truth of the life he lives in its combination of ugliness and beauty. Taking an honest look at his life brings him to the next stages in the process of addressing his guilt: asking for God for the grace to become the best version of himself and being open to the possibility of receiving this grace.

The psalmist asks for these graces, and the psalm concludes with an expression of trust that the speaker will receive what he asks for.

The third reading expresses faith that those who live with Christ and in Christ receive all the graces they need to find unending union with God and with other partakers in that union.

I find it difficult to trust in the promises of the third passage. Contrary to its message, I experience that I am, in fact, “lacking in [plenty of spiritual gift[s]” (1 Cor. 1:7). Furthermore, my memory tells me that I haven’t been kept “firm” in any of them in the past, so I find it difficult to believe that I will be firm “to the end” and will be found “irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:8). Paul concludes the promises of the passage by reminding us that “God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1-9). The implication of these reminders seems to be that God will complete the journey toward union among all who are connected to the divine.

Yet we’ve seen in wedding feast parables that symbolize that union that not everyone who is invited accepts the invitation and not even everyone who accepts it is prepared for it. These parables suggest that neither those who reject the invitation to the feast nor those who are unprepared for it are able to enjoy the feast.

And even those who accept and respond to the invitation cannot prepare themselves for the celebration. They need God’s help.

I need God’s help — to accept the invitation to the feast, to light the way to it, and to make room for it within. I can trust in this help, but it often doesn’t feel like I can. I often don’t recognize it being extended, so I reject the invitation. I don’t always lead others along the path to it by letting God’s light shine through my words and actions. I let fragile imitations of that Light block its reach, its warmth and radiance. My choices and the choices of others mean that sometimes I can’t sense its radiance and warmth. At these times, I’m spiritually asleep and need the Gospel passage’s wake-up call.

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

Ma. Marilou S. Ibita, PHD, STD uses her areas of expertise to offer a deeper reflection on the Gospel passage and the work we’re called to than the one I have shared.

Beyond this week’s readings:

I want to share three podcast episodes that gave me additional perspective on the Sunday readings for the three weeks before today. You may want to have headphones on when you click the play buttons on the pages where the following links lead:

The third link not only looks back at past weeks’ readings but also offers some considerations for how we might look at the weeks ahead.

Lord, may the material world awaken us to Your presence and to Your coming in the past, present, and future rather than numbing us to the reality that You have come, are here, and will come again. Amen.

Work cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “1st Sunday of Advent: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.183, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 31 October 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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