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Posts Tagged ‘Encouragement’

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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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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Faith Is Powerful but Not Easy to Live with

Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , on December 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Genesis 15:1–6; 21:1–3
  2. Psalm 105:1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 8–9
  3. Hebrews 11:8, 11–12, 17–19
  4. Luke 2:22–40

What this week’s readings say to me:

Six things:

  1. God keeps promises.
  2. Trusting in God’s promises is powerful.
  3. Though that trust is powerful, its power doesn’t come without pain.
  4. This trust involves practicing lifelong patience and perseverance.
  5. When the practices of trust, patience, and perseverance are not given up on, when they are instead authentically lived, they reach from generation to generation.
  6. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had faith that all of the above statements were true. They also had proof of these truths in their own lives too, but they didn’t know at the time of the events in this week’s Gospel just how much pain they’d bear because of their trust in God’s promises or what forms that pain would take.

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

On this day that honors the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Lisa Fullam, D.V.M., Th.D. reflects on the spiritual meaning of family. Spoiler alert: this meaning may be found among people who don’t share genes.

Beyond this week’s readings:

There are more choices for today’s readings than there are on many days. Dr. Fullam responds to different passages than the ones I read. I invite you refer to those passages as well as to the ones I listed at the top of this post. Dr. Fullam addresses what I often struggle with in the alternate passages and in the messages I often receive on this day each year. You can find the chapter and verse numbers for the alternate readings here.

Lord, thank You for giving us Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as models of trust in God. Thank You also for inspiring Professor Emerita Lisa Fullam to encourage us, who are neither Jesus, nor Mary, nor Joseph, and yet, are still members of families. Amen.

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Wrapping up Advent and Unwrapping Christmas

Posted in Advent, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , on December 24, 2023| 1 Comment »

This week’s readings:

  1. 2 Samuel 7:1–5, 8b–12, 14a, 16 ·
  2. Psalm 89:2–3, 4–5, 27, 29
  3. Romans 16:25–27
  4. Luke 1:26–38

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings say to me that God has always accompanied humanity in all its joys and sorrows. As part of that accompaniment, God gave the tribes of Israel the special mission of bringing awareness of God’s accompaniment to the rest of humanity by being chosen to receive and to live God’s commandments. Eventually, a king from one of the tribes would be the ancestor of the Savior. This Savior would be for humanity the ultimate model of how to live God’s commandments and would offer humanity the Spirit for help living those commandments.

We can become God’s children and inherit God’s life because one of God’s daughters was given the grace and cooperated with that grace of being the dwelling place for God’s perfect son. Because she cooperates with that grace, God and humanity become one again, and I share in that oneness if I offer myself as a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit — just like she did. The challenge of this opportunity is that being the Spirit’s dwelling place is a gift that is neither easy to give nor to receive,

That gift most wasn’t an easy one for Mary to receive. She’s described as “greatly troubled” by the Gabbriel’s greeting alone, and for me it’s no wonder that her mental and emotional state is described this way when she hears the angel’s salutation (Luke 1: 29). Having a messenger of heaven suddenly appear before her and speak wouldn’t be anything like choosing a tree-topper from a store. A visit from an angel is an experience that few have, and she would’ve been no exception. Angels in Scripture aren’t quaint decorations. They’re overwhelming and disruptive attention-grabbers. Furthermore, Mary’s culture has taught her that finding favor with God carries with it indispensable work — not a comfortable life. I imagine her having thought all this before Gabriel got past “the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).

That announcement would bring plenty more difficulties along with the wonder that we perhaps associate with it today. Then again, I wonder how often awe accompanies it these days. It’s another one of those passages people tend to know by heart, even if they aren’t very familiar with others Scripture passages. I find that the more familiar something is, the more complete my numbness to its specialness becomes, and I know I’m not alone in this experience. That’s why I wanted to reflect in a way that removes the sugarcoating, and perhaps a little of the over-familiarity from this week’s Gospel passage.

Having this goal in mind doesn’t mean I don’t see these passages as bringing Good News. Rather, this goal is an exercise in remembering that not all that is good is sweet. Sometimes this is a challenging reminder to receive. At other times it’s comforting. It might be the latter at this time of year because expectations for this season can get so high. Given this reality, looking at the Gospel passages associated with this season, beginning with this week’s, without the lenses of what we think they should feel like can provide some very helpful perspective, a perspective that makes us feel less alone if we feel sad, alone, overwhelmed, afraid, or uncertain this time of year.

With this encouragement in mind, let’s go back to sitting with Mary as she receives the angel’s message. Sure, she’s being offered a role in history more important and unlike any other, and yes that’s an honor and a gift, but it’s a gift that comes at a higher price than she could’ve guessed from the angel’s greeting. For one, nowhere are we told that Gabriel included in his message that Mary’s parents were told of her role in God’s plan before she was. I imagine her being awestruck by the announcement but also but also dreading how people would treat her when her pregnancy became apparent. Remember that in this culture, the law evidently said she could be stoned to death for adultery for being unmarried and yet found to be with child — and not by her betrothed. Remember also that she would likely have been a young teenager, given her culture and that she hadn’t lived with her betrothed yet. I imagine she must have participated in the basics of managing a household and caring for a family for as long as she could remember, under the guidance of older female relatives. Still, being the wife and the mother in a household had to be different than being the daughter, the niece, or the cousin. And that’s just in terms of responsibility. Then there are the massive physical and emotional changes that motherhood entails. On top of all that, her calling was to be the mother of God. I imagine her feeling so small upon learning that this was her call. I imagine her finding comfort in a few thoughts as she received it:

  • If this news wasn’t just a hallucination (maybe she’d been out in the sun too long, she might have thought), what an amazing call it was. She could bring hope and righteousness to her people, to the world. And the role was hers to accept or to refuse.
  • The angel hadn’t left her without a way to test the truth of the announcement. She could visit her cousin Elizabeth, and see if the older woman was, in fact, pregnant.
  • If Elizabeth was, she would know the message was from God, and she already trusted that whatever the Divine Plan was, it would be brought to fruition, regardless of whatever obstacles were placed in its path, whatever hardships she’d have to weather as a result of being so central to it. I imagine that, in any circumstance, and especially given these consolations, she discerned the best and right course of action was to cooperate with the Divine Plan. I imagine her thinking she could never go wrong by declaring her intention to do that. God would use her proclamation of faith to do whatever God willed.

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

Karen Sue Smith ties this week’s readings together in greater detail than I have.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Tonight is Christmas Eve, so I’m considering this post to be my reflection for both the fourth week of Advent and Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. If you’re juggling a lot this Christmas, you’re not alone. So did Mary, Joseph, and the innkeeper.

I see innkeepers getting bad raps in interpretations of biblical accounts of the Nativity. In so many stage adaptations, several innkeepers turn Mary and Joseph away before one offers a stable to the couple. The innkeepers who turn the Holy Family away are characterized as unyielding, heartless. If Mary and Joseph did inquire at more than one inn, maybe the proprietors wouldn’t have thought they were being heartless. Maybe they thought they had no accommodations to offer the couple that wouldn’t offend them, especially given Mary’s condition and that many animals were considered unclean. Maybe the last innkeeper was better at staying calm under the pressure of the influx of travelers. Maybe he saw the wisdom, under the circumstances, of dispensing with expectations, tradition, and rules, and offering the best he had left, humble though that offering is said to have been. (And for the record, Luke’s account mentions the inn whose stable the couple was provided with as if there were only one inn in town. We aren’t told that anyone turned Mary and Joseph away.)

May I be more like that innkeeper, wisely discerning what actions are best based on what situations require from moment to moment. May I see the value in what I have and what I have to offer.

May I remember that whatever my circumstances are this Christmas, God is with me. The accounts of Jesus’s earliest years remind me that:

  • If traveling, especially at peak travel times stresses you out, Mary, Joseph, and countless others understand.
  • If you are “greatly troubled” by unexpected events that are disrupting what you hoped to give the people in your life, Mary, Joseph, and the innkeeper understand (Luke 1:28).
  • If you are headed home after a long time away or are away from home this Christmas, Mary and Joseph can relate.
  • If you are grieving this Christmas or someone you love is, Mary and the weeping mothers of the Gospel can relate.
  • If you’re setting off on a journey with an uncertain destination, the Wise Men can relate. The Holy Family can too.
  • If you feel like you don’t fit in, the shepherds and the Holy Family can relate. Check out this reflection on shepherds from last year.
  • If you are a parent-to-be or a new parent, Mary and Joseph can relate to whatever you’re feeling.
  • If you are living amid or fleeing violence or are a refugee for another reason, the Holy Family can relate.

God is with us in each aspect of and participant in the Nativity story and in the stories unfolding around us this Christmas — the ones involving strife and struggle and the ones that are sappy and sugar-coated.

Lord, help us recognize your presence among us, especially when doing so feels most difficult. Amen.

Work cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “4th Sunday of Advent, Sunday 24 December 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.183, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 31 Oct. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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The Character and Source of Wisdom

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , on November 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Wisdom 6:12–16 
  2. Psalm 63:2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8
  3. 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
  4. Matthew 24:42a, 44

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings say to me that God’s wisdom, born of God’s unconditional, self-emptying love transcends gender, time, and even death. It’s alive, a guiding light and a relationship sought and found through alertness, preparation, perseverance and patience. It can’t be faked or borrowed and returned. It has to be kept and nurtured. The path to it cannot be rushed, and the process of encountering and journeying with it comes with a cost that’s worth paying to make it my own. Knowing and not knowing it affect my mind, body, and soul. Being open to it, living with it, and following words leads would make me the undistorted version of myself, while closing my mind, body, and soul to it would leave me lonely and unrecognizable to anyone acquainted with the best version of me.

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

Paula Rush explores what the symbolism of this week’s readings has to say. I found her perspective on the parable in the Gospel reading particularly refreshing and inspiring. I would say her reflection ends with a twist. Go to this page out to find out what her hope-filled perspective on the foolish virgin is.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Until the evening two days ago, I was traveling, and I got sick at both the beginning and the end of my trip. Then I came to my desk to work on this post yesterday. I didn’t feel like moving a muscle, and congestion meant talking to my dictation software wasn’t as comfortable as usual, not to mention that the software probably wouldn’t have understood me as well as it usually does. I set my timer, and when it went off, only the headings and the locations of the Scripture passages had been added to this post. I decided to spend the rest of the day catching up on shows I missed while I was gone and playing games on my phone. And when I got up this morning, I still felt like I had nothing to offer.

Then I let Hallow app guide me through an imaginative prayer session and a St. Jude novena centering around the feeding of the 5,000, a.k.a. the multiplication of loaves and fishes (Matt. 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; and John 6:1-15). When the apostles thought there was no way they had enough food to feed the crowd who had been listening to Jesus was so long, that’s when I realized I could relate, in a way.

As I write, I’m wrestling with doubts that anything I put in this post will feed you intellectually, spiritually, or emotionally. If something I’ve included here does resonate with you, I’d be interested to know what, if you’d like to share a comment.

But also as I write this after sitting with the readings, I’m reminded that it isn’t I who do the feeding. It’s God. I have only to desire God’s wisdom and to take one step at a time to prepare for and to receive its movement.

Come to me, Oil for my lamp, Wisdom of God. Give me the wisdom to recognize You so You can recognize in me the person I am in You. Amen.

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Five Lenses through Which I Find Hope

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, Who Am I in God, Who is God, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Lensabl on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Isaiah 25:6–10a 
  2. Psalm 23:1–3a, 3b–4, 5, 6
  3. Philippians 4:12–14, 19–20
  4. Matthew 22:1–14

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings and Casey Stanton’s reflection on them offer me five different lenses through which to find hope. I’ve heard the spiritual understanding of hope defined as “joyful expectation.” I’m not sure who I received this understanding from — maybe my spiritual director. So if you’re reading this, and you shared this understanding with me — thanks — because that understanding of hope comes to mind as I read this week’s readings.

The Old Testament reading gives me a glimpse of the future — when everything reflects nothing but God’s nature, which is love, and which I sometimes grasp partially — as justice and mercy — with the line between the two virtues being indistinct because one can’t be separated from the other. This reading contains one of those verses familiar both to people with a lot of background in Scripture and without that background. The verse says:

The Lord GOD will wipe away
the tears from every face;
the reproach of his people he will remove
from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 25:8

The psalm this week is also familiar favorite, Psalm 23. As I’ve written in a series on this blog, I see this psalm as a proclamation of faith and a promise, and faith and promises are founded on the joyful expectation that is hope. If you’d like to visit or revisit that series, it starts here.

The third reading tells me that holding onto hope allows a person to maintain trust in God’s love regardless of what his or her circumstances are. The third reading also includes a verse that can be helpful for inspiring hope:

I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

Philippians 12:13

Now no one is called to do everything. Rather, we’re called to have hope and faith that we can do what each of us is called to do. Each of our vocations involves some activities and experiences that others also share in and other activities and experiences that are unique to each of us. So the third reading urges me to have confidence that when I trust in God, I’ll be able to do and be what I’m called to do and be, whether I find myself in pleasant or unpleasant circumstances. This message gives me hope.

As I read this week’s Gospel passage with the theme of hope in mind, its words remind me that authentic hope comes from accepting God’s invitation to a healthy relationship with God and one another. Hope comes from viewing whatever I do in terms of how it contributes to the health of those relationships. Nothing I do or want can replace a healthy relationship with God, and I can’t have healthy relationships with others, or with my goals if I don’t have healthy relationship with God.

The passage also tells me that an authentic — a.k.a. healthy — relationship with God can’t be faked. Hope can’t be faked either — at least not in the eyes of God. This is important to keep in mind because it’s authentic hope that solves problems and allows for harmony with one another and with God.

Lord, please strengthen my hope; help me cling to it regardless of my circumstances. Amen.

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

While I looked at the Gospel passage as I considered the theme of hope, I’ll be honest — I’m bothered by the amount of violence the featured parable includes. So was Casey Stanton. Then some current events inspired her to relate to the parable differently than she had before. Click here to find out how.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Ms. Staton reflects on events unfolding in the Catholic Church. Her reflection prompts me to ask how a listening and sharing approach to relating to others, how an attitude of stillness and openness with regard to my circumstances, can be lived outside those events. Lord, open my senses, my heart, and my soul. Amen.

Work cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 15 October 2023 28th Sunday in Ordinary time: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.181, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Aug. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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Another Source of Faith’s Power Is Humility

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , on August 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »

This week’s readings:

Photos by Lulu Rutledge
  1. Isaiah 22:19–23
  2. Psalm 138:1–2, 2–3, 6, 8
  3. Romans 11:33–36
  4. Matthew 16:18

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings say to me that the power of faith comes not only from perseverance, as I was reminded last week, but also from humility. A person in with a humble mindset is able to trust even when he or she doesn’t understand a situation. Trust isn’t rooted in knowing all the details. It’s rooted in hope, and not speaking and acting on behalf of oneself but on behalf of God. Not speaking and acting on behalf of God as if we have God’s perspective — more like making room in and around us for God to speak and act through us, for it is God who “builds up strength within” us — if we allow the construction (Psalm 138:3). “For from him and through him and for him are all things” (Rom. 11:36). The “servant” in the reading from Isaiah understands this (Isa. 22:20). His understanding of this must be why God gives the trappings and responsibilities of authority to him, after apparently having removed it from someone people recognized as a leader (22:21-22)

From what I understand about Jewish culture when Jesus walked the earth, the family, friends, and community of the man eventually called Peter wouldn’t have seen spiritual leader material in him. Before Jesus called him, he wasn’t studying with a rabbi. He must not have been considered a skilled enough student to do that. He was working in his earthly father’s business. And yet, the Holy Spirit gives Peter the heart knowledge that Jesus is the Christ and gives him the grace, the humility, to acknowledge who Jesus is.

Outside of the grace of humility, he can’t acknowledge needing a Messiah — the Messiah — knowing him, or trusting in him. When Peter doesn’t have room for the gift of humility because his fear and/or pride crowds it out, Jesus doesn’t refer to him as “the rock on which [He] builds [His] church” (Matt. 16:18). Instead, Jesus tells Satan to “get behind” Him (16:23). At these times, he knows Peter is relying on his own mind to make sense of the world around him — not God’s — as the Holy Spirit allows him to do when his fear and pride don’t get in the Spirit’s way.

When he doesn’t start to think that his fear is more powerful is than God is, he not only can recognize Jesus as the Christ, but also he can walk on water, and he can share the message of Jesus’s ministry and his resurrection despite the risk to his earthly life, a life that he will eventually hand over as a result of the mission that Jesus gives him. It’s a mission that, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit in him and his spiritual siblings and descendants, we can be bound together by what gives life and freed from what doesn’t.

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

While this week’s readings spoke to me about humility as another fuel for faith, for the ability to recognize Christ, along with perseverance, Mary Margaret Schroeder invites us to explore how each of us recognizes Christ personally. She invites us to recognize Christ in our everyday experiences rather than by relying only on knowledge and ways of talking about that knowledge that have been handed down to us.

Beyond this week’s readings:

So who do I say Christ is:

  • the ultimate storyteller, the hero of that story, and the author of my story within that master story.
  • the One who walks ahead of me, beside me, stands behind me, and lives within me.
  • the One who carries me
  • The experience I have when I read a book and
    • relate to what we find there — pain, joy, fear, and every mixture of emotion
    • don’t relate to what I read, but what I read makes me appreciate what I have
    • long for the friendship, love, transformation, and growth I find there
  • the experience of driving alone in my neighborhood — not in a car, but in my wheelchair — and I feel the sun warming my neck, back, and shoulders. I feel the breeze, too, and I see roses blooming in front of my neighbors’ houses. Flowers spill over the brick retaining walls between the sidewalks and the streets.
  • the experience of my family and my neighbors throwing a surprise party for my birthday
  • the experience of wanting to say something that, at best, won’t help a situation, and might make it worse and actually succeeding in not saying it.
  • the experience of seeing a task through rather than putting it off for another day and instead playing games on my phone
  • the experience of not pretending to be somebody someone other than God wants me to be
  • The relief of being able to acknowledge to myself and God that I’m not the person God plans to love me into becoming, and yet experiencing that God loves me anyway

Now I have this list. Maybe I’ll revisit these memories when God feels distant. Maybe I’ll think of things to add to this list over time. Help me, Lord, Amen.

Who is Christ to you, personally? Maybe you’d like to journal or to pray about this yourself. Share your thoughts here, if you’d like.

Work cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 27 August 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.181, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Aug. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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Watch Out for Ruts and Weeds That Flower

Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Flash Dantz on Unsplash

This Week’s Readings:

  1. Isaiah 55:10–11
  2. Psalm 65:10, 11, 12–13, 14
  3. Romans 8:18–23
  4. Matthew 13:1–23

I found myself conversing with what stood out to me in each of this week’s readings, and the conversation felt familiar. The familiarity wasn’t comfortable. It was boring, and the boredom I experienced in response to each reading was a bit anxiety-inducing.

Now that I’ve been writing this blog for a year and a half, I worry I’m the responding to these passages the same way I did the last time I wrote about each one here. And I want to receive and share new insights — for my own sake and for yours.

Nonetheless, I trust that the Spirit is working on me, in me, and through me even when I feel like I’m following the same old tracks and in doing so, may be getting stuck in the same ruts over and over.

The first reading reassures me:

my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:11

This reading suggests that at least I can’t totally stop the ability of Love’s winds from re-forming creation, I said to myself as I read this verse. I can only force these Winds to choose a different tunnel. Yet when I interrupt their course, I miss out on being enlivened by them — maybe more often than I don’t miss out on this gift.

Fortunately, for me, God, I want to be the dirt in the second stanza of this week’s psalm, and I suppose I am. This isn’t as bad as it sounds. The stanza speaks to God as follows:

Thus have you prepared the land: drenching its furrows,
breaking up its clods,
softening it with showers,
blessing its yield.

Psalm 65:11

The question for me is, will I appreciate what it takes to break up or to avoid the unhelpful knots in my life, what the psalm characterizes as clods of dirt? Will I appreciate what it takes to soften what has hardened within me so that it can yield growth? Often not, because spiritual clods and hardness, like muscular hardness, develop over time and in uncomfortable, sometimes extreme conditions. Going through the softening process is no different. This process might mean taking a pounding, like meat that needs tenderizing. It definitely means experiencing rebirth and changing my world.

The concept of rebirth sounds nice. It sounds like a sudden shift, something that happens in between blinks, but the third reading’s characterization of the process provides a reality check. It says:

We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Romans 18:22-23

This excerpt tells me that spiritual restoration is a process, a laborious and often painful one. It also tells me that I’m undergoing the process here and now, but I will also be undergoing it, in what, to me, is the future. To God, everything is happening now and all at once in a way I can’t comprehend.

Because I can’t comprehend not being bound by time, in the reading from Matthew, Jesus uses a parable to compare the process of spiritual growth to the process by which a crop grows — or doesn’t.

In the reading, Jesus gives an interpretation of the parable, and I’m grappling with how to apply this parable and its interpretation my life. I know that, to grow, a seed needs a certain depth of soil that isn’t too rocky for the plant to put down roots. It also needs room to grow. To me, this means the seed that is me needs a deep trust in God to grow. Having such trust would keep the often difficult conditions of life from stunting my growth. Reaching out to God in the midst of difficulties just might transform them from obstacles to opportunities. Spiritual fertilizers, I might call these experiences.

For me, the weeds in the parable are the distractions that take up time I could be using to love God, myself, and others as God loves me. Sometimes these distractions are unpleasant. They feel like the anxieties Jesus says the weeds represent. Other times, they’re harder recognize as weeds because they’re activities I enjoy and use to forget about feelings I don’t want to feel and to put off doing what I don’t want to do.

It’s useful for me to distract myself sometimes, to break myself out of a pattern of unhelpful thinking, a pattern of replaying unpleasant past experiences or of dreading a future experience that I anticipate will be difficult. But there are questions I know I’d benefit from asking myself about my favorite distractions:

  • How often am I turning to these distractions?
  • How long do the benefits I get from these activities last, and how satisfying are they? Can I do them in moderation, or do they leave me only wanting more?
  • How much time are these enjoyable activities taking away from activities that have longer-lasting benefits for me and others?
  • What activities with longer-lasting and broader benefits could I use instead to break myself out of unhelpful thinking? (For the record, no, memorizing comforting or inspiring Bible verses hasn’t served this purpose for me, though I’ve tried this approach and won’t rule out trying it again. Getting outside and/or getting exercise have helped.)
  • What do I want to avoid dealing with, and how much better have I felt in the past when I dealt with whatever I didn’t want to rather than distracting myself from it?

Lord, open the ears of my heart and mind to hear and listen to Your answers to these questions. Thank You for hearing me. Amen.

Work cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 16 July 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.180, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 29 June 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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Communion Offers Life to All of Everyone

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , on July 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Paul Jai on Unsplash

This Week’s Readings:

  1. Zechariah 9:9–10
  2. Psalm 145:1–2, 8–9, 10–11, 13–14
  3. Romans 8:9, 11–13
  4. Matthew 11:25–30

I read the first two readings and thought it would probably be good for me to read and reread them and internalize their expressions of faith and praise. Maybe if I read them enough, their words would feel more like they could be my own. However, where is my mind is right now, it can embrace them as true but my heart hesitates to do the same, even as I recognize the justice of praising God even when the praise feels inauthentic coming from me. The third reading seems to present the ideal response to faith in another way that I’m discouraged by not living up to.

The Good News for me this week is the Gospel’s affirmation of my feeling that I can’t live up to the ideals of the first two readings. I’m not meant live up to the ideals on my own strength. The ideals aren’t even about doing the right things on my own or even thinking the right things or understanding difficult situations or concepts on my own. Jesus speaks to his Father in Matthew Chapter 11, saying, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you [italics mine] have revealed them to little ones” (25-26). Once I revisited this verse, it helped me see in a new light two verses from the third reading. They say:

If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Consequently, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

Romans 8:11-12

I don’t give life to myself. The Spirit “that raised Christ from the dead” and “dwells in me” will give life to [my] mortal body” (Rom. 8:11).

I tend to think of the mind as more closely related to the Spirit than to the “mortal body” or “flesh,” and to sinful actions, what Romans calls “the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8: 13). I don’t think I’m alone in having this dualistic perspective.

However, the reality is that what the mind does is as much the result of brain activity as anything else the body does, whether consciously or unconsciously. And the brain is part of the mortal body. It isn’t necessarily more spiritual than anything else the body does. To say this is not to say that the body is inherently opposed to the Spirit. Rather, the body, which includes the workings of the mind, is healed by the Spirit of the effects of sin. The Spirit restores to each person—each body, mind, spirit combination— to his or her unique way of reflecting God’s image each, provided that the person invites the Spirit in by joining him or herself to His Body.

Because of the doctrine of the Trinity and because of Scriptures that characterize followers of Christ as members of His body, I understand the Spirit’s body in three ways: as the body of Jesus, the body of an individual believer, and as the community of believers. I unite myself to him and become this body, inviting the Spirit to work in my life whenever I trust in these realities and when my life reflects this trust. It reflects this trust when I share the joys and the burdens of Jesus and others, and I find the humility and courage to accept the offers of Jesus and others to share my joys and burdens.

It’s this communion, not being able to handle or understand everything on my own that gives life. I make this statement not to minimize the acquisition of knowledge and expertise or the pursuit of moral and ethical behavior but to reiterate that no knowledge increases or decreases a person’s value from God’s perspective. An article by Guy Consolmagno and Christopher M. Graney inspires me to offer this reminder. It also provides thought-provoking analysis of the justifications humans throughout history have used for thinking and behaving otherwise.

Lord, don’t let me forget your unconditional love for me and for everyone else, indeed for all of Your creation. Don’t let me forget that Your wisdom and understanding is greater than human wisdom and understanding. Also don’t let me forget that though Your wisdom and understanding are greater than human understanding and wisdom, You have given me places and people I can go to for wisdom and support. Thank You for giving life to all of me and to all of Your creation. Amen.

Works cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 9 July 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

Consolmagno, Guy and Christopher M. Graney “Reject the cult of ‘intelligence.’ You’re worth more than that.” America: The Jesuit Review, 29 June 2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/06/29/consolmagno-graney-cult-intelligence-245530.

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What Does It Mean to Be a Witness?

Posted in Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , on May 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Jeremy McGilvrey on Unsplash

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call. . .

Ephesians 1:18

In the first verse that jumped out at me from this week’s readings, we’re given a promise that I’ve long interpreted as a command that I was constantly failing to fulfill, a command that felt pretty close to impossible to fulfill.

The first verse does give us a mission, the mission — but not one that belongs to any one of us by ourselves. It’s one we fulfill in ways we don’t always understand because it is fulfilled not by us alone but by the Holy Spirit working through us. The reading from Ephesians reminds us of

the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way [italics mine].

Ephesians 1:19-23

This letter is written to a group of people who have allowed Christ to have dominion over their lives and who rejoice in the power and the hope of being members of his body. They are members of the early church because they’ve learned and experienced that Jesus came to be the first resurrected one among them but not the last. Their destiny is to be resurrected like him, provided they empty themselves as he emptied himself.

I imagine they knew they needed to surrender whatever blocked the movement of the Holy Spirit within and among them.. I imagine they knew “the fullness of the one fills all things in every way,” who works where he has room to work and they wanted to give him lots of room because they were excited to be the body tasked with putting that faith that the Spirit inspires into action so that the body can thrive (Eph. 1:23). (It’s weird to me to use a gendered pronoun to describe the Spirit, which has nobody, but because Jesus does so in John 14:15-21, I’ve done so here.) To me, to thrive means to remain open and to grow, not to stagnate.

I feel the most open, the most consistently on a path of growth when I’m not settling for recounting someone else’s experience of the Spirit’s movement but looking for its movement within and around me and sharing what I experience and see. This sharing what I experience is my current understanding have of what it means to be a witness. A friend of mine once said that this understanding wasn’t completely different from being a witness in court or the witness of an accident. Should I find myself in these situations, I’m not called to repeat what I haven’t personally experienced.

So how can I experience the movement of the Holy Spirit within and around me so that I can be a witness to the life he offers? For me, this is where the second verse I started this post with comes in. I ask the Spirit “to enlighten [my] heart, that [I] may know the hope that belongs to his call” [italics mine] (Eph.1:18).

This knowing isn’t merely a process of the mind. It isn’t the result of memorization, though memorization can lay the groundwork for knowing with the heart. What we receive from those who came before us and those who journey with us, which is partly head knowledge, gives us words for naming our experiences and names for how those experiences relate to each other. This language gives us a means for interpreting our experiences and for putting them into perspective. Without the words we’ve been taught, we couldn’t share our heart knowing with one another. We would neither be able to name the heart knowledge we had in common, nor what is unique to each of our callings. And both the unique aspects and the shared ones are important facets of each person’s vocation and effectiveness as a witness.

Lord, teach me to have a humble spirit that’s open to Your wisdom and beauty so I can recognize and experience both in the people and places around me and share my experience of You with others. Amen.

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

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm

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