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Posts Tagged ‘Vulnerability’

Lord, What Do You Do with Us and Our Sins?

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

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Jeremiah 31:31–34 
  2. Psalm 51:3–4, 12–13, 14–15
  3. Hebrews 5:7–9
  4. John 12:20–33

What this week’s readings say to me:

This week’s readings show me from different angles about how to start fresh, how to find renewal, how to be restored. The first reading echoes the message of last week’s third reading — that Christ is the source of renewal in God. This week’s first reading promises the renewal, the reunion with God that the events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday will offer.

The psalm says to me that I might as well be its narrator. “A clean heart” and “a steadfast spirit” are precisely what I long for. As a person who experiences anxiety, has an anxious nature even, the request for “a steadfast spirit” particularly resonates with me (Psalm 51: 12-13).

The third reading urges me to persevere in making the requests I highlighted in the second reading. It also reminds me that receiving that “clean heart,” that “steadfast spirit” will mean facing my fears and in doing so, standing up to my desire to let the comforts of self-preservation and the status quo rule my life (Psalm 51: 12-13). To imitate Jesus, to cooperate with God’s will, to live, is to die to the instincts to preserve a distorted idea of myself and to maintain the status quo. The Gospel passage presents the same message in a different way.

I don’t mean to suggest that this message is telling us that rules are meant to be broken and that systems are meant to be dismantled, or that following a routine should be dispensed with entirely — only that we need to be open always to evaluating how our systems are working, who they are working for, and who they aren’t, and how they need to be reformed, adapted, or adjusted to work better. They can’t work better if they don’t support growth, which means more than being alive, it means living, which means being able to share material, spiritual, and intellectual gifts. It means being able to connect with and care for the world around us.

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

Susan Nchubiri, MM draws a challenging invitation from this week’s readings to offer to others what God offers us.

Beyond this week’s readings:

God calls us to forgive and forget.

Susan Nchubiri, MM

My immediate reaction to this statement was to push back, partly because of sermons, homilies and other reflections. I’ve often heard that God’s forgiveness doesn’t excuse what’s being forgiven; forgiveness of harm doesn’t erase the harm. And wouldn’t forgetting mean erasing the harm from individual and collective memories? And how can an all-knowing God forget?

I’ve read that Jesus retained His wounds after the resurrection. For many others having, the reality of their wounds and what caused those wounds acknowledged is an important part of the healing process. And yet, too often, societies and individuals have behaved as if healing could be found by pretending harm never occurred.

Maybe we don’t have accurate words for how God sees us and our sins. An all-knowing, all-powerful, all loving God can see in each of us the special ways reflect the Divine Nature if we don’t distort this reflection with sin, or if we allow God to restore the clarity of the reflection by handing over our sin and frailty to Him God knows that, by ourselves, we can’t be completely undistorted mirrors of holiness. Perhaps God also doesn’t unknow each of our sins. But God does transform them into opportunities to receive and to share grace, opportunities to recognize that we need God and others, and that others need us in return. Showing our wounds lets others know him they can uncover theirs as well. Wounds exposed to light, air, disinfectants, and other treatments can close. Them closing doesn’t mean they won’t leave behind scars. It just means they won’t hamper our growth, our very life, as they did when they bled under bandages.

Lord, give us the courage to acknowledge our wounds before you and others, just as you have not hidden your wounds from us. Lord, clean our wounded spirits and restore them to steadfastness. Transform scars into reminders that strength can be found in the vulnerability of openness. Help us not to let whatever we’d rather forget weigh us down. Transform our memories, whether painful or joyful, into means of connection to You through everything that is. We thank You that everything is able to serve this purpose because You came to live, die, and rise among us. Amen

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “5th Sunday of Lent, Sunday 17 February 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.186, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Feb. 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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The Gift of Vulnerability

Posted in Prayer, Reflections on Scripture, Scripture Stories, tagged , , , , on December 28, 2022| 1 Comment »

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

I first heard the reflection that inspired today’s post as part of the Hallow App’s Advent #Pray25 Challenge. Though I’ll be writing about the reflection from Day 24 of the prayer challenge, which was released on December 21, I decided I’d go back to it for this week’s post because it invites me to imagine I’m one of the shepherds from the Christmas story.

The reflection reminded me that the Old Testament “is full of” shepherds — David for one— who were also leaders of their people. However, by the time of Jesus’s birth the life of a shepherd was not an esteemed one. Shepherds spent much of their time not within communities but outside of them and in the company not of other people but of smelly, dirty animals. One of the narrators of the reflection, Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus in the series The Chosen, says that because of the isolation and company (or lack thereof) associated with their occupations, shepherds were often thought of as “coarse” and assumed to be criminals.

Now that I’ve shared this context, I’m going to listen to the reflection again. As I do, I’ll share what comes to me. You can listen to the reflection here. (If the link doesn’t give you access to the reflection, please let me know.)

My first thought is that, given the historical, it’s no wonder the translation of Luke 2:9 included in the reflection says they were terrified. Not only are they confronted with sights and sounds they’ve never seen before and don’t have the words to describe, but also they’re being given news that it seems they’re meant to share with “everyone.”

In response to this message, I can imagine a first-century shepherd thinking, “Of all people, why has God chosen me to receive this news now, and why would anyone listen to me if I repeat it? Why would anyone believe me if they listen?

God understands where these questions are coming from. At the same time, God strengthens their faith by telling them, through an angel, what the Divine Presence looks like and where He could be found in the most complete and tangible way on that night.

The shepherds being chosen as the first people outside Jesus’ family to receive the news of his birth is a reminder that God doesn’t use the criteria that humans sometimes use when making choices. God doesn’t rely on sight or any other biological sense when God chooses someone, nor is God’s ability to choose wisely negatively affected by past experiences with other people or even with the person God chooses. It’s often said there is no linear time for God the way there is for us. I take this to mean that there is no past or future in God’s perception. In some way that I can’t understand as I experience linear time, past, present, and future are all unfolding at once for God. And yet, Luke tells us, God entered time by being born of Mary in a stable.

At the invitation of reflection, I imagine myself a shepherd who approaches that stable and the holy family in it. I imagine Mary turning toward the sound of my approach and trying to rise from lying in the straw. I tell her not to trouble herself, that I’ve heard something of what she’s been through. I recount what the angel said.

Mary says nothing, but despite my protests, she sits up and gestures for me to come to her. I do as she asks, and she lifts her baby from the manger. Before I have a chance to step back, she’s placing the baby into my arms.

Dear God, help me hold him gently but firmly. Don’t let me hurt him. What would become of me? Of him? Of this sorrowful world if I dropped him?

He begins to cry.

The sound brings me back into the present of that stable. I focus on making him feel secure. In doing so, I relish his soft solidness and the warmth of him as he wriggles out of the cloths in which his mother has wrapped him. I see to it that he is swaddled snugly once again.

He already smells like the donkey who’s been watching over him. The smell is not unlike that of the sheep whose odor I carry.

Jesus, thank you for trusting me to come to you, to hold you. You were so vulnerable at your birth and at your death so that I could approach you when I am at my most vulnerable. Thank you for the gift of vulnerability — mine and yours. Amen.

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