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Posts Tagged ‘Who Am I in God’

Who Are These People and What Are They Doing?

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

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

All in one place:

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

In the context of each Bible book:

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

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

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

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

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

The following passages stand out to me:

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

Luke 22:33-34

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

Luke 22:35-37


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

Luke 22:48

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

Luke 22:56-57

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

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

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

Luke 19: 38

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

Luke 22:25-26

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

Luke 22:66-70

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

Luke 23:47

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

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

This week’s prayer:

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

Works cited:

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

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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.

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Sacred Readings and a Dictionary Bring Wisdom to Life

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections from Other Writers and Speakers, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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This week’s readings:

  1. Wisdom 7:7–11
  2. Psalm 90:12–13, 14–15, 16–17
  3. Hebrews 4:12–13
  4. Mark 10:17–30

What this week’s readings say to me:

The first reading shares characteristics with a love poem. Someone prays for a beloved one to come into his life. The prayer is answered. The one praying chooses the beloved over power. The beloved is more valuable to the one praying than jewels are. Compared to the beloved, gold might as well be dust, and silver is no better than mud. The beloved is more important to the one praying than health or physical attractiveness. Unlike the sun, the beloved’s brilliance never fades. The narrator chooses the beloved over all the visible things I mentioned before. However, the beloved brings all of the above with her.

Who is the beloved? Prudence, the passage says. This quality is personified as a woman in this week’s Old Testament passage. Merriam-Webster.com defines the quality as follows:

  1.  the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason
  2. sagacity or shrewdness in the management of affairs
  3. skill and good judgment in the use of resources
  4. caution or circumspection as to danger or risk

Breaking down this definition even further offers insight. Sagacity is the state of being sagacious. Miriam-Webster online defines sagacious as:

  1. of keen and farsighted penetration and judgment: discerning
  2. : caused by or indicating acute discernment

The same dictionary defines discernment as “the quality of being able to comprehend what is obscure”. It defines “obscure” as “dark, dim,” or “not readily understood or clearly expressed.”

One of the ways it defines “shrewd” is “given to wily and artful ways of dealing” and “wily” as “crafty.”

So to have wisdom in decision-making is not to rush the process. Wisdom slices through superficial concerns that cloud the process. To be open to wisdom is to be open to giving love, even though this Divine Love is difficult to understand and practice. Nonetheless, God loves wisdom, and wisdom loves God.

God sees the potential in each of us to be open to wisdom and love. God loves us for that potential. God loves us, too, in the midst of our struggle to be open to that potential.

The psalm prays for wisdom. It then offers a vision of what being open to that wisdom looks and feels like. Sometimes the experience of being open to wisdom isn’t easy. But the narrator suggests that a difficult experience is preferable if it helps him grow. He prefers it over having a pleasant experience that doesn’t contribute to growth.

The epistle uses sharp language to describe just how discerning God’s wisdom is. A paraphrase of it might be God’s wisdom is deeper and wider than any x-ray vision a person could imagine. Each of us will one day see ourselves and our actions the way God sees them.

The Gospel passage says that receiving the wisdom of God means more than just following the letter of God’s wisdom. It means letting go of whatever tries to stand in the way of that wisdom’s active spirit. The passage acknowledges that we need help to let go. It also promises that when we remove obstacles to the spirit’s movement, wisdom operates more freely within us. We will receive more than we let go of.

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

This week’s readings inspire Donna Orsuto to pray and to issue a challenge.

This week’s prayer:

Lord, help me to remember that authentic wisdom comes with humility and without superficiality. Help me to take an honest look at my priorities. Enable me to make well-reasoned decisions. Let wisdom guide me. Amen.

Work cited (but not linked to):

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. ” 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time — 13 Oct. 2024: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.193, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 23 Sept. 2024, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

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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 »

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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.

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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.

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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 »

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Why Did Jesus Suffer and Die?

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

Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Mark 11:1–10 John 12:12–16
  2. Isaiah 50:4–7
  3. Psalm 22:8–9, 17–18, 19–20, 23–24
  4. Philippians 2:6–11
  5. Mark 14:1—15:47

What this week’s readings say to me:

As I sit with these passages again this year, I find myself paraphrasing something my pastor said. It was in 2021, I think. He said that at various moments in our lives, we are every character in the passion story. I’ve been many of them. I’ve been open about my faith when I was in a crowd who made it easy to be open because they were being just as open. I’ve been silent about my faith when being open felt threatening — even just socially. I’ve asked God to get me out of a difficult situation, and God didn’t. I’ve said, “Thy will be done,” though I doubt I’ve ever been able to mean it without reservation as Jesus did.

Simon of Cyrene was “pressed into service” to help Jesus carry the cross (Mark 15:21). At most, I’ve been volunteered for some tasks I wouldn’t have chosen to do on my own. They were a lot less strenuous and my circumstances a lot less dangerous, yet I doubt I allow myself to be changed for the better as much as Simon must have allowed himself to be for his name to be remembered in accounts of Jesus’ passion (Matt.27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). I’ve betrayed people in my life and been betrayed by them. I’ve thought that if God is real and cares about His children and His creation, why doesn’t He save them from harm in easily recognizable ways all the time? Why would he allow them to suffer? I’ve also been asked the same questions when I’ve undertaken something or accepted a circumstance, and someone else didn’t understand why. I’ve asked now and then why God has abandoned me.

I’ve never been accused and/or sentenced unjustly by anyone charged with enforcing laws, but too many people have been. So many others have stood by someone unjustly sentenced and/or condemned, just as the people at the foot of the cross did for Jesus.

In this week’s readings shows the power of knowing who we are and what our purpose is in pursuing a purpose, regardless of the cost of doing so. The path of learning who we are, of fulfilling that purpose, of sacrificing for it looks different for everyone.

For Jesus, this path meant giving of Himself again and again in prayer, teaching, feeding, and healing. The darkest part of his journey brought him every kind of suffering brought him death. Why did He surrender to suffering and death? Not because God required His suffering and death to save us, but because we required his suffering and death to bring us back into union with God. We walk away from that relationship. God doesn’t. In fact, He never stops pursuing a relationship with us. The cross was the ultimate example of that pursuit, of going after us as we are — in all our fears, doubts, greed, fickleness, cruelty, violence, and even in our mortality.

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

Sheila Leocádia Pires reflects on Palm Sunday and the holy days that follow it.

Beyond this week’s readings:

Another reflection, “Jesus Did Not Die to Appease an Angry God,” even though it was published as a reflection on earlier Lenten readings, helps me make sense of this week’s readings in light of one core belief that’s been handed on to me — that God is love.

In the last few years, I’ve made my own the prospective on atonement and on the crucifixion that Fr. Terrance Klein expresses in the previous paragraph’s link. It’s been more than a week now since I first read his reflection, but I may have used some of his words in my reflection without realizing it. He explains so well, in my opinion, what I’ve wanted to communicate on this blog, but I never thought my way of communicating it made as much sense.

I hope you can access Fr. Klein’s reflection. I came across it on the website of America Magazine. I think viewing a certain number of articles on that website is free each month before the website invites visitors to subscribe to read more. I’ve tried to put this perspective into my own words at the end of the first section in case you are unable to read Fr. Klein’s words, but I hope you’ll be able to. If you are able to, I encourage you to do so. Fr Klein isn’t the only person I’ve encountered who offers this perspective or a similar one on atonement and the crucifixion, but his article is the one I have most recently encountered on the subject.

This perspective is important because it has the potential to recast who we say God is, what God does, and how God sees us. This perspective helps me see God as a rescuer and a healer, someone who wants to save us from what our own distorted vision, weaknesses and injustices do to us, rather than someone who punishes out of anger, jealousy, or a desire to exact revenge upon us for our lack of obedience. It’s a perspective on the relationship between God and humanity that has taken humanity time to develop. By using the word “develop,” I don’t tend to suggest that humans came up with it, but that each of us is on an ongoing journey to understand reality more fully and thus to know God better.

I also don’t mean to suggest that sins don’t matter to God. I think they matter to God precisely because God understands better than we do how sin hurts the sinner and others affected by the sin. It’s precisely because of this supreme understanding that God goes to battle with all of sin’s damage in the generations before Christ and during Christ’s conception, hidden life, ministry, and passion. God wills restorative justice.

Thank you, Lord for coming to rescue us by living a human life so You could be an example for us and could heal us through Your Divinity, Your human relationships with others, Your ministry, Your intercession, Your suffering, and Your death. Amen.

Work cited (but not linked to)

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

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Humility and Justice Go Hand in Hand

Posted in Ordinary Time, Reflections on Scripture, tagged , , , , , on October 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash

This week’s readings:

  1. Ezekiel 18:25–28 
  2. Psalm 25:4–5, 6–7, 8–9
  3. Philippians 2:1–11
  4. Matthew 21:28–32

What this week’s readings say to me:

The third reading says the following:

. . . humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others.

Philippians 2:3

I think this clause ties together this week’s readings. It takes humility to trust and to be in harmony with others and God and to be at peace when situations don’t go the way I want them to. So far, I’m sorry to say, I don’t seem to have given the virtue of humility the upper hand in my life.

The first reading tells me that if I did, I wouldn’t complain to God that what happens to me is unfair. My vision doesn’t have the expanse that God’s vision does, so who am I to make a judgment about what someone else deserves and what I deserve. When I cooperate with God, God lives in me and works through me. When I don’t, the Holy Spirit has to carve an alternate path within and around me. And even when I cooperate, I do so only with the help of the Holy Spirit. I wouldn’t be alive without the Spirit, and so I don’t deserve anything.

I don’t say this to be negative and self-effacing. Another way to frame this sentiment would be to say that there is nothing that I alone am entitled to. I have dignity because I live, and I live because of God. So does every other living thing. Every living thing lives because God’s nature is relationship, and relationship requires more than one. That’s why I’m thinking that I don’t deserve anything. I may or may not be prevented from receiving something good by one factor or another. Sometimes that factor is me; sometimes it isn’t, and my perception of what would be good for me is often distorted and is always limited. Given this distortion and limitation, how can I say what I or anyone else deserves?

One part of the Good News is that God doesn’t operate in terms of what’s deserved. I didn’t need to deserve to live before I came into being. And if I humble myself, God doesn’t let any negative consequences that may spring from my actions or anyone else’s to destroy me. Instead, if I ask Him and accept the crosses that will come with the answer, He’ll show me how to turn unpleasant or even painful consequences into something positive — in other words — in other words something that cooperates with His will, Hs work. As the psalm puts it, He guides the humble to justice / and teaches the humble his way (Psalm 25:9).

Another part of the Good News is that, while God wants us to know that making room for Him in our lives means humbling ourselves, he doesn’t ask us to do it alone. He does it with us. As Philippians tells me:

Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.

2:6-11

The Gospel reading offers a lesson in contrasts to teach me how to live with an attitude of humility. It teaches me that to live with an attitude of humility means to understand that no group I belong to and nothing about my past determines whether God works in my life and whether that life reflects God. It’s humility that makes room for God in my life. So if I keep returning to humility, eventually when death puts its fingers on me, its grip won’t be able to contain the truth and power of who I am in God. For me, this image of the fingers and the grip unable to stay closed is one way of thinking about eternal life. I saw a quote on the Hallow app today that gave me another way of thinking about eternal life. The quote advises me to:

Begin now to be what you will be hereafter.

St. Jerome.

Lord, help me to remember that intentions and plans mean nothing and do nothing if they aren’t put into action — and not just in the future but now. After all, though I can’t understand how, for You, everything is happening now. Help me to live in union with You and Your other children, not just some time today but at this moment and in the next. Amen.

Works cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 1 October 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.182, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 21 Sep. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

St. Jerome. “Begin now to be what you will be hereafter.” 30 Sep. 2023, https://hallow.com/daily-quote/2023-09-30/.

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