Prayers and Reflections
March 31, 2024 - Easter Sunday
Gathering - Jesus Christ Is Risen Today #172
Presentation - The Strife is O'er #577
Communion - This Day Was Made By The Lord #574
Sending Forth - Alleluia! Alleluia! #175
8am Mass Only Alleluia! Alleluia! Let the Holy Anthem Rise # 180
Responsorial Psalm:
This is the day the lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad.
Gloria – # 915 from the Mass of Christ the Savior
Water of Life- sung during the season of Easter # 946
Mass parts: Mass of Christ The Savior
#918, #919, #922, #923
Opportunity for Confession:
Monday - March 25 / 2:00 - 4:00 and 6:00 - 9:00
Lenten Communal Penance Service at 7:00 pm.
Thursday - March 28 - 9:15 am Morning Prayer
7:00 pm Mass of Our Lord's Supper
Friday - March 29 - 9:15 am Morning Prayer
3:00 pm Passion of Our Lord
7:00 Stations of the Cross
Saturday - March 30 - 9:15 am Morning Prayer
7:00 pm Easter Vigil Mass
Sunday - March 31 - 8:00 am Easter Sunday Mass
10:00 am Easter Sunday Mass
12 noon Easter Sunday Mass
Stations of the Cross
every Friday evening during Lent at 7:00 pm.
2/23 - 3/2 - 3/8 - 3/15 - 3/22 - 3/29
Friday - April 5 - Stations of the Resurrection
Family Lenten Retreat
Saturday - March 2nd
10:30 am - 12:30 pm
Click here for the lLink to USCCB Mass readings- click on appropriate day.
Act of Spiritual Communion prayer can be found on our opening page
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it
John 1:5
Welcome to the Parish of Saints Philip and James
Our Parish Office is open for your needs - Monday - Wednesday 9 am - 7 pm. Thursday 9 am - 5 pm. Closed - Friday-Saturday-Sunday
Mass Intentions and Altar Memorials are available. You may request in person, via phone message, e-mail, or drop your request in the mail slot at the side of our office entrance door. You will receive a call back verifying dates and times requested. Mass Cards may be picked-up - or we can mail the card directly to the family. You may also leave a message to have a name added to our prayer list.
Our Food Pantry, under Parish Social Ministry, is operating. We are meeting the needs of those in our parish and community. You can find a list of pantry items needed in our bulletin. If you know a family who is in need of support, please have them contact us and we will be happy to assist in any way we are able.
Mass is celebrated on Saturday at 5 pm. Sunday at 8 am., 10 am., and 12 noon.
If you are in need of a priest you may call the office and select the option for Emergency After Hours.
Our bulletin goes to print weekly. The publications can also be found on our website. sspj.org
Our parish runs on donations, contributions and offerings made through the generosity of our parishioners. If you are able to continue financial support,
offerings may be mailed to 1 Carow Place. They may also be dropped into the mail slot at the side of the office entrance door.
You may choose to sign-up with Faith Direct, there is a link on our opening webpage.
Parish Rectory Office - 631-584-5454
General email info@sspj.org
Business Manager vportanova@sspj.org
We are grateful for your generosity and support.
Click Here:
Memorial Day - prayer
GRACIOUS GOD, ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND,
WE REMEMBER AND GIVE THANKS
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES
IN THE SERVICE OF OUR COUNTRY.
WHEN THE NEED WAS GREATEST,
THEY STEPPED FORWARD AND DID THEIR DUTY
TO DEFEND THE FREEDOMS THAT WE ENJOY,
AND TO WIN THE SAME FOR OTHERS.
O GOD, YOU YOURSELF HAVE TAUGHT US
THAT NO LOVE IS GREATER THAN THAT
WHICH GIVES ITSELF FOR ANOTHER.
THESE HONORED DEAD GAVE THE MOST PRECIOUS
GIFT THEY HAD, LIFE ITSELF,
FOR LOVED ONES AND NEIGHBORS,
FOR COMRADES AND COUNTRY – AND FOR US.
HELP US TO HONOR THEIR MEMORY BY CARING FOR THE FAMILY MEMBERS THEY HAVE LEFT BEHIND,
BY ENSURING THAT THEIR WOUNDED COMRADES ARE PROPERLY CARED FOR, BY BEING WATCHFUL CARETAKERS OF THE FREEDOMS FOR WHICH THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES, AND BY DEMANDING THAT NO OTHER YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN FOLLOW THEM TO A SOLDIER’S GRAVE UNLESS THE REASON IS WORTHY AND THE CAUSE IS JUST.
HOLY ONE, HELP US TO REMEMBER THAT FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.
THERE ARE TIMES WHEN ITS COST IS, INDEED, DEAR.
NEVER LET US FORGET THOSE WHO PAID SO TERRIBLE A PRICE TO ENSURE THAT FREEDOM WOULD BE OUR LEGACY.
THOUGH THEIR NAMES MAY FADE WITH THE PASSING OF GENERATIONS, MAY WE NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY HAVE DONE.
HELP US TO BE WORTHY OF THEIR SACRIFICE, O GOD, HELP US TO BE WORTHY.
– J. VELTRI, S.J.
Click Here: April 30, 2022 Word on Fire
Second Week of Easter
John 6:16-21
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus demonstrates his authority over nature by walking on the sea. Water is, throughout the Scriptures, a symbol of danger and chaos. At the very beginning of time, when all was a formless waste, the spirit of the Lord hovered over the surface of the waters. This signals God’s lordship over all of the powers of darkness and disorder.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites are escaping from Egypt, and they confront the waters of the Red Sea. Through the prayer of Moses, they are able to walk through the midst of the waves.
Now in the New Testament, this same symbolism can be found. In all four of the Gospels, there is a version of this story of Jesus mastering the waves. The boat, with Peter and the other disciples, is evocative of the Church, the followers of Jesus. It moves through the waters, as the Church will move through time.
All types of storms—chaos, corruption, stupidity, danger, persecution—will inevitably arise. But Jesus comes walking on the sea. This is meant to affirm his divinity: just as the spirit of God hovered over the waters at the beginning, so Jesus hovers over them now.
Click Here: April 29, 2022
Reflection on the Book Page
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Catherine of Siena, who was born in 1347. She was
the 25th child, and her mother was 40 years old when she was born. Siena at the time was
hit by an outbreak of the plague. Catherine did not enter a convent, but instead she joined
the Third Order of St. Dominic, which allowed her to associate with a religious society whilst
living at home. She lived a life of prayer and contemplation, during which she had regular
mystical experiences, culminating in an extraordinary union with God granted to only a few
mystics, known as a 'mystical marriage'.
Our Gospel reading today speaks of Jesus thanking his Father ‘for hiding these things from
the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children’. Catherine had this purity of
heart and child-like innocence where she approached her faith in God in wonderful openness
and receptiveness. Jesus calls us to be child-like, not childish, an entirely different thing. Jesus
thanks his Father for actively participating in keeping the truth from those who think they are
smart. He thanks God for revealing the hidden truth to ‘little children’, people who are open
and willing to learn, just like Saint Catherine of Siena.
Our artwork is a very early book on Saint Catherine of Siena published by Wynkyn de Worde.
He was a printer and publisher in London, and is recognised as the first to popularise the products
of the printing press in England. We see a woodcut illustration of Saint Catherine holding her heart
in her left hand, stigmata in both hands, being infused by the Holy Spirit descending from
God the Father.
Saint Catherine was only 33 when she died. And I leave you with one of her many poignant and
beautiful quotes:
"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."
- Saint Catherine of Siena
Click Here: April 28, 2022
Daily Inspiration from JesuitPrayer.org
April 28, 2022
Jn 3:31-36
The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to
the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above
all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony.
Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. He whom God
has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father
loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has
eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches
of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB
approved.
Don’t Ration Love
God holds nothing back but gives all of his love. In this vein, the Gospel is telling us not to ration anything but to give constant love to others as God gives constant love to us. At the same time, we also live in a society where often the most we can give is still considered not enough. We need boundaries to make sure that we can give to the best of our abilities. Yet God is the one that can continue to give us more without losing anything. He is rather an overflowing cup, that is constantly filling other cups with his love. This is the one great thing about love, that in giving away more and more of it, we find ourselves filled up with love even more. In this Easter season, let us keep our boundaries and ration our energy, but never ration the love we show to our neighbors. —Alex Hale, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic from the Midwest Province studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.
Prayer
O master, grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my soul. For it’s in giving that we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born to eternal life. —Excerpt of the Peace Prayer of St. Francis
Click Here: April 27, 2022 Jesuit Post
I spent my early childhood in Vietnam, and one of the things I remember quite
vividly is the frequent blackouts. Imagine a huge chunk of the metropolis going
dark, succumbing to the night. The darkness seemed to have power over us. It
literally stopped everything in its tracks, from us children playing on the street to
the vendors by the roadside; everyone packed up and went home because without
light, we were powerless against the dark.
Every household had to have a secondary source of light, and during the late 1980s,
the most economical form of backup lighting was the oil lamp; a flickering flame
with its continuous stream of black smoke hiding behind a glass bubble.
As a child, I had a fear of darkness. Imagine what a power blackout could do to a child
who is afraid of the dark. There is always a feeling of something prowling in that dark
abyss, and my first instinct is to get away. Perhaps this is the reason why I remember
so well all those nights spent fixing my eyes on the burning glass lamps, their soft and
dim glow driving away the ever-consuming darkness, closing in from all directions.
This tiny warm bloom was able to keep the seemingly infinite darkness at bay, never
yielding even an inch.
I am enamored by this theme of light in the darkness. A lot of what I like to paint tends to revolve around the contrast of light and dark. Whether it be the moon slicing through the dark cloudy night or the hopeful radiance in a gloomy forest, the light warding off the
darkness always draws my attention.
That same light may not garner much attention on a sunny day, but in the dark or a forest or a nighttime sea or a powerless metropolis, the light shines forth brilliantly. Regardless of how hard the darkness tries, it can never overcome the light. The resilience of the light sends forth sparks of hope within me. No matter how scary the darkness may be, by clinging to the light we can overcome our fear of it. Regardless of how dreary things may appear, there is light somewhere that can guide us through to the end.
We see the same image of the light in the darkness being used at the beginning of the Gospel of John: “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:5). Here we are, trapped in the darkness of our own web of ignorance and despair, yet liberated by the light that is Christ. Regardless of how far we may stray from Him, Christ finds a way to bring us back. Sure, the darkness is still there, but it is not the main attraction of the show; the main protagonist will always be Christ. Christ is the light that shines through the dark, and our focus will always be on that light hope.
It may sound trite to hammer home the theme of hope when so much of the news around the world seems to perpetuate the ever-present veil of despair. For precisely this reason we need to never let go of that light of hope. We have to cling to it like our lives depend on it, because we need hope.
As a child, I fixed my eyes on the burning oil lamp for comfort against the scary darkness, and never once did that light yield to the darkness. Growing up both in age and in faith, I try to keep my gaze on Christ because the light of Christ can cast away all the darkness, “and the darkness has not overcome it.” Our eyes will always orient toward that bright spot in the dark, the hope in the midst of the gloom.
Click Here: April 26, 2022
Of Creighton University's Online Ministries
April 26, 2022
by Barbara Dilly
Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter
Most Christians do not take the passage in Acts 4 for today literally. But we should all take it seriously. St. Paul noted that this early community of Christian believers was of one heart and mind. What did that mean, and must we conduct our lives in Christian community to such an extent that we hold all things in common? This intentional community was powerfully effective in bearing witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus because they made sure there was no needy person among them.
That is certainly one way to do it. But communalism is not considered the only way to meet human needs by most people. There are many debates regarding the best ways to make sure there are no needy persons in our societies in terms of the rules of engagement in economic activity. How do our economic practices bear witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus? These questions can be deeply troubling.
I look often to the intentional communities of the Amish for practices that bear witness to the resurrection. Yet, even the Amish, who will give generously to help each other in times of need, do not own property in common. And while they have rules about what kinds of economic activities they will engage in, they are far more innovative that their non-Amish rural community neighbors in developing profitable economic niches that celebrate individual initiative. And it works well for them. Apart from the excessive costs of cancer treatment expenses, they do not have any problem meeting the needs of their members through their self-insured system of stepping up according to their circumstances in times of need of their members. Their spirit of generosity is motivated by love as much as obedience.
Taking up collections and sharing food in times of need has always been a practice in the communities to which I have belonged. In most rural and urban communities, Lutherans work together with Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, and other churches to help each other in times of disasters and great need. But we share out of possessions that we call our own. It gets more difficult when we must step up for famines in Africa and war in Ukraine, but we all do it. In one week, my congregation collected $10,000 for Ukraine administered through Lutheran Disaster Relief. Even together with all the other Christians who participate, it is a drop in the bucket. Despite our faithful intentions and generosity there are still too many needy persons among us on the planet and even in our own communities.
This great need is weighing us down. And then we read that “the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” There is a lot of heavy lifting that needs to be done to witness to the resurrection. Even if Christians everywhere give everything we have to the poor and stand on the corner preaching day and all night, we cannot do it. We are certainly humbled by our need for Christ to help us. I stand today with Nicodemus. What must I do? Jesus tells us we must be born of the spirit. It is not about what we do with our material things. It is about what happens to unify our hearts and minds when the spirit guides us. How will that unified Christian community of faith give us the power to witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus in our times? I pray today that we will each find renewed purpose in our faith response through our Christian communities.
Click Here: April 25, 2022
Reflection on the Illuminated Miniature
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Mark the evangelist. Our illuminated manuscript miniature was
executed circa 1503 by Jean Bourdichon (1456-1521), one of Europe’s most accomplished miniature
painters. It is taken from the book of hours ‘Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany’, Queen of France to
two kings in succession. In the history of illuminated manuscripts, this is a very late book. The miniature
in fact looks more like a painting than a book illustration. The highly intricate detailing, especially in the
gilding is particularly exquisite.
We see Saint Mark depicted at his desk, writing his Gospel. Mark was a companion of Saint Peter and
is said to have survived being thrown to the lions, which is why he is shown with a lion. He is often also
shown with a winged lion, as another legend has it that Mark, while taking refuge from a storm in the
city of Venice, was visited in a dream by an angel in the form of a winged lion.
In addition to writing his Gospel, Saint Mark is credited with founding the Church of Alexandria in
Egypt, one of the original Apostolic Sees of Christianity (along with Rome, Antioch, Constantinople,
and Jerusalem). I always find it fascinating that already at the time, people such as Mark evangelised
the word of Christ by traveling such great distances. The Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four
Gospels (Matthew and Luke based a lot of their writings on Mark; these three Gospels of Mark, Luke
and Matthew are also called the ‘Synoptic Gospels’).
Mark doesn’t include a Christmas story. What is striking in the Gospel of Mark is that Jesus is portrayed
as a man of action who hits the ground running, with no time to waste. The start of today’s Gospel
reading ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation’ reflects this sense of
urgency… An urgency we are all called to act upon.
Click Here: April 24, 2022
Divine Mercy Sunday: The Greatness of God’s Mercy | One-Minute Homily
by Matthew Zurcher, SJ | Apr 24, 2022 | One-Minute Homily, Videos
In the story of “doubting Thomas,” Jesus shows compassion and mercy on him by showing Thomas his wounds. Matthew Zurcher, SJ, reflects on the vastness of God’s mercy on Divine Mercy Sunday. Based on the readings for Sunday, April 24, 2022.
Christ is risen and nothing, and I mean nothing, is bigger than the ocean of his mercy.
My name is Matthew Zurcher, and this is my One-Minute Reflection.
Today the Church celebrates Divine Mercy Sunday, hearing once again the familiar story of Thomas, who had to touch and see before he believed. If, like Thomas or like me, you struggle to comprehend the resurrection, it’s because it’s like trying to fit the sky in a jar.
Jesus understood this. He has mercy on us in our doubts, in our fragile need to see for ourselves. When he returned to that locked room, it wasn’t for the ten who had already seen him, it was for Thomas––the one who had not. Jesus always pursues his lost sheep. As he said to St. Faustina, the great apostle of today’s feast, “the greater the sinner, the greater the right they have to my mercy.”
Today, picture God’s ocean of mercy, imagine yourself dropped in as a little rock of salt, and dissolve in those faithful words: “My Lord and my God, I trust in you.”
Click Here: April 23, 2022
Saturday within the Octave of Easter
Mark 16:9-15
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the risen Lord commissions the eleven Apostles to proclaim the Good News to everyone. And this commission to evangelize the people of the world extends to all baptized Christians.
To evangelize is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. When this kerygma, this Paschal Mystery, is not at the heart of the project, Christian evangelization effectively disappears, devolving into a summons to bland religiosity or generic spirituality. When Jesus crucified and risen is not proclaimed, a beige and unthreatening Catholicism emerges, a thought system that is, at best, an echo of the environing culture.
Peter Maurin, one of the founders of the Catholic Worker movement, said that the Church has taken its own dynamite and placed it in hermetically sealed containers and sat on the lid. In a similar vein, Stanley Hauerwas commented that the problem with Christianity is not that it is socially conservative or politically liberal, but that “it is just too damned dull”!
For both Maurin and Hauerwas, what leads to this attenuation is a refusal to preach the dangerous and unnerving news concerning Jesus risen from the dead.
Click Here: April 22, 2022
Friday within the Octave of Easter
John 21:1-14
Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the appearance of the risen Jesus to seven disciples by the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Peter and six other Apostles were in a boat on the sea. Seeing Peter and the disciples in a boat, we are meant to think of the Church, and the peculiar number of seven—evocative of completion or fulfillment—is meant to make us consider the eschatological Church, the community of Jesus approaching the end of its journey.
On the shore (though they don’t recognize him at first) is the Lord Jesus. At his command, they lower their nets and bring in an extraordinary catch. Well, this is the work of the Church until the end of the age: to gather in souls and to bring them to Christ.
When they empty their nets they discover 153 large fish. Many theories as to the meaning of this figure have been proposed. My favorite is the one put forward by St. Augustine. According to the science of that time, Augustine argued, there were 153 species of fish in the sea, and therefore, this extraordinary number is meant to signal the universality of the Church’s salvific mission.
Click Here: April 21, 2022 Word on Fire
Luke 24:35–48
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus appeared alive again to his followers. Upon seeing him, “they were startled and terrified.” They are terrified because the one they abandoned and betrayed and left for dead is back—undoubtedly for revenge!
Luke’s risen Jesus does two things in the presence of his shocked followers. The first thing is that he shows them his wounds. This move is a reiteration of the judgment of the cross: don’t forget, he tells them, what the world did when the Author of life appeared.
But he does something else; he says, “Shalom”—“Peace be with you.” In this, he opens up a new spiritual world and thereby becomes our Savior. From ancient creation myths to the Rambo and Dirty Harry movies, the principle is the same: order, destroyed through violence, is restored through a righteous exercise of greater violence.
And then there is Jesus. The terrible disorder of the cross (the killing of the Son of God) is addressed not through an explosion of divine vengeance but through a radiation of divine love. When Christ confronts those who contributed to his death, he speaks words not of retribution but of reconciliation and compassion.
Click Here: April 20, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Old Master Drawing
Today’s drawing by Giovanni Antonio Guardi captures beautifully the mystical nature of the
breaking of bread . Using brown ink, pen, pencil and watercolour, Guardi almost makes light
flicker over the surface, giving the sheet of paper a luminous quality. This is a study for an
altarpiece painting that Guardi was commissioned in Venice, where, in the mid 18th century,
there was an insatiable demand for religious subject paintings. We see Jesus, surrounded by
a burst of light, being recognised by the two disciples. As in our gospel reading today ‘their
eyes were opened and they recognised him’.
On this Easter Wednesday we are told of the two disciples walking away from Jerusalem.
They walked away from the grief and disappointment that Jerusalem had brought to them.
They were grief-stricken. The city had killed their friend, Jesus, and had killed their hopes with
it. It is exactly in that moment of disappointment and disillusionment that Jesus walked with
them. He journeyed with these two disciples to make them see that Jerusalem was not a place
where only his crucifixion and death took place... but also where he rose from the dead.
In our own lives, we often want to walk away from places and situations that have brought us
disappointment and hardship. We feel that we want to close such chapters in our lives. Fair
enough. But are these places or situations of disappointment not exactly the very places where
the seeds of hope and fresh life are found? Jesus journeys with us in our moments of difficulty…
and makes us see that a past situation which we experience as negative may actually be the
very seed of new life.
by Patrick van der Vorst
Click Here: April 19, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the painting
Jesus tells Mary Magdalene in today’s reading: ‘Don’t cling on to me’, or in Latin ‘Noli me tangere’,
the title of our painting by Abraham Janssens and Jan Wildens. So ‘Noli me tangere’ means much
more than ‘don’t touch me’. I means don’t hang on to me or don’t cling to me as in our Gospel
translation. ‘Cling’ is actually a good word to use, as it implies that we would cling to something in
its physical form. So Jesus tells Mary not to hang on to him in his physical form… as soon he will
ascend into heaven.
This is the single most important event in Mary Magdalene’s life. She is depicted in our painting in
a graceful pose, gently reaching out to Jesus, but yet in a reserved manner. Kneeling, she is in awe
after having recognised the gardener as Jesus. He is depicted in a blood red open cloak revealing
his side wound. He is holding a spade (as is usual in paintings depicting this topic), the only sign of
his humanity. The tip of the spade is touching the earth.
Christ works the garden in which our spiritual lives grow and blossom. Look at all the fruit behind
him! We too can generate such abundant fruits if we let Jesus be the gardener to our souls.
Click Here: April 18, 2022 Jesuit Prayer.org
Mt 28:8-15
So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’
If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Transformed by Something Marvelous
Having borne the unbearable together over several traumatic days, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary return to the tomb of Jesus crucified. Whatever drew these devoted women there that morning – love, sorrow, fidelity, emptiness, curiosity, a steadfast spirit of accompaniment – these unwavering disciples experienced an earth-shaking, dramatic inversion of reality as they had previously known it. Something entirely new is dawning. By steering in the direction of loss and emptiness, emptiness itself (theirs and the tomb’s) becomes an inexplicable encounter with faint hopes dramatically fulfilled. Fearful, yet overjoyed, they run and tell Jesus’s disciples that something marvelous is about to happen. They run until something even more marvelous happens directly to them. Jesus meets them along their way, and they embrace.
When has Jesus embraced my emptiness and transformed it to something new and joy-filled?
With whom am I called to share the hope and promise of this exceptionally Good News?
—Patricia Feder serves as the administrator of the Office of Ignatian Spirituality for the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province.
Prayer
Therefore, my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, my body, too, abides in confidence; Because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world, nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption. You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.”
—Psalm 16:9-11
Click Here: April 17, 2022
A Feast of Hope
In a homily offered on Easter Sunday 2019, Father Richard Rohr shared the good news of the resurrection:
The Brazilian writer and journalist Fernando Sabino (1923–2004) wrote, “In the end, everything will be [all right]. If it’s not [all right], it’s not the end.” [1] That’s what today is all about, “Everything will be okay in the end.”
The message of Easter is not primarily a message about Jesus’ body, although we’ve been trained to limit it to this one-time “miracle.” We’ve been educated to expect a lone, risen Jesus saying, “I rose from the dead; look at me!” I’m afraid that’s why many people, even Christians, don’t really seem to get too excited about Easter. If the message doesn’t somehow include us, humans don’t tend to be that interested in theology. Let me share what I think the real message is: Every message about Jesus is a message about all of us, about humanity. Sadly, the Western church that most of us were raised in emphasized the individual resurrection of Jesus. It was a miracle that we could neither prove nor experience, but that we just dared to boldly believe.
But there’s a great secret, at least for Western Christians, hidden in the other half of the universal church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church—in places like Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt—Easter is not usually painted with a solitary Jesus rising from the dead. He’s always surrounded by crowds of people—both haloed and unhaloed. In fact, in traditional icons, he’s pulling people out of Hades. Hades is not the same as hell, although we put the two words together, and so we grew up reciting in the creed that “Jesus descended into hell.”
Instead, Hades is simply the place of the dead. There’s no punishment or judgment involved. It’s just where a soul waits for God. But we neglected that interpretation. So the Eastern Church was probably much closer to the truth that the resurrection is a message about humanity. It’s a message about history. It’s a corporate message, and it includes you and me and everyone else. If that isn’t true, it’s no wonder that we basically lost interest.
Today is the feast of hope, direction, purpose, meaning, and community. We’re all in this together. The cynicism and negativity that our country and many other countries have descended into show a clear example of what happens when people do not have hope. If it’s all hopeless, we individually lose hope too. Easter is an announcement of a common hope. When we sing in the Easter hymn that Christ destroyed death, that means the death of all of us. It’s not just about Jesus; it’s to humanity that God promises, “Life is not ended, it merely changes,” as we say in the funeral liturgy. That’s what happened in Jesus, and that’s what will happen in us. In the end, everything will be all right. History is set on an inherently positive and hopeful tangent.
Click Here: April 16, 2022
Holy Saturday:
Wounded by Beauty’s Absence
By Cecilia González-Andrieu, Ph.D.
War rages. Christ dies. The earth trembles under the pounding of bombs. The sky darkens as his body is taken down from the Cross. Children, grandparents, and soldiers, perish under the weight of our rejection of God’s vision for who we can be. Christ waits in the tomb and the rock shelters him. God’s gift of God’s self is spurned and destroyed, and yet in spite of this God still loves. The women will come to the tomb to anoint Christ’s body. A nurse will gently bind a wound. The women will not find him in the tomb, because Christ lives and a teacher will teach in a refugee camp. Because Christ lives, strangers will bring food and offer shelter. Because Christ lives, the wounds of the world will move us to act. Because Christ lives, we will live as light bearers, as peace makers, as the ones who know God’s heart. Christ lives because God is love and the tomb is the very moment and place where that wounded love explodes into all reality, sending small shards of its light into each of us.
We will awaken—not just to the dawn, but to the hope that the starkness of the tomb urges us to create. We have been wounded by beauty’s absence, and standing at the door of the empty tomb recommit ourselves to reimagine, reclaim, rebuild, and rejoice, because… Christ lives.
For Reflection:
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Is there a tomb keeping me from stepping out to live the fullness of God’s vision for me?
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In what way, however small, can I be a source of light and hope to those in my midst?
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Can I make it a practice to listen intently to my heart each day to hear God’s gentle voice guiding me?
Share your thoughts
[Image: Christ, Bianca Badillo, for Meeting Christ in Faith & Art, LMU 2022]
Click Here: April 15, 2022
Good Friday:
Our Denial of Suffering
By Ellie Hidalgo
“I am not.”
I twinge each time during the Good Friday service when Peter denies being Jesus’ disciple with the words, “I am not.” Peter and Jesus have been through so much together, and yet on Good Friday Peter denies having been a close disciple. Three times Peter betrays his friend, his own integrity, and his own belief that a better world is possible.
I twinge because who could fault Peter for wanting to protect himself during a violent, vulnerable moment, when the cause he has pledged himself to appears to be unraveling completely. I twinge because I’ve been there, and I know you’ve been there. We’ve all denied Jesus hundreds of times in order to avoid suffering as a Christian.
Good Friday is raw. This day invites us to look at the suffering we deny, the suffering we can’t bear to see and feel in a world fraught with sin, death, violence, war, hate, injustice, division, poverty, and illness.
The desire to escape suffering is all too human, all too understandable. It seems impossibly difficult sometimes that God would ask us to risk our own comfort, our own security, or perhaps even our own lives to accompany others in their pain. Do you ever become frustrated with God by the amount of suffering that pleads for accompaniment in our world today? Do you ever become frustrated with yourself for resembling Peter’s pattern of denial? I know I do.
It is impossibly hard to deal with so much pain by ourselves, which is why I am grateful that our Ignatian spiritual tradition encourages us to pray for the graces we need. On Good Friday we can pray for the grace to remain at the foot of the Cross and be present with someone who suffers. We can pray for the grace of faith in the Paschal Mystery even before it unfolds.
For Reflection:
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In what ways do you resemble Peter’s denial of suffering?
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What graces do you need to pray for to accompany someone in your life who is suffering?
Click Here: April 14, 2022
Holy Thursday of The Lord’s Supper
Jn 13: 1-15
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him.
And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Love in the Midst of Despair
Tonight we are presented with three options. We can turn on Jesus and our Christian family when it no longer fits our needs like Judas did. If we’re all honest, we’ve probably done this in some form at some time.
The more common route is to turn to Peter. We say everything with the best of intentions. We are bold in words but we run away out of fear as soon as we lose hope.
Finally, we could choose the way of John, who just gently lays his head on the chest of Jesus at the Last Supper. I imagine John heard that sacred heartbeat and feeling the love coming off of it gave him the ability to endure the pain and stand with Mary at the foot of the cross. It is through being loved that we are able to love in the midst of despair without counting the cost.
—Alex Hale, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic from the Midwest Province studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.
Prayer
Take my hand, I’ll lead you to salvation. Take my love, for love is everlasting. And remember the truth that once was spoken, ‘to love another person is to see the face of God.’
—From “Epilogue” from Les Miserables
Click Here: April 13, 2022
Click Here: April 12, 2022
Tuesday of Holy Week:
Fickleness and Frustration into Friendship with God
By Alyssa Perez
This is maybe one of the first passages where Jesus is being sarcastic (at least in my mind), and it caught me off guard. Simon Peter tells Jesus, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times." Jesus is saying: truly, will you? Because you are saying one thing and are about to do another. This got me thinking.
When was the last time we were guilty of this? When is the last time that we may have said one thing, but done another? It is tempting, sometimes, to quickly judge Simon Peter for his denial of Jesus, yet sometimes the peer pressure and temptation is so strong that we all find our ways into the wrong situation or decision at times.
This reading feels very timely for our Lenten journey as we move closer and closer towards Easter during this Holy Week. How many times have we been fickle in our commitment, or made exceptions out of convenience to our Lenten observance? I am for sure guilty of it, and Simon Peter's story is a good example for us to reflect on. It is easy to see other people's flaws and shortcomings, such as any of us reading today’s gospel about Judas or Simon Peter in 2022. We may think to ourselves: How could Simon and Judas do that to Jesus? I would never.
And yet, how can we instead turn our prayer inward to refocus our energy and frustration into looking at our own lives? May those without sin throw the first stone. In choosing to admit our own fickleness and denials of Jesus, we are reminded that we are all sinners, no one person better than another. It humanizes each of us, so even when we don't agree with other people—politicians, leaders, colleagues, or friends—and they seem dissonant in their action, we are able to understand and show compassion. We all have something to work on in terms of living out our values, and today's readings invite us into reflection about our own commitments and beliefs. Do we act in accordance with our beliefs and values every day, or do we have some things to work on moving forward into these last few days of Lent?
It's a little scary to look inward and face ourselves, but we find peace and comfort in the loving kindness that God surrounds us with each day. No matter our situation, God is always there to catch us or put an arm around us to wrap in a warm embrace. God is calling each of us into friendship with Her. Our journey during Holy Week is the perfect time to answer that call.
Click Here: April 11, 2022
Monday of Holy Week
John 12:1-11
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus’ feet with perfumed oil, preparing him for burial.
This gesture—wasting something as expensive as an entire jar of perfume—is sniffed at by Judas, who complains that, at the very least, the nard could have been sold and the money given to the poor.
Why does John use this tale to preface his telling of the Passion? Why does he allow the odor of this woman’s perfume to waft, as it were, over the whole of the story? It is because, I believe, this extravagant gesture shows forth the meaning of what Jesus is about to do: the absolutely radical giving away of self.
There is nothing calculating, careful, or conservative about the woman’s action. Flowing from the deepest place in the heart, religion resists the strictures set for it by a fussily moralizing reason (on full display in those who complain about the woman’s extravagance). At the climax of his life, Jesus will give himself away totally, lavishly, unreasonably—and this is why Mary’s beautiful gesture is a sort of overture to the opera that will follow.
Click Here: April 10, 2022
Palm Sunday
Isaiah 50:4-7
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to
sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my
ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and
I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward.
I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled
out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Being Present to Suffering
How quickly the mood changes on Palm Sunday. Suddenly we go from the jubilation of Jesus being greeted with palms as he enters Jerusalem, to the brutality of the suffering servant passage of the first reading. This solemn theme continues with the reading of the Passion.
How am I being called to be present to my own suffering and the suffering of others this Holy Week? As we look upon Jesus hanging on the cross as St. Ignatius suggests in the third week of the Spiritual Exercises, can we begin to appreciate Jesus’ tremendous love for us? I believe he would have died for me even if I was the only one needing redemption.
—Fr. Paul Macke, SJ, is the Jesuit Mission Coordinator at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Milford, Ohio. He co-leads a Spiritual Direction Training Program for the Cincinnati Region.
Prayer
O Christ Jesus
May your death be my life,
Your labor my repose,
Your human weakness my strength,
Your confusion my glory.
—Saint Peter Faber, SJ
Click Here: April 9, 2022
Ez 37: 21-28
Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.
They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes.
They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever; and my servant David shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore.
My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
God’s Dream For the World
Have you ever felt sorry for God? Through Ezekiel, we sense God’s unrealized dreams and hopes and feel God’s deep yearning and desire to enter into a relationship with us. Like a couple on their wedding day, like a child imagining the perfect summer vacation, like one answering a call to religious life, initially, none can imagine anything ruining the dream. Today, God shares God’s dream for us: a life - a world - filled with unity and peace. So, what happened?
Each generation is invited to live this dream. As we enter Holy Week, may we start by asking:
Where is there division in my life?
What idols do I place before my relationship with God and others?
Who needs my forgiveness and from whom do I need to ask forgiveness?
Let us ask Jesus for the grace to create this everlasting covenant with God and with one another.
—Sue Robb is the Pastoral Associate for Justice & Life at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Kansas City, Missouri.
Prayer
May Your will be my will, O God.
May Your obedience be my obedience, dear Jesus.
May Your breath be my breath, Holy Spirit.
May your “Yes” be my yes, Mother Mary.
May your witness be my witness, Saints of Heaven.
And may Love and Peace reign forever in our hearts and in our world.
Amen.
—Sue Robb
Click Here: April 8, 2022
A Reflection for the Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent By Jim Keane
“If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power” (Jn 10:37-39).
Among the many wise things St. Ignatius Loyola wrote is a simple line from his famous “Contemplation on Divine Love” from the Spiritual Exercises: “Love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words.” Given as a presupposition for a retreatant who has normally spent several weeks contemplating the working of God in human history and in the retreatant’s own life, it is a succinct summary of how St. Ignatius thinks we should respond to God’s gifts in our lives: not with pious talk or lofty promises but with concrete acts of devotion and love.
But the phrase is not only for those who can disappear from everyday life for a month; nor is it only about how we respond to God’s gifts. As Jesus notes in today’s Gospel, we can also recognize what is truly from God by the same principle: “Even if you do not believe me, believe the works.” Jesus tells those seeking to arrest him that they need not accept his words, but they can’t deny the works and deeds: the miracles, the conversions, the growing crowd of disciples following him.
Note that the baptismal promises we will recite at the Easter Vigil reflect an understanding of this reality. When we say that we reject Satan, we also say that we reject “all his empty promises.” Satan offers words but not deeds—the easy way out, the false consolation, the Hallmark card, the thoughts and prayers with you at this time. Jesus offers the narrow gate, the hard saying, the camel through the eye of the needle—but he also assures us that his way won’t be all words; there will be deeds. It will not just be us offering our love to God but God offering love to us in deeds. Forgiveness. Fidelity. Resurrection.
That last is of course the greatest gift, and the whole reason for Lent: to prepare ourselves for the great gift of the Resurrection. But elsewhere in our lives, can we look at the good things we receive, the gifts other people bring (or the gifts other people are), and see those, too, as God’s deeds? It can be a hard thing to trust in a world gone mad—God does not submit to the empirical method, after all—but Jesus asks us not to believe what we’re told, necessarily, as much as to believe because of what has been done.
Click Here: April 7, 2022 Ignatian Solidarity
Day 37: A Problem too Big, A God too Small?
By Br. Mark Mackey, S.J.
My image of God is too small.
Or, I could say, my image of God is never big enough. This can have frustrating consequences.
Between teaching environmental science classes at Loyola Chicago, working with our Jesuit Green Team, collaborating on various Church environmental efforts, and trying to keep up with the latest writing and research regarding the state of our planet, I spend a lot of my time thinking about what we call our current ecological crisis. On a daily basis I can get pulled back to a familiar feeling of frustration and existential dread that first began to form almost 18 years ago as I started my higher education in environmental science.
Sometimes I catch myself in prayer thinking “How can you ask for trust and peace—do you know the state of the planet? Have you seen the latest science in the IPCC report? Do you know the state of biodiversity loss in the world?” Like those in today’s Gospel, I can find myself addressing Jesus simply as some man in first century Palestine. Unlike the prostrating Abraham in the first reading or a person in the first two steps of AA, I can lack the humility it takes to see God as God is.
On occasion and with grace, I remember to let my certainties and questions go. I find myself fixed by the loving gaze of Christ. My endless questions and uncertainties drop away, and I find Jesus, the one who was before anything was. Whoa.
In humility I realize it was God who inspired my desire for environmental justice in the first place. In humility I remember God is the source of Creation and Being itself.
Can I trust God’s promises and covenant? Can I have hope in He who was, is, and will be?
Click Here: April 6, 2022
A Reflection for the Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
By Joe Hoover, S.J.
“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:31).
The ancient Greek term aletheia, which appears at least 25 times in the Gospel of John, is central to the evangelist’s understanding of the messiah. It is best translated as “truth.” The Scripture scholar Bruce Vawter, C.M., writes that aletheia “represents, as indeed it did in the Old Testament, divine revelation (8:32), and therefore it is identified with Jesus himself.”
In today’s reading, Jesus is telling the Jews that if only they possessed aletheia, if only they knew the divine as revealed in him, they would be truly free. Christ goes on to explain that the Jews’ lack of freedom is not a political or physical bondage but slavery to sin.
And freedom, true freedom from sin, says Christ, is now at hand.
The concept of truth as freedom is a universal one that appears across many religions and philosophies. In Plato’s “allegory of the cave,” prisoners chained to a wall of a cave are constrained to see only shadows of real life, not reality itself. If these captives only knew that what they were seeing was not real, that they were in essence living a lie, they would break out of the cave. The truth would set them free.
The translation of Greek terms; the marshaling of theologians; the extending out to other philosophical traditions: This is all a very appropriate and important way to study our way into understanding Jesus and his exhortations.
But another kind of theology, another way to study the depth of this Scripture passage, is to just say, or even simply listen to the words: The truth shall set you free. Six words, six syllables that over the centuries have worked their way into our lives and culture. Not just because of what they mean—becoming fundamentally liberated by Christ—but because of the way the words fit together. Because the interlocking of consonants and syllables, four iambs, four thrumming phrases, the truth–will set–you free. The rhythm and chant and music is itself a theology, an effortless path to the divine. “The truth will set you free.” It just feels good to say.
We are all in bondage. No one is not. Or we have been. We are sinking under a ridiculous mortgage we can’t pay for, drowning in a toxic relationship we never imagined we would be in, chained by constant violent unheard mutterings to our sworn enemy on the shop floor. We are enslaved to a miserable idea of who we are.
And when we hear or say such words, “the truth shall set you free,” they create a desire to experience what they mean. To wrest ourselves from the abusive marriage, to pierce the numbing lie of an addiction, to accept the cold fact we are loved exactly as we are by our 9-year-old or a best friend. When we experience such freedom, the breath drops deeper, the voice is released, tension leaves the shoulders; we are able to sit before a crucifix and just dwell there, with a deeper knowing of Christ’s suffering and unmatchable gratitude for his redemption.
Click Here: April 5, 2022
What Is Jesus Trying to Set Free?
Enslaved
Until I was 16, it consumed my days, my evenings, my weekends. It made me feel good about myself, connected me with others, and caused me a great deal of enjoyment. This activity was a fundamental part of me and defined so much of my (and my family’s) life.
When I got sick during my junior year of high school, I realized I had become a slave to dancing. Any enjoyment had become overshadowed by the all-consuming commitment and the shame at never being good enough. Something life-giving had become a source of pain. Instead of drawing me closer to my true self, dance began to pull me deeper into despair.
This is how the false spirit often works. We are lured into complacency, and these gifts that God has given us become the very center of our lives. Today’s readings remind us that we are enslaved by our own sinfulness. We become inordinately attached to things that have the potential for good: activities, social media, gossip, and perhaps even a beloved ministry. The good becomes the goal, and there is no room for God.
As we draw nearer to Holy Week, what might Jesus be trying to set free within me?
—Jen Coito co-founded Christus Ministries, a young adult ministry endorsed by Jesuits West, and serves on the young family outreach team.
Prayer
The goal of our life is to live with God forever. God, who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God’s life to flow into us without limit.
All the things in this world are gifts of God, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily. As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God insofar as they help us develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives, they displace God and so hinder our growth toward our goal. In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice and are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God.
Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening his life in me.
How are you inviting me to a deepened life in You, God?
—First Principle and Foundation, translated by David Fleming, SJ
Click Here: April 3, 2022
What would it feel like to wake up every morning not worrying about past hurts or past events we couldn't possibly change? What would it be like to stop condemning ourselves every day for the sins that keep replaying in our minds, even though we have confessed our sins to God and we have been forgiven? Wouldn't it be nice to begin each day with hope, renewed trust in God's love, and the faith to know God is doing something new for us every day? So, why do we hold on to past hurts, failures, misspoken words, and the little things that prevent us from taking steps forward towards our own resurrection into life with Christ?
While we condemn ourselves, or expect others to judge and condemn us, we sometimes forget to ask Jesus what he thinks about what we have said, done, or didn’t do when we weren’t our better selves. If we, in a moment of human failing, after we have hurt or disappointed another, stood before Jesus Christ and said, "Lord, I have sinned, and I am afraid everyone would judge me, unfriend me on social media accounts, ignore me, or even push me away. I am afraid no one would like me anymore. I am afraid I will be alone.” Jesus might say, “No human being is completely innocent; everyone has sinned, and still I love you and stand with you. May that love be a healing balm for your brokenness; may that love be a stop sign for the next time sin knocks at your door.”
It is easy for anyone to say, “Forget the past, just look ahead,” or “don’t worry, time heals all wounds.” We have all heard these words of encouragement from friends, family, mentors, and colleagues. However, it is difficult to forget. It is difficult to not stir up anxieties about past failings or hurts. It is difficult to strain forward while the wind of regret and fear is right in our faces forcing us to frequently take steps backwards or stand still in terror. It is difficult to move towards the upward calling of loving ourselves and others.
When Jesus responded to the scribes and the Pharisees who brought him the woman who had been caught in adultery, he never proclaimed the woman’s innocence, nor did he pass judgment. Jesus called their attention to her humanity and theirs. Jesus chose mercy over judgment. Jesus bent down and away from the height of judgment, standardized punishment, chastisement, and condemnation. Jesus leaned into her humanity, her imperfection, and the impermanence of the path she had taken as he wrote on an impermanent ground that holds no one's secrets for long. We could maybe lean into the humanity of those who have hurt us or disappointed us. We could maybe lean into our own humanity and realize we are forgivable and loveable. We could maybe trust in the Lord God, who doesn't condemn us, who puts water in the desert of our soul, who does great things for us and lifts us up.
Lord, please lift us up from sin and help us lean forward into a new life with you. Amen
Click Here: April 2, 2022
Openness To New Ideas
In the verses preceding this passage, Jesus invites all who are thirsty to come to him and drink of the living water thus causing the clamor we read about today. Some believed Jesus without question and celebrated the invitation. Some reverted to the “law” to invalidate Jesus’ divinity. The powerful refused to see Jesus for who he was and the gift he was offering. They rejected views that did not align with theirs. Sound familiar?
How many times do I refuse to listen to another’s perspective because I am convinced of what (I think) I know?
What happens when, like Nicodemus, I try to see things another way and then am challenged for speaking my truth?
How many times have I just gone home and accomplished nothing?
Today, may I be mindful of how well (or how poorly) I embrace other ideas. How is Jesus inviting me to change?
—Sue Robb is the Pastoral Associate for Justice & Life at St. Francis Xavier Parish in Kansas City, Missouri.
Prayer
Jesus, educate me – not in the law – but in your invitation to come and drink of your living water. Show me those times when I dig in and refuse to listen openly to other perspectives. Be with our elected leaders and our world leaders. Open their hearts and guide them to work for peace in our world and justice for the least among us. Amen.
—Sue Robb
Click Here: April 1, 2022
Speaking with an Unbridled Tongue
And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! John 7:26
Speaking openly, the evidence that Jesus even under the threat of death could only testify to the truth. He did not allow his mouth to be bridled to the testimony of truth. Jesus spoke openly and honestly to the people, in their ordinary circumstances. His words healed them, saved them.
How often do we get caught in the snares of obscuring the truth? Our talk and actions are at times not reflective of honest communication. We are called to proclaim in Christ Jesus. How often, for the sake of comfort, do we shy away from speaking about the Catholic Social Teachings that are foundational to our moral theology?
This Lent the fruit of this Scripture is to preach with an unbridled tongue to proclaim the Word of God, so that the promise of salvation, that God is Love, can be heard.
—Dr. Valerie D. Lewis-Mosley is a Pastoral Theologian–Spiritual Director and adjunct Professor of Theology. She embraces the Ignatian Examen and the Dominican charism of preaching to lead others to healing from the trauma of racism and injustice.
Prayer
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and grace, that is enough for me.
—St. Ignatius of Loyola
Click Here: March 31, 2022 Ignatian solidarity
Day 30: Signs and Reminders
By John Dougherty
Sometimes I wonder if we deserve to be saved.
It’s hard to argue in our favor. Human history is written in blood. We kill each other, exploit each other, enslave and torture and destroy. We have the ability to eradicate our entire species with the push of a button, but not the wisdom to ensure it never happens. We’re even killing the planet, one of God’s greatest gifts, in pursuit of temporary idols. In my darkest moments, I’m tempted to believe that we’ll never learn, never change. The psalm feels like an epitaph for our species: “They forgot the God who had saved them.”
Today’s readings are full of God’s frustration with us, a holy frustration to end all others. In the first reading, it almost boils over: God plans to destroy the Israelites for turning to a golden idol. But Moses reminds God, and us, of God’s abiding love and faithfulness.
Similarly, I look for reminders of hope. I find them in my students, organizing socially-distant service opportunities, supporting one another on retreat, or engaging our community in hard, necessary conversations about race. I find it in the work of a Jesuit friend accompanying those seeking asylum at Kino Border Initiative. I see it in my own small children, their innate kindness and wonder at the world. And of course I see it in the Ignatian Solidarity Network, in this family that dares to imagine a world committed to love and justice.
Maybe we don’t deserve to be saved. Fortunately, grace isn’t about deserving. God doesn’t give up on us, even after all we’ve done to deserve it. And if God won’t give up, then I won’t either. This Lent, let’s continue to look for signs of hope, and to be them for others.
For Reflection:
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Take a few moments to be attentive to the signs and reminders of hope in your own life and work for justice.
Click Here: March 30, 2022
A Reflection for the Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
By Gloria Purvis
“But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you” (Is 49:14-15).
During Lent, we make plans for deeper conversion. Some of us refrain from eating certain foods, maybe a dish we like, or we avoid social media. Whatever the case, we are trying to discipline ourselves in some way. Sometimes, we don’t stick with what we planned. Sometimes, we completely abandon the good work we started.
We may fall into negative self-talk and convince ourselves it is futile to begin yet again. We may even wonder where God is when we fail. What does God think of us during these moments? Does God help us or has God forgotten us?
Today’s reading from Isaiah reminds us of the faithfulness of God. It reminds us that God never forgets us and that God is ever-present to us. God is with us even when we fail to continue the good work we started.
Like little children learning to walk, we might fall frequently, but we should remember God is there like a patient nurturing mother. God sees us stumble and urges us to get up and keep going. Like a mother urging and encouraging an unsteady toddler to keep walking, God gives support to our efforts.
Can we try again to pick up our Lenten practices? Can we be more resolved to continue what we have started or restarted? Let us drown out the negative self-talk with the reminders of the Prophet Isaiah that the Lord will cut a road through mountains and make highways level so we can get to him. The Lord comforts his people and shows mercy to the afflicted. We may be weak, but with the support of the Lord, we can and should continue or restart our Lenten practices.
Get to know Gloria Purvis, host of the Gloria Purvis podcast
What are you giving up for Lent?
I am fasting on the appointed days and I am also focusing on praying the Liturgy of the Hours. So I suppose I am taking on a positive action of more prayer.
Do you cheat on Sundays?
No. I suppose there is no cheating when taking on good work.
Favorite non-meat recipe
Ingredients:
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A can of big white beans
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Olive oil
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One onion
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A few cloves of garlic
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Salt
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Pepper
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Cooked Rice or cooked spaghetti or toast
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Shredded cheese, optional
Cut up the onion and garlic. Sauté that in olive oil until the onion is soft. Then add the beans, heat it through, and drizzle with really good olive oil. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper or some cheese. Serve it with rice or toast or spaghetti and you’re done.
Favorite Easter hymn
Bach’s “O Sacred Head, Surrounded.”
Click Here: March 29, 2022
Trust That Consolation Will Return
Ezekiel had an awful vision. He saw the glory of the Lord, the most precious treasure of Israel,
get up and depart from the Temple in Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem and the exile
of the people to Babylon was complete.
Yet, God is faithful and does not abandon God’s people. Ezekiel has a new vision. The glory of
God returns to the Temple, bringing life-giving waters to the barren land. Life, health, food and
prosperity come after the time of desolation.
There is an Ignatian lesson here for us. When we are in desolation, it is important to convince
ourselves that consolation will soon come (St. Ignatius’s Eighth Rule for the Discernment of Spirits).
Doing this will help us pass through the desolation with patience.
Can you trust that consolation will come to those barren parts of your life?
—David Kiblinger, SJ, is a deacon of the USA Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus studying theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. He will be ordained a priest this June.
Prayer
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
—Psalm 42:11
Click Here: March 28, 2022 Jesuit prayer
God Our Loving Father
The next two Lenten Sundays focus on God’s hard to believe mercy for us. Today Luke’s Prodigal Son is a passage better called the Loving Father. I still remember the profound experience of viewing Rembrandt’s famous painting of this Gospel scene in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Imagine yourself in the depths of despair over your failings and sin, being embraced by the Loving Father. This counters my dominant childhood image of God as primarily a judge of my faults.
This Lent, how is the Good News of God’s Word challenging us to re-imagine our image of God as a Loving Father?
—Paul Macke, SJ, is the Jesuit Mission Coordinator at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Milford, Ohio. He co-leads a Spiritual Direction Training Program for the Cincinnati Region.
Prayer
“Jesus, I believe; Help my unbelief.”
—Mark 9: 24b
Click Here: March 27, 2022 The Forgiving Father - Praying with Art - Geoff Wheaton SJ
27th March 2022
‘Rejoice! This child of mine was lost, and is found!’
On this Laetare (‘Rejoice!’) Sunday midway through Lent, we are encouraged to celebrate with
hope and joy before we enter the darker times of Holy Week. Today we particularly rejoice in the
reconciliation and forgiveness of sins bought for us by Jesus’s suffering and death.
In the First Reading, the Israelites celebrate their first Passover in the Promised Land. No longer
reliant on the manna with which God had sustained them during their years in the desert, they
rejoice that God has brought them to a place where the bounty of the earth feeds them.
The Psalm is one of praise, rejoicing in God’s goodness. It glorifies the Lord, who hears and answers
our prayers when we are afraid or in distress.
St Paul speaks of the ‘new creation’ made possible by Christ’s suffering and death. Through this
sacrifice, God has reconciled humanity to God’s self, and our faults are forgiven. Because of this, we
ourselves are then called to share the good news of forgiveness with others. (Second Reading)
The Gospel relates the first part of the story of the return of the prodigal son. We witness the total
and utter forgiveness the father bestows on his selfish and wayward son, who now regrets his
foolishness. Just as the father forgives his son, so we know that we too will be forgiven, as we express
our sorrow for actions and inactions that take us away from God.
As we celebrate the joy of knowing that we are totally loved and forgiven, in these final weeks of Lent
we ask for the grace to see ourselves as God sees us, and to see others just as God sees them too.
Click Here: March 26, 2022 Word on Fire
Third Week of Lent
Luke 18:9-14
Friends, today’s Gospel compares the self-centered prayer of the Pharisee with the God-centered prayer of the tax collector.
The Pharisee spoke his prayer to himself. This is, Jesus suggests, a fraudulent, wholly inadequate prayer, precisely because it simply confirms the man in his self-regard. And the god to which he prays is, necessarily, a false god, an idol, since it allows itself to be positioned by the ego-driven needs of the Pharisee.
But then Jesus invites us to meditate upon the publican’s prayer. He speaks with a simple eloquence: "[He] beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’" Though it is articulate speech, it is not language that confirms the independence and power of the speaker—just the contrary. It is more of a cry or a groan, an acknowledgement that he needs to receive something, this mysterious mercy for which he begs.
In the first prayer, "god" is the principal member of the audience arrayed before the ego of the Pharisee. But in this second prayer, God is the principal actor, and the publican is the audience awaiting a performance the contours of which he cannot fully foresee.
Click Here: March 25, 2022
Who knows at what time of day the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel came to Mary? Was it at dawn at her waking, as in the Tanner painting? Was it at midday at the well where she went to fill a vessel with water? Was it at evening strolling the streets of Nazareth and stopping to behold a stunning sunset? Was it at night as she gazed at the moonlight coming through the window in the room where she slept? Whenever it happened, it was “just in time.” The annunciation is the moment in time of God’s breaking into human time and space and conceiving a new way of being divinely human. Thanks be to God for Mary’s willingness to be there “just in time.”
As you pray with the familiar Gospel of the Annunciation, do you sense that God desires an annunciation for you? What could the surprise be that God has in store for you? Can you remember a time in your life when God's grace came to you "just in time?" Reflect on how Mary's life is "Holy Ground" for us who have received the gift of her Son in whom we "live and move and have our being"
Here are links to two "Annunciation" dances that may enhance your prayer. The first from 1991 and the second from 2018, were choreographed by Fr. Bob Vereecke for "A Dancer's Christmas."
Annunciation/ The Lark Ascending
Click Here: March 24, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
First of all I would like to share a link to a video which was uploaded on YouTube by
John Rutter. How can a composer respond to a global tragedy? He hopes his music
and lyrics will reach out to the people in Ukraine: Click here to see video.
The first two sentences of today’s Gospel reading mention the word ‘devil’ four times,
and the whole reading mentions Satan and the devil eight times. It is no coincidence
that we have this reading mid-way through Lent. The Devil is the master-tempter and
how are we doing thus far in Lent? Do temptations slip back into our daily routines?
Our German painting from 1471, by Michael Pacher, depicts Saint Wolfgang and the
Devil. The Devil is showing Wolfgang an agreement he has drafted. It states that he
would help Wolfgang build his church under the one condition: ‘to take the soul of the
first person who steps inside it’. All the Devil wanted was the one soul; then the rest of
the church and all the churchgoers would be Wolfgang’s thereafter. What a temptation
the Devil is proposing! But Saint Wolfgang resisted.
The painting realistically depicts the cruel temptations under which human beings are
tested by the Devil and his ability to bargain with us. Looking at this painting during Lent
drives home the point that we can be torn between good and evil, between doing what is
right or what is wrong, between helping and passively sitting back, etc…
We also know how, after His temptation in the desert, Jesus didn’t remain alone. He soon
gathered disciples around Him. So today’s Gospel reading may perhaps prompt us to think
of a person in our circle of friends or community who is struggling with his or her burdens
or temptations. Maybe we can be there to help move them away from an evil agreement
as depicted in our painting…
Click Here: March 23, 2022 Creighton Ministries
The readings today invite us to consider our relationship to God and the urgency of seeking to see and understand reality as God creates it and loves it, including and especially God’s “plan” for the flourishing of human persons.
What Moses and the Jews in the Desert (who we are walking with during these Lenten days) discovered is that God’s LAW can be best imagined as God’s desire for the great joy of the whole human community. God created Adam and Eve to flourish in the heart of the Trinity which is a garden of total joy and growth. At the center of the Garden is the Tree of Life – by which we humans can discover right relationship with our Creator.
We humans are designed as creatures that God intends to become companions for each other. The key to this companionship is our acceptance of God’s desire for us that we love and care for one another and honor God the creator.
By my will, God’s gift that distinguishes me from other animal creatures, I can choose to participate in the creative action of God; shaping my desires and thus shaping my selfhood. What today’s readings tell us is that to shape our authentic selfhood, that self that will flourish and bring forth fruit, I need to allow my will to be shaped by God’s hope for me. This doesn’t mean that God controls every little decision, but rather there are core behaviors that allow me to explore the ways that the world contributes to my joy by virtue of God’ plan.
The central choice is to recognize that I am not the source of my life, so I am called to honor and obey the One who calls me into being and gifts me beyond my understanding. A core choice requires me to seek community and to be formed by the love and care of others. As choice that is at the core of my flourishing is to love myself in gratitude to the creator. Another core choice requires that I not hoard goods but share them with those unable to secure them for themselves. Always a core choice is to reverence life – all life around me, the life of nature that nurtures me, the cosmos that surrounds our world, and above all the lives other humans at every stage of life.
The logic of God’s law – given in a verbal set of teachings to God’s people – is this. If we seek and follow God’s desire, we become our fullest and truest self as we are created to be. In that context we flourish, we love and are loved, we give life to all around us, we enable others to discover themselves, and mysteriously in this project God transfigures us into such intimate companionship that we are drawn into Trinitarian life and share the power and the joy of being Divinized, that is made Holy as God is Holy. That is the outcome of Easter for those who truly walk with God’s pilgrim people and discover God’s desire as expressed in the teaching or the law of love.
The Church gave us the account of the disclosure of Jesus’ Transfiguration on the Second Sunday of Lent to show us that his transfiguration in glory occurred in the labor of His Mission. As companions of Jesus in Mission and love we are transfigured by seeking and following God’s will in the law He gave us.
Click Here: March 22, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Painting
Today’s reading tells us that to be forgiven we must forgive our brothers and sisters. We
unburden ourselves through forgiveness. Forgiveness has, perhaps, become a rather alien
concept in Western society. If someone hurts us, we ‘expect’ an apology. They have to
take the first step, and then we’ll see. But we often forget how, when we forgive, we are
unburdened of a lot of negative thoughts and feelings. Without forgiveness these negative
feelings which started off as directed towards one person, soon extend into a larger web of
negativity. By forgiving we shed negativity.
Our painting by Douglas Ramsey is a good illustration of how forgiveness unburdens us. We
see a man running up a hill and falling on his knees at the foot of a cross. He feels the
forgiveness coming from the cross, and the burden he has been carrying all this time becomes
loose from his shoulders and now rolls off the top of the hill and into a valley, never to be seen
anymore. The encounter with the cross has unburdened him.
So why do we find it so difficult to forgive? Much has to do with expectations. We expect
others to behave in a certain way and when something happens that doesn’t match our
expectations, we get annoyed or even hurt. So maybe forgiveness may come a little easier if we
realise that the other person, too, is also doing his or her best. We all get it wrong occasionally.
The main thing is always to remember why we liked or loved the other person to begin with,
and then re-focus on their good qualities. That way we won’t even create a load of burdens that
we need to shed, like the man in our painting.
Click Here: March 21, 2022 - Ignatian Solidarity
Day 20: The Small Things
By Miles Tiemeyer
In a world where a pandemic can change our lives in an instant, it is inevitable that things will be delayed or canceled. Because of this, I struggle to be vulnerable and open myself up to new experiences. Every cautious step taken comes with the fear of rejection and hurt. We have been living in a pandemic for two years, and I see it everyday as my students navigate through evolving covid policies on top of changing and canceled events. It is easy to get frustrated and feel rejected.
Rejection will always be a risk in life, but God invites us to be vulnerable. Naaman, rejected by the King and frustrated by Elisha’s response, expects a dramatic act of God to be required to heal his leprosy. Bathing in the Jordan seemed too easy a solution to solve his frustrations. We can see what God asks of us through Elisha, the small intentional change.
The burnout created by adjusting constantly for the last two years makes me feel like the only answer is to constantly rework everything; to do the dramatic act. But what if our solution is as simple as Naaman’s? I need to slow down. Enjoy simple conversations. Forgive myself for any anger I am holding on to. I am angry at myself, the world, and God for our reality and its' injustices. What am I supposed to do with that anger and frustration? It is easy to shut down and turn away from my friends, from work, or from God. It is scary to risk putting myself out there, but the risk is worth it. God calls us to take risks and push ourselves to address our frustrations with loss and injustice. Our frustrations can be the motivation we need to make the small change, have the hard conversation, or show God’s love to our neighbors.
For Reflection:
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Where are you doing the big dramatic act, when you could be doing a small thing?
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How can doing a small thing in your life better bring God's love into the world?
Click Here: March 20, 2022
Reflection on the Engraving
In our Gospel reading today, we hear the story of a fig tree that seems as good as
dead, set in a vineyard. The tree has failed to bear fruit for three successive years.
It is quite understandable that the vineyard owner wants to cut it down, as it is
simply taking up valuable space which could be used for more vines. However, the
man looking after the vineyard says to be patient. He still sees the potential in the
dead tree and hopes that one day it may bear fruit again. He has a more generous,
more positive vision of the fig tree. The parable tells us that this is the way that
God looks at us, seeing potential in us even when we may have lapsed or fallen away
from Him. The parable is also prompting us to look at people this way ourselves: we
can never give up on people. Even though we may feel that someone is 'a lost cause',
we are asked to still be hopeful for what that person may be capable of doing in the
future. Generous hearts are required, even when at first sight things may seem lost.
Like the worker in the vineyard, we need to be hopeful, positive, patient and content
to wait. Beneath the unpromising surface, faint new signs of growth and life may be there...
if we open our eyes. That is what the worker of the vineyard saw, depicted on the left of
our Dutch engraving by Jan Luyken issued in 1712. He isn't holding a saw or an axe to cut
down the tree. He merely points to the roots of the fig tree. The landowner depicted on
the right of the engraving listens attentively to his worker.
This parable tells us how Jesus looks at us: He believes in our potential to grow and bear fruit.
Even when we may seem dead inside, He believes in our capacity to blossom.
He is reluctant to give up on us!
Click Here: March 18, 2022 Creighton
a reflection by Dennis Hamm, S.J., from 2016 on these readings.
The rejected one becomes the savior. Believe it or not, today’s readings present not just two stories that mirror each other—the story of Joseph rejected by his brothers (who will emerge to becomes their savior) and the story of Jesus rejected by the leaders of his day (only to become the savior of his people—but really four stories that all have this same plot. Let me explain.
When Jesus begins to realize that the religious leadership, together with their Roman oppressors, are planning to have him killed, he reaches back to a parable that Isaiah told some seven centuries earlier—Isaiah 5:1-7, the parable of the vineyard that produced wild grapes and is therefore rejected by the Lord God; which parable Isaiah explains as standing for the people of Israel, led by wealthy leaders who have been self-indulgent and violent, and forgetful of God’s ownership of the vineyard of Israel (Isa 5:8-12). Jesus updates that parable and applies it to what the religious and imperial power-holders are doing in his own day—thinking of themselves first and using violence (like killing him!) to implement their selfish desires to control events for their own purposes.
The Lectionary tradition that joins this reading to the Genesis story of Joseph’s brothers “removing” him to implement their violent jealousy because they (i.e. the designers of the Lectionary) discern a similar pattern: the rejected one will become the savior. So far, we have three stories—the Joseph story, the parable of Isaiah and the passion and resurrection of Jesus exhibiting this divine plot.
There is yet another expression of the same phenomenon—the quotation of a verse from Psalm 118 that comes toward the end of Jesus’ speech:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?
The early church found in those words of an ancient psalm the perfect summary of the Paschal mystery. While the original psalmist seems to be speaking about the eventual thriving of tyrannized Israel, those words are now wonderfully fulfilled in the life death and resurrection of Jesus. The “builders” (the religious and imperial authorities of Jesus’ day) reject Jesus (like quarrymen rejecting a block of limestone as not worthy of their building plans) by killing him; but Jesus is raised from the dead and becomes the foundation stone of the New Temple that is the renewed people of God, the Church. And so, already this early in Lent, we are given a glimpse of what will happen in the death and resurrection of Jesus that we celebrate during Passion Week, Easter, and Pentecost.
Click Here: March 19, 2022
Click Here: March 17, 2022
Click Here: March 16, 2022 Ignatian solidarity
Day 15: A Cup of Holy Frustration
By Elise Gower
Today’s Gospel theme is, fittingly, frustration. The saying goes, “What would Jesus do?” And while Matthew invites us to explore that more deeply, I find myself pondering a different question, “What did the disciples do?” Sometimes this helps me make sense of my very human responses to things like the pandemics of racism and Covid, or my own resistance to growth and change. Of course, I prayerfully work towards a life more holy, more rooted in the desire to be Christ-like. But, when I start with the disciples, I become aware that Jesus invites me to wholeness; to leadership.
I can feel the disciples’ frustration. They’re afraid. Jesus is not only sharing that he will die, but describes his pain, suffering and crucifixion. I imagine being a disciple, hearing this:
I’ve left everything to follow this man—my job, my family, my comfort! And now, I’m going to lose him? And who is this mother making this request on behalf of her sons?!
The passage says, “When the ten heard this, they became indignant.” Frustrated.
Jesus asks, “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” This is a big ask, knowing his impending execution—a death that holds the sin of a society that resists and terrorizes what they fear. We see this all too often. Suddenly, following Jesus takes on a whole new meaning. Am I willing to give of myself, completely, in response to the realities of our world today—not just when it’s comfortable or convenient? To lead is to act against the grain.
Contemplative Leaders in Action is a spirituality and leadership formation program. Our curriculum moves young adults through a process of discerning and enacting Ignatian leadership. This Gospel offers a pretty profound definition of what this is—drinking from the same cup as Jesus. A cup of holy frustration. Drinking this cup demands a daily commitment; sometimes, minute by minute. It’s not performative allyship. It’s not the kind of advocacy that also ensures my privileges remain intact. It’s looking within before righteously blaming others. This Lent, will you drink this cup of holy frustration, to follow Jesus towards new life?
For Reflection:
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Imagine yourself, a disciple in today’s society. What tires and frustrates you?
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What does drinking from the same cup as Jesus look like today?
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Where are you called to deepen your commitment?
Click Here: March 15, 2022
A Reflection for the Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
By Sarah Vincent
“For they preach but they do not practice.
All their works are performed to be seen.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Mt 23:11-12).
I recently joked that the Venn diagram of Catholics and busybodies is just a single circle. Although I was kidding, I do think that we as Catholics just cannot help but have a bit of natural curiosity about how other people live their faith. There are so many different ways of understanding and practicing Catholicism that I think it’s pretty normal to want to peek at how others are doing it. But it can become a problem when it crosses the line from curiosity to judgment.
Finding and respecting that line can be an especially difficult challenge during Lent when people are making and publicly discussing Lenten sacrifices and commitments. It’s not a bad thing to ask what people are doing for Lent—it can be a great way to get inspired by others and enjoy the shared culture of being Catholic! But there is a danger of comparing or judging what other people are doing.
It seems pretty obvious that we should not shame others for their observances. But I think there can also be a temptation to look at other people’s Lenten observances as a way of measuring ourselves. Compared to our neighbor or friend, is what we are doing enough? Is it hard enough, holy enough, creative enough, interesting enough? Do we need to go bigger, do better, be more intense?
I used to know somebody who would join me at the gym to unsubtly compete with me as I did my casual, once-a-week workout. She would crane her neck to read the display on whatever machine I was using, exercise furiously until she surpassed whatever I had done by .1 of a mile or a couple of calories, and then declare that we should both stop and get off the machines. Her need to one-up me said a lot about her own dissatisfaction with herself. She wasn’t happy just exercising; she felt she needed to exercise specifically more than me to feel like she had done enough, regardless of how long we were in the gym for.
This is a trap that I think Catholics can fall into during Lent. If you are trying to pray for five minutes a day but someone tweets that they are trying to pray for 50, does that mean you aren’t doing enough? The solution can seem like finding somebody who is doing less than you to feel better about yourself, or to keep increasing your observance until you are doing more than the others around you.
Even when it is done with the best of intentions, when Lent turns into a competition, it loses its meaning. After a certain point, when sacrifices become too restrictive or we find ourselves talking about them too much, it can become not about God anymore but about our own feelings of inadequacy or our desire to have the biggest or holiest observance. And then it becomes hard to actually follow through on the giant sacrifices we have promised and posted online about.
Today’s reading warns about the behavior of the Pharisees, that “they preach but they do not practice” and “all their works are performed to be seen.” So long as your observance is about you and God, it can be fun to talk about and share with other Catholics. But when it becomes about boasting, self-measuring or competing, it is time to recalibrate.
Some people do strict observances that are meaningful to them, and that’s great! Others only do something small, and that’s great too. So next time you talk about Lent, ask yourself this: Are you asking in a spirit of competition or in a spirit of community?
Click Here: March 14, 2022
Click Here: March 13, 2022
Second Sunday of Lent:
Transfiguring Tangriness
By Maureen O'Connell, Ph.D.
Today's Gospel makes me wonder if Jesus ever got tangry. That's my word for the kind of frustration I feel when sensing that my busyness isn't amounting to much. I feel tired from managing all of my bottomless to do lists. And I feel angry when I suddenly notice that my lists are in fact managing me and we're not headed in the direction I want to go. Tangry. It's a frustration I feel in my body. The wheels in my stomach start spinning. Nagging questions about my self-worth tighten my shoulders. My breath gets shallow as the walls of my lungs start to close in.
Surely, Jesus' humanity—not to mention the human context he was immersed in and the human beings he was surrounded by—ensures that he got tangry. So how did He make this embodied experience holy?
Luke's account of the Transfiguration provides a few concrete action steps. Step out of your busy routine and get your body outside. Move your body to a place where you can feel as close to God as possible. Then pray. Pray that God, from who you can never be separated, helps you reconnect to God's purpose for you. Pray that God puts you in conversation with your Moses—the parts of you created and chosen by God to join God in the ongoing holy work of repairing the world. Pray that God puts you in conversation with your Elijah—the parts of you that give you holy courage to name, for yourself and others, when priorities are not aligned with God. Converse with these holy parts of yourself—the likeness of God in you—about your desire to be released from the tangriness so you can rejoin what the time management and creativity gurus call flow, deep work, big magic.
For Reflection:
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How can you make time—or where can you make space—to reconnect with your God-given purpose and courage this Lent?
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Imagine conversation among you, Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Where would it happen? What would you four talk about? What would that conversation feel like? What in you might be transfigured?
Click Here: March 12, 2022Immaculate Heart Retreat Center
WE ARE CALLED TO LOVE
What’s the distinctive feature of Jesus’ life and the life of those transformed by His redeeming love? It is grace---treating others not as they deserve, but as our heavenly Father wishes them to be treated---with loving kindness and mercy. Jesus is God’s grace incarnate. His love is unconditional and is wholly directed towards our good. We need to remember that God is good to all, the just and the unjust. His love is to embrace those who are good and those who are sinful. We are to be a people sacred to the Lord. With God all things are possible!
I read a little story that I would like to share with you. We do know that Jesus’ most radical command is to love our enemies. We do ask ourselves often how exactly we are supposed to do that. One of the best ways is to begin by learning from the example of others. A man was waiting in his car at the window of a drive-thru coffee bistro. His order was taking some time and eventually the person behind him began impatiently blowing his horn. Instead of becoming angry himself, the first man paid for the second one’s drink and drove away. With this profoundly simple but powerful act he set off a chain reaction that lasted the entire day. This is a great story to help challenge us today.
Points to Pray and Ponder:
Picture yourself in that drive-thru line, and how would you have reacted to the blowing horn behind you?
Click Here: March 11, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
The theme of our gospel reading today captures one of the most basic themes of Lent:
reconciliation. Jesus asks us not to reconcile ourselves just with our fellow brothers and
sisters, but also to reconcile ourselves with God. Etymologically the word ‘reconciliation’
comes from the Latin words ‘re’, meaning ‘again’ and ‘concilare', meaning ‘to make
friendly’. It is the act of making two people or groups to become friendly again after an
argument or disagreement. It is easy to see how that works between people. We can all
probably think of examples of where people have been reconciled. However, thinking of
reconciliation with God is harder to do, as often our lack of humility prevents us from
seeing that there is anything broken or ruptured in our relationship with God in the first
place.
Only when we start to recognise that our relationship with God needs mending do we
grow closer to the heart of God. Did He not reach out to us first by sending His Son in
our midst, nailed to the cross for our sake! Of course we also have the Sacrament of
Reconciliation to help us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§1423-24) gives various
names for this sacrament: the sacrament of Conversion; the sacrament of Penance; the
sacrament of Confession; the sacrament of Forgiveness; and the sacrament of Reconciliation.
These names encapsulate the graces that we receive through the sacrament.
Our painting by Giuseppe Molteni depicts a well dressed young woman going to confession.
At the time this was painted, critics thought that the lady was a young mother who had yielded to the advances of an admirer. But we don’t know for sure who she is. The artists never revealed who she was. A Catholic art critic at the time, Pietro Estense Selvatico, simply stated that the painting was designed to illustrate the moral beauty of everyday life. However we may read this painting, it is a beautiful depiction of the Sacrament of Reconciliation… there to make us friendly again with God.
Click Here: March 10, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
Our Gospel reading today mentions how we should persist in our faith and keep knocking
on God’s door and we will receive. At the same time Jesus is knocking on our door too…
so why not fling open that door and leave it open so there is a free-flowing exchange
between us and God?
Our contemporary painting by Estonian artist Ain Vares depicts Christ knocking on our door,
ready to let His light in. Look at all the other doors he is knocking on too. Ain Vares sees his
life as an artist as a true vocation. On his website he writes: ‘Since 1993 I have painted
Christian art. It is the best thing for me. I can spend time in the Word of God and at the same
time put on canvas or paper what God has revealed to me. The meaning of a Christian life is
not to serve Him for personal gain, but to live God's life and to become more like Christ so
that we could receive from God what he has prepared for us even before we were born’…
For Ain Vares that calling is to be a Christian artist.
In our reading Jesus makes three promises to us if we pray:
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Ask, and it will be given to you;
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Search, and you will find;
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Knock, and the door will be opened to you;
And yes, all these are actual promises. They are not just mere ‘things that may happen’.
It is never in vain that we pray. God will always answer us. He may not answer us in the way we
might expect or might want to, but He will answer.
It is such an encouraging thought, especially during Lent, that our prayers will be answered... so today we can rejoice in Jesus’ promise.
Click Here: March 9, 2022 An Ignatian Solidarity Network Series
Forty more days and Nineveh shall be destroyed.
A recently released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscored the grave and existential threat posed by climate change and emphasized that the actions we take in this decade will be key to the future viability of life on Earth. We must rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet for current and future generations; each day that we fail to change course puts the possibility of a thriving future further out of reach.
Forty days for Nineveh, ten years for planet Earth.
I don’t believe that God wills the climate crisis as punishment for human wrongdoing, but neither does it seem that God intervenes to spare us the consequences of our choices. To do so would be to negate our free will. In the case of the climate crisis, the choices of a few—namely, fossil fuel companies who for decades have knowingly covered up the grave threat posed by emissions and, to a lesser extent, those of us whose consumer lifestyles have maintained demand for fossil fuels—have outsized consequences for the many. The poorest of the poor have been impacted first, but none of us will be altogether spared.
Today’s readings, however, are about second chances. We are not beyond redemption; all hope is not lost. Where the first reading picks up, Jonah himself has just been given a second chance after initially fleeing the call to deliver God’s warning to the Ninevites. Upon hearing Jonah’s admonishment, all of Nineveh hastens to repent, and they are spared destruction. Today we are replete with warnings, and our forty days are not yet up.
In the Psalm, we pray, “A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.” The word “humbled” derives from “humus,” the organic matter in soil. To be humbled is to be of the earth. Today, may we remember that we are of the earth, and that to live otherwise is to hasten our own destruction. Where we are called to repent of our pillaging of the earth, may we make like the Ninevites and “turn from [our] evil way and from the violence [we have] in hand.” Where we are called to join our voices to the Jonahs of today, may our prophetic cries reverberate within the halls of power.
To the God of second chances, we pray: have mercy on us.
For Reflection:
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How are you being called to humility—to remember that we are of the earth?
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Where can you join your voice to the Jonahs of today, to challenge the injustice that intensifies the climate crisis?
Click Here: March 8, 2022 Immaculate Heart
THE WORD OF GOD IN ACTION
God’s Word has power to change and transform us! Isaiah says that God’s Word is like the rain and the snow which make the barren ground spring to life and become abundantly fertile. God’s Word has power to penetrate our dry barren hearts and make them springs of new life. If God’s Word takes root in our heart, it will transform us into His likeness. Ambrose, a fourth century church Father, wrote that the reason we should devote time for reading scripture is to hear Christ speak to us. “Are you not occupied with Christ? Why do you not talk with him? By reading the Scriptures, we listen to Christ.”
The power of speech, or communication, is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has given us. Through words we can tell others our thoughts, our feelings, our hopes and our joys. What we say to others in words can change completely their attitude toward us and establish a new relationship.
The prayer He taught, the “Our Father,” was intended to be a model for prayer. Jesus did not mean that the words of the “Our Father” are the only ones we should use. It is the spirit behind those words which matter the most--a spirit of simplicity, directness and sincerity.
Points to Pray and Ponder:
Words are wonderful, especially the Word of God. We must listen to that Word and put it into action and this happens because we have given it great attention. Our words will also be pretty wonderful as well, if we pray in the way Jesus taught us. All we need to do is be real with “our Father.” Are you?
Click Here: March 7, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Mosaics
Today’s reading is taken from Chapter 25 in the Gospel of Matthew. This chapter
gives us some of the last teachings of Jesus before His passion and death. Therefore
these teachings especially carry a lot of weight. In all of the Gospels this is 'the'
passage where Jesus tells us explicitly who will be going to Heaven and who won’t
make it. Jesus divides humanity into two groups: the sheep and the goats. The sheep
go to His ‘right hand’, and the goats to His ‘left hand’. The sheep are blessed for they
were virtuous and helped the needy in society. The goats on the other hand will be
sent to ‘the eternal fire prepared for the devil’, for they did not help other people.
Our artwork, of which the original is part of the Ravenna mosaics, puts Christ at the
very centre. He is dressed in a purple robe and seated on the judgment seat. His halo,
including three blue jewels, is more elaborate than that of the angels flanking Him on
either side. His right hand is pointing towards the sheep. On His left we see three
darker toned goats. Jesus is not even acknowledging their presence. These goats are
also placed on a lower level-line than the sheep. While the angels look sideways, Jesus
is staring straight into the eyes of us, the viewers. Which will we be, sheep or goats?
While we don’t know what will happen at the final judgement and who will make it to heaven or not, today’s reading is a wake up call to prompt us into action and be aware of the needs of others. But probably the most poignant words in the reading are at the end of paragraph two where we read that when we help people ‘you did it to me’. It doesn’t say ‘you did it for me’. It says 'you did it TO me'. Jesus completely self-identifies Himself with the needy, the hungry, the poor. So every time we don’t help the more vulnerable in society, we ignore Christ Himself.
Click Here: March 6, 2022
The Temptation of Jesus: Keeping Focus | One-Minute Homily
by Tucker Redding, SJ | Mar 6, 2022 | One-Minute Homily, Videos
Temptations are not always obvious. Sometimes we are tempted by what seems good. Tucker Redding, SJ, reflects on the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Based on the readings for Sunday, March 6, 2022.
Where is our focus?
Hi, my name is Tucker Redding and this is my One-Minute Reflection.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke include similar versions of the Temptation in the Desert, but they put the temptations in a different order. In Luke, the final temptation is when the devil brings Jesus to the top of the temple and says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” For God will protect you.
For Luke, this is the biggest test. The other two are…well…tempting, but also kind of obvious. The final test is deceptive because it tempts Jesus to display his faith in God.
Sometimes temptations aren’t so obvious. We can even be tempted by acts that seem good and pious. The true test of a temptation is when it causes us to focus only on ourselves, rather than the love of God and neighbor.
Sometimes we have to ask: is this about me or the Greater Glory of God?
Click Here: March 5, 2022 ~ An Ignatian Solidarity
Day 4: How Will You Seek Light?
By Yasi Mahallaty
In today’s first reading, Isaiah describes an idyllic future of God’s vision: light rising in the way of darkness, renewed strength, a land of plenty. He asks us to be “repairers of the breach”—sounds simple enough, right?
Throughout my career, I have had the privilege of accompanying underserved students to, through, and beyond college. I felt God’s presence at each of my workplaces, particularly in my relationships with students and their families. Of course, it was easy to get sidetracked by the daily distractions of life and bury myself in the seemingly endless barriers stemming from systematic oppression. In these moments of distraction and despair, I often ask myself—“where is the light?”
Isaiah serves as a model of remaining steadfast. He emphasizes the importance of being in right relationship with others, particularly those on the margins. This type of focus is what can ensure that God’s presence is not missed, but at the center of every interaction.
Jesus and Levi’s relationship similarly displays the importance of remaining devoted and seeking holiness. Levi, a tax collector who benefits from an unjust system, reveals an open heart when Jesus asks for his kinship. Levi, too, seems to be seeking the light.
This Lent, I invite you to join me in searching for God’s light at various points throughout your day, amidst the hustle and bustle and moments of despair. We must remain committed and ensure our place as “repairers of the breach.” How will you seek light?
For Reflection:
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How are you being called to be in right relationship with others?
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In what ways can you learn to search for God's light in all of the messiness of life, so as to keep your heart open and committed to the work of justice?
Click Here: March 4, 2022 Word on Fire
Friday after Ash Wednesday
Matthew 9:14-15
Friends, in today’s Gospel, people ask Jesus why he and his disciples do not fast when John and his disciples do. Jesus’ answer is wonderful: “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” Could you imagine people fasting at a wedding banquet? It would be ridiculous!
Jesus later says, “People do not put new wine into old wineskins.” The new wine is the Gospel. The receptacle for this wine must be conformed to it, not the other way around.
To take in the Good News, we can’t be living in the cramped space of our sinful souls. We can’t have an “expect the worst” attitude. Instead we repent, or change the minds that we have. Another way to get at this is to say that like is known by like. If God is love, then only a soul that is on fire with love will properly take him in.
Click Here: March 3, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Painting
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus says, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce
himself and take up his cross every day and follow me’. So I simply want to share the following
story with you:
A young man was overwhelmed by the problems of life. Seeing no way out, he dropped to his
knees in prayer. "Lord, I can't go on," he said. "I have too heavy a cross to bear.”
The Lord pointed to a door in a room and replied, "My son, if you can't bear its weight, just place
your cross inside this room. Then open that other door and pick out any cross you wish.”
The young man was filled with relief. "Thank you Lord," he sighed, and he did what he was told.
Upon entering the other door, he saw many other crosses, as depicted in our painting, some so
large the tops weren't even visible. Then he spotted a tiny cross leaning against the far wall. "I'd
like that one Lord," he whispered.
And the Lord replied, "My son, that is the cross you just brought in."
Click Here: March 2, 2022
A Reflection for Ash Wednesday
By James Martin, S.J.
“Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God” (Joel 2:12).
Today’s readings for Ash Wednesday are almost too much to take in. Too rich. Too challenging. Too consoling. So let us look at just a small part–the beginning of the first reading, from the Book of Joel: “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart...”
“Even now” may seem like a throwaway phrase, like “now” or “well.” But it is far more than a conversational tic. “Even now” means: even after all you have done, even after this life you have led, even after having tried and tried. Even after failing. Even after many Lents. Even now, says God, I want you to return to me.
In God’s world, it is never too late. Every day is an “even now.”
God wants us to “return,” which means that from the beginning God was with us. Otherwise, how could we return? God created us “in our mother’s womb,” as Psalm 139 says, and so has accompanied us from the start of our lives. The Neoplatonic philosophers of the third century, who would influence Medieval Christian philosophers and theologians, often talked about “emanation” and “return” from God. I have always loved that idea. We begin from God, we are sent into the world, and at the end of our lives, we return to God.
But that “return” is not simply an end-of-life issue. It is a day-to-day reality. During Lent, through practices of prayer, almsgiving and fasting, we can focus ourselves on that return.
What would it mean in your own life to “return” to God? Where have you grown distant? Where have you lost sight of God? What practices need to fall away? Which ones do you need to take up?
Once you have decided on these paths back to God, can you do them “with your whole heart,” as the Book of Joel says? We all know what it is like to carry a promise half-heartedly. Of course, we will never live our resolutions perfectly, but at least today, on Ash Wednesday, can we, with our whole hearts, resolve to return to the one who wants nothing more than to welcome us? Even now?
Click Here: March 1, 2022 Creighton
Happy Mardi Gras, everyone! Today’s readings provide a somewhat telescopic view of Peter’s journey of faith. We hear his words to communities following Christ after the Resurrection, then we affirm that we are one of those communities (“Yes, the Lord has made his salvation known!”), then proclaim that God reveals the mysteries of the kingdom to “little ones,” and finally arrive towards the beginning of Peter’s journey, as he was following Jesus.
“Peter began to say…”
It sounds like he had more to say, but Jesus answered him after the first sentence. What would the second sentence have been? Remembering yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus has just told them that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples asked, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus answers, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” In other words, we cannot save ourselves.
If I were Peter at that point, I might have thought, “Well… won’t we who are following you be saved because we chose to follow you? It wasn’t an easy choice, if I’m being honest. And you keep telling us that it’s not going to get easier. I left so much behind to do this – my wife, my family, my house, my boat and my nets, everything I knew how to do. We all gave up so much to follow you. And I know you’re the Messiah, but I’m starting to wonder that if choosing to follow you and sacrificing what feels like everything isn’t enough… what if God decides not to save me after all that? Will it be worth it?”
And Jesus tells him, even before he’s finished asking, in the easiest language for Peter to understand, that it’s worth it and he will get everything back in abundance that he’s given up. Looking back at the first reading, we might see how the seed of that conversation flourished in Peter years down the road. At that point he’d witnessed the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the martyrdom of his friends. He writes telling other followers, “Everything we have been told by prophets in the past and everything we have witnessed points to this: it is worth it. Stop acting like you did before you wanted to know God; act like you want to know God by following Christ’s example.”
Many of us are probably fasting from something during Lent. It will probably not be on the scale of Peter leaving behind his family and livelihood, or Jesus freely giving his life for us. But what might Peter’s words offer us today, as we begin this season? Perhaps encouragement echoing through the centuries that if we give or fast from a desire to know God better, our small sacrifices will be worth it. We are called to holiness and the example of Christ, as members of the body of Christ.
“Out of Darkness” by Christopher Walker
Click Here: February 28, 2022 Word on Fire
Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 10:17-27
Friends, in today’s Gospel, a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. There is something absolutely right about the young man, something spiritually alive, and that is his deep desire to share in everlasting life. He knows what he wants, and he knows where to find it.
Jesus responds to his wonderful question by enumerating many of the commandments. The young man takes this in and replies, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” So Jesus looks at him with love and says, “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor . . . Then come, follow me.”
God is nothing but love straight through, and therefore the life of friendship with him, in the richest sense, is a life of total, self-forgetting love. Jesus senses that this young man is ready for the high adventure of the spiritual life; he is asking the right question and he is properly prepared.
But at this point, the young man tragically balks. The spiritual life, at the highest pitch, is about giving your life away, and this is why having many possessions is a problem.
Click Here: February 27, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Painting
Our painting by Flemish artist Sebastian Vrancx depicts the subject of the Blind leading the
Blind, popularised about 50 years before by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in the late 16th
century. We see the leader of the group already having fallen into water, whilst the second
man is on a narrow bridge about to tumble in, too. A small dog clings to the path, desperately
trying to climb up again onto steady ground. The other figures are still on dry land, feeling
their way forward. Soon they too may fall into the water. Look at what the men are carrying:
the first a beer pitcher, the second a musical instrument underneath his cloak and the third
man a purse over his shoulders…
Jesus paints this lovely image of the blind leading the blind, recognising that we all have our
blind spots - the failings and shortcomings that block our vision. So when we go out there and
proclaim the word of God, we have to be humble at all times and hold back from criticising others.
Today we pray that we may receive the grace to see our blindness. Recognising where we are blind
is already a major part of opening our hearts fully to Christ. But whether we see well, or are partially
blind, the main thing to remember is how God sees each of us from the inside.
He has full vision of who we are!
Click Here: February 26, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Painting
Our Gospel reading today tells us of the very special place young children have in God’s plan.
The very first word in our reading is ‘people’. People were bringing children to Jesus. Who
are these people? They are the parents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, friends, neighbours, etc…
They all had heard about Christ’s love and what He shared about the eternal life. That is what
they wanted for their children, a blessing from Jesus. The end of that same first sentence says
‘for Jesus to touch them’, meaning giving an embrace or a blessing.
Blessings are important. Biblically, blessings go all the way back to the to the book of Genesis.
Noah blessed two of his sons, Isaac blessed his children too, and Jacob blessed his sons. They all,
with parental love, wanted the best for their children. So it became a strong tradition with the
Jewish elders who practised, when blessing their children, that the parent should touch the child
(as in laying their hands on the child’s head), so that the child may be strong in the Law, faithful
in marriage, and abundant in good works.
I remember that when I was young, my mother would make a sign of the cross on my forehead
before I went to bed, saying the words in Flemish 'God zegen je en God beware je’ (may the
Lord bless you and keep you). The physical element of touch is important when blessing: a touch
of love, a touch of compassion.
Our artwork by Dutch painter Nicolas Maes depicts Jesus blessing a little girl by laying hands on
her. Christ holds the child's wrist firmly as she tries to turn away from Him, finger in mouth, not
quite knowing what is going on. Christ is depicted in a classical robe, surrounded by people in
17th-century dress. Maes thus wanted to stress the eternal qualities of Jesus by putting him in a
timeless cloak.
The only bits of colour in this darkly toned painting are the reds of Jesus’ cloak, the small girl’s cheeks and a baby’s arm towards the top left. The reds unite Jesus with the children….
Click Here: February 25, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Painting
It is important when reading today’s Gospel reading to remember that Jesus is now on
His way to Jerusalem and to the cross. So everywhere He stops, in Judea today, He is
teaching, and the Pharisees are testing him again. It is the way they ask the question that
shows their mindset. They don’t ask, ‘Jesus, what can you teach us about marriage?’. They
ask ’Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife?’ They immediately take the legal
route to talk about marriage, but above all their question implies they want to know what
He thinks the Law would allow people to do, or to put even more boldly, they want to know
‘what they can get away with', in order not to get in trouble with God. They are simply
interested in their own rights, and not in learning about their responsibilities in marriage.
After yesterday’s painting, if I may stay on the more humorous theme of paintings, I would
like to share this panel by Quentin Massys, painted circa 1520. It depicts a married couple.
Titled Ill Matched Lovers, it shows an old man being seduced by a younger woman. This theme of pairing ‘unequal’ couples has a literary history dating back to antiquity when Plautus, a Roman comic poet from the 3rd century BC, cautioned elderly men against courting younger ladies. This also became a favourite theme in European literature and art in the early 16th century. Our painting is an amusing illustration of the idea that old age can leads to foolishness as far as romanticism is concerned. This is further illustrated by the presence of a fool in the background, helping to rob the old man's purse. The artist conveys humorously how a women's sexual powers cause men to behave absurdly and to lose their wits and their money. The deck of cards in the foreground further implies morally loose, gambling behaviour.
Jesus goes onto tell us how marriage is to be a reflection of God’s relationship with us. He calls for greater love, intimacy and fidelity... the opposite of what is depicted in the painting...
Click Here: February 24, 2022 Christian Art
Reflection on the Painting
In today’s reading we hear Jesus say ‘If your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off’… And what
do we see in our painting? An altar server is using his hand to try to steal a piece of bread whilst
the baker boy is looking away. Obviously our cheeky altar boy hasn’t been listening to the Sunday
readings! Oh dear! Isn’t this a fun painting though, filled with humour and mischief. The ashes have
flown out of the boy’s thurifer. He has already passed on a bun to his friends behind him. They are
taking great delight in the altar server’s naughtiness. The other two boys on the right are completely
unaware of what is going on, engrossed in reading ‘Le Petit Journal’ newspaper.
Our artist Paul-Charles Chocarne-Moreau introduced in the late 19th century these amazing scenes
of young boys at play, recalling for his audience the playful deceptiveness that characterised the
viewers' age of youth. We all recognise something of ourselves in these boys. These sentimental
canvasses of the childish play of young boys were a pleasing respite from the often serious industrial
age during which these were painted.
When Jesus uses the term ‘cut it off’, He is not asking us to take this literally. He simply wants to warn us of the many things that stand in the way between us and God. Any stumbling blocks should be removed. Jesus deliberately paints a stark image, so we realise that the stakes are high if we truly want to help build the Kingdom of God.
Click Here: February 23, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
Today’s reading offers us an interesting insight into the minds of the disciples.
They have just witnessed an exorcism performed by someone they don’t know.
Not only that, but the stranger performed the exorcism in Jesus’ name. There is
an air of superiority about them: only they should be allowed to perform such
miracles. To rub salt into the wound, earlier in this chapter of Mark we read how
the disciples attempted to cast a demon out of a boy and were unsuccessful. Now
a perfect stranger casts out a demon successfully, with authority, and using the
name of Jesus. The disciples are annoyed. Their pride was hurt.
This can happen to us in our parish churches or in the works of charity that we do:
we sometimes have a sense of entitlement that prevents us from recognising that
others have a ministry as important ministry as ours. Or we feel that the way we do
things in our local church or charity is the only way.
Other suggestions put forward by people who are less involved get immediately
dismissed. ‘Who are they to tell us?’ This is sad: it blinds us to the humility that comes
from knowing that all are just as special in the eyes of Jesus, as we are. Others have
just as much of an important ministry as we do, in order to help build God’s kingdom
here on earth.
Jesus rejects the disciples' attitude, making it clear that working together for the greater good is exactly the strength of Christianity. It is because of such readings as today’s that we are a world church and continue to reach out beyond any borders and any individual agendas. The universality of our faith, onall continents (as depicted in our painting), is made very clear.
Our painting by Peter Paul Rubens depicts the Four Continents. We see the four female personifications of the continents (Europe, Asia, Africa and America) sitting with their respective male personifications of the major rivers on their continents (Danube, Ganges, Nile and Rio de la Plata): Europe is shown on the left, Africa in the middle, Asia on the right and America behind it, to the left. The tigress, protecting the cubs from the crocodile, is used as a symbol of Asia. The personification of the Danube holds a rudder. The Christian faith spread to all of these continents, and continues to do so…
Click Here: February 22, 2022
Reflection on the Sculptural Chair
Today's feast day has a rather peculiar name: the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter. How does
the chair of an apostle merit a holy day? Let’s first of all look at the object itself. The Chair of
St Peter is a relic kept at the very back of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It is a basic wooden
relic of a throne that tradition claims was used by St Peter himself when he was leading the early
Christians in Rome. The chair is now enclosed in a sculpted gilt-bronze ornamental chair designed
by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which he completed between 1647 and 1653. In 2012,
Pope Benedict XVI described the chair as 'a symbol of the special mission of Peter and his Successors
to tend to Christ’s flock, keeping it united in faith and in charity’. The chair is only a few feet away
from St Peter’s tomb. The wooden throne chair was a gift from Holy Roman Emperor Charles the
Bald to Pope John VIII in 875. In today’s Gospel reading Christ says, ‘You are Peter and on this rock I
will build my Church’. Whilst the chair in St Peter’s might look opulent in its magnificence, the chair is
not intended to be a regal throne or a vain assertion of power. No, it is placed at the very end of the
basilica to be an authentic reflection of the office entrusted by Jesus Christ to Saint Peter (as in today’s
reading) and his successor shepherds of the Church.
I have stood in front of that chair many times and each time it reminds me of the responsibility placed in
all of our hands by Jesus Christ… Our humble roles are very different and modest compared with what
St Peter and his successors achieved, but the responsibilities are exactly the same for us all through our
baptism: to spread the Word of God…
Click Here: February 21, 2022 Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations
Responsive Vulnerability
Father Richard believes that we can only experience true intimacy when we are willing to be vulnerable ourselves:
The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, only the intimate language of lovers describes what is going on for us: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and also, of course, suffering. This is the mystical vocabulary of the saints.
Our biggest secrets and desires are often revealed to others, and even discovered by ourselves, in the presence of sorrow, failure, or need—when we are very vulnerable, and when we feel entirely safe in the arms of love. When that happens, there is always a broadening of being on both sides. We are larger people afterwards.
And it is only when we are in such a tender place that God can safely reveal the “inside” of God to us. All self-sufficient people remain outsiders to the mystery of divine love because they will always misuse it. Only the need of a beloved knows how to receive the need and gift of the lover, and only the need of a lover knows how to receive the need and gift of the beloved without misusing such love. It is a kind of deliberate “poverty” on both sides. A mutually admitted emptiness is the ultimate safety net for love.
“Fullness” in a person cannot permit love because it leaves no openings, offers no handles, no give and take, nor is there any deep hunger. Human vulnerability gives the soul an immense head start on its travels.
Our desire for intimacy or communion first creates the very hunger that God, with a little help from God’s friends, can then satisfy (though never totally) in this world. In fact, the bit of satisfied desire only increases the desire for more and again! The mystics (those who personally know the inner space of God) are aware that they have been let in on a big and wondrous secret. Anyone not privy to this inner dialogue would call such people presumptuous, foolish, or even arrogant. This is without a doubt “God’s secret, in which all the jewels of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” (Colossians 2:3).
The secret becomes unhidden when people stop hiding—from God, from themselves, and from at least one other person. Such risky self-disclosure is what I mean by intimacy and it is the way that love is transmitted. Some say the word comes from the Latin intimus, which is interior or inside. Some say its older meaning is found by in timor, “into fear.” In either case, the point is clear. Intimacy happens when we expose our insides and this is always scary. We never really know if the other can receive what is exposed, will respect it, or will run fast in the other direction. We must be prepared to be rejected. It is always a risk.
Click Here: February 20, 2022 Word on Fire
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:27-38
Friends, our Gospel today is taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain in Luke. It is one of the more puzzling texts in the New Testament. It speaks of loving our enemies—not tolerating them, or vaguely accepting them, but loving them. When you hate your enemy, you confirm him as your enemy. But when you love him in response to his hatred, you confuse and confound him, taking away the very energy that feeds his hatred.
There is a form of oriental martial arts called aikido. The idea of aikido is to absorb the aggressive energy of your opponent, moving with it, continually frustrating him until he comes to the point of realizing that fighting is useless.
Some have pointed out that there is a great deal of this in Jesus’ strategy of nonviolence and love of the enemy. You creatively absorb the aggression of your opponent, really using it against him, to show him the futility of violence. So when someone insults you, send back a compliment instead of an insult.
Click Here: February 19, 2022 Word on Fire
Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:2-13
Friends, today’s Gospel presents the Transfiguration of Christ. What is the Transfiguration itself? Mark speaks literally of a metamorphosis, a going beyond the form that he had. If I could use Paul’s language, it is "the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ." In and through his humble humanity, his divinity shines forth. The proximity of his divinity in no way compromises the integrity of his humanity, but rather makes it shine in greater beauty. This is the New Testament version of the burning bush.
The Jesus who is both divine and human is the Jesus who is evangelically compelling. If he is only divine, then he doesn’t touch us; if he is only human, he can’t save us. His splendor consists in the coming together of the two natures, without mixing, mingling, or confusion.
Note how this same Jesus then accompanies his disciples back down the mountain and walks with them in the ordinary rhythms of their lives. This is the Christ who wants to reign as Lord of our lives in every detail. If we forget about this dimension, then Jesus becomes a distant memory, nothing more than a figure from the past.
Click Here: February 18, 2022 Word on Fire
Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 8:34–9:1
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus lays down the conditions of discipleship.
A few verses before our reading, Jesus predicted his Passion for the first time. He will sacrifice himself in love for the other—and in this, he will come to deeper life and become a source of life to others. Ronald Knox talked about the sign of the cross this way: the first two gestures form the letter “I,” and the next two cross it out. That’s what the cross of Jesus meant and means.
In this scene, he gathered the crowd with his disciples and pronounced the formula for following him. We ought to be listening too with great attention: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” The path of discipleship is the path of self-sacrificing love, and that means the path of suffering.
Then the great paradox: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it.” Put that over your door, on the refrigerator, on your screensaver. There is no better one-line guide to the happy life.
Click Here: February 17, 2022 Richard Rohr
An Intimate Sharing
Contemporary mystic and writer Beverly Lanzetta has thought deeply about how to live a contemplative life in the world. In describing prayer, she turns to Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) and Thomas Merton (1915–1968):
Teresa of Avila describes mental (contemplative) prayer as, “nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with [God] who we know loves us.” [1] We can imagine God as our intimate friend, with whom we share everything. We can talk to the Divine about our needs, complaints, and difficulties. We can ask for advice, offer thanksgiving, and make acts of faith or reparation for our sins. We can seek guidance for our children, or shed tears about illness and death.
Quite frequently, the most efficacious [way to] pray is found in darkness, emptiness. When we find ourselves simply open to the vast mystery surrounding us, when we center our hearts on an obscure faith, and are absorbed into the divine Presence. This is the contemplation of night, when darkness quiets the soul, and we surrender to unknowing. Thomas Merton prays:
Your brightness is my darkness. I know nothing of You and, by myself, I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing You. If I imagine You, I am mistaken. If I understand You, I am deluded. If I am conscious and certain I know You, I am crazy. The darkness is enough. [2]
James Finley describes what happens inside us when we commit to such a path of prayer:
As you develop the habit of meditation, you will become more skilled in learning to enter more directly into a quiet state of meditative openness to God. Little by little you will experience yourself becoming more familiar with the inner landscape of your newly awakened heart. As your newly awakened heart is allowed to repeatedly rest in meditative awareness, it slowly discovers its center of gravity in the hidden depths of God. . . .
Since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), God’s ways are the ways in which love awakens you again and again to the infinite love that is the reality of all that is real. As you ripen and mature on the spiritual path that meditation embodies, you will consider yourself blessed and most fortunate in no longer being surprised by all the ways in which you never cease to be delighted by God. Your heart becomes accustomed to God, peeking out at you from the inner recesses of the task at hand, from the sideways glance of the stranger in the street, or from the way sunlight suddenly fills the room on a cloudy day.
Learning not to be surprised by the ways in which you are perpetually surprised, you will learn to rest in an abiding sense of confidence in God. Learning to abide in this confidence, you learn to see God in learning to see the God-given Godly nature of yourself, others, and everything around you. [3]
Click Here: February 16, 2022
BRIDLE OUR TONGUE
In the first Reading from the letter of St James, James has very little tolerance for flowery, pious words that evaporate almost as soon as they are spoken. He emphasizes the need to be “doers of the Word.” Words alone are not enough! The challenge is to take the words of the Gospel and put them into practice.
In today’s Gospel we read about Jesus who takes action by curing a blind man and it took a second laying of hands for the man to see perfectly. It is a picture of what happens to the spiritual blindness of the disciples--as we move on, they come to more clarity, and their blindness likewise is overcome in stages. The fact that the disciples took such a long time to catch on to what Jesus was about is, in a way, comforting to us. Most importantly, their experience of gradually learning to see and to have faith in Jesus as the Savior teaches us is always a growing affair. It is never complete and full at any one moment. Experiences and changes in our life all bring up new demands, make new requirements of faith and it cause us to actualize our faith. To say that we really have faith in the Lord as our Redeemer and Savior, means a lot more when we are still able to say it after a life-threatening illness, or the devastating loss of a son or daughter, or with much anxiety for elderly residents who will have to relocate because a facility is closing. Faith grows and deepens us through experiences that are good and bad.
Points to Pray and Ponder:
Our challenge from the scripture readings today is that it is most important to be attentive to issues of justice, which is here symbolized by the phrase “to care for orphans and widows in their affliction.” James, as well as Jesus Christ, was apparently aware of how easy it is for us to get all caught up in our rhetoric, our laws and our abstract truths. We need to remember that Christianity is a way of life that is only as effective as it is concretely lived out. As James wrote: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, his religion is in vain… Are you a doer of the word?
Click Here: February 15, 2022
Engaging in Love as a Practice
I have found during recent years that I enjoy choosing my first book of the year with a heightened sense of intention, as though I’m setting a direction for the year. In 2019 my first book was Becoming, by Michelle Obama. Beyond a desire to learn more about the former First Lady, as a spiritual director, I was attracted to the title. I started 2020 by reading, Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America, by George Yancy. Certainly, conversation of racism deepened in painful and unexpected ways during 2020. Last year, my first book of the year was, Power of Subversive Love by M. Shawn Copeland and this year I followed the theme of love once again with, All About Love, by Bell Hooks.
It’s this exploration of love that resonates so deeply with today’s first reading. bell hooks wrote, “This is why it’s helpful to see love as a practice. When we act, we need not feel inadequate or powerless; we can trust that there are concrete steps to take on love’s path. We learn to communicate, to be still and listen to the needs of our hearts, and we learn to listen to others. We learn compassion by being willing to hear the pain, as well as the joy, of those we love.” Like St. James says, we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak… and doers of the word.” How will you engage in love as a practice today?
—Laura Gilmartin Hancock is finishing her formation in the Seminars in Ignatian Formation with the Midwest Province of Jesuits and ministers as a spiritual care provider with Soulcare MKE LLC.
Click Here: February 14, 2022
Memorial of Saints Cyril, Monk, and Methodius, Bishop
Mark 8:11-13
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Pharisees demand Jesus give them a sign in order to prove his authority, perhaps a miracle. But I’d like to draw your attention to the final line in the passage: "He left them, got into the boat again, and went off to the other shore."
Whose boat was this? Well, the previous verses confirm it belonged to his disciples. Jesus entering the boat calls to mind his first encounter with Peter. One day, Peter was going about his ordinary business, washing his nets and preparing for a catch. Then without warning, without asking permission, Jesus got into his boat. Now the boat was everything for Peter; it was his livelihood, his security. But Jesus just got in and began giving orders.
So it goes in the order of grace. The true God cannot be manipulated, determined by us, or controlled through our efforts. We can’t act like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel, demanding that God behave for us. Rather, he comes into our lives—often unbidden and unexpected—and determines us, controls us. His presence is pure grace.
Don’t demand signs from God. Instead, do what the disciples did and let him enter your boat.
Click Here: February 13, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
In our Gospel reading today Jesus is telling us, ‘How happy are you who are poor; happy you who
weep now; happy are you when people hate you…’. Really? Do we feel happy when people don’t
like us, or when we weep or are in financial difficulty…? I don’t think any of us feel blessed when
we go through any pain or sorrow…
In the second part of the reading, Jesus talks about the other end of the ‘happiness spectrum’, if we
can call it that: ‘Alas for you who are rich, alas for you who laugh now,…’ It is easy in those happy
circumstances to forget God and forget where our happiness came from in the first place.
So Jesus is prompting us to have a balanced view of the world and of our own lives. When things
seemingly go well, it is important never to lose sight of the people who are less fortunate than us.
When things are seemingly hard to deal with and a struggle is on our hand, remember the other
blessings we have received such as our families, friends and a roof over our heads or a job. Jesus asks
us to be balanced. When things are tough, focus on the blessings we do have. If things go well, put it
in perspective and don’t forget those less well off.
Our painting by Florida-based Debbie Criswell is a fun take on living a balanced life. The black and the white cats are carefully balanced on a circle which is standing on another larger sphere. The cats perform a delicate balancing act. If one cat makes the wrong move, they may well fall…
Click Here: February 12, 2022
Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 8:1-10
Friends, today’s Gospel tells of Jesus feeding the four thousand with seven loaves and a few fish.
An awful lot of contemporary theologians and Bible commentators have tried to explain away the miracles of Jesus as spiritual symbols. Perhaps most notoriously, many preachers tried to explain the multiplication of the loaves and fishes as a "miracle" of charity, with everyone sharing the little that he had.
But I think it’s hard to deny that the first Christians were intensely interested in the miracles of Jesus, and that they didn’t see them as mere literary symbols! They saw them for what they really were: actions of God, breaking into our world.
Click Here: February 11, 2022
Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 7:31-37
Friends, our Gospel for today has to do with Jesus’ healing of a deaf man with a speech impediment. As always, we have to look at the surface and at the depth. Jesus is performing a physical miracle. But every one of his actions should also be read symbolically, so as to uncover a deeper spiritual meaning.
So what does Jesus do? He "put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue." Jesus establishes, as it were, an electrical current, running from God the Father, through him, to this man. He—almost literally—plugs him into the divine current, compelling him to hear the Word. He says "Ephphatha," be opened. When he does, his speech impediment is immediately overcome. Now he is able to speak the Word of God clearly.
So this deaf man stands for all of us who do not hear the Word of God, who have grown oblivious to it. And what is the result of this deafness? A speech impediment. At the spiritual level, if you don’t hear the Word of God clearly, then your capacity to speak it is also severely compromised.
Click Here: February 10, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
In our Gospel reading today we hear about the worries of a woman. Her ‘little daughter’
was possessed by an evil spirit. The words ‘little daughter’ that Mark the Evangelist uses
re very sweet as it implies that the girl was very young. How awful for a young girl to be
possessed by an unclean spirit. It is an age where she should be playing with the other
children and enjoy youthful activities. No wonder that her mother was worried and wanted
to do all she could to set her child free. A mother’s great joy is to watch her children grow
into beautiful human beings and make them blossom. Something was preventing her from
doing that, and she took the initiative to go and see Jesus. She was strong willed and had
great faith that Jesus would help her.
Her display of faith is simple. She has a problem and she turns to Jesus. That’s all. She had
nothing to offer to Jesus or to claim. She was totally dependent on Jesus’ mercy. Her
begging prayer is pure. She is a great example of how to empty ourselves of all our hypocrisy,
pride, and self-righteousness when we come to Jesus to ask for His mercy. Jesus, seeing her
display of humility, responded and healed the child.
Motherhood is most poignantly painted by American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. In
this painting we can see what the Syro-Phoenician woman wanted: to spend simple, straight-
forward time with her daughter and together read, play, bathe, etc… Like her close friend
Edgar Degas, Cassatt concentrated on the human figure in her Impressionist works rather than
landscapes. There is little perspective in this painting, and the flattened composition is reminiscent of the Japanese woodblock prints that so fascinated Cassat. The nakedness of the child and her white legs are as straight as the lines of the woman’s striped dress. The elevated vantage point gives the viewer the impression like we are looking in on an intimate family moment. We look, but don’t participate in what is happening. The mother may even be telling the daughter a story as she bathes her… This is what the Syro-Phoenician woman wanted, to get back to tender, intimate family moments with her daughter.
Click Here: February 9, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
All of us are guilty at times of telling ourselves that our sin is the result of someone else
or of something outside of us. We don’t want to take responsibility. But Jesus is placing
the responsibility of our actions firmly back on us. Sin comes from within us. The issue is
not outside of oneself, but inside oneself. It is an issue of the heart. But that is also where
the solution lies: in the very depth of our heart God dwells, and when we fling wide open
the gates to let Him take over our heart, our hearts can be healed. It reminds me of the
hymn ‘Fling wide the gates, unbar the ancient doors; salute your King in his triumphant cause’…
So by opening the gates of our hearts to Christ, we let in the light, as illustrated in our
charming painting by American Thomas Kinkade. He describes on his website how his ‘wish had
always been that my artwork would be a messenger of hope and inspiration to others – a
message to slow down, appreciate the little details in life, and to look for beauty in the world
around us.’ The flowers, the trees, the light hitting the flung open gates, all convey a blossoming
and thriving of the created world.
True holiness is internal, not external. So stopping sin is like weeding the garden we are looking at in today’s painting and pulling out weeds. Only by taking out the very roots of sin will the weeds never grow back. If we just pull off the top of the weeds, then they will continue to impact our garden adversely. Even looking at our painting, there are probably weeds as part of that garden, but they are kept to minimal level. We can be sometimes be tricked by the weeds' superficial similarity to good things, but upon close inspection we can see they are weeds… in need of addressing...
Click Here: February 8, 2022
YOUR WILL NOT MINE; YOUR THOUGHTS NOT MY THOUGHTS
In the Responsorial Psalm we acclaim, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God! My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”
“God’s will, not mine be done; Your thoughts, not my thoughts, for Your thoughts are far above mine.”
In Mark’s Gospel today we see Jesus take on the Pharisees and some scribes for their hypocrisy. They insist on a strict observance of even the smallest purity regulations while at the same time ignoring the far more important commandments of God regarding justice and mercy. For Jesus it comes down to an issue of making human regulations far more important than the commandments of God. This is even more devious for religious leaders because they tend to have the cleverness to justify their hypocrisy and thus promote their self- righteousness. Hypocrisy among so-called religious people is just as prevalent today as it was centuries ago. These words of Jesus are meant to challenge all of us who claim to be His followers today.
Points to Pray and Ponder:
If we listen to God’s word with faith and reverence, it will both enlighten our minds and purify our hearts, thus enabling us to better understand how He wants us to love and serve Him and those around us in this world. We must remember that real purity comes from within the heart…This is God’s will, not ours!
Click Here: February 7, 2022
Reaching Out for Help
“If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed.” This was said by a broken woman who was looking for healing earlier in Mark’s Gospel. Bleeding for 12 years, she was considered an outcast. She believed that if she could just touch the hem of his garment that she would be healed. We hear from similar men and women today in Mark’s Gospel. They did touch Jesus that day, and he touched them as well. These people didn’t have Twitter or smartphones to tell them Jesus was near – yet they sought him out. Jesus gives life to those who truly look to him in faith, to those who reach out to him in faith. This woman, whose faith was so strong and deep, is among the holy men and women I ask each day to pray for me. Go ahead, reach out today and ask for help and strength as well.
—Jim Bozik is a permanent deacon at St. Peter Catholic Church, the Jesuit parish in the Diocese of Charlotte. The Charlotte diocese celebrates its fiftieth Anniversary in January 2022.
Prayer
You heal us in secret and silently, when we but touch Your clothes;
You say our faith is the cause; how is it You rely on our faith for Your works?
You feed us in so many ways, not the least of these being
when we reach to touch the least of these, to touch in love in Your name;
You ask us each to get up, give us something to eat, and send us to serve;
perhaps today a hand will touch our clothes.
—Mary Ellen Smajo
Click Here: February 6, 2022
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 5:1-11
Friends, today’s Gospel gives us the story of the miraculous draught of fishes. In many ways, the whole of the spiritual life can be read off of this piece.
Without being invited, Jesus simply gets into the fisherman’s boat. This is to insinuate himself in the most direct way into Simon’s life. And without further ado, he begins to give orders, first asking Simon to put out from the shore and then to go out into the deep. This represents the invasion of grace. The single most important decision that you will ever make is this: Will you cooperate with Jesus once he decides to get into your boat?
In many ways, everything else in your life is secondary, is commentary. When the Lord Jesus Christ gets into your boat, he will always lead you to the depths. Duc in altum, as St. John Paul II loved to quote. More dangerous? Yes. More exciting? Yes.
Now, mind you, the depths we’re talking about here are spiritual depths. The excitement we’re talking about is the true excitement that comes from spiritual transformation. The depths have nothing to do with what the world considers important or exciting.
Click Here: February 5, 2022
Memorial of Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr
If God said to us today, “Come away by yourself to a deserted place and rest awhile," we would be only too happy to go to a peaceful place for a retreat or take a much-needed vacation. We might even find that when we try to rest, our work, our ministries, or our to-do lists follow us to our places of retreat; they follow us to our places of rest. When should we stop for a moment, rest, eat, and take care of ourselves? When should our preference be to meet and greet our work, even when we wish we could rest awhile? Yes, just as Jesus was moved to continue ministering to people who followed him and the apostles to where they had intended to rest.
Despite all distractions and interruptions to our need for rest, we do what we must and what we are able to do from moment to moment. We trust God to lead us through whatever is most needed here and now. When God impresses upon our hearts and spirits the desire for retreat, rest, and self-care, we know what to do and how to respond, even if we might not always have the opportunity to do so. If we ask God to order our daily steps so we might do that which is life-giving, we would be doing what we are called to do at every given moment of the day.
In the same breath, what if God said to us as we rested, "Ask something of me, and I will give it to you." Would we be like Solomon and ask for wisdom and understanding so we might know right from wrong more clearly? Would we ask for wealth, swift judgment on those who have hurt us, immortality, freedom from all forms of personal suffering, or maybe even an opportunity to just rest? Would we go big and ask for world peace, an end to violence on the streets, an end to all diseases, and an end to poverty? What would we ask of God? What are we open to receiving?
God already knows about the things we want but do not have the courage to ask for. These things, God will provide at the right time. Having said that, what would we have the courage to voice as a need if we should be asked today? What would we do when we have received what we have asked for from the Lord? Do we even know for sure what we want from the Lord? Regardless of our needs and wants, may we take time to intentionally rest in the warm embrace of the Lord, and trust that what we need will be provided by God’s grace and in God’s time.
Lord, give us courage and wisdom to ask for rest when we need it
and strength to care for the hearts and souls of others when we are called to do so
Click Here: February 4, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
Today’s Gospel reading tells us about the decadence of Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, who had
become besotted with his stepdaughter Salome. He was prepared to offer her whatever
she wanted if she danced for him. So, prompted by her mother Herodias, who loathed John
because he had denounced her marriage to Herod, Salome asked for Saint John the Baptist’s
head. It is a story that has fascinated artists throughout the centuries, as it is such a graphic
story about injustice and cruelty to good people. Our painter, Puvis de Chavannes, shows the
scene immidiately before the beheading took place. St John is looking away from us. He is
staring at the rays of light coming out of the reed cross, contemplating the future death and
salvation of Christ which his own martyrdom prefigures. We see Herod in a red cloak on the
right, flanked by Salome who stands ready holding a tray. A fallen leaf is by her feet. A woman
is seen weeping in the background.
It is a slightly odd painting as the enclosed courtyard with a threatening tree gives the feel of a
theatrical setting and the poses of the figures are staged, choreographed and artificial. Even the
executioner swinging the sword looks more like a ballet dancer, rather than performing a cruel, barbaric sweep. There is no visible emotion in any of the figures, as if they are all suspended in a moment of eerie stillness. In a way the painting conveys exactly the coldness needed to commit acts of cruelty.
Maybe we all have a bit of Herod inside us? John had tried to appeal to Herod before this day of execution. John believed in Herod’s better nature, but in the end Herod decided to follow his earthly desires and pride. We all hear a call deep inside us that appeals to what is best in us, but we decide against it, pursuing self-interest. We can hear that voice of Saint John inside us appealing to the Herod also inside us. It is the Herod we are asked to let die inside us, so we can be true to who we are called to be.
Click Here: February 3, 2022
God Is Revealed in Our Lives
Father Richard points out how the Bible is filled with stories of people encountering God—regardless of whether they got everything right or everything wrong!
Let’s state it clearly: One foundational and yet revolutionary idea of the Bible is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in history, in the concrete incarnations of life. God does not hold out for the pure, the spiritual, the right idea, or the ideal anything. Apparently, the biblical God would much rather be in relationship than merely be right in solitude! This is why Jesus stands religion on its head.
But it is also why we have to go through the seemingly laborious, boring, or even disturbing books of the Bible, such as Joshua, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Leviticus, Numbers, and Revelation. We hear in these books about sin and war, adulteries and affairs, kings and killings, intrigues and deceits—the tragic and sad events of human life along with the ordinary and wonderful. Those books, documenting the life of real communities, of concrete and regular people, are telling us that “God comes to us disguised as our life” (a wonderful line I learned from my dear friend and colleague, Paula D’Arcy). But for most “religious” people this is actually a disappointment!
In the Bible, we see God using the very wounded lives of very ordinary people, who would never have passed the tests of later Roman canonization processes. Moses, Deborah, Elijah, Paul, and Esther were at least complicit in murdering; David was both an adulterer and a liar; there were rather neurotic prophets like Ezekiel, Obadiah, and Jeremiah; an entire history of ridiculously evil kings and warriors—yet all these are the ones God works through. They are not summarily dismissed.
God’s revelations are always concrete and specific. They are not a Platonic world of ideas and theories about which we can be right or wrong. Revelation is not something we measure, but something or Someone we meet! All of this is called the “mystery of incarnation.”
Our temptation now and always is to trust in our faith tradition of trusting in God instead of trusting in God. They are not the same thing! Often our faith is in our tradition in which we can talk about people who have trusted God in the past. That’s a sad way to avoid the experience itself, to avoid scary encounters with the living God, to avoid the ongoing Incarnation.
It's not about becoming spiritual beings nearly as much as about becoming human beings. The biblical revelation is saying that we are already spiritual beings; we just don’t know it yet. The Bible tries to let us in on the secret, by revealing God in the ordinary. That’s why so much of the text seems so mundane, practical, specific, and, frankly, unspiritual! The principle of the Incarnation proclaims that matter and spirit have never been separate. Jesus came to tell us that these seemingly different worlds are and always have been one.
Click Here: February 2, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord, which occurs exactly forty days after
the birth of Jesus. Our late Gothic painting was executed by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in 1342. It was
made for the altar of St. Crescentius in the Cathedral of Siena, part of four altarpieces which depicted
scenes in the Life of Our Lady. We see Mary presenting the child Jesus in the Temple. The white cloth
she holds refers to her own purification, according to Hebrew rituals, which took place at the same
time. Simeon, flanked by the prophetess Anna, is holding Jesus; both of them recognise the Child as
being the Messiah. They look lovingly at the child. Anna is holding a scroll citing part of today’s Gospel
passage (Luke 22:38). On the altar, the priest holding a knife is sacrificing a dove. In front of him a flame
is burning to convey the sacrificial nature of his actions. Joseph is shown alone, on the far left, quietly
present in the background, humbly serving. The temple is rendered as a Gothic interior, rather than the
temple of Jerusalem. Starry vaults, marble columns, mosaic inlay effects, pointed arches, all convey the
richness of the event and today’s feast.
The perspective of the floor is especially well rendered, alongside other exquisite details such as the
gilt-incised halos and the sweet depiction of Jesus sucking his thumb. His very human portrayal brings
joy and spontaneity to the picture. Our Gospel reading and painting (further depicting Moses in the
architectural vaults, Malachi, Joshua, etc…) stress how Christianity has its roots in the Jewish faith.
Mary and Joseph are faithfully observing the Jewish Law.
Instituted by Pope John Paul II in 1997, today is also the World Day for Consecrated Life. Simeon and Anna remind us of those women and men who have consecrated themselves to serve God in the religious life. Today we pray for them and thank God for all they do and their unique witness of selfless service to our world.
Click Here: February 1, 2022
A Parent’s Love
Today’s passage from 2 Samuel is taken from a larger story about King David’s treasonous son, Absalom, who has done some terrible things. Still, David does not want to see his son pay for these crimes with his life. Against David’s wishes, Joab executes Absalom anyway. He shows Absalom justice, but not mercy. Like Joab, we may think that David should care more about Israel than a duplicitous son. Are his priorities as a leader in the right place?
The bond between a parent and child is powerful. It may even become stronger in fraught times when a child seems most in danger. This may bring to mind our bond with God the Father, who never forgets that we are more than our worst acts. David mirrors God’s deep and abiding love for us when he weeps a parent’s tears for a beloved child lost to the darkness of sin.
When Jesus is called “Son of David” in the Gospels, it is a title that connects him with a complex human being and a messy human story. Today we see a parent who aches with love for an errant child. Can we look with the eyes of Jesus, who joins us in the mess of sin, and see everyone we meet as God’s children? Can we ask for the grace to show mercy? To forgive?
—Joe Kraemer, SJ, is a transitional deacon of the Jesuits West Province
Prayer
To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.
Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion!
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
—From Psalm 22
Click Here: January 31, 2022
Daily Inspiration from JesuitPrayer.org
January 31, 2022
St. John Bosco
Bringing Our Frustrations to God
Do you ever have an argument with Jesus? Do you ever complain about someone or something in your prayer? I do. A loving, personal relationship is based on honesty, and that includes not hiding our disappointments. The Old Testament is filled with angry responses, as we hear today from Shimei. In my experiences after days or events that frustrate me at some point later there is a calming, a light that cracks its way through the darkness. Jesus reminds me that he has experienced everything that I have, including abandonment and disappointment. Near the end of his suffering on the cross he cries out “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me.”
If you are going through difficult times, take your anger and frustration to God and Jesus in prayer. And wait for the calm, still, small voice in reply.
—Jim Bozik is a permanent deacon at St. Peter Catholic Church, the Jesuit parish in the Diocese of Charlotte. The Charlotte diocese celebrates its fiftieth Anniversary in January 2022.
Prayer
Good and gracious God, you know us better than we know ourselves, including our disappointments and frustrations. Help us to turn to you in difficult times, knowing that you will never abandon us. Open our hearts to listen for your still, small voice. Amen.
—Jesuit Prayer team
Click Here: January 30, 2022
How is God Calling You?
Before I graduated from high school people would ask me questions like if I thought I’d like to become a doctor like my dad (I didn’t), or where I wanted to go to college (someplace warm). I thought about being a lawyer or entering the Jesuits as my cousin had done, and a few other things I do not remember now. But the choice was mine about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.
But in the first reading for today’s Mass, Jeremiah tells us that he believed that, before being born, God had chosen him to be a prophet to deliver God’s message to the people of Israel, a message they would resist. Jeremiah did not have to choose in what he would be or the reception he would receive. God did promise him, however, to stand with him and protect him in the face of opposition.
As you look at your own life, do you feel God has called you to be a certain type of person, destined you for a particular mission or destiny?
—Fr. Frank Majka, SJ, is a priest of the Midwest Province who lives at the Jesuit community at St. Camillus in Wauwatosa, WI.
Prayer
And these words — ‘You will not be overcome,’ were said very insistently and strongly, for certainty and strength against every tribulation which may come. He did not say ‘You will not be troubled, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted,’ but he said ‘You will not be overcome.’ God wants us to heed these words so that we shall always be strong in trust, both is sorrow and in joy.
Click Here: January 29, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
What is the worst storm you have experienced? For some of us it might be hard to answer,
as we all have our fair share of storms that at the time threatened to destroy our stability
and security. Some storms are indeed bigger than others, but they all have shaped us. Our
Gospel reading today tells us that storms don’t worry Jesus. The disciples were very worried,
but Jesus wasn’t.
Amidst our personal storms this Gospel reading can at first even suggest that Jesus is so calm
and asleep that He doesn’t care or doesn’t get up and do something when we are in trouble.
Does Jesus even realise the storm I am in? What our reading today tells us is that Jesus is as
much in control when he is asleep as when He is awake. Whether he is awake, asleep, close,
at a distance, He is in control at all times and we are safe with Him. The storms may go on
around us, and it may seem that Jesus is asleep, but yet He is there for us, and always in control.
This sense of relaxing into our faith and into the knowledge that Jesus is always there with us
amongst any storms is beautifully conveyed in our painting by Australian artist Joel Rea. A man
(a self portrait of the artist) is quietly drawing onto a notepad, in front of huge, threatening waves. There is also danger in the foreground with two sharks swimming close by. We don’t know if the tigers are a threatening presence or actually have befriended the man. This hyper-realist work is exquisitely painted. The man in our painting is at peace, even though threats are surrounding him… It is that same peace to which Jesus is inviting us today, knowing that we are loved by Him and that He always remains close to us… we just have to be willing to step into that boat with Him and His disciples.
Click Here: January 28, 2022
Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Mark 4:26-34
Friends, today’s Gospel compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed that "once it is sown,
it springs up and becomes the largest of plants." It seems to be a law of the spiritual life that God
wants good things to start small and grow over time.
We’re tempted to say, "You’re God. Just get on with it. Do it!" But why would God work the way he
does? We might attempt a few explanations. It is a commonplace of the Bible that God rejoices in our
cooperation. He wants to involve us, through freedom, intelligence, and creativity, in what he is doing.
And so he plants seeds, and he wants us to cultivate them.
Consider what God said to St. Francis: "Francis, rebuild my Church." God
could have rebuilt his Church without Francis, but he wanted him to get
involved.
When things start small, they can fly under the radar while they gain strength and heft and seriousness.
Also, those involved can be tested and tried. Suppose you want to do something great in the life of the
Church and you pray and God gives you massively what you want. You might not be ready, and your
project will peter out. So be patient and embrace the small invitations.
Click Here: January 27, 2022 Word on Fire
Mark 4:21-25
Friends, today’s Gospel shows how the light of Christ affects our lives. Well, light is wonderful in the measure that it illumines and brightens and delights. But light can also be disconcerting. Think of how bad most of us look in direct light! I discovered this while filming the CATHOLICISM series. I much prefer the indirect light that you can produce indoors. The full glare of the sun reveals every flaw, imperfection, and peculiarity of your face.
Think of what happens when you suddenly shine a light into a dark corner in your basement or down a lonely alley. The bugs and the vermin reveal themselves. Unsavory things scurry about for cover, afraid of the light.
When you invite Jesus into your life, you are inviting the light into your life. Again, this is wonderful, but it is also frightening. Jesus will shine his light in every corner of your life, in every room of your house. Things that look okay in the dark or in the indirect light will suddenly stand out in all of their unpleasantness.
Click Here: January 26, 2022 Word on Fire
Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops
Mark 4:1-20
Friends, our Gospel for today is the parable of the sower and the seed. It has to do with the growth and development of the kingdom of God. We hear that Jesus began to teach by the sea and that a very large crowd gathered around him. This is Jesus speaking to the whole world.
He then presents the parable of the sower: A sower goes out to sow, and as he sows, some of the seed falls on the path, where the birds eat it up; some falls on rocky ground, where it is scorched in the sun; some falls among thorns, where its life is choked off; and some falls on rich soil, where it bears fruit—thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.
Keep in mind that Jesus himself, in person, is the seed sown. Jesus is the Logos that wants to take root in us. This seed is sown far and wide, through all sorts of means, but in you, let the seed be sown deep, where it can’t be stolen, scorched, or choked.
Click Here: January 25, 2022
A Welcoming Table
Father Richard understands Jesus’ eating habits as a model for the kind of “open table” fellowship we might practice as Christians:
God’s major problem in liberating humanity has become apparent to me as I consider the undying recurrence of hatred of the other, century after century, in culture after culture and religion after religion.
Can you think of an era or nation or culture that did not oppose otherness? I doubt there has ever been such a sustained group. There have been enlightened individuals, thank God, but seldom established groups—not even in churches, I’m sorry to say. The Christian Eucharist was supposed to model equality and inclusivity, but we turned the Holy Meal into an exclusionary game, a religiously sanctioned declaration and division into groups of the worthy and the unworthy—as if we were worthy!
Before Christianity developed the relatively safe ritual meal we call the Eucharist, Jesus’ most consistent social action was eating in new ways and with new people, encountering those who were oppressed or excluded from the system. It seems Jesus didn’t please anybody by breaking rules to make a bigger table. Notice how his contemporaries accused Jesus: one side criticized him for eating with tax collectors and sinners (see Matthew 9:10–11). The other side judged him for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or dining with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36–50; 11:37–54; 14:1). Jesus ate with all sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a poor reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36–39), and he even invited himself to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1–10). How do we not see that?
It seems we ordinary humans must have our other! It appears we don’t know who we are except by opposition and exclusion. “Where can my negative energy go?” is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and also creates that negative energy in others. The ego refuses to see this in itself. Seeing takes foundational conversion from the egoic self and most have not undergone that transformation. We can only give away the goodness (or the sadness) that we ourselves have experienced and become.
Eucharist is meant to identify us in a positive, inclusionary way, but we are not yet well-practiced at this. We honestly do not know how to do unity. Many today want to make the Holy Meal into a “prize for the perfect,” as Pope Francis observed. [1] Most Christians still do not know how to receive a positive identity from God—that they belong and are loved by their very nature! The Eucharistic meal is meant to be a microcosmic event, summarizing at one table what is true in the whole macrocosm: we are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus still and always “eats with sinners,” just as he did when on Earth.
Click Here: January 24, 2022
From Where Do You Draw Strength?
From where, and from whom, do you draw strength? And how does that flow to others? As we live through a time of great stress and division, we desperately need something to hold our lives and our world together. Just as mortar makes a building strong, our faith is what makes us wholly human. It holds our experiences together, shapes them into a whole, gives them meaning, allows them – and us – to be whole. One, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.
Today we remember St. Francis de Sales, a bishop, preacher, and writer whose great ability was to translate our faith into simple thoughts and actions. For years I have carried a copy of today’s prayer of his that I ripped out of an airline magazine during one trip.
—Jim Bozik is a permanent deacon at St. Peter Catholic Church, the Jesuit parish in the Diocese of Charlotte. The Charlotte diocese celebrates its fiftieth Anniversary in January 2022.
Click Here: January 23, 2022
Remaining True to His Identity
Throughout the Gospels runs the question about who Jesus is. Some people believed that he was the Messiah. Some religious leaders accused him of blasphemy. John the Baptist had his disciples ask Jesus if he was “the one to come.” And Jesus himself asked the Twelve who they thought he was.
But in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares he is the Anointed One spoken of by Isaiah who would come to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to captives, bring sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, and announce the year of the Lord.
His listeners, however, deciding it couldn’t be true, rejected Jesus and his claim. Still, Jesus knew who he was and would not take back what he had said.
This Gospel incident can prompt us to ask ourselves who we believe Jesus is and who we think we are, no matter what others may say.
—Fr. Frank Majka, SJ, is a priest of the Midwest Province who lives at the Jesuit community at St. Camillus in Wauwatosa, WI.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, your life and ministry was always rooted in your identity as God’s beloved Son. Give us the confidence to know that we, too, are beloved children of God. Strengthen our faith in you, so that we, like the disciples, may confidently affirm that you are our Messiah. Amen.
Jesuit Prayer team
Click Here: January 22, 2022
Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children
Mark 3:20-21
Friends, in today’s Gospel, relatives of Jesus claim that he is mad, and scribes blaspheme him, charging that he is possessed by Beelzebul. You know, in cases like this, the basic problem is always the fearful ego. Ego-addicts know that sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
If you want to protect the ego and its prerogatives, you must oppress and demoralize those around you.
There is a very unsubtle version of this method: you attack, put down, insult, and undermine those around you. This is the method of the bully. But the religious version is much subtler and thus more insidious and dangerous. It takes the Law itself—especially the moral law—and uses it to accuse and oppress. “I know what’s right and wrong; I know what the Church expects of us; and I know that you are not living up to it.”
And so I accuse you; I gossip about you; I remind you of your inadequacy. Mind you, this is not to condemn the legitimate exercise of fraternal correction or the office of preaching. But it’s a reminder to not be sucked in to the slavery of ego addiction. We must stay alert to this and avoid it at all costs.
Click Here: January 21, 2022 Creighton
Two passages from today’s readings really resonated with me. The first, from the first reading from Samuel, quoted a proverb: ”From the wicked comes forth wickedness.” It made me think about the times I can be small and petty and disgruntled and I did something to get back at someone else. Coming from a place of darkness and meanness can lead to more darkness and meanness. In that reading, David does the generous and right thing by not attacking Saul when Saul did not expect the attack. David admits that he cut the mantel, but he refrained from injury and death and more darkness. It is often so easy to go to that place where we think we deserve to be petty and small and disgruntled. But if we stay there, we won’t ever be in the light. I need to remind myself of that when I feel slighted or ready to lash out. What I would see as a moment of satisfaction isn’t satisfying because “From the wicked comes forth wickedness.” I need to pray for the grace to do the right and the generous action.
The second passage that spoke to me was from the Alleluia: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” In a world that often seems consumed by division and polarization, we need that message of reconciliation. We can change and become new, thanks to God’s love. How can I I live my life with God’s message of reconciliation? I can start with the “Our Father,” where we ask for forgiveness for our own sins “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We have to forgive – to take the generous stance as David did – if we are to be trusted with the message of reconciliation.
For today, I’ll pray the “Our Father” and reflect on the reconciliation that’s necessary in my own life for me to live a life in the light.
Click Here: January 20, 2022
Daily Inspiration from JesuitPrayer.org
January 20, 2022
God’s Love is Enough for Everyone
It can be so easy to look at Saul with judgmental eyes. He is clearly jealous of David for the praise and admiration he is receiving. And how often do we fall into this same trap? Everyone is talking about the wonderful things someone else is doing and we fear that we will be overlooked. Despite all of his faults, perhaps Saul is really just afraid that when others show their love for David, there will not be enough leftover for him.
We can spend so much of our life climbing over others to be the first in line to be loved. We can even do this in our faith lives, believing God might love others more than us. But with the love of God, there is enough for everyone. There are no favorites when it comes to how God loves us.
Where is the fear of not being accepted or loved showing up in your life?
—Robby Francis is the Director of Campus Ministry at Creighton University in Omaha, NE.
Prayer
God of Love,
There is no fear in love. In those moments when I fear being unloved, help me to see the never-ending and never-failing love you have for me. Draw me closer to you so that I may see what you see in me and in others.
Amen.
—Robby Francis
Click Here: January 19, 2022
Reflection on the Old Master Drawing
The present drawing by Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) sold in 2014 at Christie’s in London
for £2,6 million, against an estimate of £300-500,000. It depicts the artist’s right hand.
When Goltzius was only a year old, according to his friend and biographer
Karel van Mander (1548-1606), he fell headfirst into the fireplace and burned both his hands
on red-hot coals. Whilst his mother tried to heal the wounds with ointments and bandages,
his hands were in constant pain. The tendons of his right hand never properly healed and for
the rest of Goltzius’s life, he was unable to open it properly. Just over 30 years after the accident,
Goltzius drew the present drawing of a hand. I think it is an exquisite drawing.
Maybe his own hand was somewhat like that of the man with the withered hand, as described in
today’s Gospel reading. What today’s Gospel reading teaches us is how Jesus is not interested in
theory or man-made rules. He looks at what we practise. Being confronted with the Pharisees, he
asks the man with the withered hand to come forward. Jesus so wants the Pharisees to look into
the eyes of the disabled man as they decide how to answer Jesus’ question of ’is it against the
law on the sabbath day to do good?’.
He is only asking the Pharisees to confirm or deny that such a healing would be a good thing in any case. We are told that they didn’t say anything at all…Furthermore, there is an urgency to the story. As Jesus knew He wouldn’t get an answer from the Pharisees and their hardened hearts, He didn’t wait. He went ahead anyway with healing the man there and then. There was no time to waste. Jesus’ work in our world will not be constrained by
our unwillingness to take part in His good works. But if we engage and fully co-operate, His work can fully blossom, helping to heal us and others.
Click Here: January 18, 2022 Word of Fire
Second Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 2:23-28
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to recognize him as Lord. Acknowledging the lordship of Jesus means that your life has to change. For many this is liberating good news. But for others, it is a tremendous threat. If Jesus is Lord, my ego can’t be Lord. My religion can’t be Lord. My country, my convictions, and my culture cannot be Lord.
The Resurrection is the clearest indication of the lordship of Jesus. This is why the message of the Resurrection is attacked, belittled, or explained away. The author of Acts speaks of “violent abuse” hurled at Paul. I have a small taste of this on my YouTube forums. We all should expect it, especially when our proclamation is bold.
This reveals a great mystery: we are called to announce the Good News to everyone, but not everyone will listen. Once we’ve done our work, we should move on and not obsess about those who won’t listen. Why do some respond and some don’t? We don’t know, but that’s ultimately up to God.
Click Here: January 17, 2022 Word on Fire
Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot
Mark 2:18-22
Friends, in today’s Gospel, people ask Jesus why he doesn’t encourage fasting among his followers. Jesus’ answer is wonderful: “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?” (That’s a typically Jewish style, by the way: answering a question with another question.)
This great image of the wedding feast comes up frequently in the New Testament, most obviously in the wedding feast at Cana narrative. And it is echoed in the Tradition. Jesus is the wedding of heaven and earth, the marriage of divinity and humanity; he is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride. In him, the most intimate union is achieved between God and the world.
Could you imagine people fasting at a wedding banquet? Could you imagine going into an elegant room with your fellow guests and being served bread and water? It would be ridiculous! So says Jesus: “As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.” The mark of the Christian dispensation is joy. Exuberance. Delight. God and the world have come together. What could be better news?
Click Here: January 16, 2022
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
John 2:1-11
Friends, in today’s Gospel, we read about the wedding at Cana. Jesus’ mother is the first to speak, as John tells the story: “They have no wine.” On the surface level, she is indeed commenting on a social disaster— running out of wine at a party—and she is asking Jesus to do something to make things better.
But let’s go deeper. Wine, in the Scriptures, is a symbol of the exuberance and intoxication of the divine life. When God is in us, we are lifted up, rendered joyful, transfigured. Therefore, when Mary says, “They have no wine,” she is speaking of all of Israel and indeed all of the human race. They have run out of the exuberance and joyfulness that comes from union with God.
And this is precisely why Jesus calls her “woman.” We can be easily misled into thinking that he was being curt or disrespectful. But he was addressing her with the title of Eve, the mother of all the living. Mary is the representative here of suffering humanity, complaining to God that the joy of life has run out.
Click Here: January 15, 2022
Reflection on the Painting
Our Gospel reading today gives us Mark’s account of the call of Levi, the tax collector. In
Matthew’s gospel, he is given the name Matthew, not Levi. What is extraordinary about
this account is the fact that Levi converted there and then, upon meeting Jesus. In a
matter of moments he went from one way of life to the complete opposite. So the
powerful presence of Jesus and the authority with which He spoke the words ‘Follow me’,
must have impacted Levi’s heart dramatically. The encounter was transformative. In our
lives too, Jesus comes to greet us every day and asks us to transform our hearts. No
matter how broken we are or what we’ve been up to, He comes to meet us where we are,
and simply asks us to follow Him.
I recently read an interview with Pope Francis, from 2013 (click here to read full interview). The interviewer, Fr Antonio Spadaro, asked Pope Francis the following question: "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?" Pope Francis answered: "I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition". He continued by saying: “That finger of Jesus, pointing at Matthew. That’s me. I feel like him. Like Matthew. It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff… I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.”
Our Spanish painting from 1661 by Juan de Pareja shows Christ turning up in the tax office and calling a lavishly dressed Matthew to follow Him. Matthew, with a star above his head, holds one hand to his chest in a gesture conveying ‘Are you calling me?’; his other hand is pointing towards his riches and what he will have to give up. The painter, Juan de Pareja, depicted himself on the far left, standing and holding a note, looking straight at us...
Click Here: January 14, 2022
Reflection on the Street Art Poster
Our Gospel reading today states that ‘the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’.
So for us, recipients of this forgiveness of sins, what does that exactly mean? Forgiveness is
not the end, but a beginning. Forgiveness is not the end of a bad chapter or a more difficult
period in life; forgiveness has a positive impact for the future. It is the start of a new life. So
after leaving the confessional we all may feel relieved that the old sins have been forgiven,
but it is equally important to leave the confessional realising that we have been given a
genuine new start, a new dawn. The Holy Spirit has just removed the shackles of the old sins,
so now will help us to start afresh so that we can become true co-operators with God in the
new life and freedom we have been given.
But we will only remain as free as our own ability to forgive others. And that is not always easy.
We will often opt for offering half a forgiveness, such as thinking ‘I will forgive but I will never
forget’. But we have to remember that forgiveness is an act of courage, not of weakness. It
takes courage to forgive, as it requires effort and even pain at times. Forgiveness is about
willing to get hurt and wounded. But that is what true courage is! We have to take the first step,
make the first move. We cannot simply wait for the other person to make the first move and
only then forgive. That would mean that we are bargaining with God and His precious gift of
forgiveness. Christ forgave, and that’s it. He didn’t bargain first or wait for someone to make the
first move.
Banksy’s Forgive us Our Trespassing street artwork illustrates what forgiveness is not. Here we see a kneeling boy next to a pot of paint, having painted a halo above himself and implying that he forgave his own sins. Forgiveness always requires the other. It is God who will forgive us, or our neighbour, or a fellow seminarian, friend, or colleague... And it involves each of us forgiving other people not just with words, but in the true depths of our heart... having the courage to open the doors to a new start, a new dawn.
Click Here: January 13, 2022 Word on Fire
First Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 1:40-45
Friends, our Gospel for today has to do with Jesus’ healing a leper. There aren’t that many lepers around today, but there are plenty of people that we treat as outsiders or pariahs. Like Jesus, we should be welcoming to them. Now, I have nothing particularly against that way of reading the situation, but I suspect that we’ve all heard it a thousand times.
Let me propose a symbolic reading a little different from the customary one. I propose that the leper here stands not so much for the socially ostracized but for the one who has wandered away from right worship, the one who is no longer able or willing to worship the true God. That’s why Jesus tells the man to "go, show yourself to the priest." In other words, go back to the temple from which you’ve been away for so long.
What is so important about worship? To worship is to order the whole of one’s life toward the living God, and, in doing so, to become interiorly and exteriorly rightly ordered. To worship is to signal to oneself what one’s life is finally about. It’s nothing that God needs, but it is very much something that we need.
Click Here: January 12, 2022
Who Helps You Hear God’s Voice?
Our attention is called in many ways during the day, and it can be easy to get distracted. Samuel is gifted with a mentor who helps him figure out where the message is coming from, and whether or not it’s worthy to follow. Yet even Eli, with years of experience, needs to hear this call three times before he knows what is going on. The world can be a challenging place with so many things calling us in so many directions. Spiritual directors, mentors, and friends can listen to us talk about the messages that are being sent our way by the world and by God and can help us discern what is actually a message worth following. For which spiritual directors, mentors and friends are you grateful for today? Take a few minutes to call, write, email or text to let them know of your gratitude. —Kay Gregg is the Assistant Department Chair for Campus Ministry at Loyola Academy.
Prayer
God,
Help me to hear your voice in the midst of this loud world.
Help me to be there for others who are searching for your voice.
Help me to live in gratitude for those in my life that help me hear you when it is difficult for me to do it alone.
Amen
—Kay Gregg
Click Here: January 11, 2022 Creighton
Today’s first reading from the first book of Samuel turns our attention to Hannah, a faith-filled woman who loved God. Her prayer would set in motion key parts of salvation history, beginning with the birth of her son, Samuel, who would become a great prophet and leader.
But none of that is known to Hannah, or to anyone, at that time. She is simply a woman who believes in God and believes that God loves her, and who is not afraid to speak candidly from her heart to her God.
She was broken, desperate, bitter. But she didn’t let that brokenness, that bitterness, turn her away from God. She was turned even more toward God, an example we can learn from. It’s so easy to shut God out when we are depressed or bitter, to blame God, to give up. But Hannah didn’t give up. She knew where the grace she needed to live her life came from, and she turned toward the Giver.
And how did she pray? “…she remained long at prayer before the LORD, … Hannah was praying silently; though her lips were moving, her voice could not be heard.” She poured out her heart to her God. She was not aware that anyone was watching her. She was alone with God in her heart and mind, and in her body, as her lips were moving. But Eli did see her and thought she was drunk. Her answer to his accusation: “I was only pouring out my troubles to the Lord. Do not think your handmaid a ne’er-do-well; my prayer has been prompted by my deep sorrow and misery.”
I believe this is the kind of prayer God wants from us. God doesn’t want us to carry our burdens and be sullen and resigned. God wants to give us comfort, compassion, relationship. I don’t believe God is saying that if we pray this way, we will always get what we think we want. In this case, Hannah did, conceiving a son. Instead, I find comfort in Hannah’s example of how to pray, how to relate to God.
God desires to share our pain, our disappointments. God wants us to know that, and wants to be the first place we turn. God wants us to physically know that the Giver of all gifts is real, and filled with endless compassion, understanding and great love. I believe that even if God had a different plan, and Samuel had not been born, Hannah would have left her time of prayer feeling heard by God and closer to God, and more ready to face the trials of her life. And she would have continued to pray that way, always growing closer to God along the way. May we always do the same.
Click Here: January 10, 2022 Word on Fire
First Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 1:14-20
Friends, our Gospel today is Jesus’ inaugural address, setting the tone for the whole of his preaching. Mark tells us that he was proclaiming the Good News of God, and that this was “the time of fulfillment.”
Something was being brought to completion. What was it? It was everything that the Old Testament had spoken of. Jesus gathered up in his person everything that Israel was about—and this is why his presence was so compelling and why following him was of paramount importance. This is why he says, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” The Good News is him. So now it’s time to make a decision.
Friends, this is the whole story. Everything else is commentary. We are meant to see ourselves in Simon and Andrew, in James and John. When Jesus passes by, we have to respond. The time is now. They got this, and that’s why they responded so promptly.
Now here’s the catch: to follow him means to do what he does, to call other people to the kingdom. “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” That line is addressed to all of us, to all the baptized, to all the disciples.
Click Here: January 9, 2022 Word on Fire
Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
Friends, this great feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a good time to reflect on the significance of the sacrament of Baptism. One of the earliest descriptions of Baptism in our tradition is vitae spiritualis ianua, which means "the door to the spiritual life."
To grasp the full meaning of this is to understand something decisive about Christianity. For Christianity is not primarily about "becoming a good person" or "doing the right thing." Let’s face it, anyone—pagan, Muslim, Jew, nonbeliever—can be any of those things.
To be a Christian is to be grafted on to Christ and hence drawn into the very dynamics of the inner life of God. We don’t speak simply of following or imitating Jesus. We speak of becoming a member of his Mystical Body.
Do you see why it is so important that we are baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"? For Baptism draws us into the relationship between the Father and the Son—which is to say, in the Holy Spirit. Baptism, therefore, is all about grace—our incorporation, through the power of God’s love, into God’s own life.
Click Here: January 8, 2022 Immaculate Heart Retreat Center
HEAR OUR PRAYERS AND KEEP US IN YOUR CARE
Listen again to a key passage of chapter 5 from today’s first reading from St. John’s Letter: “We know we belong to God…We also know that the Son of God has come and has given us discernment to know the one who is true, for He hears our prayers and keeps us in His care! He is the One we trust and who gives us eternal life.” We belong to God, and we are confident that God will look out for us and give us what we need. As God provides us with the grace to carry out the gospel of love, we truly live by the two greatest commandments also known as twin commandments—the love of God and the love of neighbor. It is our purpose.
In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist attests to the authenticity of the mission of Jesus. We too are called to live and take action. John the Baptist, for his purpose, had to not draw attention to himself, but to focus a light on the person of Jesus Christ.
Most people consider ambition a natural incentive. To want to be the first or the best is viewed as normal and surely the only way to get ahead in this world of ours. John the Baptist shows us a value which is opposite. His only ambition was to get out of the way so that Jesus could become first in the hearts of his own. He wanted the people to see and hear that following Jesus and not himself was the best thing that could happen to them. As we acclaimed in the Responsorial Psalm, “The Lord takes delight in His people.” (Ps 149)
Points to Pray and Ponder:
John the Baptist indicates to us one important aspect of our Christian vocation. Do you and I help to focus a light on Jesus Christ who takes delight in us?
Click Here: January 7, 2022 Richard Rohr
Week One: Nothing Stands Alone
Love Crosses Boundaries
CAC friend Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis explores how the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29–37) reveals God’s desire that no one be allowed to “stand alone” in their hour of need.
Rabbi Jesus is talking to a religious leader—a lawyer—about what it means to be faithful. Together, they review the Jewish scriptures: The way to live right is to love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself. Looking for a loophole, the lawyer wants to know who qualifies as a neighbor. Jesus answers by telling a story about a man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead by a marauding gang. A priest and another religious man walked by and, seeing the man on the ground, they did nothing. . . . But a Samaritan—a mixed-race person considered in ancient times to be an impure enemy of the Jewish people—did not cross the street. Instead, he tended to the wounded man. . . . The moral of Jesus’s story is that the despised Samaritan is the good neighbor.
In using this story to answer his companion’s question about the definition of neighbor, Rabbi Jesus was getting to what he considered to be the essential laws—love God with all you have and love your neighbor as yourself. He tells the story to make the point: What you think is outside, God has put inside. The Samaritan is more inside the boundaries of what is good/pure/loving than the passersby (religious leaders no less!) who did not stop to help the bleeding, beaten man on the street. In telling this story about a hated, mixed-race Samaritan doing a good deed, Jesus is disrupting the idea of borders and boundaries. If you want to know what love looks like, Rabbi Jesus is saying, here it is: Love crosses borders and boundaries; it makes new cultural rules; it cares for the stranger. Love turns strangers into friends. Fierce love is rule-breaking, border-crossing, ferocious, and extravagant kindness that increases our tribe. . . .
In any relationship, fierce love causes us to cross boundaries and borders to discover one another, to support one another, to heal one another. When we do this, when we go crazy with affection, and offer wild kindness to our neighbor across the street or across the globe, we make a new kind of space between us. We make space for discovery and curiosity, for learning and growing. We make space for sharing stories and being changed by what we share. This is the space of the border, of mestizaje [mixed race], of both/and. . . . We can learn to see the world not only through our own stories, through our own eyes, but also through the stories and worldview of the so-called other. . . . We simply must open our eyes, look across the room, the street, the division, the border—and reach out to that neighbor, offering our hand, our compassion, and our heart.
Click Here: January 6, 2022
Week One: Nothing Stands Alone
A Solid Foundation
Theologian and author Kate Bowler counters our cultural desire to proclaim we are “self-made” with a reminder of our foundational communal reality.
I am self-made. Didn’t anyone tell you? I brought myself into the world when I decided to be born on a bright Monday morning. Then I figured out how cells replicate to grow my own arms and legs and head to a reasonable height and size. Then I filled my own mind from kindergarten to graduation with information I gleaned from the great works of literature. . . .
I’m joking, but sometimes it feels like the pressure we are under. An entire self-help and wellness industry made sure that we got the memo: we are supposed to articulate our lives as a solitary story of realization and progress. Work. Learn. Fix. Change. Every exciting action sounds like it is designed for an individual who needs to learn how to conquer a world of their own making.
It’s hard to remember a deeper, comforting truth: we are built on a foundation not our own. We were born because two other people created a combination of biological matter. We went to schools where dozens and dozens of people crafted ideas and activities to construct categories in our minds. We learned skills honed by generations of craftspeople. We pray and worship with spiritual ideas refined by centuries of tradition. Almost nothing about us is original. Thank God.
It reminds me of the account of creation in Genesis. . . . God breathes oxygen into lungs in an instance of divine CPR. I love picturing that God, the only One who can create out of nothing—ex nihilo. God, who set the cornerstone of our lives and our faith, laid the first brick. The Master Builder whose carefully poured foundation is what we build on top of now. It certainly feels like a template for the rest of our experience.
Kate was a young mother when she was first diagnosed with Stage Four cancer:
When I was really sick and worried about dying too young, I kept trying to picture how much my son would remember. . . .
I thought about him all the time. When do children develop long-term memory? How much am I in there . . . his mischievous mind, his evil laugh. Then one day, my psychologist said something wonderful. He said: “Kate, you’re in there. The foundation is the part that doesn’t show.”
Whether it is our parents, our teachers, mentors, friends, churches, or neighbors, people have been pouring into us. We are standing on a foundation. It should come as an incredible relief. Our only job is to build on what we’ve been given, and, even then, even our gifts we can trace back to the creativity, generosity, and foresight of others. Thank God we are a group project.
Click Here: January 5, 2022 Richard Rohr
Creating a People
The Body of Christ is inherently a collective reality. Father Richard emphasizes that to live the gospel, we need each other:
The Body of Christ, the spiritual family, is God’s strategy. It is both medium and message. It is both beginning and end: “May they all be one . . . so that the world may believe it was you who sent me . . . that they may be one as we are one, with me in them and you in me” (John 17:21–23).
There is no other form for the Christian life except a common one. This may even be a matter of culture, if culture refers to something which is shared and passed on. In this sense, I am wondering if there is any other kind of Christianity except “cultural Christianity,” for better and for worse.
Until and unless Christ is someone happening between people, the gospel remains largely an abstraction. Until Jesus Christ is passed on personally through faithfulness and forgiveness, through bonds of union, I doubt whether he is passed on at all.
We are now paying the price for centuries in which the Church was narrowed from a full vision of peoplehood to an almost total preoccupation with private persons and their devotional needs. But history has shown that individuals who are confirmed in their individualism by the very character of our evangelism will never create church, except after the model of a service station: they will use it as a commodity like everything else. This is far cry from our “original participation” (Owen Barfield [1898–1997]) in the Body of Christ from the moment of our conception.
Certainly, we must deal with individuals. But the very nature of our lifestyle and our church teaching must say from the beginning what the goal is—the communion of saints, a shared life together as family, the trinitarian life of God, the kingdom—here!
The prophet Haggai criticizes the Jews after the exile for dwelling comfortably in their “paneled houses” while the common walls of the temple lie in ruins (see Haggai 1:4, 9). His prophetic call is now and forever. We still think that we can work with the world’s agenda, where career and individual fulfillment are the basic building blocks of society. And we believe that we can build church from those well-educated and well-saved blocks. But God needs “living stones making a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5).
For Jesus, such teachings as forgiveness, healing, and justice are not just a spiritual test or obstacle course. They are quite simply the necessary requirements for a basic shared life. Peacemaking and reconciliation are not some kind of box seat tickets to heaven. They are the price of peoplehood. They express the truth in the heart of God, the truth that has been shared with us in the Holy Spirit, the union in Jesus the Christ who is reconciling all people to God (see 2 Corinthians 5:18–19).
Click Here: January 4, 2022
Reflection on the painting
Today’s reading follows on from yesterday's, in which John the Baptist called Jesus the
‘Lamb of God’. In today’s Gospel reading, we find John now directing his own followers
towards Jesus. John came to prepare the way and did exactly that, prompting some of
his own disciples to become disciples of Jesus. Therein lies the example of John, that he
didn’t try to hold on to his followers. He generously and lovingly pointed his own disciples
towards the One who was greater than himself.
Saint John is thus a great example of how we too can share our friends with one another
and be non-possesive of the friends we have. We want to introduce them to other people
and share what we have and who we know… And of course the greatest friend we can
introduce them to is Jesus himself. We too are called to point our friends in the direction of
the Good. And yes that may come at a cost at times. Saint John ultimately gave his life in
sacrifice to his mission.
Our panel by an unknown Netherlandish artist, painted circa 1500-1510, shows Saint John on
the left with his disciples. He points to Jesus and His followers. Note that Jesus and all His
disciples all have halos, but in the other group Saint John is the only one with a halo. They are
all in an enclosed garden. The garden gate in the background will soon be flung open for Jesus'
ministry to burst into the world. The artist painted St John and Jesus in similar dress.
All of us were introduced to Jesus by someone. This might have been done by our parents or by
a friend. But who will we introduce to Jesus in 2022?
Click Here: January 3, 2022
A Mutually Loving Gaze
Our Daily Meditations theme this year reflects the reality that nothing stands alone. Father Richard describes the intimate relationship we experience when we allow ourselves to be loved, seen, and “gazed upon” by God:
I believe that we do not have real access to who we fully are except in God. Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, and much more than we think we are, “warts and all.” (Make sure you need to be forgiven for something or you will never know this!) It’s only when we find ourselves in God, and live and see through God’s eyes that “everything belongs.” All other systems exclude, expel, punish, and protect to find identity for their members in some kind of ideological perfection or separate superiority. Most think “the contaminating element” must be searched out, isolated, and often punished. This wasted effort keeps us from the centrally important task of love and union.
To have naked interface with the Ultimate Other is to know one’s self in one’s truest and deepest being. When we allow ourselves to be perfectly received, totally gazed upon by the One who knows everything and receives everything, we are indestructible.
If we can learn how to receive the perfect gaze of the Other, and to be mirrored by the Other, then the voices of the human crowd, even negative ones, have little power to hurt us. Best of all, as Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) has been quoted, “The eye with which you will look back at God will be the same eye with which God first looked at you.” [1]
Standing humbly before God’s gaze not only unites the psyche but it does the very thing that I know when I teach contemplative prayer. It unifies desire. It frees us from what Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) called the “vertigo of the imagination.” [2] It’s the whirlpool of imagination, looking here, there, and everywhere. Standing before one, accepting God literally allows us to be composed and gathered in one place. We can be in one place; we can be here, now. We can stop always looking over there for tomorrow’s happiness. As the apostle Paul wrote, “now is the favorable time, today is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
We see that Paul understands this in a most beautiful paragraph from his Second Letter to the Corinthians. He says, “We with our unveiled faces will gradually reflect like mirrors the brightness of the Lord. All will grow brighter and brighter as we are gradually turned into the image that we reflect” (3:18). That’s it!
It doesn’t have to do with being perfect. It has to do with being in relationship, holding onto union as tightly as God holds onto us, staying in there. The one who knows all and receives all, as a mirror does, has no trouble forgiving all. It’s not a matter of being correct, but of being connected.
Click Here: January 2, 2022
We Are Made for Love
Today we begin another year’s journey of Daily Meditations together. Our 2022 theme is “Nothing Stands Alone”—because the very nature of God and reality is relationship! Father Richard reflects:
The Christian belief in the Trinity says that God is absolute relatedness. God is our word for the ultimate ecosystem that holds all things in positive relationship (see Colossians 1:17). As long as we’re in honest and loving relationship with what is right in front of us, the Spirit can keep working in us and through us and for us.
Jesus comes as a naked, vulnerable baby, totally dependent upon relationship with others. Naked vulnerability means that we are going to let otherness influence and change us. When we don’t give other people any power over our lives, when we block them by thinking we can stand alone, or that otherness can’t change us or teach us anything, we are spiritually dead. As our 2022 theme puts it: Nothing Stands Alone. And it’s true! We are intrinsically like the Trinity, living in an absolute relatedness. We call this love.
We really were made for love, and outside of love we die very quickly. If we are going to start with Trinity, then loving relationship is the pattern, the very nature of being for us. But when we start with a philosophical concept of being and then try to convince everyone that this being is, in fact, love, we don’t have a lot of success. I’ve been a priest for almost fifty-two years and can say that most Christians seem to be afraid of God. We Christians aren’t more loving than anyone else; sometimes, we’re even less loving than other people! In some ways, that’s inevitable if we’re basically relating to God out of fear, and we haven’t been drawn into the love between the Father and the Son by the Spirit.
Jesus says the Spirit is always the hardest to describe, because “the Spirit blows where it will” (see John 3:8). Jesus’ message to us is clear: don’t ever try to control the Spirit and say where it comes from, where it goes, or who has it. It’s called group narcissism whenever we say our group is the only one that has the Spirit or the Truth. Every group at less mature levels will try to put God in their own pocket and say God only loves their group. Such a belief has nothing to do with the love of God. It isn’t a search for Truth or Holy Mystery, but a search for control. It’s the search for the small self, the search to make myself feel superior and to stand alone. I’m not in control or in charge of this Holy Mystery. I don’t presume to understand. All I know is I’m forever being drawn—through everything—each manifestation (epiphany) calling for surrender, communion, and intimacy.
Symbolic of all of us, the “three wise men” traveled long distances from their native religion and country to fittingly bow down before such an unknown Holy Mystery. It always leads to another Epiphany.
Click Here: January 1, 2022
Looking for New Year’s resolution inspiration?
Here are some ideas from Pope Francis:
http://ow.ly/xiRQ50CXmwr
Click Here: October 29, 2021
Reflection on the Video
In two days' time, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.
I would like to share a video we made, set to the music of John Denver's 'Windsong'.
Through paintings by Van Gogh, Michelangelo and other artists, we look at the Beauty
of our world... a world that has been entrusted into our care. We ask that we may all
grow deeper in our respect for God's Creation and take better care of it.
Wishing you all a relaxing weekend ahead,
Patrick
Click Here: April 4, 2021
An Easter prayer for the World
Happy Easter to all of you.
May Christ's empty tomb remind us that no matter how hard things may seem,
especially during these Covid times, hope of a new day is always on the horizon.
May the spirit of Easter fill our hearts with joy and fire for Our Lord.
Today is also a day to reflect on what Easter means for our world today. It is a
ay to see everyone regardless of race, creed, colour, political opinion as people
who are worthy of God’s selfless love...
This Easter, God shows us again His sacrificial love by giving His only Son to
die for us.
So in this video we pray for the whole world... through art. Enjoy,
Click here to see video: https://christian.art/videos.php
Patrick
