Our Journey of Faith

In today’s first reading, Acts 12: 1-11, King Herod, after killing James, the brother of John, imprisons Peter, as he believed that he was pleasing the people by murdering James.  He intended, most likely, to put Peter to death also.  God sends angels to free Peter from prison.   In the second reading, 2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 17-18, Paul realizes that his earthly existence is coming to an end and gives testimony that he has “competed well,” has “kept the faith,” and “finished the race.”  A “crown of righteousness,” he states to Timothy, “awaits me, which the Lord the just judge, will award to me on that day….”

You and I are on the same journey as Peter and Paul, whose feast day we celebrate today. God does not promise us that the journey will be easy. Like Peter and Paul we will, at times,  encounter  those who misunderstand us, judge us wrongly and, yes, even mistreat us, and  imprison us in  “cells” of judgment, and disfavor, accusing us of  being unfaithful servants of our God and not measuring up to their expectations.

Peter and Paul kept their eyes on the Lord and on the finish line: their living according to God’s will and their  birth into eternal life through death and resurrection. It was the Lord whom they were serving, not humankind, though fellow men and women on this same journey were part of their loving, caring, nurturing presence and service.

On whom or on what are  we focused: the wrongs done to us, the persons who judge us harshly or the living of the Gospel message and developing a loving relationship with Jesus?  What attitudes or behaviors do we need to let go of that obstruct our understanding of and giving expression to  the Gospel message in our lives as a mother/father, husband/wife, member of a religious community, a member of a parish, at the place of our employment? What attitudes in us interfere with developing an ever deepening relationship with Jesus?

Remember also, that God, as He did for Peter,  sends"angels" to help us and free us from "the prison" into which  we believe others have "thrown" us by their suspicions, judgments and unfavorable attitudes towards us.  If we take other people's impressions of us as true, we are in trouble, as we would be if, like Herod, we try to please others.  Stay focused on Jesus and Jesus alone and you will live a free life!

Confidence in Oneself

In the Gospel of today, John 17: 1-11a, Jesus says to His Father:  “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you….I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.”  Jesus is about to be arrested, condemned to death, scourged, crowned with thorns in mockery of His Kingship, and crucified.  Three days later, death having no power over the Son of God, Jesus is risen—glorified, with the Father,  with the glory that He had with the Father before the world was created.

Like Jesus, Paul, in the liturgy’s first reading, Acts 20: 17-27, is looking back on his life as well and is about to go to Jerusalem, where, like Jesus, he faces hardships and imprisonment.  Paul can testify that, like Jesus, he “did not shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.”

You and I have also been sent here to accomplish a task, a mission, given to us by the Father through the Holy Spirit, the Advocate sent to us by Jesus.  Like Paul and Jesus, as we bring our wills into harmony with God’s will for us, as we give glory to God by  the Gospel values we embrace,  we will meet hardship, be mocked and ridiculed. We will, from time to time,  be rejected on account of our beliefs in the Lord God, in Christ Jesus.  Disappointments, frustration, pain   are part of anyone’s faith journey.  At the end of our lives, hopefully, like Paul and Jesus,  if we have striven to give glory to God by our lives, if we have come to know the Father, the only true God, and the one whom the Father sent, Jesus Christ (cf John 17: 3),  we can confidently look forward to being glorified with our Father in heaven. 

At the end of this day, will I be able to say, as Jesus did, "Father, I have accomplished the work you gave me to do?"

The Crown of Victory

The entrance antiphon for today’s liturgy reads:  This is the one who was not deserted by God on the day of struggle and now wears a crown of victory for faithfulness to the Lord’s commands, alleluia. Obviously this One is Jesus Himself but also all of those who have gone before us and were faithful to what God asked of each of them on their journey of faith.  I think of my own mother and father, both of whom were faithful to what they believed God was asking of them as individuals, as husband and wife and as parents.  Yesterday Pope Francis I canonized two popes: Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul  II, both of whom also were faithful to what they believed God asked of them  as priests, bishops and popes.

What is God asking of you, of me, on our daily walks with Him, in our interpersonal relationships,  in our ministries (careers), as Christians, in our particular vocation in life, be that marriage, religious life, priesthood, or the single life?  How do you and I become the best version of ourselves physically, spiritually, emotionally, interpersonally, as a family or community member,  in our parish and civic communities, as a responsible citizen of the U.S.?  In all of these dimensions of our lives and in all of our struggles God does not desert us.

Let us remember in prayer today the 16 people, our brothers and sisters in Christ,  killed in the tornadoes that ripped through Arkansas last night and all of those families who lost absolutely everything. 

Companions on the Journey

In today’s first reading, Eph 2: 19-22, St. Paul reminds us that we “are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone [and] that through him, “the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him…[we] are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

My mind is filled with awe as I think of the fact that I am a companion on a journey to life in Christ Jesus, each of us individually and all of us together, being built into a Temple for the Lord.  I share this journey into God’s Kingdom being built here on earth and within each of us with those with whom I live, with those with whom I have difficulty, with those I love in Christ Jesus but actually do not like, with those whom I perceive as my enemies, as enemies of the U.S., of the Church, of my religious community.

Do I truly realize what this means? And if did, would I be less bothered by those whom I would love to change into “my image,” yes, my image, though I might believe that I want them transformed into the image of Christ!  If I truly believed that God is holding “the whole structure…together” and that it is, by the action of the Holy Spirit within it, growing “into a temple sacred in the Lord,…a dwelling place of God in the Spirit,” would I not be more free, less afraid, less worried and anxious when I come face to face with sin in myself, in others, in the world, in the church, in society? Would I not be more willing “to let go and let God,” as the people in AA and in Al-Anon are encouraged to do?
 

Mary's Faith Journey: Her Questioning and Ours

Today we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  The Gospel tells the story of Mary and Joseph taking Jesus up to the temple on his 12th birthday. Jewish boys, at that time, become a bar miszvah, "literally a 'son of the commandment(s).'   He can then perform all the mitzvoth and is required to do so with full responsibility for his religious behavior. When the boy is first 'called up' to the Torah, symbolic of his attainment of majority, the father utters a blessing commemorating this transition to adulthood."  Following the ceremony, Jesus stays behind in the Temple. Mary and Joseph leave Jerusalem, thinking that Jesus is in the caravan with the other parent.  He is not!  Mary and Joseph spend three terrifying days looking for him, Mary no doubt recalling Simeon's prophesy that Jesus is destined to be the cause of the rise and fall of many in Israel and a sword [of sorrow] will pierce her heart.

We read about the terror any parent goes through when a child is abducted, kidnapped, lost.  Mary and Joseph are no exception.  They find Jesus after a three-day search and Mary says to Jesus: "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety" (Luke 2: 41-51).  And Jesus responds: "Why were  you looking for me?"  That response must have baffled Mary and Joseph, I would think. The Scriptures tell us that "they did not understand what he said to them."  He left the Temple and returned to Nazareth with His parents, and "was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart."

We next meet Mary in the Scriptures when she and "his brothers come looking for him"(Mt. 12:46). Rumors  were such that his relatives wondered whether Jesus had lost his mind--had he gone crazy, being so involved in his ministry that he did not take time to eat. And finally, the next appearance of Mary is beneath the cross, where Jesus says to her: Woman, behold your son; Son, behold your mother"--all of us are entrusted to her care and she becomes the Mother of the Church!

Mary's faith journey was anything but simple or easy. Every parent knows Mary's pain and the burden  and responsibilities of parenthood--they do not disappear when a child enters adulthood.

The question we may want to ponder is: what does Mary teach us about parenthood, about being there for a  child, or anyone,  in trouble, about dealing with life on God's terms?