Glorious Triumph of our Savior

In the Entrance Antiphon for today’s liturgy of Thursday of the Third Week of Easter, we pray: “Let us sing to the Lord, for he has gloriously triumphed.”  In the Collect, we ask the Lord to “let us feel…[His] compassion more readily during these days when, by…[His] gift, we have known…[God’s compassion toward us] more fully, so that those…[the Lord has]  freed from the darkness of error may cling more firmly to the teachings of [His] truth.”

How aware am I that God the Son, Jesus, has “gloriously triumphed” in my life and will continue to triumph in my daily life, alerting me to the good I am invited to do, opening my eyes to His Love at work in my life and in the life of others around me as well as lifting me up from hopelessness, fear, apathy, discouragement, sin itself, deceitful patterns and so on, over and over and over again?  Am I aware that I have truly been “freed from the darkness or error” in my past and that God will do so in my future? Believing in Christ Jesus and humbly acknowledging my weaknesses and sinfulness, repenting of my sins in the sacrament of confession and in communication with those against whom I have sinned puts me on the path to eternal life! What a gift and what a challenge in living this truth day by day, clinging “more firmly to the teaching of [His] truth” every day!

You are a gift to Jesus from His Father

In today’s Gospel, John 17: 20-26, Jesus says to His Father, and ours:  “…they [you and I] are your gift to me.”  Hear Jesus saying to you: “You are the Father’s gift to me.”  All of us, young and old, married or unmarried, single or divorced, lesbian or homosexual, heterosexual or transsexual, white or black, Hispanic or Asian, Native American or African American or any other nationality, homeless or sheltered, mentally or physically ill, want to hear someone say to us: you are a gift to me. Every husband and wife wants to hear that from each other.   In today’s Gospel, it is Jesus saying to each one of us: You are a gift to me from my Father.  Each person, no matter how ugly we may think we are or we may think another is: Jesus says “You are a gift to Me from my Father.”  Jesus prays to the Father that we may “all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.” What a prayer!   And it will not go unanswered! And again He prays:  “…may they  be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.”  Perfection will be ours and will be culminated in eternity. We are on the road, through Christ Jesus, that leads us to perfection in Him, through Him, and with Him.  What a glorious heritage, bought at the price of Jesus death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, from whence the Spirit of God is sent to dwell within each of us!

Praise God!                         

Finding Jesus and Letting Jesus Find You

In today’s Gospel, John 1: 43-51, Jesus goes to Galilee and calls Philips to follow Him. Philip, who is from Bethsaida, invites Nathanael, telling him that they have found the “one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”  Tomorrow, in Trinidad and Tobago, Jesus’ invitation to two young women is being fulfilled as they enter the postulancy of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother.  It is not uncommon, today, to hear people taunt those who have entered religious life or who are members of a religious congregation.  “Why throw your life away,” some people ask. Others dogmatically proclaim that religious life is dying.  If so, why would the Lord continue to call young men and women to enter religious life today? As of today, the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother have 7 postulants, 3 novices and 9 young women in temporary vows!  We are not dying, just getting smaller and better! 

Just as Jesus saw Nathanael sitting under a fig tree (John 1 :49), so, too, Jesus sees young men and women sitting in libraries, living rooms, bedrooms, under shade trees, in classrooms and churches,or wherever.  He ponders their hearts.  Some hear his call and courageously answer.   Like Nathanael, who asked the Lord how He knew Him, Jesus says to those who follow Him, “Before so and so invited you to consider religious life, I saw you.”  Nathanael’s life is changed forever as He acknowledges that Jesus  is “the Son of God,…the King of Israel.”  And Jesus says to him:  Nathanael, “you will see greater things than this…Amen, amen, I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of Man.” 

Women and men religious, priests of God, are being called to a deeply intimate relationship with the Lord—a relationship that grows with the passing of time, as these men and women devote time each day to personal  and communal  prayer, contemplation, silent retreat and a total giving of themselves to service in the Church.  It is an awesome vocation, a privileged one,  for the few who are chosen.  As a member of a religious community of women for 50+ years I know and am so grateful!