Bearing Earnest Witness and the Price Paid

In both the first reading, Acts 20: 17-22, and the Gospel, John 17: 1-11a, both St. Paul and Jesus speak about having completed the work God had given them to do. Paul states his message this way: "'You know," he says to the people of Ephesus, "how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia.  I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me because of the plots of the Jews, and I did not at all 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."  Jesus says to His Father:  "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal  life to all you gave him....Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I  had with you before the world began. I revealed your name to those whom  you gave me out of the world. ...[T]hey have kept your word. Now they know that everything  you gave me is from  you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me....And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you."

WOW! The confidence of Jesus in His Father and in Himself!  He knew that He had completed the work the Father gave Him to do. And he also knew that the price He'd pay would be eliciting the anger of the elders, the leaders of the nation of Israel, the scribes and the Pharisees: an anger that led to himself being murdered. Jealousy led to the Pharisees, the scribes and the leaders of the nation of Israel plotting His demise. Jesus knew that was happening but that did not deter Him from proclaiming the truth, from revealing the Father's name and doing what the Father would do: heal the sick, raise the dead to life, make clean the leper, dry up the blood of a bleeding woman, make the cripple walk again, cast out demons, speak to women in public and include women in proclaiming the Kingdom, confronting unjust and hypocritical practices. 

Paul, too, did not stop doing the work Christ asked of Him. No matter what Paul encountered--and he tells us that he was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned and knew that people were out to kill him--he spoke of Jesus, of His resurrection and of the need to repent of their sinfulness and follow Jesus! Who wanted to hear that message? Imagine confronting our leaders with this message or a member of our families who may have strayed! Would we risk our lives, our relationships? We know that many of the apostles  fled after Jesus was arrested--no way did they want to risk the fate that Jesus was facing for standing up to truth and justice, for calling people to repentance.

Do you and I have the courage of Jesus? of St. Paul? Do we do and say what we know we are called to do and say even if the consequences put us in conflict with those who threaten us in any way? If we know that we will meet opposition to speaking the truth and doing what is right, do we still show up for Christ?

Bringing Others to Jesus

In today's Gospel, Mark 2: 1-12,  crowds surround Jesus seeking healing.  Four men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus but are unable to get close to  him, so they lower the man from the roof.  Jesus, seeing their faith, says to the paralyzed man: "Your sins are forgiven."  Some scribes observing Jesus  say to themselves: "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?"  Jesus knows what they are thinking and asks them: "Why are you thinking such things in  your hearts?"  Turning to the man on the mat, he says to him:  "...[R]ise, pick up your mat and go home." The man does so, thus Jesus emphasizes His power to both forgive sins and to heal the sick! Others there, contrary to the scribes, are astounded and burst into praise of God, saying: "We have never seen anything like this."

Who am I in this story:  someone who needs friends who will take  me to Jesus, one of the scribes questioning Jesus' authority and accusing Him of blasphemy, one of the persons in the crowd astounded by what Jesus has done and glorifying God, one who forgives others and thus being a source of healing for them?

I have choices to make every day! By some of those choices I distance myself from Jesus, others paralyze me spiritually, emotionally or physically. Other choices draw me closer to the Lord as I do what Jesus would do.  Still other choices give glory to God and lift my own faith and that of others!

What choices have I made today? yesterday? What do I need to do differently tomorrow so as to draw closer to the Lord, give glory to God and strengthen my faith and that of others?

Living for God Alone!

In today's first reading, Philippians 4: 10-19, St. Paul is grateful to the Lord and to the Philippians for being their for him, in good times and bad, in times of abundance and "famine."  Through the strength of the Spirit within him, St. Paul had learned to survive in any circumstance in which he found himself. Out of his abundance and his poverty, he served the people and they helped him. It was a receiving and a giving. Sometimes, Paul  needed the people to give to him out of their abundance and at other times Paul had to give from his abundance.

Like Paul, we are both needy and rich.  At times, out of our richness,  we are able to give and, at other times, in our poverty,  we are the ones who need others to share their riches with us.  We are to learn independence and interdependence, both materially and spiritually! When we learn to take care of ourselves in good times and in "bad," we are then able more efficiently and generously to give to others in their need.

In the Gospel, Luke 16: 9-15, Jesus warns us that, if we are serving "two masters", we will "either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot," Jesus says to us, "serve God and mammon."  We are here on earth to glorify God and to do good to and for others as a means to give glory to our God.  If we divide our attention to glorifying oneself or money, for instance, we will resent the single-minded and single hearted call to give glory to God alone!  As we journey through this life, we are on the way to the realization of our deepest union with God and to become more and more united with others in God!  Our ultimate goal is union with God for all eternity and living in the Kingdom of Eternal Love.

To God's Name Give the Glory

In today's first reading, Acts 14: 5-18, the people of Lystra were so awed when a crippled man was healed by Jesus through Paul and Barnabas that they attempted to worship them, believing that "the gods have come down to us in human form." Paul and Barnabas were appalled and were able to stop them, saying to them "[w]e proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols  [Zeus and Hermes] to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them." 

It is easy to forget that whatever good we do is done by the Lord using us as His instruments. It is not us doing the good or the healing or the whatever. God works through those who believe.  We pray in today's responsorial psalm "Not to us, O Lord, but to your name give the glory," but how often are we not seeking the glory that belongs to God and making idols out of ourselves!

Glorifying God

In today's first reading, Romans 5: 12, 15b, 17-19, 20b-21, St. Paul reminds us that, just as sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve, so, too, did righteousness come into the world through Jesus, the Incarnate  Son of God, who was obedient to the Father even unto death.  Psalm 40, speaking of Jesus, says: "Sacrifice or oblation you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me. Burnt offerings you sought not; then said I, 'Behold I come.'  In the written scroll it is prescribed for me, to do your will, O my God, is my delight."

You and I are made righteous through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Because of Jesus' obedience to His Father, and ours, grace overflows into our lives, as Paul also proclaims:  "Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  When you and I admit our sinfulness and acknowledge our neediness of God's overflowing graces,  and when we submit our will to the will of God, those graces are poured out upon us in an abundance that only God is capable of bestowing upon us.  May God's generosity lead us to say, with the author of Psalm 40: "The Lord be glorified."  And may that glorification of God become a reality by our words and deeds in the everydayness of our lives!

God's Possession and What It Means

In today’s first reading, Ephesians 1: 11-14, Paul again reminds us that we are God’s possession, “chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory….[I]n  Christ],…[we] were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,…the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption [and sanctification] as God’s possession.”

Wow!  The impact of Paul’s message is even more powerful when we insert our names in this passage: Dorothy Ann (your name), you are chosen! Why me? Why you?  Because you and  I are sinners  in need of redemption and sanctification.  And chosen for what? To realize our destiny as designed by God, who “accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will.”  We may question whether or not we are truly accomplishing “all things according to the intention of God’s will. However, that is God’s promise to us and God does not break His promises.  When we fail to follow the Spirit’s lead, God uses those circumstances to reconcile us to God, to make right our wrongs, so to speak.  God’s intention is that, “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, …the first installment” of our “inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession,  that we lead lives that give “ praise of [God’s glory]!”—that we are glorifying our God by how we live the Gospel.

God’s gift of being chosen comes with a price: the death of His only begotten Son. God  sent His only begotten Son to pay the ransom for our sins. For our sake, Jesus bore the curse of sin, dying  a horrible death on the cross to reconcile us to the Father. Jesus gave His life that you and I, all of us,  might fully realize the gift of redemption and sanctification here on earth by the way we follow the Lord as  faithful disciples.

Am I, are you, on a daily basis, making choices that glorify our God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? God Almighty? God, who, in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, is all good, totally good? Do I, do you,  reflect God’s goodness in our attitudes, in our actions each day?  If not, why not? If not, how am I, are you,  betraying God's trust?

God's Dwelling Here on Earth

In today’s first reading, 1 Kings 8:22-23, 27-30, we ask:  “Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?”  If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built!”

God’s love is so magnanimous, so selfless, so giving that He created an entire universe to reveal His beauty, His love, His magnificence. The crown of creation is His creation of humankind in the image and likeness of God, male and female He created them—He shares Himself in that each of us reflects the Godhead as much as a child reflects his/her parents.  All of creation God proclaimed good; humankind “very good.”  No part of creation is made for itself. All is made to glorify God!  Churches and temples, also, are not made for themselves but are places in which, through prayer and worship, we are reconsecrated to the Lord and sent forth to proclaim God’s glory by our works of love and selfless giving to one another, to the world, and, yes, the universe itself, beautifying it to glorify its Creator.

In the Gospel, Jesus points out that laws and traditions are not above integrity of persons, of the call to honor the Lord with hearts open to respect, love,  and service to one another  through the commandments, summed up as loving God with our whole hearts, our whole mind, and our whole soul and our neighbor as ourselves.

“Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth?”  Look around!  Do you see God reflected in your neighbor? Do you reflect God to your neighbor?

Great and Wonderful Are God's Works

In today’s first reading, we pray the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb:

“Great and wonderful are your works,

Lord God almighty.

Just and true are your ways,

O king of the nations.

Who will not fear you, Lord,

Or glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

All the nations will come

And worship before you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

At every Mass, we join Moses and all of the saints and angels in heaven, proclaiming the greatness of the Lord, acknowledging the justice and truth of God’s ways and recognizing God as “King of the nations.”  We glorify God name, God, who alone is holy and to whom all nations will come, worshipping before the Lord, God of hosts.  God’s righteous acts are revealed in the consecration of every Mass, where earth and heaven join in worship, in becoming one with the Lord, who gives Himself to us in Holy Communion to reconfirm our union with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us shout: “Great and wonderful are all your works, Lord, mighty God” (the Antiphon of today’s Responsorial Psalm 98), for the Lord’s “right hand has won victory for him,” and for us.  “The Lord has made his salvation known” (Responsorial Psalm 98).

May we allow God today to make His salvation known through the way in which we relate to each other and in the way that we respond to injustices done toward us or other or in the way in which we react when confronted with truth—perhaps a truth we do not want to hear about ourselves.

 

The Writing on the Wall

 In today’s first reading, Daniel 5: 1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28, we read about King  Belchazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son who, like his father, worshipped gold ,silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone as gods.  In a drunken state, he ordered that the sacred vessels of silver and gold  from the house of God in Jerusalem be brought to him so that his lords, his wives, his entertainers and he himself could drink wine from them. As they were marrying and worshipping their gods, a hand began to write on the wall. The King was terrified and called for Daniel to interpret the writing. He did so. Mene meant that God had numbered the king’s kingdom and would bring it to an end. Tekel meant that the king was found wanting in God’s eyes. He was worshipping pagan gods but not glorifying “the God in whose hand is your life breath and the whole course of your life.”  Perez meant that Belshazzar’s kingdom would be divided and given to other nations.

Do you and I read the writing on the walls of our lives when we, too, are worshipping false gods, when we have violated the sacred vessels from the Temple?  We are that temple of God.  In 1 Cor 6: 19-20 St. Paul asked “Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? “  Do we glorify the God in whom we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) or are we engaging in idolatrous worship of material things?

Just as God alerted King Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar, of his waywardness and the consequences of violating the vessels of the Temple, so, too, does God alert us when we stray from the right path. Am I listening? Am I paying attention?

Glorifying God on Earth

Today is a Friday and the mantra that is resounding over and over again in my mind are the words of Jesus on the cross: “It is finished.” Also coming to mind is the proclamation in His priestly prayer:  “I have glorified You on earth and finished the work that you gave me to do. Now, Father, it is time for you to glorify me with the glory I had with You before ever the world was” (Jn 17:4-5).

Jesus finished His work. Now it is our turn to finish the work that we have been given when sent here by the Father.  We know from the Scriptures that our work is this: to know Jesus Christ, to proclaim the presence of the Kingdom here on earth and to do even greater work than Jesus did here on earth: “I tell you solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same work as I do myself; he [she] will perform even greater works” (Jn 14: 12). 

In what ways today will I meet this challenge?  How, to this point in my life, have I carried on the work Jesus did while here: not crushing the broken reed, not quenching the smoldering wick, being just and caring toward the poor and needy, welcoming the little children, healing the leper within and without, tending the lame, casting out demons (within myself and elsewhere); preaching the gospel, not so much by my words as by my actions? 

When others observe me, do I give them reason to proclaim: “The Kingdom of God is here in our midst"? If yes, what am I doing/saying? If not, why not?

A Bestowal of Love

“See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are….Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is “ (1 John 2: 29-3:6).

It is like God, through St. John, is saying to me and to you: “I want you to be called, known as, and appreciated as a child of God, My child. For that reason, I am blessing you this day, protecting you from the Evil  One, showing you the way, removing obstacles along the way and giving you graces that you will need today to say “yes” or “no” appropriately in order to carry out my will.  I love you that much as my adopted daughter/son. I go before you and walk behind you and beside you for that reason.”

You and I are God’s child now!  What we shall be when we pass from this life back into eternal life we do not know, John tells us.  That is a bit mindboggling, a mystery, to say the least.  We do know, St. John says, that we shall be like God for we shall then see God as God is. “Only, Lord, because You made it so by reconciling us to Yourself in the shedding of your blood. May we know  salvation, today, Lord, by making right choices  whereby our actions proclaim that “Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father (Phil 2: 10-11).

Giving glory to God

A message from my recent retreat:  My retreat opened with the Lord leading me to psalm 139: "I am wonderfully made." The thought came to me that all of us are created to radiate God's glory and that everything in our lives visits us for that same reason.  Every person we encounter, all of the situations in which we engage are meant to both reveal God's glory to us and to be an vehicle through which we give glory to God.   With that thought, I surrendered all of my concerns to the Lord and I prayed that I may glorify the Lord, serve the Lord in whatever I do or say and in the person I am becoming.    The following prayer surfaced:

             Lord, in Your on-going creaton of me, I give you:

the good and the bad,

the beautiful and the ugly

the impatient and the patient,

the vitriolic and the serene,

the selfish and the unselfish,

to be the clay that you use

to remold, reshape, and  recreate

me into the woman you call me to become:

another Christ.

What do  you give the Lord today and where, today, did you see the glory of God revealed?