"Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46)

In today's first reading, Jonah 4: 1-11,  we learn that God, indeed, had mercy upon the Ninevites and, because they repented, did not carry out the threat that the city would be destroyed in 40 days.  Jonah says to God:  "I beseech you, Lord, is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish".  God did other things about which Jonah also got angry, "angry enough to die," Jonah says to God.

God is no different in how he deals with us today! God is "slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish" and so we wonder where God is as evil seems to triumph!  God, I believe, is giving people time to repent. He is in no hurry to punish! He will wait as long as he desires for us to turn from sinful ways and come back to Him to follow the Spirit's lead and accept His merciful love.

It is very obvious as we read and reflect upon Jonah 4: 1-11, that God is in charge of every detail of Jonah's life! God's control is obvious in the shade tree that sprung up to protect Jonah from the beating heat of the sun and, also, in the tree's demise, leaving Jonah to battle the sun's heat.  It was God who responded mercifully to the Ninevites, opposite what Jonah wanted God to do.

As with Jonah, God also takes control of every detail of our lives, using us as instruments in executing His plans, providing shade and protection for us when we need it, correcting us when we fail to understand that God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts not our thoughts!  Yes, God is at work even when things do not go the way we want them to go!

Lord, I ask forgiveness for the times, like Jonah, I got angry when you did not do things my way and challenged me to know that You are God and I am not!  Forgive me, Lord, when I dictate to You, telling You what to do, rather than seeking Your will! May I have a change of heart and mind to conform to Your ways, Your thoughts and Your will.  I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen!

"My Ways Are Not Your Ways; My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts"

Imagine yourself being frustrated with yourself for not doing something that you believe is important or not having the motivation you used to have,  not having the energy you would like to have because of advanced age or a chronic illness, and so on. And then imagine a conversation with the Lord that goes something like this:

You:  Lord, I am so frustrated with myself?

The Lord:  Why?

You: Because I am not spending enough time in prayer with you.

The Lord: Why is that important to you?

You: I want to grow in my relationship with You.

The Lord: Is that the only way?

You: No!

The Lord: Other ways are?

You: Doing Your Will.

Lord: "You want to be a super person. You are that but not in the ways you think! I do not measure success as you do. You want to accumulate points for what you perceive as great achievements, such as:

          I did my hour of prayer.
          I volunteered at the Senior Center.
          I got involved in the several events at the parish.
          I took my children/grandchildren to the park.
          I bought flowers for my wife/husband.
          I prepared meals for my family this weekend.
          I attended the parish retreat for Lenten preparation.
          I got "employee of the month award."

I don't count the hours you spend in prayer or any other "holy" activity. What I ask of you is to surrender your life to me moment by moment--the good and the bad, the successes and the failures, doing the best you can each day.  Give me all!

I don't need you to win awards. I will showcase you in my Heart. I love you more than you can imagine and I delight in you when:

           --you feel frustrated with yourself
           --you have no energy
          --you feel weighed down by illness or advanced age

I cherish you when:

          --your arms are heavy with fatigue and simply fall limp at your side
          --you feel discombobulated, confused, weak

Your weakness is My strength.  When you can hardly lift your arms, I let them rest on my lap. Today and every day, I only ask that you give me your time, your energy, your desires and efforts.  Give me the little you have, the energy you do not have, your fatigue, your efforts. I am at work in and through you at all times, especially when you think I am not there!  Giving yourself to me when you are at a low point praises me more than you will ever know.  Also, I want you to learn that I am God and you are not.  You are a human being--my work of art. I am putting fine lines into your personality to enhance the beauty of My Art piece that is you as my beloved.  It is not about your prowess. I am teaching you to glorify Me through Jesus, my Son. I am hiding you in Me. Cherish the hidden way of My love."
         

     

"What You See is Not What You Think"

In today's first reading, Jeremiah 23: 5-8, the prophet prophesies that The Lord will "raise up a righteous  shoot to David."   The royal dynasty has deteriorated.  Israel's king sunk into a cycle of corruption, murdering Uriah and committing adultery with his widow.  The royal dynasty also included apostates like King Ahaz (2 Kgs 15) and weaklings like King Zedekiah (Jer 38: 5, 19, 24-26).  The royal house itself had become corrupt.  God promises, however, that out of the stump of Jesse a righteous King shall be be born.  The prophets held on to their belief in God's promises in the most wretched of times, in times of upheaval and darkness.

In the Gospel of today, Mt 1: 18-35, Joseph, who is betrothed to Mary, discovers that she is pregnant and not with his child.  From human appearances it looks as though she has also become corrupt and committed adultery, as did King David.  Joseph agonizes over what he sees and decides to divorce Mary quietly when God intervenes. In a dream an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and says to him: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will  bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins"

The prophets, Mary and Joseph, are righteous people living in a world that is corrupt, that is immersed in sin. They cling to God's promises and listen to the Spirit's Voice, directing them to make right choices, even if those choices could be misinterpreted, misunderstood, and/or ridiculed or even could lead to death. Their faith and trust in God was unshakable. Their "house" was built on Rock, the Rock of the Scriptures, the Word of God!

We might ask ourselves:  Upon what is my "house" built? Whose voice do I follow? When I face dilemmas similar to or as baffling as Joseph's, how do I handle them? In what ways does God confront my ways of thinking when they are contrary to what God is asking of me?

God's Ways Are Not Our Ways

In today's first reading, Isaiah 41: 13-20, Isaiah continues to prophesy about the Messiah, the One who God sends "to thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff."  As we face mountains of violence in our world and sin within and around us, we may wonder where God is. What a mystery that God enters this world in the darkness of the womb, in the darkness of night, in a manger among cattle, as a helpless infant. Or is an infant helpless? The hearts of "giants," of proud, cold, heartless men and women melt in the presence of an infant. Infants change men and women into compassionate, loving, caring adults. Lives, sometimes centered on self alone, suddenly or gradually become more concerned about the well-being of another--a helpless, dependent child--than their pursuit of riches, or material things, of catching up with the Joneses of our society, of being proud owners of luxury items, and so on and on into infinitude.  Parents of helpless infants learn to live for others, to put others first, to spend their lives in love!

O the Wisdom of our God! We learn how to live according to God's will God from weak infants, needy children and adults and our own neediness. We learn to seek God in the dark moments of life and when encountering a weakness that has the power to awaken us to our need for God. We also learn to seek God above all else when we find ourselves in the deserts of life from which  we cry out in thirst. Are we seeking God when we encounter these human realities?  God's heart pines for us to know Him.  In this passage from Isaiah God says to us:  I, the Lord, will answer [you]; I, the God of Israel [put the name of your city, your village, your nation here], will not forsake [you]. I will open up rivers [of grace, of divine power] on the bare heights, and fountains in the broad valley [of your life]; I will turn the desert into a marshland, and the dry ground into springs of water. I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle and olive; I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, that [you] may see and know, observe and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel [put the name of the place where you live] has created it." 

Everything in life is meant to show us God's power to "thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff." Do we wait upon the Lord to do this or do we take things in our own hands? In our frustration, do we play God?

The Source of all that is Good

In today’s first reading, Acts 14: 5-18, Paul and Barnabas leave Iconium to escape being put to death and go to Lystra.  In Lystra Jesus heals a crippled man through their intercession and are believed to be gods. The people prepare to worship them, to their dismay! “…W]hy are you doing this. We are of the same nature as you, human beings.  We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from…[your] idols to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.”  Then, Paul and Barnabas, make a powerful statement:  “In past generations…[God] allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways; yet, in bestowing his goodness, he did not leave himself without witnesses, for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts.”

Hear God say to you through Paul and Barnabas: “I, your Creator and Redeemer, bestow goodness upon you. I plant it within you and around you, within others and within all of creation." The good we do, Jesus reminds us in today's Gospel, comes from God, as it did when Paul and Barnabas healed the man crippled since birth.  Anyone who keeps God's commandments  and believes in Jesus, in God alone,  does good here on earth. That good flows from the Trinity dwelling within them and at work in the world through them.  "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him[her], and we will come to...[that person] and make our dwelling with him[her]," we read in today's Gospel.  Yes,  those who follow God's ways, who do  not create false gods as the people of Lystra wanted to do,  will become one with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. Good blossoms  from  Goodness!  And that Goodness is God Himself.  God alone is good, Jesus tells the rich young man in Mark 10; 18.

The Word dwells among Us

“…[T]he Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only-begotten Son full of grace and truth” (Jn 1: 14).

Anywhere, any  place, in any circumstance, where love abides You are, Lord.  I may never know that  truth, if I never step off the world’s roller coaster of activity, chasing this object or that object.  Your presence is a quiet presence. Your power is a gentle power!  If I attack a situation like a bulldozer, with a demanding attitude that I am right and the other person is wrong; if I come out swinging at my “opponent,” real or imagined, I will not to attuned to God’s quiet power at work through gentleness and compassion, love, forgiveness, and understanding. Those ways of engagement, those ways of being present to others, are not God’s way.  When I am ranting and raving about the fiscal cliff, about anything, attacking one party and then another, attacking one person and then another,  I need to hear God’s declaration:  “… my thoughts are not your thoughts, ... so are my ways higher than your ways ... Isaiah 55:1.

 

Unless I stop to reflect on God’s dwelling among us and His way of bringing about our salvation (Jesus was not violent nor did he allow others to resort to violence on his behalf), I could easily go through this day and be among God’s own people who did not accept him (Jn1:11). Am I willing to humbly step back, powerlessly receive the power of a child of God (cf. Jn 1:12), not by human choice or by a human decision but by God’s choice (Jn 1:13).  Only then, like John, will I testify to the Light,  to the Word of God who dwells among us (Jn. 1:14)