The Lord Shepherds Me

In today's responsorial psalm, we pray: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want....Even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil; for you are at my side with your rod and your staff that give me courage.  You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes;  you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life;and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come."

As I pray that psalm, I am deeply touched by the phrase that reminds me that only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life!  Believing that, I am filled with gratitude and confidence! I am lifted up above the problems that I might encounter each day!  And even in those times when encountering darkness, I know that God is with me, that He light up my way and carries me when the "waters" of life are too deep for me to cross safely! And what a promise that God Himself spreads the table before me in the sight of my foes!  It's like saying: "Satan, get lost. God feeds me with the best of wheat, with His own Eucharistic body and Eucharistic blood that destroyed you and diminished your power over me. You have no chance. God is at my side. He has anointed my head with the oil of grace. My cup overflows, as I stand beneath the cross of Jesus with the chalice of my being receiving the blood that flows from His Sacred Side."

Behaviors and Speech That Reveal Love, Faith, and Purity

In today's first reading  1 Tim 4: 12-16, St. Paul exhorts us to not "have contempt  for [our] youth, but to set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity. "

Simple but profound teachings!  There is a psalm that says: Lord, I am not preoccupied with things too profound for me or beyond me.  Living a spiritual life, St. Paul says,  is about not showing contempt for oneself or anyone else, about not showing contempt for my life as a youth or any other time, not showing contempt for the elderly or poor or sick or lame, or mentally ill, the rich or the poor, immigrants or natives,  those whose skin is black or yellow, white or red.

Jesus, in today's Gospel,  Luke 7: 36-50, enters the house of a Pharisee. He is not greeted, as was the custom of Jesus' time, with the washing of his feet or the anointing of his head. A woman, a known sinner whose many sins were forgiven by Jesus, enters the house, knowing that Jesus is there, and, in profound gratitude,  washes Jesus' feet with her tears, anoints His feet with "an alabaster flask of anointment" and kisses them. The host is disturbed by what he sees happening and says to himself:  "If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner."

Contempt! The woman's behavior does not reveal contempt for herself or Jesus but love, purity and gratitude. The pharisee is definitely out of line, not setting an example "in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity." St. Paul by word and the woman by example challenge us to live a life of love, faith and purity. Our speech and our conduct are to reveal our faith in Christ Jesus, as did the conduct of the woman who anointed Jesus' feet.  Our words and actions are to reveal the depth, the breath, the width, and the height of  our love, our faith, our trust in Christ Jesus, in ourselves and in others.

If someone shadowed us today, what would our behavior or our speech reveal of us?

The Goodness and Mercy of our God

In today's first reading, Joshua 24: 1-13, Joshua summons the people and enumerates the many ways in which God blessed them: protecting them from evil, blocking their enemies from destroying them or doing harm to them, snatching them, so to speak, away from idolatrous behaviors or delivering their enemies into their power, so as to defeat them in battles.  He even thwarts curses against them and causes the one asked to curse them to bless them instead (See today's first reading).

In the responsorial psalm, we pray: God's "mercy endures forever."  As God showed great mercy to the Israelites, so, too, does he show such to you and me.  We, too, are delivered and protected from evil, especially from evil within us: deceit, resentment, jealousy, pride, lust, laziness, hate, gluttony and so much more.  When we do fall into the traps Satan sets for us, God is there to pull us out of the pit, so to speak, to save us, restore our integrity and make us whole again, healing our broken spirits and binding up our wounded self.

Let us, in the words of the psalmist, "[g]ive  thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endures forever....[he frees] us from our foes" (Psalm 136) every day and every night!   Why? Because God is good and merciful, slow to anger and full of kindness!  His love is infinite and unconditional!

Consequences of Making Choices, Good or Bad

In today's Gospel, John 12: 1-11, Mary and Martha invited Jesus to dinner--possibly in gratitude that He raised their brother Lazarus from the dead.  Martha served, Lazarus reclined at table with them and Mary lavishly anointed Jesus' feet with expensive perfumed oil prior to the meal, I assume.  Judas Iscariot, one of the invited guests, strongly objects to Mary's use of expensive oil to anoint Jesus' feet: "'Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?' He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus [rebukes Judas, saying] 'Leave her alone.'"

Corruption, deception, thievery are evils that anyone of us, in any lifestyle or in any vocation is capable of falling into as we follow Jesus!  For Judas, the choices that he had been making all along led to a tragic end. We do not all of a sudden commit grave sins. Such are preceded by lesser evils, but evils none the less. They weaken our resolve and our efforts to do good.  Spiritual muscles, like physical muscles, if unused, atrophy!

What are we doing to strengthen our spiritual "muscles"?  Daily prayer, reflection upon the Scriptures, attendance at weekly and, if possible, daily liturgy, faithfulness to our vows--religious, priestly or marriage vows--in how we choose to love others for their own sake and for God's sake are important ways to become strong spiritually! Allowing ourselves to do as little as possible,  being slovenly in how we meet our responsibilities, cheating here and there, telling "white"lies, making choices that we know are wrong but "no one will know," seeing what we can get away with without being caught or confronted,  is much like what Judas did with the money bag: the results could be disastrous, or certainly not pretty!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all who visit this blog!  It's a day to be grateful to the Lord for all of His goodness to us:

• The gift of life itself
• The gift of our parents who gave us life here on earth
• The gift of eternal life that awaits us
• The gift of our faith, our hope, our love
• The gift of our families: our mom and dad and our siblings and all of our relatives
• The gift of our friends
• The gift of our education: grade school, high school, college--undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate work
• The gift of our teachers, school counselors, teacher assistants, deans, janitors, coaches
• The gift of the universe and all of the galaxies
• The gift of the sun and moon and stars and all of the planets
• The gift of air, of chemicals, minerals, atoms, molecules 
• The gift of sand and pebbles, mountains and hills, valleys, deserts and fertile lands
• The gift of intelligence, imagination and contemplation
• The gift of all of the sacraments Eucharist and of  the Scriptures
• The gift of male and female in all species
• The gift of freedom
• The gift of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit
• The gift of redemption, of repentance, of reconciliation and forgiveness
• The gift of Mary and Joseph and all disciples who have handed down the faith to us
• The gift of all religions
• The gift of all countries, nations, nationalities, races and cultures
• The gift of friends
• The gift of the seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter
• The gift of farmers and all professions
• The gift of food-bearing plants
• The gift of all plants and all animals and all of the fishes in our lakes, seas, rivers, oceans
• Our creative abilities
• And so much more! 

THANK YOU, LORD!

For what are you grateful?

"By the Grace of God, I Am Who I Am" (1 Cor 15: 1-11)

In today's first reading, 1 Cor 15: 1-11, St. Paul hands on to us what was handed down to him, namely, that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.  In grappling with his own history of persecuting the Church, he says: "[B]y the grace of God, I am what I am."  In today's Gospel, Luke 7: 36-50, a woman enters Simon's house, having found out that Jesus was dining with this Pharisees. Simon is upset and says to himself: "If this man [Jesus] were a prophet, he would  know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him."  Jesus reads Simon's thoughts and shares with him a story of two persons forgiven a debt, one of the debts is large and the other much  smaller.   Which man, Jesus asks Simon, will love the creditor more? "The one, I suppose, [responds Simon] whose larger debt was forgiven."  Jesus then turned to the woman and says to Simon: "'Do you see this woman?....[H]er many sins have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love'....He said to [the woman]: 'Your sins are forgiven....Your faith has saved you; go in peace.'"

Who am I/who are you in this Scripture passage?  Simon who is standing in judgment over others? the creditor who forgives the debt that others owe him? the persons owing debts to others? the sinner kneeling at Jesus' feet, kissing them, anointing them with expensive oil, weeping out of love for the Lord and, recognizing her sinfulness, grateful for being forgiven?

Happy Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of life and love.

Highly to be praised are You, O God, for holy is your name

And holy are you, O Lord, in all of creation, within which Your being dwells.

No other god is holy or worthy to be praised, honored, or glorified.

Kindness and love and goodness flow from you, O God, into all creatures.

So beautiful and radiant are you that all of creation reflects your beauty.

Giving totally of yourself, You, O God, as the God-man, gave your life for us upon the cross and rose again to set us free from anything that separates us from You.

In all of us, great and small, you pour out the Holy Spirit, to sanctify us and make us whole and to teach us Truth.

Vivifying is the life of the Spirit that sustains us and strengthens us every day to allow ourselves to be transformed into You!

In and through you, O Lord, we give glory and honor and praise to you through our love for others and ourselves, doing only what pleases You.

Never, Lord, let us depart from You.

Going forth from your Being, in which we live and more and are, may we know the gift of redemption, freely given through Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen

Gratefulness

 Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of Thanksgiving here in the U.S.  In today’s first reading, Revelation 15: 1-4, John’s vision reveals the main reason for us to be grateful. It is “the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” being song by those victorious over “the beast” that roams this earth, seeking souls to devour:

 “Great and wonderful are your works,

Lord God almighty.

Just and true are your ways,

O king of the nations….

[Y]ou alone are holy.

All the nations will come

And worship before you,

For your righteous acts have been revealed.”

What are those great and wonderful works? For me, they are the gift of life itself, the gift of the faith that my parents handed on to me, the gift of God’s unconditional love for us revealed by the Son of God becoming man and dying for us on the cross and rising from the dead in obedience to the Father’s will that we be reconciled to God through the blood of His Son poured out as our ransom.  God’s great works are His promise to be with us always until the end of time, the gift of the Eucharist by which He nourishes us, sustains us, strengthens us, purifies us, reconfirms His oneness with us in body, mind and spirit and makes us one with one another in love and forgiveness. God’s wonderful works are the gift of creation, the gift of one another, the gift of family and friends, of religious communities, of the church and the sacraments, the gift of the Scriptures. His awesome gifts include the sufferings of my life by which God purifies me, makes me humble in my dependence upon Him, and strengthens my endurance.

It is more difficult for me to say “thank you” for the corruption, the deceitfulness, the hatred, the injustices, the wars and violence, the divisiveness and disunity in our world. Yet, I know that God will use evil to reveal Himself and His power to save us, to bring us to authentic worship and to reveal His righteousness. Yes, I believe that God “alone is holy,” and that “all the nations will come and worship before [God], for [God’s] righteous acts have been revealed.” Evil will not triumph; grace will!

For what are you grateful?

The Journey to the Promised Land

In today’s first reading, Jos 24: 1-13, Joshua gathers all of the tribes of Israel and  reviews for them all that the Lord has done on their behalf, tracing God’s presence in their lives all the way back to Abraham’s father Terah. He shows them how God stopped the Egyptians in their pursuit of them, delivered them from nations far more powerful than they,and thwarted a curse against them.  “It was not your sword or your bow”; it was not your military might, Joshua reminds them.  “I [the Lord,  Yahweh] gave you a land which you had not tilled and cities which you had not built, to dwell in; you have eaten of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.”

The same is true for us.  As with the Israelites, we are on our way to the Promised Land. As our inheritance as adopted children of God, God has given us a new Jerusalem, a city we did not build, vineyards we did not plant. On our journey here in the wilderness of this earth, God goes before us, leveling “cities,” overcoming powers that  lure us into worshiping false gods:  narcissism, atheistic materialism, consumerism, hedonism,  wealth for its own sake,  the glorification of the body as something to be worshiped, absolute freedom to do whatever we so choose even to assuming that it is okay to violate the rights of the unborn, of the poor and oppressed, of women and children, of immigrants, of persons viewed as minorities, of the earth itself and all that lives on it. 

If you and I gathered our families around us, going back several generations, what would the list of   blessings look like, I ask myself.  What false gods are we following? From what powerful “nations ”-- snares of the devil--has/ is God  rescuing us?  

The miracles God worked for the Israelites God will work for us in the 21^st century. I believe that! What is your belief? I pray for the grace that you and I have the courage and the wisdom  to cooperate with the Lord in bringing about the salvation of the world in some small way by our efforts,to avoid evil and  lead people to Jesus at the foot of the cross.

Holy Saturday: Gratitude for Jesus' Heroism

Thank you Jeus and Mary, for all that you suffered for us.

Thank You, Jesus, for Your unsurpassing love!
Thank You for Your infinite mercy!
Thank You for taking our sinfulness upon Yourself and reconciling us to our Creator, Father God!
Thank You for Your "yes" to be our Redeemer!
Thank You for being a sin offering to God, our Creator, Father.
Thank You for being the Unblemished Lam of God, who spared us from eternal damnation, from life without God.
Thank You for being Unsurpassing Goodness, taking on evil and destroying its lasting effects.
Thank You for being scourged in our place and thus redeeming those beating others physically, verbally, emotionally and those who are victims of such abuse.
Thank you for being mocked for our sake to redeem those mocking us, us who mock others, and those being victims of bullying.
Thank you for being nailed to the cross and thus redeeming us nailed to addictions, abusive, painful attitudes and behaviors by which we crucify others and ourselves.
Thank you for submitting to violence in order to redeem us from our violence toward each other.

What are your "thank yous"?

Mary's Visit to Elizabeth: A Model of a God-centered Life

Feast of the Visitation of Mary:  Inspired to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth, Mary does so.  Both Mary and Elizabeth recognize the great things God is doing in their lives. Elizabeth greets her 14-or-15-year-old cousin with: “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen… that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greetings reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  Mary responds: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name.”

Neither of these women is self-centered. Both are focused outside of themselves, one praising Mary and standing in awe of what the Lord has done for her cousin and the other praising the Lord and standing in awe of what God has done for her and the implications of that fact.  Both women are affirmative, positive, humble, and overwhelmed with gratitude. Both respond from a faith stance.  God is the center of both women’s lives.

Lessons modeled by both Mary and Elizabeth:

·         The  courage to follow the Spirit’s promptings and going/doing what the Spirit inspires

        us to do, without question
·         Living life from a faith stance—there is always a God-dimension functioning in our lives,
       a dimension made known to those who seek God above all else  and who look for God
       at work in the other and in oneself
·         Acknowledging God’s work in the depth of our beings
·         Being a blessing in our encounters with others and blessing others in those encounters
·         The humility of putting others first and reaching out to meet their need.

To which of those lessons do I need to give serious attention today?

Gratitude and Growing in Love

“Bless the Lord, O my soul;

and all my being, bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all his benefits” (Ps. 103) is the responsorial psalm of today’s Liturgy.

 It certainly behooves us to thank  God for His benefits to us, to consider what they are, to become aware of God’s graces and to appreciate them.  Think of how you feel and the effects of when someone acknowledges who you are, what you have done for them and how much you are cherished by them.  God, too, I believe, appreciates our gratitude, not that His giving to us depends on our response. God is love and showers us with the gifts of his love unconditionally.

In the Gospel of today,  Jn 21: 20-25, Jesus asked Peter three times whether he loved  Him.  God wonders that same about us and one of the ways to express our love is by blessing God for all the great things He does in our lives.  When Peter says: “Yes, Lord, I love you,” Jesus says to him “Feed my sheep.”

Love, if it is to mature, needs the “watering,” the “cultivating,” and the “fertilizing,” that occurs by unselfishly caring for others, meeting their needs, being for the other in a way that they experience their greatest potential as a human being, the potential, in turn,  to give of their lives for and to another, the potential of creating a union of love, of being in communion with another/others. 

The Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—model communion,  a union of love. Does my life reflect the life of the Trinity?

Seeing God at Work: What's My Reaction?

In today's Gospel, Lk 11: 14-23, Jesus "was driving out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke and the crowds were amazed." Others accused Jesus of casting out demons by Satan's power. From Jesus' question to his objectors, "By whom do your people cast out demons," it is obvious that there were individuals among the objectors who also had the power to cast out Satan.   I can imagine the objectors saying to themselves: "Who is this guy? He is not one of us!He's not authentic!  He must be under Satan's influence!" 

Satan's goal on this earth is to create division, to cause chaos, to lead people to mistrust God at work in ourselves and in others.  The snare Satan sets for us is to engage in behaviors, in conversations, that pit one person against another, that leads others to question the authenticity and the motivations of another.  We may not be aware of  why we believe that "'nothing good' can come from the source which we are opposing.However, many times, when God is doing good in another, we are faced with mystery.  The response that brings about unity is one of reverence and awe, gratitude and affirmation; in short, behaviors flowing from our spirit-self, not from our egos. The ego always wants to be the center of attention, the one on the pedestal, the one who is right and the other wrong. The ego, as the egos of Adam and Eve, wants to be a god unto itself and does not believe God's promptings anymore than Adam and Eve did. Satan plants a doubt and says, in effect: "God really did not say you couldn't eat of that fruit. It really is not true that you will die. No, God knows that you will be like Him if you eat of it." And we know the rest of the story. We, too, get caught in this game of pretending to be God, always right and never wrong in our relationships with others, as with the objectors of Jesus doing good by the power of the Spirit working through  Him.

Humility in the face of God at work in another, especially if I do not like that person or believe what that person believes,  or if I perceive that person in competition with me, does not come easily.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Honor God’s name!

Acknowledge God’s presence!
Prepare God’s way!
Probe God’s messages!
Yes, know that God is always speaking Truth, seeking Truth, and inviting us to Truth!

The Lord is King!

Halleluiah!
Always present is my God! Halleluiah!
Now and forever near to those who seek Him,
Knowing my comings and goings and my thoughts from afar!
Sound the trumpet! God is near!  Halleluiah!
Give glory and honor and praise to God’s holy name!
In times of darkness and of light, in sorrow and in joy, in life and in death
Verify that God is God,
Invisible and infinite,
Never far from the brokenhearted is our
God and Savior!

The power of praise

In today’s first reading, Rev. 4: 1-11, we are told that there are creatures before the throne of God who, day and night, praise God, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.”

The author of the book of Revelation sits in awe of who God is.  Awe is a form of praise. It is also humility, a holy respect of self, God and the other.  Praise draws us closer to God and God to us. Authentic praise of self and others creates intimacy.  Praise sanctifies us, cast out negativity and fills us with positive energy (cf. The Word among Us, November 2012, p. 40).  When we genuinely praise another, it has the same effect.  Praise is the antithesis of sin in us.  The author of the meditation for Nov. 21, 2012 in The Word among Us, p. 40, writes:

                 “To understand this truth, reflect on these words of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa,

                preacher to the papal household:

                ‘Praise is, par excellence, anti-sin. If, as St. Paul has said, the

                            mother-sin is impiety, that is a refusal to glorify and thank
                            God, then the exact opposite to sin is not virtue but praise!....’”

It behooves us each day to develop the art of gratitude. We might do that, at the end of each day, by asking ourselves the following questions:  for what today am I grateful? What today has my spouse, my children, my co-workers, my fellow religious done that has been music to my ears, put a song in my heart and lifted my spirit? Keeping a gratitude journal, so to speak, will change your life! And, furthermore, developing the habit of looking for the good each person in your life does each day and pointing that out to them will also change the environment in which you live.

Gratitude for what was, what is and what will be

Lord, thank you for this past week:
                for all that I understood and did not understand;
                for that which threw me for a loop,
                 and that which made my heart soar with hope and faith and love.
Thank you, Lord, for all that was a challenge,
                all that presented opportunities for spiritual growth
                and aliveness in the Spirit.
Thank you, Lord, for deepening my faith in You
                and for the invitations to humility and trust and
                genuine love—a love that runs deep, like underground rivers,
                that its activity is not seen by the naked eye,
                in short,  the kind of love I now know existed
                in my mother and father
               and is being emulated by so many in this world.
Lord, thank You for this week ahead;
               its hopes,
                its opportunities,
                its challenges,
                its potential learnings,
                the possibilities of new discoveries!
Give me the courage this coming week
                to ponder as Mary did,             
                to repent as Peter did,
                to love as Mary of Magdalen did,
                to go into the tomb as You did and rise renewed,
                to die to that in me that needs to die
                for new life to emerge,
                to rise with You to new ways
                of thinking and loving, being and doing.
May I step up to the plate this week, Lord,
                to become the woman you are calling me to become,
                to let my light shine in a world of darkness,
                to let my love grow in the toughness of life,
              as do blades of grass and small shrubs from mountain sides.
Yes, Lord, may I be more like you at the end of this week
               than I am at its beginning.