Winter in Jerusalem!

In  today's Gospel, John 10: 22-30, we are told that the Feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem and that it was winter!  Jesus attends this feast and is asked by the Jews, as he walked about the temple area, how long he would keep the people in suspense of who he actually is!  Jesus responds very directly: "I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify to me. But you do not believe...." 

To believe in Jesus and in the works that He does, one's heart needs to be open, not frozen, not cold!  Would Jesus say that it is winter for me, that is, that I am cold, inattentive to His words or to His works, especially to the needy and poor, to those who are vulnerable and who need assistance, to little children who needs someone to show and express their love for them, who need someone who will play games with them and help them with their homework and who need a daily structure that keeps them feeling safe and secure?  If I am "frozen," and need to "warm" up to Jesus and to His teachings, Jesus might say to me:

Dorothy Ann, (insert your name), pay attention to My Words in the very core of your heart!  I speak to you there every day and often throughout the day. I also "unthaw" your frozen heart so that you can feel other people's pain. I remove the "cataracts" from your eyes so that you see what I see and the "wax" from your ears so that you can hear me speaking to you through others and through the events of the day!  I cherish you being my partner in the good I do all day long in every person's life and in appreciating all of nature and the graces I shower down upon you every day! 

If I am cold and inattentive to others, they might say to me: "You never have time for me!" "You don't call me!" "You ignore me!" "You don't offer to help with preparing meals or doing other household chores!" "You are "glued" to the internet, the TV, your electronic gadgets!"  "You  are more into  yourself interests than into anything that interests the kid or me!" "You are not willing to give an inch!"

If I, if you, are going to leave "winter" behind, what do we need to be willing to change?

Listen to God's Instructions

In today's first reading, Isaiah 1: 10, 16-20, the prophet Isaiah asks to: Hear the word of the Lord...Listen to the instruction of our God...Wash yourselves clean, the prophet Isaiah says to us, "Put away  your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right...Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as show; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool."

"Cease doing evil,"  O people of the U.S., of North Korea, of Russia, of the Middle East, of North and South and Central America, of Africa and New Mexico, of Australia and New Zealand, of Iceland, Greenland and Europe, of Italy, Ireland and England, of Denmark, Switzerland, Scotland and Wales, of China and Japan and any other nation any where in the world! "Learn to do good!"

God says to you and me: "Listen to God's instruction" one day at a time and  "Learn to do good"  one day at a time.  Every morning when you and are awakened--it is God who does the awakening--God gives us one more day to learn to do what is right, to learn to be just and holy, to learn to defend the defenseless, to speak for those who have no voice, to set things right with those we have wronged or who have wronged us!  God gives us this day, the now, to find Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in the daily tasks that confront us each day!  "Why," God asks us in today's responsorial psalm, "do you recite my statues, and profess my covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast my words behind  you?"  Why do you ignore your spouse's request to help with the children, to prepare a meal, to do the grocery shopping, to take out the garbage, to shovel the driveway, to fix that leaking faucet? Why do you not read to the elderly person who is blind, take time to comfort the person who recently lost a loved one or spend time with a someone who is lonely or who is confused because of severe dementia?  "When you do [not] do these things," asks the psalmist, "shall I be deaf to it?"

In today's Gospel acclamation, the Lord asks us to "[c]ast away from you all [selfish and sloth-some ways]...and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit" (Ez 18:31)  and promises "those who go the right way" that they will be shown "the salvation of God"  (today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 50).

God's Coming in a "Dense Cloud"

In today’s first reading, Exodus 19: 1-2,9-11, 16-20b,  we read:  “I am coming to you in a dense cloud, so that when the people hear me speaking with you, they may always have faith in you also.”  Is it not true that most days God comes to us in “dense clouds?”  Only through faith, do we see and hear God. Many times,  we don’t see him and  don’t hear his voice.  Concerning His speaking to the crowd in parables, Jesus says to His disciples in today’s Gospel (Matthew 13: 10:17):  “This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.”

Is that not true of you and me at times; namely that 1) we look at people but really do not see their beauty and goodness as a child of God and 2) that we hear what they are saying but are not really listening or understanding? Our eyes can be blinded by our prejudices or by whatever preoccupies us. Past hurts that we have suffered from them can cause us to automatically turn them off or prompt us to walk away from them.  Things we heard about them from others can also blind us to their goodness, their beauty, their authentic person-hood.  Our ears hear but we may not be truly listening or understanding anything they are saying, though we may pretend to be listening and understanding.

However, there are also times when the Lord reveals “the mysteries of the Kingdom” through these very people we have blocked out. Our eyes and ears are opened by the Lord’s forgiveness and our own. We see differently. We truly listen, putting our personal issues aside, and understand. O, the grace of Almighty God—each one of us grows into being “hearing, listening, understanding” individuals. Christ in us increases and the ego-self decreases (cf.John 3:30).

The importance of faith

In today’s first reading, Hebrews 4: 1-5, 11, St. Paul tells us that “the word that…[the people] heard did not profit them, for they were not united in faith with those who listened.”  When we listen to someone but have no faith in them or in what they are saying, we do not hear, we do not enter into the rest or experience the peace necessary to recognize God’s presence or receive God’s message.  For instance,  how often do we recognize God in the sunset/sunrises, in the changing of the seasons, in  the wonders of the universe, in the creation of a child, or in any event, those deemed  good or those deemed “bad” of our lives. Paul reminds us that God’s “works were accomplished at the foundation of the world.” Following the creation of all that is, humans and beasts alike, plants and all living things, God declared that “It was good, very good.”  “[O]n the seventh day” God rested “from all of his works.”  Peacefully God continues to sustain all of His creation and intervenes in the lives of billions and billions of people, inviting all to continuously turn to Him, to rest in Him, to know His loving care.  When we “rest” in God in this way, we are at peace no matter what challenges or difficulties, what evil or setbacks  we encounter in life. My mother, who died at age 50 of cancer, would always say: “What would we do without faith.”   Without faith we actually deprive ourselves of the rest that only God can give. So I ask the Lord to increase my faith and yours!

Seeing and Hearing God Walking in our Midst

Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a priest  who, in the Auschwitz concentration camp asked that he be taken to the starvation room in place of a man who had a wife and two children.  His request was granted.   In light of the first reading of today’s liturgy, Ez 12:1-12, Maximilian, unlike the chosen people, had eyes that saw and ears that heard the Lord’s invitation to give of his all,  to act with justice, to love tenderly and walk humbly with his God (Micah 6:8).   In his willingness to give his life for another, Maximilian also was granted the grace to forgive the Nazis who imprisoned him along with millions of other Jews. Nothing, in the words of St. Paul, came between Maximilian and the love of Christ (Rom 8:39).

Today we have millions enduring the martyrdom, not of the concentration camps run by the Nazis but  of those run by other ruthless persons. Millions are being silenced by others in various ways by being  deprived of justice, denied their integrity as persons, treated poorly and abusively. Some are being stoned to death for alleged crimes while others are being victimized by the corrupt use of emotional, psychological, political, ecclesial, intellectual powers.  Many are being “martyred” as slaves of pimps, human traffickers, drug traffickers, unjust employers and so on.   Yes, we  live “in the midst of a rebellious house; they have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear…”  God’s call for justice, truth, reconciliation, forgiveness and love frequently falls on deaf ears and hardened hearts.

What part of me could be described as rebellious? What part of me, like Ezekiel, sees and hears God walking in our midst?  In what ways am I willing, as Maximilian was, to give my life that another can live? Am I willing to give up gossiping about another, judging others, judging myself, criticizing others, putting others and self down? Am I willing to forgive others and forgive myself, not once, but in the words of today’s Gospel, 70xs 7 times?

EYES TO SEE, EARS TO HEAR AND HEARTS TO UNDERSTAND

In today’s Gospel, Mt 13: 10-17, Matthew quotes Isaiah’s prophecy that is being fulfilled in the midst of the people whose lives He touches during his three-year public  ministry:  [They] shall indeed hear but not understand,…[they] shall indeed look but never see.  Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal them.”  Jesus comes into the world of today and speaks that same message. He wants us to hear with our ears, see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts and be converted and be healed by Him. Do I accept God’s gift or do I, as we read in today’s first reading, Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13, evoke God’s outcry: “Be amazed…O heavens,  and shudder with sheer horror, says the Lord. Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; [t]hey have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water,” that is, they look to no-gods for  “food” and  “drink” that will perish, consuming more and more material things, building “empires” that will be reduced to rubble, trampling on the poor of this world, crushing the vulnerable, committing violence against the innocent, bringing upon themselves the judgment of God: This is a “wicked and adulterous generation” (Mt. 16:4), prostituting  themselves on false gods.

Lord, I pray that more and more people, every day,  will turn to You,  “the source of living waters,” to you, Jesus, in the Eucharist, the Scriptures, the sacraments.  May we come to know in our hearts, see with our eyes, and hear with our ears that You alone can save us, You alone are sanctifying us, You alone quench our thirst and feed our hungers for eternal life, for peace, for love and forgiveness, for wholeness and healing. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Whom Am I Seeking?

“’Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?’ She thought it was the gardener and said to him, ‘Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni,’ which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, ‘Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father…” (John 20: 11-18

 For whom am I looking  as I walk through “the garden” of life today? Am I looking for Jesus? Or, am I looking for myself, for power, for recognition, for dominance, for control, for superiority over others? Onto whom/what am I holding/clutching/clinging?   Am I clinging to my anger, resentments, impatience, mistrust, anxiety, pride? Am I clutching onto my will and ignoring the will of my Father in heaven. In the liturgy of the Mass today when I prayed “Hallowed be thy name; Thy Kingdom come on earth as in heaven,” did those words fall short because what I was really praying was “Hallowed be my name; my will be done on earth, not the Lord’s?

If so, then when I actually do encounter Jesus today, I will not recognize Him. I may not even hear him call me by name.  Lord, I ask for mercy and a transformed heart so that, in truth, it is You I seek, Your Way and Your will that I follow, Your Truth that I embrace and Your Voice to which I listen. I ask for these graces in Your name. Amen!