Choose Life, Not Death

In today's first reading, Deuteronomy 30: 15-20, Moses has a heart-to-heart talk with his people before he passes on to eternal life. He challenges his fellow Israelites, and each of us,  to choose life, not death! How? By keeping the commandments, serving the one true God, loving God, walking with God, listening to His voice, holding fast to God, turning away from idols, and not worshiping false gods,  (and they are all around them and us)! The responsorial psalm, Psalm 1, further instructs on what it means to serve the one true God: follow not the way of the wicked (and they, too, are all around us), walk not in the way of sinners who press us on every side, do not take a seat among the insolent, the lackadaisical, the proud, the arrogant or those who lust for that which causes death to the soul or spirit. Rather, delight in the ways of God and meditate on God's laws day and night!  In other words, stay close to the Lord, cling to Him, love Him, serve Him, worship Him. In  today's Gospel, Luke 9: 22-25, Jesus also shares his concerns with us lest we forfeit that which gives us life and denies us eternal life.  "If anyone who wishes to come after me, he must deny  himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What prof\it is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?

When you and I, at all costs, run after false gods, sit with the arrogant, the proud, the lustful, the insolent, the wicked, sinners bent on evil pursuits, are we not then refusing to deny ourselves? Are we not then not refusing to "take up [our] cross daily"?  Is it possible that we fall into these traps because we fail to keep our focus on the Lord, who alone can help to make right choices and to remember our vulnerability to make poor choices that do not lead to life but to death?

May we heed the voices of the Spirit in each of the readings in today's liturgy. Forgive us, Lord, when we turn from you and rely on ourselves alone or seek only the help of fellow human beings, who, like us, are vulnerable to worship idols.

A Covenant from God, our Creator, our Savior, our Sanctifier

In today's first reading, Gen. 9: 8-15, God tells Noah that he is establishing his covenant with humankind. The sign of that covenant--never to again destroy the earth and all that is in it by a flood--is the rainbow.  In the New Testament, the sign of God's covenant is Jesus dying on the cross once and for all: "the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead [us] to God," St. Peter  says to us in the second reading of today's liturgy (1 Peter 3: 18-22).  "Put to death in the flesh," Peter goes on to remind us, "he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water."In Christ Jesus all are saved.

Jesus took on sin, nailed it to the cross--all sin--so that, through Christ Jesus we may know our holiness in God! When God looks at us He sees the righteous persons we are in Christ Jesus.  He delights in us, as He knows us in Christ Jesus, His Son, who redeemed us in His blood!  Do I know myself--do you know yourself--in that way?  Are we so focused on sin and weakness that we forget who we truly are in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior?  Or do we see both our holiness in Christ Jesus and our sinfulness apart from God?   Do we seek God above all?  Do we cling to God, the
Rock of our salvation?

Night Transformed by the Light

“Hear me, …listen….You are my servant,…through whom I show my glory….I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth , “ we read in today’s first reading, Isaiah 49: 1-6.  In the Gospel of today, John 13: 21-33, 36-38, after Judas, in the darkness of the night,  leaves to betray Him,  Jesus says: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once….”  Through the Cross, you and I, the redeemed of Christ, are  glorified in Christ Jesus here and now and will be for all eternity.   We are more than His servants, the Lord tells us in Isaiah,  and are called to more than raising others up and restoring each other and ourselves  to right relationships with the Lord. We are “a light to the nations," a light in the darkness of our world.  It is when it is most dark that the light shines most brightly for all to see.  In those dark moments, it may seem as though “the light” has gone out, as it seemed so in that upper room and on Calvary. Calvary, however, is our brightest moment, the moment of salvation for all those who put their faith in Christ Jesus. In whom do I put my faith, especially  in those situations that shakes it?

Open my eyes, Lord, to You during the Calvary moments of my life, in life’s darkest moments  when all around me and within me seems like night.

God Comes with Power

In today’s first reading, Isaiah 40: 1-11, Isaiah reminds us that our God comes with power; that he “rules by his strong arm.”  We are about to celebrate Christmas, the birth of our Savior. God came to us as a powerless infant, was subject to Mary and Joseph as a child, assumed his public ministry at around the age of 30, clashed with authorities of his day and was put to death.  Where is the power, we may wonder.  Our God rules very differently than the kings of this world. God does not use power in the same way we do. Jesus’ power  is His humility and his obedience to the Father’s will.   The mounds of evil were leveled on Calvary, where Jesus, in His obedience to the Father’s will unto death, destroyed Satan, crushed His head.

 God continues to enter our lives humbly in the Eucharist and through the quiet voice of the Spirit speaking and working in the depths of our being and in the depths of the hearts of others as well. We don’t see God at work most of the time because we are looking with eyes other than those of our deepest God-self.  We see as the world sees, not as God sees.  Most of the time, like Peter,  who rebuked Jesus for making it clear “that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day” (Mt. 16: 21),  we think, “not as God thinks but as human beings do” (Mt. 16: 23).
Yes, the “Lord Yahweh [is] coming with power, his arm maintains his authority,” (Is. 40: 10), the authority that put Satan to death on the cross, that put Satan to death by His obedience to the Father unto death, that put Satan to death by His humility.

By whose power to I overcome evil? By whose power do I triumph? Certainly not my own but God’s grace quietly transforming me from within and empowering me to “love tenderly,  act with justice and walk humbly with our God” (compare Micah 6:8).  God is transforming the world one person at a time by our cooperation in His work of redemption.