Hide not your face from us, O Lord!

In today's first reading, Numbers 21: 4-9, we meet the Israelites on the Red Sea road, a road taken to bypass the land of Edom.  "...[W]ith their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, 'Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in his desert, where there is no food or water? we are disgusted with this wretched food!"   God's anger is aroused, so to speak and in "punishment sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died."  Acknowledging their sin against God, the people repent and ask God to take the serpents away from them.  Moses prays on their behalf and God instructs Moses to "make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live."

We are being "bitten" by the coronavirus throughout the world. And, no doubt, some people are complaining bitterly against God and praying: "Remove this "saraph serpent" from our midst.  Let us look to Jesus upon the cross as the Israelites who looked up at the mounted serpent after being bitten and lived.With the psalmist in today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 102, we pray:

O Lord, hear my prayer,
and let my cry come to you. 
Hide not your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
in the day when I call, answer me speedily....
Let this be written for the generation to come, 
and let his future creatures praise the Lord: 
'The Lord looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
to hear the groaning of [those affected by the coronavirus]
to release those doomed to die.'"

The Challenge of Living Lives of Integrity

In today's first reading, Daniel 13: 1-9, 15-17, 19=30-, 33-62, we are presented with the story of the wicked judges who had a history of  unjustly accusing women of adultery and having them executed for this crime. These wicked men would trap a woman and accuse her of committing adultery unless she allowed them to have sex with them. Susanna,a "beautiful and God- fearing woman", found herself in that situation. Her husband, a wealthy man , owned a garden. "Susanna used to enter her husband's garden for a walk. When the old men saw her enter every day for her walk, they began to lust for her. They suppressed their consciences; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments."   They gave into their evil desires and said to Susanna: "Look, the garden doors are shut, and no one can see us; give in to our desire, and lie with us. If you refuse, we will testify against you that you dismissed her maids because a young man was here with you."   Susanna did not yield to these wicked men. As threatened, the wicked men brought Susanna before the court and leveled an unjust accusation of adultery against her and condemned her to death.  As she was being led out of the court to be executed, God raised up a young man by the name of Daniel to defend her and confront these wicked men with their crimes of "passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty...."  Both men committed perjury that day and were given the sentence they passed on Susanna. They were executed and Susanna saved.

The questions each of us faces is:  Have I, over time, suppressed my conscience and avoided looking to heaven, not keeping the Law of God before my eyes even in small things like lying, cheating, stealing, lusting or whatever wrongful pleasure I may have been entertaining? Have I said to myself  when being tempted to give in to temptation:  "Don't worry!  It's only a small matter"? Like the wicked judges who were in positions of power and prestige, have I allowed an exalted status to sweep me away down a path that is contrary to what God expects of me?

Who am I in this passage: Susanna who does not give into wickedness--have I stood my grounds in the face of evil? Susanna, who calls upon God to come to her aid--do I seek God's help when I feel trapped? The wicked men who unjustly accused Susanna--have I unjustly accused others? Daniel who God raised up to confront these wicked men--has God called me to confront evil?

"Lazarus, Come Out"

In today's Gospel, John 11: 1-45, Jesus is informed that his friend Lazarus is ill. when Jesus hears this, he says:  "This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it." The same is true of the illness that has swept the world in our day.  God's glory will be revealed in it!  Jesus does immediately go to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha, Lazarus' sisters and also close friends of Jesus.  He waits two days.  His disciples are concerned that Jesus would ever consider going to Judea, where his friends live:  "Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?"  Jesus not only risks his life for his friends, and for us who are also His friends, He actually surrenders his life for us on the cross and is risen from the dead for us. As with Jesus, so with us. Jesus simply and lovingly and faithfully goes before us. We will follow.

Jesus weeps for Lazarus and with Mary and Martha. He also weeps with us in our losses. He approaches the tomb in which Lazarus' body is and says: "Lazarus, come out!" Lazarus comes out wrapped in burial cloths from head to foot.  "Untie him and let him and let him go," Jesus says to Martha and Mary.

As we know, Jesus is the Resurrection and, like Lazarus, enters His tomb and rises from death. He also enters whatever "tomb" you and I are in and calls us to come out of those tombs. Likewise, He asks that we become "untied" of that which interferes with us answering God's call to holiness. We are asked, as well,  to "untie" anyone else that needs our assistance to be free! 

Jesus/God is one with us in all things human!  He cries with us, laughs with us, "dies" with us and "rises" with us. He shares our joys and sorrows! He also celebrates with us and invites us ultimately to His banquet in eternal life!

"Be Not Afraid"--Jesus Is in the Boat with Us

Today's Entrance antiphon reads:  "The waves of death rose about me; the pains of the netherworld surrounded me" (Cf Ps 18 (17): 5,7].  How true!  The waves of death caused by the coronavirus rises around all of us throughout the entire world. "The pains of the netherworld [surround us]."   With the psalmist, we pray: "In anguish [we call] to the Lord, and from his holy temple [God hears our voices]".  As Pope Francis said to us yesterday from a live-streamed reflection at noon our time:  "Be not afraid. Jesus is in the boat with us."  And just as he calmed the fears of the disciples and stopped the storm that was threatening to kill them, so, too, will he calm our fears and assist us in stopping the spread of the virus that could kill us.  He has power over the coronavirus just as he had power over the storm that scared the disciples to death!

In the first reading of today's liturgy, Jeremiah 11: 18-20,  Jeremiah acknowledges that he knows "their plot because the Lord informed me; at that time you, O Lord, showed me their doings."  We know the plot of the coronavirus. We know what the coronavirus is doing to thousands of people around the world.  As those hatching plots against Jeremiah, and later against Jesus, so, too, it seems is the coronavirus determined "to destroy the tree in its vigor"  and to cut us "off from the land of the living."  However, the coronavirus will not have the last word any more than death had the last word in Jesus' life or the life of Jeremiah.  And just as the cases of those who were healed by Jesus revealed the glory of God, so, too, will the glory of God be revealed in today's world ravaged by this evil. Good comes from evil now as it did in Jesus' time when He was with us physically.  He is with us now in Spirit and in Life!

May our faith and trust be strengthened in this storm of life.  May we keep our eyes on Jesus and look to Him for the help that we need!

Honesty with God in Prayer

In today's first reading, Exodus 32: 7-14, the Lord's wrath blares up against his people because they turned against the one true God by "making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it...The Lord said to Moses, 'I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then  I will make of you a great nation.' But Moses implored the Lord, his God, saying, 'Why, O Lord, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? .....Let your blazing wrath die down;.... So the Lord relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people."

Moses does not mince words with God. He is being brutally honest! "Lord, why would you do such a thing as kill the Israelites. Look at how you freed the people from slavery in Egypt and You did so with such great power and with a strong arm. Come on! Your not going to now use your almighty power to consume them, are You? And God relents!

Think of how you and your best friend communicate with one another. You are not afraid to share exactly what is on your mind. and sometimes what you are thinking is not very pretty. You do not coat your words in sugar when you are intensely mad about something your friend is about to do that is crazy. Moses spoke the way he did with God because God and he were the best of friends. God was madly in love with Moses and Moses with God! Being the best of friends, Moses tells God exactly what is on his mind and he does not sugar coat his words.

 Is God your best friend? Are you as honest with God as Moses was? If not, why not? I had to answer that question for myself!  I realized that I had been keeping God at a distance because of my belief that God was an angry God, a punishing God, a God who kept a black list of my sinfulness. when I was naughty as a child I was told that God was watching me and that he was keeping track of my naughtiness. No way could I let myself get close to this kind of God!  One day when, in prayer, I expressed intense anger toward God and cowered for fear of how God would respond to me, I heard Him say to me in prayer: It is not I who has a problem with your anger; you do! Over the years, I have learned that God is a caring, loving, merciful God. I have developed a close relationship with God and am not afraid to be honest with Him in good times and "bad" times, when angry or sad or hurt or jealous or happy or joyful or grateful or delighted!  I can now share all my feelings and thoughts with the Lord and the Lord lovingly responds!

How about you? If you are unable to do this, do you need to look at how you perceive God? Is your perception of God accurate or do you need to change your perception?

"To Do Your Will, O My God, Is My Delight" (Psalm 40)

In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 40,  we pray: "Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will....To do your will, O my God, is my delight..."  In the second reading, Hebrews 10: 4-10, St. Paul reminds us that Jesus became a human being "to do [God's] will"  because that is what God desired of Him, not ""[s]acrifice and offering" and that God takes "no delight in holocausts and sin offerings."  St. Paul restates Jesus' response, saying:  "Sacrifices and offerings,  holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delight in. These are offered according to the law....Behold, I come to do you will." In doing do, St. Paul explains, Jesus "takes away the first to establish the second. By this 'will,' we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all."  In the Gospel, Luke 1: 26-38, Mary responds to the angel announcing the Incarnation, namely, that the Son of God will take on human nature in  her womb, by saying: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to  your will."

Each of those Scriptures state clearly our call to carry out God's will. He desires nothing less of us! How often, however, do I not choose my will above God's will. How often do I not forget that, like Mary, I am God's handmaid and that God does not desire sacrifices or offerings,  holocaust and sin offering from me. He wants me to surrender my will to Him, nothing short of that sacrifice!  And that challenge to surrender my will to His comes in ordinary, mundane ways:  right now, social distancing and limiting going out of my home in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, cooperating with my spouse or with the leadership of my religious community, my government, my employer in responding to this call to do our part in efforts to stop the spread of this disease.  Surrendering to God's will may also  mean sacrificing my convenience to help another person in need, letting go of my way and accepting the way of another person, or changing the time that I do something in order to to assist another person to complete a different chore. 

"To do your will, O Lord, is my  delight" (Psalm 40) or is it really?

A River of Graces that Flows into our Lives

In today's first reading, Ezekiel 47: 1-9, 12, an angel brings Ezekiel to the entrance of the temple, where he sees water flowing from beneath the threshold  toward the east.  The angel walks out into the water with a measuring cord in his hand and invites Ezekiel to walk out as well. First the water is ankle deep, then knee deep, then up to his waist and then so deep that one can only swim in it. A river is flowing through it to salt waters, which it freshens.  Wherever the river flows, there is an abundant fish.  "Along the banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow; their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail. Every month they shall bear fresh fruit, for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary. Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine."

This passage speaks to me of the life-flowing waters of baptism.  It also speaks to me of the graces flowing to us from the altar upon which we celebrate the Eucharist and offer the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the consecrated hosts to God our Father.  By staying close to Jesus in the Eucharist and in prayer, we are staying close to the "Water" and to the "River," that is Christ Jesus, a "river"  of graces that serve as spiritual food and spiritual "medicine" --a "medicine" that restores our health in Christ Jesus.  In union with the Lord, we bear fruit that will last and our "leaves" never fade, that is our faith and hope and love are abundant, as the fish in the river that is spoken about in today's first reading.

In the Gospel of today's liturgy,John 5: 1-16, we are shown how waters of the pool of Bethesda act as a source of healing for the person who is first to enter the pool when it is stirred up. Jesus sees a man at Bethesda who has been ill for 38 years and asks him whether he wants to get well. Instead of answering Jesus' question with a "yes", he complains that no one puts him in the pool: "...[W]hile I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."

Do I find excuses when I am presented with an opportunity to move from a crippled position or attitude? Do I respond to Jesus' invitations to a chance of new life by complaining about others not helping me? Or do I say "yes" to what is being offered to me?