A Life Centered in God

In today’s first reading, Sirach 47: 2-11, the author enumerates David’s victories over the enemies of the Israelites and his practice of praising God and offering thanks to God every morning. “With his whole being he (David) loved his Maker and daily had his praises sung; He set singers before the altar and by their voices he made sweet melodies. He added beauty to the feasts and solemnized the seasons of each year so that when the Holy Name was praised, before daybreak the sanctuary would resound. The Lord forgave him his sins and exalted his strength forever; He conferred on him the rights of royalty and established his throne in Israel.”

How does that passage reflect in your life and mine?  At the end of our lives, would anyone enumerate our victories over our enemies?  Do you and I, at the end of any given day, enumerate the victories we may have achieved that day through Jesus Christ over the enemies we encountered that day, whatever they may be:  pride and envy, jealousy and avarice, deceit and stinginess, corruption and the eruption of anger, judgmentalism and condemnation, revenge and resentments, unforgiveness and lack of mercy and compassion and so much more?

Moreover, do we begin each day praising and thanking God or joining those who do?  Do we solemnize our feasts, the seasons of each year of our lives, our successes and failures with prayers of petition, thanksgiving, and praise, or join those who do?

Without our asking, God has conferred “the rights of royalty” upon us, that is, God adopted us as His sons and daughters and, through the blood of His Son shed on the cross, established our thrones in heaven!

The Fullness of God shared with Us

“From his fullness, you have received grace in place of grace” (Jn 1:16).  This reality of receiving from God’s fullness is repeated in other parts of today’s liturgy. In 1 Jn 2: 19,  we are told that we “ have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and have all received the knowledge.”   John in this first letter is talking about the end times, a time when antichrists surface in many parts of the world.  “Children,” John says, “it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour.”     We know what is and is not of God—that knowledge is given us by the Holy Spirit, the “Holy Anointing” we received when we were born again through the sacrament of baptism and when we also received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Confirmation.  In today’s Gospel,  John 1: 1-18, the blessings announced in 1 Jn 2: 19 and Jn 1:16 are spoken of in the following ways:   “…[T]o those who did accept him [Jesus] he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.”  

How conscious am I of having received  of God’s fullness or that the people I live and pray  with at every liturgy, those I  encounter throughout the day, have also received “grace in place of grace”?  Would I treat people differently if I were aware that they, like myself,  have been given “power to become children of God”?

Reflecting on John 1:16, 1 John 2:19, and John 1: 1-18, I am not surprised that the angels present at the birth of Jesus, and joining us at every Catholic Mass, shout God’s praises both in the Gloria and in the Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.  What a privilege during Mass to join the angels and saints praising God for sharing His fullness with us.

Walk the Talk

In today’s first reading, Micah 6: 1-4, 6-8, we continue to hear, through the prophet, how the people of God had gone astray and then proceeded to offer “burnt offerings, with calves a year old,….thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil….” In the responsorial psalm of today’s liturgy, Ps. 50,  we are given the same message:   “Why do you recite my statues, and profess my covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?”  You have been told,” Micah says to the people, “what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:  Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”   How saddened God must be today when, looking down upon the earth, God sees the many ways in which we have forgotten this message and tossed discipline out of the window, the discipline, that is, of doing “the right,” loving “goodness,” and walking “humbly” with our God! If we did that, would planes be shut down anywhere in the world, would nations war against one another,  would children, youth and young adults be sold into the labor slave markets or into human trafficking, drug trafficking? Would parents be contemplating killing the child in its mother’s womb? Would corrupt politicians or corrupt anyone be considering ways to cheat the poor and oppressed, the marginalized and peoples of so-called minority cultures?

“When you do these things,” God asks through Psalm 50, “shall I be deaf to it? Or do you think that I am like yourself? I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.…[Those who] offer praise [the praise of doing “the right” and loving “goodness” and walking “humbly” with God] as a sacrifice glorif[ies] God; and to…[those who go] the right way I will show the salvation of God.”

Shout for Gladness: God Chooses Us for our Inheritance

Today's responsorial psalm, Ps 47, proclaims God as king of all the earth.
"Shout to God with cries of gladness, for the Lord, the Most High, the awesome, is the great king over all the earth. He brings people under us; nations under our feet. He chooses for us our inheritance, the glory of Jacob, whom he loves. God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; the Lord, amid trumpet blast. Sing praise to God."

God mounts His throne, not to simply lord it over us but to rejoice at what He has accomplished on the earth through His Son Jesus.  Every occupant of this earth God takes with Him in Christ Jesus. We are already seated at His right hand in the Person of Jesus. The Father, our Abba, awaits the day when we actually will enter eternity to claim the prize His Son Jesus won for us through His death and resurrection. For that reason the Holy Spirit was sent to the earth that we would have an Advocate to lead us to the throne of God. For God, our Abba,  that moment cannot come soon enough. With joy He awaits that glorious day when He will give us "our inheritance".

Holding Nothing Back from God

In today’s first reading, 1 Samuel 15: 16-23, Samuel asked Saul, “Does the Lord so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the Lord?”  Saul, the first king of Israel, had  been asked “ to exterminate all of the Amalekites, including their king, and that none of the plunder would be taken for personal use”  (The Word Among Us, Daily Meditations for January 2014, 7115 Guilford Dr Ste 100, Frederick , MD 21704-5234). However, Saul, following his defeat of the Amalekites, takes some of the spoil, the best of the herds and sacrifices them to the Lord. He also spares the King. He is not totally obedient. He follows part of God’s will and part of his own will.    This is not what the Lord wanted. He wanted total obedience from Saul.  Saul’s lacked the humility of surrendering his will completely to the will of a Higher Power, to the One who saves us from our enemies.  In a sense, he was glorifying himself, not God, taking pride in the sacrifices he chose to give God.

It is so easy to be worshipping the service we offer the Lord and not be worshipping God alone.  God wants our humble obedience; he wants our all, not just a portion of our giving.  Jesus, the Word of God, God’s only begotten Son, obeyed the Father in all things, first leaving the glory of heaven and taking on human nature and then offering His life on the cross for the salvation of humankind: humility to follow the will of another and obedience in responding totally. Jesus held nothing back for personal gain.  What about me? What about you?

Blessed with Every Spiritual Blessing in Heaven

The second reading of today’s liturgy is from Eph. 1: 3-6, 11-12.  I invite you to read it, addressing the Lord and reading it in the first person, inserting  your name. I did and it reads as follows:

“Lord, God, You have blessed me in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven, as You chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before You.”  You “clothe me with a robe of salvation” (Is 61:10).  The price You paid for that robe was the death of Your Son on Calvary.  “In love You destined me for adoption to Yourself through Christ Jesus in accord with the favor of Your will for the praise of the glory of Your grace that You granted me in the beloved.”

“In Christ [you, Dorothy Ann, were]… chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplished all things according to the intention of his will, so that you might exist for the praise of God’s glory.”

Wow, what a loving God! What generosity! What a gift!

I thank you and praise you, Lord, God.  May my awareness of Your love deepen. May I not take the gift of salvation for granted!  You sacrificed your Son that I might have life and have it eternally!

And this Christmas we celebrate your birthday—the day your entered into our way of life to transform it, to redeem it, to bring us back to God by your death upon the cross, when you were crucified on Calvary, being obedient to the Father unto death to undo our disobedience, our choosing our own wills in place of Yours.  O God, have mercy upon us each time we rebel and go our own ways.

Patient Response to Life's Difficult Moments

In today’s first reading, Acts 16: 22-34,we read about Paul and Silas’ arrest, being beaten with rods and put in chained shackles.  They are treated cruelly, shamefully, disdainfully. It is night. No bed. No comforts.  They turn to their faith and spend the night singing, thanking and praising God. Suddenly an earthquake shatters the prison, breaks open their chains and they could be free men. However, they do not escape. The jailor is terrified of his fate when he discovered the prison doors wide open, the chains broken. In his desperation he  is about to commit suicide when Paul yells out: Don’t harm yourself!  God uses Paul and Silas’ heroic faith and love to save the jailor and his family, who turn to Christ, are baptized and minister to Paul and Silas, taking them to his home; treating their beaten, bruised bodies and giving them a meal.

As I reflect on my reactions to things in my life that are irritating, humiliating and distasteful on a much smaller scale than what Paul and Silas went through, I am humbled as I reflect upon their faith response.  I rant and rave at much smaller injustices, far from turning to the Lord in prayerful praise, as Paul and Silas had done.  When life throws me “a curve ball” or all hell breaks loose on my efforts, what if my response flowed out of my faith instead of my anger, my demand for just treatment or my insistence on being treated righteously.  What miracles the Lord could perform!