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?

Jesus' Transfiguration: Do I Get it?

Today we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Tabor! On this Mount, Jesus spoke to Moses and Elijah about his impending death, His agony on the cross, His crucifixion.  How difficult it must of have been for Jesus. He tried to share his pain with this apostles. But they simply did not get it!  It was important for Jesus to be able to talk to someone who would understand what he was going through. His Father knew that and arranged for this meeting with Moses and Elijah!

Jesus takes Peter, James and John with Him up to Mount Tabor. As Jesus begins to pray, His face "changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem."    The three apostles fall fast asleep! Only when they became fully awake did they see Jesus' "glory and the two men standing with him." Baffled and not knowing what to say, Peter blurts out a request: Jesus, let us build three tents here--one for you, one for Elijah and one for Moses. As he was speaking a "cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my chosen Son; listen to him.'"  Then, all of a sudden Peter, James and John are alone with Jesus and "[t]hey fell silent"!

Even on Mount Tabor, the three apostles do not get it, as obvious from Peter wanting to build three tents there for Jesus, Moses and Elijah!  They sleep!  How often do you and I not get it and are truly asleep to what is going on spiritually.  How often are not our eyes closed to God at work in our world, in our lives, in the lives of others, in our church, our society, our families.  How often are we not living in a fog, so to speak, or simply are too busy focused on our desires, whatever they may be--building tents or doing whatever, babbling anything because we don't know what to say. Yes, we easily miss the point of what God wants and how ordinary reality, every day,  is being transfigured into a reality of God's Presence and God's power at work!

"Be still and know that I am God,"   the psalmist tells us in Psalm 46:10!

"I Will See You Again"

In today's Gospel, John 16: 20-23, Jesus says to us:  "I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question  me about anything."

Jesus, I believe, longs for that day, perhaps more than we do,  when the veil will be lifted and we will see one another face to face.  "No one will take that joy away from us."  Some 2000+ years ago Jesus took on human nature and all that such means. He has experienced, as we do, the temporary diminishment of joy when friends disappoint us.  Conflicts between Jesus and His disciples and those who opposed His teaching sometimes left Him in tears and certainly left Him with questions!  Imagine, though, His return to the glories of heaven with His Father and the Holy Spirit! The rejoicing had to be overwhelming for Him and the Father and the Spirit! That rejoicing will also occur every time that Jesus returns to earth to take a loved one back with Him into his/her eternal home!  That day will come for all of us sooner or later. We will see Jesus face to face and our "hearts will rejoice, and no one will take [our] joy away from [us]." And furthermore, we will have no more questions to ask!

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).

Loving, Hearing, Seeing, Touching: Vehicles of Faith

The Gospel of today’s liturgy, John 20: 11-18, recounts the experience of Mary Magdalene, who after Peter and John had left the tomb, having witnessed to the fact that the tomb was empty, stayed behind and stood outside the tomb weeping. “Where was Jesus?”  “Who had taken his body?”  John, when seeing the empty tomb and the burial cloths rolled up and neatly placed where Jesus’ body had been laid to rest,  believed that Jesus has risen. His love for His Savior had no room to doubt the resurrection of Jesus.   

Mary peers into the empty tomb, John tells us,  and sees “two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been.”  They say to her: “Woman, why are you weeping?”  If "an angel of the Lord" asked me that question, what would be my response? Mary says:  “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” She turns around and sees the risen Lord but does not recognize Him until He calls her name: “Mary!” Immediately she knows Him—“My sheep know my voice,” Jesus tells us in the Gospels. Would I, do I, recognize the voice of Jesus when He, too, calls my name or am I tuned in to too many other voices and simply do not hear Jesus at all! For whose voice am I listening, in fact?

John, peering at an empty tomb,  believed out of love. He needed no proof! Mary first believed and recognized the Risen Lord when she heard His voice. Peter first believed when he saw Jesus later in the upper room, doors locked out of fear of the authorities who had Jesus killed and could easily be looking for His followers. Thomas first believed when he first touched the wounds in Jesus’ feet, hands, and side. 

What prompts my belief or yours?

Looking Intently to heaven

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, who held fast to his faith in Christ Jesus in the face of the outrage “of the members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen, Cyrenians, and Alexandrains, and the people from Cilicia and Asia.”  They were unable to debate with Stephen, as his wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke was too much for them. Hearing him, “they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him. In the midst of their attack upon him, Stephen, “filled with the Holy “Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,” saying to his attackers:  “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 6: 8-10; 7: 54-59). 

Many times when our loved ones are face to face with death, they, too, I believe, see the “glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”  The “heavens [open]” and they see “the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” as they, too, look “intently to heaven.” God, we know, is always with us in our best of times and our “worst” of times, worst humanly speaking.  God never abandons us. That is why He became one of us in the flesh.  He is always close at hands, even when we are unaware of His presence.

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.

The Word of God Planted within Me

“…humbly welcome the Word that has been planted in you and is able to save your soul” (James 1: 21), we read in today’s first reading (James 1: 19-27). When we plant seeds this spring, those seeds, if given the right amount of rain and sunshine and other nutrients, will grow into flowers, vegetables, depending on their DNA, so to speak! The DNA planted within us is the Word of God, Christ Jesus. That seed will grow strong, mature, over time. My whole being will become the being of Christ, as I nurture it, surround it with an environment that supports it, namely, if I do good works, engage in humble service, avoid evil, repent of my sinfulness, spend time reflecting upon the Scriptures, take time to sit at Jesus’ feet in prayer and openness to the Spirit of God, the “Sun” of grace. That seed will grow when I feed it at the Table of the Lord (the Eucharist) and commit my ways to the ways of the Lord. The growth of that seed also depends upon my openness to the healing power of Jesus, which flows in me and through me in each encounter of the day that is graced by love, in the same way that the blind man in today’s Gospel, Mark 8: 22-26., encountered Jesus' love through his friends. In stages, as he trusted the Lord and was ready to be fully healed of his blindness, his eyes were opened, at first to see dimly and indistinctly and then to seeing clearly. May I Lord, be open completely to what you want me to see, what you want me to hear, and to how you want me to love you and trust you this day in all of its events and encounters, in all of its challenges and difficulties, in all of its sorrows and joys. May I allow Your Word to grow strong in me this day and to bear fruit that heals others and myself.

The Glory of God Shining through Darkness

In today’s first reading, 2 Cor 3: 15-4: 1, 3-6, we read:  “…[W]henever Moses is read, a veil lies over the hearts of the children of Israel, but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. ”  How true it is that “a veil lies over” our hearts until we “turn to the Lord.”  When Jesus died on the cross, “the veil was torn in two,” (Lk 23:45)  and we now are able to “see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”    

Our faces are unveiled and we are enabled to gaze upon the glory of God when we follow Jesus’ challenges and invitations  in today’s  Gospel, namely, when we refrain from abusive language, when we leave our gift on the altar and go first to be reconciled with our brother and sister and then return to give praise to our God, to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Our eyes are opened whenever we turn to the Lord  and bare our souls to Him, as did the woman caught in adultery, the blind man on the side of the road, the lepers calling out for pity, the hemorrhaging woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, the man by the pool of Siloam, the man born deaf, the woman who encounters Jesus at the well, and so many others.

How am I preparing myself to encounter the Lord and know the freedom that only God can give? Do I even realize that I need to be transformed by the Lord who is Spirit? How often do I sit at Jesus’ feet to experience what it means to gaze upon the face of God and be changed in the process into the image of Christ in today’s world. In fact, I might ask myself today: whose image am I, whose image do I reflect upon the world in which I live?  Does the “glory of Christ,  who is the image of God” shine through my actions?