Coming from God!

In today's Gospel, John 3: 1-8, Nicodemus, a rule of the Jews, comes to Jesus at night, not wanting others to know that he was seeking Jesus.  There was much about Jesus that caught Nicodemus' attention and he acknowledged such:  "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him."  Jesus says to Nicodemus:  "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."  Jesus explains further when He says:  "Amen, amen, I say to you unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit...."   You and I are "born from above," that is "born of Spirit," by virtue of our baptisms.  That birth empowers us to see God's Kingdom, to see the Spirit at work in the signs and actions of others, just as the Spirit worked signs and wonders through Jesus.  People were healed! Cripples walked again.  The deaf began to hear. The blind to see!

How often are you and I not awakened by the love and kindness, the forgiveness and generosity of a neighbor, a spouse, a child, a co-worker!  We have examples of the Spirit at work in thethousand and thousand of healthcare workers around the world risking their lives to save others from dying from the coronavirus. We have many people working in human service professions to help those struggling with mental illnesses find light again and a myriad of persons in the teaching profession encouraging students to believe in themselves and their capabilities to succeed in life!   Parents around the world sacrifice sleep to tend to their infant children or to a sick child or a child scared of "monsters" under the bed!  How many spouses, like Nicodemus,  have not said to their husband/wife: God sent you into my life; I am so blessed by you. Is that not like saying: "You come from God"?

God be praised and glorified and thanked for the many ways in which the Kingdom of God is revealed in our midst by others and by ourselves!

Walking by Faith

Imagine the situation in which the Jews who believed that Jesus was/is the Messiah lived. Many were persecuted by their families who believed they were traitors to their ancestral religion.  St. Paul says to the Hebrews, in the first reading of today’s liturgy, “[a]t times you were publicly exposed to abuse and affliction; at other times you associated yourself with those so treated….[D]o not,” he says to them, “throw away your confidence; it will have great recompense. You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what…[God]  has promised.  For, after just a brief moment, he who is to come shall come; he shall not delay”  (Hebrews 10: 32-39).  Jesus says the same to us: “’[D]o not throw away your confidence’  or your faith in Me at work among you and within you. I have planted the Kingdom of God into the soil of this world’s existence, among all peoples of the world, in all circumstances in the world.  The seed of the Kingdom, the seed of holiness and justice, righteousness and goodness will not be suppressed by sin or by the evil that exist in the world. The seed I planted is watered every moment of every day by the water and the blood I poured out on Calvary. You may not realize that the seed I planted is maturing any more than the farmer (See today’s Gospel Mark 4: 26-34) realizes that  the seeds he buried in the earth are germinating. But your faith tells you this is so. Hang on to the faith that your ancestors gave you, especially when it is tried by the “fire” of tribulations and sufferings that are part of your life and was part of mine.”

The Kingdom of God is among You

In today’s first reading, Philemon 7-20, we have such phrases as “…do what is proper,…out of love,” may “the good you do…be…voluntary,” return to those who know you as a mature person “in the Lord,”  “may I profit from  you in the Lord,” and “[r]efresh my  heart in Christ.”  Each of those phrases affirms Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel, Lk 17: 20-25, when He says to us:  “The Kingdom of God is among you”; don’t go looking for it anywhere else.  It’s the reason Jesus also said to John the Baptist:   the blind see, the deaf hear, the poor have the Good News preached to them (not necessarily in words but through the good that is done), the lame walk, the sick are healed and the dead (not just physically dead) come to life.  The same is true today.  You and I make God’s Kingdom visible in the good that we do. We refresh hearts in Christ by our love and forgiveness, by our conversion and repentance.  By the fruits of our lives, we  will be known as mature women and men in the Lord, as was Paul’s friend Onesimus (See Philemon 7-20). 

O Jesus, may all of this be true for all of us today and every day.