Show Me

(Please note: I will be away most of next week and have decided to take a little “Easter vacation.” The next reflection will be posted on Monday, April 11. Please keep me in your prayers.)

The Easter celebration continues, and today we hear once again the story of Thomas, who wanted actually living proof that Jesus had risen from the dead, proof so undeniable that he could actually reach out and touch it with his own hands.

And the risen Lord appeared to him and his friends and gave Thomas exactly what he had asked for. The Gospel passage (Luke 20:19-31) doesn’t actually say that Thomas touched the Lord, but most readers assume that it is so, because Thomas falls to his knees and proclaims, “My Lord and my God!”

Thomas wanted actual living proof. And whatever happened was definite proof for him, as he reacts as only one can react after such an experience.

These details are given to us so that we have proof as well. Not tactual proof, but proof in the details themselves. Jesus appeared. He ate and drank with them. Mary clung to him in the garden. Thomas had his doubts removed. Reread the stories of the resurrection appearances through one particular lens: “Is this proof enough for me?”

I ask a question similar to that every Easter. “Show me You have risen,” I ask. And every Easter season something happens in my life that becomes proof enough for me, and He has never let me down.

It is important, however, that I keep my eyes and ears open and that I don’t demand any particular type of proof like Thomas does, but rather that I understand, and have understood, that a proof will be given to me and that it will come from often surprising and unexpected ways, and sometimes very little and simple ways. Last year, when I was at a particularly low point in my life, a particular book practically fell off the shelf and into my hands, and the book was exactly what I needed at that time, and I was at peace, and the crisis passed and I came out the other side in better shape than I have ever been before. Once again, the Lord gave me his proof. And once again I could proclaim, “My Lord and my God.”

What might you ask of him this Easter Season?

God bless you.

Be willing to change your mind

The story of the healing of Naaman the Syrian is one of my favorites. You can read it in 2 Kings 5:1-15 or perhaps you heard it at Mass today.

There are several pivotal points in the story where one of the characters has to overcome doubts and lack of faith and take a course of action that (s)he never would have taken on his/her own.

I’ll give a quick synopsis, but it would be most helpful if you read the story along with my commentary.

·         The slave girl had to overcome her fear and speak up about a possible cure in Samaria

·         Naaman had to agree to go, and the King of Aram had to give him permission to go.

·         The King of Israel had to overcome his dismay and listen to the prophet Elijah rather than giving in to despair or believe his own suspicion that the entire situation was set up as a provocation for war.

·         Then the King of Israel had to agree to send the leper to Elijah.

·         The Naaman went to Elijah but had to overcome his anger and dismay about (1) that the prophet didn’t even come out of his house to greet him and (b) that the prophet told him to do something that didn’t make any sense at all (to wash seven times in the Jordan).

·         Finally, Naaman had to listen to his servants and go and do what the prophet had told him to do.

God often works through unexpected and contradictory means to an end. He challenges our fear, our doubts and our lack of faith. There often seems to be something we have to overcome in order to walk the path He has indicated for us, and in some cases this means that we have  to swallow our pride and do so.

SO: Watch out for situations like that. Silence your mind’s objections. Open up a bit and be willing to make a change. And sometimes the things that don’t seem to make any sense to us make a great deal of sense if we can consider them in the light of our developing faith. Finally, listen to the people who love you. Sometimes their advice and encouragement are pointing you in the right direction.

God bless you. 

Nothing will separate us from God

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Saint Paul to the Romans, 8:31-39)

Nothing.

Again, I say it: nothing.

Not our sins, nor our weakness, nor our failings, nor our crimes, nor our lack of faith, nor our discouragement, nor anything else that is within you that you believe stands as an obstacle between you and God’s love.

God is greater than your barriers, than your doubt, than your forgetfulness, than your settling for mediocrity, than your obstinate and total resistance.

One thing is dangerous: the belief or insistence that you are going to solve the problem that is your life without God. But even then, God has ways of working things out so that you eventually come to your senses. It might take a lifetime, but for God a lifetime is as brief as a snap of the fingers. And God will let you suffer until you reach a point where you finally cry out, “O God, help me!” And then the miracle begins all over again.

And it doesn’t help to proclaim that you are an atheist. The atheist also has faith: he believes in Not-God. But even Not-God is God, and he will reach through, and he will continue to love and bless the atheist with anything and everything that keeps him close even if he refuses to believe.

Some people are so fed up with religion (for very good reasons, mind you) that they want nothing to do with church or ritual. (The miracle is that some of us still cling to church and ritual despite everything.) But for those who cannot, God draws them through another attraction or path.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Nothing within you; nothing outside of you.

Be at peace.