It's your faith that matters

Thursday, January 12, 2017

From today’s Gospel: Four men brought a paralytic on a stretcher to Jesus, but they couldn’t get in the door because the crowd was so great. So they climbed up onto the roof and opened it up until they could lower the mat to the ground in front of Jesus.

Now comes the most encouraging and challenging part of the story: Seeing their faith, (Mark 2:5) Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic and healed his paralysis.

As you might know, there is much more to the story. Read it in Mark 2:1-12. I just want to emphasize that it was the faith of the four men that sufficed to bring healing and forgiveness to the paralyzed victim they brought to Jesus. The story says nothing about the paralytic’s worthiness or lack thereof, or even if he shared the depth of faith of the other four men.

And so, here in just a few words is a call to we who have faith, a call to intercede for those who cannot pray for themselves, a call to bring to Jesus those who, perhaps through no fault of their own, are paralyzed in any way. Once again we note that it is not a question of worthiness or even a question of faith. How many of us indeed have people in our lives whose faith is very weak or non-existent? Don’t let that be a source of discouragement in your own prayer.

Open the roof. Let the Lord gaze upon your own faith, as imperfect as it may be. Bring the helpless and the hopeless to the Lord in your prayer this very day. And may He, in His time and in His way, bring healing to those who cannot get to Him on their own.

God bless you!

Random passages

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I’m sorry I missed yesterday’s reflection. I was ill.

Now that the Christmas Season is over and Ordinary Time has resumed once again, we begin reading from different parts of the Bible during our Masses. For now, we are reading from the Letter to the Hebrews and from the Gospel of Mark. Today I offer you brief passages from each for your reflection and, hopefully, for you prayer.

From The letter to the Hebrews

Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, his is able to help those who are being tested. (2:18)

We do well to remember that our God chose to enter into our human condition and experience life as we know it---from birth to death, in poverty and in humbleness, in strength and in weakness, and most importantly for today’s consideration, in testing and temptation. We must keep that in mind when we are going through our own difficult and trying times, during our times of testing and our times of temptation, during times of bewilderment and frustration, during times of loss and times of desolation. Jesus helps us during those times by entering into those experiences himself and then by lifting us out of them. Turn to him. Don’t suffer alone. Don’t struggle alone. There is no need to do that. Turn to your Savior and hear him say to you, “I understand what you’re going through; I’ve been there; I passed through it all. Let me take you hand and help you pass through your trials as well.”

From The Gospel of Mark

Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. then the fever left her and she waited on them. (1:29-30)

This is one of my favorite passages. Don’t forget that Jesus had called Simon and Andrew and James and John and we are told that they left everything and followed him. And there are other places in the Gospels where the emphasis is on leaving family behind, on separating from family, and even on “hating” family—a troublesome verb which commentators go to great lengths to explain away.

What I like so much about this passage, however, is that here we see Jesus getting involved with the families of his disciples, and actually healing Simon’s mother-in-law. This is especially good news for those of us who have left our families for the sake of priesthood or religious life. It is a reminder that Jesus includes our families under the umbrella of our own devotion to him, that He takes care of them and that He brings healing and strength and grace and all other good things that He has to bestow.

When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. . . . He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons . . .  (1:32-34)

Not only do we need to remember to turn to Jesus during every single difficult moment of our lives, but we also need to remember to bring others to him for healing and deliverance. Whom do you feel inspired to bring before Him today.

God bless you!

The Trinity in Action: The Baptism of the Lord

Monday, January 09, 2017

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

And with this feast the liturgical season of Christmas comes to an end. Once again we note that the Church’s sense of time is not in synch with the movement of secular time. The secular Christmas season, or perhaps we should say, holiday season began shortly after Halloween and ended with the post-Christmas sales sometime during the Christmas Octave. The liturgical season of Christmas began on Christmas Eve and ends today. It is a shame that so many of our churches decorate for Christmas long before the season actually begins rather than observing the silent and beautiful austerity of Advent with its wreath and purple hues, putting up the trees and the green-red wreaths on the 24^th as well. One of the things I like about being in the monastery is that we do not see the signs of Christmas until the afternoon of the 24^th when, in a gentle flurry of activity, things are made ready for the opening of the Christmas celebration which begins with the first Vespers of Christmas around 5:30 pm on Christmas Eve.

And now on this last day of the season we hear the story of the Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan by St. John the Baptist. Last week I wrote about the notion of Trinity as relationship, and this feast clearly demonstrates that notion in the most explicit and graphic passage in all the gospels. I’ll quote the passage here for you in case you don’t have a Bible or a Missal handy:

After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:15-17)

And there we have it. The Father, the Son and the Spirit perceived by sight and by hearing. For me, this amounts to a picture of the Trinity in action and in relationship, and who is the witness? Well, John the Baptist and we who hear and read these words and let our imaginations behold the picture they represent. Notice, if you will, that love and approval and acceptance are part of the message that is heard.

In his powerful book, The Divine Dance, Fr. Richard Rohr uses an icon to demonstrate the important reality that we, too, are a part of the intermingling of relationships within the Trinity, and I refer you to that book if you feel you are ready to explore that theme more fully.

Here, however, in this scene from Matthew’s Gospel, I also see the reality of the fact that we are a part of the flowing of relationships within the Trinity. John the Baptist stands as a witness to the mystical vision, and I would like to suggest that John the Baptist is standing in our place and that we, too, are included within the dynamic life of the Trinity.

I thumbed through a hymnal, the most recent edition of Worship publishes by GIA Publications, Inc. (giamusic.com), and was delighted to see that two of the hymns in the Trinity section of that hymnal also speak of the dance of the Trinity—and so we can see that Fr. Rohr is using an image that has its precedents. In closing today, I am going to give you the first verses of the two hymns I found for your further reflection and meditation.

“The play of the Godhead, the Trinity’s dance, embraces the earth in a sacred romance, with God the Creator and Christ the true son, entwined with the Spirit, a web daily spun in spangles of mystery, the great Three in One.” Mary Louise Bringle

Come, join the dance of the Trinity, before all worlds begun, the interweaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit and Son. The universe of space and time did not arise by chance, but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.  Richard Leach

God bless you! 

The light will always remain

Friday, January 06, 2017

Continuing with John 1:

verses 4-5: Whatever has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (NRSV translation)

Everything that exists, lives in and through the Word, the second Person of the Trinity. In these verses John introduces us to light. Interesting enough, in Genesis 1:3 the first utterance of God was, “Let there be light.” The first act of creation was to create light and John immediately associates it with life. Later, in chapter 8, after delivering the adulteress from death through stoning and sends her off, he speaks to the Pharisees, saying I am the light of the world. whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

In John’s world view, light and life are opposed to darkness and death. Everyone was created through and in Jesus, so in some way that we may not fully understand, every single human being possesses this light in the depths of his/her being. This, to be sure, is an inclusive way of looking at things, but as far as I am concerned, it is a logical necessity:

creation through Christ à possessing light and life

No one can be excluded from this logic. “Ah,” you might say, “but what about those who have walked away from Jesus or refused to follow Him or who even deny that He is God, but rather walk a path of darkness and death throughout their entire lives? How about a convicted killer who is proud of the mass murder he inflicted and shows absolutely no remorse (such as we read about in the USA in today’s newspapers)? Has such a person killed off the light that was originally within?”

John gives an answer to that question in verse 4, in very simple terms: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. I maintain that no matter what, the spark of light still remains buried deep within. What happens to it or with it is in God’s hands. But the light is not extinguished.

Think personally for a moment. Perhaps there has been a time in your own life when you turned away from the light, or from your faith; perhaps there has been time when you were without faith; perhaps there has been a time when, for one reason or another, possibly addiction, you were walking in darkness and heading towards self-destruction. If so, what happened? Could it be that the light in you was never completely overcome but continued to shine even as a tiny spark, and eventually grew within you to the point where it helped you find the way out of the pit you had been buried in?

My conclusion is this: we must always allow for the existence of the light, created through the Christ, in every human being, no matter how evil, no matter how lost, no matter how faithless, no matter how seemingly helpless, no matter how ruthlessly resistant.

(That, by the way, is why I am personally opposed to capital punishment because it cuts short the work of the light. God will still make it right in the end somehow far beyond my own imagining, but God doesn’t give up. And consider this as well: the Church has never ever judged that a person be in hell, not Attila the Hun, not Stalin, not Hitler.)

Cling to these words when you are discouraged or ready to give up or ready to judge: the darkness did not overcome it.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend. The next posting will be on Monday.

God in relationship with everything

Thursday, January 05, 2017

My reflection on the first chapter of John’s Gospel continues . . .

John 1:2-3 

He [the Word] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

Keep in mind again that the Word exists before the beginning of creation itself. Jesus himself alludes to this in the High Priestly prayer He offers to the Father before He is taken away to be crucified: Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.  (NRSV translation; emphasis mine).

For us this is a mind-blowing revelation as it indicates how great is our ultimate destiny; for Jesus, however, it is a simply natural and basic understanding of who He is and who He has been back in that mystical realm I suggested you think about yesterday—that time which existed before the actual creation of the world, before the time that God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

And then, the “Big Bang!”? The work of creation beginning, and all of it was through Jesus and in Jesus and Jesus is in all things. ALL THINGS. Everything around you; everyone around you; the elements which make up all the “man-made” objects we are surrounded with in the world we live in. The trees and the roots and the birds and the worms and the wind and the clouds and the ferrets and the rattlesnakes, the little child whose smile brightened your day recently and the toothless little old lady in some country on the other side of the world. All of it; all of them; all of us, and most importantly for your consideration, all of you as well. Even the diseased or broken parts, even the parts that are breaking down through the process of aging. And—dare I say it—all of your history as well. The triumphs and the failures, the strengths and the weaknesses, the yearning for holiness and the downward pull of concupiscence.

Of course there are some, and there have been theological schools over the past two millennia, which would like to look at things dually; that is, who would like to separate out the good from the bad, the sacred from the profane, the holiness from the sinfulness, and cast into the darkness what “doesn’t belong.” But God doesn’t talk about “not belonging.” God includes. God embraces those who are most lost, God’s Son has a loving conversation with the woman who had several marriages, Jesus drives away the religious dualists who would demand that the adulteress be stoned to death; Jesus invites a crucified convicted killer into paradise the very day He is being put to death.

The older I get, the more simple it seems, and I know from my own experience that anyone who has done any serious spiritual work or any work of healing comes to grasp the wonderful reality that God includes everything, that God makes use of everything, (even the darkest times of our lives), and that God  loves everything. How can he not love what He has created? How can He not love what was created through and in His Son? Don’t forget: there is nothing in this world that was not created in Christ and through Christ.

Jesus is in everything and everything is in Jesus. Spend the next few days looking around your world with that new understanding, if it is something new to you. And if you need further proof, or something to shore up your understanding, go back once again and read the first two verses of the first chapter of John’s Gospel. It’s all there. How could we possibly have missed it all these years?

God bless you!

God as relationship?

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

I would like to write a few reflections on the first chapter of John’s Gospel, which has been my favorite chapter of the Bible right from the time when I was a young boy. I don’t know why: perhaps there was some mystical connection with my young soul, or perhaps it was because as an altar boy I knew that as soon as the priest read that chapter (called the “Last Gospel” back in those days), the Mass would soon be over. Anyway, please keep me in your prayers as I attempt to reflect on this most mystical of all Bible texts.

In the beginning

It has often been pointed out that the Gospel of John begins the same was as the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis: in the beginning. Actually, however, John’s chapter extends back before Genesis. Genesis begins with the act of creation (God created the heavens and the earth). John begins before the act of creation took place and emphasizes what Biblical scholar refer to as the “pre-existence” of the Word, or of the Christ, since the Word is actually a code reference to what we understand as “the Christ;” that is, the Word which existed from the beginning as opposed to Jesus Christ Who came into the world some 2 millennia ago.

(Is your imagination capable of thinking back that far? Try to: the time you spend will be time that you are thinking mystically and will help take you out of the daily stuff and concerns of your life; in fact, it can also be a mood elevator, just as centering prayer or meditation can be, because essentially, when you think on these things you are entering the mystical realm.)

Back to the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The Word was God and the Word was separate from God and could be with him? How can this be? Here we have the very genesis of Trinitarian Theology: a not-too-subtle hint that God is relationship. It is too early to speak of the persons of the Trinity (although the Spirit is mentioned in Genesis as “hovering over the waters”). We will explore this notion of the Trinity as relationship in future reflections. If, however, you would like to explore it further, I recommend you read The Divine Dance, recently published by Fr. Richard Rohr, which is devoted to the notion of Trinity as relationship—a relationship that includes you and me as well.

Think on these things, will you? Don’t feel inadequate if you find it difficult to “wrap your mind around these matters.” You certainly will not be alone. But for today, I would simply like to leave you with the reality of the relationship between this Word-with-God-and-is-God.

Too much to ask? Perhaps. But realize that before any of us were created, there was a lot going on—even long before the heavens and the earth were created. I remember thinking about these things when I was a little child, long before I ever went to school. Perhaps it just is that children are more free to imagine the unimaginable. Perhaps that is why Jesus encourages us to “be like children” ourselves.

God bless you!

The Horror of Addiction

Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Happy and blessed New Year to everyone!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to become acutely aware of the sufferings of people who are in the grips of addiction of one form or another, so much so that it has filled my prayer with cries for help for those who seem incapable of helping themselves. I remember particularly how often it is in the Gospels that Jesus heals those who are not in His presence, or who are brought to Him by others whose faith is enough to bring about healing for the afflicted one. Can our faith be that great? Is it possible that when or if we see someone who is crushed by addiction and we pray for that person, that our prayer might be heard and some process of slow and gradual healing might be put in motion?

Most of the time, we might not get to see how our prayer may bear fruit, and also, more often than not, we are not the ones who will be instruments for that healing: God will not use us, especially if we are close to the victims; He will use others as part of the healing process.

There is so much uncertainty here, and what we are called upon to do is simply to trust that God may hear our prayer.

Here are some of the things I have noticed about addicts, and all of these are based on personal knowledge of individuals who will remain nameless. What is important to note is that I am speaking out of experience, and not out of any theories I have constructed in my mere intellect:

·         They are often in denial, not recognizing the fact that they are addicted to something.

·         They are so overwhelmingly self-centered, that they are oblivious to the pain their addiction is causing others.

·         In many cases, even when they know that they have a problem, they seem incapable of doing anything to help themselves, or to call for help, or to go to someone who may lead them to help. AA, NA, AlAnon or any other groups such as that are seemingly out of the reach.

·         In the most tragic cases, they actually do not want to get better or get free of the addiction; it has them in such grips that it is far more desirable to them than any perceived or imagined healing.

·         The situation is progressive: it always gets worse.

·         They tend to keep company with people who share the same addictions and who are as resistant to recovery as they are; because of this, their lives are filled with turmoil, betrayal, mistrust, even violence.

·         They have a very slippery hold on the truth, if all. Their lives are filled with dishonesty and rationalization.

·         They will say anything, do anything, use anyone, especially those closest to them, as a means of feeding their addiction or keeping themselves stuck in their addictive patterns.

What hope can we gain from our faith? I look especially to a verse from John 1 that we had read to us on Christmas daytime Mass:

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

No matter how bleak the situation may seem, pray. Remember always that it is God’s will that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Remember always that we have been created so that we can one day become happy with God in heaven, as the old Baltimore Catechism once taught us.

And, most especially, pray for those whose lives are devoted to helping those suffering from addictions of any kind.

God bless you!