Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – January 15, 2017

First Reading: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
Psalm: Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-3
Gospel: John 1:29-34

The readings for this second Sunday in Ordinary Time all have to do with our calling and our incorporation into Christ Jesus, our Lord. When I first looked at the passages in preparation for writing the Bible study for this week, I was kind of in the “check” mode. The Reading 1 from Isaiah 49, part of the Servant Song in Isaiah, prophecy about Jesus the Servant, CHECK. The Responsorial Psalm 40, another prophecy about Jesus as the one who has come to do God the Father’s will, gladly, willingly from the heart, CHECK. Reading 2, the introductory paragraph to the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, hmmm, okay, not as meaty as the other passages and I am not sure how it relates but, hey, I’ll figure it out later, I do see we are called to be holy, that has possibilities, CHECK. The Alleluia, “The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, to those who accepted him, he gave power to become children of God.” Interesting, CHECK. The Gospel, John the Baptist testifying that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the preexistent one upon whom the Spirit descended upon and remained, the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Now this is starting to get exciting. CHECK.

Fast forward to the middle of the week, to the middle of the night, I have kind of been going through a time of mild depression, wondering whether I matter and whether what I do matters. So I am lying awake and I decide to take a look at the readings again, to begin piecing them together into this week’s study. So I grab my smart phone and go to the USCCB website and tap this coming Sunday on their readings calendar. The readings pop up and my eyes alight on the first phrase in the Isaiah passage and I read, “The Lord said to me: You are my servant…”. And I got the distinct impression the Lord was talking to me, applying this passage to me. And I thought I better check this out and see what the Church has to say about this, I don’t want to become heretical or anything but that impression also seems to line up this Sunday’s passages into a unified whole.

And I thought to myself, how am I going to check this out against the teachings of the Church? Do I have to sift through the writings of the early church fathers? I know I’ll use that Barnes & Noble gift card that I got for Christmas to buy the Nook version of the Didache Bible where writers like Peter Kreeft and Scott Hahn cross-referenced the Bible to the Catechism as a commentary.

Wow! I found out my impression was on target because the Catechism and really these passages point to the same thing. Namely, that since we have been incorporated by our faith and baptism into the Church, Christ’s Body, God’s family, our mission is the same as our Head, Jesus. And so the Isaiah passage really applies to us and the Psalm really apply to us as well because we are part of His body.

So here is the Reading 1 and read it applying it to yourself.

“The LORD said to me: You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Now the LORD has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; and I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD, and my God is now my strength! It is too little, the LORD says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Are you skeptical? Does it seem too awesome to be true?

Here are some of the paragraph cross-references to the Catechism in the Didache Bible for this passage.

713 The Messiah’s characteristics are revealed above all in the “Servant songs.” These songs proclaim the meaning of Jesus’ Passion and show how he will pour out the Holy Spirit to give life to the many: not as an outsider, but by embracing our “form as slave.” Taking our death upon himself, he can communicate to us his own Spirit of life.
868 The Church is catholic: she proclaims the fullness of the faith. She bears in herself and administers the totality of the means of salvation. She is sent out to all peoples. She speaks to all men. She encompasses all times. She is “missionary of her very nature” (AG 2).

Now here’s the Psalm.

(8a and 9a) Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will. I have waited, waited for the LORD, and he stooped toward me and heard my cry. And he put a new song into my mouth, a hymn to our God. R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will. Sacrifice or offering you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me. Holocausts or sin-offerings you sought not; then said I, “Behold I come.” R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will. “In the written scroll it is prescribed for me, to do your will, O my God, is my delight, and your law is within my heart!” R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will. I announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know. R. Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will.

And here is one of the references to the Catechism.

2824 In Christ, and through his human will, the will of the Father has been perfectly fulfilled once for all. Jesus said on entering into this world: “Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.” Only Jesus can say: “I always do what is pleasing to him.” In the prayer of his agony, he consents totally to this will: “not my will, but yours be done.” For this reason Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

And now the 2nd reading.

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And some of the Catechism references.

823 “The Church . . . is held, as a matter of faith, to be unfailingly holy. This is because Christ, the Son of God, who with the Father and the Spirit is hailed as ‘alone holy,’ loved the Church as his Bride, giving himself up for her so as to sanctify her; he joined her to himself as his body and endowed her with the gift of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God.” The Church, then, is “the holy People of God,” and her members are called “saints.”
867 The Church is holy: the Most Holy God is her author; Christ, her bridegroom, gave himself up to make her holy; the Spirit of holiness gives her life. Since she still includes sinners, she is “the sinless one made up of sinners.” Her holiness shines in the saints; in Mary she is already all-holy.
1695 “Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God,” “sanctified . . . [and] called to be saints,” Christians have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. This “Spirit of the Son” teaches them to pray to the Father and, having become their life, prompts them to act so as to bear “the fruit of the Spirit” by charity in action. Healing the wounds of sin, the Holy Spirit renews us interiorly through a spiritual transformation. He enlightens and strengthens us to live as “children of light” through “all that is good and right and true.”

And all these passages and reference tie into the Alleluia and the Gospel.

Alleluia, alleluia. The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. To those who accepted him, he gave power to become children of God. R. Alleluia, alleluia.

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’ I did not know him, but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel.” John testified further, saying, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

So I guess God really does have a purpose and a mission for me and for you. We are not unimportant.   We are His servants, His body, His children and we are called to be holy, to grow into being His children and to be lights to a dark world.
Prayerfully ponder these things

The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas): Day - December 25, 2016

First Reading: Isaiah 52:7-10

Psalm: Psalm 98:1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6 (3c)

Second Reading: Hebrews 1:1-6

Gospel: John 1:1-18

Christmas Day has finally arrived!  Jesus has come!  The long period of anticipation, longing and waiting is over!

There are four sets of readings for Christmas for the Vigil and the Night Masses on Christmas Eve and for the Dawn and the Day Masses on Christmas Day.  I have been meditating on the fourth or Day reading.

The first three readings proclaim the greatness, celebration, praise and joy of second person of the Trinity (the Son) and announce His arrival as a completed work, past tense, even though at the time the first two readings (the first reading and the psalm) were penned the future event they prophesy about had not occurred.  Even the second reading from New Testament looks back (from our human time-based perspective) to the first person of the Trinity’s (the Father’s) celebration of the begetting of His Son and His entrance into the world, commanding all of the angels of God to worship His Son.

Isaiah reveals the coming second person of the Trinity as none other than our God, our King, our Restorer, our Comforter, our Redeemer, the bared Holy Arm of God and our Savior.

The Psalmist proclaims Him as God’s victorious Right Hand, His Holy Arm, His revealed Salvation and Justice.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews proclaims Him to be God’s Word, God’s Son, the Heir of all things, God’s creative agent through whom He created the universe.  He is the radiance (refulgence) of is Glory, the Very Imprint of His Being, the Sustainer of all things by His mighty word, the Purifier from sins, the Right Hand of the Majesty on High, far superior to and worthy of the worship of all the angels of God.  Wow!

In these first three readings, all peoples, lands and nations and angels are expected to and commanded to rejoice, praise, sing and worship over this coming King who has come and been revealed as one of us human beings, starting out as a newborn babe lying in a stable manger in Bethlehem of Judea because there was no room for Him at the inn.  His birth is attended by the angels, lowly shepherds and his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph.

The Apostle John in the Gospel reveals the greatness of God’s eternal Word made flesh and of the proclamation of His coming by His faithful herald John the Baptist.  But John also records the condition of the world into which He comes and its reception of Him.  The world is in darkness and does not know its Creator and His own people, the people of the Promise, largely did not accept Him.

But to those few who did and who do accept Him He gives power to become children of God.

His coming has had a great and lasting impact on the world in the 2,000 years since His first coming.  About a third of the world’s population claims to be Christ followers but how many of us have really accepted and are accepting Him as our Savior and our King?  How many of us this day are more consumed with the trappings of Christmas (presents, food, family traditions, etc) than with our King who this day is supposed to celebrate?  Is Jesus an abstraction to us or a real person who leads us, talks with us, walks with us, rejoices and cries with us, changes us and saves us as we wander on our journey through this world that is not our home?

If we let Him in today, we can do today together and He can guide all of our interactions with the people we come in contact with.  He can increase His light and His love in the world through us.  Come, Lord Jesus, make it so! 

Merry Christmas to all!

We are all called to be "mystics"?

We are all called to be "mystics" according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church?

Yes.  It says so right in paragraph 2014.  Here it is.

2014 Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments - "the holy mysteries" - and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all.

Did you notice the phrase I made bold?

Our intimate union with Jesus is really what Christian mysticism is all about and the examples of it from the lives of saints like St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Faustina and from the pages of the Bible are invitations meant to draw us into a deeper experience of that union.

As the Apostle John says in 1 John 1,

1. What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life—
2. for the life was made visible;
we have seen it and testify to it
and proclaim to you the eternal life
that was with the Father and was made visible to us—
3. what we have seen and heard
we proclaim now to you,
so that you too may have fellowship with us;
for our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
4. We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.
NABRE

Did you know the saints were often ticked off at their spiritual directors and superiors when they insisted that the saints write about their intimate unions with God?  Writing is hard work and finding time for it is even harder.  So why do it?  Well, how else are we going to know what God has in store for us in our intimate union with Himself?

The biblical writers and the saints didn't write to brag about their spiritual experiences so they could elevate themselves as a spiritual elite.  They wrote because they are inviting us to join them, to let us know there is "more" to be entered into, to be experienced in intimate union with God.

I will be writing more on this topic because God keeps pestering me.  But enough for one insomnia session.

A Thanksgiving Meditation

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and our Colorado children, spouses/boyfriend (we consider them our kids, too) and our grandson will be coming over for dinner which I am looking forward to.  I always enjoy our family times and I am thankful to God for them.

This morning at work for the college that it is my privilege to serve, one of our work study students brought me a sheet of colored construction paper and asked me to trace my hand on it and then write what I was thankful for on it and attach it to a construction paper turkey on the marker board in our hallway.  Now I have to confess that I wasn't feeling particularly thankful to God at the time so it took me a while of pondering to come up with some ideas.  And then I started feeling thankful to God for them as I thought about them.  And so I have been mulling over thankfulness today.

Now the original Thanksgiving was declared to offer thanks to God for His provisions for them during some tough times.

But a lot of us have a hard time being naturally thankful to God, including me at times.  It seems like lots of times we find it easier to blame Him.  The Apostle Paul brings that up in his letter to the Romans chapter one as he is laying out God's list of grievances with mankind.  In verse 21, he says "they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him" NRSVCE.  And I think it is this natural ingratitude towards God that is at the root of a lot of today's ills and much of our unhappiness.

But there is help for a naturally ungrateful cuss like me in the Scriptures, the prayers of the Church, the Psalms, the hymns and the spiritual songs (see Ephesians 5:15-20 and Colossians 3:12-17) and the Mass, which is one big prayer of thanksgiving.

I love the Mass.  One of my favorite parts is in the Preface Dialogue where the priest says, "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God."  And our response is "It is right and just."  And then the priest launches into the Preface, "It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord."  And then the priest goes on to list a bunch of reasons why it is right and just to give God thanks, according to the liturgical season of the year.  Notice that his prayer says that not only does God deserve our thanks but in the giving of thanks to Him, we find our salvation.

And I experienced that tonight as I was cleaning up the kitchen and these words from the Mass came back to me and I said them over and over to the Lord, my God.  My heart became full of joy and peace and gratitude.  I was renewed in heart and mind.

May you all have a blessed Thanksgiving.










 

The Knowledge and Experience of God - Both are needed.

This past Sunday my wife, Joan, and I were standing in Plum Creek Church singing Kristian Stanfill's song, One Thing Remains.  It is an awesome song!  I especially love the chorus which speaks of God's love for us, "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me...".  Tears of joy and thankfulness were running down my face as we sang the song.  Now this emotional response was triggered because the song resonated with both my knowledge and experience.  Sometimes songs resonate with my longings for God and aspirations to be the man He wants me to be for His glory and for my fellow brothers and sisters who trod this globe with me.

As I was thinking about this song, the passage from John 5:39-40 was brought to mind where Jesus says in answer to His critics among His own people, "You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."  The Scriptures give us the knowledge/witness of Jesus but in order to really have life we need to come to Him.  Jesus draws a distinction between the Scriptures and Himself.  But it is not an either/or distinction but rather a both/and distinction.  In other words, we need both.  The knowledge (Scriptures and Creation (see Romans 1)) and experience (shared life together with (see John 17)) of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So how do we get both knowledge and experience of God?  That will be the subject of my next post or two.

Going on a prayer walk with Brother Owl

My wife and I moved to a new city to help our son and daughter-in-law take care of our new grandson.  We are glad to be here for them but we did leave behind some special brothers and sisters in Jesus in our former city.  We have found a couple of good churches here but haven't really made connections yet.  I have become a Catholic Christian and my wife is a non-denominational Christian, hence the two churches but I go with my wife to her church in addition to mine.  So far I am a lector (reader of Scripture) at my parish and I get to read about once a month. And we haven't gotten involved in any long term small groups yet.

So I have been feeling rather lonely without any Catholic brothers and sisters to share the journey with.  I decided to start doing prayer walks at my Catholic parish, St. Francis of Assisi, after my wife went to bed.  It is a beautiful church up on a ridge overlooking the valley below and you can see for miles, north and south.  And, of course, it has a statue of St. Francis of Assisi in front of it who is famous for many reasons way beyond Catholic circles.  One of the things he is known for is his solidarity with all of God's creation and creatures so if you see a statue of a monk with animals around him and birds on him you can safely guess that statue is one of St. Francis.

So my first night up there at dusk, I was walking around the church parking lot praying the rosary and offering up prayers for people I know and for our world in general.  While I was at it, I talked to God about my loneliness.  No sooner than I finished praying about that I hear an owl call and an owl comes swooping in and lands on a gazebo near me.  For the rest of my prayer walk, as I moved around the parking lot and the church grounds praying, the owl kept flying and landing near me.  Smiling, I thought how Franciscan God's answer to my prayer about loneliness was and I said, "Nice touch, God" and the ache in my heart receded.  So I named the owl, Brother Owl, although it very well could have been "Sister Owl".  A biologist I am not.

I truly am not alone even when I feel so.

What I learned about friendship while meditating on the anguish of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus knew the cruel ordeal he was about to face.  Rejection, murderous rage, flogging, beatings, gleeful ridicule, mocking, searing pain, brutal labor and lingering, agonizing death and on top of it all becoming sin for us and nailing our sins to the cross.  So Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray about it and takes his three closest disciples with him (Peter, James and John).  It is apparent from the accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke that Jesus desired them to join him in his prayer vigil, to keep watch with him and pray.  Jesus was very troubled, in anguish, sorrow, anxiety, literally in "agonia".  Luke records that Jesus sweat great drops like blood.  The writer of Hebrews in chapter 5, verse 7, was probably alluding to this time when he says, "...Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death..." (RSVCE)

And what were Peter, James and John doing?  Sleeping.  Luke does add that it was for or because of sorrow.  They were worn out.  I'm sure they wanted to participate in the vigil but they couldn't, they didn't have it in them.  And to make matters worse fear gets the best of them and they all flee when Jesus is arrested and Peter ends up denying he even knows Jesus three times.

And so as I was meditating on this, the thought came to me.  And how did Jesus respond after these colossal failures on their parts?  He didn't give up on them, he forgave them, he poured out the Holy Spirit on them and he entrusted his church to them.  They were still his friends.

Now he already knew they were going to fail him in the time of his greatest need because he told them they would over their denials.  In other words, he had realistic expectations.  And yet, his realistic expectations didn't mean that he didn't share with them and give them the opportunity to come through for him.  He invited them to keep watch with him.  Nor did it mean that their failure didn't hurt Jesus.  Because he chides them saying, "Could you not watch with me for one hour?" and "Why are you sleeping?".

Often we have unrealistic expectations of our spouses, our children, our families, our friends, our co-workers, our leaders and people in general.  And we over-estimate our own faithfulness and strength.  And so we tend to either write people off when they fail us or we never give them the opportunity to disappoint us by keeping them at a distance and not even inviting them to keep watch with us.  We often expect people to be God for us.  Jesus didn't and doesn't do that.  He has realistic expectations, he still gives us new opportunities to join him and keep watch and he is still our friend, brother, Lord and Savior.  And he knows how we feel.  And his Father is still there for him and for us.

May Jesus help us to be like him.