The Father SEES us in Jesus

John 6:44-51

“Jesus said to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets:

They shall all be taught by God.

Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”

We come to Jesus to listen to the Father, who loves us and cherishes us. He has seen the Father; the Father sees us through His sacrifice.

We can bury ourselves in and join His holy sacrifice by receiving His Word and Sacrament (body and blood) as often as we can. Jesus welcomes us with open arms (look at the Cross, on which He says in His dying breath: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”).  He chooses to live in us, broken vessels, so that we may become whole. Let us live together in communion with the Father and the Son, through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand?

Readings on USCCB

Why wouldn’t we take pleasure in the death of the wicked, or in the downfall of our enemies?  Because death and downfall means more than just the ceasing of wrongdoing.  Yes, the wrong action may be stopped, but we are talking about persons — persons made in the image and likeness of God.  We are really talking about the death and downfall of one who bears the God-image.  God takes no pleasure in this, for that would be taking pleasure that a part of Himself has died.  

 

Today in Ezekiel we hear how the Lord delights and rejoices when a sinner repents.  When we turn away from our sins we are turning to God, to goodness.  We are turning to life — to God’s eternal life.

 

How do we know what is evil?  Again, bearing the God-image and having been created good, we can naturally know what is good.  But there is also the moral law that has been fully revealed and fulfilled in Jesus and subsequently through the Church.  The psalmist prays today, If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, who can stand? (Ps. 130:3). It is God who teaches us in our hearts and through His revealed divine law what is good and what is wrong.  We cannot determine that for ourselves; we can choose to follow or not.  It is true that sin corrupts our thinking and darkens our intellects, which is why God is always calling us to repent.  Repentance brings life to the soul and therefore renewal to the mind.   

 

Jesus fulfills the law of God in the Gospel by internalizing it.  He calls us to renew our minds through repentance.  It is not enough to do good deeds on the outside, or to preach the law of God.  He wants the law to be in our hearts.  When we are angry with another person, we need to do our best to connect with them.  True love of another is to seek what is best for them, to seek their true good.  In a practical application, a loving boundary can be agreed upon internally — one that acknowledges the anger inside and respects the dignity of the other.  The love of God will then have a channel to flow from our hearts to others, bringing God’s life to all of His people, even those with whom we disagree.

The Way of Love

Readings on USCCB

Lent is all about conversion in every moment. “Follow me,” Jesus said to Levi. There are little things, (which to God are actually big things), that we can do. Isaiah gives them to us: remove oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech; give food to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; and finally, delight in the LORD on the Sabbath—do not seek your own interests, but delight in the LORD. As I read these and examine my own life it is not too difficult to see where conversion is necessary. The key is to look inwards, and to realize that Jesus is calling me (every part of me), just like He called Levi. “Let Me into all these inner places where you seek your own interests,” Jesus says to me. He wants me to recognize my sinfulness and repent. “Let Me into all these inner places where you are hurting and try to fix things on your own.” He wants to be in everything, and He is not repulsed by any part of me. All the “little things” matter. He wants to be in every little moment and every little thought. He calls to us all the day, says the psalmist (86:4). Anything and everything can be offered to Him, for He takes pleasure in our conversion (cf Ez 33:11), and will make us like a spring whose water never fails (Is 58:11).

It takes practice. It takes a gentle curiosity looking inward, rather than condemnation. In the Gospel today, as well in other Gospel stories, we witness the Pharisees looking to condemn. They don’t “see” the beauty of love and compassion offered by Jesus to sinners; their hearts are closed. Who of us wants to go to a physician who condemns us? Who of us will even approach the divine physician if He condemns us? This is not the way of Jesus, and it should not be our way as we look inside to examine ourselves.

Love is what changes any person. Knowing the love of Jesus is what draws me to Him. Patience and gentleness are the seeds of the Word that grow to be the abundant fruits of the Spirit. They are the means to conversion within myself and of others. They are the way of the Lord.

In sum, Isaiah gives us the things with which new should examine our Christian life. Jesus gives us the manner in which we should do it — the way of Love. He is patient, kind, and gentle.

The Land

See Readings on USCCB

When Moses is speaking to the people and he speaks of “the land” he is speaking literally of the Promised Land. He wants the Israelites to know that God will give them a place to live and to thrive.

What does this mean for us?

“The Land” is the moment of time in front of us. It is the choice within our spirits that we have every moment. Every moment is set before us, in which we can choose to love God and walk in His ways. We enter each moment and occupy it just by living in it and experiencing it. Just like the Israelites, Christians cross the Jordan via Baptism, and life and death is set before us. We have the eternal blessing of life in Christ as a son or daughter of the Father — if we but heed His voice and hold fast to Him.

The law of the LORD is our hope; it is our roadmap, our guide. Stay on the road, follow the map, and we prosper. Does this mean there won’t be any potholes? Absolutely not, for even the Son of Man experienced potholes, in terms of those who rejected Him. Again, “the land” is the moment of time in front of us. We can choose to occupy each moment yoked to Him, knowing in our hearts that His way is the way of life.

Return to Me with your Whole Heart

See Readings on USCCB

We cannot give anything that we haven’t already received. We hear in the prophet Joel that the ministers of the Lord are to say,

“Spare, O LORD, your people,
    and make not your heritage a reproach,
    with the nations ruling over them!
Why should they say among the peoples,
    ‘Where is their God?’”

God’s heritage is to give generously, abundantly. We receive and give back. Firstly we have received life and all that sustains life: a home, food, clothing. God’s legacy is to give!

Our response is to receive with joy and gratitude. And then to offer our lives back to Him. It is like a cycle of giving and receiving, except it never ends; it never stops…

Unless we stop receiving, and forget the Giver.

“Even now, says the LORD,
    return to me with your whole heart,” again, the prophet says.

Every Lent we are reminded to return to the Lord with our whole Selves. We are called to remember the divine Giver of life and sustenance who is gracious and merciful and full of compassion. There is nothing that we have that doesn’t come from Him, including our very breath and our freedom.

In freedom we are encouraged by the psalmist to say,

“For I acknowledge my offense,
    and my sin is before me always:
‘Against you only have I sinned,
    and done what is evil in your sight.’”

We all have used our freedom for evil, and yet God is ready to renew our spirits. He is always waiting and knocking at the door of our hearts. We choose to open it to receive His divine life. Paul says to the Corinthians and to us: “we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”  Let us not allow these gifts pass is by! Turn to Him and allow Him to make us righteous! It all comes from Him — so much so that “he [the Father] made him [the Son] to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” We become His righteousness through the Spirit of life and love that He has breathed into us.

When we receive and give back in freedom, the cycle continues, and the reward is within our hearts. Our closeness, our intimacy…with the One who gives… increases. It is its own reward. It is joy and peace in our hearts, living His divine life. The eternal now.

When the Son of Man is Lord of all; when He is Lord of ME

Reflection on the Readings of the Day 

This is our goal — for Jesus to truly be Lord of our Selves — body, soul, and spirit. This is the goal of every Christian, and the seed that leads to the goal is planted within us by our Baptism — the seed of hope. We can read all about this theological virtue in the Catechism (1817-1821), but CCC 1821 has particular significance to me this morning, because it quotes St. Teresa of Avila:
Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end” (St. Teresa of Avila, Excl. 15:3).

We hear a lot about hope in the Scripture readings for today. The author of Hebrews desires our eagerness in service to our neighbor for the fulfillment of hope until the end. He reminds us of God’s promise to Abraham, and how it is fulfilled in Jesus. Hebrews talks about this hope as the anchor of the soul, sure and firm, which reaches into the interior behind the veil, where Jesus has entered on our behalf.  He entered by taking on my sins. When I, living in hope, seek to make Jesus Lord of my life through my choices every moment I have the assurance in my spirit of rejoicing as Teresa speaks.

In the Alleluia antiphon we hear from whom these graces come, ultimately.  The antiphon is from Ephesians, “May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to our call” (Eph 1:17-18). Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:44). It is the Father who draws us to the Son through the seed of hope, and the Holy Spirit nourishes the seed so that we bear the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

As we are drawn to the Son we hope in Him presently and eternally. When we are in need, He is there as Lord of all, even our sinful Selves, for we were made for HIM.

Wednesday Audience of Pope Francis: Jesus is close to us in our weakness.

It is such a beautiful thing to contemplate: that God is closest to us in our weakness…in our sinfulness.  I feel like a broken record but Romans 5:8 has been so important to me in the last three years of my Christian journey: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Pope Francis hits it home with his Wednesday Audience.  Read it all.

Some gems:

“Jesus’ first public act is therefore participation in a choral prayer of the people, a prayer of the people who went to be baptised, a penitential prayer, in which everyone recognises him- or herself as a sinner…We never pray alone, we always pray with Jesus. He does not stay on the opposite side of the river – “I am righteous, you are sinners” – to mark His difference and distance from the disobedient people, but rather He immerses His feet in the same purifying waters. He acts as if He were a sinner.”

Jesus’ baptism was His first public death-to-self.  He leads us to the Father in every action, even Baptism.

“This is the unique greatness of Jesus’ prayer: the Holy Spirit takes possession of His person and the voice of the Father attests that He is the beloved, the Son in whom He fully reflects Himself.”

In the same way, we who are in Christ through Baptism share in His sonship.  We, too, are the beloved of the Father!

“Jesus did not descend into the waters of the Jordan for Himself, but for all of us. It was the entire people of God who went to the Jordan to pray, to ask for forgiveness, to receive that baptism of penance…Jesus gave us His own prayer, which is His loving dialogue with the Father. He gave it to us like a seed of the Trinity, which He wants to take root in our hearts. Let us welcome him! Let us welcome this gift, the gift of prayer. Always with Him. And we will not err.”

 

Lord, give us eyes to see and ears to hear! Amen.

 

Pope Francis: Adore the Lord

Yesterday during the Sunday Angelus, as Pope Francis taught on the principle commandment of the Divine Law, (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”), he says that prayer in Adoration is the best way to express our personal love for God.  We are already pretty good at offering thanks and interceding, but adoration sometimes takes a back seat.

Why would he emphasize this?

I think the Holy Father is trying to convey two things:

1) Adoration alone gives God His due worship, and adoration is for the sake of loving.  When we approach the Lord in faith for the purpose of loving Him a new dimension is added to our prayers of blessing, thanksgiving, praise, and supplication. “Adoration is the first attitude of man acknowledging that he is a creature before his Creator…Adoration of the thrice-holy and sovereign God of love blends with humility and gives assurance to our supplications” (CCC 2628). An analogy can be made in terms of time and space: a picture drawn on a piece of paper provides a two dimensional representation.  A third dimension is added in a sculpture with clay.  In essence, adoration adds depth to our prayer; we are loving God for the sake of loving Him.

2) To add even another dimension there is another commandment: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. This would be like adding movement (change in time) to our picture or clay model. Love of neighbor consists in closeness, in caring, in sharing — a going out of oneself. Love of neighbor requires a listening heart, and a willingness to spend time with others.  The Holy Father challenges us about how we spend our time: are we looking at our watches (or our phones) when we should be listening to others? (I am guilty). Further, do we care so much about the time when we are gossiping or criticizing?  

This is not love!  Not of our neighbor, nor of ourselves.

Lord, convert my heart.  May I be teachable.

Our neighbor is an image of God.  We can adore the presence of God who lives in our neighbor by our attention, closeness, and prayer. The Holy Father reminds us that the wellspring of love is God himself. We are called to be in communion with His love in every moment, adoring His presence within us through loving our neighbor, in whom He is also present. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23).

The Pope tells us that Jesus’ divine mercy calls us to begin anew each day! 

Lord, make it so.

Pope Francis: Voice of Love

The idea that Pope Francis is the voice of love in our time has grown on me the past few years. I think this is an important realization. I confess that this Pope was very confusing to me at first. When he came to be the leader of the Catholic Church, I was burying myself (in my master’s program) in the teachings of Vatican II and previous popes, especially John Paul II and Benedict. It was at that time that I asked the Lord to help me to see things from His point of view. Crying out in faith, I knew in my heart that there was something else for me to learn from this new Pope. I asked the Lord to help me learn from Pope Francis the things that He wanted me to know. I know today that the Lord wants to teach me about His love for all people.

We learn from Jesus that the disposition of our hearts matters a great deal. As I study the Gospels, I imagine Jesus saying to us, “See Me for who I am. I am LOVE.”

Can we accept this? Can we accept His love?

Let’s first look at what Jesus does in His ministry. He seeks out sinners. He eats with them. He heals them. He says, “Follow me.” It was clear throughout Jesus’ ministry that He was open and welcoming to all. There was no illness, no sinfulness, and no disposition of heart that He cast away from Himself. This is the Jesus I am coming to know. This is also the Pope I am coming to know. He is the Pastor who calls us to faith, to live in hope, and to live in love. He will cast away no one. The question is, what is my disposition toward him?

Here are some of the dispositions of heart that we see in the Gospels:

“And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him” (Mark 3:2).
“The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him” (Mark 8:11).
“And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2).

All of this brings me to the news of this week about Pope Francis. The first headline I read was “Pope Francis has become the first pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions.”

If I were to read this predisposed to accuse and to test, I might be thinking, “Here we go again!” Then I might proceed to inform myself further in order to criticize. Here are some examples:

From Crisis Magazine (source):
“Francis’s comments are a kind of diabolical inversion of Humanae Vitae.”
“At some level, it doesn’t matter. Whether the Pope is consciously or accidentally dissenting from the Church, he is dissenting from the Church. There’s no question about that.”

From Cardinal Burke (source):
“It is a source of deepest sadness and pressing pastoral concern that the private opinions regarding civil unions attributed to Pope Francis and reported with so much emphasis by the press do not correspond to the constant teaching of the Church.”

The headline from a Carl Olson article (source):
“The deeply flawed opportunism of Pope Francis”

Msgr. Charles Pope (source):
“Many Catholics are once again grieved that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has chosen to indiscreetly express his personal views on a critical moral issue of our day.”

I point these out because I question the disposition of heart towards the Holy Father from these sources. Is their disposition one of seeking understanding? These are just a few articles, of many, from Catholic sources that I formerly respected. Today I believe that they lead me away from the Church.

We are in a very confusing time. Who am I to trust for news and analysis in these times?

I will repeat the question in the light of the words of Peter in the Gospel of John, after Jesus’ seemingly scandalous discourse about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

I choose to go to His Vicar.  I wonder where faith is if one cannot trust that the Lord is trying to teach us something through His leader on earth. And I wonder if it is possible to understand this teaching if my disposition to the words of the Holy Father are an assumption of inversion or dissent, private opinion or opportunism. Are they seeking to find fault, or is God speaking through them?

Does God speak to everyone in their hearts? Absolutely.

God speaks, but sometimes we do not hear Him, because we cut ourselves off from His word with our hardness of heart. I am often faced with my own personal hardness of heart, the kind that will not even ask the right questions. Perhaps this is a reason God inspired Luke to give Jesus some last words that we do not hear in the other Gospels: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

None of us knows what we are doing, which is why we need a Savior. None of us is well, but many of us think we are. We cling to the law that is outside of ourselves, but if we do this, it can harden our hearts. Jesus fulfills the law with Life and Love. In my heart I see Him saying to the person in front of Him (to me and you), “I love you first and foremost. Whatever you have done — I can and will forgive. Whatever your burdens are — I can and will carry them. Whatever ails you — I can and will heal.”

And then He says, “You just need to let me.”

I believe the Holy Father is teaching us to look at others like this. I don’t believe for a minute that Pope Francis is leading us astray. Why? Because I have listened to him. I have asked God to give me a heart that seeks to understand, and through the Holy Father’s words I am reminded of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels. How many of us know that the Pope teaches twice a week in the Angelus on Sunday and in the Wednesday audience? How many of us have heard his teaching on prayer with the Psalms the last two weeks, and his exposition on the social teaching of the Church in the previous months? How many of us heard all of his homilies throughout the Covid-crisis lockdown? How many of us have witnessed that he is truly a man of prayer?

Do I first seek to listen and hear, or do I first seek to find fault? That is a question we all must ask ourselves.

The Pope is a follower of Christ, and is an example of one who first seeks to love.

I would be remiss if I didn’t provide examples of this. I urge everyone to first pray for an open heart — one that seeks to understand the Holy Father’s voice of Love. Equip yourselves with the truth from his mouth, not from others’ perceptions of him. The evidence is clear.

Wednesday Audience Transcripts: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2020.index.html#audiences

Wednesday Audience Video (translation into English): https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope-francis/papal-audience.html

Pope Homilies Transcripts: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope-francis/papal-audience.html

Pope Homilies Video (translation into English): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxIsefyl9g9A5SGWA4FvGIA

Other articles by authors who seek to understand first:
Dr. Pia de Solenni
Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein and Dr. Robert Fastiggi
Dr. Pedro Gabriel
Fr. Matthew Schneider

Best yet: Eve Tushnet

“Be Not Afraid”

As I walked into Church this morning I almost ran into a tree. You heard that right. I was looking down at my phone (really, to pause the prayer I was listening to, honest!) and next thing I know, I realize that one more step, and a tree will be in my face.

Thank you, distractions. Thank you, tree. This may seem ridiculous to thank my distractions and the tree but bear with me.

I walked into the narthex, and not only were my glasses fogged up (because of my face mask), but the sun was shining brightly through one of the far windows, blinding me. “Sit where the sun is not in my eyes,” I told myself as I walked into the nave. I could barely see where I was going, but I found a spot to sit down and begin writing in my journal. I invited Jesus into all of me for Mass — all of my thoughts, even the darkest ones.

Does that seem strange, to invite Jesus into the darkness?

Mass began and I stood up. The blinding sunlight was coming through the window, right into my eyes again as I stood. “It will be gone when I sit down for the readings,” I thought.

The first reading was from Ephesians. I love Ephesians. Just a note to the reader, if you read the daily Mass readings everyday we will be going through most of Ephesians for the next two weeks. Today this struck me: “You…were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14). Our being sealed in the Holy Spirit is only the first installment. “There is so much more to come!” I thought. We are His possession, His sons and daughters. Our inheritance is His gentle care, His love, His tenderness.

The psalm verse “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own” fits right into this.

Blessed the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
From heaven the Lord looks down;
he sees all mankind (Ps 33:12-13).

God is in charge. We are His people. He gives us everything.

We stood up for the Gospel and I was blinded by the light again. I tried moving to my right. The light was still in my eyes. I decided to just close them and listen to the Word.

“There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows (Lk 12:2-7).”

I sat down for the homily. “Every cell of our body is known by the Lord,” the priest said. “Bring everything into the light.”

I laughed at myself. “I can’t hide from you, can I, Jesus?” I thought of the bright sunlight through the Church window that seemed to be chasing me and blinding me.

I remembered what I wrote in my journal at the beginning of Mass. “I invite You into all of me, all of my thoughts, even the darkest ones.”

Jesus wants to be there to heal! He wants to be in every part of us. We can think of every cell, but is that all? A cell is a material thing. What about the spiritual “parts” of us? Our memories, our thoughts, our intellectual ponderings.

Our feelings. Even the darkest ones. He wants to be there, too.

His light may feel too bright. It may burn at first, but the burning is purifying.

What do we know about Him?

Look at the crucifix. Do not be afraid. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

While we were still sinners? He chases us down. His light shines in the darkness. He wants to be in everything — in the distractions, in the falls. He is not afraid of our sins, even the darkest ones. He felt all of them in His death, and in the moment of His last breath, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Having been sealed in the Spirit was only the beginning. We now live the redemption and claim our inheritance in and through Christ and His loving sacrifice. There is nothing we can give Him that He cannot make new, even our darkest sins. Because we were created “very good” God can bring good purpose to all! Even the distractions. Even the bumps in the road. Even the trees we may run into! Our inheritance is His gentle care, His love, His tenderness.

Be not afraid.