Forever and Ever Moment by Moment

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Genesis 17:3-9 / Psalm 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 / John 8:51-59

Forever and Ever Moment by Moment

The next time you watch a television program count the seconds for each camera shot. You’ll probably find that the maximum amount of time any one shot is used is about seven seconds. Most of the time what you see changes every three seconds or less – commercials have even briefer time frames. A half hour program is typically divided into seven minute segments between commercial breaks. Whether these programming tendencies are based on studies of the human attention span, or our attention span has become less durable because of these tendencies I do not know.

It seems to me that in a culture of such short blips of information and entertainment, the concept of forever can be hard to comprehend. Yet forever is how long God will be faithful to us (quite astounding) and forever is how long we must respond to God’s faithful covenanting with us (quite challenging). With our short attention span – innate or conditioned – how can we hope to be faithful to a forever commitment?

First, our commitment is a response to God’s commitment. God’s commitment empowers our response. And with God all things are possible – including a faithful response to God’s forever love. Second, the psalmist today tells us “Look to the Lord in his strength, seek to serve him constantly.” Constantly could be looked at as moment by moment. Thus even our ever-shifting focus of attention can be a way to be faithful to God. Each time our focus of attention changes, we can look for God and a new way of serving him, or a new place to find him.

·        Place your attention on an object near you. Think of everything it means to you, or the varied or dedicated ways you use this object. Does this object connect you to God? How?  Next, for a few seconds, focus on another object. Then after a few seconds, focus on the first object again, but let all its meaning and uses fall away, and see the object again as if for the first time. After a suitable amount of time offer that object to God from your heart.

Like Father, Like Son

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Isaiah 49:8-15 / Psalm 145:8-9, 13cd-14, 17-18 / John 5:17-30

Like Father, Like Son

Can you picture a little boy clunking around the house in work boots several sizes too big for him with a toy tool belt falling around his knees? He grabs a block and drives an imaginary nail into it with his plastic hammer. He’s seen his dad do something like this before. He wants to be just like him when he grows up — for now at least.

Jesus never grew out of this love for his Father’s work. In today’s gospel reading from John we conclude with a verse that could make one feel helpless, but when properly understood, actually explains what it truly means to be powerful. It turns what seems like subservience into true empowerment. It is the power of imitation that is beyond flattery; a power that saves.

“I cannot do anything on my own…” (John 5:30) seems like what a mere child would say, rather than the words of a thirty year old. It can seem like the self-pitying thought of a patient confined to a hospital bed waiting for the nurse to arrive and help with simple daily needs that others accomplish under their own power and take for granted. It does not seem like the words of a Savior or the Son of God. But this capable Son remains totally dependent and in strictest conformity with his Father’s will — so great is his love for his Father.

Perhaps the words “I cannot do anything on my own…” really mean, “I can’t imagine doing anything on my own. I don’t want to do anything apart from my Father.” Jesus always has the will of his Father in mind. Perhaps we choose to sin because we do not delight in the will of the Father as much as Jesus did.

·         Some people practice their religious faith because they want to have good things in their life, and be protected by God, not because the will of their Heavenly Father is their all-consuming passion. Reflect on your own reasons for practicing your faith: Why do you want to develop your relationship with your Heavenly Father? In developing this relationship, are you trying to take his will as your own?

Lourdes and Bethesda

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12 / Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9 / John 5:1-16

Lourdes and Bethesda

In the 150-plus years since Our Lady appeared to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes there are less than 70 miracles at that site which have been authenticated by the Church. One might wonder what the record of the pool at Bethesda would be, with or without rigorous modern criteria. For Lourdes that’s one authenticated miracle every two years or so. Who can wait that long? Who could guarantee it would be me if I did wait? I might be left thinking, “It’s always someone else who gets there at the right time.”

The passage from John’s gospel makes it clear that the man at the pool of Bethesda had been sick a long time — thirty-eight years. Who knows how many of those years he had spent waiting and hoping by the pool of Bethesda? He had been sick since before Jesus was born of Mary. Fortunately for the man at Bethesda he did not have to time his arrival at the pool just right for healing. Healing came to him unexpected, probably just when he’d gotten used to disappointment.

·        In what situation in your life have you given up hope? Imagine Jesus questioning you about it. What might he say? How do you respond? What might be the miracle to change you in regard to this situation?

Countering "Enlightened" Disinterest

Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Daniel 9:4b-10 / Psalm 79:8, 9, 11 and 13 / Luke 6:36-38

Countering “Enlightened” Disinterest

The popular expression, “Live and let live” is not Christian. It is not the fulfillment of Jesus’ saying, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.”

“Live and let live,” can lead to a “look the other way” mentality. Don’t complain about someone else, or correct someone else and they will let you alone too. The focus of Jesus’ teaching is not about our neighbors’ judgment being withheld; it is about God’s judgment being withheld. Here Jesus is not teaching us to act as we’d have others act toward us, but as we’d have God act toward us. 

The teaching is not “Live and let live.” It is treat others with God’s compassion. “Live and let live” is “enlightened” disinterest in one’s neighbors. “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” is enlightened interest in them. The first says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The second says, “If you want to be blessed, be a blessing.”

·        Toward whom are you judgmental? Why? Try to look at that person through God’s merciful eyes. What is the difference in the view? What gets in your way? Speak to God about it. Pray for the good of the person you have judged.

Staring Out at 75

Sunday of the Second Week of Lent – Year A

Genesis 12:1-4 / Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22 / 2 Timothy 1:8-10 / Matthew 17:1-9

Starting Out at 75

At what age will you have arrived? At 75 most people believe that what was going to happen in their lifetime has pretty much happened. Some of us believe that the time to set out for our goals and accomplishments is twenty-five or so. Some of us believe by thirty or forty we have "arrived" at the person we are to become.

Abram was seventy-five when the Lord came to him. At seventy-five we figure we have seen the landscape, and there is not much more is to be expected. But for Abram 75 was the beginning. 75 is when he heard the call: "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.” In other words, “Leave the heritage your father Terah left to you and go to… well, you’ll know the place when you get there. I'll make a great nation of you out of nothing."

When most people are making sure their wills are all in order, and hoping Social Security and their 401k are enough, Abram and Sarai were packing up all the earthly belongings that could fit onto their camels, and heading out into the desert to become wandering Arameans. What’s more, they were an elderly, childless couple, and probably resigned to it by then. What great nation could come from them? What blessing could be found in their barrenness? But at 75 things were just beginning for Abram and Sarai.

Yet it would take twenty-five more years for the promise to even begin to take shape. By that time, Abram had reached the century mark, and Sarai his wife was probably not much younger than he, 99 perhaps. When she heard a visitor telling her husband he’d be back next year and Sarai would be “with child,” she laughed. Wouldn’t we all? Pregnant at 99! It’s the stuff you read about only in the National Inquirer and the Bible.

Perhaps Sarai’s laughter was nervous laughter. Perhaps she laughed rather than just tearing through the tent flap and shouting at the man for taunting her and reminding her of her enduring barrenness. How dare he bring that up! She and her husband had put all that behind them now. They had addressed the issue with the surrogate mother, Hagar, who had made the most of her fertility by lording it over Sarai. Perhaps Sarai was afraid of pregnancy at this point, afraid of becoming a mother, afraid of being blessed.

If we received our first promise or calling at 75, would we be willing to begin a journey then? Would we be willing to wait 25 years for the first sign of the promise being for real? Today God calls us to a journey, but are we afraid of the risk it requires? Abram’s was a journey of faith and trust. Usually when we prepare for a journey, be it a vacation or a business trip, we are in control of the destination, the route and the means to get there. On the Christian journey of discipleship we don't have this kind of control. We must surrender to God in trust: we must "listen to him," as the gospel of the Transfiguration tells us.

·         In your relationship with the Lord, do you feel you have arrived, or that you are just setting out?

·         Is God calling you to leave what is familiar to you (responsibilities, ministries, patterns of behavior) to do something new in accordance with his will?

·         Do you have the faith of Abram, the faith to wait a long time to see God’s promise come to fruition?

Peculiar Meaning

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

Deuteronomy 26:16-19 / Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 7-8 / Matthew 5:43-48

Peculiar Meaning

Peculiar is a peculiar word. It is rarely used, so it sounds peculiar when we hear it. Its modern usage normally denotes something odd or unusual. Sometimes a family, a group or a culture has an expression that is peculiar or unique to it, i.e. others don’t use the word that way. Sometimes a person’s habits are said to be peculiar, i.e. most people don’t do it that way.

The word peculiar as used in today’s reading from Deuteronomy is very faithful to its Latin root, peculiaris, which means “as one’s own.” Hence the English translation renders this verse, “peculiarly his own” thus avoiding implications of oddity.

The Jewish people are uniquely God’s people. God’s election of the Jews does not void his unconditional and universal love for all nations and all creation, but is a sign singling out the Jews as God’s covenanted people, so as to draw others to God through them.

In verse 26:19 Moses says to this people, “You will be a people sacred to the Lord, your God…”  When people today say something is sacred to them, they usually mean that they hold it in high esteem. They would not stand for it to be mistreated, or spoken ill of. Because they are a people sacred to the Lord, God demonstrated by his mighty deeds in the Exodus event that he would not stand for the Jews to be mistreated. What’s more, when God took action as the redeemer who chose them, they responded by choosing God in return, and dedicated themselves to him. And in that dedication, that covenantal relationship, the Lord promises to raise them “high in praise and renown and glory above all other nations he has made…” Not for the glory of Israel, but for the glory of God, and to draw all people to the Lord. Truly the Jews are to this day peculiarly God’s own.

·        Our Catholic tradition has a long history of prayers of consecration in many devotional forms. Write your own prayer of consecration to God. 

·        Reflect for a moment on the words of today’s reading: “sacred to the Lord.” Apply that expression to yourself. Are you thinking, feeling, acting, and viewing your circumstances in life through the lens of being “sacred to the Lord?” Does that lens change your view of life?

·        Consider the tensions between religious traditions today: Ask God to give you an understanding of and a love for your neighbors of different faiths, and think about how you might be able to reach out to understand more deeply what your neighbor’s faith means to them. Share the importance of your faith in Christ with them respectfully.

Why Settle Out of Court?

Friday of the First Week of Lent

Ezekiel 18:21-28 / Psalm 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8 / Matthew 5:20-26

Why Settle Out of Court?

Laws aim at protecting rights. Holiness aims higher.

When Jesus says, “Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court,” he is not telling us to avoid legal procedures. He is returning to the themes of forgiveness, repentance and reparation. Christians should not need to be forced to be just by a law, we should be fair instinctively.

Jesus’ teaching here is not about getting away cheaply because we fear that the sentence of the court would be harsher than a plea bargain. It’s not about avoiding costly litigation. It’s about doing what is right, not because we are told to, but because we know it’s the right thing to do. 

Jesus is saying when you have not done the right thing in the first instance, do the right thing at the next opportunity, even if you have to create that opportunity. 

In Jesus’ eyes, an initial wrong is compounded by the need to force one of his followers to do what’s right. Doing the right thing should be part and parcel of our modus operandi – preferably sooner, but later if need be. We should be characterized by doing what is right as well as by righting the wrongs we have done. 

·        Steps eight and nine of the Twelve Steps of Recovery read as follows:

o   Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

o Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

·        Pick one or two people you have wronged and consider how you might make amends to them. Decide if it would be helpful to make direct amends in word or deed. Be careful that you will not do more harm than good in making amends.

·        Consider how our society is structured: Who is disadvantaged? Is there a way you can work to right that wrong and correct that injustice?