28 February 2023 - its not a technique

Today's Readings

(Audio)

In praying, do not babble like the pagans,

who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

The idea behind pagan religion condemned here is that there was some technique which could be discovered and put into practice; that there were perhaps some specific words that, if repeated sufficiently, would achieve desired results. It is as though they imagined prayer as one more science or skill, just one more facet of life to attempt to rigorously control. But Christianity turns this preconception on its head.

Do not be like them.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

With such a premise as Jesus offers here it is obvious that we can gain nothing by cajoling our Father, as though we have needs about which he knows nothing, and about which we can persuade him, by sufficient arguments, that they are worthy causes. Rather, it seems, God won't be moved at all by our prayers. But if this is the case, why pray? And how can prayer, as Christianity has always maintained, have genuine power? It must be the case that we pray in order that we ourselves be changed. And if power is unleashed when we do so it isn't because we managed to talk God into it but because he always desired to unleash it and we finally allowed grace to bring us to a place wherein we could receive it. 

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name

God is himself perfectly holy, but we pray that his holiness be known and understood whenever his name is invoked in thought or in speech. This has obvious ramifications for those who do not know his name at all and for those who, by misunderstanding his nature, are antagonists opposed to his name. But it has deep meaning for ourselves as well, for none of us know God to his inexhaustible depths. The result of our limited comprehension is that even we sometimes think we know better than him what he ought to do. But the result of this petition is that we might learn more and more that there is no fault within him and no shadow, but only goodness, only light, only awe-inspiring holiness.

thy Kingdom come

Jesus came among us proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was at hand. But it was not a Kingdom that could be imposed by military conquest. It could only be proposed and, by that invitation, conquer hearts with love. It was an invitation asking that individuals would open themselves to God's will for their world and for their own lives. With this was meant to be the recognition that if God's will were truly done on earth than the chief thing that made heaven to be heaven would also be realized here among us.

Give us this day our daily bread;

In the Kingdom of Jesus the citizens were not to live merely on physical bread, but above all on the word of God. It was precisely that word that would make the Eucharist a reality, transforming mere bread into the body and blood of the Word by his word. It is this sacred species above all else on which the Church is meant to rely for the strength she needs day to day. 

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us;

If we cling to unforgiveness we place a roadblock between ourselves and all that God desires to do in us and through us. Mercy cannot be for ourselves alone but must flow through us to others, even to those among us who are doing the best they can from their side of the relationship to be our enemies. It is insufficient to get right with God ourselves and remain indifferent or even set against others. We must become active agents of his mercy in order to know that his mercy has been effective in us.

and lead us not into temptation,

Although God does allow us to be tested so that we might be proven and grow, even as gold is tried by fire, we are meant to remain humble and to realize that any temptation, without the grace to escape, would overwhelm us. If not for this grace, we would give in to temptation just as quickly as anyone. And since we have such desperate need for grace we pray that the trials God does permit corresponds to our weakness and his grace, that we might remain humble and dependent, and therefore at less risk of a prideful fall.

but deliver us from evil.

We need protection not only from a neutral and indifferent world, but also from active and hostile forces of evil. It would be one thing, perhaps, if we found ourselves on neutral ground from which we could be objective and independent. But apart from the Kingdom the power of evil and the lies of the Evil One are realities that, if hidden, are nevertheless present. And even within the Kingdom we don't rely on divine protection as much as we ought, giving evil a foothold within the Church itself that it ought not and need not have. There is genuine evil, but God himself desires to deliver us if we will but ask him.

So shall my word be

that goes forth from my mouth;

It shall not return to me void,

but shall do my will,

achieving the end for which I sent it.

When we pray in the words given to us by Jesus himself we can be sure that those words will be efficacious, not because they are a formula, but rather because they unite us to Jesus himself in prayer. When the Son stands before the Father in this way there is no limit to the grace and blessings that can result, watering the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats. We need the fruit of the Spirit, the seed of the Gospel, and the bread of the Eucharist. Therefore let us not neglect, perhaps because of excessive familiarity, the prayer Jesus taught us. Let us ask him to give us the grace to pray it with newness and fresh attentive love.

Matt Maher - The Lord's Prayer (It's Yours)

27 February 2023 - don't be the goat

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

We know that the Lord has called us and not only a select few saints to be holy as he the Lord is holy. But in what does this holiness consist? Is it only, as we might imagine from the fact that the passage comes from Leviticus, concerned with right performance of religious ritual? No! Although some of the omitted verses do contain a prohibition of idolatry and some simple provisions about sacrifice much more of the context is along the lines of what we see in the first reading, justice toward our neighbors. We should never imagine a holiness that can exist between an individual and God alone, in isolation from the other women and men created by God in his image and likeness.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen (see First John 4:20).

In loving our neighbor we also at the same time show love to God in whose image they were made, and who loves them more than we ever could hope to do. This is part of why holiness requires a prohibition on idolatry. For when we subvert our idea of God to some lesser created thing it is not God that suffers. It is we ourselves as we no longer recognize his image in ourselves or in others. We make ourselves like the lifeless idols we serve rather than the dynamic and uncontainable source of life that is found only in God himself.

For I was hungry and you gave me food,

I was thirsty and you gave me drink,

a stranger and you welcomed me,

naked and you clothed me,

ill and you cared for me,

in prison and you visited me.'

Jesus did not diminish the Old Testament call to holiness, but rather elevated it by placing himself at the very center of it. His purpose was to unite all people of every status, race, and gender into one in himself (see Galatians 3:28). Jesus, before any of us ever began to even consider holiness or love, was already loving everyone as himself more profoundly than we can imagine. Even the incarnation by which he himself chose to become one of us and share our lot was already implicit proof of this intention. But what Jesus did we are called to imitate. And now it is not only a response to our neighbor, much less to a command, but to the presence of Jesus himself, potentially or actually within the "least brothers" of his. We see just how profoundly real this connection is when he appeared to Saul on the Damascus road.

And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (see Acts 9:5).

Every encounter with the least of our brothers and sisters is an opportunity to discover Christ. But perhaps it remains difficult for us to recognize him in this distressing disguise. We can take heed of the advice given by Mother Teresa who was convinced that it was her adoration of the Blessed Sacrament that gave her the strength and insight to recognize the face of God in everyone.

"Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor."

- Saint Teresa of Calcutta

The call to holiness is, again, not optional extra credit for overachievers. It is a requirement for all of us, without which no one can see God (see Hebrews 12:14). But we ourselves tend to be stubborn and slow to change, more like goats than sheep. What we need to attain this holiness is not prodigious effort so much as docility to Jesus who is himself the Good Shepherd and who alone can unite all his sheep in one fold.

And he will separate them one from another,

as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Micah Stampley - Holiness Is What I Long For

26 February 2023 - the temptations

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Just as ancient Israel was led out of Egypt into the desert for forty years of trial during which they often succumbed to temptation so Jesus would now allow himself to be led into the desert for forty days in order to conquer those temptations. Israel was said to be the firstborn son called out of Egypt, but now it was revealed that this was only a shadow of the true firstborn Son: "Out of Egypt I called my son" (see Matthew 2:15).

"If you are the Son of God,

command that these stones become loaves of bread."

A superficial analysis of these words might make us wonder, 'Why not?' After all, the forty days of his fast were over and he was hungry. Why not put his power to use to satisfy this hunger and at the same time give an undeniable assertion of his identity as the Son of God? But Jesus knew that to use his power to satisfy himself in this way would miss the point of his forty day fast. The point was precisely that he would rely on his Father and not on himself to sustain him, would subjugate even his hunger to trust in God. He would not suddenly tear that surrendered control back into his own hands. The Father was trustworthy for the forty days, and he would continue to be trustworthy, as the angels who were to come and minister to Jesus would soon reveal.

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (see Deuteronomy 8:3).

By remaining faithful Jesus did refashioned broken human nature into a form that could endure trials and privations, and remain solid even when faced with the more subtle temptation to rely on oneself rather than God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city,

and made him stand on the parapet of the temple,

and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.

Again the devil attacked the identity of Jesus as the Son, yet this time with a different strategy. If Jesus really trusted in his Father's word then why not avail himself of the promised protection offered in that word?

He will command his angels concerning you

and with their hands they will support you,

lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Although the devil could quote Scripture, he took it out of context and subverted its meaning. The devil wanted Jesus to feel that it would be so easy to just force God's hand by choosing to slip only slightly and thereby reveal his divine identity to all who witnessed it, guaranteed to be no small number given the location on the parapet of the temple. We succumb to temptations like this more frequently than we realize when we try to act in a way that forces God to respond. Sometimes it does seem to be just so easy to collapse and demand that he catch us. And how great, we know, are the times when God does safeguard those who fall. We sometimes long for such encounters so much as to demand them, and indeed to grumble for them as the Israelites grumbled when they didn't receive what they wanted on the terms they chose to set. We demand revisions to the plan when the desert journey as not as smooth and easy as we had hoped, when it requires more trust than we seem to be able to offer. But Jesus reforged this fallen aspect of our nature as well. The Israelites grumbled, but Jesus was content with his Father's will, even knowing full well where that will would lead him.

Jesus answered him,

"Again it is written,

You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."

The devil tried a last desperate strategy to cause Jesus to turn aside from the Father's plan for him, one last easy out that Jesus might choose instead of the long and hard road of the cross.

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,

and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,

and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you,

if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."

This might seem to us so extreme as to be laughable, as indeed Jesus might have found it to be. But we, like the Israelites of old are all too prone to choose idols when our desert journey seems to become unbearable. Like them, we have a variety of golden statues with whom we bargain when it seems to us that we can't get what we desire from the Lord. When God seems distant, as he did to Israel when Moses seemed to have been absent on the mountain for too long, we tend to take things into our own hands. And what are these idols? The list is long: power, politics, pleasure, science, and a variety of other lesser although still genuine goods. Yet we prop them up on pedestals as if they themselves will answer our prayers. Fortunately for us Jesus did not mince words in his response, did not hesitate in fidelity, and therefore reforged this fallen aspect of our human nature as well.

At this, Jesus said to him,

"Get away, Satan!

It is written:

The Lord, your God, shall you worship

and him alone shall you serve."

We are so subject to all of the desert temptations to which Israel succumbed because we inherited the spiritual death of Adam. But we can see, perhaps more clearly than before, that this need no longer be so because of the promise that has been made to us in Jesus Christ.

For if by the transgression of the one, the many died,

how much more did the grace of God

and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ

overflow for the many.

For this gracious gift to be all that it is meant to be we must receive it not just once at the beginning, but in an ongoing way that allows it to transform us, giving us not just pardon and acquittal, but life, and not just any life, but one in which we too are victorious over temptation, in which we can even be said to "reign" through Jesus Christ.

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Stuart Townsend - The Lord's My Shepherd

25 February 2023 - feeling seen

Today's Readings

(Audio)

a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.

We might imagine that Matthew was not entirely satisfied with his work as a tax collector. The Romans would not have entirely accepted him because he was Jewish. And his own people would have seen him as a traitor who collaborated with the occupying force. It paid the bills, perhaps, but at the cost of cutting him off from socializing with any but outcasts like himself. 

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.

When Jesus came to Matthew he was still sitting at the customs post. If he was indeed dissatisfied with this work he had not yet expressed it, not yet made any attempt to extricate himself from it. Maybe it still seemed like his best option or maybe he simply despaired of the existence of any better choices. But this lack of movement on the part of Matthew did not stop Jesus. He did not wait for Matthew to first remove himself from that situation, but rather entered into it, and called him out from it.

He said to him, "Follow me."

And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

Why were these words of Jesus so immediately compelling to Matthew that he immediately got up and left everything behind? It was not simply because Matthew was dissatisfied, and here at last was an option other than his current one. It wasn't merely another competing choice, something that would compare favorably in a cost/benefit analysis. There was something more immediately irresistible about the invitation Jesus gave, having in it the same sort of power that made fishermen leave their profession and their nets to follow him.

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi 

Jesus saw Matthew. We may easily imagine that this was the first time, at least in a while, that Matthew had felt so fully seen, known, and comprehended. For years, most folks probably saw only categories: tax collector, traitor, collaborator. But Jesus saw his heart. Because Matthew experienced being seen by Jesus he was thereby elevated out of mere categories into his unique human individuality. It was in this condition that he heard Jesus say, "Follow me." 

He said to him, "Follow me."

And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

How could he not follow this one who saw him and knew him, whose very gaze opened no vistas of possibility and promise? Of all the alternatives to tax collecting Matthew might have considered it is doubtful that this possibility ever entered into his mind. It was Jesus himself who, by inviting him, opened a new path that he was now free to choose. By this invitation Jesus shattered the bondage Matthew recognized in every other option he might have chosen. Here, to Matthew's surprise, he found a new and radical freedom, one only possible in response to the invitation of Jesus himself.

Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house,

and a large crowd of tax collectors

and others were at table with them.

We can see in the response of Matthew a joy he had never experienced before and which he now felt so intensely that he had to share it. It demonstrated to tax collectors everywhere that there was hope for them, just as there was for Matthew. 

"Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

The Pharisees, however, spoke aloud what must have been the initial suppositions of Matthew and all tax collectors, that no holy man could possibly welcome tax collectors and sinners. Jesus had already shattered that supposition for Matthew by his invitation. He now shattered it for all at the banquet, giving all of them permission to hope in him.

Jesus said to them in reply,

"Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.

I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners."

Jesus did not plan to leave those sick with sin in their illness. Accepting his invitation was radical and dangerous because doing so would necessarily result in an inner transformation. By accepting it repentance was already implicit. As those who accepted it followed Jesus that transformation would reforge old habits of thought, word, and deed, until they became like the one whom they chose to follow. 

The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples

The Pharisees were apparently intimidated to go to close to the unpredictable wellspring of freedom that Jesus himself was proving to be. But they weren't done trying to shut the doors Jesus had opened, their preconceptions and prejudices scrambling to remove the healing salve Jesus had already begun to offer. We should see in them a warning. We become like them whenever we allow ourselves to be convinced that there is a person that Jesus cannot reach, to whom he cannot offer freedom, at least until that person takes a few steps on their own. We should instead recognize the lesson Matthew learned: that Jesus can burst suddenly and unexpectedly and to the darkness of any situation offering in its place freedom and life.

The Lord is calling us to see others generously, with an eye toward their potential for fulfillment in him. We are called to do all we can to make the unlimited potential the Lord sees in them to be a concrete reality in this world for them, to give them choices were there seemed to be none.

If you bestow your bread on the hungry

and satisfy the afflicted;

Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,

and the gloom shall become for you like midday;

Marty Nystrom - Forever Grateful

24 February 2023 - fast company

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,

"Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,

but your disciples do not fast?"

Fasting was such a universal spiritual practice that it was something shared in common by the disciples of John and the Pharisees, and indeed, many cultures in many times and places throughout history. We can exaggerate the scene in our minds by imagining a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, and a variety of others joining in the interrogation. 'Jesus,' they all say together, 'You say that your are the physician sent to heal those sick with sin. How is it then that you ignore this rudimentary and necessary remedy?' How indeed. Fasting does seem to be a properly basic discipline, designed to free those who do it from subjugation to lesser things, allowing their minds to rise to the contemplation of higher goods. Those who fasted in past times were expressing their commitment to a higher vision of reality than that of the mere exigencies of the body, which seemed like a praiseworthy practice.

Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn

as long as the bridegroom is with them?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast."

Jesus did not in fact dispute with them about the importance of fasting. What he did instead was to recast it around himself, around his own person, in a way that must have been shocking. First, he identified himself as the bridegroom, a title God used for himself in his relationship to Israel in the Old Testament.

As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you (see Isaiah 62:5).

Jesus was trying to help them see that fasting would have to be different now that he arrived on the scene. Perhaps previously it would have been enough to fast as a sign of preference to some amorphous and undefined spiritual good. But now, that goodness had been revealed and had a name: Jesus of Nazareth. It was therefore now the case that fasting and feasting could attain their true and fulfilled purpose only if they were done in reference to him. It was now insufficient to merely fast generically, pursuing some vague and undefined good, when the true good for which we were all made, the bridegroom of whom we are all meant together to be the bride, was standing before them. To fast in such a situation was an insult, and was if if one had something better to prefer than even Jesus himself.

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,

and then they will fast.

Jesus did not do away with fasting, he recast it with a new center rooted in the mysteries of his life. This news that the bridegroom would be "taken" must have seemed cryptic. But hindsight reveals to us that he spoke of his crucifixion and death, and that these specifically would be the mysteries that demanded fasting as a proper response. We might briefly wonder if, since that was an event in the past, we no longer need to fast. Yet we know that the Church in her wisdom calls us to enter afresh into these mysteries every year. We know too that Jesus called his disciples, past and present, to take up their crosses and follow him. Since the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus is still at working transforming ourselves and the world it is often still necessary and appropriate to fast. But the reason for this fasting is now nothing generic, it is instead a petition of our hearts longing for the bridegroom, enticing him back, telling him we will be satisfied with nothing less than he himself.

If we fast in the way that Jesus intends, centered around him, heightening our desires for him, we will not risk the selfish and superficial fasts condemned by God through the prophet Isaiah. Rather, we will experience the freedom of heart in our own lives that allows us to share that freedom with others. Self love will be tempered enough to let the love Jesus wants so show through us to others shine through. Every opportunity to show love to another is an opportunity to meet Jesus in a new way. Let us no longer allow our hunger for lesser things to distract us from such a great reward.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your wound shall quickly be healed;

Your vindication shall go before you,

and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,

you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

Darlene Zschech - Jesus At The Center

23 February 2023 - life choices

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected

by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,

and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Jesus did not come primarily to teach or to heal or to perform other miraculous deeds. Those actions were inevitable because of who he was. But he chiefly came, was born into this world, in order to die. Yet he did this not out of a sense of masochism nor was he merely a soldier resigned to defeat. He planned to die in order to destroy death. He did it, as the book of Hebrews tells us, for the joy that was set before him (see Hebrews 12:2).

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me.

We are called by Jesus not primarily to learn, or to be healed, nor even to learn to act in a way that is morally upright. All of these things are part of the call of Jesus, but they must not obscure the big picture, which is that we have been called to die and to rise again in him.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

If we target anything less than the life Jesus intends for us we risk losing that after which we strive. Nothing that can be had apart from Jesus, apart from the path he created through death to life eternal, nothing apart from that can truly be held in a lasting and permanent way. Apart from that health eventually deteriorates, great learning is forgotten, even virtue cannot remain indefinitely. 

The only path that is open to us one of losing our lives, but not merely in order to throw them away. We are called to lose our lives for love, specifically for the sake of Jesus himself, and are promised that when we do so we will truly find them, in a depth and reality that we have heretofore not known.

By calling us to the cross God is not trying to punish us or to make us suffer for suffering's sake. He is calling us to the one true path to life, the only way that the damage done by sin can finally be overcome. He does this because he does desire us to live, does in fact desire to share his own life with us. In proof of the fact that it isn't a ruse or a trap he himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, first blazed the trail before asking us to follow. He himself revealed the radiant glory of the life that awaits us. Let us, therefore, choose life. Let us settle for nothing less.

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life, then

Hillsong United - Lead Me To The Cross

22 February 2023 - don't feed the egos

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Take care not to perform righteous deeds

in order that people may see them;

otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.

Our egos have no interest in giving alms, in prayer, or in fasting. When they are informed that these are things we ought to do they protest and demand an immediate reward. If, they say, we must give up our normal indulgence, we must receive some kind of immediate reward as a repayment. The trouble with all this is not so much that our egos want too much but rather that they are content with too little. We allow ourselves to be sated with the praise of others, to be content as long as we are in some way the object of their attention. And by being sated thus with trivial things we neglect and fail to pursue the true reward and repayment from the Father himself.

But when you give alms,

do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,

so that your almsgiving may be secret.

It isn't so important that we perform almsgiving with absolute stealth such that even forensic investigators could not discover it. What is important is our motive. It's probably better to spend less time considering how we look to others in our almsgiving than to spend too much time thinking about it, either to display it or to hide it. Because even spending a lot of time cleverly disguising it could become a point of pride, a short-term ego reward, sabotaging our full claim in the Father's promised repayment.

When you pray,

do not be like the hypocrites,

who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners

so that others may see them.

When we pray we are called to be less preoccupied with the external form, and the self-image that accrues to us as a result of that form, a more attentive to the inner room where the Father himself desires to meet us. This inner room as often a hard space to occupy because it is cut off and isolated from the normal bustle of the world, a place where there are none of the short-term ego rewards we often seek, where the existence of any reward at all is finally beyond our control. Our egos hate this lack of control. But if we learn to sit with it, "your Father who sees in secret will repay you". And this repayment is not only at the end of the age. It is precisely in prayer that the Father himself can become our reward, provided we don't settle for less.

When you fast,

do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.

A last resort of the ego is often an attempt to feel pitiful, and thus to draw the pity of others. If it can't appear great and strong and spiritual at least it can make known how very difficult are the sacrifices it is making. Others can then acknowledge the greatness of those sacrifices and also feed it with affection to make up for the loss of those things. But is this really what we want out of fasting? Is it not rather that we would learn to prefer God to the lesser good things of his creation? Let's not going only halfway and become content with something as trivial as pity when God himself desires to be our reward.

We might protest that life seems difficult enough without increasing the difficult by a season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. But this a mistaken and worldly attitude. It is precisely because the world is in such a state, and even we ourselves are perhaps struggling, that we need to turn to the Lord for mercy. What we have been doing on our own has not helped, has if anything only contributed to the downward spiral, the vicious cycles drawing men and women down toward their base natures and animal instincts. Our contentment with lesser things has meant that God has even been truly and sincerely asked to help. We have instead tried to make the best of it with our egos. And we ought to see by now that these attempts have failed. This is why the present moment of our world is the perfect, the ideal time to begin another season of Lent.

Spare, O LORD, your people,

and make not your heritage a reproach,

with the nations ruling over them!

Lent is not meant to be a hopeless or sorrowful season. It is a season where the Lord himself desires to captivate us and to capture our hearts, to lure us back from lesser things to the fullness of life that he has always intended for us. This is why Lent is not merely an optional addition for overachievers but something the whole Church walks through together, because the urgency is great, and the promise is something on which we can rely.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;

behold, now is the day of salvation.

Matt Maher - 40 Days

21 February 2023 - cross purposes

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Son of Man is to be handed over to men

and they will kill him,

and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.

Lent is the time when we prepare ourselves for the Passion of Jesus, for the celebration of the most sacred mysteries of our faith. Yet we are often like the disciples:

But they did not understand the saying,

and they were afraid to question him.

Lent is the time when we must reckon with the reality of the cross, not only for Jesus, but for each of us who, as his disciples, are called to take up our own crosses and follow him. It is probably true of all of us that there is a part in all of us that loves the cross of Christ, that loves the love he showed for us, but also another part that recoils and pushes back from such a stark reality. This other part of us acknowledges the implications of the cross, that sin was so bad that it could not simply be ignored or smoothed over.  But rather than embracing this reality, this part of us tries to figure out how it can get the most for us and lose the least. We are told we must lose our lives in order to save them. But we try to calculate a way to do so and still get what we want, to still surrender as little of ourselves as possible, to give our lives, perhaps, but hopefully without actually experiencing the loss of all things.

But they remained silent.

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way

who was the greatest.

There is this multivalent aspect to the cross because of who we are. We are at once new creatures in Christ, but with an old self that isn't entirely dead. We have both the Spirit within us producing his fruits, but also the reality of concupiscence drawing us downward toward sin. The new self doesn't calculate what it can get for itself by pouring itself out in love for others. But the old self can't be persuaded to give anything without seeing how it can benefit thereby. We tend to try to solve this by bargaining with the old self, making promises to it, in order to free ourselves to live as we should. We tell our ego that it will feel good, feel like a top rate Christian, if only we do this or that act of love. And sometimes it comes along for the ride. This can help, because to some degree, if we pay attention, love reveals itself to be its own reward. But it is also often the case that we don't receive as many good feelings as a result and the ego feels disappointed and the next act of love becomes harder. Let's take a more realistic perspective this Lent, one which is prepared for a little endurance, not because of the feelings, but because of our faith in the good entailed and what the process is doing.

Accept whatever befalls you,

when sorrowful, be steadfast,

and in crushing misfortune be patient;

For in fire gold and silver are tested,

and worthy people in the crucible of humiliation.

We are called to become servants, those who look not toward what the can get, but what they can give. And this isn't that unusual, for it describes our normal relationship with children. They can't do much to earn our affection, and sometimes seem to actively try to repel it. And yet we love and receive them. We tend to hold adults more accountable, to demand of them a greater degree of reciprocity, but we are actually called to love all with similar largesse.

Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;

and whoever receives me,

receives not me but the One who sent me.

Who can we receive today, not because of what they can do for us, but because in receiving them we receive Christ himself? Isn't receiving Christ a better reward than anything for which our egos might try to bargain, or shouldn't it be? Since we realize this, let us seek him!

Take delight in the LORD,

and he will grant you your heart's requests.

Hillsong UNITED - Lead Me To The Cross

20 February 2023 - only with prayer

Today's Readings

(Audio)

I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.

The disciples were unable to drive out the demon because, apparently, they forgot the fundamentals of faith and of prayer. They appeared to forget the necessary centrality of Jesus as the source of their power. Did this happen because of the crowds and especially because of the scribes who were watching them, making them want to show off, or making them feel as though they had something to prove?

O faithless generation, how long will I be with you?

Jesus rebuked not only the disciples, but everyone involved, from allowing themselves to become distracted from the central issues involved and allowing the situation to devolve into arguments. The disciples, more than the others, ought to have known better, but no one was guiltless. The disciples did not demonstrate a faith centered on Jesus. Whatever they tried to do to help the boy, it was evidently not prayer, the one thing that could have helped. The scribes were apparently looking to invalidate the claims of Jesus by the failings of his disciples and could not see through that haze to discover within themselves any compassion for the possessed child.

The father of the child seemed to have briefly entertained the hope that the disciples of Jesus could help, but when they arrived with bravado and bluster but no results he appeared to have given in to frustration and despair. But the father was not entirely without faith. He was able to see that his own faith was not strong enough and that it needed to be more centered on Jesus himself, which was a deficiency he could recognize but not remedy on his own. 

Jesus said to him,

“‘If you can!’ Everything is possible to one who has faith.”

Then the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”

There is a lot we can learn from everyone involved, especially from the disciples, as a cautionary tale, and from the father, as representing well our own need to grow in faith. We must learn to avoid giving the central place to anything but Jesus himself. Our ostentation might be ostensibly religious, like the disciples attempts to help, but when the centrality of faith and prayer is lacking religiosity becomes nothing more than a mask of hypocrisy. When we try taking things into our own hands to make Christianity appealing, or worse, to have victory over those with whom we disagree, we lose access the the power source that can only be found in prayer.

When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private,

“Why could we not drive the spirit out?”

He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

Like the father of the possessed boy most of us have experienced asking for divine assistance and being disappointed. But the father's example shows us not to give up too soon, not to shut down because our nascent faith was disappointed. It is possible, even likely, that Jesus himself is using our circumstances to help us grow to a deeper level of faith, one that stems from an ever greater dependence on Jesus himself. The pain our hearts endure as we make them vulnerable and are disappointed is actually a stage of growth toward a hope that does not disappoint.

Like the disciples we sometimes forget our own wisdom is limited and finite and forget to turn to the source of wisdom. But if we remember to turn toward that source we can remain connected to it, for he never ceases to pour it out.

He has poured her forth upon all his works,

upon every living thing according to his bounty;

he has lavished her upon his friends.

Ron Kenoly - Yes Lord, I Believe!

19 February 2023 - the extra mile

Today's Readings

(Audio)

18 February 2023 - therefore God has highly exulted him

Today's Readings

(Audio)

And he was transfigured before them,

and his clothes became dazzling white,

such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

We sometimes imagine that if we lived in the time of Jesus and beheld his miraculous deeds we would be motivated to follow him more wholeheartedly. Surely if we behalf the Trinitarian revelation of the identity of Jesus a the Son of God that happened in the Transfiguration we would then discover a firm and unshakable resolve to be his disciples?

Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,

"Rabbi, it is good that we are here!

Let us make three tents:

one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.

Peter, James, and John were allowed to witness the Transfiguration of Jesus in order that they, by virtue of what the saw, would open themselves to the deeper and still unseen reality of the divinity of Jesus. It was in fact meant to prepare them for the time when the divinity of Jesus would be almost completely obscured during the hour of his Passion. The Transfiguration was in fact only a piece of the puzzle that explained Jesus, one that could not be fully understood without also experiencing the darkness of the his Passion.

As they were coming down from the mountain,

he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone,

except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

The three apostles were given this consolation in order that the desolation of the cross would not destroy them entirely. But it did not necessarily make what Jesus would go through easy to understand. In fact, if anything, at first it would have been harder to understand. Why would the glorious one allow himself to suffer in that way, and why would his heavenly Father permit it? They likely faced the temptation to dismiss the memories of the Transfiguration as distortions when they saw Jesus crucified, with no cloud of glory, no prophetic witness, and no dazzling brightness. 

So they kept the matter to themselves,

questioning what rising from the dead meant.

On its own the experience of the Transfiguration was insufficient to keep the Peter's faith from crumbling. But it was like a seed waiting to be watered by the resurrection, or like a coal waiting to be enkindled by the news that Jesus lived. Jesus was indeed glorious, but not with a kind of glory easily imagined by human ways of thinking, not a kind that eschewed suffering and death. It was rather a glory that was demonstrated even more definitively precisely by his willing obedience even unto death. 

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name (see Philippians 2:8-9).

The glory that they beheld during the Transfiguration was a glory Jesus possessed most perfectly on the cross. But the apostles would need to become witnesses of the resurrection before they could put all the pieces together. From the resurrection onward their faith in Jesus took on a new solidity that no worldly circumstance could hinder. They finally came to understand the meaning of Jesus when he said, "In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world" (see John 16:33).

This faith in the risen Christ is one in which we share. It is functions like a map and compass showing us the way to our true destiny, to the glory that awaits us, and which gives us confidence even when that glory is entirely hidden from our present view. Faith teaches us to keep sailing, even through the storms of life, even when the shore of our destination remains unseen, because of the promised reward. And that reward is no mere possession or subjective experience, but is rather God himself, the fullness of the vision of glory of which the transfiguration was only the vaguest hint.

Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

Matt Maher - Shine Like The Son

17 February 2023 - language barrier

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city

and a tower with its top in the sky,

and so make a name for ourselves;

otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth."

Because of sin people often come to care too much about things that are not really so very important. They set about building all sorts of towers designed to reach all the way up to heaven. But of course they never even get a fraction of the way there, in spite of all of the effort entailed. It is sad because, for committed sinners, such endeavors feel necessary for survival, as though without them we would "be scattered all over the earth". When feel the need to prove the value of our own existence by making a name for ourselves rather than receiving our value from God we are embarking on a project that can only end in frustration, one which it is merciful for God to bring to an end sooner rather than later.

Then the LORD said: "If now, while they are one people,

all speaking the same language,

they have started to do this,

nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do.

This great project that united so many planners and workers was really an exercise in futility. And the Lord did not want to allow the people to be lost in futility, doing whatever the presumed to do. Being one people and speaking one language would seem to be a good thing. But when that unity allowed the uninterrupted pursuit of what could never satisfy it was not actually a positive. 

Let us then go down and there confuse their language,

so that one will not understand what another says.

It was not the original intention of the Lord to divide. Rather it was the inevitable result of ignoring the Lord himself who could be the only true fulcrum for true human unity. Human ambition could not provide the raw materials because seeking a name for oneself would inevitably mean something slightly different from everyone involved. It was all but built into reality that such an project as Babel would have the result of confusion and division. We see this in politics in our own day when we witness that even very good and well meaning politicians have difficulty uniting their disparate constituents.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing (see Genesis 12:2).

We need rather to wait for the Lord to make our name great than to try to do so ourselves. Only his idea of greatness can be the true basis of unity. And his idea of greatness, as we see in today's Gospel, is something quite different from our own.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake

and that of the Gospel will save it.

Rather than a tower to unite heaven and earth we find instead a cross. We do not build up by our strength, so much as give ourselves away by love. It is by coming to care about the name of the Son of Man above all else that we may hope to find our own names where they truly belong, in the lamb's book of life. The cross was able to bridge the divide between man and God in a way that no human effort ever could. It was precisely for this reason that the cross can now become a true basis of unity.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (see Ephesians 2:19).

As a sign of the unity established by the cross we can come to see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as the anti-Babel, reuniting all people in the same speech, establishing humanity as the chorus of right praise to God which we were always meant to be.

Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? (see Acts 2:7-8).

Matt Maher - All The People Said Amen

16 February 2023 - rainbow bright

Today's Readings

(Audio)

By the flood God brought emphasis to his original intention for creation. What he said to Noah was not that different from what he said to Adam:

Be fertile, then, and multiply;

abound on earth and subdue it.

This "subdue it" was now necessary, not because man was meant to dominate creation, but because the wildness and futility introduced by sin meant that it would not easily yield to the purposes of man. This external world was a reflection of the inner world of man which would similarly need to be tamed in order to bear good fruit. On its own it would tend toward chaos and disintegration. 

If anyone sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed;

For in the image of God

has man been made.

Humans were always meant to live lives based on their dignity as creatures made in the image of God. But they had made clear their readiness to forget this dignity, and so God had to become more explicit, both about declaring laws, and about establishing consequences for breaking them. The good of virtue could no longer be expected to function as sufficient reward in and of itself.

Every creature that is alive shall be yours to eat;

I give them all to you as I did the green plants.

Only flesh with its lifeblood still in it you shall not eat.

The green plants were good, but now yielded nutrition only with difficulty. There was need to supplement them with createures of the ground, the air, and the sea. But as there was a natural reason for this so too was there a supernatural one. Every animal they killed for food had to be drained of its blood, because the blood represented the life of the animal, and the life of the animal belonged to God. This was a reminder that all life was from him and in his hands. It served as a warning against shedding the blood of one's fellow man, because God would demand an accounting for that which was not the proper prerogative of man. This idea that the life belonged to God provided a sacrificial overtone even for meals that were not specifically sacrifices, that what was God's in all things ought to be rendered back to him, be it the life of animals or the life of man. 

I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign

of the covenant between me and the earth.

God established a peace with his creation that would persist in spite of sin and infidelity. Yet we know too that God would not allow sin and infidelity to persist. The bow was therefore also an implicit promise of mercy. Humans would not forever have to continue to live in their degraded status. There was hope that the full goodness of the original creation would one day by restored. And indeed we as Christians hold even more firmly to this hope, a hope in the time when the bow will again be seen, revealed in the fullness of its meaning.

And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald (see Revelation 4:3).

The idea that the life of man was meant to belong to God and to be rendered faithfully back to him was an idea that human creatures seldom approximated and never completely attained. It would only become a reality in the fidelity and obedience of Jesus himself.

He began to teach them

that the Son of Man must suffer greatly

and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,

and be killed, and rise after three days.

The idea of offering God our entire lives seems like an invitation to defeat and destitution, as Peter seemed to infer. It seemed like a concession to the worst aspects of the world, from which no good could come. But this was to think as human beings do. And this, without the Holy Spirit, was all even Peter could manage. But the Spirit has been given to us in virtue of the death and resurrection of Jesus. His resurrection serves for us as a promise, like a rainbow, that no matter how much our offering seems to entail our destruction, God will not abandon us, and, on the far side, life will thrive and be renewed.

When the LORD has rebuilt Zion

and appeared in his glory;

When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,

and not despised their prayer.

Phillips, Craig, and Dean - Revelation Song

15 February 2023 - extending an olive branch

Today's Readings

(Audio)

At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark,

and he sent out a raven,

to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.

The raven, being an unclean bird, was probably a lower steaks way to investigate the condition of the earth outside of the ark. But unfortunately, its unclean status made the results unreliable. It did not return to the ark but this was not because the world was ready for habitation.

But for the present we need to explain the reason why the bird [the raven] did not come back. Perhaps, with the waters subsiding, the bird, being unclean, happened upon corpses of men and beasts and, finding nourishment to its liking, stayed there!

- Saint John Chrysostom¹

The raven was therefore was a type of those who "although they have been cleansed by the waters of baptism, nevertheless neglect putting off the very black dress of their old selves by living more faultlessly" according to Saint Bede².

The dove, by contrast, was a clean animal, could not feast on carrion refuse, and could not find rest until the waters subsided more and vegetation began to grow. The dove was faithful to return to the ark after its first pass revealed that the world had not yet sufficiently healed. Nor did it abandon Noah immediately once it discovered things growing once more, but rather returned with a final sign that the earth was again ready for human inhabitants, an olive branch, a sign of peace at least restored between God and his creation. Only after bringing these tidings of freedom did the dove fly freely and not return.

Never again will I doom the earth because of man

since the desires of man’s heart are evil from the start;

nor will I ever again strike down all living beings, as I have done.

Peace was restored, but it was still an external peace, a temporary patient awareness of the evil condition of the heart of man. It was a peace that recognized that even drastic external remedies could not resolve the condition of the human heart, and a decision to bear with them in spite of those limitations. It was a marvelous example of the mercy of God. There was as yet not terrain within the heart of man to which the Spirit could descend to make a dwelling place.  For the Spirit to find his place in the hearts of women and men would require a different sort of flood, that of baptism, which was finally able to address the heart itself, to drowned the old sinful self, while giving life to a new self, which was in fact a new creation (see Second Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15), and full of good fruits which were the gifts of the Spirit himself.

a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (see First Peter 3:20-21).

Baptism is also known as the sacrament of enlightenment, the place where those who were spiritually blind receive new vision. But like the blind man healed by Jesus in today's Gospel we do not tend to immediately receive the fullness of this restoration. It is rather a process by which Jesus gradually takes us from what is at first of necessity only a vague knowledge of the faith and the spiritual path to one in which the edges are sharper, the colors are more rich, to a world in which we can at last walk without stumbling.

Then he laid hands on the man’s eyes a second time and he saw clearly;

his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly.

¹ Genesis 1-11: OLD TESTAM (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture) (p. 145). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition. 

² ibid.

Jars Of Clay - Flood

14 February 2023 - flood insurance

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When the LORD saw how great was man's wickedness on earth,

and how no desire that his heart conceived

was ever anything but evil,

It didn't take long after the introduction of evil, after a few limited a specific incidents, that evil became the comprehensive way of life for almost everyone in that world. There was something about sin that did not allow it to remain isolated in those incidents. There was, we might infer, a certain leaven to it that allowed for worldly growth and success. And no doubt it felt like this was a competitive advantage which one ought not or perhaps indeed could not do without. What happened to those without it? They often wound up like Abel.

he regretted that he had made man on the earth,

and his heart was grieved.

God wanted his creatures to be like Abel, capable of offering the best of their firstlings or firstfruits to him. By putting him first in this way they could go a long way toward ameliorating the damage done by sin. But this seemed especially counterintuitive when success went to those who did just the opposite, who kept the best for themselves and ignored the God who made them. Sin had become so systemically entrenched in the world that God saw no choice but to act drastically to bring things back in line with his original intention. He would wipe out sin, and with it sinners who clung to it, and build back from the righteousness he found in Noah.

But Noah found favor with the LORD.

The flood may have slowed the advance of sin, my have averted the utter degradation of the world for a while, but even a drastic act like the flood remained only an external remedy. Even Noah and his familiar were not entirely exempt from the contaminating effects of sin, and it was not long after Noah demonstrated his fidelity to God strikingly by means of the ark that sin was reintroduced and began to take root in the world again.

Go into the ark, you and all your household,

for you alone in this age have I found to be truly just.

It wasn't so much that the flood strategy could not have worked as that, for it to have worked, Noah and have family would have had to have been entirely righteous, entirely free of the infection of sin which spreads so easily and freely. Thus, this early recreation of the world from the chaos of the waters was a prelude to a second recreation in which Jesus himself would be the new Noah. In his baptism and cross sin would be definitively drowned and destroyed while he himself became the ark that would preserve what was truly good in his followers unto salvation. We see a hint of this in the dove that descended upon Jesus after his baptism. Jesus himself was the new world, the new habitable ground, a place that was at last fit for life.

They concluded among themselves that

it was because they had no bread.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be confused because we don't want to confront uncomfortable truths. We need to guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, but we don't want to confront the fact that the same defects in their character and conscience are within us as well. We thus desire, like the disciples, to bring the conversation back to mere externals.

When he became aware of this he said to them,

"Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?

Do you not yet understand or comprehend?

Are your hearts hardened?

Jesus addressed the unwillingness of the disciples to engage his meaning not by a deeper explanation so much as an insistence on his own superabundant goodness. They did not need to compromise with sin, to leaven themselves as the Pharisees did, in order to succeed and grow, because Jesus would always be enough for them. And more, for there were and would always be baskets leftover, enough to feed the world.

The LORD is enthroned above the flood;

the LORD is enthroned as king forever.

BarlowGirl - Enough

Hillsong Worship - To Be Like You