14 April 2026 - go down to go up

Today's Readings
(Audio)

If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

Sacramental realities like baptism contain both an earthly and a heavenly aspect. There is the water, on the one hand, which is richly symbolic. On the other, there is the Spirit, the agent of transformation who imparts grace to the believer. Jesus seems to recognize that he must ground his communication with us in things that are familiar and intelligible in order give us access to realities which are transcendent and invisible. We are creatures compromised of both matter and Spirit, and he addresses himself to us accordingly. But he does want to lead us through that which is earthly into participation in heavenly realities. He wants to guide us to the spiritual and immaterial realm in which the Father himself dwells in inapproachable light. But we can't bypass the earthly and jump straight to the spiritual. If we will not believe Jesus about the necessity of baptism how can we hope to be sufficiently docile to be led into the life of the Triune God? 

There is a certain humility that is required when Jesus deals with us as the sort of creatures we in fact are. After all, we are not angels. We are not beings that comprehend everything at once with no intermediate steps. We must be willing to be taught by means of parables and led by means of Sacraments. These things may seem excessively simplistic to our prideful egos. But what we mistake for superficiality is in fact clarity and profound and inexhaustible intelligibility. The word of God is similar. On the surface there is the literal meaning which educated men like Augustine found embarrassingly inelegant. But in addition to the level of the letter there is also the level of Spirit, which is life-giving. But the historical sense is foundational. Without it, the spiritual sense seems fanciful and irrelevant, in the same way that a prophecy that never comes true is not an authentic prophecy.

No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.

Jesus, by means of his incarnation, is the bridge between the earthly and the heavenly. Only he has perfect clarity and complete understanding of heavenly realities. Only he can revel the Father to us. By shunning parables, Sacraments, and the letter of Scripture, we are in fact also shunning the human nature Jesus chose to assume for our sake. But when we embrace these we embrace not only the human Jesus, but also, through him, the Triune God. We are thus caught up in the invisible realities which Nicodemus wished to know. Such a desire was not wrong. It only needed to be properly ordered.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

One particular instance of realizing the spiritual meaning of Scripture is presented to us today. The saraph serpents in the desert were more than merely a punishment for a specific instance of disobedience. They were symbolic of the poisonous nature of sin itself. So too did the mysterious way in which the effect of the saraph serpents bite was finally negated point forward to the way in which God ultimately dealt with sin itself. Because we can read the literal meaning of the historical text we come to understand things about both the nature of sin and salvation that would be otherwise more obscure. Just as the serpents revealed the ugliness of disobedience so too did the cross reveal the ugliness of sin. Gazing on what the people had wrought in the form of a bronze statue allowed them to be healed. Gazing upon what our sin did to the spotlessly innocent lamb of God allowed us to experience salvation. But we see that there was absolutely no way around reckoning with the problem. 

Let's believe Jesus about earthly things so that he can then reveal to us heavenly things. Then our communities of faith on earth will more and more closely come to resemble heaven itself, as was the case with the early Church described in Acts.

There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.

Keith Green - Easter Song

13 April 2026 - bigger on the inside

Today's Readings
(Audio)

for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him.

One can see the plausibility of the signs from an outside perspective, external to the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus recognized that the signs that Jesus was doing required a supernatural explanation. He saw that God must be cooperating with Jesus in order to allow him to do things which were not possible in the natural order, but which were full of the goodness and mercy that was characteristic of God. He was unable to determine more than this, however. He was limited by his normal human understanding which obtained only to the natural and the earthly. He heard Jesus talk about being born again and interpreted it in a literal sense. However, since he recognized that resulted in a non-sequitur he asked Jesus to clarify.

Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man once grown old be born again?
Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"

Like us all, Nicodemus had been born of flesh, was a member of the human race, created in the image of God. But this did not give him the wherewithal to understand the new spiritual reality that had sparked his curiosity. He needed a new beginning, a new birth, an origin that was rooted in divinity and not only in humanity. Only from the inside could one truly see the Kingdom of God so as to understand it. And only as a child of God did one enter that Kingdom. The way that one who was not a God's Son by nature became a child of God was by sharing in the Sonship of Jesus. This was brought about through the sacrament of baptism by which the believer was united with Jesus himself, in which water symbolized death and rebirth. The new birth, however, was real, and came about through the Spirit was given by the Father, making the newly baptized into sons and daughters of God. What Jesus was by nature believers became by divine adoption through baptism.

Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

What Nicodemus wanted to see and understand was something that could only be grasped from within. This was not because of elitism, or because of the layered secrets of mystery cults. It was rather because spiritual realities required spiritual interpretation. Or, put another way, what God was doing in the world only made sense to those who had the mind of God. To the those possessing a merely human mind God once said through Isaiah, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (see Isaiah 55:8). But the baptized are able to say with Saint Paul that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16). Normal human intellectual capacity could never discover the fact that God was a Trinity. But the person renewed in the Spirit could believe it. And not only could he believe it, but he had in fact entered into the reality of the love between the Father and the Son, the very Spirit himself who was brought about his new birth.

The wind blows where it wills,
and you can hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes;
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Those born of the Spirit are hard to understand for outsiders. They care an awful lot about things that seem abstract or implausible to others. They are motivated to seek first things to which nonbelievers are entirely indifferent since they cannot perceive them. They seek to move in response to the will of God as sailboats respond to the wind. But it is for the most part the family of God that experiences his guidance in this way. Nonbelievers look upon these waters and seem to see boats sailing rapidly, even on days that seem to them to have no wind. We think of Paul who sometimes initially made plans to go in one direction but was then prevented by the Spirit and then allowed himself to be redirected somewhere else. And we think of Philip whom the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took away somewhere else after he had baptized the Ethiopian. 

It is the Holy Spirit that inspires Christians to withstand tyrants and corrupt leaders as did the disciples described in our reading from Acts. They understood that this sort of opposition was foreseen in the divine plan and were thus not overly disturbed by it. They saw it as a fulfillment of a prophetic psalm.

Why did the Gentiles rage
and the peoples entertain folly?
The kings of the earth took their stand
and the princes gathered together
against the Lord and against his anointed.

But the Apostles did not rage or entertain folly in response. They did not meet the hostile oppressors on their own terms, since they had been indeed shown a different way by Jesus their leader. Instead of human retaliation they chose to rely on the Spirit to equip them to respond and then to guide that response.

And now, Lord, take note of their threats,
and enable your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders are done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

The reason we are often unable to be bold in the face of opposition is that we tend to try to meet them on their own terms. Let us instead learn from the Apostles and seek the Spirit even and especially in times of crisis. The world absolutely needs bold Christians now as much as ever. It does not need vitriol or even arguments so much as it needs signs and wonders that reveal the lordship of Jesus himself. Once people recognize that reality the rest will work itself out in turn.

David Crowder Band - Here Is Our King

 

12 April 2026 - peace like rivers

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The way people in the past had treated the prophets poorly and abused them had not resulted in peace. It brought, not the blessings of the covenant, but its curses. This was such a given that, in response to Jesus telling the parable about leasing the vineyard, in which the tenants finally killed the son of the landlord, his audience replied, stating how the landowner would respond: "He will put those wretches to a miserable death" (see Matthew 21:41). Therefore, they assumed that those in leadership roles who were responsible for the death of the son would themselves be put to death. Jesus did not immediately or directly challenge this notion. Imagine that looping through the disciples minds after the events of Good Friday! Once the true Son of the Father had in fact been put to death every shared in complicity to one degree or another. The fact that the disciples of Jesus had fled and failed him in his hour of need probably made it hard for them to imagine that they would not share in God's judgment against those responsible for the death of Jesus. But it turned out that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but rather so that through him the world could be saved (see John 3:17). Jesus did not in fact pray for the death of his persecutors, but rather, for their forgiveness. The result of his death was not the immediately unleashing of curses but rather of blessings. The death of Jesus did not forever confirm and set in stone the enmity between God and humanity, but rather made true peace  possible.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Having peace with God means that we don't act in ways that are hostile to his Lordship and that he in turn doesn't have to respond with punishment and judgment. Before Christ made peace with God possible we lived as his enemies, on a one way road to destruction. We were so committed in our opposition to him that he knew that we could not bear the fullness of his presence among us and would seek to destroy it. Yet he made precisely that the thing that would unleash peace and forgiveness. He set a trap for our sinfulness, showing that however great was our sin, love was still greater. Where sin abounded grace abounded still more (see Romans 5:20).

Peace with God is not merely meant to describe an external lack of hostility between man and God. It is meant to define our inner subjective experience as well. Our old ways of thinking in which we put our selfish egos first were ultimately death directed. But the the cross made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit, and through him, renewed minds. Those renewed minds could be at peace since they would need no longer experience the disproportionate fear of death as though it were an absolute evil. They would no longer harbor the subconscious fear that God was against them, waiting for an excuse to issue forth condemnation and judgment. They would believe that if God was on their side than nothing could harm them an any ultimate sense.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (see Romans 8:6).

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (see Hebrews 2:14-15).

Because of the death of Jesus we become convinced of God's love for us (see First John 4:16), allowing us to cast our cares upon him since he does in fact care for us (see First Peter 5:7). It is not that we don't have other concerns anymore, or that we only care about God and other purely spiritual things. It is rather that we are able to trust God with all of our other concerns.

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (see Philippians 4:6-7).

We do not always experience this level of transcendent peace that Paul describes. In fact, we are often more like Thomas. Others tell us about the power of the resurrection, the now unshakable reality of the peace of Christ, and we imagine it to be too good to be true. We imagine those witnesses of the resurrection to be exaggerating, or, if not, that what they received is meant for them but not for us. But if we missed the first round of blessing, it might be because God has a plans for a special second round which will have even more profound effects in us than would have been possible otherwise. He may allow us to experience some darkness for the sake of making our eventual conviction and belief all the stronger. So if we feel like we missed out when Jesus was passing out his gift of peace, we should know that he still intends for us to receive it. Unlike Thomas, we probably won't arrive at faith through the visible icon of the Lord's risen Body. But Jesus assures us that, if anything, we will be blessed no less because of it.

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.

To be clear, this is us! So too are we the ones described by Peter in his epistle:

Although you have not seen him you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls

So let us live in the peace and the joy that are the fruits of his Spirit, available to us because of his resurrection from the dead.  May they shape our hearts, and then, in turn, our communities of faith, as they did for the early Church:

They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Michael W Smith - You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace)

 

11 April 2026 - witless to witness

Today's Readings
(Audio)

She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.
When they heard that he was alive
and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

No doubt they thought that, as a women, she was overcome by emotions, clinging to insubstantial dreams that she wished were true. But it was they themselves who clung to a false reality, an incorrect interpretation of the past, leading to a distorted view of the present. Mary Magdalene was in fact only affirming that what Jesus had once said would happen had in fact occurred. But the emotions of despair from seeing the crucifixion clouded their vision of both past and future, making it difficult for them to choose to believe in the possibility of hope. There was a certain sense of finality to the cross that it difficult to believe that things could ever be good or whole again. But it was their hopelessness that distorted the truth of reality, not the joy and hope of Mary Magdalene.

After this he appeared in another form
to two of them walking along on their way to the country.
They returned and told the others;
but they did not believe them either.

It must have been hard for both these two and Mary Magdalene to explain how it was that they hadn't recognized Jesus when he first appeared. This was, to be sure, an inconvenient detail. But he desired to be known by Mary specifically when he called her name. So too did desire to be known by the two on the road to Emmaus in the breaking of the bread. But these events were, of course, unprecedented. They only had their prior experiences of the pre-resurrection Jesus for comparison. These experiences held clues and even predictions. But they were not such that the shape of future events could be known in advance. The risen Lord was a new paradigm. He could not be seen by people trapped in old and carnal ways of thinking. He was the same Jesus, yes. But he was now glorified. And that changed everything.

But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them
and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart
because they had not believed those
who saw him after he had been raised.

Their old and earthly attitudes had made them fail to believe witnesses who were in fact speaking the truth, good news that was better than anything they could ask or imagine. Jesus rebuked their hardness of heart, but not in order to make them feel condemned. He did so rather for the same reason that he had rebuked the storm at sea (see Mark 4:39). He did so to take control of emotional forces that were normally beyond direct human control, to change the internal atmosphere of the eleven, giving them the peace and great calm of his presence.

He said to them, “Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” 

In order to function as his witnesses they needed to have their hardened, disbelieving, and despairing hearts replaced with new and living hearts filled with hope. It was not a hope which was derived from auspicious earthly circumstances, but rather a hope that was drawn from the resurrection of Jesus himself. Not only did they need to believe that Jesus had done more than they could ask or imagine, they needed to believe that this was now his modus operandi, the new normal from the nascent Church. We see this clearly in the way the power of the resurrection was at work amongst the disciples of the early Church described in Acts.

Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that a remarkable sign
was done through them, and we cannot deny it.

When we are convinced that the goodness of God is really at work among us we will yield to no human authority who tells us not to speak of it.

Whether it is right in the sight of God
for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges.
It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.

It is then that we will know and resonate with the experience of the psalmist.

My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just.

Newsboys - Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)

 

10 April 2026 - backtracking vs backsliding

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Zebedee's sons, and two others of his disciples.
Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing."
They said to him, "We also will come with you."

It seems the disciples were unclear on what came next. Was it now the end times, since the resurrection had occurred? Should they go back to living normal lives now that the mission had, it seemed, been finished? They did not know what to do next, and Jesus wasn't immediately proximate to ask, so they returned to the familiar. But although it seemed like they may have thought to exit their roles as disciples by the same way they entered, it was no longer possible. Jesus had forever transformed the idea of the disciples as fishermen. No aspect of their lives was untouched by him. There was no place to which they could return that was safely separate and normal. But perhaps on some level they knew this. They remembered that it was while fishing that they first gained a sense of their calling. Maybe they returned to it in hope of having a similar experience to provide them with the direction they now desired. It may have been only a semiconscious hope. But they knew that Jesus had revealed himself before even amidst their ordinary circumstances. Thus did he do again, fulfilling that hope.

When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore;
but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to them, "Children, have you caught anything to eat?"
They answered him, "No."
So he said to them, "Cast the net over the right side of the boat
and you will find something."

Their services as fishers of men were still needed even and especially after the resurrection. As a symbol of how this would work the other disciples struggled to bring in the massive catch of fish, but the strength of Peter was somehow enough to move the whole thing single-handedly, signaling his unique role among his brother Apostles. But Peter was as effective as he was because he was wise enough to defer to the counsel of the apparently more spiritual John who recognized Jesus first. And this kind of humility has marked our better popes through the ages. They first listen and only then act decisively.

Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them,
and in like manner the fish.

In what does the joy of the Church consist if not the bread which Jesus gives us, together with the constant influx on new disciples from every land, tribe, and tongue? It is a feast compromised of both bread and fish. It is a table that is set for us primarily by the successors of the Apostles, our bishops, and their collaborators among the priesthood. Yet we, as laity, also work together with them, allowing ourselves to become fishers of men in the ponds, streams, and rivers of ordinary life to which they might not otherwise have access. We might think that Peter was unique in how he responded to the religious authorities in today's reading from Acts. But we too have been filled with the same Spirit they guided him. With Paul we can say, "we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak" (see Second Corinthians 4:13). And we are meant to receive the same level of conviction and even boldness of speech that we see Peter had.

then all of you and all the people of Israel should know
that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean
whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead;
in his name this man stands before you healed.
He is the stone rejected by you, the builders,
which has become the cornerstone.
There is no salvation through anyone else,
nor is there any other name under heaven
given to the human race by which we are to be saved."

We need this conviction and confidence because it is so common for us to slip into believing that our earthly tasks, our own fishing in the natural sphere, are more pressing, or worse, more important than our spiritual priorities, even though we know that the former has only temporary significance, the later, eternal.

This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.

Hillsong Worship - No Other Name

 

9 April 2026 - be not afraid, he's no ghost

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"Peace be with you."
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

They had been wrong about this before. When he came across the waves to their boat during a storm they also "thought it was a ghost and cried out" (see Mark 6:49). But from this we might surmise that it wasn't just the fact on the presence of Jesus that startled and terrified them. On the lake he had been terrifying specifically because the event was revelation of his divinity, a theophany. So too here. He had crossed the greater stormy sea of death to return once more to his frightened flock in the little vessel of his Church. His risen humanity, now glorified, was now, in some mysterious way, transparent to his divinity. What Peter, James, and John, saw briefly during the transfiguration was now normalized. It wasn't that his old human aspect was gone. It was rather more like a new dimension of reality had opened up around him. No wonder people needed his graced assistance in order to recognize him. They could stare at him directly but not see his familiar humanity because of the blinding light of his divinity. No wonder, too, then, that this was not an experience that was given immediately to the whole world, but rather to chosen witnesses. These witnesses were able, eventually, to correctly interpret what they had seen because they had been with him the whole time. They had known the human Jesus. They were the ones who could understand that he was not some glorious angelic being or phantasm, but rather than same Jesus whom they had known. What was the ultimate link that definitively proved that the one they had known before was the same one whom they now beheld? It was his wounds.

Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.

As he had done for the disciples on the way to Emmaus so now he opened the minds of the others to understand the Scriptures. Specifically they came to understand the way that he was at the center of everything. Not only was he the one predicted in the obviously messianic passages of the prophets, but the law of Moses and the psalms as well ultimately found the true fulfillment of their deepest meaning in him as well. Although Jesus said so, it was not obvious to the untrained mind that it is written in the Old Testament "that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached". But once one saw it, he could not unseen it. Jesus was sacrificed in the figure of Isaac, offered as the lamb by Moses, prefigured as the suffering servant in Isaiah, shown as persecuted but eventually triumphant in the psalms of David, just to name a few examples. Even as recently as Vatican I prophecy was affirmed as an important external "motive of credibility" (motiva credibitatis) that makes the act of faith rational (see Vatican I, Session III, Ch. 3). We can see in our recent readings that prophecy has always been considered a vital part of the witness of the Church. Fulfillment was the foundation of Peter's message today in our reading from Acts, including fulfillment of the words of Moses and Samuel, and of God's promise to Abraham. But what is the eventual result of this conviction supposed to be, or what do we become as a consequence? Jesus tells us:

You are witnesses of these things.

Peter understood this, as we can see in the reading from Acts, when he  says "of this we are witnesses". But do we understand it? Are we persuaded that all of human history finds its fulfillment in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? And if so, how can we help but proclaim it?

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

Passion - Holy Ground

 

8 April 2026 - heading the wrong way

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus

They were heading in the wrong direction. The degree of their culpability for this is unclear. Jesus had told everyone what would happen. But no one really seemed to understand it beforehand. These two disciples had hoped that Jesus "would be the one to redeem Israel", implying that they no longer held that hope. After what they had witnessed in the horrific death of Jesus it is hard to blame them. But their readiness to give up on Jesus demonstrated that their initial hope in him was thin. Those with the strongest hope remained at the tomb, unable to accept that the light of the world could be dead. Besides them there were the other disciples who at least remained in the city and continued to gather in fellowship. They were well positioned to receive the revelation of the resurrection. Even the most famous doubter among them was unable to avoid that revelation for long. This shows us that it is among gatherings of other disciples that we find the privileged place for encounter with Jesus. Yet the story of Emmaus gives us hope for those who are heading the wrong way, that Jesus does not abandon them, but follows after them, finds them, and engages them. However, he does not force himself on them. Before he allows himself to be fully recognized they must signal that they desire him to do so. By opening the Scriptures to them he gives them a taste of the possibility that their hope indeed lives on. But before he fully opens their eyes to his presence he waits for them to say "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." They have to want it. And they do.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.

They had known Jesus in a human way. This was good, valid, and useful. It allowed him to teach them, to lead them, and to instruct them by his example. But it was still too limited. The reason he allowed them to experience some darkness as to knowing him in a merely human way was so that they could experience his presence on a deeper level, one that was more spiritual, and obtained in some degree to his divinity. Knowing him as a man allowed him to be their Teacher. But knowing him as God allowed him to be their wisdom and their Eucharistic food. What was previously external to them was internalized, and they were transformed in the process.

Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?

When the Scriptures change from historical narratives about past events into a place of encounter with Jesus himself our hearts too will burn within us. And it is above all in the Eucharist that we not only meet Jesus as we might meet any man, but that, to a degree, we actually become one with him, one body through the one loaf of Eucharistic bread. But the fact that this is preceded both in the story and in the mass by a Scriptural exposition is no accident. Rather, it is the presence of the living one in his Word, in both the Old and New Testaments, that gives us the context of how and why he would choose to be present in the humble elements of bread and wine. We see that he is our lamb of sacrifice and our priest-king Melchizedek. And when we receive him in the Eucharist with hearts that are on fire for him there are no limits to what his grace is able to do in us.

Carey Landry - Known To Us