31 March 2020 - deconstructive criticism

Today's Readings

(Audio)

For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.

If we don't know who Jesus is we become like the children of Israel who get tired of the desert journey and complain about God and Moses. We lose sight of the bigger plan and pilgrimage because of more proximate problems. Food and water are surely significant. But trusting in the one who made them and provides them is more important. 

In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.

Complaints seem innocent but quickly turn deadly. Even without literal serpents, complaints themselves have the ability to poison community until it begins to tear itself apart. Those who lead us on earth are not always as good as Moses. We often feel that our desert and our shortages are bad enough to merit complaint. It is true that legitimate criticism has its place when leadership is not being carried out in a Godly way, as it often is not in our time. But before we get started on that criticism we need to orient ourselves to the identity of our true LORD and leader.

For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.

When we don't know who Jesus is we become desperate in our need to condemn the leaders of this world who seem, without Jesus, to be absolute. When we know the one who is the great I AM we realize that he has allowed the leaders of the world to have their power without necessarily approving it. Seeing this greater plan our criticism can be constructive rather than complaining.

How can we still see Jesus as he is when times are hard, when leaders are failing us, and we are tempted to complain?

When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.

Let us look at the one who had the right to complain but opened not his mouth. Let us look at the true leader that belongs to what is above who bore the insults of those who belonged to what is below. His strategy for offering them the chance to repent was quite different from our complaining. Rather than spread serpents throughout the desert he bore all of the weight of our complaints on himself. 

We need to gaze upon the cross, upon whom our own complaints have pierced, before we start complaining about anything else. We need to learn to see all things from the perspective of the Paschal mystery. It may mean that our desert journey passes through death before arriving at the Promised Land. But it does mean a certainty that we will arrive eventually.

“The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.”

30 March 2020 - neither do I condemn you

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Our accusations of others often stem from the need to conceal or distract from the impurity within us.

They suppressed their consciences;
they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven,
and did not keep in mind just judgments.

The Pharisees were no better. They didn't accuse the woman caught in adultery out of a sense of justice. They did it to assert their own self-righteousness and pride. They used her as a mere pawn in their plans to show that Jesus too was ultimately no different, a sinner among sinners. They probably believed that they were without sin. Yet it was precisely such accusations as these that kept them from needing to take a deeper look in their own hearts.

If our accusers our wrong about us and we cannot vindicate ourselves let us learn to entrust ourselves to God.

Yet it is better for me to fall into your power without guilt
than to sin before the Lord.”

Even if our accusers accuse if justly let us learn to trust in his mercy.

Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.”
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.

The LORD is looking for sincerity of heart in his followers. He makes quick work of those who try to hide behind wisdom and righteousness. He defends all who humbly bear accusation.

"He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end" (See Job 5:13).

There are times when we are more our less innocent. But there are many times when we are guilty of the adultery that is idolatry, when we choose to prefer something less than God to God himself. In both cases we can entrust ourselves to Jesus. He himself was accused. Though he was innocent he opened not his mouth. In spite of his lack of defense he was finally ultimately vindicated. So too for us, if we at least, like the good thief, entrust all of our hope to Jesus.

The whole assembly cried aloud,
blessing God who saves those who hope in him.

If we need not fear the accusations of the world or even the voice of condemnation that speaks from within, what need we fear? None but God alone.

Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff
that give me courage.

29 March 2020 - wake up call

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Our friend Lazarus is asleep,
but I am going to awaken him.”

For Jesus, it is just as easy to wake someone from death as it is for us to wake up someone who is sleeping. In spite of this power Jesus doesn't always act immediately.

So when he heard that he was ill,
he remained for two days in the place where he was.

Jesus does not delay because he doesn't care. It is precisely because he does care that he forces himself to wait. It is because he loves Lazarus that he allows himself and his friends to endure real and profound sadness so that greater good may come.

And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”

The one who opened the eyes of the blind man could indeed have averted the death of Lazarus. But he had a greater plan, a plan that didn't exempt him and his friends from suffering, but a plan that brought about a greater result of faith in their hearts.

“Did I not tell you that if you believe
you will see the glory of God?”

Martha already believed that God had the power to raise the dead, and that he would do so on the last day. She had come to a profound faith in Jesus as well. But she and Mary and all who witnessed these events were to realize that Jesus himself was the resurrection and the life.

I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

The resurrection was no longer an abstraction. It was the manifestation of the superabundant life of Jesus himself. It was a connection to the life of the one whom death could not hold.

O my people, I will open your graves
and have you rise from them,
and bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!

Martha was able to take her faith in Jesus to the next level.

She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”

She now know that the voice that commanded the dead to live was the voice of Jesus himself. She began to understand more deeply what it meant to call him Lord.

What of us? We see suffering and death in the world. Do we despair or do we receive it as an invitation to greater faith? Do we believe that death has the last word or do we believe that after death has done its worst we will hear Jesus commanding us to rise? We are already united with him. We can already experience connection to the life that can never die, the life we hope to one day experience in fullness.

If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
the one who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his Spirit dwelling in you.

The Spirit within us produces fruit in a way that disproves the lies of death. He empowers us to hope even when things seem hopeless and to have peace amidst the storms of life. He gives of the faith to take hold even now of our life hidden with Christ in God (see Colossians 3:3). Even when life gives us such little strength to respond, the Spirit enables us to love with supernatural power.

I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn,
let Israel wait for the LORD.

28 March 2020 - recognition reordered

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”

To see Jesus clearly is to recognize who he is. When we turn to him he reveals himself to us. But too often when we are confronted with Jesus we turn aside to our preconceptions and expectations of Jesus. We think of Jesus, but through the lens of something else.

But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?
Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family
and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”

It is easy to get lost in our own ideas and the ideologies with which we agree. From these we gets tests against which we can measure Jesus, or what Jesus is asking us to do now, to see if we're going to accept him and what he tells us. But we can short circuit this defect in our awareness if we recognize ourselves beginning to shift focus from Jesus, as he lives in the here and now of each moment, to our own thoughts, our own preconceptions or ideas. Our minds tend to be dominated by unhelpful habitual patterns of thought. But when we recognize Jesus, and our turning from him to these, we begin to desire and immediately receive healing for our minds.  It's a gradual process. But each time we catching ourselves succumbing we gain by grace greater ability to recognize and respond next time.

The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”

Jesus spoke with authority that could be recognized when it was heard. The humble were able to discern it. The lofty were the ones who often had trouble. They had the greatest preexisting commitments to the structures of this world. They didn't want Jesus to overturn their way of thinking which compelled them to have those commitments.

Those who read and write blogs about Jesus are more likely to be among the lofty than the lowly. We are among those more likely to have created habit patterns of thought that resist Jesus and his transformation. Still, no matter how tightly we cling to these, the LORD's truth when eventually be vindicated.

Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!

But the sooner we receive that vindication in ourselves the sooner and the more completely we will be open to Jesus and to what he is saying to us. We can avail ourselves now, through faith, of the victory of that vindication.

no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed,
and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment (Isaiah 54:17)

We receive this victory by the Spirit who then opens our ears to listen.

“Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?”

Our old self always condemns before listening. Our new self is free and open to listen.

Speak LORD, we're listening.

O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

27 March 2020 - censureship

Today's Readings

(Audio)

To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us,
Because his life is not like that of others,
and different are his ways.

Jesus is holy. Even for those of us who try to follow him there is still a vast gulf between us. When we the perfect holiness in which Jesus walks we realize there is still so much in us that is not yet healed and sanctified. How do we respond to these realizations? Do we test him or do we trust him?

Let us see whether his words be true;
let us find out what will happen to him.

Jesus reveals to us parts of ourselves that need to change, parts that we have not yet surrendered to him. Do we believe him when he tells us these things? Or do we resist change, making him reveal to us the ways in which sin is genuinely hurtful. When he invites us to holiness and we fail to change it isn't trivial. It hurts us and those around us. And it hurts the heart of God who took all of those hurts on himself to cleanse us.

Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.

When Jesus says things to us that reveal his absolute claim over us, are we willing to consider the possibility of change or do we instead try to limit his claim, to convince ourselves that we don't need to make a change that is so complete?

But we know where he is from.

Our expectations of Jesus can become limitations for us. All the times he has invited us to holiness in the past and we haven't accepted the grace become perceived limits on what is possible for him now. Yet the limits we perceive are not limits on Jesus. Our expectations of him are based on a limited part of the picture.

You know me and also know where I am from.
Yet I did not come on my own,
but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true.
I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.

Jesus is inviting us to trust in the hidden counsels of God, to count on a recompense of holiness, and to discern the innocent souls' reward. If we do, we will be open to change. It is never a change that can happen without grace. But it is a change that will not happen if we close our hearts to it.

Jesus, help us to desire the innocent souls' reward so that we can be open to your call to holiness and to genuinely desire to see it fulfilled in our own lives.

Many are the troubles of the just man,
but out of them all the LORD delivers him.

26 March 2020 - toward love, toward life

Today's Readings

(Audio)

But you do not want to come to me to have life.

The Jews had ample opportunities to believe in Jesus. John testified to him persuasively, as a burning and shining lamp. They were happy to listen for a time but would not move from John to the one toward whom he pointed. They were hoping, it seems, for a temporary fix before moving back to their old ways of life. They did not want to change this way of life or the esteem it afforded them in the eyes of others. It was for this reason that they were all to willing to overlook the works that Jesus performed. It was for this reason too that they searched the Scriptures without discovering Jesus present throughout them.

How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another
and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?

Jesus was the beginning of an entirely new sort of system that was no longer concerned with human praise. Even in the people that they admired the Jews were tended to be people like themselves. They would admire someone who "comes in his own name" because such a one did not challenge the paradigm of pride and self-centeredness on which the world was based.

Jesus did not give up on the Jews and he does not give up on us. We will ourselves to overlook one sign so he offers another. He never ceases to invite us. More than Moses he stands in the breach for us to avert God's blazing wrath.

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying,
“Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with such great power and with so strong a hand?

When the signs that Jesus offers call us to turn away from ourselves and toward God and neighbor let us see that Jesus is offering these as a plea for our own salvation and our own life. We are made to love and to live in love and anything else is destruction and wrath. Jesus stands in the breach for us, pleading that we would come to him and have life.

Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.

LORD Jesus, help us to turn to you for life. Help us to recognize you pleading for us, offering sign after sign that turns our gaze away from ourselves, outward in love, and turns the destruction of failure to love away.

25 March 2020 - a new want to

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Is it not enough for you to weary people,
must you also weary my God?

We have a hard time wanting what God wants. His will can feel like an imposition even when his will is for something we would otherwise want. We tend to be more like Ahaz than like Mary. But when we resist, God persists.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us!”

We are made for God's will. Without it things seem hopeless. Without it the plans for the Kingdom seemed to collapse. It seemed that the line of David had ended through the failure of humanity. But God persisted.

He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.

The grace of obedience was something God had to manifest for us. It was through the grace of the Immaculate Conception that Mary was sufficiently free to give the assent of her will. It was from this root that Jesus himself was able to take on our human nature and to obey God where we failed to obey. Mary and Jesus both experienced that God's will was not an imposition from without, but something that moved them sweetly from within, something in which they could delight.

The Annunciation is the celebration of obedience finally being made manifest in the humanity of Jesus which he receives through the yes of Mary.

Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll,
behold, I come to do your will, O God.’”

Before we get bored, thinking this isn't something we really want to celebrate, let us consider Jesus and Mary. Was the will of God burdensome for them?

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" (See John 4:32-34).

Mary's response is no less joyful.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior (see Luke 1:46-47)

Today we can celebrate that God knows that our resistance is ultimately misplaced and insincere. He persists anyway. His persistence can reach us today to change us from within so that our own assent not only happens, but comes from a willing heart.

In the written scroll it is prescribed for me,
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!

24 March 2020 - wherever the river flows

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”

Some of us have waited so long for healing that we no longer even desire it. We still go to the right places and go through the motions. But we no longer have much expectation that anything will happen. Our desire gives way to a certain numb acceptance. This can be true of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. It only makes it easier to give up when we see others who haven't waited as long being healed first.

while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.

We need to be like the insistent widow with the unjust judge or the neighbor that keeps knocking at midnight for the favor he needs. We must not let our desires collapse but rather grow and be refined to want the things that God wants to give us. The renewal he has in store for us is always more than the specific symptoms we want to have treated.

Wherever the river flows,
every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
and there shall be abundant fish,
for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.

When God allows us to wait on something he is giving us the opportunity to grow in faith, hope, and in love. We learn to believe with the eyes of faith that our healing will come even more certainly than the sun will rise tomorrow. We learn to hope for great things even beyond the narrow confines of our own expectations. Our sense of being loved becomes untethered from the gifts we receive and we are thus empowered to love more freely ourselves.

God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.
Therefore we fear not, though the earth be shaken
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.

God is our refuge and strength, even in a world that seems to be so subject the sin and death that there is no refuge to be found, no strength that can overcome them.

There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.

We need this stream that gladdens the city of God. This is the living water that is ever fresh. Unlike the pool in Bethesda, its waters are always in motion with healing. This is the water of the Spirit poured out by Jesus himself. We need to be attentive when we find it.

“Have you seen this, son of man?”

When we are stuck so close to the pool of healing but can't go to it, where do we find the living waters that heal us? Whether in live-streaming masses, rosaries, prayer of the Divine Office, online fellowship with brothers and sisters, or wherever else, we need to attune ourselves to the stream and sink down our roots into it and drink deeply of the waters that quench all thirst.

23 March 2020 - at that very hour

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

Jesus knows our need. He wants us to believe. He does not begrudge us the signs and wonders that will actually help us. He only holds back when we ask insincerely, pushing off our responsibility to respond further and further down the road. This man did come sincerely and he received what he asks.

Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.

Even with this man, the pressing matter of his dying son gave rise to faith. The miracle he wanted was the occasion of a still greater miracle. For this man's son would live only to die again. But this man's soul was now saved by faith for immortality. It is a faith and a gift his whole family would share.

“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.

We don't really even want signs so much as we want to insist on certain favors from the LORD. And so we don't receive because we are so ready to insist on our priorities under the guise of seeking deeper faith. It is OK, on the one hand, to bring the longings of our heart to Jesus. It is OK to seek what we need to believe. We need to avoid holding our requests over and against Jesus. We need to place our requests and our need for faith in his hand.

We have asked wrongly so often for both healing and for faith that we are used to disappointment. But the LORD is guiding us to ask rightly, from our need, in faith, surrendering our requests to the will of him who loves us more than we can ask our imagine. He wants us the raise our hope in him and what he is planning to do, not to lower it. We have wanted to little before. We need him to expand our desires and to increase our hope.

Lo, I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
The things of the past shall not be remembered
or come to mind.

LORD, we bring our needs to you. We need healing and we need faith. Help us to not set the terms for these requests. Help our hope to grow so that we can have confidence in your saving help.

22 March 2020 - light and joy

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Not as man sees does God see,
because man sees the appearance
but the LORD looks into the heart.

We have a superficial way of looking at things. We become preoccupied with factors that we imagine to be very important. When this happens, we miss the deeper reality and we don't see into the heart. Let us learn from Samuel. He shows us not to move too quickly. Rather we are to wait on the LORD to reveal his choice. 

It is too easy to start out seeking the LORD but then begin to make decisions on our own, not really listening to him anymore. There may have been something in the appearance or lofty stature that made a choice seem right to us.  This shows that we can lose the inspiration with which we began midway, not realizing that we've deviated from the path of the LORD, still assuming the initial justification is present. When the initial inspiration from God to anoint a king becomes conflated with our own ideas about what seems impressive to us, we can make the wrong choice and not realize we ever departed from the initial impulse. We can begin in the Spirit but end in the flesh.

“He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”

Some of us see things more clearly than others. But we are all spiritually blind in some way. Today the LORD invites us to come to him so he can open our eyes. When our eyes are opened, when we wait for the LORD's revelation rather than following our own instincts, we find the people and situations that the LORD is anointing.

and from that day on, the spirit of the LORD rushed upon David.

The main thing that made the Pharisees blind was their inability to recognize Jesus. The man born blind had his physical eyes opened. But even more than that, his spiritual eyes were able to recognize Jesus. 

He said,
“I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.

Let us learn to watch for the LORD's anointing, for the people on whom and the circumstances on which the Spirit is rushing. We can then be in the places we need to be to receive the grace that the LORD is offering. We can get, as the saying goes, 'under the spout where the grace comes out.' May our eyes be opened to the one the LORD has chosen to be King of kings. May the eyes of our hearts track him even as he moves invisibly and by grace through our lives day to day. As he reaches out his healing hand to us may we reach back to take it.

You were once darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light

Jesus himself is the light that enlightens us. He is the one whose by whose light we walk without stumbling. He is the one with us in the dark valley teaching us not to fear. His Spirit himself is the anointing. May he rush on us today.

Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff
that give me courage.

21 March 2020 - talking to himself

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

Our sense of entitlement can block us from receiving from God. It can be a barrier between us and the mercy and healing that we need. Entitlement changes the destination of our prayers from God to ourselves, just as the Pharisee "spoke this prayer to himself". Our prayers become less like petitions and more like performances. Through such prayers we show our unwillingness to open ourselves out toward God for the mercy we need.

But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

We need to learn that we deserve nothing and can earn nothing. This sounds negative, but is not. It is the truth of the reality that everything is gift. Creation has no necessity in itself. It need not be at all, and ourselves with it. We are already indebted to the creator beyond anything we can repay before we draw our first breath. Within this creation we find that we have been given the ability to choose freely. We can offer our lives back to the creator in love. Yet we try to use our freedom for purposes other than it was intended. We cut ourselves off from the source and lose sight of the destination. The tax collector was a man who learned the hard way that his own efforts amounted to nothing. He let go of the sense of being owed something, a sense that may have justified his exploitation of others. Like the tax collector we need to learn that coming before God is about who he is and not who we are.

Do you know daughter, who you are and who I am? If you know these two things you have beatitude in your grasp. You are she who is not, I AM HE WHO IS.” 

- from Saint Catherine of Siena's Dialogue.

We fear to let go of our grasp on our identity. It seems negative to us to have such little thought for ourselves. We are so used to hearing the need to project of positive self-expression, to define our own identity, that we fear that we may just dissolve into nothing if we don't. But what we learn is that the more we empty ourselves like the tax collector, like Saint Catherine, and like John the Baptist, the more God can fill us.

He must increase, but I must decrease.” (see John 3:30).

The LORD allows us to experience our need for him in order that we can learn to seek him and not ourselves.

Come, let us return to the LORD,
it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;
he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.

Let us come before him, seeking to know him so thoroughly that there isn't much space less to think about ourselves.

Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!

The tax collector was not someone with self-esteem issues. He did not return home sad, but justified. He discovered the mercy of God and found healing for his broken past. May we too discover that we need this mercy. May we find it.

20 March 2020 - return, O Israel

Today's Readings

(Audio)

We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;
for in you the orphan finds compassion.

We must decide to stop seeking fulfillment on our own terms and through our own effort. We aren't building idols in the shapes of men and beasts in order to worship them. But we are seeking the same level of fulfillment from many things which are not God. We are seeking to fulfill our desires in things which are not only less than God but which are less than ourselves. We act as though we are creatures that are not destined for immortality, seeking our hope in things that perish. We need to look beyond all of these things in order to find that which truly satisfies.

The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.

The commandments are true guides to lasting joy. Often, they don't seem like it to us. We seek our joy in ways that range from hedonism to psychological tested practice for self-help. Yet none of these can answer the question that we are implicitly asking, the question that is every human life. That question is our purpose and our meaning. The answer is that we are made for God and made to love.

We've heard before that love should be first and that God should be first. Yet we don't seem to take it to heart. How can we internalize it? What can we, creatures that we are, do?

I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.

Before we do anything we need to recognize that the LORD is the one who initiates, who indeed already has begun to draw us to the healing we need. When we realize this we can respond in a way that opens ourselves to the action of our Divine Physician. We don't make the mistake of trying to initiate a healing work apart from the one in whom alone is found wholeness and health.

An unfamiliar speech I hear:
“I relieved his shoulder of the burden;
his hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you.”

Today we are called to assess our current priorities. Even in this call the LORD is already moving to heal us. We need not experience this as motivated by his desire to condemn where we were. Rather it comes from his desire for us to move into the lives we are created to live.

19 March 2020 - faith of our fathers

Today's Readings

(Audio)

That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.

Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. Joseph too is said to be righteous.

Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,

We can see the Joseph acts in faith, trusting in God even when he himself doesn't and cannot understand.

When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.

How do we respond when we learn something that shakes up our view of the world? Even the initial response of Joseph showed a concern for Mary that was beyond what might be expected.

yet unwilling to expose her to shame

But the situation was not what it seemed. Even this response which was good from the perspective of the merely human was insufficient. Joseph was being invited to a new level of faith and trust in the plan of God, not only abstractly, but concretely in his own life and the life of Mary.

For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.

We see the real righteousness and faith of Joseph in his willingness to believe and to obey the new perspective that he receives from the angel. It is this faith that makes him the fitting parent of Jesus. This is because in Scripture fatherhood and faith are so closely interrelated.

For this reason, it depends on faith,
so that it may be a gift,
and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants,
not to those who only adhere to the law
but to those who follow the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of all of us, as it is written,
I have made you father of many nations.

There is something that the Father is revealing to all of us today by choosing Joseph to be the foster father of Joseph. It shows how all true fatherhood, all family bonds, and all love are rooted by faith in the Trinity.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named (see Ephesians 3:14-15).

When we see the fatherhood that results from faith and not simply from flesh and blood lived out we see something about the Father's heart revealed. Joseph does not want to interpose himself between Jesus or ourselves and the Father. He wants to be transparent to him. His faith lets him do this.

May Joseph help us to see the great love of our Father in heaven. Following his example and aided by his prayers may we too reveal God to the world.

18 March 2020 - not laying down the law

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?

The problem is not the law. The problem is us. Without grace we twist the law and use it as a bludgeon against others and a tool to make ourselves feel superior. Without grace the law feels like condemnation rather than wisdom. It tells us what we are not doing and we rightly feel that by our own strength we cannot do it.

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (see Second Corinthians 3:6).

The letter is not the problem. It is the absence of the Spirit that makes the law deadly. This is the reason why people in the world are so eager to embrace vague amorphous spiritualities that can make no real demands on them. It is not simply that they do not want to meet such demands. It is that they cannot meet them apart from the Spirit.

When we are truly living under the Spirit the law gives us wisdom and guidance. It is a tool of practical discernment.

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.

The Spirit gives us freedom so that we no longer feel the same relationship to the law. It no longer feels like an oppressor forcing us to act in ways that are utterly foreign to us. Instead, it is a map to help us put the fruits of the Spirit, already growing in our hearts, into use.

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (see Galatians 5:14)

In this sense, "if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (see Galatians 5:18). It is not that the law is no longer relevant. Quite the opposite, it is now more relevant than ever. By grace we are changed so that we want to love God and neighbor more and more. By grace we are able to do so. This is the freedom of the Spirit. It is not a freedom from the law, but a freedom within the law's very heart.

He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.

17 March 2020 - thy mercy free

Today's Readings

(Audio)

‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’

This debtor does not desire to receive mercy. He desires only deferment until he can earn enough by his own abilities to repay the king. This was a bad way to begin because before the king called him to account "he had no way of paying it back" and he still didn't after the accounting began. All he had then was the desperation of everything seeming to depend on him.

Do we approach mercy is if it is a temporary fix, so we can be good again, and stand on our own two feet? Or do we receive mercy as a lifelong reality that we can never do without? Do we go to confession and then come out thinking that now that the slate is clean we can actually get it right ourselves? Or do we realize that confession provides a grace of mercy that continues even after we leave the Church? It is opening ourselves to the reality that we can never escape the debt of the king. We need not. He delights in generosity. He delights to give to those who cannot repay.

Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.

When we realize that everything comes from mercy we can be merciful to others. The desperation that comes from being self-centered dissolves. We are able to forgive without limits and to love without protecting what we imagine to be our own.

Remember that your compassion, O LORD,
and your kindness are from of old.
In your kindness remember me,
because of your goodness, O LORD.

Mercy is entirely gratuitous. When we realize this, and stop trying to earn it, we become able to depend on it, even when times get tough, even in the midst of the flames of the hardest circumstances.

Azariah stood up in the fire and prayed aloud:

“For your name’s sake, O Lord, do not deliver us up forever,
or make void your covenant.

16 March 2020 - better plans than ours

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Why have you torn your garments?
Let him come to me and find out
that there is a prophet in Israel.”

Let's not give up! There is hope for us. The Spirit of prophecy is still present in the Church. His healing touch is still available.

Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar,
better than all the waters of Israel?

We need to be careful about expectations because the "heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps" (see Proverbs 16:9). We get fixated by creating the ideal circumstances that would surround our imagined healing in picturesque and cinematic fashion. But God's actual plans to heal us tend to bypass such grandiose scenery and instead cut directly to the heart. God's power can be equally present anywhere. But it often requires humility to open ourselves to it.

All the more now, since he said to you,
‘Wash and be clean,’ should you do as he said.”
So Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times
at the word of the man of God.
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

We need to be careful, too, about our sense of deserving. The more we realize that all is unmerited favor the more we can receive. The more we believe we deserve something the more God typically withholds it from us to show us the falsity of this belief. He heals precisely because he delights to heal not because we somehow earn it.

When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury.

Let us turn back to the LORD in humility. Let us listen to him as he gives us the specific directions each of us needs to wash ourselves clean. While we do, let us go with a greater certainty than our sense of deserving could ever provide us. God's love for us is a certainty. It is the anchor of our hope.

Then will I go in to the altar of God,
the God of my gladness and joy;

15 March 2020 - living water horizon

Today's Readings

(Audio)

I will be standing there in front of you on the rock in Horeb.
Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it
for the people to drink.

Paul explains that this presence with the people of Israel in the desert was Jesus himself.

For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ (see First Corinthians 10:3).

Jesus is the one who gives living water to those who thirst.

If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water.

We see that the source of this living water his death on a cross. It is then that the rock is struck and pours forth water for us to drink.

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out (see John 19:34).

We learn that the living water is the Spirit himself.

Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (see John 7:37-39)

The water for which the Samaritan woman thirsted, the water for which we all thirst, which can truly satisfy us is only given through the death and resurrection of Christ. Only the Holy Spirit within us becomes "a spring of water welling up to eternal life." This is how the Spirit can satisfy our hearts more than anything in this world. He is not simply a fleeting pleasure but rather an abiding guest. His fruit grows more within us the more time passes with him dwelling there. Chief among his fruits are love, joy, and peace. We can learn to rely on these fruits. They spring from his presence within us and satisfy our deepest thirst.

And hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

From the heart of Jesus on the cross love is poured out. By the Spirit we drink our fill of this living water.

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

LORD, give us this water always!

14 March 2020 - coming home

Today's Readings

(Audio)

‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.

The offense of the son had not been trivial. It was not overlooked easily because it was easy to overlook. In asking for his share of the inheritance he had acted as though he wished his father were dead. He had told him that he didn't care about him, or want to be anywhere near him, but only wanted from him what was to his own selfish benefit. This begins to sound eerily familiar. Our own sins, even our smaller ones, fit this mold. This is archetypal disobedience. We want the good things from God, but for ourselves, with no reference to him or his plans for them. 

While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

The great thing about the Father is that we can always return. No matter how far from him we have strayed we can always come home. And the treatment we receive when we arrive is in no way proportional to the offenses we committed in leaving. No wonder even our penances in confession often seem small. It is as if the Father is simply insisting that we begin to act as members of his family again. He is actually delighted to receive us home again. The father of the prodigal is already showering mercy on him before the son even finishes his speech. So too with us and the Act of Contrition we say. God is already wrapping us in his arms before we even finish it. He can hardly wait to fill the Priest's words of absolution with his own mercy.

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?

The Father wants us to join him for the feast. If we have been away we do need to first return to him for mercy. But he gives us this mercy so readily because he is so eager for us to join him for music and dancing and the feast of the fattened calf. He is eager to remove any barriers to our sharing that feast with him.

Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.

For those of us who don't explicit reject and wander from the Father let us still be careful to avoid the temptation to take him for granted. Let us harbor the sins of the prodigal as secret desires in our own hearts. Let us be careful to be thankful for the blessings to which are constantly available to us.

‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.

When we don't appreciate the feast of the Father when begin to harbor the beginnings of sin. We begin to plot other ways that we imagine would meet our desires. Let us quickly shed these illusions and return to the embrace of the Father.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.

13 March 2020 - fruit in due season

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Whose is the vineyard in which we work? To whom does the produce belong? The answer is that the vineyard belongs to the LORD and his is the produce. But do we actually realize this? Most of us act like our vineyard is our own and our produce is our own. We occasionally tithe some of our produce to the true landowner. In doing so we imagine we are gaining favor, giving something of our own that can earn blessing from the landowner. Seldom do we realize that everything which we have to offer is already itself a gift. All of the contingent circumstances that make any sort of offering possible are governed by the providence of the landowner.

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.

We are called to remember that everything we have is a gift from God.

What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (see First Corinthians 4:7).

When we remember this we don't become jealous when we see Joseph gifted with an amazing coat of many colors. We don't envy the dramatic conversion stories, the people with great and miraculous gifts of healing and mighty deeds.

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons,
for he was the child of his old age;
and he had made him a long tunic.

When we remember that everything is a gift from God we feel less need to be so protective of what we receive. We don't need to resort to violence to keep them to ourselves. In fact, we become free to use our gifts for the Kingdom. We realize that there is actually enough, because the landowner planned everything for our benefit. There are additional gifts we discover that our self-protective insulation didn't allow us to discover.

Therefore, I say to you,
the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that will produce its fruit.

This vineyard is more than capable of producing enough fruit to feed the whole world. It has far more than enough to provide our daily bread. When we allow the LORD to direct us and our usage of the vineyard we find baskets of abundance left over.

The king sent and released him,
the ruler of the peoples set him free.
He made him lord of his house
and ruler of all his possessions.

12 March 2020 - roots to the stream

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
But stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.

In the Gospel the rich man dressed in purple is an example of one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh. Doubtless, he does not think of himself that way. He is only interested in feasting and clothing and the finer things of life. It is just that he is so interested in them as to miss the poor man on his door steps. His inability to see beyond his own desires lowers him even beneath the dogs, who for their part at least, do what they can for Lazarus.

Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.

The rich man invests in things that are temporary. As a result they are eventually exhausted and he experiences the desert that is the deepest reality of separation from God.

Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue,
for I am suffering torment in these flames.’

He was in the desert, beyond the help of others. But it was precisely his choice to isolate himself, to prefer himself, to love himself, and not others, that was finally and absolutely granted to him. Even the smallest movement of love toward Lazarus might have opened the door for him to begin, in return, to taste the living water.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
its leaves stay green;

The point of both the gospel is not to become so fixated on the good things of this present life so as to ignore what really matters. It tells us we need to make concrete choices now while their is still time for us to choose. It is not suggesting that we need to accomplish great and heroic deeds. It is only asking that we open ourselves to love. We can decide to prefer being rooted and grounded and the love of God to the things of this world (see Ephesians 3:17). Therein is the only path to lasting fulfillment.

He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.

11 March 2020 - true servants

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.

Our God has made us for greatness and for glory. But this is a glory we can know, and a throne upon which we can sit only to the degree that we are willing to become servants. We ask for the wrong kind of greatness. Even the devout among us don't often begin by desiring what Jesus wants us to desire.

You do not know what you are asking.

We are called to partake of the divine nature (see Second Peter 1:4). But this is precisely the nature the emptied itself and took on the form of a servant (see Philippians 2:6-11). It is precisely this nature that came not to be served but to serve. He didn't do this out of some utilitarian calculus. He didn't do it simply to demonstrate for us something utterly foreign in himself. He did it to reveal the heart of God to us. It is this heart alone that is great. Only by sharing in it do we ourselves experience greatness.

“My chalice you will indeed drink,
but to sit at my right and at my left,
this is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

It is the heart of the Father, revealed by Jesus, living in us by the Spirit, that makes this holiness, this greatness, this humble service possible. Our fallen natures still prefer to believe that it is somehow more about power, or being right, or something that would at least be of benefit to oneself. But greatness, in the final analysis, is all about love.

Jesus speaks on our behalf to turn away the wrath we store up by insisting on the worldly ways of power and domination. He pleads for us to follow him to true greatness. He will work with our half-formed impulses toward love. He will draw from us the hearts of true servants if we will only give him room to do so.

Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.

10 March 2020 - sharing the burden

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Are we Pharisees? Do we say all the right things without having been first changed ourselves?

For they preach but they do not practice.

Do we speak of the seeking God above all, say that he alone can satisfy, all the while trying to fill the God-shaped hole in our own hearts with the things of this world? Of course we do! It does not mean that we should be silent about the truth we know. That truth can be helpful no matter who tells it.

Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.

We are called to see ourselves more clearly. We are called to recognize all of the ways in which we still so desperately need the things we are called to teach others. We cannot be Rabbi, or Master, or Father in the deepest sense, because only Jesus Christ can fulfill these rolls perfectly. But we can humbly point toward the one Father, and the one Master and teacher. We can recognize that we are meant to be brothers and sisters even of those who most openly and wantonly spurn the truth of Jesus Christ or even common decency.

When we see ourselves clearly we are more free to serve others. We do not need to protect some image of ourselves as superior, standing over others. We can be below them and help them from there, just as Jesus did for us. We can wash the feet of others just as he first washed our own feet (see John 13:1-17).

The greatest among you must be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

We need self-awareness sufficient to catch ourselves when we start using our supposed piety as a bludgeon against others, even from the first stages of that happening in our thoughts. This is exactly the sense that Paul suggests we think "of others as better than yourselves" (see Philippians 2:3). At first it sounds overly self-deprecating and negative. But it is a starting point that cuts off selfish ambition at the roots. It isn't even interested in the self enough to spend time deprecating it.

When we ourselves our humble we can make prayers for mercy that move the heavens. These are the prayers that need to accompany any words we can offer to others. More to it, these are prayers that we ourselves desperately need answered.

Come now, let us set things right,
says the LORD:
Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.