28 February 2021 - behold the lamb

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, 

and go to the land of Moriah.

There you shall offer him up as a holocaust 

on a height that I will point out to you.”

Not long before, God had said to Abraham, "through Isaac shall your offspring be named" (see Genesis 21:12). But Isaac wouldn't meet Rebekah for another few chapters of Genesis. On the surface it would seem that what God was asking of Abraham in offering Isaac would nullify his previous promise. Something analogous can happen to us. We may believe God is going to fulfill his promises in one way in our lives, and there may be what appears to be an open path to blessings before us, and yet God may ask us sacrifice that option at of trust in him. Make no mistake, the path we are called to sacrifice often seems like the only way. That path itself may already be the fruit of prayer and of miracles, just as was the birth of Isaac himself. But the risk for us is that we become comfortable in the path before us and forget to rely on God. It is vital for God to prevent this from happening because what he has planned for us is more than we can ask or even think (see Ephesians 3:20). We risk beginning to live as though we know the path and the destination and can now go the rest of the way on our own.

When they came to the place of which God had told him, 

Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.

Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.

Abraham was not finally being called to offer his son in sacrifice. But he was, in a sense, sacrificing his hope in the merely physical fulfillment of the promises of God, his hope in the promised blessings on his own terms. By faith he was opening himself up to some greater and yet unknown answer to the promises he had received.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back (see Hebrews 11:19).

It would not have been enough for Abraham to offer Isaac. What God wanted to provide could ultimately be given only through his only Son, whom he loved from all eternity, Jesus Christ. Only with this lamb that God himself would provide could the purpose of sacrifice be realized and the new life of the resurrection attained. But by faith Abraham was able to welcome and, in a sense, to participate in this offering and even in its fruit. So too for us and our sacrifices. God has no need of them, but he desires the condition of heart that results when we offer them, the profound faith that does not need to see the path ahead as long as God is there to guide us.

If Abraham's offering of faith unleashed such blessings upon Israel then it makes sense that the blessings unleashed by the fulfillment of that offering would be limitless.

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own Son 

but handed him over for us all, 

how will he not also give us everything else along with him?

Abraham learned in a profound way that God was for him and would bless him when he offered his son as a shadow and type of Jesus. Our offerings can participate even more than his in the one offering of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even more than him we are able to share now in the resurrection blessings Christ unleashed.

It is nevertheless true that we are only human and that our ability to trust and to follow is still imperfect. Jesus knows that on this side of the Paschal mystery the promise is impossible to fully understand.

So they kept the matter to themselves, 

questioning what rising from the dead meant.

Knowing our weakness, our readiness to scatter and be put to flight when times get tough, he wants to reveal himself to us. He wants to give us a glimpse of the resurrection, the promises, and the blessings, that await us. 

And he was transfigured before them, 

and his clothes became dazzling white, 

such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.

Let us behold Jesus, blazing with the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world and become convinced and convicted that whatever he asks of us is worth offering. Even if he seems to be leading us down a dead end or asking the impossible we can be assured that, as Abraham learned, and as the resurrection finally proved, "nothing will be impossible with God" (see Luke 1:37).

I believed, even when I said,

    “I am greatly afflicted.”

Matt Maher - Lay It Down

Matt Maher - Behold the Lamb of God

27 February 2021 - what we have failed to do

Today's Readings

(Audio)

But I say to you, love your enemies,

and pray for those who persecute you

We are quick to give lip service to the teaching that we should love our enemies. We rightly give high praise when we see examples, like the Amish community that forgave the school shooter, or when John Paul the Great forgave the one who attempted his assassination. 

We tend to relegate this teaching of Jesus to extreme cases and isolated examples. We like to tell ourselves that we don't really have any enemies anyway. And as a matter of general policy for the world, this teaching seems naive and impracticable. If we will the good of those who will our ill will we not simply accelerate and empower their ability to do us harm?

Because we don't recognize that there are in fact some people toward whom we act as enemies we fail to realize that work that we still need to do. We fail to pray for those who cut us off in traffic or those who cut in line. We fail to pray for those who have the audacity to not recognize our efforts even after we do something difficult on their behalf. We fail to pray for those who have slighted us, even slightly. We place people like this in a neutral zone, where we won't call them enemies, but where we feel free to neglect them. We reason that they haven't done anything to earn our love, though it is of course more than this. It is active neglect that begins from a hostility to which we refuse to own up.

that you may be children of your heavenly Father,

for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,

and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Fortunately, God does not show his love only to the deserving. If he did, none would be good enough to receive it. He proves his love in that while we were still sinners, still enemies, Christ died for us (see Romans 5:8). From the cross he prayed in a special way for those who crucified him. He didn't ignore them as he prayed for other things or make them wait until the end of a list of priorities. They, and therefore we, were his priority (see Luke 23:34). From the very beginning we can see that this sort of love and forgiveness distinguished Christians from those around them, from Saint Stephen onward (see Acts 7:60).

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?

Do not the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet your brothers and sisters only,

what is unusual about that?

Do not the pagans do the same?

We may wonder, though, does this practice of forgiveness scale? Is it something that we can expect of individuals within a community but from which we exempt politicians and states? It seems clear that hatred of the enemy is at the root of so many problems both domestic and international. In so many cases actual issues have given way to entrenched rivalries, to tribalism, to hatred of the enemy simply for who they are. But can love really solve this? Or would it instead open us up to abuse and make us vulnerable? We are called to believe, as only faith can, that forgiveness and reconciliation are possible even between the bitter rivalries of political parties, tribes, and nations. We are called to believe that the Gospel of peace can triumph over the motivations of war which, as we saw yesterday, begin in the hearts of each of us. Politics can't be one thing and daily life another if we want to thrive. Forgiveness doesn't mean we fail to insist on appropriate boundaries and take care to protect ourselves. But it does mean that hatred never usurps the desire for unity and reconciliation as our motivating force.

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It may seem that what God asks of us, to walk so perfectly in his statues, commandments, and decrees, and to hearken to his voice, is beyond us. Perhaps this is why we don't visibly appear as a people peculiarly his own, why we fail to be the city on a hill, and why our light often seems so dim. But we know that what God commands he empowers. Jesus himself did first what he now asks of us. And he will make his own heart manifest in us, if we but ask.

Blessed are they who observe his decrees,

    who seek him with all their heart.

Ricky Dillard - Let There Be Peace On Earth

TobyMac ft. Lecrae - Forgiveness

26 February 2021 - thought police

Today's Readings

(Audio)

I tell you, 

unless your righteousness surpasses that

of the scribes and Pharisees,

you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.

Jesus is calling us to a change that is not simply superficial. He is calling us to an integrity from which, as much as possible, our intentions and actions both aim at pleasing God. 

You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.

When we feel the need to give ourselves a pass and be lenient on ourselves we may sometimes think to compare ourselves with those whom we consider really bad, murders, thieves, and the like. The trouble with this is that it misses that point that, without the aid of divine grace, we all have hearts that tend toward murder.

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war (see James 4:1-2).

We try to pave over our problems with the vestiges of devotion. Rather than addressing the problem we prefer to ignore it and, to distract ourselves, bring our gift to the altar. But God is calling us to something better than a superficial non-aggression pact with others. He is asking us to take actions that reflect a commitment to genuine mercy toward others, even and especially when we don't feel like.

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,

and there recall that your brother

has anything against you,

leave your gift there at the altar,

go first and be reconciled with your brother,

and then come and offer your gift.

It may seem at first unfair for the Lord to insist that we begin to take ownership of our inner life. And indeed, without grace the law would be unable to address this brokenness within. But we need not simply wish or struggle when confronted with our less than pure motivations. With grace we can act so as to take control of our words. To do so is more than avoiding saying certain insulting things, however. Real progress is achieved when we focus on making sure that the words we speak are in line with the revealed word of God.

But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother

will be liable to judgment,

and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, 

will be answerable to the Sanhedrin,

and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.

We can even begin to cast down thoughts that are not in accord with God's word. We may not be able to prevent a thought from arising in our minds, but once we become aware of it we need not accept it. The trouble for us is that accepting it sometimes feels easier. Angry or lustful thoughts pressure us to accept them. But we can recognize that they are not from God and take them captive to Christ.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (see Second Corinthians 10:5).

Is it fair for God to ask us to control even our thoughts? Absolutely. He only does so because he wants us to thrive, to be whole, to live in the peace that only he can give. He himself makes it possible

But if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed,

    does what is right and just,

    he shall preserve his life;

    since he has turned away from all the sins that he committed, 

    he shall surely live, he shall not die.

Elevation Worship - Graves Into Gardens

 

25 February 2021 - prayers that get answered

Today's Readings

(Audio)

For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;

and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 

We are dismissive of verses such as this one because they don't line up with our experience. Answered prayer seems like the exception rather than the rule. Usually it feels more like when we pray what would have happened anyway ends up happening. Since we know that Jesus spoke the truth we should ask what we are getting wrong.

You do not have, because you do not ask (see James 4:2).

If we want God to answer our prayers we need to be willing to pray them. We are not called to a timid prayer life, but rather one symbolized by the importunate widow who didn't let up on the judge until justice was done (see Luke 18:1-8). We should try to be like the friend who came at midnight to borrow three loaves, who didn't give up until his friend acquiesced (see Luke 11:5-8).

“Ask and it will be given to you;

seek and you will find;

knock and the door will be opened to you.

A moral literal rendering of the Greek is to ask and keep asking, to seek and keep seeking, and to knock and keep knocking. We are called to enter into a process that takes time, not because to give us what we ask is any special effort to God, but because we ourselves need to be changed in order to receive.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (see James 4:3).

The problem is that the things which we really need are things like the loaf of bread and the fish, but the things for which we ask are often closer to the stone or the snake. Our heavenly Father wants to give good things to those who ask him. It is because he loves us so much that he wants us to participate in the process of receiving. Rather than disappointing sons who were hoping for a snake or a stone he would rather we learn that what we really want is bread or a fish, something that can actually satisfy us. 

We are called to keep asking even though we often start off asking wrongly. Only if we continue to expose the deepest desires of our heart to God will his grace shine on those desires and transform them. As we learn to live in conformity with his will we learn that what pleases God is in fact what will make us happy as well.

we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him (see First John 3:4).

We grow in our ability to make our prayers in Jesus' name, desiring what he desires. This does not mean that our prayers become merely spiritual, leaving behind the secular and physical world. It means that our prayers include everything that concerns us, but with a view to the purpose of those things, their fulfillment in God himself. Where Matthew told us Jesus said that the Father would give us good things Luke gave a complimentary explanation.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (see Luke 11:13).

We may not yet be convinced that what we want is in fact the Holy Spirit, or that what the world needs is the Holy Spirit. But if we ask and keep asking, by that very process itself, we will become convinced, and then, with that kind of firm faith, we will receive.

Matt Maher - Lord, I Need You

24 February 2021 - the sign of Jonah

Today's Readings

(Audio)

This generation is an evil generation;

it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,

except the sign of Jonah. 

The people of Nineveh were able to recognize the voice of a prophet of the Lord. He preached a simple and uncompromising message, a message with rough edges, without any signs to distract from it. 

The queen of the south was able to recognize wisdom so great as to justify her journey from "the ends of the earth" to hear it. She did not come to see a sign but to to listen to the wisdom given by God to Solomon.

There are several reasons why we do still seek a sign, and then, as a consequence fail to recognize that the voice of the Wisdom of God himself speaking, the sign of Jonah, ought to have been enough for us. We seek a sign because signs are often entertaining, distracting, or mysterious. When the sincere seekers need signs to be pointed toward God they are given signs. But the signs we want do not point us toward God or help us to recognize what he is saying. 

We don't want to change. Since we intuit that the preaching of Jesus, greater than that of Jonah, might cause as drastic a change in our lives, even more than that of Jonah did for Nineveh, we don't want to risk it. Without a sign we could know the rightness of the call and challenge. But we insist on a sign to give ourselves an excuse for stagnating where we are.

We don't want to listen to Jesus because we prefer to be the highest source of wisdom and authority in our own lives. Our human wisdom makes no demands on us, or only demands that we find congenial. It does not require us to put ourselves second, to journey outside of ourselves, "from the ends of the earth" to hear God's wisdom.

In Jesus there is One greater than Jonah and greater than Solomon. Without a sign we can hear that the voice of the one who is Truth itself does speak truly, and with authority. We need to learn to recognize when we are trying to stall, to insulate ourselves, or to distract ourselves from his voice. Our own wisdom will never lead to happiness. If we let it have full reign in us it will in fact lead us to an even greater destruction than that which threatened Nineveh.

Jesus does not begrudge us any sign that would help us. However, he wants us to focus on receiving what has already been given, what is right in front of us, but which we have not yet chosen to fully recognize. Let us pray for the grace to see and understand the sign of Jonah that is already there to guide us.

A clean heart create for me, O God,

    and a steadfast spirit renew within me.

Cast me not out from your presence,

    and your Holy Spirit take not from me. 

Songs In His Presence - Our Eyes Are Fixed

23 February 2021 - prayer priorities

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 pagans begin with the wrong motivation because they believe that their gods are aloof and need to be convinced to listen to them. They have a paradigm where correct performance and sufficient effort are required to obtain their desired benefits. They are like rhetoricians giving persuasive speeches to an audience that, if not hostile, is at least indifferent.

The most important difference of Christian prayer from other forms of prayer is its starting place.

Do not be like them.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“This is how you are to pray:

    Our Father who art in heaven,

It might be inferred that the pagan gods did not know what the pagans needed until they were told, and that this was true because those so-called gods didn't care enough to know. But this was a difficult perspective to challenge. For if God knows our need before we ask then why does he want us to ask anyway?

The mental posture of prayer calms and purifies the soul, and makes it of more capacity to receive the divine gifts which are poured into it. For God does not hear us for the prevailing force of our pleadings; He is at all times ready to give us His light, but we are not ready to receive it, but prone to other things. There is then in prayer a turning of the body to God, and a purging of the inward eye, whilst those worldly things which we desired are shut out, that the eye of the mind made single might be able to bear the single light, and in it abide with that joy with which a happy life is perfected.

- Saint Augustine

Prayer is the opposite of the way we often think of it. Rather than causing God to desire what we desire it causes us to desire and open ourselves to the things which God desires for us, those things which will make for our flourishing. Chief among these is putting God first in our lives and therefore desiring his will more than our own will.

hallowed be thy name,

        thy Kingdom come,

    thy will be done,

        on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus showed us how to prefer the Father's will when he suffered in Gethsemane. He asked that the chalice be taken from him if possible but even more that the Father's will be done and not his own (see Luke 22:42). When we are presented with the chalice of suffering it never seems like something which will make for our flourishing. But when we learn to accept it as Jesus does in turns out to be the exact path to resurrection and new life, not only for ourselves, but for the world. It is precisely a path that we can never find on our own, if we insist on being self-directed and living lives determined by self-will. Only God can lead us beyond the boundaries of our egos into the new life he has prepared for us.

We are weak, but prayer has power. The words we are given to pray are not merely our words, but words given to us by the Word himself. We can be certain that our prayer will not be without effect, certain that he who began a good work in us will by this path bring it to completion (see Philippians 1:6).

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.

The Lord wants us to desire the daily bread of the Eucharist even more than the food and drink that we need. He told his disciples to seek first the Kingdom and that all else they needed would be given them (see Matthew 6:33). We have a hard time believing it. We tend to want to care more about physical needs than spiritual. But this is another place where the Our Father challenges us. If we really recognized what was offered in the bread from heaven given by Jesus, how would we desire it? In the Our Father we prayer to have that desire.

In the Our Father we pray to be protected from attitudes that can block God's mercy from acting in us, attitudes that constitute habitual resistance on our part to God's own desire to reconcile the world to himself.

    and forgive us our trespasses,

        as we forgive those who trespass against us;

We ask to be protected from the lies that temptation represents. Temptation promises happiness that only God himself can deliver. May the Lord himself keep us from temptation, that is, to giving our desire over to something less than God himself. 

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,

    and your faces may not blush with shame.

Because the Father cares for us we need have no fear of evil. Fear of the Lord casts out all other fear and can give us peace, knowing that God knows us completely, loves us with a Father's love, and has the power to ensure that nothing happens to us outside of his providential plan. All things do indeed work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (see Romans 8:28). In the Our Father we learn to rest in that promise.

When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,

    and from all his distress he saved him.

Vineyard - Help Us Our God

Matt Maher - As It Is In Heaven

22 February 2021 - on this rock

Today's Readings

(Audio)

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

Neither our flesh and blood nor that of our friends and neighbors nor that of the media or experts are adequate to respond to the question Jesus asks his disciples. History and Scripture can point in the direction of an answer, but without revelation it will remain obscure to us.

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

We need Jesus to lift the veil himself, because otherwise the glory is too great to behold directly.

For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away (see Second Corinthians 3:14).

We are like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking with him, our hearts often burning within us, but without yet realizing or fully realizing with whom we are walking. 

When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (see Luke 24:30-31).

We know that Scriptures our profitable for salvation, equipping the woman of God for every good work (see Second Timothy 3:16-17). We would do well to heed the historical testimony of the "more than five hundred brothers", most of whom were still alive in Paul's day (see First Corinthians 15:6). But we still need revelation not just in general but to each of our hearts. Otherwise, we can know about him but may still miss him when he is near us.

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher) (see John 20:16).

The heavenly Father wants to reveal his Son to us. He has built his Church on a rock to ensure that there would be a place for us to come and both learn the truth of who Jesus is and also to receive the grace that will make that truth alive for us. 

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my Church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

The feast of the Chair of Peter means that we need never despair of finding the truth. God established his Church both as witness and as the normal means of receiving grace. This was among the reasons reason why baptism was known in the early years of the Church as enlightenment. It is not as though all the baptized walk in a personal relationship with Jesus, painful as this is to see. Yet all of us have the grace to speak the words Peter spoke, to recognize in Jesus the same thing Peter saw.

Simon Peter said in reply, 

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

We may wish that baptism just flipped a switch that forced us to see this truth. Yet, though the lights are turned on our eyes may still remain closed. How much better our lives would be, we imagine, if we could not ignore the truth. But it is precisely in keeping with the character of Jesus himself that the truth is only ever proposed and never imposed.

Do not lord it over those assigned to you,

but be examples to the flock.

And when the chief Shepherd is revealed,

you will receive the unfading crown of glory.

The invitation for us today, then, is to open ourselves more to this grace of enlightenment which we have received, and to avail ourselves more of the embarrassingly great riches which have been bestowed on us and safeguarded by the Chair of Peter.

With your rod and your staff

    that give me courage.

Randy Travis - Open the Eyes of My Heart

21 February 2021 - forty days of victory

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, 

and he remained in the desert for forty days,

Jesus inaugurated a new and definitive Exodus, not from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt, but from slavery to sin. He did not begin his journey into the desert by crossing the Red Sea on dry land. Instead, he began by his baptism. Rather than killing the Egyptians that pursued Israel, baptism put our old sinful self to death while allowing us to emerge us new creations united to Christ. 

The Red Sea was not the end of the story of the Exodus, nor is baptism the end of our story. Israel had to contend with forty years in the wilderness. We ourselves follow Jesus who allowed himself to be driven by the Spirit into the desert for forty days. 

Our baptism is like the flood of Noah. Jesus himself is the ark in whom we are "saved through water", "not as a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ". In this analogy as well baptism is the beginning and then a period of forty days follows.

What then is this period of forty days that we now enter into in our yearly Lenten practice? It is a period where we learn to forget the idols of Egypt and to rely instead on the providential care of God. In the desert the "cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic" (see Numbers 11:5) still appeal to us, but we can learn to rely instead on the manna from heaven (see Exodus 16:30-32, John 6:32). We learn to trust in the providential care of God in a way that breaks the world's hold over us. 

In this period of forty days we enter into the desert with Christ and into the ark that is his Church. We move away from the world so that we can more fully embrace our identity as dead to the world but alive in Christ.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (see Galatians 2:20).

We don't walk headlong into temptation on purpose, or at least, we ought not. Neither was this the real meaning of what the Spirit prompted Jesus to do. It was rather that temptation is inevitable for us and Jesus did not hesitate in his response on our behalf. He demonstrated that the best way to respond to temptation was immediately and decisively. He went into the desert because it was precisely there that his victory could be the most decisive. In the world there is so much noise and distraction that our victories over sin are often partial. We often don't fully recognize the temptations we face. We often hedge our responses against our myriad other concerns. 

In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world! (see John 16:33)

During Lent we learn from Jesus to set distractions aside. But we do not go alone. He is our ark. He is the manna which makes our journey possible. He is the one who destroys the enemies who pursues us. We can only be victorious against temptation to the degree that we he makes his own victory a reality in us.

If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcame the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and see yourself as victorious in him. He could have kept the devil from himself; but if he were not tempted he could not teach you how to triumph over temptation.

- Saint Augustine

Perhaps we're beginning this Lent only with reluctance. It is likely that many of us were going through enough already that we didn't want to add any extra effort in addition to what we were already putting forth to deal with life day-to-day. But we are called to make this pilgrimage because God knows it will lead us to flourishing and fulfillment. We are not yet home and so we must keep moving. But even the desert need not be desolation for those who journey with God. The wild beasts may surround us, but we can experience the ministry of angels in a special way at this time. The bread from heaven is still set before us and it really can satisfy our hearts.

Bob Baker - Bring Your Kingdom

20 February 2021 - knowing our need

Today's Readings

(Audio)

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

He said to him, “Follow me.”

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

We see today the calling of Matthew, also known as Levi. He had been until that moment a tax collector, a group known for oppression and malicious speech, a group not known to bestow their bread on the hungry or to satisfy the afflicted. Even an otherwise decent individual who was driven to such a position out of desperation would not easily remain unstained by it. 

Matthew was able to recognize that he was sick and in need of a physician. He was tired of a life that defined by falsehood, that was so dominated by the importance of money. Unlike the Pharisees, Matthew had no illusions of righteousness on from the law. The Pharisees thought themselves righteous, that their works meant that were not sinful or sick or in need of healing. But they did not recognize that "by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight" (see Romans 3:20).

“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.”

Matthew was able to recognize two things that enabled his profound response to Jesus. He recognized that he was sick, that is, his soul was languishing, not realizing the potential for which God intended made him. And he recognized in Jesus one who could heal him. In fact, he recognized in the very invitation to follow Jesus that he was being invited to come and be healed. What he was being offered was to leave the old life of sickness behind and embrace the new direction which Jesus represented, filled with hope and possibility. 

He will renew your strength,

    and you shall be like a watered garden,

    like a spring whose water never fails.

The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,

    and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;

“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,

    “Restorer of ruined homesteads.”

There is hope for all people who are able to recognize their need for the Divine Physician. The Pharisees offer us a cautionary tale, showing how our pride causes us to entertain illusions of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency that prevent us from recognizing our need for Jesus and turning to him. Let us instead see how our own efforts, like those of Matthew, left us still empty, still wounded, still in need of grace, so that we can welcome the invitation to receive that grace whenever it is offered.

When we receive Jesus from the raw and vulnerable place from which Matthew did we will too will want to invite others to share in the feast we have discovered.

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.

Jesus does not exclude anyone from his call. Pharisees and tax collectors are both welcome, and all stand in the same need of grace. Jesus shows favor to the strangers, the outcasts, the seemingly irreparably broken people of the world, in order to show that there are no limits to his mercy. We ourselves are often more like the Pharisees who don't recognize that we still, in every moment, stand in need of mercy. Witnessing profound conversions in the lives of others is meant to remind us that we are meant for more as well. Our own conversion must be ongoing. Our own healing is not yet complete.

Have mercy on me, O Lord,

    for to you I call all the day.

Gladden the soul of your servant,

    for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Chris Tomlin - I Will Follow

19 February 2021 - break every chain

Today's Readings

(Audio)

They seek me day after day,

    and desire to know my ways,

Like a nation that has done what is just

    and not abandoned the law of their God;

The world definitely does this. It is happy to go along being entertained and numbed until something happens so severe that it cannot solve it with its own resources. In the past when that happened the world would turn to God and seek after him. Disasters drove people back into the churches. It was said that there were no atheists in foxholes. The trouble is that God would not allow himself to be used only as a last resort when all else failed. Turning to him in distress did not necessarily alleviate the distress. It definitely mattered to the hearts that chose to do it. But the world observed a God who did not respond as things did not seem to improve. Finally we came to a point where the world was too jaded to even turn to God in times of trial, as it seemed to not suffice in the past. If God refused to be present on the world's terms, as a last resort when our own efforts fell short, when entertainment could no longer distract us, when pleasure could no longer numb us, well, the world wouldn't bother with him at all. The saddest aspect of this is that we never experienced what it would be like to be a nation that was just and had not abandoned the law of God. Had we been walking with him the whole time we might have discovered that providence and protection really could make a difference.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

- GK Chesterton

Is it only the world that does this, that seeks God in desperation and then gives up on him entirely? Or does this describe us as well? Do we keep up some regularity of external practice, but only truly open our hearts and seek in periods of distress and need? Perhaps we point to the regular external practice as proof that we are entitled to the healing, breakthrough, or answered prayer we seek. Likely we don't even consider how differently things may have gone had we been seeking God all along.

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

and then they will fast.

Jesus promised to be with us always, unto the end of the age (see Matthew 28:20). The bridegroom, then, is taken away from us only by our lack of response to his grace. We are called to rend our hearts precisely because they have become insulated against his presence. This rending of hearts necessarily entails the rending of social injustice as well.

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:

    releasing those bound unjustly,

    untying the thongs of the yoke;

Setting free the oppressed,

    breaking every yoke;

Sharing your bread with the hungry,

    sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;

Clothing the naked when you see them,

    and not turning your back on your own.

We must rend the bonds holding others captive, because in them we find Jesus truly present. This rending is a double movement that breaks the obstacles within us to God and breaks the obstacles before others to both the corporeal and spiritual goods to which they are entitled. By doing so, their full dignity as made in the image of God, as those with whom Jesus himself so closely identified, can be made manifest. 

When our hearts are hardened we are unable to find God anywhere. Our prayers in crisis, especially to the degree that their are presumptuous, may turn out to be too little too late, and this precisely because God desires a closer walk with us. And so let us rend every obstacle to God's presence, the hardening and insulation that keeps us from seeking him first, that keeps us from caring about the plight of the people who surround us.

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!

Tasha Cobbs - Break Every Chain

18 February 2021 - life indeed

Today's Readings

(Audio)

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life, then,

that you and your descendants may live

This choice that Lord offered in Deuteronomy may seem opposed to the call made by Jesus in today's Gospel.

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

and take up his cross daily and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it

But the reason we are given both of these readings today is that they are expressing the same call.

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

The invitation Moses gave to the people was not to seek just any life, or life on their own terms. 

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,

but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,

I tell you now that you will certainly perish;

you will not have a long life

on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

Moses invited the people to choose life that was life indeed in which they and their descendents could live, "by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him."

The trouble was the depths of the sway and influence that idols maintained over the people. Even after leaving Egypt their hearts were still pulled from the straightforward path of God by the idols of the nations that surrounded them. And it is the same for us. Even after we have been liberated from sin by baptism we are often still entranced and enchanted by the various idols of the world around us, the ways in which that world promises happiness on our terms, apart from God and his ways.

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world

yet lose or forfeit himself?

The happiness that the world promises can't deliver in the long run. Even in the moment it is never something that fully satisfies our hearts. There is always the sense of something more that is missing even when we have the best that the world can offer.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

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

Because our problem has always been putting ourselves first and God in a distant second or third we continue to experience slavery to sin and dissatisfaction with our lives. And because that is our problem there is no way to be delivered from it that won't be a little bit like dying. It is precisely the call to choose life on God's terms and no longer on our own that really is true life, true joy, and lasting happiness. But to the part of us that is old and unrenewed it feels like death, because to that part of us it will be death. Let us trust God that old self of ours that protests and complains never gave us happiness anyway. Not really. And let us believe the one who made us, who knows what is our greatest good, about where true life can be found.

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life

Christy Nockels - A Mighty Fortress

17 February 2021 - fast company

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Spare, O LORD, your people,

    and make not your heritage a reproach,

    with the nations ruling over them!

Why should they say among the peoples,

    ‘Where is their God?’”

When we do not keep God first in our lives we do not allow him to be as present to us as he desires. We place ourselves outside his providential protection and open ourselves to all sorts of problems from which he could have protected us or for which he could have given us sufficient strength to face. 

Even now, says the LORD,

    return to me with your whole heart,

    with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;

Rend your hearts, not your garments,

    and return to the LORD, your God.

We are called to return the LORD, not simply to certain practices and actions are the external aspects of our yearly Lenten observance. None of the externals matter if they don't penetrate sufficiently to give God room in our hearts, to offer him a new foothold for his Kingdom within us. 

The degree to which we have placed second things first is the degree to which forcing ourselves to loosen our grip on them will necessitate fasting, and weeping, and mourning. We had supposed that something other than God might satisfy us. We may experience the death of that illusion as something which involves weeping and mourning. Even more, we will recognize that all of the time we were under that spell we were neglecting God's own offer of love. We can and should let ourselves fully experience these emotions as they arise but we needn't cling to them. They are meant to be at most a temporary aspect of the transformation that repentance brings. If we deny them we may still be in denial about the things that matter most and about our past infidelity to those things. But if we try to keep experiencing them, as though they were the substance in which our Lent should consist, we will be stagnating and preventing God from opening to us the new horizons which he desires to show us.

For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, 

so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

We are meant to let what Jesus did for us take full effect in us, rather than insisting that we don't really need to receive any more of it, or to say that we did it once and now we're fine. Our Lent must not be about what our efforts if it is to be a profitable season for us. It must be a doubling down on the centrality of the presence of God in our lives and an insistence that the grace given us by Christ must be the starting place and goal that gives our lives direction. In a season marked by so many external practices this may seem counterintuitive. Yet it is precisely a more complete reliance on grace alone that all of the practices and experiences of Lent are meant to embody. The degree to which they do not do so they become distractions.

We may have done poorly in the past when we tried to place Jesus first on the throne in our lives. We may have anxiety or fear that we will not do a good job in the future. But God wants Lent to be about the here and now with him, not the past or the future. He wants to be sufficiently present to us in the moment that our ruminations about past and future lose their ability to limit us.

In an acceptable time I heard you,

    and on the day of salvation I helped you.

One reason that it is hard to be present to God is that many of us have grown accustomed to seeking our rewards in the world. When we do good we typically look to the world for our validation. And the world inevitably disappoints us, offering us rewards for things which are bad or indifferent, and ignoring us when we act as our best selves. Lent is a time to practice seeking our validation from God alone, and not from others, nor even from the apparent results of our efforts. We may not see the fruit for a season, but it should be enough that God smiles on us as we plant the seed.

But when you pray, go to your inner room,

close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.

And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

When we seek our validation from God alone we will experience in a new way the freedom that is the gift of his Spirit. When we experience his gift of righteousness as the approval we seek, rather than that which we must earn according to the paradigm of the world, we gain a peace that the world can't take away.

Matt Maher - 40 Days

16 February 2021 - bread and water

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out,

guard against the leaven of the Pharisees

and the leaven of Herod.” 

Jesus warned them about the leaven of the Pharisees for a similar reason that Paul warned the Corinthians about boasting. Paul warned that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" and went on to say, "Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened" (see First Corinthians 5:6). There was something about the pride the that motivated the Pharisees and the pride that motivated the Corinthian boasting that had the potential be a disproportionately corruptive influence. This means that it was not just the Pharisees that were at risk from prideful teaching, nor the boasters in Corinth at risk from their boasting. These things had the potential to damage the whole community, to create, divisions, jealousy, and rivalries.

They concluded among themselves that

it was because they had no bread.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be able to interpret the spiritual meanings of his teachings. But they were still too fixated on material things, on circumstances, and the apparently pressing problems of the moment. We get like this too. We make a mistake like forgetting to bring bread and suddenly we think everything Jesus says to us is related to that mistake. Our horizons constrict around our ego as our imperfection becomes our central concern. We forgot the bread. How could Jesus want to talk about anything else? But this attitude is precisely pride. This inability to look beyond ourselves is very much the beginnings of the same corruptive leaven as the Pharisees and Herod.

Jesus multiplied the loaves to show that our material concerns and needs could be subordinated to following him. If we seek first the Kingdom he will provide for what we need. The risk is that we look on the miracles of the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand as though those miracles had no end beyond the mere provisioning of food. The risk of the leaven mindset that only sees solutions to short-term problems is to miss the way in which those solutions were signs of something more and greater.

when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,

how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?”

They answered him, “Twelve.”

“When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand,

how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up?”

They answered him, “Seven.”

There were twelve baskets for the twelve tribes of Israel and seven baskets for the seven nations of the Gentiles. Jesus intended that they would become one body by feeding on the one loaf of his own body. But he needed to help his disciples to elevate their vision from a mode which was merely material to include a vision that was more expansive and could also recognize the spiritual.

Sometimes the best way to grow in the clean, the unleavened, and the spiritual, is to spend some time apart from influences that corrupt us and cloud our vision.

Then the LORD said to Noah:

“Go into the ark, you and all your household,

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

We can enter more fully into the ark of the Church and let the flood waters of the grace of our baptism more fully put our old sinful self to death. We can more and more live and act from the grace of our new birth. We have been born again as new creations in Christ but it is up to us to choose to live from that reality. 

As soon as the seven days were over,

the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

We need to be able to trust in the Lord, to be concerned about his word sufficiently more than we are concerned about the word of the world, so that we can enter the ark when he calls and to leave the details in his hands. Our minds tend to rebel from this, as though the outside world will collapse without us. But again, this is pride and leaven. When we're within the ark God can still bring renewal to the outside world. For our part, he wants us to be ready and equipped to plant the seeds of a new and better life on that outside world when we finally emerge.

The voice of the LORD is over the waters,

    the LORD, over vast waters.

Ascribe to the Lord

15 February 2021 - partial obedience

Today's Readings

(Audio)

In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD

from the fruit of the soil,

while Abel, for his part,

brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.

What do we bring to the Lord as an offering? Is it the best of what we have or only the leftovers? We know that the Lord doesn't need sacrifices or offerings. The cattle of a thousand hills are already his (see Psalm 50:10).

“Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,

    for your burnt offerings are before me always.”

Was Cain rebuked for his offering? Only insofar as that offering was an action that did not express care and careful discernment toward God, precisely the care that Abel's offering did represent. Cain, it seemed, did not care enough for God to him the best of what he had. The thing itself was immaterial, indifferent. But whatever it was, God wanted the best, not because he needed it, but because he deserved it. He knew that his creatures could only find happiness if they put him first.

Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.

When we try to offer God something less than he asks of us we too will find ourselves frustrated. This is true even before we look around us and see others actually giving themselves completely and, in doing so finding satisfaction. An automatic result of giving God our leftovers, our partial obedience, is that we ourselves will be unsatisfied. 

The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering,

but on Cain and his offering he did not.

Cain greatly resented this and was crestfallen.

When we are not walking in obedience we are at high risk of becoming jealous of those who are. We don't see clearly why they seem to have found fulfillment and favor and we have not. We can't see the difference just by looking at our respective offerings. We are blinded to the good intentions that made the offerings of others acceptable. We forget the reason why our own offerings were not accepted, believing instead that it must be because God arbitrarily preferred others to ourselves. We become jealous. And jealousy is always dangerous.

Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

God gives us many opportunities to own up to sin at each step before it progresses further. Yet he will even allow us to be separated from the community if it might help us to come to understand the severity of the problem. Nevertheless, he has something more in mind than strict justice. Abel's blood cried out for justice. But the blood of Jesus cried out for better things than that of Abel (see Hebrews 12:24). Like Abel, Jesus offered the best of what he had to the Father. Indeed he offered his very self. Like Abel, those who were jealous of him put him to death. But the blood which poured out from the Sacred Heart cried out for mercy for sinners. Cain in his punishment was a sort of figure of all sinners, a wander without the true rest until the mercy of Christ would finally be revealed.

The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus,

seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.

If we come to Jesus with demands rather than offerings, or if our offering are merely bargaining chips, we will leave frustrated and crestfallen. The reason Jesus did not give a sign is that he himself was sign enough for those with eyes to see. As we give our hearts (and the best of our hearts) to God may we see in Jesus the sign of favor which receives them. He himself, his whole life, is the sign of mercy that pleads for us to the Father.

Kutless - We Fall Down

14 February 2021 - you've got the touch

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“If you wish, you can make me clean.”

It can become difficult to believe that the Lord does want to make us clean and whole. The longer we live with our weaknesses and ailments, be they physical or moral, the more we are forced to consider that the reason why we are still afflicted might be because the Lord does not in fact will it that we be made clean. 

There is something in us that isn't content to remain unclean. We know that we were made for more. We sense that our leprosy has isolated us, kept us "outside the camp", and in some way cries out "Unclean, unclean!" to any who know us too well. It keeps our interactions with others at the borders of our personalities, preventing us from experiencing true intimacy, lest we risk that others would truly know us, and in knowing us, become contaminated. Worse still, our perceived condition as unclean keeps us from entering fully into the worship of the people of God. There too we participate only from the boundaries, never confident enough to come into the intimate presence of God.

The longer we live in our perceived condition as unclean the harder it is to imagine anything changing. Yet if we see Jesus with the same eyes of faith that the leper saw him we can be buoyed with new hope.

“If you wish, you can make me clean.”

Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, 

touched him, and said to him, 

“I do will it. Be made clean.”

In any other circumstance we would be right to try to shield others from our affliction lest we contaminate them. The law itself could do no more than pronounce judgment upon us. It had no remedy to offer. But in Jesus the flow of contamination is reversed. Rather than the unclean contaminating him, we see that anyone he touched was made clean. This was because he himself was utterly holy, beyond the power of our sins and afflictions to contaminate. And it was because he himself chose to allow this holiness to go out from him to others as gift, as grace. 

We might have expected the touch of God to be a consuming fire that destroyed the unclean. But instead we find that it destroyed only that darkness which made them unclean and set them on fire with divine love. Why this difference between those who reached out to touch the ark of the covenant and died and those who touched Jesus and lived? It was because of the direction of the touch, and the faith that welcomed it.

But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you (see Luke 11:20).

Even though hemorrhaging woman seemed to be reaching out to touch God it was actually the case, that, by the incarnation, God had first reached out to her in order to be touched.

she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she had been saying to herself, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease (see Mark 5:27-29)

Have we not yet received the healing we desire? Let us come to the Lord with faith in the superabundant grace with which he is filled, which flows from him at the slightest touch. He will certainly do what it takes to bring us back into the community, to restore our intimacy with himself and with our brothers and sisters. If he even heals us physically those eyes of faith will not be surprised. Yet this isn't the main point. It wasn't for the leper, which is why Jesus did not want to be known for the mere externalities of the event.

See that you tell no one anything

There is something that is so intimate in the touch of Jesus as to be incommunicable. When we speak of him to others the risk is that we only hit on externals because the true effects of the intimacy of his touch are harder to convey. Yet, though the external aspects of the way Jesus came to heal us may not be a template that he intends for everyone, and though the true intimacy of his touch is beyond words and not something which we ourselves can convey, it is the possibility of this intimacy to which we can point. We can't reduce it to a formula or a definition. But we can point to it. We can share the wonder of it. 

We should remember too that, when we receive the Eucharist, we are experiencing this same touch that healed the leper, that cast out demons, that healed the hemorrhaging woman. We don't always experience anything spectacular when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. But if we receive him with eyes of faith, with expectation of an overflow of grace, there is no limit to what he might do.

He who eats it with faith, eats Fire and Spirit

- Ecclesia de Eucharistia 17 - Saint John Paul the Great

Andy Park - In The Secret