30 June 2023 - breaking barriers

Today's Readings

(Audio)

And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,

“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”

We can appreciate the courage of this socially ostracized leper. He saw something in Jesus that made him draw near to him even though he was forbidden by law to do so. No doubt the great crowds that followed Jesus weren't thrilled by this. We can assume that, as was often the case, they were an obstacle to the one that was trying to draw near to Jesus. The leper might have worried that Jesus himself would have found him just as unappealing and even disgusting as many in the crowd probably did. But there was something about Jesus that made him take the risk.

He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,

“I will do it. Be made clean.”

His leprosy was cleansed immediately.

Jesus was different from everyone around him. They all stood at risk of the contagion of the leprosy and the unclean condition that would result. But life, healing, and purification were constantly flowing from Jesus. He was not contaminated by the touch of others, but was the cause of health and wholeness to those whom he touched. Even, as the women with the hemorrhage believed, the touch of his robe was enough to completely cure conditions that had been intractable for years (see Mark 5:25-34)

His leprosy was cleansed immediately.

Jesus was better than any medicine. He didn't take any time to be effective but immediately caused the man to experience an absolute break with his previous condition of leprosy. The question for us, then, is what is the condition which we are meant to bring to Jesus for healing? What is keeping us as outsiders and preventing us from living a thriving and full life together with our brothers and sisters in Christ? These conditions often seem to us to be incurable, especially when they remain uncured for many years. But they are not a challenge for Jesus. All we need to do is bring ourselves to Jesus as the leper did. This may often mean pushing past various resistance, voices within and without telling us to stay back and to stand at a distance. But we are meant to have confidence when approaching Christ.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (see Hebrews 4:16).

One obstacle we face in our spiritual lives is trying to become the architect of our own paths. We try to prepare elaborately in advance rather than trusting that God himself has good works prepared for us in which he desires us to walk. We, like Abraham, get a hint of his plan and then are off and running with our own ideas about what will have to happen to bring it about. We do this because, like Abraham, we are impatient and don't entirely believe in the fact that to God all things are possible. But God is patient with us, as he was with Abraham, because he desires to bless us more than we desire it for ourselves. He doesn't even necessarily crush or thwart the plans we have created without him, sometimes blessing them as he did with Ishmael. But he does so in order that they may stop acting as distractions from what is in fact his plan for us. It is something better than we could ask or imagine. The only way to see it unfold is to wait on the Lord in faith.

I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her.

Him also will I bless; he shall give rise to nations,

and rulers of peoples shall issue from him.

Rend Collective - Boldly I Approach

29 June 2023 - foundations of faith

Today's Readings - Mass during the day

(Audio)

Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

The response to this question has only seemed to degrade in recent years. One used to get the responses such as that the Son of Man was a good moral teacher or at least an admirable myth. But these days the answers have become more hostile. In the minds of many he is not allied with 'good guys' like John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or a prophet. Instead he is often but one of the 'bad guys', champion of the patriarchy and of other old-fashioned ideas. Of course the real Jesus resists any overly simplistic answers. The real Jesus does not fit neatly into any preexisting categories, good or bad. And the truth of his identity cannot be crowd-sourced. One can't rely on Wikipedia or Snopes or any other merely human source of truth to determine if the claims about him are true. This is because no one stands in relation to him as an unbiased objective observer. One can't answer the question of his identity in the abstract as though it held no concern or ramifications for one's own life. Instead one must answer the question of who Jesus is as a question whose answer will determine everything about one's own life henceforth. 

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

Once the responsibility to answer this question is taken away from the crowds we realize our own lack of qualification to respond. The crowds are no experts, but at least they have an accumulation of assorted facts and assertions. But suddenly we find ourselves here alone before God without any particular expertise, little more than uneducated fishermen really, and yet still called to answer. But it is precisely in this place of humility that we stand the best chance of being open to the answer.

Simon Peter said in reply,

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

The heavenly Father wants to reveal Jesus to us as well. This is in fact the only way to come to living faith in him.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (see John 6:44).

The Father and the Son before desired to be known and loved by us so we need not fear that they will withhold this revelation from us. The fact that we are unprepared and don't know how to receive it will not ultimately be a barrier to them if we simply remain open to their work in our hearts.

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.

Although the Church itself cannot make our individual acts of faith for us she nevertheless provides the safe pastures for those who come to faith, against which the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail. We come to believe by supernatural grace, but the content of the faith that we accept as a consequence of that act is safeguarded in the Church herself, by the charism given to Saint Peter and his successors in particular.

I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Thank God that none of this depends on us! The Father makes the Son known to us. And we respond to the Son by accepting the fullness of what he has committed safely to Scripture and Tradition, safeguarded by the bishops, and in particular, the one who sits on the Chair of Peter. It is this confidence, that God himself provides and does what is necessary for our salvation, that can make us as confident as Paul:

The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat

and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.

To him be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

We can come to learn, like Peter, that our God is able, provided we do not abandon him, to deliver us from every spiritual prison in which we find ourselves.

Now I know for certain

that the Lord sent his angel

and rescued me from the hand of Herod

and from all that the Jewish people had been expecting.

Graham Kendrick - We Believe

28 June 2023 - false prophets in disguise

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing,

but underneath are ravenous wolves.

There are teachers whose words are smooth, whose character seems to be magnetic. It feels altogether natural to trust such a one. But it is entirely possible for the superficial appearance to mislead and conceal selfish motives.

By their fruits you will know them.

We are called to look a little deeper than the surface to see whether we are dealing with good trees or rather with thornbushes and thistles. This means that we can't simply base our assessment on whether the person in question has an appealing personality. It may well be that many false teachers put on a good show. And there may be some genuine saints who come across to others as porcupines, as was said about Saint Jerome. Indeed such harsh personalities can actually in some ways be an asset when truth is in dispute. 

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,

nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.

Saint Jerome bore good fruit for the kingdom in spite of how he came across to others. Arius bore rotten fruit in spite of how charismatic a character he may have been. When we are trying to make a determination about what sort of tree a teacher is the primary fruit on which they must be judged is the fruit the bear for the Kingdom. How do they stand with what Jesus himself taught, as understood by the Church in her living Tradition? Is it bringing about renewal in that which is most essential? Or does it seem rather to be a meandering distraction from that teaching or a watering down of it?

Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down

and thrown into the fire.

Kingdom fruit can be difficult to assess because the results are not often immediate. It grows under the soil before it pierces through to the sunlight. And the success of such fruit is not guaranteed. This is why it is so essential to us to not only use our intellect and to make our best guess but also, before, during, and after using our minds, relying on the gift of discernment that the Holy Spirit gives.

On the one hand, the threat is real:

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness (see Second Corinthians 11:14-15).

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect (see Matthew 24:24).

On the other, the fundamental test is very simple. It is one which Arius failed but Jermoe passed:

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit (see First Corinthians 12:3).

We need not uproot the trees in an effort to make our determination about them. We are not called to know the unknowable, but to entrust our best judgment to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If we trust more in God's promise to us than in our own abilities we can have peace in him.

Abram put his faith in the LORD,

who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.

Peter Furler - Psalm 23

27 June 2023 - the gift that can transform us

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine

Dogs are not properly equipped to appreciate what is holy. Swine will profane pearls as surely as anything else tossed into their pens. This is not the fault of the creatures for they simply don't have the context and understanding that would allow them to treat such things well. Only those already committed to Christianity will understand the value of specifically Christian treasures like the Sacraments. It is therefore incumbent on us to ensure that they are treated with the proper respect, and not handled by those who cannot yet put them to good use. Having said that, we do hope that even such dogs and pigs come to learn the value of the pearl of great price and thereby undergo a transformation into humans capable of appreciating and receiving holy things. This is more or less the transformation that was evident in the Canaanite woman that allowed her to receive the bread from the masters' table (see Matthew 15:21-28).

We may have some part to play in protecting the holy things of God when we invite friends to mass and explain why it would not be fitting for them to receive the Eucharist. Well and good. Let us do so. But let us worry less about others and more about ourselves. For if the Canaanite woman can cease to be a puppy and become fully human so too do we risk devolving into subhuman creatures that fail to value the holy things at the core of our faith. That said, our call is not to avoid the Eucharist unless we are in a state of mortal sin. But we should nevertheless try to receive with active and conscious appreciation of the limitless value it possesses. Obviously we will never fully grasp the infinite value of this gift in particular. But we can at least use our intellect and will aided by grace to ensure we do our best not to take it for granted.

lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.

It is as though when holy things are not appreciated the can provoke us by not appeasing us in the way we had hoped. It therefore is not a neutral and indifferent situation when pigs and dogs receive them. It is a situation which puts us and even they themselves at risk.

Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.

This is the Law and the Prophets.

We would wish that others would share holy things with us, but we ought to wish only that they would do so only when we were equipped to appreciate it, and that they themselves would help us learn this value. This, then, is what we should will for others. This transformation into new creations in Christ, capable of valuing the holy things we are given, is a possibility for everyone. But we cannot begin with that which is the most interior and hidden. We must start with the basics so that faith can make the transformation a possible for each individual heart.

Enter through the narrow gate

The gate that leads to life is none other than Jesus himself. His is the only name given under heaven by which we can be saved. He himself is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. Every way that is not Jesus himself leads to destruction. But this is not to say that everyone on the narrow way consciously recognizes that they are on it. But again, we should wish and work that they might, in order that, together with us, they could partake of the holy things at the table of our master.

Dan Schutte - I Found The Treasure

26 June 2023 - judge not

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Stop judging, that you may not be judged.

Our perspective is too limited to be able to clearly and correctly judge others. Actions in the abstract are one thing. But human hearts are something else, something into which only God himself has access, and which only he can properly judge. Because we know, more or less, what is going on inside of us as individuals we are ready and eager to exonerate ourselves of all of our faults. We know all the factors that went in to our falls and have excuses ready at hand. But when we look at others we only see the faults, not the reasons, not the things going on in their hearts that only God himself can see.

For as you judge, so will you be judged

Do we act from a desire to see others condemned? Is this the motive behind our tendency to judge them? We know that to receive mercy from God we must be willing to become a people of mercy, people who prefer to show mercy to strict justice. When we see someone and are tempted to judge them let us instead measure out mercy. Let us acknowledge all of the many unseen factors that may have contributed to the act that may in fact justify it. And even if we can't see clear to immediately doing so let us at least realize that, compared to what is going on within our own hearts, what we see in others is probably only a splinter as compared to a wooden beam. 

and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

If we want strict justice leading toward condemnation we are free to take the approach to judging our neighbors. But if we ourselves want mercy and blessing than this should also be what we will for others. It is easy to will mercy for those who seem to us to be without fault. But when we see flaws manifest in others we tend to want to see them get what they deserve even all the while reserving mercy for ourselves. In cases like this we need to open ourselves to the mercy of God so that genuine mercy can flow through us to others. With the board still in our own eye we can do nothing but harm others even if we are trying on some level to help them. Fortunately, it is the Lord himself, the divine physician and the light of the world, who wants to heal us if we will give him leave to do so.

then you will see clearly

to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.

Ultimately within the mutual accountability that is meant to mark the life of disciples we are eventually called to help with the splinters in one another's eyes. But this is a stage of maturity that comes only after we outgrow our desire to delight in condemnation and the insecurity that makes us want to see the faults in others in order that we might ignore our own. How do we arrive at this place of mature discipleship? We begin by noticing when we are tempted to judge and instead measure out mercy. This mercy may seem hard to find, but the source of it is in the mercy we ourselves have first received from Jesus. Jesus certainly had much he could have said about all of us in condemnation if his motivation was strict justice. But he himself preferred mercy, and in doing so showed us how to do likewise.

I will make of you a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you

and curse those who curse you.

All the communities of the earth

shall find blessing in you.

The Church is meant to be the fulfillment of this promise to Abraham, meant to be the way in which all nations attain these promises. Yet if the Church herself only speaks in judgment and condemnation how will the world have any sense of this promise? We have become blinded by the board in our own eye, useless to address the splinters in those of others. We must learn to look to the world with an eye to showing mercy. Only then can all of our eyes be healed.

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,

upon those who hope for his kindness,

To deliver them from death

and preserve them in spite of famine.

Craig Musseau - Good To Me

25 June 2023 - fear no one

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Fear no one.

We are called to not allow fear to become an excuse that keeps us from following Jesus. The risk is that we allow fear to make us conceal the Gospel rather than helping to reveal it or letting it stay a secret when the time comes to make it known. It isn't so much that we are called to go and shout on city streets or proclaim from housetops as to have the willingness to do so, the boldness, and the readiness to speak.

And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;

In other countries where Christians boldly confront those who can kill the body and present them with the Gospel of peace we see that individuals can and do live out this call of Jesus to be fearless. But in our own protected slices of the first world where, thus far, our lives are not at risk, every little potential repercussion of the proclaiming the good news seems to paralyze us with fear. We fear not so much for our lives as for our feelings. And it is clear from this that our priorities are often precisely inverted from our Christian call. We are more interested in self-protection, in living from our ego felt need to defend ourselves against every fear, than in the Gospel call to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy

both soul and body in Gehenna.

The solution to our petty human fears is not simply to wish them away by sheer force of will. It is rather to properly internalize better priorities. The fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom, can supplant all our merely human fears. But this sort of fear is far different from our worldly fears. Although in the fear of the Lord the stakes are much higher, and the potential consequences more dire, it is nevertheless not the fear as of an abusive tyrant. It is rather the proper posture of awe and humility before a Father who loves us and wills our good. This is combined with a deep self-knowledge of our readiness to squander his great gifts and turn away from him. Our fear is proof against our weakness, proof that clings tenaciously to the love of the Father.

So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

We need not be afraid of the world, which can do us no lasting harm. And we need not fear as though we were not loved, because our creator himself has proven his love for us. We know our own ability to fail to respond to this love, which is why we cling to it, even desperately, to bring us safely home.

Everyone who acknowledges me before others

I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.

But whoever denies me before others,

I will deny before my heavenly Father.

The Christian call is not one without stakes. Jesus gave his life in order that we might be acknowledged before the Father, and in order that our names might be found in the book of life. But we have to actually demonstrate that this is what we ourselves desire by our willingness to affirm and speak about Jesus. Worldly fear will lead us to deny him, just as it once led Peter to do. But, just as he did for the Apostles at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit can inspire in us a new and higher fear of the Lord, a fear that does not leave us immobilized in darkness, but sends us out on a joyful missionary adventure.

Our minds often whisper along the same lines as what Jeremiah heard: "Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him!". And we often succumb to such threats rather than remembering (as holy fear would teach us) that the LORD is with us like a mighty champion. Yet even when we fail (and we almost certainly will not succeed every time) we know that God's own desire is not to see us condemned, that Jesus himself  longs to acknowledge us to his Father, and that they will do everything possible to restore us when we fall. However great is our brokenness God's mercy and his power to transform us is greater still.

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

how much more did the grace of God

and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ

overflow for the many.

Newsboys - Fearless

Newsboys - God Is Not A Secret

24 June 2023 - a voice in the wilderness

Today's Readings - Mass During the Day

(Audio)

When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child,

they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,

Elizabeth's neighbors and relatives had a plan for the child, a role planned out for him to play, in order to participate in the normal life of their community. But God had another plan, that he had communicated to Zechariah by the angel. This child was not a cog to be fit into whatever role seemed convenient to those around him. He was called from birth and named from his mother's womb. Rather than a cog or a mere component he was to be "a sharp-edged sword" concealed in the shadow of the arm of the Lord and a polished arrow hidden in his quiver. Fortunate, then, that although the relatives and neighbors of Elizabeth were all a little too eager for business as usual Elizabeth herself gave priority to what the Lord had asked.

but his mother said in reply,

“No. He will be called John.”

Sometimes the Lord does call us to act in ways that seem to be without precedent, that are just a little too different from the status quo for comfort. The question for us is: which name we will prefer? If we insist on the familiar we will ultimately only reap familiar results. But if we allow the Lord to do the naming, and to establish a new identity rooted and grounded in him, there is no telling what the results might be.

He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”

and all were amazed.

Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,

and he spoke blessing God.

We don't share exactly in the punishment of silence that Zechariah endured. But we too find ourselves unable to truly say something new, to communicate something that matters, or seemingly anything besides our same old tired scripted routines. Our Church needs to be able to speak to the world in order to be the light of the nations it is meant to be so that salvation may reach the ends of the earth. Yet in recent years she seems to be all but silent, to have forgotten how to speak to the weary a word that will rose them. She is meant to have a voice that is prophetic but seems to only converse in the common language of this world. This is not an issue to be blamed primarily on members of the hierarchy, on the Pope or those bishops of whom we disapprove. It is because we ourselves have become as complacent as the relatives and neighbors of Elizabeth that we face this challenge. And the way forward is clear, just as it was then. We must allow the Lord to speak something new in us. We must be willing to set aside old identities for the new name he has for each of us.

To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it (see Revelation 2:17).

How much does the Church in our own day need prophetic men and women who can address the world in the spirit of John the Baptist, who are bold enough to proclaim the Lord Jesus, but humble enough to insist: "I am not he"! Yet though this call is exciting it is not without challenges. Like John, we may reach a point about which we say, "I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength" but here too we know the solution. Even the greatest of prophetic gifts tends to falter when connection with Jesus is not maintained. When the challenges we face feel like a prison we can send the messengers of our prayers to reestablish in us the conviction about who Jesus is that, the same conviction that motivated John himself. 

And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me (se Luke 7:21-23).

John was the greatest of those prior to the Kingdom. But if the least of those within it are in any sense greater than he (see Matthew 11:11), imagine what could possible! A veritable army of children preparing the way for the Lord could arise and create a stir just as John did in that desert long ago. Surely then the Church would regain her voice and the world would attend eagerly to her words.

Robin Mark - Days Of Elijah

23 June 2023 - true treasure

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

Many of us find ourselves storing up treasures on earth almost as a matter of course without ever really consciously deciding to do so. It is as though the world around us whispers, 'accumulate and acquire', perhaps with an implicit 'or else' whispered as well. And when we look around us it seems so entirely normal to pursue this life in which our primary goal is to ensure that we have the resources to provide for pleasures and to avoid, not only pain, but inconvenience and discomfort. Isn't this what we are taught? We must go to good schools to get well paying jobs so that we can own fast cars and large houses. Our vacation photos must compete on Instagram after all. How is anyone else to even regard us as having had a summer vacation if there aren't pictures of our yacht? Clearly these are exaggerations that we don't really believe. But we do tend to imbibe something of the same sentiment at a lower level. We indulge because we forget there is anything else to do instead. 

Worldly treasures are fickle. Even we when get exactly what we want in the world it often fails to satisfy us. And that is to say nothing of all the times we want and are unable to obtain or when we don't want but are forced to endure. Jesus calls us to invest instead in a treasure that is subject to none of these vicissitudes.

But store up treasures in heaven,

where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

The point of Jesus is not that we may not have worldly possessions, but rather that we should not let them possess us. Treasure on earth is a terrible master for the human heart. But again, do we even know how to seek something other than this treasure? We are invited to see Jesus himself as our treasure, our true inheritance. When we recognize him as such we begin to understand how to take the appropriate steps to invest more deeply, steps such as those about which we recently read: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

"The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot" (see Psalm 16:5).

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints" (see Ephesians 1:18).

When we invest in Jesus we discover bread that does not leave us hungry and living water that does not leave us thirsty. Our hearts grow strong, finally feeding on that which was meant to sustain them all along. As a consequence we begin to see the world differently. Our eyes become like lamps helping us to recognize and cooperate with God's work in the world. When we invest in anything other than Jesus we invariably succumb to darkness of the eye because we stop looking outward and focus on satisfying our desires with the things of this world. How great indeed is such darkness.

If we have succumbed to an doomed investment strategy focused on worldly gain we are called to let Jesus open our eyes to where true treasure may be found. We are called to recognize all of the ways in which even the satisfaction of our worldly desires has failed to live up the promises it seems to make in our imaginations. Seeing this deceit can help us set our hearts instead on that which is true. Then everything else can be seen and used from the proper perspective, ordered to the proper end.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth (see Colossians 3:2).

It was only because Paul and the other Apostles knew where true treasure was found that the Church was able to survive all of the trials of her early years. It is in part because the Church has become comfortable and accommodated to this world that she no longer sparks the same wonder in those around her. We do however see brief pulses of light when people again remember the true treasure the Church possesses. The renewal that Saint Francis brought to the Church was just one such example. But such revivals are by no means consigned only to the past. We can participate in one here and now. The treasures available to us are too many to enumerate: the Holy Spirit and his gifts and fruits, the Eucharist and the other sacraments, the Holy Scriptures, a relationship with the Mother of God, the Saints, and much more. We don't have to go far to find this heavenly treasure. May it be this that fills our hearts.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,

and your faces may not blush with shame.

When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,

and from all his distress he saved him.

John Keating - God Alone

Songs In His Presence - You Are My Inheritance

22 June 2023 - a prayer for sons and daughters

Today's Readings

(Audio)

In praying, do not babble like the pagans,

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

As prayer becomes a part of our routine doesn't it become uncomfortably easy to slip into praying like the pagans? Don't we become overly concerned with whether or not prayer is working or if we are doing it with proper form, convinced, though perhaps subconsciously, that it is all about us? We forget that our Father knows what we need before we ask. We want to forget because knowing can be uncomfortable. It can make us unsure of whether or how to even proceed at all. Yet that the Father does know what we need does not mean he doesn't want to hear it from us. We are meant to come before him not in order to convince or persuade him but because we are confident that he himself wills good things for his children (see Matthew 7:11). These things can be ours for the asking if we learn the proper posture of faith, receptivity, and trust. 

Our Father who art in heaven

We are not praying to any anonymous deity, not an unconcerned and distant god, but rather the Lord of heaven and earth who has taught us to call him Father. We must disabuse ourselves of the idea that God stands in need of anything from us so that we can fully embrace his call to live as his own sons and daughters. When he does in fact invite us to work it is not in order to earn anything, but to share in his own work, and the delights he himself takes in it.

hallowed be thy name

May the name of God be set apart from ever merely human name and every earthly reality. We use a word to name God but that word cannot contain him in the way that other words might circumscribe created realities. However much we know about God, genuine though that knowledge might be, there is an ever greater amount that we do not know. Because he is hallowed, holy, and set apart from creation, there are no limits to his power to respond to our prayer. He is not in conflict with creation, not simply a powerful but limited part of the things that exist. He himself stands behind all things, sustaining them in existence. To hallow his name then is in part to remember how different it is from any other name that can be named in this age or the age to come (see Ephesians 1:21). Hallowing his name is in a sense inviting the purification of it in our minds of earthly limitations we mistakenly impose upon it.

thy Kingdom come,

thy will be done,

Jesus was entirely focused on the coming of the Kingdom and the will of the Father. But because we forget God is our Father and misunderstand that holiness of his name we tend to second guess his will and be unmotivated by his Kingdom. Yet Jesus sought these things because he perfectly understood that true fulfillment was to be found nowhere else. Only the coming of the Kingdom could fulfill the deepest aspirations of the human heart. Jesus himself demonstrated the goodness of the Kingdom as it began to take shape among his followers when he was present. The Kingdom was proven to be good because Jesus himself was the king. He was not a tyrant, but a servant, who proved his good will by going all the way to the cross. It was by this outpouring of selfless love that his reign was established. It is through the Church that this Kingdom now spreads in the world. But we also look forward to the day when the Kingdom will come in visible fullness and all things will be made new.

Give us this day our daily bread;

Let us be like Jesus whose food was to do the will of his Father and not like those in the exodus generation that grumbled in the desert because they became bored with the miraculous gift of manna. Let us learn to sate ourselves on what God himself desires, in his providence, to provide. As we encounter our human weakness and discover that we seem unable to satisfy ourselves in God alone let us not be ashamed to admit this to him, to surrender even this to him, trusting that he himself knows how to draw us ever more deeply into his own heart.

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us;

It is meant to be a year of jubilee, which means we must remit all debts so that there is no obstacle to anyone fully entering in and enjoying the celebration, really a wedding feast, the marriage of heaven and earth. How petty our unforgiveness seems against this cosmic perspective. Jesus, who forgave us while we were yet sinners, invites us to spread the message of forgiveness to all who still cling to old wounds and hatred.

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

We need the guidance of the Father because without it we do tend to wander almost headlong into temptation. When our will isn't surrendered to him we tend to seek idols to replace him or at least to set alongside him. But he himself desires to give us the supernatural guidance that can keep us safe even from the near occasions of sin. This is vital since we do have an enemy, Evil with a capital E, the devil. But this enemy is not an equally powerful opposite to God. He is merely a creature allowed to play a role for a time in order that a greater good may come. He is no match for our Father in heaven. But he is more than a match for any of us. Rather than fear because of our weakness we can take great confidence in the Father's ability to deliver us from evil.

Let us not seek other gospel as some in Corinth seem to have done. Let us not content ourselves with the empty show of pagan prayer. May we never be satisfied with idols or the bread of demons when the living God and the bread of angels are on offer to us. To embrace confidence in our Father might seem foolish in the eyes of the world, even as the world thought Paul was foolish. But, based on the track record of the world, we ought not to take this a serious challenge.

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

21 June 2023 - law of the gift

Farmhouse in Provence, 1888, Vincent van Gogh

Today's Readings

(Audio)

"Take care not to perform righteous deeds

in order that people may see them;

The concern is not so much that the deeds themselves not be seen as that our motivation for doing them not be tied up in the praise of others. We know that our motivations have crossed a line when our righteous deeds begin to become a performance done in order for others to see. In other words, they become theatrical, like the comical exaggerations of the Pharisees described by Jesus. We try to convince others and even ourselves that we are playing the role of properly religious individuals. The trouble, when we rely on others for affirmation, is that we close ourselves to the true reward of the only affirmation that will satisfy us, that of God himself.

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

We are content to be satisfied too easily by convincing ourselves that of our righteousness and by receiving the praise and adulation of others who notice that righteousness. But if we allow ourselves to be temporarily sated by the fickle rewards of this world we will not look to our heavenly Father for the reward that only he can give. Our chief reward from the Father is meant to be his unconditional approval, love, and affirmation. We do righteous deeds, not to earn this love, but to celebrate it. Our response, our righteous deeds, are ways to ensure we live in response to his gift, and dispose ourselves to fully receive the reward he desires to give.

Brothers and sisters, consider this:

whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,

and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

When we try to seize a reward for ourselves we find it increasing difficult to grasp, slipping through our fingers like water. The mysterious but verifiably true law of the spiritual life is that we can receive only in the measure that we give. Trying to fulfill our own desires is a recipe for mixed results at best. Instead, the more we can learn to give to others what we would wish for ourselves the more we will find ourselves open to greater blessings. For example, do we feel the desire for more affirmation and more love from others? Rather than trying to strategize a way to persuade others to give it we might first try showing more love and affirmation to others and see if it doesn't in the end redound back to us.

Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you,

so that in all things, always having all you need,

you may have an abundance for every good work.

It is God who provides the grace that allows us to act in righteousness, him who provides the seed we sow. Only he himself can be the reward who satisfies us in the end. Let us stop indulging in the theater of pretended self-sufficiency where we heroically earn all we desire. All that we have and all that we are is from God. Only surrendered back to him will it find fulfillment.

Sonicflood - I Want To Know You

20 June 2023 - our enemies?

Today's Readings

(Audio)

You have heard that it was said,

You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Humanly speaking, this old adage did seem to make sense. Loving ones enemies seemed like a recipe for strategic disaster. Wouldn't it open one up to further abuse and persecution? And anyway, didn't one's enemies implicitly indicate that they didn't  want his love by their hostility toward him? What can be more futile than loving someone who did not desire that love and who would only twist it as one more weapon against him? It's important to consider this from a human perspective first in order to truly understand the radical nature of the teaching of Jesus.

But I say to you, love your enemies

and pray for those who persecute you

We tend to take this command for granted, telling ourselves that we don't have any real enemies or persecutors. We give our tacit approval of this teaching from a distance by endorsing figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr but assuming it doesn't apply to us directly. But what if it does? What if our apparent lack of enemies has more to do with a blind spot on our part than a genuine absence? Is there a place out of sight and out of mind to which we relegate those who do not reciprocate our love? Obviously we do not want to pray that those who are hostile to goodness and justice succeed at their malformed desires. But we are meant to want something more and better for them than they even want for themselves, something to which we are not more deserving, but rather to which they are every bit as entitled as ourselves.

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.

The love of the Father that creates the conditions for life and growth is not predicated on perfection, even on goodness, or on being in perfect agreement with him. Rather he pours out his love on sinners in order to turn them into saints and on saints in order to bring them even closer to his heart. It is true that we often limit the amount of rain and sunlight we will allow the Father to send us, but that limitation is entirely on our side and not on his own.

It is the peacemakers who will be called children of God. We can see that the only way to be a true peacemaker is seeing a bigger picture than the immediate hostility of our opposition and embracing the command of Jesus to love our enemies. We love our enemies because we know that they can be friends of God, that they too are meant to be children of the one heavenly Father.

And if you greet your brothers only,

what is unusual about that?

Do not the pagans do the same?

We tend to gradually forget about those who don't reciprocate our love. If we say hello and receive no response often enough we will probably give it up. But Jesus is calling us to be able to love even if we don't receive immediate gratification. We are meant to will something greater for them than merely our own self-affirmation. Today let us take note of the blind spots in our minds and hearts that we have allowed to take shape because of our own woundedness. There may be many opportunities to love as the Father loves that we will miss unless we take a longer look at the ways in which our own love has been intentionally limited to which provides the most immediate rewards. Self-affirmation isn't inherently bad, but the tax collectors also love at this level. We are called to a higher standard because the love with which we love is not simply from ourselves, but the Holy Spirit himself helping us love like the Father.

I say this not by way of command,

but to test the genuineness of your love

by your concern for others.

We are called to a love that is freely given, not merely a love which we do to avoid punishment our attain an immediate reward. But this is more than a merely human love. We can only love in this way if we first receive it as a gift from our Lord Jesus. But he himself never ceases to offer it. All we need to do is to open ourselves to it.

For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that for your sake he became poor although he was rich,

so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Matt Maher - Bigger Table

19 June 2023 - non-violent communication

Today's Readings

(Audio)

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.

When someone strikes you on your right cheek,

turn the other one to him as well.

It would have been easy to assume that Jesus was using hyperbole to convey a much more palatable point about the problems of violence. But because Jesus himself demonstrated exactly what he meant by this as he himself lived it he did not leave his followers any ambiguity. Jesus himself offered no resistance when he was arrested, beaten, and led to the cross. When Peter attempted to respond with worldly resistance Jesus told him to put his sword as well. Jesus allowed himself to be struck, his tunic to be taken, and himself to be pressed into the service of the cross all the way to Golgotha. 

Yet Jesus did not always immediately give himself up to the violent will of his opponents. Until his hour arrived he continued to elude them and disappear from the midst of them even though they may have been ready to kill him then and there. And so we may ask what was special about Jesus hour that made it time to stop escaping and accept the violence heaped upon him. Two related factors may have been in play. The first was that it was an hour uniquely suited to expose the violence and sin that dominated in the world for what they were. The second was that it was an opportunity uniquely suited for Jesus to demonstrate his love. 

Jesus did not lose his life by accident, and his offering no resistance did not mean that he was not still fully in control of what he was doing. He was making his life a gift, an offering, a sacrifice to set his people free, and it was in this way that he allowed the violence of the world to crash down upon him. 

We are called to follow the example of Jesus and to give our lives in the way that makes the most of them as offerings for the sake of love. It is indeed the case that a quick martyr's death might be much easier than a prolonged life of humble, hidden, suffering love. But it isn't even about which is easier. It is more about to which we are called by God as the best way to make our lives demonstrations of his own love. The point of Jesus is that violence need not make us fear to follow him, or seem like it means that his plan his failed. For his plan can manifest all the more brightly in the midst of violence if that is his will. 

Give to the one who asks of you,

and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.

Our giving is to be unlimited in one sense, just as our willingness to endure violence must be. But in another sense this too must be strategic, giving in the way that most completely contributes to the building of the Kingdom. Rather than causing our own ruin and accomplishing nothing by quick and reckless gifts we are called to give in ways that are actually more difficult because they involve sustained relationships, and active concern for the genuine good of others. It is to be more ourselves that we give rather than our finite resources, as Jesus first lived his life for the sake of those to whom he came. 

We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful;

as unrecognized and yet acknowledged;

as dying and behold we live;

as chastised and yet not put to death;

The world doesn't know what to make of those who live the Sermon on the Mount. Such individuals seem to be lacking so much of what the world considers essential for success and happiness. And yet precisely by giving themselves to these worldly privations they receive an abundance of spiritual blessings that the world is unable to recognize.

as poor yet enriching many;

as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

We can't really enter into the call of Jesus the sort of  non-violent self-gift which he first demonstrated without the help of his grace. Only his "weapons of righteousness" can replace the weapons of worldly violence and make us victorious in this struggle. It is his Holy Spirit who himself equips us with these weapons: "purity, knowledge, patience, kindness," "unfeigned love", and "truthful speech". Against such gifts of the Holy Spirit there is no law. The only question is how best to use them. And this is a question the answer to which God himself delights to guide us.

Laura Hackett - I Put On Christ

18 June 2023 - his heart was moved with pity

Today's Readings

(Audio)

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them 

because they were troubled and abandoned,

like sheep without a shepherd.

Ah, but did the crowds themselves realize this, that what they were missing was a shepherd, that their deep discontent came from feelings of trouble and abandonment because they did not have that shepherd? The shepherd as a motif for the ruler was common enough, along with the idea that a good ruler would govern as though he was a shepherd deeply concerned with his sheep. But was the idea well established that the people had some natural correspondence to this reality in themselves, the need of sheep for a shepherd? We might easily imagine that they did not see themselves in this way from the fact that we ourselves are often resistant to being sheep in any sense, and as a consequence, opposed to handing over our lives to any shepherd, no matter how good he might be.

Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Jesus sent his disciples after sheep who knew from their history as a people what it was to have a good shepherd caring for them and how that contrasted with their current situation. This history had created a longing in the hearts of the people for a truly good shepherd, one promised by God himself, who would at last lead his sheep to green pastures. Yet even though this people had been prepared and was meant to desire Jesus they still were not immediately ready to see themselves as his sheep. They, like us, often seemed to prefer being lost, being troubled and abandoned, to ceding control of their lives to another. After all, they had been so frequently burned in the past, that trusting again seemed overly naïve. This was why part of the proclamation Jesus commanded was to prove the goodness of himself as shepherd, demonstrating that he was worthy of the complete trust of his sheep.

As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.

Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

Jesus had a heart of compassion for sheep who were lost, troubled, and abandoned. He desired them to come to know precisely the source of the alienation they felt so that they could come to him to find fulfillment. The sheep seemed to prefer to endure the harsh elements and all of the dangers of wandering alone and lost to conceding that they might have been made for a shepherd's care. And yet they were in fact the lost treasures of a shepherd's heart. Jesus did not begrudge the sheep their stubbornness. He did not leave them in their obstinacy. He did not wait for the sheep to come to him but instead proved his love for them.

But God proves his love for us

in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Now that we have finally allowed ourselves to be convinced of the love God has for us (see First John 4:16) and come under the care of our shepherd we can have an immense amount of trust in his protective care. We can trust so much that to the outside world it would seem foolish, can abandon ourselves completely into the hands of providence knowing that "how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life". The shepherd himself bled and died in order to justify his sheep. And now he lives forever to lead us and to bring us home. Our excuses for not trusting him ought to evaporate in the face of the demonstration of a love as great and as certain as this. We are now a part of the Lord's "special possession, dearer to me than all other people" and so we can join in the celebration of the psalmist:

Know that the LORD is God;

he made us, his we are;

his people, the flock he tends.

Stuart Townend - The Lord's My Shepherd

Marty Haugen - Shepherd Me, O God

17 June 2023 - lost and found

Today's Readings

(Audio)

After they had completed its days, as they were returning,

the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem,

but his parents did not know it.

We can take comfort, perhaps, in the fact that we are not the only ones who occasionally lose track of Jesus in our lives. Even the ever sinless Mary and Joseph the righteous man had made an oversight, and left the child Jesus in Jerusalem. At a very basic level we can learn from this that even being without sin is different from being without accidental errors or oversights. Maybe those parents to caught up in perfectionism can pause here and take a breath.

Thinking that he was in the caravan,

they journeyed for a day

and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,

but not finding him,

they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.

Yet it would be one thing to notice that Jesus was missing, it would be something else to not immediately begin to look for him. Yes, our lives are a hectic journey, a balance of many different relationships, and competing demands on our time. But Jesus is still the one who is meant to be of central importance to us. If we find ourselves without him we cannot be content to assume that he is somewhere close. We must seek him, for he desires to be sought. If we have let him wander because we have preferred to distract ourselves with sin and worldly delights we should realize how his absence is a privation of greater cost than any benefit we accrue from such pursuits. But perhaps he is absent not due to any culpable fault on our part but because, in his wisdom, he has chosen to momentarily hide himself in order that we can seek and find him in a new and deeper way.

After three days they found him in the temple,

sitting in the midst of the teachers,

listening to them and asking them questions,

and all who heard him were astounded

at his understanding and his answers.

Whatever the reason for the absence of Jesus, it can be for us a Paschal mystery in miniature, where the three days become a kind of dying and rising wherein we learn to more completely trust him, even when we can't sense him, that he is always about his Father's business and in his Father's house.

He went down with them and came to Nazareth,

and was obedient to them;

and his mother kept all these things in her heart. 

Even Mary was able to come to ever deeper understanding of her son, grew in her ability to love and to treasure him, and grew in her ability to respond to the challenges that life with him entailed. She did this, not by avoiding or attempting to forget the great anxiety that life with Jesus sometimes brought, but by allowing Jesus himself to provide a greater context for that anxiety. She treasured in her heart every experience through which her son led her, not getting stuck in the painful past, but coming allowing Jesus to lead her to an ever deeper understanding that the third day would in fact always and inexorably come.

The love of Christ impels us,

once we have come to the conviction that one died for all;

therefore, all have died.

We too are called to let this great love of Christ to convict and motivate us. It is this very love which leads us into the Paschal mystery of his absence and death, but precisely so we can let go of our limited fleshly ways of regarding him and others. We are meant to realize that all who are in Christ are new creations. They are not, as it were, among the caravan any longer, but now dwell in the house of the Father. Even the absence of the experience of the presence of Christ is only an invitation to seek him more and to enter ever more deeply into this unshakable truth.

We implore you on behalf of Christ,

be reconciled to God.

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.

Cory Asbury - The Father's House

16 June 2023 - behold this heart

Today's Readings

(Audio)

I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

for although you have hidden these things

from the wise and the learned

you have revealed them to little ones.

Jesus delights when we come to him like trusting children. In his own time those who did so became his disciples. They were a marked contrast with the wise and the learned, with Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, those professionally religious and purported wise and learned members of society. 

For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the learning of the learned I will set aside.

Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish? 

For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith (see First Corinthians 1:19-21).

The wisdom of this world was limited in its usefulness. Those who thought themselves wise relished the idea that their understanding gave them control and superiority over those whose understanding was less. But the wisdom of God entailed the surrender of control in faith, the willingness to let go being the final arbiter of ones own reality. The deeper one was steeped in the wisdom of God the less they would feel superior to others and the more they would become servants instead.

No one knows the Son except the Father,

and no one knows the Father except the Son

and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.

The wisdom of God is rooted in God's identity. The only way to get at that identity is to receive it as a revelation from Jesus. When we instead try to use the wisdom of this world to understand God what we see is only a false god made in our own image. Humans are wont to create gods of immense power, magnified versions of all that humans celebrate and fear on a grand scale. Our fallen tendencies cause our conceptions of the divine to be distorted and false.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am meek and humble of heart;

By contrast to the gods humans create is the heart of Jesus himself that we celebrate today. He is the word by whom the Father sustains in things, in whom we live, move and have our being. By definition the one who created and sustains all things has all power over that creation. Yet he is not a tyrant, and does not lord it over those he has made. He is not like a man that looks to what he has made to fulfill his own needs. But rather he looks to what he has made in order to see his creatures themselves fulfilled.

and you will find rest for yourselves.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.

Our God, Father, Son, and Spirit, revealed to us by Jesus is the God whose name is love. Everything he does is motivated by love, from choosing Israel, the smallest of all nations, to choosing us, not on any merit of our own. He reveals himself to us not to make us more wise and learned in the worldly sense, but rather so that we might fall more in love with him and thus become better able to love one another.

No one has ever seen God.

Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us,

and his love is brought to perfection in us.

As little children we allow ourselves to be embraced and chosen by God. We willingly share his easy and light yoke rather than seeking our own on our own. Because he first loved us we love in return, and "whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him".

Songs In His Presence - The House Of God