Monthly Archives: March 2011

Reflecting on John 4: 5-15, 19b-26, 39a,40-42

One Sunday three decades ago I was distraught over the collapse of the strong parish community I had enjoyed for over a decade.  A new pastor had come in, and a better preacher had been installed in the parish down the road.  Within a few months the vibrant, warm, packed-to-the-gills Sunday Masses had deteriorated, and most of the friends with whom I shared Sunday had moved to the other parish.  It was so painful.

This particular Sunday I stopped by to visit a friend.  He did then, and still does to this day, spend the early morning hours in prayer with the Scriptures.  We talked for awhile about the dwindling numbers and the lackluster preaching, and then we fell silent for a few minutes.

What are you reading today? He looked down at the Bible on the table, open to the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, and read the Samaritan woman’s challenge to Jesus:   Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you people say the place to worship is Jerusalem.

Huh.  So questions about who’s got the best parish have been around at least since the day Jesus went out of his way to find that heartbroken woman, in the heat of the day, at a well that her great ancestor Jacob had dug.  He invited her into friendship with himself, and she left everything behind to tell the world about him.  Now that’s true worship, in Spirit and in truth.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Are there ways that you can build up your parish and the worshipping community?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Genesis 12:1-4a

All we ask you, God, is to speak as clearly to us as you did to Abram.  Tell us to get up and wander to a new land.  We’ll pack today.   Send us down to Egypt during a famine and we’ll book our flight.  Show up at our door with two angels at your side and we’ll rush to make a huge meal for you.  Just speak to us, God.  We’re so confused.

I will make of you a great nation

How does one discern the will of God?  God speaks to us through our own history, our memory, our understanding.   St. Ignatius of Loyola counsels us to notice what gives us peace, what gives us energy, what makes us unhappy, or burdened with guilt.  To paraphrase the old physical therapist joke, Does it hurt when you are cynical, or selfish, or lazy?  Then stop doing that.

Does it feel good when you end a conversation that is sliding into gossip and meanness?  Do that some more.  Does your spirit rejoice when you are the first to apologize, or to reach out for reconciliation?  I suspect you have wandered into the very heart of God.

Like Abraham and Sarah, we sojourn in a land that God unveils to us throughout our lives.  It’s a land marked by mistakes and bitter regrets, but shot through with grace and gradual healing.  Pay attention to what makes you truly happy, truly peaceful.  Abraham, at 75, lived one hundred more years after he discerned God’s call.  Let’s all keep listening.

At what times do you feel the most connected with God?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

What a sneaky snake that serpent was.  He made his appearance in the Garden (who let him in to begin with?) and right away started lying.  That’s the thing about enemies. They take a lie and find a way to re-word it so it sounds like the truth.  Maybe they know we prefer the lie to begin with.

When the snake first encountered Eve he framed his question/lie masterfully:  What?  God told you you couldn’t eat from any of the trees in the Garden?  But Eve corrected the Enemy:  No, we can eat from all the trees except the one in the middle. If we eat from that we will die.

Now here is something you’ll never hear from a liar:  You caught me.  I was trying to stir up some drama, but you knew the truth and you knew that I wasn’t relating it correctly and you nailed me.  Sorry.  I’ll sliver away under my rock and never bother you again.

But no.  The serpent turned up the heat by telling a greater lie, which fell on Eve’s receptive ears:  You poor thing!  You certainly won’t die! Don’t you realize that if you eat from this tree you’ll be as wise as gods?  You are the victim here and I am just outraged for you.

A million years later the Tempter tried the same lies on Jesus.  But the new Adam rejected Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises.  And at the end of these forty days we will gather at the Easter Font, renew our baptismal promises, and reject the Liar once again.

What lies do you resolve to reject this Lent?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Deuteronomy 11:18, 26-28, 32 Matthew 7:21-27

Bind the Word in your heart and your head

Talk about taking things literally.  Moses told the people to hold so fast to the word of God that it would be bound at their wrists and on their foreheads, and still today the Orthodox Jewish man prepares for prayer by binding actual little boxes at his wrist and forehead, with tiny scrolls from the book of Deuteronomy inside them.   These phylacteries have served as prayer companions—Catholics would call them sacramentals—since at least the time of Christ (Mt. 23:5).   They signify that the wearer has taken the Word of God into his heart and soul.

What would it be like if we Catholics wore our faith on our sleeves like that?  Of course there are a few outward signs of our inward faith.    We place a crèche on the lawn during the Christmas season and wear ashes on our foreheads at the start of Lent.

These are signs to the outside world (and reminders to ourselves) that we are indelibly marked by Christ.  But my friend Vincente asked me a great question the other day: why don’t we Catholics make more of a mark on the culture than we do?  Why do we absorb the culture so much and correct the culture so little?

Why are we proud that, after a lifetime of Catholic formation, we can go out into the workplace and blend in so well that no one would ever guess that we are Catholic?

How unsettling to wonder if, after a lifetime of lukewarm “face time” in church, we will come before Christ at our deaths and he will say I never knew you.

What do you think is an authentic outward sign of your faith?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).