Reflecting on Acts 1: 1-11

Okay, Church. It’s time for our annual Pentecost novena. You may have already started yours last Thursday (on the official Ascension, which most of us now celebrate on the Sunday before Pentecost). Either way, now is the time for all of us to engage in a full-court press to pray for the needs of our families, our cities, our country and our world. Let’s start by praying for all of our mothers, living and dead.

Speaking of mothers, recall that Mary and the disciples kept the first Pentecost novena. They stayed in Jerusalem for the eight days between the Ascension and the day of Pentecost, praying for the descent of the Spirit. After that event, the strength to persevere in prayer was given to all of us. Each year provides more and more opportunities for us to partner with the Holy Spirit in renewing the face of the earth.

What are you storming heaven for during this novena? I had a pretty good list made up, all around our domestic problems of gun violence, advocacy for those with mental illness, and cures for all the diseases which break our hearts. I’ve recently become aware of a family of young girls who are fighting Batten Disease. Google that and count your blessings.  I was moving on to list the other diseases for which I’m praying for cures when I thought to google “world’s worst diseases.”  That’s a grim google search, but I recommend it on the off chance that your list is too short.

There are human rights abuses around the world that cry out for justice and relief. This is just a starter list. Grab a prayer partner and pound on heaven’s door. Pray for God’s kingdom, and for the grace to work toward making that kingdom come.

What will be the top three prayers in your Pentecost novena?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on I John 4: 7-10

Do you sometimes have to dig deep in order to love some of the “unlovables” in your life? It’s probably more the case that, at certain times, on certain days, any of us is pretty unlovable. That letter of John today gives us all the energy we need, though, to have graciousness and patience in situations that can be trying. It’s so easy.

Just reflect for the tiniest moment on all the ways God has loved you. When you are tempted to say something unkind, just think of the thousands of times when people were kinder to you than you deserved. When you want to avoid eye contact with that compulsively needy talker, remember the endless patience of those who loved you through your annoying adolescence.

Sometimes the very quickest touch-point for the love of God is to simply look out the window. Oh my gosh! Look what happened on your street overnight. Trees that were barren yesterday are suddenly bursting with green. Apple blossoms are painting the trees pink and white. Spring flowers are starting to pull up out of the earth, and all creation is groaning with the delight of new birth. Oh, yeah. God’s love for us is impossible to miss.

So, as John’s letter says, it’s not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us! St. Ignatius, in his Spiritual Exercises, advises us to pay attention. Look around! Remember! Breathe in the love of God which is all around you, in your sleeping spouse, your healthy kids, your restored health, your meaningful work. Find your particular gratitude, and that will be the strength that flows to help you love others. It’s easy.

What immediately comes to your mind when you remember God’s love for you?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on Acts 9: 26-31

My friend Joni used to have this plaque hanging over her fireplace: Lord, thank you for everything I know today. And forgive me for everything I thought I knew yesterday. I think of that wonderful message when I consider Saul, he of the inherited Roman citizenship and perfect Jewish pedigree, the Pharisee who was the son of a Pharisee, breathing fire as he self-righteously marched to Damascus in order to arrest any Christians living there.

Here’s a guy who knew who was right and who was wrong, who was in and who was out. No one was a fiercer persecutor of the infant Church than he. And yet, when a light flashed around him and struck him to the ground, he had the grace to ask, “Who are you?” He heard, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

And that was that. All of history tilted at the moment when Saul, the tri-lingual Jewish defender of Orthodoxy, the one person who was as comfortable in the big cities as in the backwater, unincorporated, lawless badlands of the far-flung Roman empire, asked Jesus for his identity. He spent the rest of his life, in synagogues and law courts, in Gentile marketplaces and desolate prisons, telling everyone he met about that identity. There are no records of the event, but we can feel sure that he was still preaching Jesus to his executioners as they leveled the sword against his head.

He risked it all so that we might know Jesus. Thank you, St. Paul. You’ve shown us how to admit that we sometimes get it wrong.

What example can you give of having the humility to admit that you were wrong?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on John 10:11-18

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  Don’t those magnificent words of Jesus sit well with your soul? I remember the anguished nights of my youth, praying for all those around the world who would die that night and go to hell because no one had ever told them about Jesus. Even as a ten-year-old I knew, in that deep, warm place where grace and truth hover in the heart, that God was greater than all that.

The Vatican II pastoral document Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World) gives words to our intuitions about who the sheep in Christ’s pasture might be:

We ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to everyone the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. (22)

In the sixth book of C.S. Lewis’ classic Christian allegory, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawntreader—such a beautiful book, my favorite of the seven―the odious, insufferable cousin Eustace has a terrifying encounter with a dragon, and is saved by a Lion. He immediately feels terrible about his past behavior, and asks his cousins Lucy and Edmond to forgive him, and to tell him more about this Lion (the Christ). Do you know him? asks Eustace.

Yes, says Edmond. I know him. But he knows me better. Ah. Beautiful. God is near to us, and knows us better than we can know God. There is, unfortunately, one caveat: God looks upon the lowly and supplies them. But the proud God knows from afar (Ps. 138:6).

What are you doing to make sure God doesn’t know you from afar?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on Luke 24: 35-48

How did I never notice before that the first two gospel accounts that we hear in the Sunday liturgies in Easter Season—Divine Mercy Sunday and today’s Third Sunday of Easter―both give an account of Jesus asking the disciples to touch his wounds? Last week’s section from John recounted that Thomas needed to touch the wounds of Jesus in order to truly believe that he was risen from the dead.  This week’s section from Luke tells of the appearance of Jesus to the Eleven, and how they, astonished, were invited by Jesus to touch his wounds.

“Touch me and see,” he said, “and then he showed them his hands and feet.”  Reading them together now, I feel such tenderness toward Jesus, the Crucified One.  Even now, risen and glorified, his humanness is apparent.  Is it possible that Jesus the Risen One is still so in love with our human nature that he wants his dear friends to share in the awfulness of his experience? Is it possible that he, like every human who has ever lived, needs his loved ones to touch his pain and truly understand what he suffered?

Like everything about Jesus, he stands our understanding of suffering on its head. Maybe it’s NOT a holy thing to keep our wounds covered so we don’t disturb people. Maybe the holier thing is to say, when we are beside ourselves, “Help me. I’m hurting. I just broke my arm.” And, of course, the much less socially correct cry, “Help me. I’m hurting. Someone just broke my heart.”

And the other thing Jesus taught that day? Our friends trust us even more when we are willing to show them our wounds.

What wounds that you’ve kept hidden need to be brought into the light of day?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on John 20: 19-31

If you struggle with the actual truth of the resurrection, consider two things. First, after the resurrection every one of the Twelve (excluding Judas) went out into the farthest corners of the known world, filled with the utter conviction that he had seen the Risen Lord. Every one knew exactly what would befall him, and every one chose to go anyway. Such was the faith of those who had watched Jesus die, and seen the empty tomb, and experienced the Divine Mercy. Resurrection faith changes us.

The second may be just as compelling. In the earliest Christian communities, those who owned property or houses would sell them, and the proceeds were distributed to each according to need. Think of that. These early Christians SO BELIEVED in the resurrection that they sold their belongings and shared all things in common, carefully taking care of those in need. Resurrection faith seeks nothing but to love.

If you observe women and men in religious communities you see this first-century faith. Imagine doing your job all week, and then putting your paycheck in a communal kitty. Each one takes from the kitty only what she needs, but of course some members need more than others do, and this is how you survive, every day for the rest of your life. Resurrection faith is stronger than death.

Maybe that’s why Thomas needed to place his hands in the wounds of Christ. He could already sense, in the joy and strength of those who had seen Him, that his life would be forever transformed if he believed. His very act of touching His wounds was his first-class ticket into the community of the martyred. Resurrection faith doesn’t care.

What experience of Divine Mercy have you had this year?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on John 20: 1-9

This might be the most uneasy Easter I’ve ever experienced. The weather is so weird. School shootings now occur at the rate of one a week. Worse, it seems like we, like the frog in the water, are adapting, adapting, adapting, until all of a sudden we are trapped in a boiling cauldron out of which there is no escape.

If there is an image that lifts me up right now it’s this: Mary Magdalene RAN to tell the others that Jesus was not in the tomb. Picture that. We don’t know how old she was. She could have been a teenager. I’ll bet she was.

We’ve all seen the images of teenagers running, running for their lives out of schools that are under siege. We’ve seen them filing out of hiding places, arms on the shoulders of the student ahead of them, with watchful, armed police searching for the shooter in their midst.

And, God help us, we’ve seen their terrified, grateful parents running towards them, arms outstretched to receive their babies, overjoyed that they were spared, overcome with grief for the parents who were not.

Those are our Good Friday images. But let this Easter image work in you. Mary Magdalene RAN from the tomb. She RAN to find Peter. She is still RUNNING.

This young woman, who stood bravely at the cross and was the first witness to the resurrection, is RUNNING as hard as she can in your direction, crying The tomb is empty! RUN with me! RUN to change the hearts of those who will not see Him! RUN to change the minds of those who will not speak for Him!

RUN, ye faithful ones. RUN.

Are you willing to RUN to proclaim the resurrection?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on Mark 14: 1-15:47

What did Jesus know, and when did he know it? That question can haunt us as we hear the Passion read, and as we meditate throughout this Holy Week. Did he always know that he would die?

He must have known by the time of the transfiguration at Tabor. When Moses and Elijah appeared in the cloud, they spoke with him. He must have known then that his life was coming to an end.

I’m sure he must have known by the night of the Last Supper. Judas must have been behaving oddly. Even some people in Jerusalem could have been whispering, loud enough for him to hear, that someone had betrayed him. When Jesus told the Twelve that the hour of his death was upon him, their behavior must have confirmed what his heart already knew.

The arrest followed, and the night spent in Caiaphas’ dungeon.  There was the sentence of death, the terrible scourging, and, finally, the cross. Mark records that his last were, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is the very worst part. Nothing is as terrible as our Jesus crying out in despair, asking why God has abandoned him.

And then it is complete. The ultimate passion―to have his Father’s face turned from him—is finally finished. If he had had the comfort and intimacy of the Father with him on the cross, it would not have been the cross.

There may be a time this year that in your greatest hour of darkness you cannot find Jesus. Remember, then, that Jesus knows what that loneliness is. You have been given a share in his cross.

So, likewise, in his resurrection.

What parts of the Passion resonate with an experience in your own life?

Kathy McGovern©2018

Reflecting on John 12: 20-33

Everybody clings to stuff. We cling to our mothers on the first day of kindergarten. We mark off our sacred chair, or crayon box, or the line of demarcation in our shared bedrooms. This is mine. You’re not allowed to touch this, or borrow that, or go beyond this point.

Winter makes its mark on us. We pull our coats tighter, and tie our scarves close to our necks. The wind howls, the bare trees stand as silent witness to death. The earth, cold as iron, closes up and offers no hint of the miracle going on just underneath.

The grain of wheat tries to cling too. Hidden in darkness and cold, it tries to hold on to its color and shape. The baby, safe and warm, clings to the womb. But oh, what wondrous life the Master Designer has encoded in us. The grain breaks open—painful death! The baby pushes out of the womb―terrifying! And then comes the Great Reveal: we were never meant to stay a grain of wheat, or a child in the womb.

Staying where we are just doesn’t fit the pattern that God set up in order for us to thrive. That grain of wheat won’t feed the world if it’s allowed to cling. If seeds don’t die, then birds and insects and animals and humans can’t live. If a baby remains in the womb, mother and child will die. The DNA God imprinted in us requires that we not hold on forever. God has greater plans.

We cling to this life because it’s all we know. And yet, season after season, God tells a different story. Keep your spring clothes handy. Resurrection is afoot.

What things in me have to die in order for me to live more fully?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Reflecting on John 3: 14-21

It’s hard to read those powerful words, those iconic words, those life-changing words of Jesus found early in John’s gospel, and not wonder how many tens of thousands of times the great Billy Graham led people down for an altar call after reading those very words to them.

We can imagine him, in his youth and in his graceful old age, proclaiming to the thousands gathered in the arena and another million watching on television, that God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth unto Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

I find myself slipping into the King James language for this famous text, partly because I’m imagining how it sounded coming from his eloquent tongue.

There are some theories as to why Catholics loved him so much and felt so comfortable with him. Certainly there was closeness there because of the urgency of the Gospel. He never wavered in his absolute love for Christ, and him crucified. Catholics understand the long view of history. We have been with Christ from the beginning of the Church, on that terrible Good Friday when, from the Cross, he gave his Mother to us, and us to his Mother. We understand about holding fast.

In season and out, Billy Graham held fast to Christ. He lived in the exact same culture that we do, but he never took his eyes off the prize, which he has now achieved through God’s grace: life on high with Christ Jesus.

In this era of the New Evangelization, this great lion of Christ showed us how to draw souls to heaven. What a welcome he must have received there last week.

In what ways are you helping to draw souls to heaven?

Kathy McGovern ©2018