Tag Archives: God

The Easter Tree

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san clemente copy

The Cross  flowers at Easter time. There’s a flowering cross brimming with life  in the great apse of the church of San Clemente in Rome. Its branches swirl with the gifts God gives. It brings life, not death. Humanity is there, signified in Mary and the disciple John. We are there in the doves resting on it. Creation itself is there, drawing new life from it. The hand of God makes it so.

The sacraments offered in this sacred place bring life-giving graces to us.

An early preacher Theodore the Studite  praises the mystery of the cross:.

“How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

“This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree.

“What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!”

San Clemente, Rome

See Children’s Prayers here for a children’s version of the Easter Tree.

Saturday, 4th Week of Lent

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Lent 1


Readings
The lenten readings from John’s gospel for today and the next week of lent (chapters 7-10) describe Jesus‘ activity in Jerusalem during the eight- day Feast of Tabernacles, the popular autumn feast that brought many visitors to Jerusalem to celebrate the grape harvest and pray for rain. Water was brought into the temple courtyard from the Pool of Siloam and lighted torches were ablaze during the celebration.

Arriving late for the feast, Jesus taught in the temple area and revealed who he was, using the images of water and light. His cure of the blind man, in the 9th chapter of the gospel, is a sign of the light he bestows on a blind world.

Yet, some don’t see. Those hearing him are divided; some want him arrested, some believe, some question his Galilean origins and his upbringing as a carpenter’s son. How can he be the Messiah, a teacher in Israel?

From Nazareth to Jerusalem Jesus met unbelief. Why didn’t all see and believe? People doubted him then; they  doubt him now. Even his disciples are slow to believe. “How slow you are to believe…”Jesus says to the two on the way to Emmaus.

But the Word continues to teach in our world and instruct disciples weak in faith. His mission is not ended. That’s why it’s important to stress the great miracles that dominate John’s narrative: the meeting with the Samaritan woman that brings her to faith, the cure of the paralyzed man at Bethseda, the cure of the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus. They tell us of God’s pursuit of humanity, despite its blindness and deafness.

Saints like Paul of the Cross knew that. However fierce the opposition, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, brings light and life.

“All the works of God are now attacked by the devil, now by human beings. I now have both at once. Don’t be dismayed when contrary factions and rejections arise, no matter how great they are. Be encouraged by the example of St. Teresa who said that the more she was involved in enterprises for the glory of God, the more difficulties she experienced.” (Letter 1180)

The Lord is my light and my salvation,
Whom should I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life,
Of whom should I be afraid?

 Kingdom of “The Least”

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     Lent is a time for us to face up to how very much our God loves us. This is who our God is. Because of this, Lent is also our time to face up to to the hurt that we give to Our Beloved One whenever we behave in unloving ways. We can begin by looking at the commandments that our Church teaches us and examining our conscience.  In the Gospel for Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent our Lord warns us: “Whoever breaks the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Ouch! I look at the Ten and see how I fall short in fulfilling them, and at times provide a bad example for those around me. I am certainly one of “the least”. Sadly I am not alone. So many of us are in the same boat. And yet Our Lord still includes us in His Kingdom. The least, but still there. Like Fr Victor says, Our Lord has not given up on us!

     How can we help God get us out of that hole? Perhaps we can begin by approaching our Creator with humility and trust. In the powerful Gospel for Saturday of this same week, we hear Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The attitude of the Pharisee immediately places him next to me as one “of the least!” He has been trying to be “good”, and he feels joy and comfort in the presence of God, especially in his House. This is good. So many of us Christians walk into Mass full of hope and gratitude. But oh! That cardinal sin of pride, the failure to love our neighbor as ourselves!

     The tax collector seems to have the better attitude, full of shame, contrite, totally surrendering to the judgement of God. He knows that he certainly is one of the “least”. I’ve always said, “I want to be like him,” in all prayer, specially during the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Today, though, Fr Victor pointed out that this tax collector so far has failed to know how incredibly great is the Love God has for him. This is what our Lord Jesus came to teach. At least the tax collector has a glimmer of belief in the mercy of God. It’s a good beginning, and God exalts him for that. 

     Sometimes at Mass I feel like the Pharisee, satisfied with my efforts and full of gratitude for God’s Love and presence in my life. The Celebration of the Mass seems like such a joyful time and I wonder why so many fellow worshippers have such long faces! I should know better, because there are times when I walk into Church with that same unhappy mood! All I know is that I am still one of “the least” and I’m not proud of it. I wonder how far down the list I am? Does God keep lists? Who is the least of the least?

     I was sitting at the Monastery Chapel thinking about these things and my eyes suddenly looked up to the crucifix up front, and I began to cry. My beloved God chose to become the Least of the least upon that Cross, taking on the pride of the Pharisee, the corruption of the tax collector, my unworthiness, the misery of of those with long faces at Church, and the viciousness and brutality of His time and mine.

     Why would God do this? The answer to his mystery is beyond all comprehension. But I do know that the main reason is the incredible love that God has for me and every person on Earth, no matter how far down the list we are.

     May the Passion of Jesus Christ be always in our hearts.

Orlando Hernandez

Hold Unwaveringly to our Confession

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Commentators find it hard to establish the time and place the Epistle to the Hebrews was written. Most say it was written for early Jewish Christians trying to figure out their relationship to the religion of their ancestors.

I wonder if Jewish Christians in Rome would be especially among those for whom the letter was written. Rome is one of the places commentators say it might have originated..

The Jewish Christian community of Rome was a large community attached to Jerusalem and the temple, even Jews who had embraced a new faith. They would have been onlookers as Titus marched triumphantly into the Rome carting the spoils and slaves in chains from the Jewish wars and the destruction of the temple in 70. Afterwards, they would have watched the Colosseum bring built with the gold from the temple. Less than 5 years before some were singled out as renegade Jews and blamed by Nero for the great fired that had destroyed the city.

As we read the words from the Epistle to the Hebrews today I wonder if we hear words written especially for them. 

“Let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy.We must consider how to rouse one another to love and good works. We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  Hebrews  10:19-25   

It would be a hard time then for Jewish Christians in Rome “to put your light on a lamp stand,” as we read in today’s gospel . It was a time for laying low, “staying away from our assembly.”

Faith has to be professed in season and out of season. It’s never to be hid under a bushel. 

Lectionary and Saints

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Our daily liturgy gives us scriptures to read and saints from our calendar to celebrate. This week in our lectionary we continue to read from the Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews.  Today we remember Fabian, an early pope and  martyr, and Sebastian, a soldier saint and martyr.  Tomorrow we have Agnes, a young girl and early martyr. 

Our lectionary readings are not chosen haphazardly. After the feast of the Baptism we began reading each day from the Gospel of Mark, the first of the gospels to be written, an appropriate reading for following Jesus as he begins his ministry in Galilee. 

Commentators recommend we keep in mind who a scripture was written for as we read it. Many recent scholars agree with tradition that Mark’s Gospel was written for Christians in Rome who were shocked by the persecution of Nero around the year 34 and were struggling to understand where God was in that unjust experience.

The mystery of the suffering of Jesus and his suffering church is especially hard to understand. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” is the final cry of Jesus from the cross in Mark’s Gospel. His enemies, many ordinary people of his time, even his own followers found him hard to understand, Mark emphasizes.  The early Roman church heard this message from Mark, a disciple of Peter.

The Letter to the Hebrews, thought to be written in Rome after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70, also had the Roman church in mind. Composed mainly of Jewish- Christians that church had strong ties to Jerusalem and the temple. Less than 30 years after they suffered under Nero they watched the Roman general Titus bringing spoils from the Jerusalem temple into their city.   

The world they knew was shaken.  The Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews were meant to strengthen them in their faith.

The saints have that same mission. The three martyrs we remember this week are examples of the different circumstances in which persecution took place in the early church. Fabian was put to death at the beginning of the Decian persecution (250) because he was a church leader. The Roman strategy was to kill church leaders and their followers would scatter. 

Sebastian was a soldier saint martyred in the Diocletian persecution. From what we know, Christians were highly regard by the emperor when he first came to power, but then he turned against them,  especially the officer class. Like Sebastian, many of them holding influential positions in the empire were put to death for their supposed disloyalty. 

Agnes was not killed in a general persecution like Fabian and Sebastian.  She died because Christians were legally vulnerable in the centuries before Constantine. The Romans were suspicious of them. Agnes a victim of a powerful Roman man who used the Roman judicial system to punish a young Christian girl who  would not let him have his way with her. 

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Where do we hear God’s voice today?

Certainly God speaks in the signs of the times. But God also speaks in the scriptures we read and the saints we celebrate. The liturgy is God’s voice, a voice for today.     

Evening Prayer and the Book of Revelation

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The Book of Revelation has an important place in the church’s evening prayer. A selection occurs every  Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evening through the four week cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours.  It’s the last prayer of the evening. 

The selections are not grim passages about battles fought against Babylon and the enemies of God, but rather invitations to share in the heavenly triumph of Christ. They bring us before God’s throne and the Lamb who was slain to offer praise with all the saints who have gone before us. From this world, which can be so small and constricted, so frightening and dangerous, where we can become so self-absorbed and unsure, we come into the welcoming presence of God, who calms the fear of darkness and death.

O Lord our God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power. For you have created all things; by your will they came to be and were made. Worthy are you, O Lord to receive the scroll and break open its seals. For you were slain; with your blood you purchased for God men of every race and tongue, of every people and nation. You made them a kingdom, and priests to serve our God, and they shall reign on earth. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory and praise. Glory to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. ( Tuesday Evening)

 At the end of the day, we visit heaven; we go into the night listening to the songs sung there.  Prayers from Revelation offer the promise of future life.  

Citizens of Heaven

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It’s good to be reminded in these days following our contentious election on Tuesday that “ our citizenship is in heaven.” Paul tells that to the Philippians in today’s reading, but we should hear it too. 

But our citizenship is in heaven, 
and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified Body 
by the power that enables him also 
to bring all things into subjection to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters,
whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, 
in this way stand firm in the Lord, beloved.  

We ‘re citizens of heaven; we belong somewhere else. We’re temporary, not permanent  residents here. In that place “ the Lord Jesus Christ will change our lowly bodies to conform to his glorified Body by the power that enables him also to bring all things  into subjection to himself.” (Philippians 3:17-4:1)

The responsorial psalm today tells us that even now we’re standing within the gates of a heavenly Jerusalem, the destiny of the tribes of the Lord. Our destiny.

St. Augustine wrote “The City of God” as barbarian armies sacked Rome and were invading North Africa. The world is coming to an end, some were saying, and they blamed Christianity for the critical times. But God is at work beyond human time and events, Augustine wrote. 

Go rejoicing to the city of God and the house of the Lord, we hear today. There is something beyond the politics of today at work. 

“Stand firm in the Lord, beloved. “ 

Letter to the Ephesians

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It’s so easy to see a world out of control these days, and to believe that nothing can be done. We’re going nowhere. 

The Letter to the Ephesians, read this week at Mass, says that’s not so. It’s written, not just to the  church at Ephesus, but to other churches as well, commentators says. So it’s written to our church too.

A great plan of God is at work from “the foundation of the world,” a plan for the “fulness of time,” a “mystery made known to us” in Christ Jesus, our Lord. We have this “word of truth” this gospel of our salvation, from Jesus himself. The Spirit he promised is the “first installment of our inheritance.”“First installment,” That’s what we working with now, It may not seem like much but it gets us where we’re going.

It promises more than we think or expect. “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of [your] hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, (Ephesians 1)

Every Monday of the four week cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours we read Ephesians 1, 3-10 at evening prayer, a reminder to see the day, however small and confusing it may be, as part of the great unfolding plan of God in Christ, our Lord.

Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
to the holy ones who are in Ephesus
and faithful in Christ Jesus:
grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.

In Christ we have redemption by his Blood,
the forgiveness of transgressions,
in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.
In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us
the mystery of his will in accord with his favor
that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times,
to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.

Guardian Angels

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We usually associate Guardian Angels with children. In the gospel reading for the Feast of Guardian Angels, October 2, Jesus says we can’t get to heaven unless we become like little children whose “angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.”  (Matthew 18,1-5,10)

Artists, like the above, usually picture children with Guardian Angels, protecting and guiding them as they go on their way in a dangerous world.

Yet, the angels we read about  in the Bible are more than guardians of children; they’re signs of God’s guardianship of the whole world. They bring God’s message to Mary and Joseph and the prophets. They bring bread to Elijah in the desert and save Daniel in the lion’s den. Angels are part of God’s providential hand dealing with the world. They’re guardians and guides of nations, the human family and creation itself.  They’re everywhere instruments of God’s power and love and justice. 

This week’s news will be dominated, as usual,  by politics, wars, human tragedies and scandals, but here we are reading about guardian angels, who will never make the news of the day, yet are powerfully present in our world.  However smart or independent or grown-up we think are, God knows we’re still little children. We never outgrow God’s guidance and care: we have “loyal, prudent, powerful protectors and guides. They  keep us so our ways cannot be overpowered or led astray.” So that’s us in the picture above.

I think of the “principle of subsidiarity” on the feastday of the Guardian Angels. God spreads his  power around. I also remember that sometime ago I nearly hit a truck ahead of me but something suddenly stopped me. “Thanks.”

O God,
in your infinite providence you deign to send your holy angels to be our guardians. Grant to us who pray to you
that we may be defended by them in this life
and rejoice with them in the next.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

Lonely Prophets: Elijah

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Elijah


The powerful sculpture of the Prophet Elijah with sword in hand stands on Mount Carmel in northern Israel, where he defeated the false prophets of Ahab –today’s reading, (1 Kings 18:20-39) We will be reading about him this week.

I must confess I like better his picture below where Elijah is huddled in his cloak facing death while a raven behind him offers God’s food. He’s a prophet on a lonely journey. Yes, the powerful prophet forbade the rain to fall and raised the dead, but according to the Book of Kings he spent most of his time on the run, hiding in caves and wadis, depending on someone like a poor widow for food and shelter. He had no support from other religious or political leaders. He was a lonely prophet.

The compilers of our lectionary knew what they were doing when they pared his story with the readings from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, also read this week. Some of Jesus’ listeners saw him as Elijah returned. He too had little support from the religious and political leaders of his day.

The Passionist community celebrates today Blessed Lorenzo Salvi, a Passionist priest who lived at the time of the Napoleonic Suppression of the church in 18th century Europe, when most of the religious communities in Italy where disbanded and their places taken over by the government. Lorenzo took part in rebuilding the church in Rome by his constant preaching. I think of him as a lonely prophet and I also see him as an example for the Passionists today. We have a role in rebuilding our church. You can read the story of Lorenzo Salvi here.

Elijah, the lonely prophet, makes me also think of a man who visited us from China about 40 years ago. He had been a seminarian in our seminary in China in the late 1940’s when the communists came to power and began the Cultural Revolution. John was sent for three years to a hard labor camp for “reeducation” because he was a Christian. But when they learned he knew English, government officials made him an English teacher in a Chinese high school.

I asked John what he taught. English literature, he told me. He taught Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth” because the Chinese loved Pearl Buck. He also taught bible stories, particularly the Old Testament stories about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and Elijah confronting the evil king Ahab and his wife Jezebel.

Bible stories I asked? Didn’t the officials question him? You can’t understand English literature without knowing the stories of the bible, he told them.

Whenever I hear the story of the lonely prophet Elijah in a country completely controlled by a powerful regime, yet still faithfully proclaiming the truth, I think of John. I also think of Lorenzo Salvi. Our society, held strongly now in the grip of a deaf secularism, needs lonely prophets to speak.