Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Matthew 6: 19-23. The Treasures We Bring to Heaven.

4 Replies

In Matthew’s gospel today, Jesus speaks of treasures in heaven. Usually the treasures we think of are gold, silver, works of art, gems, degrees from school, signs of achievement. They’re the “treasures of earth” Jesus speaks of in the gospel. Thieves can steal them away; they can be eaten by moths and forgotten. They don’t last. (Matthew 6,19-23)

Other treasures are for heaven. St. Paul sees some of them in his trials for the gospel in his 2nd Letter to the Corinthians. God won’t forget his sufferings: the beatings, imprisonments, brushes with death, the long journeys over seas, rivers, and wildernesses where robbers waited. Paul lists dangers he faced, both from enemies and his own people. God wont forget any of them, down to his sleepless nights and bouts with the cold.

He ends his list with what might be the biggest treasure of them all; “the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led to sin, and I am not indignant?” He’s tried to be responsible everyday with the people around him, whether they’re the weak or the trying. That’s the lasting treasure God holds in heaven. (2 Corinthians 11,18 ff)

We might not be able to match Paul’s of missionary travails, but let’s keep Paul’s last important achievement in mind. If we do what we have to do each day as well as we can, if we are faithful to our daily duty, if we bear our daily cross, if we bear with the weak and the difficult, won’t that be our treasure?

God counts it so.

Before he was executed St. Thomas More. wrote to his daughter Meg:

 “ I trust only in God’s merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me till now and made me content to lose goods, land and life as well, rather than swear against my conscience.  I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and being overcome with fear. I shall remember how St. Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray for his help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning. “

Elijah On the Run

3 Replies

Ourreadings this week and next are from the Book of King are the story of Elijah, the prophet, and his interaction with Ahab the King of Israel and his notorious wife Jesebel.

Elijah is a powerful prophet, one of the greatest of the prophets. He raises people from the dead. He brings fire from heaven on his enemies. Yet he leaves no writings, which means we know him mainly from the life he leads.

According to the First Book of Kings, Elijah is on the run most of the time, fleeing from Ahab and his wife in pursuit. We follow him from water hole to water hole, hiding in mountain caves and isolated wadis in the desert, with scarcely enough to eat. Most of our readings these days are about a fleeing prophet.

It’s a difficult, humbling flight. A popular icon of Elijah pictures him hand to his head, wondering if he will make it, as a raven hovers behind him bringing bread for the day. He’s living through a desperate drought that the king and his enemies see him responsible for. He scrounges for food, even relying on a poor widow with almost nothing of her own.

The powerful prophet is helpless. He lives through a drought, which God alone can lift. He needs food, which God alone can give. He has to wait for God to act.

Yet Elijah learns from this experience. It trains him to see. From experience, the prophet learns to see what others may not see, and so he sees God’s redeeming presence in the far-off tiny cloud that promises rain and the whisper of a wind that says God is here.

In Jesus’ time, people were hoping for a Messiah. Elijah was one type of Messiah some hoped for. He’s closest to the kind of Messiah Jesus was.

Isn’t Elijah in the drought like Jesus in the mystery of his Incarnation and Passion? “He humbled himself, taking on the form of a slave.” That humbling led to death on a cross. He was a rejected prophet, yet God raised him up in power.

Following him into the mystery of his Incarnation and Passion do we also gain a wisdom to see grace in weakness and death? In the small whisper where God can be found?

Praying in Jesus Christ

4 Replies
Farewell Discourse of Jesus. Duccio

“I pray for them,” Jesus says in John’s gospel as he looks at his disciples in the supper room and also at us who are his own today. We’re so conscious how poorly we pray. We need to remember Jesus is praying for us and in us. 

Is it possible to speak to God, we ask ourselves? We’re so easily distracted, so weak in faith, so bound to life as it is. How can we approach God in prayer?

“Let the Son who lives in our hearts, be also on our lips,” St. Cyprian says in his commentary on the Our Father. Jesus joins our weak and stumbling prayers to his own. He prays in and for us and assures us we will be welcomed and heard.

“I pray for them,” Jesus said in the supper room. He prayed for his disciples there in the supper room. When they left they entered the Garden of Gethsemani where they fell asleep, forgetful of everything. A stone’s throw away, Jesus prayed. His prayer was not only for himself but for them as well.

“I pray for them,’ Jesus says in our liturgical prayers. We speak to God the Father “through Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.”

Whenever we pray, whether with others in public prayer or praying alone, he enters our prayer. “Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior gave us,” we say as we begin the Our Father at Mass.

Our confidence in prayer comes, not from our own wisdom, or holiness or faith, but from Jesus who says “I pray for them.”


The End is Only a Beginning

1 Reply

.
We begin reading the Farewell Discourse from John’s gospel along with the Acts of the Apostles this 4th week of Easter. Facing their loss of Jesus the disciples seem helpless as he says farewell. “I have a lot to say to you, but you cannot bear it now,” he says. The Lord recognizes their paralysis.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, on the other hand, Paul and his companions are not helpless at all. They’ boldly make their way to places that may not seem impressive to us now, but were impressive places then: Pisidian Antioch, Philippi, Athens, Corinth. Important Roman colonies, strategic cities on the Roman grid, steps on the road to Rome itself. Athens, of course, was a key intellectual center of the empire, though maybe a little down-trodden when Paul got there.

Paul welcomed people into his growing ministry. Meeting Lydia, the trader in purple dyes at the river, he baptizes her and her household. How many did she bring to the gospel? Priscilla and Acquila, the two Jews that Claudius expelled from Rome during the Jewish riots of AD 42, became his trusted partners.

Maybe it’s good that we read these two scriptures together.

The Acts of the Apostles tell of a church confidently on its way to the ends of the earth to fulfill its mission.

The Farewell Discourse, on the other hand, says that sometimes a church can be paralyzed in its thinking and acting. But the Lord is the shepherd of both. What seems like the end is only a beginning.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way.”

The Bread of Life

2 Replies

DSC00076

All four gospels say that Jesus fed a great crowd near the Sea of Galilee by multiplying a few loaves of bread and some fish. It’s an important miracle.

John’s account (John 6), read at Mass on weekdays from the Friday of the 2nd week of Easter until Saturday of the 3rd week of Easter, indicates the miracle takes place during the feast of Passover. Like the Passover feast, the miracle and the teaching that follows occur over a number of days.

The Passover feast commemorated the Manna God sent from heaven to sustain the Jews on their journey to the promised land. Jesus claims to be the “true bread,” the “living bread” that comes down from heaven.

Jesus is a commanding presence during the miracle and the days that follow in John’s account. “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” he asks Philip as crowds come to him. He then directs the crowd to sit down, feeds them with the bread and fish, and says what should be done with the fragments left over. Unlike the other gospel accounts that give the disciples a active role in the miracle John’s account gives them a small role. Philip and the other disciples are tested during the miracle and the teaching that follows it.

As they embark on the Sea of Galilee to return to Capernaum after the miracle, a sudden storm occurs and Jesus’ rebukes the wind and the sea, the forces of nature, so that the disciples reach the other shore. All four gospels have some version of Jesus’s power over the sea and therefore the natural world. He has divine power.

The crowds to whom Jesus speaks at Capernaum after the miracle are also tested as well as his disciples. They want to make him king after a plentiful meal and only look for a steady hand out instead of “the true bread come down from heaven.” Their faith is limited and imperfect after the miracle. They miss the meaning of the sign.

The disciples also are tested; some walk with him no more.

The miracle of the loaves and the fish remind us that Jesus is Lord and we are people of limited faith. We only see so far. The Risen Lord leads us to the other shore. He is the Bread of Life. “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life,” Peter says to Jesus at the end of John’s account. And so do we.

Friday, 5th Week of Lent

4 Replies
Lent 1


Readings

John’s Gospel on these last days of Lent and into Holy Week portrays Jesus as a pilgrim celebrating Jewish feasts in Jerusalem. So different than the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, which concentrate on his ministry in various towns of Galilee. 

In Jerusalem on a Sabbath day, probably a Passover Sabbath, Jesus heals a paralyzed man at the pool at Bethsaida. (John 5). The Father never rests from bringing life to the world, and so his Son does not rest from bringing life on the Sabbath.  At a Passover Feast (John 6), Jesus calls himself the true Bread from heaven, the manna that feeds multitudes. On the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7-9) Jesus reveals himself as the light of the world and living water. On the Feast of the Dedication (John 10) celebrating the rededication of the temple after its desecration, Jesus claims to be the true temple, dwelling among us and making God’s glory known. Finally, the Feast of Passover is introduced in John 11, when Lazarus is raised from the dead. Jesus dies and rises on the feast.

Jesus acts and teaches during the Jewish feasts, John’s Gospel insists. He still acts and teaches as we celebrate the liturgy today, with its feasts and seasons.

Recent archeological work at the southerly approach to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem has uncovered a major stairway lined by purification baths from the time of Jesus. The wide stairway suggests that pilgrims came large numbers to the temple at the time. The Jewish writer Josephus, supports this suggestion. He claims many Jews came from all parts of the Roman Empire as pilgrims to the Holy City in Jesus’ time.. 

Jesus was one of them. He announced his mission to the world during the feasts. He was the fulfillment of the feasts: “ the light of the world. “

The Jewish leaders and many of their followers sought to silence him and were ready to stone him, because “many began to believe in him.” But “Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained until the announcement about his friend, Lazarus. 

Returning to Jerusalem for the Passover, he raised Lazarus from the dead and then faced the mystery of his own death and resurrection. In John’s gospel, all the bitter events of Jesus’ Passion are suffused with glory. John’s gospel, more than the others, find glorious signs in the passion of Jesus. We read his gospel on Good Friday.

Realists that we are, we find it hard to find God’s glory and power revealed in suffering. We find it hard to see anything but absurdity in the sufferings of our times.That’s why John’s Gospel may be an important guide today. “Look for the signs,” it says.  If we believe God is with us, there are signs of glory and a promise of resurrection, even in suffering and death.

The world is caught in a storm, like the disciples caught in their boat at sea. We need to know God is not asleep.   

Lead me on, Lord, through your holy signs,
especially the sign of your Cross.
Show me the glory I don’t see.

Monday, 5th Week of Lent

2 Replies
Lent 1


Readings


On the Feast of Tabernacles, according to John’s Gospel. Jesus claims to be the light of the world and living water, two symbols of this feast. His enemies fiercely dispute his claims. “As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just…” Jesus says. (John 5:30)

In our reading about Susanna, adultery is not the only issue to be judged. Gender injustice is also on the table. Jewish religious law said if a woman were caught in the act of adultery and two men witnessed it, she could be stoned to death or strangled. The system obviously led to abuse; two witnesses paid by a vengeful husband might give false testimony and have her stoned to death. The story of Suzannah tells us two men could also plot a rape. The woman becomes a victim and the man avoids blame.

Two old men, judges with lots of power, think they can do anything they want. Abuse of power, combined with lust, is still behind many of our sexual crimes today. It’s found in the workplace, in politics, in the celebrity and sports world, and also unfortunately in the world of religion. 

Suzannah refuses to give in to their advances, and she finds a champion in Daniel who faces up to the powerful men. Her story calls for standing up for truth and fighting against abuse of power wherever we find it.  

Lord,
let me judge others fairly with your eyes, your heart and your mind.
Help me work for a world that is right and just.
Give me the grace to know myself.

Saturday, 4th Week of Lent

Leave a reply
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?

Friday, 4th Week of Lent

1 Reply
Lent 1


Readings
Jesus went from Galilee up to Jerusalem for another Jewish feast, the feast of Tabernacles and “the Jews were trying to kill him” , says John’s Gospel, our reading for today. (John 7, 1-39) Tabernacles was a popular Autumn feast, one of three Jewish feasts drawing crowds of visitors to the city. The celebration of this feast provides the background for chapters 7:1-10:21 of John’s Gospel.

As a pious Jew, Jesus came to Jerusalem regularly to celebrate the Jewish feasts, John’s Gospel recalls. He did not come as an anonymous pilgrim. During the feasts he was recognized for the miracles he performed; he taught in the temple and disputed with the Jewish leaders, who opposed him. There were frequent attempts on his life from “the Jews”, John’ s term for those who finally put him to death.

The “inhabitants of the city” notice him, John notes. Who are they?

They’re not the leaders who will later put him to death. They’re the ordinary people who watch the leaders, who know what’s happening in the city, who follow the trends and pass the gossip. They watch Jesus with curiosity as he enters the temple area and begins to teach.

“Do our leaders now believe he’s the Messiah?” “How can he be, because he’s from Galilee and no one will know where the Messiah is from?” They go back and forth– they’re the undecided who wait to see who wins before they take sides.

Jesus cried out against them, because they think they know what’s going on but know nothing. They are not like the crowds in Capernaum that lined up around the door of Peter’s house when Jesus began his ministry. They stay at a distance and watch.

When we think about those responsible for the death of Jesus, we shouldn’t leave out “the inhabitants of the city.” Terrible things happen because  the undecided choose to stay on the sidelines and watch.

The reading from the Book of Wisdom for today talks about people like that–the people who wait and see. “Let us see whether his words be true; let us find out what will happen to him.” (Wisdom 2,12-24)

Prayer helps us to see what is real, the spiritual masters teach. To see what is real we have to put aside the ordinary ways we see and judge and act. The way we think often blinds us to the truth. Then, we have to act. Whether we’re learned theologians, practiced priests, informed church-goers, or “inhabitants of Jerusalem” we need to humble ourselves before God.

We are the inhabitants of the city,

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Saint Joseph: March 19th

7 Replies
St. Joseph – by Bro. Paul Morgan,CP


Readings

“Each year Jesus’ parents went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, and when he was twelve years old they went up according to festival custom.” Luke 2,41

At twelve, Jesus entered a new stage in life – his “Bar Mitzvah,” when he took on the responsibilities of the law, which later he summarized as: “Love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart…Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Who led him to that new stage? It had to be Joseph and Mary. Matthew’s Gospel gives Joseph a major role in Jesus’ birth. He provides Jesus with a genealogy going back to Abraham. He’s told by the angel not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife; he shouldn’t divorce her as Jewish law called for, and he should name the child, Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins.”

After the visit of the Magi, Joseph was directed to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Then, the angel tells him to return to Israel with them after Herod’s death. Finally, he makes a home in Nazareth in Galilee, where his family would be safer away from Herod’s heir, Archelaus, who ruled in Judea.

Clearly, according to Matthew’s gospel, Joseph is an important figure in the birth and early life of Jesus Christ. Then, he silently disappears from the gospels. There’s no record of his role at Nazareth or his death.

The gospel calls Joseph an “upright” man. He was upright because, like his neighbors at Nazareth, he observed all the Jewish laws. But not from lip service. Joseph firmly believed in his heart in the God of Israel, who loved all things great and small, yes, even Nazareth and a humble carpenter.

An inward man, Joseph saw in the simple, ordinary world about him more than others saw. His neighbor casting seed on the family field he loved – wasn’t God’s passionate love for the land of Israel like that? Even as he built a village house or a table, his thoughts sometimes turned to another world: was not God building a kingdom for his people?

An inward man, Joseph saw beyond the fields and mountains and the small town of Nazareth, but he said little about his inmost dreams to others. A quiet man, he kept his own counsel.

Jesus, the Son of God, was known through his earthly life as Jesus, the son of Joseph, “the carpenter’s son.” As children do, he naturally would acquire some of Joseph’s traits, perhaps the way he walked and spoke.

From Joseph, Jesus first learned about the people of the village, their sorrows and their joys. He saw his love for Mary and the people of his village. Jesus learned from him how to use a carpenter’s tools and worked at his side. The rabbis said: A father who does not teach his son a trade teaches him to steal.

The two were constant companions at the synagogue in Nazareth. Together they celebrated regularly the great Jewish feasts, listened to the Scriptures, and journeyed as pilgrims to Jerusalem.

Jesus must have seen in Joseph a simple, holy man who trusted God with all his heart. Someone like Joseph, so unassuming, so steady, so quietly attentive to God, was like a treasure hidden in a field. He could go unrecognized.

Later, would Jesus remember lessons and tell stories he learned earlier at Nazareth from Joseph, the carpenter?

The opening prayer for today’s feast describes Joseph’s spirituality. He intercedes for the church that it may be aware of “the unfolding mysteries of human salvation.” Joseph was there when “the unfolding mysteries of salvation” began. Joseph listened to angels and prophets and followed them.

In the first reading for his feast God promises King David he would have an God-given heir. Joseph, a son of David, saw that promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The second reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans presents Abraham as the father of many nations. Joseph saw that promise also fulfilled in Jesus. “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,” the angel says to Joseph. He was not afraid, but believed in the “unfolding mysteries of salvation.”

Two Passionist brothers remembered St. Joseph in a painting and a sculpture, which I’ve added to this blog: Brother Paul Morgan and Brother Michael Stomber.

St. Joseph and the Boy Jesus by Brother Michael Stomber, CP