This is the last week of reflections in the booklet “Our Father... in Heaven” — that presents through the “first phrase” of the Lord’s Prayer the “first phase” of our growth into the “perfection of love” for God and all he created. The first phase is awareness of the mystery of our graced relationship with God as true children of the Father, sharing in God’s own divine life through identification with his Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit to let Jesus act with us, in us and through us in everything we do. Practical suggestion: use the WIT prayer.
Next week we begin the second booklet: reflections on how the Mass readings contribute to the “second phase” of our spiritual growth, to which we are called by the “second phrase” of the Our Father: “Hallowed be thy Name!”
Appropriately, this week’s readings sound a final, crashing chord of awareness.
Sunday invites us to be aware that God calls us to “go to the source” for enlightenment on how to live as divine. Reading Scripture keeps us aware of how to live as children of the Father.
Monday explains how the “absence of God” in times of “dryness” makes us aware that love is choice, not feeling, and keeps us aware that we need God’s constant empowerment to keep making the choice to love God.
Tuesday shows us how what we choose to be aware of sways our choices and subjects us to or delivers us from our culture’s “spin.”
Wednesday focuses on the “ignored temptation” that our religious formation did not make us sufficiently aware of: desire for power.
Thursday, Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple, shows us how our expectations can make encounter with Jesus lifegiving or destructive for us. The readings — and the event they relate — call us to cultivate conscious awareness of what we hope for, what we fear, what we have set our hearts on.
Friday pinpoints what should be the core of our awareness: the mystery of our identification with Jesus the Son that gives us our relationship with God as Father, brought to awareness through the indwelling enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
Saturday tells us that all the bishops and priests in the world cannot “build a house” where Catholics can find God unless the laity do their part. For example, by expressing enthusiastically at Mass their awareness of the Good News of the mystery of their being as sharers in the life and mission of Jesus, Son of God.
Next week we take up the theme of discipleship, which is simply commitment to learning (as “students”) the “ breadth and length and height and depth” of the Name we pray will be “hallowed.” Then we will know the love Christ has for the Father, “that surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God” — and fill the world with it.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
To be Aware of What We Share: Third Week in "Ordinary Time": January 22-28, 2012
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This week’s readings all invite us to awareness, which is the first and foundational phase of growth into the fullness of life and love.
We need to actively cultivate awareness of the whole mystery that has been revealed to us, the mystery that we are living, the mystery we need to see in others.
For example, the readings this week invite us to be aware of:
• the greatest power on earth, which is good example. Think about it; and how the Holy Spirit empowers us to give it in Christian witness.
• the peace that is ours in obeying God alone, and humans only in the measure that, in doing it, we can see we are surrendering in love to God.
• the way experience impels to expression and reaches completeness only in our expression of what is within us.
• the core mystery of our Christian life: “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” This is the awareness everything else grows out of and feeds into.
• the mystery of Christ growing to “full stature” in us, and that helping this happen is the first commitment of our Baptism and should be our main preoccupation in life.
• ministry as bringing Christ to fullness in others, which is Christian love of neighbor and the “second greatest” Commandment.
• the Gift in the gifts God is giving us. Praise and thanksgiving make us aware that through all he is offering us the Gift of being like God.
• the mystery of others: seeing the “whole picture” of what they are when we are tempted to reduce them to nothing but the sin we see in them.
• the mystery of the Church: seeing the saints as well as the sinners; being aware of the sinful Church as the beloved Bride of Christ being purified for the “marriage feast of the Lamb.”
• the mystery of God’s steadfast love, explained in part by the fact God sees in others what we don’t see. Only God can read their hearts.
• the attitude of our own heart: the real self that we discover in the act of confessing sin as sin. We cannot look down on anything unless something within us has risen above it — that is, been raised by the gift of God’s sharing and our acceptance of his own ideals.
• the love and care we know God has for us when we call out to him in danger.
These are just examples of the awareness we are called to by this week’s readings. Use them to ‘prime the pump” and expand into the awareness Paul prayed we would grow into:
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I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Truth is Perspective: Second Week in “Ordinary Time”: January 15-21, 2012
This week’s readings are all about perspective — seeing ourselves, the meaning of our “names,” our good actions and bad, our relationships, our goals and desires in perspective. Perspective both clarifies and blinds us to the truth.
Up close, when it’s fourth and goal, the last twenty seconds of a tied game seem so important people won’t even answer their cell phones. Even teenagers stop texting. But if we “zoom out” to see this moment in the context of our whole life, or of the history of the world, it has no significance at all. Perspective.
An eighteen-wheeler seems massive on the freeway. Caught in hurricane winds, it is tossed about like a feather. Perspective.
Highschool trophies mean little in college. Our greatest successes and failures lose importance with time. But there is a strange exception: a moment of love — given or refused — is forever a memory that affects us. We always feel good or bad about it. What does this tell us?
Seen in perspective, all that counts in this life (or after) are our relationships. Our relationships define the meaning of our “name” (because we are in the image of God, and, theology tells us, the three Persons of the Trinity are defined by their relationships). What are our achievements except results, or causes, of relationship with others? What value does anything have, isolated from relationship with other people or God?
Think about it. This leads us to say the only true value in life is love. Love gives value to everything else. A no-brainer, since all life is from God, and in God, Life is Love. But we tend to forget it. Because we lose perspective.
Jesus taught us to see everything in the perspective of relationship. “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if anyone takes your coat, give your cloak as well; if anyone forces you to go one mile, go two.” In other words, don’t let hurt feelings, or concern for property or time block perspective. Value relationship with the other more than any of these.
We sin because we fail to see ourselves and God in perspective. Or to see others in perspective as being in relationship with God. We give priority to what, in the perspective of life and death, time and eternity, are minor issues. We neglect the “one thing” necessary (look it up: Mark 10:21; Luke 10:42) because we lose perspective.
Fear of the Lord and Wisdom are perspective. Awareness of our graced identity is perspective. We commit to discipleship, dedicate ourselves to mission, surrender to God’s will, and abandon ourselves to the work of the Kingdom when we see things in perspective.
To lose perspective is to lose the meaning, the value and the fulfillment of life. To lose perspective is to lose our souls.
Up close, when it’s fourth and goal, the last twenty seconds of a tied game seem so important people won’t even answer their cell phones. Even teenagers stop texting. But if we “zoom out” to see this moment in the context of our whole life, or of the history of the world, it has no significance at all. Perspective.
An eighteen-wheeler seems massive on the freeway. Caught in hurricane winds, it is tossed about like a feather. Perspective.
Highschool trophies mean little in college. Our greatest successes and failures lose importance with time. But there is a strange exception: a moment of love — given or refused — is forever a memory that affects us. We always feel good or bad about it. What does this tell us?
Seen in perspective, all that counts in this life (or after) are our relationships. Our relationships define the meaning of our “name” (because we are in the image of God, and, theology tells us, the three Persons of the Trinity are defined by their relationships). What are our achievements except results, or causes, of relationship with others? What value does anything have, isolated from relationship with other people or God?
Think about it. This leads us to say the only true value in life is love. Love gives value to everything else. A no-brainer, since all life is from God, and in God, Life is Love. But we tend to forget it. Because we lose perspective.
Jesus taught us to see everything in the perspective of relationship. “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; if anyone takes your coat, give your cloak as well; if anyone forces you to go one mile, go two.” In other words, don’t let hurt feelings, or concern for property or time block perspective. Value relationship with the other more than any of these.
We sin because we fail to see ourselves and God in perspective. Or to see others in perspective as being in relationship with God. We give priority to what, in the perspective of life and death, time and eternity, are minor issues. We neglect the “one thing” necessary (look it up: Mark 10:21; Luke 10:42) because we lose perspective.
Fear of the Lord and Wisdom are perspective. Awareness of our graced identity is perspective. We commit to discipleship, dedicate ourselves to mission, surrender to God’s will, and abandon ourselves to the work of the Kingdom when we see things in perspective.
To lose perspective is to lose the meaning, the value and the fulfillment of life. To lose perspective is to lose our souls.
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
“Light of the World ”: First Week in “Ordinary Time”: January 8-14, 2012
Week after the Epiphany and Baptism of the Lord
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In the authentic version of Titus 2:1-3, that we misquote in the Rite of Communion, what we are looking forward to and waiting for is the “blessed hope and the manifestation (epiphaniam) of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” It is the preview and promise of this in the “manifestation” of Jesus to the Gentiles that we celebrate on Sunday, the Feast of the Epiphany.
The Magi were led to Jesus by a star. But what the readings are saying is that we are all called to be stars: not movie stars, rock stars or football stars, but stars like the one in the Gospel: stars that lead others to Jesus. This is our vocation and mission from God. But to fulfill it, we have to keep ourselves aware of the light that is within us.
In celebrating the Baptism of Jesus we celebrate the mystery of our own Baptism and the “essence of our redemption,” which is that we have become Christ. We are (in his words, not ours) the light of the world. We need to keep ourselves so aware of this that we will let his light in us shine out — be an epiphany, a “manifestation” of God’s light and life in us — in every word we speak, every choice we make, every action we perform.
Jesus was never bored or boring. And no Christian who is aware of the gift of his light and life should ever be bored either, or boring to others. We have within us the excitement of the world. If that is not obvious to ourselves and others, we are failing to keep aware of and to share the Good News. It is time to change that. What is stopping you?
The truth is, we are anointed by God, solemnly anointed in Baptism, to be prophets: people with a message to deliver. Nothing is stopping us but our failure to recognize the truth of what we are and to express it in our lifestyle. Again: it is time to change that.
The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that “every Catholic must aim at Christian perfection.” And not only that, the Council called on all Catholics to “undertake with vigor” the task of renewing and reforming the “pilgrim” and imperfect Church.” We are obliged to.
We were all sacramentally anointed by God to be prophets, priests and stewards of the kingship of Christ. As we begin Ordinary Time, the readings invite us to keep ourselves aware of the extraordinary dignity and duties inherent in this anointing.
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In the authentic version of Titus 2:1-3, that we misquote in the Rite of Communion, what we are looking forward to and waiting for is the “blessed hope and the manifestation (epiphaniam) of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” It is the preview and promise of this in the “manifestation” of Jesus to the Gentiles that we celebrate on Sunday, the Feast of the Epiphany.
The Magi were led to Jesus by a star. But what the readings are saying is that we are all called to be stars: not movie stars, rock stars or football stars, but stars like the one in the Gospel: stars that lead others to Jesus. This is our vocation and mission from God. But to fulfill it, we have to keep ourselves aware of the light that is within us.
In celebrating the Baptism of Jesus we celebrate the mystery of our own Baptism and the “essence of our redemption,” which is that we have become Christ. We are (in his words, not ours) the light of the world. We need to keep ourselves so aware of this that we will let his light in us shine out — be an epiphany, a “manifestation” of God’s light and life in us — in every word we speak, every choice we make, every action we perform.
Jesus was never bored or boring. And no Christian who is aware of the gift of his light and life should ever be bored either, or boring to others. We have within us the excitement of the world. If that is not obvious to ourselves and others, we are failing to keep aware of and to share the Good News. It is time to change that. What is stopping you?
The truth is, we are anointed by God, solemnly anointed in Baptism, to be prophets: people with a message to deliver. Nothing is stopping us but our failure to recognize the truth of what we are and to express it in our lifestyle. Again: it is time to change that.
The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that “every Catholic must aim at Christian perfection.” And not only that, the Council called on all Catholics to “undertake with vigor” the task of renewing and reforming the “pilgrim” and imperfect Church.” We are obliged to.
We were all sacramentally anointed by God to be prophets, priests and stewards of the kingship of Christ. As we begin Ordinary Time, the readings invite us to keep ourselves aware of the extraordinary dignity and duties inherent in this anointing.
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
“Happy New Year ” First Week of the Year, January 1-7, 2012
To understand all this week’s readings — and human life itself — see this world as a staging area. That is what it is. To see it as anything else falsifies human existence from top to bottom.
God created humans for one reason only: to share his own divine life and happiness with them forever. But he puts us first in a staging area where we will have time to integrate the human life we receive at birth and the divine life we receive at Baptism. Doing this, helping others to do it, and creating an environment that makes it easier for everyone to do it, is what human life is all about. The beginning of the New Year is a good time to remember this. A good New Year’s Resolution would be to decide on ways to keep ourselves aware of it.
The basic principle is: We make all that is human in us divine by making all that is divine in us human. This began with the Incarnation and birth of Jesus, which we celebrate, fittingly, on January 1, Feast of Mary, Mother of God. Jesus made a seed of Mary’s human flesh divine by making the divine in himself human in her. And when we give our human bodies in Baptism to become the divine body of Jesus on earth, his divinity begins to work with, in and through our human acts of thinking, choosing, speaking and acting, gradually conforming all we are to all he is.
This is what the staging area is for. We use our time on earth to grow into Christ, or let Christ “grow to full stature” in us, by putting to human use all the divine gifts we receive with grace (the life of God in us). The gift of faith lies dormant in us until we put it to work in human reflection, and express it in human thoughts and words: for example, calling God “Our Father” with awareness of what we are saying and pondering what it means.
As we absorb the mysteries of faith, they give us hope, which we express in action by striving for the “perfection of love.” As we translate these divine gifts into human action, all that is human in us operates more and more as divine, by the power of Jesus in us.
This world is a staging area in which humans help other humans to arrive, survive and thrive. We are constantly shifting, and helping others to shift: first from the “arrival dock,” where we become aware of who we are and what our divine-human identity is, to the “instruction area,” where we commit ourselves to learn what the five stages of progress are and how to advance through them (discipleship). When we are mature enough to work, we advance ourselves by helping others advance: first by dedication (as prophets) to making known the Good News of the Kingdom that is our destination; then by surrendering more deeply (as priests) to the reign of Christ in us, letting him express himself through our bodies to enhance the divine life of others; finally, by totally abandoning ourselves to live, work and long for nothing else (as stewards of his kingship) except to bring all in the staging area to the “point of embarkation” for the city that is our true home, that God has prepared for us.
Try keeping this explanation in mind as you read the Scriptures for this week.
God created humans for one reason only: to share his own divine life and happiness with them forever. But he puts us first in a staging area where we will have time to integrate the human life we receive at birth and the divine life we receive at Baptism. Doing this, helping others to do it, and creating an environment that makes it easier for everyone to do it, is what human life is all about. The beginning of the New Year is a good time to remember this. A good New Year’s Resolution would be to decide on ways to keep ourselves aware of it.
The basic principle is: We make all that is human in us divine by making all that is divine in us human. This began with the Incarnation and birth of Jesus, which we celebrate, fittingly, on January 1, Feast of Mary, Mother of God. Jesus made a seed of Mary’s human flesh divine by making the divine in himself human in her. And when we give our human bodies in Baptism to become the divine body of Jesus on earth, his divinity begins to work with, in and through our human acts of thinking, choosing, speaking and acting, gradually conforming all we are to all he is.
This is what the staging area is for. We use our time on earth to grow into Christ, or let Christ “grow to full stature” in us, by putting to human use all the divine gifts we receive with grace (the life of God in us). The gift of faith lies dormant in us until we put it to work in human reflection, and express it in human thoughts and words: for example, calling God “Our Father” with awareness of what we are saying and pondering what it means.
As we absorb the mysteries of faith, they give us hope, which we express in action by striving for the “perfection of love.” As we translate these divine gifts into human action, all that is human in us operates more and more as divine, by the power of Jesus in us.
This world is a staging area in which humans help other humans to arrive, survive and thrive. We are constantly shifting, and helping others to shift: first from the “arrival dock,” where we become aware of who we are and what our divine-human identity is, to the “instruction area,” where we commit ourselves to learn what the five stages of progress are and how to advance through them (discipleship). When we are mature enough to work, we advance ourselves by helping others advance: first by dedication (as prophets) to making known the Good News of the Kingdom that is our destination; then by surrendering more deeply (as priests) to the reign of Christ in us, letting him express himself through our bodies to enhance the divine life of others; finally, by totally abandoning ourselves to live, work and long for nothing else (as stewards of his kingship) except to bring all in the staging area to the “point of embarkation” for the city that is our true home, that God has prepared for us.
Try keeping this explanation in mind as you read the Scriptures for this week.
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
“Merry Christmas ” First Week of Christmas, December 25-31, 2011
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Christmas brings families together — at least in memory, when they cannot be physically. And this is what Jesus came to do: to bring the whole human race together as one family whose Father is God; in whom Jesus as Son is visible and growing to “full stature” by the indwelling presence and power of the Spirit.
Christmas is togetherness. And that is the mystery of God’s Being: God is the togetherness of Father, Son and Spirit: the Trinity.
It is striking to see how the roles of each Person of the Trinity appear in the Mass readings for Jesus’ birth:
Vigil Mass: “For the child [Son of the Father] conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
Midnight Mass: A son is given to us.... called: Wonderful Counselor [Holy Spirit], Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince [Son] of Peace.”
Mass at Dawn: They shall be called “The Holy People” [Holy Spirit, Sanctifier], “The Redeemed of the LORD” [Son, Jesus]; “Cared For,” “A City Not Forsaken” [by the Father, God of the Covenant]. And “He saved us... through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he [the Father] poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ [Son] our Savior.”
Mass during the Day: “They see the LORD [Yahweh, Father] restoring Zion.... for the LORD comforts his people [Holy Spirit, the Comforter], he redeems Jerusalem” [Jesus, Son]. “The Word [Son] was with God [the Father].... In him was life, and the life was the light [Holy Spirit] of all people.”
The readings all week tell us what this family is in which we find — and need to be constantly aware of — our identity. We are different. Stephen’s martyrdom reveals us as a people who live to die and die to live forever in Christ. John’s feast focuses us, as he does, on the “koinonia,” “communion, fellowship,” that should not only exist but be visible among us — which requires that we keep ourselves aware that we are all alive in Christ and as Christ.
The readings for the feast of the Holy Innocents reminds us we are a community, not of the righteous, but of the redeemed. Our “innocence” is not in our “perfect record,” but in our incorporation into Christ’s death that “takes away” our sin. When Jesus is held up at Mass as the “Lamb of God,” we are all invited to Communion. We receive Communion, not to proclaim we are “innocent,” but to say we are sinners with hope. Thursday’s readings tell us that to “keep the Commandments” means, first of all, to keep God’s words, his laws, in our hearts. We judge ourselves by the deep faith and desire we find in our hearts, not just by the success or failure of our external law observance. It is “Phariseeism” to judge ourselves or others simply by behavior.
The feast of the Holy Family — three persons united, like the Trinity, in the “communion of the Holy Spirit — promises us a “posterity” from the Father (blessed will be the fruit of our lives). It calls us to embody in our family life the love and truth Jesus embodied as Son, the Word made flesh. And it calls us (in the full text of the alternate reading from Hebrews) to design our family lifestyle by interaction with the Spirit in faith, so that our family life will bear witness to the world that we live here “as in a foreign land,” looking forward to “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” John tells us, on the last day of the year, that we “know we know God” when our “anointing” by the Holy Spirit keeps us united to one another in the expression of our faith.
Being family is what the life of the Trinity — in God and in us — is all about.
Christmas brings families together — at least in memory, when they cannot be physically. And this is what Jesus came to do: to bring the whole human race together as one family whose Father is God; in whom Jesus as Son is visible and growing to “full stature” by the indwelling presence and power of the Spirit.
Christmas is togetherness. And that is the mystery of God’s Being: God is the togetherness of Father, Son and Spirit: the Trinity.
It is striking to see how the roles of each Person of the Trinity appear in the Mass readings for Jesus’ birth:
Vigil Mass: “For the child [Son of the Father] conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
Midnight Mass: A son is given to us.... called: Wonderful Counselor [Holy Spirit], Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince [Son] of Peace.”
Mass at Dawn: They shall be called “The Holy People” [Holy Spirit, Sanctifier], “The Redeemed of the LORD” [Son, Jesus]; “Cared For,” “A City Not Forsaken” [by the Father, God of the Covenant]. And “He saved us... through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he [the Father] poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ [Son] our Savior.”
Mass during the Day: “They see the LORD [Yahweh, Father] restoring Zion.... for the LORD comforts his people [Holy Spirit, the Comforter], he redeems Jerusalem” [Jesus, Son]. “The Word [Son] was with God [the Father].... In him was life, and the life was the light [Holy Spirit] of all people.”
The readings all week tell us what this family is in which we find — and need to be constantly aware of — our identity. We are different. Stephen’s martyrdom reveals us as a people who live to die and die to live forever in Christ. John’s feast focuses us, as he does, on the “koinonia,” “communion, fellowship,” that should not only exist but be visible among us — which requires that we keep ourselves aware that we are all alive in Christ and as Christ.
The readings for the feast of the Holy Innocents reminds us we are a community, not of the righteous, but of the redeemed. Our “innocence” is not in our “perfect record,” but in our incorporation into Christ’s death that “takes away” our sin. When Jesus is held up at Mass as the “Lamb of God,” we are all invited to Communion. We receive Communion, not to proclaim we are “innocent,” but to say we are sinners with hope. Thursday’s readings tell us that to “keep the Commandments” means, first of all, to keep God’s words, his laws, in our hearts. We judge ourselves by the deep faith and desire we find in our hearts, not just by the success or failure of our external law observance. It is “Phariseeism” to judge ourselves or others simply by behavior.
The feast of the Holy Family — three persons united, like the Trinity, in the “communion of the Holy Spirit — promises us a “posterity” from the Father (blessed will be the fruit of our lives). It calls us to embody in our family life the love and truth Jesus embodied as Son, the Word made flesh. And it calls us (in the full text of the alternate reading from Hebrews) to design our family lifestyle by interaction with the Spirit in faith, so that our family life will bear witness to the world that we live here “as in a foreign land,” looking forward to “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” John tells us, on the last day of the year, that we “know we know God” when our “anointing” by the Holy Spirit keeps us united to one another in the expression of our faith.
Being family is what the life of the Trinity — in God and in us — is all about.
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Monday, December 19, 2011
“Let the Clouds Rain Down... ” Fourth Week of Advent, December 18-24, 2011
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This is the week before Christmas. What it is all about is awareness, which is the first phase of growth into the fullness of life that Jesus came to give. Advent alerts us to look forward to the “blessed hope and the manifestation (the liturgy says “coming, advent”) of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Christmas is all about Jesus as Savior.
Saturday (O Wisdom) focused on Jesus as the measuring rod of perspective who “shows us all things framed between their beginning and their end.”
Sunday’s readings make the point that Jesus is a divine Savior who came to give us divine life — not just human wellbeing.
Monday (O Offspring of the Root of Jesse) tells us Christ’s human-divine presence in our up-and-down world (and Church) as a contining member of our sinning race gives us hope.
Tuesday (O Key of David) says the Key to Christianity and Christian living is Jesus leading us out of the “prison” of merely human perspectives and into the freedom of “divine-dimensional” life.
Wednesday (O Rising Dawn) tells us God made human in Jesus is the divine, eternal light of God shining in a new way every day through the changing atmosphere (circumstances) of human life on earth — and through the diversity of his human members’ responses to different situations.
Thursday (O King of Nations) shows us Jesus “politically involved” in bringing unity, peace and happiness to earth by giving us divine gifts that work independently of human power and circumstances — if we remain aware of them and use them.
Friday (O Emmanuel – “God-with-us”) caps our preparation for Christmas by pinpointing the essence of Christianity, which is “God with us.” Paul said the mystery he preached was simply “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The Christian greeting repeated in the Mass liturgy as “God be with you” is an edited version of the Latin “Dominus vobiscum,” which simply says, “God with you.” That is the whole Christian message in a nutshell. When we answer, “And with your spirit,” we are not narrowing our focus to some kind of spiritual presence of God just in our “souls.” We are calling each other to be aware “in spirit” that God is present in our bodies as well as in our minds and hearts. By Baptism we became the “body of Christ.” He speaks in our human words, touches people with our human hands, helps them through our human actions. We are “Emmanuel” — God still with the human race, God still in the world in human flesh as one of us.
When we say the WIT prayer — “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me” — we are reminding ourselves of the core truth of our religion, “God with us.” God with us, not just as a companion by our side, but as dwelling within us, acting in us and through us as his own body.
The body born at Bethlehem was just the beginning. Jesus is “born again” every time a baby is baptized.
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This is the week before Christmas. What it is all about is awareness, which is the first phase of growth into the fullness of life that Jesus came to give. Advent alerts us to look forward to the “blessed hope and the manifestation (the liturgy says “coming, advent”) of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Christmas is all about Jesus as Savior.
Saturday (O Wisdom) focused on Jesus as the measuring rod of perspective who “shows us all things framed between their beginning and their end.”
Sunday’s readings make the point that Jesus is a divine Savior who came to give us divine life — not just human wellbeing.
Monday (O Offspring of the Root of Jesse) tells us Christ’s human-divine presence in our up-and-down world (and Church) as a contining member of our sinning race gives us hope.
Tuesday (O Key of David) says the Key to Christianity and Christian living is Jesus leading us out of the “prison” of merely human perspectives and into the freedom of “divine-dimensional” life.
Wednesday (O Rising Dawn) tells us God made human in Jesus is the divine, eternal light of God shining in a new way every day through the changing atmosphere (circumstances) of human life on earth — and through the diversity of his human members’ responses to different situations.
Thursday (O King of Nations) shows us Jesus “politically involved” in bringing unity, peace and happiness to earth by giving us divine gifts that work independently of human power and circumstances — if we remain aware of them and use them.
Friday (O Emmanuel – “God-with-us”) caps our preparation for Christmas by pinpointing the essence of Christianity, which is “God with us.” Paul said the mystery he preached was simply “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The Christian greeting repeated in the Mass liturgy as “God be with you” is an edited version of the Latin “Dominus vobiscum,” which simply says, “God with you.” That is the whole Christian message in a nutshell. When we answer, “And with your spirit,” we are not narrowing our focus to some kind of spiritual presence of God just in our “souls.” We are calling each other to be aware “in spirit” that God is present in our bodies as well as in our minds and hearts. By Baptism we became the “body of Christ.” He speaks in our human words, touches people with our human hands, helps them through our human actions. We are “Emmanuel” — God still with the human race, God still in the world in human flesh as one of us.
When we say the WIT prayer — “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me” — we are reminding ourselves of the core truth of our religion, “God with us.” God with us, not just as a companion by our side, but as dwelling within us, acting in us and through us as his own body.
The body born at Bethlehem was just the beginning. Jesus is “born again” every time a baby is baptized.
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To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
“Blessed be the Lord... He promised of old” : Third Week of Advent, December 11-17, 2011
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This week is the mid-point of Advent. Three things change. 1. This Sunday the presider’s “chasuble” (“little house” – the all –covering Mass vestment) is rose-colored to express joy. The opening Scripture verse is “Rejoice... the Lord is near.” That is why this is called “Gaudete (“Rejoice”) Sunday.” 2. On Saturday, because it is December 17, we begin using the second Advent Preface, and also 3. the weekday prayers and readings go into “countdown mode,” ruled by the “O Antiphons.” These are seven special “Alleluia” verses that introduce the Gospel, all beginning with “O” and a title of Jesus: “O Wisdom,” “O Lord and Leader,” etc. They invite rich reflection on who Jesus is and what he came to be for us.
My suggestion for this week is to read prayerfully every morning the Benedictus. That is Zachary’s hymn (Luke 1:68-79) found in the Pocket Prayer Guide bound into your reflection booklet entitled “Our Father... in Heaven.” This is a wonderful way to start each day of Advent and Christmas.
It reminds us — and remember, the first phase of spiritual growth embodied in the first phrase of the Our Father is awareness — that God has “come to his people and set them free.” Think of all you would like to be freed from. God has freed you from any and every thing that can really harm you or keep you from “life to the full.”
He has done it by “raising up a mighty Savior” — a man who is God: Jesus. And he is “accredited” — “born of the house of his servant David.” Jesus is still saving us, present and acting through “in house” saviors, the members of his body on earth today. Through sons and daughters of the Father who can trace their lineage back through all the generations of Christians to the community who gathered around the first Twelve Apostles and the historical Jesus.
“Through his holy prophets he promised....” and is realizing the promise through the prophetic voices still being raised in the Church. Voices that speak truth, denounce corruption and call for reform. Voices in which we hear God promising still to “free us from the hands of our enemies,” whoever and whatever they are.
“To show mercy to our ancestors.” Look at the mercy God has shown to his Church! To his sinful Christians who in “Catholic” Europe slaughtered each other for centuries in endless wars, many in the name of religion. Who persecuted Jews and heretics, oppressed the poor, bought and sold ecclesiastical positions and honors. The priests were ignorant, the bishops often without any religious spirit at all: political lords who plundered and fought petty wars for power. Yet God has maintained his mercy toward us— because of “his holy covenant.” Why doubt he is doing it today?
“Free to worship him.” Nothing can prevent us from that. Whether the liturgy is done well or not, we know who awaits us at Mass and what he does for us — and invites us to do with him. We are always free to worship him, without fear that anything or anyone can prevent us. “Blessed be the Lord... He has promised.”
This week is the mid-point of Advent. Three things change. 1. This Sunday the presider’s “chasuble” (“little house” – the all –covering Mass vestment) is rose-colored to express joy. The opening Scripture verse is “Rejoice... the Lord is near.” That is why this is called “Gaudete (“Rejoice”) Sunday.” 2. On Saturday, because it is December 17, we begin using the second Advent Preface, and also 3. the weekday prayers and readings go into “countdown mode,” ruled by the “O Antiphons.” These are seven special “Alleluia” verses that introduce the Gospel, all beginning with “O” and a title of Jesus: “O Wisdom,” “O Lord and Leader,” etc. They invite rich reflection on who Jesus is and what he came to be for us.
My suggestion for this week is to read prayerfully every morning the Benedictus. That is Zachary’s hymn (Luke 1:68-79) found in the Pocket Prayer Guide bound into your reflection booklet entitled “Our Father... in Heaven.” This is a wonderful way to start each day of Advent and Christmas.
It reminds us — and remember, the first phase of spiritual growth embodied in the first phrase of the Our Father is awareness — that God has “come to his people and set them free.” Think of all you would like to be freed from. God has freed you from any and every thing that can really harm you or keep you from “life to the full.”
He has done it by “raising up a mighty Savior” — a man who is God: Jesus. And he is “accredited” — “born of the house of his servant David.” Jesus is still saving us, present and acting through “in house” saviors, the members of his body on earth today. Through sons and daughters of the Father who can trace their lineage back through all the generations of Christians to the community who gathered around the first Twelve Apostles and the historical Jesus.
“Through his holy prophets he promised....” and is realizing the promise through the prophetic voices still being raised in the Church. Voices that speak truth, denounce corruption and call for reform. Voices in which we hear God promising still to “free us from the hands of our enemies,” whoever and whatever they are.
“To show mercy to our ancestors.” Look at the mercy God has shown to his Church! To his sinful Christians who in “Catholic” Europe slaughtered each other for centuries in endless wars, many in the name of religion. Who persecuted Jews and heretics, oppressed the poor, bought and sold ecclesiastical positions and honors. The priests were ignorant, the bishops often without any religious spirit at all: political lords who plundered and fought petty wars for power. Yet God has maintained his mercy toward us— because of “his holy covenant.” Why doubt he is doing it today?
“Free to worship him.” Nothing can prevent us from that. Whether the liturgy is done well or not, we know who awaits us at Mass and what he does for us — and invites us to do with him. We are always free to worship him, without fear that anything or anyone can prevent us. “Blessed be the Lord... He has promised.”
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
For “Those with a Journey to Make”: Second Week of Advent, December 4-10, 2011
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Advent calls us to look forward to the Good News. What this really means is to get serious about faith formation.
What Isaiah calls the “Holy Way” is for “those with a journey to make.” It is an axiom in the spiritual life that there is no such thing as standing still. If you are not going forward, you are falling behind. If not growing, you are stagnating.
The “comfort” God offers in Advent is the proclamation that there is a way. We can grow into a more exciting, enriching life if we want to. Jesus designed the Church to be a hotbed of energy, enlightenment and growth. If your parish is not that, someone needs to exercise some leadership. Why not you?
We may have grown up with a distorted, because incomplete, “Fear of the Lord.” True Fear of the Lord is simply perspective. It is the gift of seeing how good God is and how unsatisfying everything else is in comparison. How powerful God is and how insane it is to oppose him. But the Good News is that God uses his power “to give strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound.” It is the Pharisees who pass off “heavy burdens” as religion. Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” Whom do we believe? If we believe Jesus, why are we not eagerly shouldering the “light burden” of growing into the fullness of life?
What is the alternative? If I don’t choose the way of growthful discipleship what am I choosing? To just react haphazardly to stimuli, bouncing blindly off of life’s experiences like a pinball? To follow the values of the culture? To make myself — my opinions, my desires — the criterion of truth and goodness? This is the definition of the capital sin of Pride. It is a straight shot to insanity.
Some say they are leaving the Church because of the priests or the congregations. If so, they were never there because of Jesus. It is really the message they can’t stand, not the messengers. People criticized Jesus himself more than we do the clergy. To accept Jesus we have to accept everyone. And accept to be crucified by them. This is what turns us off.
Our prayer in Advent is, “Lord, make us turn to you.” But we should not expect him to do it by scaring us. God did this through the Old Testament prophets. But when Jesus came, the time for fear tactics was over. Instead of killing his enemies to show us his power, he died to show us his love. The perspective that “Fear of the Lord” reveals to us in Jesus is the difference, not between God’s power and ours, but between his unbounded love and anything we can imagine.
If we accept to follow the “Holy Way” of faith formation — of committed discipleship — we will come to know our Father as he is. And this is “eternal life”: to know the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.
Advent calls us to look forward to the Good News. What this really means is to get serious about faith formation.
What Isaiah calls the “Holy Way” is for “those with a journey to make.” It is an axiom in the spiritual life that there is no such thing as standing still. If you are not going forward, you are falling behind. If not growing, you are stagnating.
The “comfort” God offers in Advent is the proclamation that there is a way. We can grow into a more exciting, enriching life if we want to. Jesus designed the Church to be a hotbed of energy, enlightenment and growth. If your parish is not that, someone needs to exercise some leadership. Why not you?
We may have grown up with a distorted, because incomplete, “Fear of the Lord.” True Fear of the Lord is simply perspective. It is the gift of seeing how good God is and how unsatisfying everything else is in comparison. How powerful God is and how insane it is to oppose him. But the Good News is that God uses his power “to give strength to the fainting; for the weak he makes vigor abound.” It is the Pharisees who pass off “heavy burdens” as religion. Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” Whom do we believe? If we believe Jesus, why are we not eagerly shouldering the “light burden” of growing into the fullness of life?
What is the alternative? If I don’t choose the way of growthful discipleship what am I choosing? To just react haphazardly to stimuli, bouncing blindly off of life’s experiences like a pinball? To follow the values of the culture? To make myself — my opinions, my desires — the criterion of truth and goodness? This is the definition of the capital sin of Pride. It is a straight shot to insanity.
Some say they are leaving the Church because of the priests or the congregations. If so, they were never there because of Jesus. It is really the message they can’t stand, not the messengers. People criticized Jesus himself more than we do the clergy. To accept Jesus we have to accept everyone. And accept to be crucified by them. This is what turns us off.
Our prayer in Advent is, “Lord, make us turn to you.” But we should not expect him to do it by scaring us. God did this through the Old Testament prophets. But when Jesus came, the time for fear tactics was over. Instead of killing his enemies to show us his power, he died to show us his love. The perspective that “Fear of the Lord” reveals to us in Jesus is the difference, not between God’s power and ours, but between his unbounded love and anything we can imagine.
If we accept to follow the “Holy Way” of faith formation — of committed discipleship — we will come to know our Father as he is. And this is “eternal life”: to know the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Beginning: First Week of Advent, November 27-December 3, 2011
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We are beginning a new theme. The Immersed in Christ Reflections this year will still be formation in assimilation of the five mysteries of Baptism (what Immersed in Christ and the Christian life are all about), but we are taking another approach. We are showing how, in the petitions of the Our Father, we are both asking for and committing ourselves to each of these five mysteries in turn. The theme booklet, Five Steps to the Father, explains how the first five phrases of the prayer Jesus taught us present the five phases of our growth into the “fullness of life” Jesus came to give.
The Reflection booklet, “Our Father in Heaven,” develops the first phrase, using the Mass readings for the Advent and Christmas seasons. Keep this theme in mind as you read the reflections.
This week is all about mystery: the mystery of the new identity Baptism gives us; the mystery of being real “sons and daughters of the Father” through the mystery of incorporation into Christ; through the gift of sharing, “in him,” God’s own divine life.
The readings focus us on the mystery of knowing God as only God knows himself; the mystery of sharing in God’s own act of knowing himself by sharing in God’s own life “in Christ.” And they invite us to go to the source of our human understanding and expression of this divine knowledge: the Scriptures, the word of God. St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” We can continue: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of ourselves,” because, if we do not read the Bible, we really do not know clearly what we know or where it comes from. Unless we go to God’s own words, our human understanding of our faith is all secondhand. And inevitably “dumbed down.”
This week is challenging. It invites us to ask whether we really want to know God better. Whether we have experienced the mystery of this. What steps are involved in really “hearing” the Good News. Whether we really believe Christ can “make us see.” And whether we really ask him to. Whether we find our security in knowing God or in something else? Whether our religion is real.
This week’s reflections are ruled by Jesus’ prayer to the Father: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
This is the mystery of our life, the mystery of our religion, the mystery we proclaim and become aware of every time we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven....”
This is the mystery of the revealed identity of God and of the identity we receive by Baptism. To enter into this first phrase of the Our Father is to enter into the first phase of our growth toward the “perfection of love” — it is to enter into awareness of our true relationship with God.
We are beginning a new theme. The Immersed in Christ Reflections this year will still be formation in assimilation of the five mysteries of Baptism (what Immersed in Christ and the Christian life are all about), but we are taking another approach. We are showing how, in the petitions of the Our Father, we are both asking for and committing ourselves to each of these five mysteries in turn. The theme booklet, Five Steps to the Father, explains how the first five phrases of the prayer Jesus taught us present the five phases of our growth into the “fullness of life” Jesus came to give.
The Reflection booklet, “Our Father in Heaven,” develops the first phrase, using the Mass readings for the Advent and Christmas seasons. Keep this theme in mind as you read the reflections.
This week is all about mystery: the mystery of the new identity Baptism gives us; the mystery of being real “sons and daughters of the Father” through the mystery of incorporation into Christ; through the gift of sharing, “in him,” God’s own divine life.
The readings focus us on the mystery of knowing God as only God knows himself; the mystery of sharing in God’s own act of knowing himself by sharing in God’s own life “in Christ.” And they invite us to go to the source of our human understanding and expression of this divine knowledge: the Scriptures, the word of God. St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” We can continue: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of ourselves,” because, if we do not read the Bible, we really do not know clearly what we know or where it comes from. Unless we go to God’s own words, our human understanding of our faith is all secondhand. And inevitably “dumbed down.”
This week is challenging. It invites us to ask whether we really want to know God better. Whether we have experienced the mystery of this. What steps are involved in really “hearing” the Good News. Whether we really believe Christ can “make us see.” And whether we really ask him to. Whether we find our security in knowing God or in something else? Whether our religion is real.
This week’s reflections are ruled by Jesus’ prayer to the Father: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
This is the mystery of our life, the mystery of our religion, the mystery we proclaim and become aware of every time we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven....”
This is the mystery of the revealed identity of God and of the identity we receive by Baptism. To enter into this first phrase of the Our Father is to enter into the first phase of our growth toward the “perfection of love” — it is to enter into awareness of our true relationship with God.
To order your own Daily Reflections for the Immersed in Christ program, click here to visit http://www.immersedinchrist.com/.
Click here to subscribe to Daily Mass Readings delivered by email.
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