“Water words,” Source and Support of Life: Fourth Week of Lent: March 18 to 24, 2012

Baptism invites us into “ecstasy.” “Ecstasy” means “standing outside of,” being “out of ourselves.” Baptism is not an “out of the body” experience, but the experience, and freedom, of being “out of” the world itself — while being deeply involved.

Because we have “died to the world” in Baptism, we are free. We depend on nothing and nobody here. We are physically walking around on earth, but we don’t depend on having the planet under our feet. “Our citizenship is not here.” We have “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” This makes us radically free of our “culture.” Free to be different and to call others to be different.

To do this we must be disciples, students of the mind and heart ofd God. Today’s laity are the most educated congregations priests have faced since the beginning of the world. Unfortunately, that education does not always include familiarity with Scripture or with the groundlevel, reader-friendly theology available today to everyone (e.g. the sixteen documents of Vatican II). That has to be corrected. It is essential for the reform of the Church.

True, two thirds of those studying for doctorates in theology are laity. True, priests cannot assume today, as before, that they know more theology than anyone out there in the pews. But the general level of theological knowledge (and awareness, another issue) of the general Catholic population has to be raised.

It won’t just “be raised.” We have to raise it.

The water Ezekiel saw flowing from the temple was a mere “trickle” at first. It gradually deepened until it was “deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed.” We find this “water" in the words of Jesus: "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” But we have to read his words.

Not just read them: we have to make Scripture reading a way of life. The difference between this and an occasional “Scripture study” matches the difference between sporadic dieting and a conversion to healthy eating.

Health requires consistent nourishment and exercise. Spiritual health requires both consistent reading of the word of God and consistent acting on it. When we make reading Scripture and acting on it a regular part of our lives, we will enjoy a spiritual health that will enable us to reform both the Church and the world.

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To See or Not To See: That is the Question: Third Week of Lent: March 11 to 17, 2012

“Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.” If we believe that, we have to believe that committed discipleship — regular reading and refection on God’s word — can “fill the hearts of the faithful” and “renew the face of the earth.” If we choose to look and see.

“My soul is thirsting for the living God.” It will be, if I am aware of God’s presence, power and goodness. This awareness is the fruit of committed discipleship that does not just take Christianity for granted, but keeps delving into the mystery of God’s mind and heart until everything within us is crying, "Hallowed be thy name!"

“Remember your mercy, O Lord.” If we remember it, and let reflection on God’s word remind us of it daily, we will see every problem in the Church and in the world countered by signs of hope. The strongest sign, available to us every day, is the Mass. As long as Jesus is present on the altar, dying and rising in sacrifice, we know the Church is dying and rising daily in him.

“Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.” If we — and the rest of humanity — would reflect on God’s laws enough to see how “wise and intelligent” they are, rejection would be replaced by praise. And society would be renewed. This is a motive for committing to discipleship.

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Hardness of heart reveals itself in indecision. If Sunday after Sunday we listen to the word of God at Mass without making any choices in response, we have something to worry about. Do you want to “harden your heart” against this statement, or do you want to start making choices every Sunday before leaving church?

“I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.” Unless we are committed to deep, regular listening to the voice of God through reading and reflecting on his words, we are not choosing to live a happy life. The only true way to happiness is the way of discipleship. Jesus is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” But he cannot be Life for us unless we learn to follow his Way by absorbing his Truth. For this we must be disciples.

“It is steadfast love, not sacrifice, that God desires.” But in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross — made present in every Mass — we see God’s “steadfast love” revealed in its perfection. This is the “perfection of love” which every Christian is committed by Baptism to pursue. We learn how to do this by reading and reflecting on God’s word.

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Metanoia is Openness: Second Week of Lent: March 4 to 10, 2012

The readings are all about commitment to discipleship; that is, to seeking clearer understanding of the mystery we see by faith, in order to express it more authentically in action. The motive that drives us to seek this greater authenticity is desire to make the Father known and loved: Hallowed be thy Name! We want to be able to say with Jesus, “Whoever sees me has seen the Father!”

The problem is, there is a clear resistance to discipleship in the Church. At the core of it are the same kind of people who closed their minds to Jesus so fanatically in the Gospels that it eventually led them to kill him. These are the “Pharisee party” (not known by that name, of course), who typically — now as well as then — are the most “established” or “accredited” members of the Church. In the Gospels these are clearly and repeatedly identified as the three categories of “chief priests,” “scribes,” and “Pharisees.”

The “chief priests” were the higher clergy. The scribes were the officially approved “teachers of the Law,” which included doctrine as well as rules. And the Pharisees were members of a reform movement who insisted most inflexibly on keeping all the rules and spoke out most strongly against those they perceived as bending them. What the three had in common, that united them against Jesus, were prestige, power, and a complacency in what they were teaching and doing that made them resistant to anything new.

The key to the Catholic spirit is a recognition of mystery. The teaching that comes from God himself, and the New Law of Jesus are so far beyond human understanding that we can only grow into them through commitment to that open-minded, never-ending faith formation the American bishops begged for in their letter Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us. If we ever think we “understand” our religion, we have denied the faith!

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Discipleship Gives Sight To The Blind: First Week of Lent: February 26 to March 3, 2012

The theme that unites and brings to excitement all the readings this week is the key role of seeing.

The purpose of seeing is to “take aim.” To aim we have to see the target. To “take aim” in life, we have to see what we are aiming at in life, what our goal is. What we call “repentance” is a recognition that our aim is off, that we are “missing” the target. To “convert” is to correct our aim. That involves correcting attitudes and priorities.

God’s word is the lens through which we focus on the target. Like a telescopic sight, it brings the far away near. Wisdom is to see everything in the light of our ultimate end: to see clearly what is most distant in order to get in focus what is right in front of us: our present choices and actions. Without the lens of God’s word everything gets distorted. Our “culture” blinds us.

To focus on Church rules; — even on God’s laws! — can blind us, unless we see the rules in the light of their goal and God’s laws in the light of his mind and heart, which they are intended to reveal. The goal is always God; never good behavior. “Good behavior” that does not lead to God has “missed the mark,” which is the Scriptural definition of “sin.” That is why Jesus says many will be surprised at the Final Judgment. We will see what we were really aiming at in life, as opposed to what we thought we were. So our basic choice in life is whether to look at what God says we are and aim at being that, or not to look and just be lost.

The Our Father teaches us what to aim at by listing what Jesus lived for: his priorities, the purpose for which he came. Praying it daily helps us refocus every day. We need to pray it consciously, aware that we are “taking aim.”

In our prayer we “say what we see.” We ask for what we see as good for us. And we can only see what is good for us in the light of faith. Faith tells us what we are, what our real goal is, what we should aim at. What enlightens our faith is God’s word.

To be ourselves we have to see ourselves. Baptism, the “sacrament of faith,” gives us divine light to see we have “become Christ.” and that “in him,” the “only Son of God,” we are sons and daughters of the Father. The only authentic “self” we have is our self as the risen Jesus, the body of Christ. That is why “following Christ” means being Christ. We don’t follow abstract teachings and rules; we look at Christ as he reveals himself in Scripture through words and actions. To be a Christian is to be what we see. “Disciples” are those who keep looking.

As Church we look together. And we say together what we see together. That is why our communal prayer, especially the Mass, is dependent on our communal faith. We can only say together what we see together. That is why we need to be “disciples — students — of the Mass.” We need to understand what we are saying and doing when we pray together as Christ.

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Accepting New Life: Seventh Week in “Ordinary Time” and Beginning of Lent: February 19-25, 2012

As the Sundays and weeks of “Ordinary Time” are interrupted by the special focus and readings of Lent, the liturgy first prepares us, then invites us to accept the call to “metanoia.”

We translate metanoia as “repentance,” but it really means a “complete makeover” of mind, will, heart and lifestyle. Really active Christians can never get bored, because the Church keeps calling us to change.

From Sunday to Tuesday the readings try to overcome our fear of change. The truth is, we are afraid to think about Scripture or to ask Jesus questions, because we assume we won’t like the answers. We reject “wisdom” because we accept in practice, if not in theory, that “ignorance is bliss.” We deliberately choose not to be disciples, “students” of the mind and heart of God.

We can avoid asking the questions. But we cannot avoid the consequences.

The readings reassure us. The call to “repentance” is always joyful, because it is always joined to the promise of life-experience on a higher, richer, more satisfying level. Every sin is a sign of an unsatisfied heart. Jesus promises “life to the full” to those who listen to his words.

And that is what discipleship is: “committed listening.” Lent invites us to commit to meeting regularly with Jesus, asking him questions and letting him teach us.

From Ash Wednesday to Saturday the readings pinpoint what “repentance” means. It means to accept a new mindset. For those who are already “practicing Christians,” Scripture emphasizes the choice between focusing on law observance or on living and giving love. This is a major crisis in the Church today. And always.

Jesus focused on giving life, not on enforcing rules. The Great Metanoia is 1. to realize we “became Christ” by Baptism; and 2. to commit ourselves in concrete ways to learning how to think, love and live like him.

This is the commitment that makes us disciples.

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To Get Real, Get Practical: Sixth Week in “Ordinary Time”: February 12-18, 2012

We will be spending this week with James — who is no-nonsense practicality when it comes to living by God’s word.

The Sunday readings “soften us up” for James’ hard line by telling us the great things Jesus does for those who really listen to what he says. He frees us from hurting others by giving us light to see what does harm. He frees us from loneliness by always being present to us and teaching us that loving unites us to others. He frees us from looking down on ourselves by showing us how he looks at us, and from despair by promising us the Holy Spirit. But he does this only if we let him guide us by reflecting on his words.

But this is rare. Most Christians don’t really want to grow to spiritual maturity and to the “perfection of love.” At Mass they don’t “listen to do.” They don’t commit themselves in any concrete ways to being disciples, “students” of Jesus. Fact is fact. What did you do in response to what you heard last Sunday? Or read in these Reflections all week? What does that say about you? (Okay, okay — but James is even tougher!)

Perseverance in reading and reflecting on Scripture is a “miracle” of empowerment by grace that makes us a “sign” of Jesus risen. The alternative is failure to be a Church that bears the witness to Jesus we should bear.

We can be disciples, or inert, or closed to God’s word (like Pharisees). Jesus breaks our inertia by leading us “out” of our cultural apathy. We become free by repeated exposure to his word combined with repeated decisions about how to put it into practice.

Failure to do this explains why we, the Church, in many ways live in contradiction to Christ’s clear teaching. We forget “who we are.” We don’t let his words mature and bear fruit in us by discipleship that lead us into mission (as prophets) and ministry (as priests) and into taking responsibility (as stewards of Christ’s kingship) for bringing about changes in society.

James keeps urging the practical response of concrete commitment to the “three R’s” of Christian meditation: Reading and Reflecting on God’s words, and Responding to them in real decisions to act on what we have seen.

Praying, “Hallowed be thy Name!” impels us to accept the discipline of discipleship. That is to let Jesus lead us up “into the mountain,” where we will see him transfigured, hear the Father speaking to us, and be moved to stay with him as disciples.

The key to everything is a commitment to a concrete regime of reading and reflecting on the word of God for the purpose of making responses in choices.

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To End Where We Began: Fourth Week in “Ordinary Time”: January 29 – February 4, 2012

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.

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.

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“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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“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.

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“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.

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“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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“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.”

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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.

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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.

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The End that is A Beginning: 34th Week of the Liturgical Year, November 20-26, 2011

Daniel chapters 1-7; Luke, chapter 21.

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Sunday, the 34th Sunday of the Year and Feast of Christ the King, begins the last week of the liturgical year. Liturgically, the Church’s “New Year” begins with the first Sunday of Advent, when we begin to focus explicitly, in anticipation, on the event with which Christian time begins: the birth of Jesus Christ.

The Immersed in Christ Reflections this week review and bring to a conclusion a year of formation. Every day we have focused on drawing out of the readings what helps us to understand and enter fully into the mystery we celebrate at Mass. By now we should all be alertly conscious of the five mysteries that are presented in turn during the Eucharistic celebration. We should have acquired the habit of actively celebrating and embracing them during the liturgy. This is what the bishops asked for in Vatican II:

It is very much the wish of the Church that all the faithful should be led to take that full, conscious, and active part in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy, and to which the Christian people, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a redeemed people,” have a right and are bound by reason of their Baptism.

All those who have read and put into practice the Immersed in Christ Reflections for the past year have been formed to do this. They have learned how to enter into the five mysteries of Baptism as they are celebrated, one after another, in the Mass.

This is an experience of the New Evangelization that the last four popes have been calling for. They say we have not truly “heard” the Good News. It has not been effectively preached to us. We have not really been “evangelized” (i.e. told the Good News).

The key to the New Evangelization is to re-affirm — to explain and show people how to experience — what was lacking or “dumbed down” in the religious instruction we received. What was not brought into focus for us was the mystery embodied in every doctrine we profess, every sacrament we receive, every action we are called on to perform; and above all, in every celebration of Eucharist.

A “mystery” is “a truth that invites endless exploration.” Catholics who think they have “learned their religion” have misunderstood everything they were taught (probably because it was not taught). If they are not actively exploring the truths of their faith, they don’t know they are “mysteries.” They think they have “heard” the Good News, so to them it isn’t news any more. That means they never heard it.

Faith formation is not the same as instruction in the faith. Formation is “reiterated instruction combined with insistent intentionality” — in other words, we have to keep telling people the truth until it sinks in (and then, because it is a mystery, it will be in them “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”); and we have to keep urging and showing them ways to live it out in action.

That is the guiding principle and goal behind the Reflections offered each year by Immersed in Christ. Next year we will take you through the same deep mysteries of Baptism as they are found in the prayer Jesus taught us to say: the Our Father.

“Go: the Mass is ended.” And just begun.

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The Bottomless Cup: 33rd Week of the Liturgical Year, November 13-19, 2011

1Maccabees chapters 1-6; 2Maccabees chapters 6-7; Luke, chapters 18-20.

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The mother of the seven Maccabee boys had a view of life it would be good to wake up with. She told her son, “It was not I who gave you breath and life, nor was it I who arranged the elements you are made of.... It is the Creator of the universe who shaped the beginning of humankind and brought about the origin of everything.”

The starting point of human consciousness should be: “I am basically nothing. Nothing explains my existence except the fact God is choosing to give me being right now. My existence is simply an ongoing act of God.”

This should be encouraging. If God is choosing right now to keep me in existence, he must see it as a good idea. My life on this earth must have some value for him. He is “voting” for me.

So are other people: all those who love me. The truth is, God has arranged things so that no one comes to be on this earth unless, in addition to himself, at least two human beings vote for it: a father and a mother. We are born with a support group, even a fan club!

The same is true of the divine life of grace. God adds that only by the unanimous vote of the Father, Son and Spirit. And, although a single human can give it to us by baptizing us, Baptism is, in fact, an entrance into and reception by the whole Church. And, consciously or not, by every redeemed human being on earth.

Why do they vote for us? Why does God?

God wants us to exist so that we can enjoy what he enjoys. With him and forever. We know that because Jesus told us. But he has another reason: Just as he doesn’t give life to anyone without the cooperation of other humans, he has arranged it so that the life he gives depends on other humans’ work to survive and develop. The same is true (normally, if not absolutely) of the life of grace. We are all our “brother’s keeper,” responsible for the well-being, both human and divine, natural and supernatural, of every other man and woman on earth. We all have a job to do, and God is giving us both existence and divine life so we can do it.

We are stewards. Everything God is giving us, from our existence to the latest good thought he has inspired, is an investment. We are charged to use, to work with, to manage all that we have and are for the good of others. Those are the terms of our existence. When Jesus comes at the end of time, he will ask us how we have given to others what he has given to us.

We mustn’t allow anything or anybody to stop us from doing that.

And nobody can. Love may be the only commodity there is that we can have as much of as we want, just by using it. And we can give it constantly: at every moment, in every situation, and to every person, whether it is received or not. Nothing can stop us from loving except our own choice not to.

To love is to give life. And we have it in a bottomless cup.

Keep this in mind as you read the Immersed in Christ reflections on the readings this week.

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The Will and the Way: 26th Week of the Liturgical Year, September 25-October 1, 2011

Zechariah chapter 8; Nehemiah chs. 2, 8; Baruch chs. 1, 4; Luke, chs. 9-10.

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Two images give a key to the readings. 1. A large ship under way has such forward inertia that, even after the rudder is swung over, it takes miles for the ship to actually move in the new direction. 2. Stampeding cattle are deaf and blind to everything but their panic. Cowboys can only stop their headlong rush by racing their horses to the front and gradually turning the leaders to the side until they begin to “mill” in a circle. Both images tell us something about leadership in the Church.

First, big changes take time, both in society and in the Church. Even when authorities call for an alteration in course, as the bishops did at Vatican II, and “swing the rudder” by new legislation, the Church as a whole takes a long time to get on the new course. An example of this is the Mass: in spite of the “new liturgy,” the centuries of practices that excluded the laity from “full, active, conscious participation” still keep people from seeing the Mass as a “communal prayer” — or even understanding what that means. So people still participate as isolated individuals, sitting apart from others or in back, not singing, making the responses without personal investment in what they are saying, and frequently not even paying close enough attention to the words the presider is speaking during the Eucharistic Prayer to pray them with him. No wonder some want to return to the Latin: even in English they don’t really listen to the words. And if they are not united with others in communal prayer, the individualism of the old “quiet” Mass that left all alone with their devotions seems better to them. Mindsets take time to change.

Cultural conformism is like a stampede. People are rushing blindly in whatever direction the “herd” has taken. This is true even in the Church, in both clergy and laity who don’t “go aside” as disciples to listen personally to the voice of Christ. When those in front have closed their eyes to where they are going and to what is going on around them, and their ears to what the Spirit is saying, the “blind are leading the blind” — in a stampede to destruction.

The answer is for those who see what is happening to “ride for the lead.” To gradually replace the leadership of those who are not leaders. To make tiny but consistent changes in their own way of participating at Mass; of participating in the guidance of their parish and diocese by communicating with those “in charge”; in their way of speaking and acting at home, at school, at work; in the kind of conversations they initiate (for example, on the “forbidden topic” of religion); in the news they keep up with (for example, news of the Church on the internet); in the approach they take to politics: to the fundamental philosophies and motivations of the people and causes they oppose or support (bearing in mind the lies both parties tell about each other and the “spin” in any reporting).

The key to everything is an activated and activating awareness of responsibility for establishing the “reign of God” wherever we are and however we can. Where there is a will, there is a Way — who is also the Truth and the Life.

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Peace I Give You: 24th Week of the Liturgical Year, September 11-17, 2011

1Timothy chapters 2-6; Luke, chapters 7-8

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The Rite of Communion can be summed up in one word: “Peace.”

This may not be what we are most conscious of. We may think of Communion as a time of intimate personal (and private) union with Jesus in our hearts. And except for the word “private,” it is that. The truth is—shocking to our generation—there is no “private” union with God or with Jesus. Christian union with God is only “in Christ”—that is, in the shared union we have with others as members of his body. Without union with others, we have no graced union with Jesus, the Father or the Spirit.

Communion expresses this. There is no such thing as “private Communion” in the Church. Even Communion to the sick is brought by a minister coming from the Mass to bring the communal celebration to one unable to be present. And Mass is never a private devotion. Priests are forbidden by Canon Law to celebrate Mass completely alone except under exceptional circumstances. Communion is a time for us to be intensely aware of one another.

“Peace” is the most frequently-used word in the Rite of Communion (seven times) because Communion is meant as a preview of the “wedding banquet of the Lamb,” Christ’s description of heaven. Those who do not share the Bread of Life together in the “peace and unity” of total mutual forgiveness and love simply do not share it. The same is true on earth. When Paul says (1Corinthians 11:29), “For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves,” he is talking about recognizing each other as the body of Christ.

This week’s readings show that those who most disturb the peace and unity of the community are those who judge others as not being in “good standing” because of their perceived non-observance of rules. They do not “discern” the faith and love that makes people Christ’s body, but see only the externals of words and “works” whose significance in another’s life they presume to interpret. In making this judgment they “eat and drink judgment against themselves.”

It is natural for us to make these human judgments. That is why the readings stress that the “peace and unity” of God’s kingdom is a mystery. The “blessed hope” we are awaiting is the “manifestation (epiphania) of the glory” of the Lord Jesus Christ, when in all the redeemed we will see Christ himself brought to “full stature.” This is divine hope, not human optimism. It depends on the vision we have of each other by the divine gift of faith. And the love we have for each others is divine love, based on seeing each other as we are as sharers in the life of God and as we will be when that life is brought to fullness in us all. Those who quibble and criticize are seeing with human eyes, shutting themselves off from mystery and shutting themselves out of “full, conscious, active participation” in the Eucharist. Peace is the sign of the Spirit in our hearts.

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Communion—More Than We Thought!: 22nd Week of the Liturgical Year, August 28-September 3, 2011

1Thessalonians chapters 4-5; begin Colossians; begin Luke with chapter 4

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What is different—in fact, unique—about the Immersed in Christ daily reflections, is that they are designed to give formation. They are not a series of stand-alone thoughts that give you an unconnected insight or boost each day. For roughly ten weeks at a time they keep developing one theme (five per year), using the readings from Mass to explain the same thing from different angles, urging for seventy-plus days in a row various ways to live out just one of the five mysteries of Baptism. Instead of random thoughts, they give formation— defined as “reiterated instruction with insistent intentionality”—or “Say it till it sinks in; urge doing till it takes root.” This week we are changing themes.

Since we began Ordinary Time after Pentecost (June 13), we have been showing how we both learn and live out our baptismal consecration as Priest during the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass. (This year we are showing how all five mysteries of Baptism are celebrated successively during Mass). From now until Advent we will focus on the Rite of Communion and on what it says about our baptismal consecration and commitment as stewards of the kingship of Christ. This involves the mystery of the “end time.”

Communion looks like a bunch of individuals going up to get a sandwich out of a vending machine! That is not the image the Church desires, but so far we have not been able to give Communion the appearance of a family meal that the instructions call for. We don’t touch that this week, but we do point out five things Communion is that we may not have noticed.

1. A pledge: when we receive the chalice, we “drink to the Covenant.” Eating the sacrificed Victim says that we accept and make our own all that has been expressed in the Mass.

2. A shout of defiance: The words, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world... Blessed are those who are called to the wedding banquet of the Lamb” really say, “Blessed are those who are going to die!” We fear nothing. Who kills us just gets us into the party.

3. An anticipation of Christ’s triumphal return, We put ourselves into the “end time,” waiting in “joyful hope.”

4. A foretaste of the “peace and unity of the Kingdom.” We take a moment after Communion to just “feel” in silence how it will be when Christ in every person is making all humanity one as we are at this moment.

5. A sacrament; that is, a human, physical experience of interaction with God. We make physical contact with Jesus Christ.

All this motivates us to go out and ready the world to receive the reign of God. This is our work as stewards.
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