“Follow me.”
Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth” (Jn 1:45). Philip’s statement that “we have found the one” is interesting, because if you read just a few verses earlier in verse 43, Jesus, when he decided to go to Galilee, is the one who found Philip. And we then see, as happened in yesterday’s account with Andrew, Philip goes to share about his encounter with another, and finds Nathanael.
Philip, as did Andrew, shows that he also does not fully comprehend the fullness of who Jesus is. He does believe him to be the promised Messiah that they have been waiting for, but as with all the Apostles, they would not come to a full realization of what this meant beyond their preconceived notion of who the Messiah was until after the Resurrection, Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Nathanael, himself hesitates because of his prejudicial, knee jerk reaction, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” This is most likely a sarcastic response, a dig, meant to be humorous.
The Apostles and those who encounter Jesus do so from the context and construct of their present life and understanding. It takes time for them as they watch him, live with him, and experience him, and are transformed by him, to come to realize that he is who he claims to be: fully God and fully man. Jesus is not just a mingling of the two, not just fifty percent human and fifty percent God. He is fully God and fully man. Jesus does not expect them to grasp this on their first meeting either. Jesus encounters each person where they are, in the midst of their woundedness, sinfulness, and chaos, but he sees their potential, he calls them to a higher level.
Nathaniel does follow Philip and is stunned that Jesus saw him under the fig tree. Jesus sidesteps Nathanael’s moment of wonder and mentions to him, and so to all who follow him that they “will see greater things than this” (Jn 1:50). Jesus here is, “stressing the need to transcend contemporary messianic expectations. Faith based on miracles will not suffice; something more is needed. This greater faith will enable all the disciples to see the revelation of the heavenly with Jesus, the Son of Man” (Moloney, 57). This deeper spiritual maturity of knowing Jesus as the Son of God and the Son of Man, will come about with more time, as they continue to develop their relationship with Jesus, especially as they experience the fullness of his Paschal Mystery.
As Jesus found Philip, he looks to find each one of us today in 2019 as well. He finds us as we are, in our confusion, sin, and imperfections, and he loves us anyway. As in the parable of the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to find the one, Jesus seeks for each one of us (cf. Lk 15:1-7). At the same time we are searching, longing for him. As U2 sings, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”, Bruce Springsteen sings, “Everybody’s got a hungry heart”, and St Augustine writes, ” You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and we are restless until we rest in thee”, we long in the very depths of our being to find and be found by our Creator, the one who made us for himself. Nothing material or finite will satisfy, that is why the return lines are so long this time of year! As we reach up for God, we find we do so because he is already reaching down for us. Our seeking for God is already an answer to his invitation to follow him.
When we find and are found by Jesus, may we react in the same way as did Philip and Andrew. May we make Jesus the center of our life, our fundamental option or end goal, and go out and share our experience of him with another, just as one would do with any great news! We do not need to feel apprehensive about not fully comprehending the Mystery of Jesus. As the Apostles did, we just need to trust in him, for Jesus sees our potential. He will guide us as we continue to develop a relationship with him, through our prayer, study, worship, and service, and know that the Holy Spirit will give us the words to speak at the proper time. We just need to witness when moved by the Spirit and share our story of how the God made man is making an impact on our life, mostly through our actions and how we treat one another with dignity and respect. May our hearts and minds also be open to the potential Jesus sees in us and be prepared for “greater things” to come!
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Photo: Statue of Sacred Heart of Jesus on the grounds of St Peter Catholic Church in Jupiter, FL
Moloney, S.D.B., Francis J. The Gospel of John in Sacra Pagina. Edited by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.
Link to the Mass readings for Saturday, January 5, 2019: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010519.cfm
Jesus faces us and asks, “What are you looking for?”
After hearing John the Baptist point out Jesus as the Lamb of God, Andrew and another disciple of John seem to understand the meaning of what John means and follow Jesus as he walks by them. Jesus senses they are behind him. He stops, faces them, and asks, “What are you looking for?”
Their response to the question, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher) “where are you staying?” (Jn 1:38), is odd. Unless we understand that, in fact, the two disciples of John did not grasp the full relevance of John calling Jesus the Lamb of God. They related to Jesus, from the context of what they knew, their default position, as a rabbi, a teacher. Most rabbis of the time would have a place where they would gather their disciples and teach them. Another thought is that they did not want to come right out and say, “Hey, Jesus, are you the Messiah?”, there was some doubt, so they went with rabbi.
Jesus said: “Come and you will see” (Jn 1:39). Andrew and the disciple then spent the day with Jesus and that made all the difference. If Andrew had any doubt before, it was now gone. We do not know what he experienced with Jesus in their time together, but the first thing that Andrew does is go to tell Simon his brother that he had found the Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ! There was no hesitation. He wanted to share what he had seen, most likely as we hear time and again in the Gospels, Andrew experienced some or all of these examples: the blind saw, the deaf heard, the lame walked, the possessed were exorcised, sins were forgiven, and Jesus taught with authority.
May we place our self in this scene of the Gospel today and follow the finger of John the Baptist who points over to this man walking by us at a pretty good clip. As we turn to follow, the brightness of the morning sun catches our eyes. We squint, look down, and lose him for a moment, but take a few steps to keep pace. We hear the crunch of the stone and sand under our sandals and as we look up again, Jesus has turned to face us. He is smiling, his eyes are inviting as is his question: “What are you looking for” (Jn 1:38).
Stay with the scene. How do you answer, and what happens next? Allow your imagination and senses come alive. Place your self in this moment as best as you can. Be aware of any emotions or thoughts that arise. This is not just a mind game. Fr. James Martin, SJ teaches that in the practice of Ignatian contemplation that, “If God can work through relationships, sacraments, and Scripture, then God can work through the gift of our imaginations so we can draw closer to him in prayer.”
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Photo: Statue of Jesus in our Rosary Garden at St Peter Catholic Church, Jupiter, FL
Link for Fr. James Martin, SJ talk on Ignatian Contemplation. The presentation is only 4:40 seconds long and is a part of a series of YouTube videos he presented on prayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CI4YjQEijI
Link for today’s Mass reading from Friday, January 4, 2019: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010419.cfm
Receive the hand of the Lamb of God.
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29).
The only one who can take away sins is God. The unblemished lamb is the animal that is sacrificed at the Passover meal, commemorating when the angel of death passed over the Hebrews whose doorposts were marked with the blood of the lamb. The next day they were freed from their slavery under pharaoh, and the exodus event began culminating in their passing through the Red Sea to freedom.
The Son of God became the Lamb of God, became human. He experienced laughter, pain, suffering, love, tears, and temptation, all of the condition even temptation but he did not sin. The Son of God became human so that what he assumed in his human condition, he could redeem. As the lamb of God, Jesus approached John for baptism, he took upon himself the sin of the world and submitted his divinity to his human condition and was willing to be baptized as a foreshadowing of his crucifixion on the cross.
The act of the Incarnation, becoming fully human while remaining fully divine, was the premiere act of mercy, in that Jesus entered the chaos and woundedness of our lives. He did so for each and every one of us, to be one with us, to understand and experience our struggles, our temptations, and to lead us to freedom from our sin, our turning away from his Father who only wants the best for us, who loves us so much he is willing to let us reject him.
Alone we cannot be redeemed, we cannot be fully healed or restored to who we have been created to be. We need a savior. Jesus is more than a model to follow or a teacher to guide, he became one with us in our humanity to lift us up out of our brokenness. In saying yes to his invitation, we can say with Paul, “yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). This is the gift we have received again this Christmas, access to the divine power of the Love of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Jesus holds his hand out to each one of us today. May we receive his hand in our own, and as our fingers touch his palm may we feel the wound there, embrace the remembrance of the nail that pierced his flesh, the pain that he endured, so we could have this very moment with him. Even in our brokenness, anxiety, confusion, fear, and sin, may we resist pulling away. May we feel the warmth of his hand grip ours. Let your gaze be drawn up to see his face, his smile, his forgiveness, his love.
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.” Behold the Lamb of God who takes away our sin and restores us to life.
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Photo: Statue of Mary and Jesus on the front grounds of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, Oceanside, CA
Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, January 3, 2019: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010319.cfm
Who are we?
“Who are you” (Jn 1:19)? John did not claim or pretend to be something that he was not. He was clear who he was, he was clear of his place in serving God, and he was clear about the mission God gave him. He was preparing the way of the Lord. John shared that “there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie” (Jn 1:26-27). The question also arose about who Jesus was. It was a question that arose often during the early development of the Church’s Christology and still arises today. The readings of the Christmas Season, that we are still celebrating liturgically, in fact all four Gospels, address the question of who Jesus is.
The various heresies in the Church surrounded this question. From the Annunciation we recognize that at his conception in the womb of Mary Jesus remained fully God and became fully human. He did not become the Christ at his baptism as the heresy of Adoptionism would propose. Nor was Jesus a powerful created being as the priest Arius would propose in the third century. We counter the heresy of Arianism every Sunday when we recite in the Nicene Creed: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.”
Arianism taught that Jesus was a created being, the highest of beings made by God, but created none the less. The Church teaches that Jesus is begotten not made. He was, is, and always will be God, the Second Person of the Trinity. He is consubstantial, homoousios, meaning of one and the same substance as God the Father.
Adoptionism and Arianism are but two of the early heresies that arose, of which Arianism gained more of a following. Arianism stills pops up today in practice as it did then because of the unwillingness to acknowledge that the divine could become human. This goes back to our starting question that was asked about John. “Who are you?”
We are human beings created in the image and likeness of God, we are physical beings with a rational soul, we are invited to embrace the reality that we are human and through our participation in the life of Jesus, we also become divine. Do we reject our humanity, our created status, trying to determine our own destiny on our own terms, to put ourselves in the place of God, or are we like John the Baptist, and accept who we are and the mission God offers us?
As we continue to celebrate this Christmas Season and the new year that has just begun, may we embrace who we have been created to be, the unique person God made us to be, with a particular vocation and part to play in building up the reign of God. We will come to know our purpose and find meaning in our life as we follow the lead of Mary and John the Baptist, which is to align our human will with the divine will of God. As we collaborate with Jesus in all the decisions we are to make, the smallest to the biggest, let us pray for a heart, mind, and soul that is open to following his will so we can know the mission his Father has given us and begin to live it.
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Photo: I believe this was my senior year of high school or just after graduation, on a CT beach, ’82 or ’83, pondering God’s direction.
Link for today’s Mass readings for Tuesday, January 2, 2019: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/john/1:1
May we follow Mary and ponder more as we begin the new year.
Mary offers us a wonderful gift on this New Year’s Day. “Mary kept all these things,
reflecting on them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). Gabriel shares with Mary that she will conceive a child through the power of the Holy Spirit, her relative Elizabeth, who is past child bearing years, is six months pregnant, when Mary and Elizabeth meet John leaps in the womb of Elizabeth, the shepherds convey the message they received from the angels that Mary’s baby is the long awaited Messiah, Simeon and Anna offer prophetic confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah.
Indeed these are matters to ponder, not to just take at face value and move on with the day. The Church at her best has followed the model of Mary’s reflection, pondering, and meditating on what these words mean and has come to call this day the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. This title says more about Jesus than it does about Mary. This is the teaching that the Church Fathers confirmed during the council of Ephesus in 431 AD:
Mary is the Mother of God, in Greek – Theotokos – the God bearer.
The full divinity of the Son of God was present at the conception of Jesus. He remained fully divine as the second Person of the Trinity, the Holy Trinity would not be diminished in any way, as he developed as a human being in the womb of Mary, and was born of Mary. This is the Mystery of the hypostatic union: Jesus is one divine person subsisting in two natures the human and divine.
Theological insights such as Mary being the Mother of God, the hypostatic union of Jesus, are easily missed or worse dismissed if we conform ourselves to the present age of instant gratification, instant access, surfing, swiping, taking in sound bytes from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and amassing information overload. All of these technological avenues can be wonderful if we stop, slow down, and as Mary did, ponder what they offer.
If we still read books, do we do so with pencil and highlighter in hand, take notes and go back to those points underlined, highlighted, and or annotated and ponder the insights we have received? Or do we just have a moment of pause and say hmm, interesting, and then move on to the next factoid?
May today, the first day of the new year, be a day to take a few deep breaths, slow down, and commit to a practice of daily pondering. We can reflect on a word, a phrase, or a short statement that we write down and return to often. The phrase could be as simple as a paraphrase from today’s reading: Mary pondered on these things in her heart. Let us reflect on where God has been calling us to stop and take a deeper look at our lives. It could be one word: Theotokos. We can meditate on a picture like the one I posted above. We can ponder what Mary being the God bearer means to us, what relevance does she offer for our lives?
If we seek to live a life of joy and fulfillment in 2019, may we follow Mary. May we assume a posture of pondering and be willing to slow down and reflect on life, on what is important, what has value, where we are putting our time and effort, and recognizing where God is and is not welcome in our life. Otherwise, we may just float along through another year indecisively or stagnantly with indifference or cynicism, merely reacting to situations that arise, or just plodding along bored and listless. Being still can be scary, because when we do so, we need to face our fears, our past hurts, and our loneliness.
Yet in that willful act of stopping, the Holy Spirit can embrace us with his love, so we can begin to heal and transform beyond merely existing, so to set a course of being fully alive and in love with life. Hand in hand with Jesus, we can face our fears, and heal from our wounds, so to be better engaged in our lives by experiencing more meaning and purpose. Conformed to the life and love of Jesus, we can build more authentic and intimate relationships, we can act more decisively and with greater clarity, and experience more fully what we are here for, to bring a little more tenderness, mercy, understanding, forgiveness and love to the many others around us who are wounded.
May 2019 be a wonderful new year of meaning, joy, and fulfillment, as we, like Mary, come to experience God’s presence in the silence of our hearts, so to be a people of faith, hope and love.
Happy New Year! Peace and all God’s good.
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Painting: “Kissing the Face of God” by Morgan Weistling, 2011 accessed from cathopic.com
Link for today’s reading for January 1, 2019: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/010119.cfm
The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Another translation of the Logos, the Word, the second person of the Holy Trinity, dwelling among us, is that he “tabernacled” among us. The Son of God pitched his tent in our midst. This is a reference to the tabernacle or tent of meeting which was erected whenever Moses and those who had escaped slavery in Egypt camped. Within the tent of meeting was placed the Ark of the Covenant. This was done to follow the will of God who wanted to be present with his people. “They shall make a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:8).
The Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle housing it was portable and would move with the people, such that God was always present in their midst. The basic structure would later become the foundation for Solomon’s temple, then Herod’s Temple. The Holy of Holies was believed to be the very seat of God in Jerusalem. In the fullness of time, Jesus was born to us, and he became the living temple, Emmanuel, God with us. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19).
And why did Jesus come? So that the glory of God could be revealed not just to the temple priest, but to all of us, “and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only-begotten Son, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14). Jesus came to be one with us in our humanity while remaining fully divine to reveal the glory of his Father to us, the same glory that filled the tabernacle. Jesus came to be present to us, in our very midst.
Jesus was born to us to share the fullness of God’s grace and his truth with us. He came to restore the ancient covenant that God has been making with his people through all ages. Jesus invites us to share the same infinite, faithful love that he shares and has shared and always will share with his Father. This free, generous act of love is pure gift to us. Jesus, in becoming human, in living among us, in teaching, healing, and so building a bridge of relationship with God, shines his light, that light that is not overcome by the darkness of pride, hatred, prejudice, and violence, so that we can see the truth, that God is our Father and we are all brothers and sisters.
The Incarnation reveals to us that none of us are junk, because God created us and became one with us. Each of us by our very existence have human dignity because we are created in his likeness and image and he dwells among us. Each and every human being is a part of God’s family. This includes all people no matter race, ethnicity, or creed, male or female, the unborn, the hungry, those without access to water or adequate health care, widows, orphans, refugees, migrants, the LGBT person, the person in jail or on death row, the person at the end of life, and as Fr. James Martin, SJ shared two days ago on his Facebook feed, “so many others who feel forgotten, excluded or marginalized. All are members of God’s family.”
Jesus has made his dwelling among us such that we may be healed and reconciled with God and one another, and we do so as we open ourselves with all our mind and heart, strength and soul, to receive the gift of the grace and truth that Jesus offers to us 24/7, his very life and love. In receiving this unmeritorious gift of grace, we then are to go and share this gift, that Jesus became one with us in our humanity so that we can become one with him in his divinity, with everyone we encounter.
Photo of Flor de Mana Blandon with her son Domingo. Photo credit by Karen Kasmauski for CRS. Access link: https://instagram.com/p/BNKEpkmB2_X/
Link for the Mass readings for Monday, December 31, 2018: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/123118.cfm
Don’t understand the words of Jesus? Ponder them for a while.
When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them (Lk 2:48-50).
As I wrote a few days ago, we are now in the Octave of Christmas. The Church has decided that the Solemnity of Christmas is to be celebrated over an eight day period because we need time to ponder the great mystery of the Incarnation to better understand its implications for us in our daily lives.
Each time we hear the accounts that there was no room for them at the inn, Jesus was born in a stable, shepherds and magi come to see the new born king, today’s account of Jesus being found in the Temple, our response is not to be, “Oh, we have heard that story so many times before, I am going to check out now.” Instead, each time we are invited into the story, to allow the retelling of these accounts to draw us deeper into the Mystery they convey.
One of the reasons that we may resist this practice of pondering, is because we do not understand what the Gospel accounts are talking about. We are modern people living in our own time, experiencing our own culture, language and perspectives. In fact, in today’s account from Luke, Mary, who lived the day to day nuances of ancient Palestine, knew Jesus for twelve years, still does not understand what he says to her, that he stayed behind instead of traveling with them because he had to be in his Father’s house. If Mary has some trouble understanding, we need to have patience with ourselves when we struggle to understand as well.
Often our immediate response to our lack of understanding is one of frustration, aggravation, impatience, or worse indifference or seeing no relevance from the readings to our time and daily living. May we resist this knee-jerk reaction and instead follow the lead of Mary. Let us ponder, let us keep all these things in our heart. Luke only mentions that she and Joseph did not understand, there is no mention of a Joseph head slap to the back of the head, no Mary mentioning how long Jesus would be grounded when they got back to Nazareth. Just that Jesus was obedient and followed Mary and Joseph home. I am sure during their journey home, as with many of their experiences with Jesus, there was some serious pondering.
Often we find in the Gospels, that Jesus’ words and actions, pull us up short, they stop us in our tracks. When this happens we are receiving the invitation from Jesus to reevaluate our life, how we have been living, and how we can be better human beings. We can certainly understand the Bible a bit better through researching the historical, psychological, and sociological background, as well as scholarly commentaries to gain context, just as we can in studying any form of literature. Yet, along with our intellectual pursuit, we must also be willing to engage our soul, because our mind can only take us so far. We are created as human beings, which means we are physical as well as spiritual beings, people of reason and faith.
Pope St John Paul II said that living a life of faith without reason is superstition, and Albert Einstein said that living a life of reason without faith is boring.
To understand the teachings and leading of Jesus in our life, we need to let go of the absolute security we place in our own autonomy. We need to acknowledge that we are not the center of the universe, we need to let go of our false sense of freedom that states, “I can do what I want, when I want, and how I want and I want to understand right now.” God has created us as transcendent beings, and to be fulfilled in our lives, we need to be willing to open ourselves to the divine.
Part of understanding Sacred Scripture, understanding Jesus, is learning his language. Not literally Aramaic, but the language of his very being as fully human and fully divine. Pope St. Paul VI wrote that we need to learn from the school of the Holy Family. “The silence of Nazareth should teach us how to meditate in peace and quiet, to reflect on the deeply spiritual, and to be open to the voice of God’s inner wisdom and the counsel of his true teachers.”
When we allow ourselves to be still, to rest for awhile in the presence of God, we allow ourselves to experience being loved by him. By doing so, we come to learn the language that Jesus spoke to us. Jesus’ language of love was not just an emotion, but a willing the good of the other, as other. An invitation to participate in his life. To learn and understand the language that Jesus speaks we must practice daily placing ourselves in a contemplative posture.
When we experience the love of God we are for that moment, no longer governed by our fears and wounds. We are able to let go of our defensive posture and begin to trust. The key is to continually place ourselves in this posture of surrender such that we become less and Jesus becomes more the center of our lives. In this way, we will come to develop eyes that see and ears that hear and a mind and soul that understand the word and will of God. When we, like Mary, learn to ponder, we will then better come to understand what Jesus has to teach us so to become contemplatives in action.
Photo: Making some time to study in the School of Nazareth, by pondering the Gospel of Luke
Quote from Pope St Paul VI from an address, “Nazareth”, that he gave January 5, 1964.
Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, December 30, 2018: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/123018.cfm
Look into the eyes of Jesus, and see the salvation we have been prepared for.
“Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel” (Lk 2:29-32).
As Simeon receives Jesus to be consecrated to the Lord, he recognizes through the gift of the Holy Spirit that this child, is the one he and Israel had been waiting for, he is the Messiah, the Christ. He has come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets as well as be a light to the Gentiles, to the Nations.
These verses, called the Canticle of Simeon, recorded by Luke are recited each night by those of us who pray the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours. They are prayed during Compline or Night Prayer, the last prayers before going to sleep. May we too see that this celebration of the birth of Jesus we have been engaging in this week is our savior too, our fulfillment and our light also.
May we, like Simeon, receive this child in our arms from Mary and Joseph. May we too see the salvation that is offered us, the invitation given to us. May we not run from the light of his truth, but may we embrace it so as to be transformed. Let us glory in the joy of knowing that Jesus came to share his love, mercy, and grace, with us. He is the promise of healing that we all need to realize and actualize in our lives.
That is the key, Jesus invites us but does not impose. This Christmas can be just another day in a cycle of days that pass with no change, or we can immerse ourselves in this Octave of Christmas so as to take seriously the fact that Jesus is who he said he is, who the Apostles claimed that he was, who the Church still announces that he is today, Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God.
Spend some time meditating on holding the baby Jesus, our savior, in your arms as Simeon did. As you hold him look into his face, see his smile, the glint in his eye, and allow that exchange to melt away any sin of pride, lust, greed, envy, sloth, gluttony, prejudice, and wrath. May we experience the warmth of his love radiate up from the depths of our soul. May we be filled with his joy to overflowing, such that as we gaze on another today we may share that same smile we have received and so radiate the love of Christ with those we encounter today.
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Painting: Het loflied van Simeon – the Song of praise from Simeon, by Arent de Gelder, ca. 1700
Link for today’s Mass readings for Friday, December 29, 2018: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122918.cfm
Spiritual Stepping Stones 