When we spend time reading the Gospels, we will encounter in them that the God of Jesus Christ is a God of justice, yes, but a justice that is tempered with mercy and love, a restorative justice, not a punitive justice. God invites us to be in communion with him and one another, and to answer that call requires a transformation, a change of heart and mind. Jesus meets people where they are, accepts them as they are, while at the same time holding a mirror up to them to show how what they are doing is keeping them from the very reality of communion with his Father that they seek.

One example can be seen when Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well and he asked her for a drink. What followed from that simple, while at the same time profound request, led to her humble confession that she did not have a husband to which Jesus responded: “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” Jesus spoke to a woman and a Samaritan in public, two things that were not done in his time as it was against societal norms.

Jesus recognized the distinction, but saw instead and foremost, a human being created in the image and likeness of God. He saw a woman isolated, close to the point of being ostracized from her community, for who else would come by themselves to fetch water in the full heat of the day? What he shared with her was acceptance, as he spoke to her as a person. Because of her honesty, humility, and courage, what transpired over the course of the conversation was not only her transformation but the redemption of her whole community. This transpired because, with joy and courage, she proclaimed the Good News even to those that kept her at arm’s leg, and on the margins (cf. Jn 4:1-12).

Another encounter happened with Saul who was present and oversaw the stoning of St Stephen and continued his zealous persecution of the followers of Jesus. On the road to Damascus, Saul encountered the risen Jesus, who met him with the words: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me” (Acts 9:4)? Again, as with the woman at the well, Jesus greeted Saul with a simple but profound question which had a tremendous effect on him. Saul was transformed from a persecutor of the Way to a follower of the Word. He would not only change his name to Paul and proclaim the Gospel to a community but to the Mediterranean world.

In today’s Gospel, Peter, who had betrayed Jesus three times, encountered Jesus who also posed a question, but this time asking it three times: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” (cf. Jn 21:15-19). With these simple questions and Peter’s affirmative responses of yes, Jesus forgave Peter for betraying him. Peter went forward to proclaim boldly the life of Jesus at the feast of Pentecost, and three thousand were moved by his words and sought to become part of the Way of Jesus.

In each encounter that Jesus experienced with the Samaritan woman, Paul, and Peter, he met each of them, not with condemnation or judgment, but with love and mercy. He met them on their level and then offered them a look in the mirror by asking a simple question. Jesus sought to draw them out of their own false senses of self and sin, and into the love of God. Each person answered with truth and humility, and willingly looked at their life, turned away from their self centered posture and accepted the invitation of Jesus to lead them to a change of heart and mind.

The justice of God is not about the punitive measure, about rubbing our noses in our own mistakes and misjudgments. Yet, if we choose our own sin over the love of God’s healing transformation, it may feel punitive, because God will allow us to feel the effects of our decisions. God gives us another choice. He has sent his Son to show us the path of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Jesus echoes Hosea 6:6 when he is recorded as saying, “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners” (Mt 9:13). Jesus comes to us, as he came to the Samaritan woman, Paul, and Peter, who were able to receive the healing of Jesus because they acknowledged they had turned away from the will of God.

When we make some time for prayer and spend some time in silence today, let us allow ourselves to see Jesus approaching us or sitting with us. What simple, yet transformative question does he ask that reveals to us our sin, how we are keeping ourselves at a distance from God? In what way do we need to change our hearts and minds? When we choose to leave behind our false self, our pride and our ego, and instead respond with humility and contrition, true sorrow for our sins, as did the Samaritan woman, Paul, and Peter, we will be healed, transformed, and empowered to go forth to share the Good News of the love and mercy we have experienced with God?

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Photo: Close up of Heinrich Hoffman’s Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, 1889

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, May 21, 2021

Jesus bestowed his love his grace upon his Apostles as a gift. The fundamental option, our ultimate end goal, that which we seek from the very depths and core of our being, is to experience the same love that the Apostles experienced. The Creator of all that exists, that so transcends our comprehension, that is so beyond our ability to comprehend fully, has come close to us, become one with us in the person of his Son, and loves us more than we can ever imagine.

This reality, the core of the deposit of faith that they received, was not to be hoarded, buried away, or to be shared with a select few. This living gift of grace was to be shared by the Apostles, the ones who Jesus called by name, who he hand-picked to receive his message and then sent them forth to proclaim his word. They were to protect it for the purpose of transmitting it accurately to their successors so that it would then be passed on to each successive generation who would receive and make it relevant for their own time.

Jesus said to his Father in his farewell discourse, as recorded by John that: “I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them” (Jn 17:26). Through our participation in the love of Christ, we are perfected and conformed by his will such that we too can experience and share in the love of the Father.

The Trinity is at the heart of the Gospel, the Good News. The Trinity is a divine communion of three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have been created with a burning hunger and desire to experience this same communion. Yet why don’t we say yes to this joyous invitation? St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, or Summa, outlines four substitutes or temptations that we may put in place of our highest hope and good; these are wealth, honor, pleasure, and power. In and of themselves, these are not unhealthy desires, as long as God is first and we orient ourselves to them from God’s perspective.

When we assume the posture of pride, believing that we are the center of our lives and we seek wealth, power, pleasure, and/or honor for our own sake and self-aggrandizement, each will be distorted and leave us empty, or worse lead us into the crippling slavery of addiction because in and of themselves they are finite pursuits. How many times have there been reports of someone who has amassed most or all of these four, and then come to a place of such despair and emptiness that they had taken their own life?

Through a properly ordered sense of power grounded in love, defined by St Thomas, as the willing the good of the other those in positions of power and privilege are called to be a voice for those who otherwise would not have a voice. Those with access to wealth, are to recognize that this is a gift from God, and they are to be good stewards of what they have received to help and support others, not only in the limited stance of a hand-out but as a primary means to provide a hand up. To accompany and shepherd those who do not have access such that they can arrive at the point where they can be provided with access, skills, and means to participate in the dignity of meaningful work and gainful employment.

The ultimate goal of pleasure is to embrace the Beautiful, the gift that God provides in which we can have access and enjoy the wonders of his creation. At the same time, we can be participants in the expression of creativity through the arts as well as our everyday actions by finding joy in our interactions with one another and engaging in our vocations. If honor, fame, and glory arise in the faithful, they arise not for their own sake or as to heighten the focus on self. This attention comes with the responsibility to further radiate the light and love of God so to evangelize and draw others to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, as did Peter when he preached and three thousand came to accept the love of Christ. When Pope Francis visited the United States the news for a week was filled with joy and hope. When St Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize she began her speech by saying, “As we have gathered here together to thank God for the Nobel Peace Prize” and ended with the words, “God bless you!” These are all examples of God being the source and focus to bring about the proper alignment and use of wealth, power, pleasure, and fame.

Jesus has revealed the love with which his Father loved him with and sent him to share with us. He invites each and every one of us to receive and live in the love that he shares with his Father such that we may experience the very presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. May wealth, power, pleasure, and honor, not be distractions or diversions to our embracing the love of God, but a means to radiate his light and to provide opportunities and access to others who otherwise would not have any access.

God is to be our fundamental option such that we strive to open our hearts and minds daily to receive his love, be filled with, and experience his joy, so as to radiate his presence to others. In this way, we are sent out to accompany others, to share with those who are in need of hope, his presence, and his love. In serving as well as respecting, standing up for and speaking on behalf of the dignity of each person God places before us we will also experience and help others to encounter the love of the Holy Spirit and make our corner of the world a little bit better today than it was yesterday.

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Photo: 2020 graduates radiating the love of Christ, one smile at a time, one person at a time

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 20, 2021

“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one” (Jn 17:11).

Jesus is well aware of the temptations of the world and recognizes that the disciples will need the protection of his intercession and that they will remain faithful only if they remain in his love and in relationship with him. The unity that the Father and Son share is an eternal communion. Jesus, as the Son of God, continued to be one with his Father, while fully experiencing his humanity. As a human being, Jesus faced the same temptations present in this world that we face. The difference is that with each choice that he made, as a human being with a free human will, he chose to say yes to his Father at each and every opportunity, and so his unity remained intact and deepened.

Jesus sought the same unity that he shares with his Father for his disciples and he seeks the same for us today, that we may be one as he and the Father are one. Yet, he is not going to pull us out of the world for that to happen. “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One” (Jn 17:15). The disciples then and us today, are to do as Jesus did. We are to develop a relationship with God, come to know his will, and share it with those we encounter in our realm of influence. We are not to be transformed by the world, but we are to allow God to transform us by the renewal of our mind and heart. As we do so, we can bring light into the darkness as God works through us one person at a time.

Following the will of God is not easy to do. Many distractions, diversions, and temptations pull at us and attempt to draw us away from being faithful and true to God, ourselves, and who God calls us to be. Many times these distractions not only appear to be, but are good things. The challenge is not that we are being good or doing good, but are we doing what God is calling us to do?

I have pursued many interests in many areas throughout my life. I continue to discern and to pray about what God would have me to do. I have felt drawn to the practice of Zen Buddhism for years only reading about it and making some feeble attempts on my own. Upon my return to Los Angeles after JoAnn’s funeral, I participated in an introductory course in Zazen, sitting meditation, at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. Being able to stop, to be quiet, to be still and to just breath has been a helpful practice that I have continued.

We can deepen our relationship with Jesus and his Father when we slow down our pace, so to become still within and in this way better be able to hear his voice. The Holy Spirit will also reveal to us the gifts that he has imparted, and above all guide us to clearly know his direction and grant us the courage to follow it. If any fear or anxiety arises about what we are invited to do, how better we are to serve, we just need to remind ourselves that God will provide the means and support. We are not meant to do what he calls us to do alone.

We will accomplish that which God requires from us and through the unique perspective he calls us to act when we continue to turn to him for guidance. He will place the people and the means, help us to recognize the temptations and pitfalls in our path, and impart in us the persistence and dedication to accomplish the task that we have been given. We just need to be willing to change, to be transformed, to grow, and to extend ourselves beyond our comfort zones. When we risk doing so, it will be worth it because as we follow the will of God and trust his support, we will find meaning and fulfillment in our lives and ultimately, through the love of the Holy Spirit, we will grow in our oneness with Jesus, the Father, and each other.

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Photo: Spending a few minutes enjoying the quiet of the evening and looking up a few nights ago.

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, May 19, 2021

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn 17:3).

This is our goal, to know God. Eternal life, or heaven, is not only experienced when we die. Through experiencing the life of Jesus we can have a foretaste of heaven now. We can experience this as the joy that rises up from within, that is not merely pleasure, which is a response from the stimulation of our senses and which dissipates once the experience ends. Nor is joy even happiness which comes from the lasting memories of these pleasurable experiences. The experience of joy is not based on external situations and stimulations, joy comes from an encounter with the living God who is present to us, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

We often first experience this joy, this closeness to God when we experience love exchanged between ourselves and another. Even a love that begins in infatuation is a drawing out of ourselves toward another. The hope is that this love matures and develops into a friendship.

This maturation happens when we spend time getting to know each other’s interests, goals, and dreams. We experience another as a person, and with time and continued trust, we begin to risk and allow our masks to be taken off. Inevitably, when relationships begin to mature, they will go through times of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and conflict. The relationship will come to a crossroads, but this does not mean that the relationship will come to an end. If the relationship devolves into abuse, dehumanization, and self-gratification alone, the relationship will need to end. But if there is a willingness to forgive, to work together, to meet each other with humility and seek mutual understanding, relationships will grow stronger and deeper.

Our first experience of developing relationships is in our families. None of us are perfect, so none of us have had a perfect family life. Familial relationships develop in a similar fashion as listed above. We all go through ups and downs. The more that we can be present to one another, support one another, communicate and love one another, the more likely our familial relationships and friendships will grow.

The level most of us hope to attain is to come to a place within where we can accept and love ourselves and develop mature relationships with a core group of family and friends. Most of us could be quite happy with that. Yet, as Jesus invites and guides us to reach this point of development, he also continues to help us to strive to love beyond family, friends, and tribe. All of us are ultimately called to a universal, unconditional love that sees a sister and brotherhood in all of humanity and all of creation. This is not some utopian philosophy, but who we all are created for and desire to be from the very depths of our being.

We will not get to this place alone, or through our own will power or discipline, nor if we hold it up as some abstract ideal. When we place self over God and others, we isolate and disconnect ourselves from the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. God is not some transcendent, impersonal force, nor is God an omnipotent, tyrannical overlord. The God of Jesus Christ is a God of love, who invites us into a relationship, and when we say yes to this invitation we experience a foretaste of heaven on earth.

Jesus, please help us to experience the love of God through coming to know you as we come to know each other. May we see each other as God sees us, as a unique gift that has never been nor ever will be again. Help us resist reacting to the rough edges and exterior projections of our inner wounds and instead guide us to be compassionate and understanding, and willing to see the truth and fullness of the potential of each person. Help us to see each other as God sees us and to allow God to love others through us today, one person and one encounter at a time.

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Photo: Happy together, happiness for the end of the school year, and/or experiencing the joy of the Holy Spirit?!!!

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, May 18, 2021

The disciples are beginning to have a better understanding that Jesus is who he says he is, that “he came from God.” Jesus does not rest on or savor this insight and affirmation, but shares with them how, they still do not fully comprehend. He tells them that each will leave him alone in his most desperate hour. They do just that. Those he takes with him into the Garden of Gethsemane will fall asleep. When Jesus asks them to watch and pray with him, to be a support for him as he receives the will of the Father, they will fall asleep. When Jesus hears he will be sent again, sent to do the Father’s will by giving his life on the Cross for them, they again fall asleep. When the guards come to arrest Jesus, led by Judas, the disciples would flee. Peter will then betray him three times.

What is interesting is that just as Jesus shares with them, that even though they, his most intimate followers, his closest friends would betray him, he says: “I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” 

These words are words of comfort and hope for us today! No matter if we betray or are betrayed ourselves, we let others down or are let down, we see and experience the devastating effects of our fallen world and fallen human nature, from without and within; no matter what conflict, challenges, or tribulations rise up before us, we do not need to succumb to cynicism, hopelessness, and despair. We do need to have the humility to acknowledge where we have caused harm in any form and seek forgiveness and reconciliation as well as be understanding and willing to forgive.

We also need to remember that in those times when we feel misunderstood, betrayed, or are facing the unbearable in life, we are not alone! Jesus reveals to us the way to his Father because Jesus is the Way! Seeking affirmation from the culture or the world is not the way. Our priority instead ought to be to build our relationship with Jesus, who will lead us to the Father so to experience the Love of the Holy Spirit! When we acknowledge the presence of Jesus in our lives and when we turn to him for help and support, there is joy, there is peace, and all things are possible.

Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, and he will not be overcome by it, for he has conquered death, and overcome the world. We are an Alleluia people because through our participation in the life of Jesus the Christ we will overcome as well. As an Alleluia people, we are not to be shaped by the culture and the world but are to instead shape it by authentically living the Gospel, by being and sharing the light, joy, peace, and love of Christ in every aspect of our lives and interactions with one another.

Photo: Class of 2020 as juniors putting their love into action by creating and gathering surprise Mother’s Day gifts for JoAnn when they found out she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I am still touched by their kindness.

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, May 17,2021

For many of us, when we hear about the Ascension of Jesus we are just as beguiled as the disciples who as recorded in the Book of Acts were standing around, looking at the sky. Also, depending on where you live, will depend on when you celebrate this solemnity. If you live in the ecclesiastical Provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha, and Philadelphia you already celebrated Ascension Thursday on its traditional day, this past Thursday. For the rest of the country it is a holy day of obligation celebrated today, on Sunday. The reason for Ascension Thursday is that the Ascension of Jesus took place 40 days after the Resurrection and 10 days before Pentecost. The point of concern for moving to Sunday observance was lack of attendance on Thursdays.

Regarding what the Ascension of Jesus is, sometimes, we can understand a term better by saying what it is not. The Ascension was not an event where Jesus went up, up, and away in my beautiful balloon, or as Superman zipping away to destroy an asteroid hurtling toward the earth.

The Ascension is the culminating event of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. Jesus who as the Son of God became a human being like us, lived among us, experienced the joys and suffering of life like us in all things but sin, yet took our sins upon himself on the cross. Jesus then died, entered into death and conquered death. He rose again, not as a ghost or a spirit, but still fully God and fully man, yet his body was transfigured. Jesus became the first born of the new creation.

After forty days spent gathering his disciples, eating with, teaching, and empowering them to continue his work of making the will of his Father known, Jesus Ascended back to the Father with his humanity still in tact, and so with our humanity too.

As Bishop Robert Barron explains: “The Ascension is the translation of this earthly reality into a heavenly reality.” Jesus is no longer limited by the time and space of our present temporal reality. He transcends our recognized third dimensional reality, and now exists at a higher pitch of existence. Just as Jesus was able to pass through a locked door, he is able to be present to us at Mass on Thursday or Sunday or any time that the Mass is celebrated anywhere in the world. Jesus is present to us where two or more are gathered in his name and when we call on his name.

Through the event of the Ascension, Jesus brings something of our humanity to heaven and at Pentecost he sent something of heaven to us in the descent of the Holy Spirit. And who is the Holy Spirit, but the Love that is breathed, that is shared between the Father and the Son.

What this means for us is that we are separated no longer from the reality of heaven. St Irenaeus wrote that, “Jesus opened up heaven for us in the humanity he assumed.” We can see this biblically, as the sky was torn open at the baptism of Jesus, as the veil was torn in the Holy of Holies in the temple at his crucifixion, and as Jesus Ascended fully human, with our humanity, to the right hand of the Father. Heaven and earth have been wedded.

We are the Church, the bride of Christ. Through our Baptism we are grafted to the Mystical Body of Christ.

We are transfigured, divinized, made God through our participation in the life of Jesus. We are made holy, and our commission, the same as the Apostles, is to continue the work of being a bridge for the communion of the human and the divine. We are to work to follow the will of God, on earth as it is in heaven, “to go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature”.

Having heard this Good News of the Ascension, let us not, as the two angels said, just “stand around looking at the sky”, but share the love of his very being that we receive in the Eucharist, in person or spiritually online, and invite all to participate on earth what is celebrated in heaven, the love of the communion between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Photo by Josh Sorenson pexels.com

Mass readings for Sunday, May 16, 2021

“I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father” (Jn 16:28).

This phrase, in one form or another, has been a consistent message in John’s recording of Jesus’ farewell discourse. These words not only show Jesus’ connection to the Father through his coming from and returning to the Father and then his sending of the Holy Spirit, but these statements help to prepare the way for our understanding of the Trinitarian Communion.

Theologians have termed this reality the Immanent Trinity, God within himself. Which is expressed by the divine communion of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All that God the Father is, he gives all, holding nothing back, to God the Son perfectly. God the Son receives all that God the Father has given perfectly, and returns all that he has received, holding nothing back, perfectly to God the Father. This giving and receiving, this going out from and returning to, this perfect willing of each other’s good, is the purest expression of Love. This Love shared infinitely and perfectly between God the Father and God the Son is God the Holy Spirit.

The Son of God became one with us, sharing in our humanity, so we can also share in his divinity. His ascent and return back to the Father makes this even more possible. Now his divine nature, as the Son, always remained in full communion with the Father. Jesus is one divine Person as the Son, yet he subsists in two natures the divine and the human. The Ascension of Jesus was a point in salvation history, in which the human nature of Jesus transcended our three-dimensional reality to enter the eternal present, the immanence, of the Trinitarian communion, and because God created all humanity and creation as interconnected with one another, we are now able to share in the intimate, divine dance, or perichoresis, of the Love, shared between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

We are all invited, 24/7/365, with every breath, thought, word, and action, to experience the Holy Spirit, the communion of Trinitarian Love. But this is not an imposition, it is an invitation, meaning no matter how wonderful, no matter that this is what we have been created for and will bring us fulfillment and joy, we can reject or accept this offer.

Thankfully, because of the Divine Mercy of God this is an open invitation. Even if we had said no for years, we can say yes at this moment. Once we say yes, even just a little, the love of God grows within us, just like the image of the mustard seed. As we experience the love of God in our own lives, we begin to realize how God is the foundation of our being and all creation.

We come to see how God is the foundation of all things, how he is present to us in our everyday actions when we participate in the very being and life of Jesus. We do so when we participate in the sacraments. Jesus is even more present to us in the sacraments than when he was present to the Apostles. We also experience and encounter God through our participation in the three transcendentals, the ways of our being that God has imparted to us to experience him, which are the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. It is through the expression of our creativity in music, dance, and the arts that we come to experience the Beautiful. By embracing our gift of reason and intellect, through prayer, study, and sharing of ideas, we come to know the True. In recognizing the gift of others as human, through our fellowship, loving and engaging one another in the corporeal and spiritual works of mercy we come to experience Love which leads us to the Good.

God has given us the wonderful gift of life not just to endure but to experience fully, even in the midst of our trials, tribulations, and sufferings. We just need to remember to open our hearts, minds, and souls to receive the gift of God working in and through us. Just as the Son is, we are sent to risk, to give our love away, by sharing his love with others. Our offer can be turned down or rejected. Even so, we must resist the temptation to judge or to take offense, but instead to assume a posture of understanding, of being present, and being available to witness and allow God to reach others through us.We never truly know the pain and suffering of another, nor what they may be dealing with. Instead of a knee-jerk reaction, take a deep breath and by seeking to be more understanding you might just be the healing presence that can make a difference.

Each of us is on a journey of growing in faith. We are invited to open ourselves to the will of God, so we can experience the Good, the True, and the Beautiful so that we too can experience, perichoresis, the infinite dance of the Love shared between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This is our fundamental option, our end goal, heaven, which is to enter into the fullness of the divine dance and communion of the Trinity. What Jesus has brought to us through his Paschal Mystery; his life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, is the reality of how we can experience heaven on earth right now. Our vocation is to say yes to God’s invitation to embrace the love of the Trinity so to love others as we have been loved, for: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15).

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Photo: Christmas hike 2010 – photo credit Jack McKee (I just realized that 2010 was 11 years ago!)

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, May 15, 2021

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete” (John 15:11).

What is this referring too? “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

And what is his commandment? “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”

Even when life appears pretty dark and division and suffering seem to be waiting around every corner, we need not give up or fall into despair. God wants us to experience joy and fulfillment despite our experiences and not through being lemmings or slaves but as Jesus said, “friends”. The friends of Jesus are those who hear the word he has received and shared from his Father which are his commandments, the greatest of these is to love.

If we truly want to be happy and fulfilled, we are to align our will with the will of God who is Love. St. Irenaeus taught that the joy of God is the human being fully alive. For us to be fully alive, we are to love as God loves us. God keeps inviting us to receive his love and his joy, to be happy. Many of us do not experience the fullness of this joy because we are distracted and diverted by what appears to be good. With time and experience, we often find in fact they are not. Much of what we expend our energy doing are feeble substitutes.

Neither will we experience fulfillment and joy through denying, covering over, or being so busy that we don’t have to face the sufferings in our or other’s lives. We ease suffering by entering into it. When we do so we can experience healing at the root. By willing our good and the good of others, we can alleviate some of the suffering in our realm of influence. Each day we need to decide if we are to curl up in our shell or to be an agent of healing and love and by doing so, we can make our corner of the world a little better.

Photo: With JoAnn, who taught me how to come out of my shell, to live and to love.

Mass readings for Friday, May 14, 2021

Jesus continues his farewell discourse and appears to be speaking in riddles: “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me” (Jn 16:16). We who know what is coming for Jesus understand what Jesus is talking about, but for the disciples, not so much. Jesus will be crucified and rise again from the dead. Jesus then goes on to explain further that: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy” (Jn 16:20). Jesus is speaking about the same two points of reference, his Crucifixion and Resurrection.

The most brutal sign of oppression during the reign of the Roman Empire was the cross. It was a weapon of terror, torture, an extreme case of punitive justice or capital punishment, and in actuality state-sanctioned terrorism. The person would be stripped of all their clothing, would be nailed by the wrists, or palms and wrists tied, nailed by the feet, and then lifted up for public display. Then would begin their humiliation, dehumanization, and long agonizing death; a sign for anyone to think twice about challenging the authority of Rome.

The disciples wept and mourned, their hopes dashed, they were stunned, ashamed, and demoralized, while others rejoiced as Jesus and the two others beside him were lifted up. The centurions flaunted their authority and prowess. Others gathered around and jeered at who they believed to be another false prophet dying on Golgotha, the hill of the skull, where so many had gone before. Where other hopes and dreams had been crushed under Roman dominance and oppression.

Jesus was sometimes described as being hung on a tree in some letters of the Bible because writing the word cross was still too raw and vivid in people’s minds. Yet, this was not the final chapter. The grief of the Apostles would turn to joy because of the Resurrection. The cross, this symbol of torture, would become a sign of victory over death and the grave.

Yet, one centurion got it right: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mk 15:39)! For many Christians today, the Crucifix and Cross are no longer a sign of oppression and fear but are displayed as a sign of the triumph and victory that Jesus has won for us. They are not magic talismans, but they are sacramental signs, concrete objects that are tangible, that we can see, wear, and hold on to, for the purpose of reminding us that we have a God who understands our humanity because he lived life as we do.

Jesus cried as we cry, he laughed as we laugh, and he enjoyed table fellowship with those on the peripheries. Jesus faced rejection, misunderstanding, trials, and tribulations, he overcame conflict and rejection, he died as we will die, yet his death was not the end. Jesus ultimately conquered death, so that through our participation in his Life and Resurrection we will rise again in Christ as well.

I invite you to spend some time meditating in front of a crucifix or cross today. If you are going through a particularly rough patch, hold it in your hand, feel the wood, allow your gaze to fall upon the face and wounded body of Jesus to remind you that he understands because he experienced what we experience, and that means God experiences what we experience. When we allow him, Jesus will also embrace us with those arms outstretched to ease our suffering and pain.

Jesus is and will continue to be present with us, closer even than the crucifix we hold or look upon. If all is going well, or you just received some great news, do the same! We don’t only go to Jesus with our trials and tribulations, but our joys and celebrations as well. Simply share with him your heart and allow him to share his with you.

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Photo: Jesus understands…

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, May 13, 2021