Reflections on the Gospel Reading for the Day

Be open to Trinitarian Love

Wednesday, July 19, 2017
“At that time Jesus exclaimed: ‘I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike’” (Mt 11:25).
Why did the wise and the learned, referring to the Sadducees, Pharisees and scribes, reject Jesus? Jesus challenged their idol of tradition. Even though Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (cf. Mt 5:17), the invitation to go deeper was challenging. This is certainly highlighted in the six antitheses, Jesus shared during his Sermon on the Mount. Here is one such example: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil” (Mt 5: 28). Offer no resistance to one who is evil? Hard to swallow for people of Jesus’ time. For us today? Insert that verse into our present dialogue regarding refugee and immigration policies, or Church entrenchment in reaction to atheism, secularism and scientism.
Jesus offered then and continues to offer today the intimacy of the Trinitarian Love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To be fully alive, to share in his Love, we need to resist fear and holding blindly to tradition for its own sake. Instead we need to be open to growth, change, and renewal. Gerhard Lohfink, in his book, No Irrelevant Jesus, quotes the Polish philosopher Leszak Kolakowski: “A society in which tradition becomes a cult is condemned to stagnation; a society that tries to live entirely through revolt against tradition condemns itself to destruction” (2014, 2).
Many have left the Church because they feel we are too steeped in tradition, but in their throwing the baby out with the bathwater, they have no secure ground or foundation. Others remain hunkered in the Church entrenched in a bunker of tradition fearing the secular tide. Both are postures keeping us from Jesus’ invitation of a communal Love with God and one another.
Jesus sees the potential we have as well as our brokenness and fear. He meets us where we are, as we are, in our present condition, and from that starting point he invites us to crawl, then to walk, then to run, and eventually to fly – to experience and share his unconditional Love. Let us resist the temptation of rejecting tradition altogether or idolizing tradition alone, but instead build on the foundation we have been given; Jesus Christ: “The Way, the Truth and the Life” (cf Jn 14:6). Within the life of the Church, “we must not do away with its traditions, but at the same time it must continually clarify, renew, and deepen them” (Lohfink 2014, 2).
Spend some quiet time with God. Ask him to reveal something you have been holding onto that is keeping you bound in fear. Then offer it to him and let the Holy Spirit burn it, so as to purify you with his eternal flame of Love. Trust in Jesus each step of the way!
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Mass readings for today, Wednesday, July 19, 2017:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071917.cfm
Lohfink, Gehrhard. 2014. No Irrelevant Jesus: On Jesus and the Church Today. Minnesota: Liturgical Press.

A Light Shines in the Darkness

Tuesday, July 18, 2017
“Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.” (Mt 11:20).
To encounter Jesus is to be invited to change. Jesus shines the light of his love and mercy into the darkness of our fallen nature, where we are wounded, sinful, and broken. He invites us to repentance, healing, and reconciliation. A wonderful invitation, but why would we turn away? The light is too bright.
Facing our own darkness and brokenness is not easy and can be frightening and intimidating. That is why we are so vulnerable to temptation and distraction. We are not able to sit still because we want to keep moving so as not to face the fear and pain, nor let go of false senses of security and apparent goods.
May we pray for one another and be present to one another, that we can embrace the light of Christ, be willing to change, to repent: to turn back to God. God loves us more than we can ever mess up. Jesus’ arms are wide open to receive us in the midst of our pain and brokenness. But we must be willing to stop running from the pain and experience it to feel his loving embrace. The God of Jesus Christ, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is our source, our security, our refuge, our hope, and our fulfillment.
“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15).
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Mass readings for today, Tuesday, July 18, 2017: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071817.cfm

To Live in Peace, God first

Monday, July 17, 2017
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword” (Mt 10:34).
Words to live by from the King of Peace. The reality of this statement is the reality of his mission. Jesus entered the lives of individuals. Some said yes to following him and some said no; some saying yes and no within the same family. The image of the sword represents how sharp and stark this choice could cut. If you do not think that is true, just look at the polarization in our country right now. The cut between democrat and republican is quite deep.
During the time of Jesus and for most within the first generation of believers, there was not a luke-warm choice. You were either for Jesus or against Jesus. Unfortunately, today, the Gospel is being shaped more by politics than the Gospel shaping politics. It is more important that we follow Jesus, putting him first before any politician or political party. All parties are deficient in following the teachings of Jesus.
We, who have chosen to follow Jesus, need to speak truth to the issues and hold leaders accountable on all sides. Our starting point for any issue needs to be respecting, first and foremost, the dignity of the person from the moment of conception and everywhere in between until natural death and the stewardship of God’s creation. In that dialogue, dialogue, not monologue, we need to respect those we share our views with and be willing to also listen. We can and will disagree, but we need to resist demonizing one another.
Let us begin by learning the teachings of Jesus, applying them to our lives, praying for our leaders, praying for one another, and seeking to enter dialogue – inviting the Holy Spirit to give us the words to speak and ears to hear.
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Mass readings for Monday, July 17, 2017:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071717.cfm

Five Seeds Sown in Rich Soil

Sunday, July 16, 2017
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear” (Mt 13:16).
Jesus is present and active in our lives. He is constantly sowing seeds for us, inviting us to receive him and bear the fruit of a deeper relationship with him. Do we see, do we hear?
Following are five seeds that Jesus has sown in my life during my teen years.
I remember going to our grandparents, my mother’s parents often. Especially during holidays, my grandfather would begin our dinner with the Sign of the Cross and the Our Father. My grandfather also encouraged me to spend time with God in silence. A seed of contemplation was sown.
One weekend my dad picked me up for dinner and we went out for Italian. Just before spearing a juicy meatball with my fork, my father asked me if he could say grace. To my recollection, he had never done this before, and the Holy Spirit shot across the table and hit me full on in the chest. Looking back at the experience some time later, I realized I received a healing between me a God at that moment. One night I overheard my parents deciding to divorce, when I was about nine, I told God to fix this by the time I woke up or we were through. This dinner was a turning point in my relationship with God. A seed of reconciliation was sown.
When I was a sophomore or junior in high school, I used to take our German Shepherd, Max, out before school. One morning I was running late and he got away, I returned to the house without Max, frustrated and expressing my present mental state with a few choice expletives. Then I heard my mother sneeze from her bedroom. I thought she was at work. I was mortified, having spoken like that before my mother. I cried the whole way as I walked to school that morning. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “Never let evil talk pass you lips say only the good things people need to hear” (cf. Ephesians 4:29). A seed of prudence was sown.
I left a party of friends one evening not feeling comfortable there. I came home, went up to my room, opened a Bible that I had recently purchased and came upon Luke chapter 12:22 and read about how God took care of the ravens and the flowers and there was no need to worry about my life, that he would take care of us as he had taken carry of them. I then heard God speak to me, saying that I would never win the lotto, but that he would always provide me with the ability to work. A seed of faith had been sown.
Finally, when I was about seventeen, I decided to return to church. I hadn’t been to church since my parents divorced. There was a Congregational Church about a half mile down the street, where my mother and step father were married. I walked in and sat down. At the end of the service, the interim pastor expressed that there was a need for Sunday school teachers. The pew seemed to heat up under me. I felt God was encouraging me to volunteer. I resisted the whole idea, but went back again the following week and the same thing happened. I approached the pastor offered to be a Sunday School teacher. A seed of vocation had been sown.
These are just a few seeds Jesus had sown in my teen years; seeds of contemplation, reconciliation, prudence, faith and vocation. Each of which found rich soil and have taken root in my life. I encourage you to give yourself some silent time with God today and each day this week, contemplate about the people and experiences that Jesus has put and continues to put in your life, the seeds he has sown for you. Jesus is still relevant to our lives, just as he was to those we have been reading about each day in the Gospel of Matthew.
Resist closing your heart and mind to the possibility of his reality and seek his forgiveness and reconciliation. Resist the worry, anxiety and doubt that may arise for fear that he will have you do something with your life that would be contrary to who you are, or that in following Jesus, your life is over. God is not some abstract philosophical thought or random energy force. God loves us more than we can ever imagine, for he is Love, and we experience the same love he shares with his Son, Jesus, who is the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is in our midst, sowing seeds that his Father has given him to sow, and sending the living water of the Holy Spirit to water and nourish them. What kind of soul are we preparing to receive these seeds that have been sown? Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear all that God has planned for us?
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Mass readings for Sunday, July 16, 2017 Parable of the Sower, 15th Sunday in OT
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/071617.cfm