Matthew Williams – Page 10 – Meditation on Daily Mass Readings

March 29, 2021March 10, 2021

Smart Phones Don’t Bring Happiness

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s psalm: “The Lord is my light and my salvation.”

When we think of what makes our lives better, our minds might tend toward reality, or tend toward fantasy. If they tend toward reality, we might speak of health care, or convenience technology such as smart phones, which put control over many things in our lives right at our fingertips.

If our minds tend toward fantasy, we might consider the stuff of movies: If only I could find a fountain of youth, win the lottery, wield magic, etc., then my life would be utterly transformed into happiness.

When, in the day to day, we think of what makes our lives better, the first thought that comes to mind might not be Jesus.

His coming, His passion, death, and Resurrection–it was not like a lottery win. From one day to the next, for example, all the apostles’ worries were not over. Even having met Jesus, even having experienced His Resurrection, as wondrous as that was, they still had a difficult walk ahead of them to walk, one that would for most lead to martyrdom.

Nor did Jesus make their lives more convenient, like technology does for us. Quite the opposite. They went from the relatively convenient and familiar life of fishing to one of spending themselves tirelessly for others, in many cases in foreign lands.

And yet, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” Mary of Bethany, who poured perfume over Jesus’ feet in love and gratitude in today’s gospel, understood this.

Jesus does not transform our external realities. Well, correction: He does help us with those as well. After all, Lazarus of today’s gospel had just risen from the dead at Jesus’ command. Jesus’ life was full of miracles of healing. Also, by God’s grace, Christians in all ages have made the world a better place, inventing the very notion of hospital care and universities, and striving to insert more justice and respect for the human person into the imperfect institutions of government.

But transformation of the exterior world is not the focus of Jesus’ mission. Rather, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” Jesus brings light and salvation back into our souls. We find in our relationship with Him a permanent, overflowing joy that transcends and permeates all the imperfect, passing realities of our exterior world. As the first reading says of Jesus:

I formed you, and set you
   as a covenant of the people,
   a light for the nations,
To open the eyes of the blind,
   to bring out prisoners from confinement,
   and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

When it comes to truly making our lives better, no fantasy, no reality comes close to the experience of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ in our hearts.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus in this Holy Week to bring your heart back from distraction with the fretful external realities of this world, to the true light and joy of your life, which is His grace and friendship. Tell Him how grateful you are, like Mary of Bethany, for His gift of self for you, even if the world doesn’t seem particularly impressed by it. Ask Him for the grace to center your life on that which really brings happiness.

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March 28, 2021March 9, 2021

The Contrast

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

We may wonder why the events of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and His Passion and death are rolled into one liturgy on this Palm Sunday.

Good Friday services carry no obligation; the Church assumes that many Christians will not manage to participate in them. So, to make sure that all have the opportunity to participate in a liturgy whose readings are focused on Jesus’ Passion and death, she designates Palm Sunday also as Passion Sunday.

Of course, there were days between the historical events of Jesus’ triumphant arrival and His Passion. But the coincidence of both liturgies of the word on this day exerts a striking effect. At one moment, Jesus is acclaimed as a royal and named “He who comes in the name of the Lord”; at the next, He is hanging bloody on the Cross.

While the contrast between the two may seem striking, there is an evil underlying continuum. In a sense, Good Friday happened because of Palm Sunday. The acclaim for Jesus as He entered Jerusalem incensed the Pharisees and their cronies to the breaking point. This man had to go; He had to die. It was He or they, as Caiaphas said in today’s gospel in so many words; better for one man to die, than for their whole structure of existence to be destroyed through the popularity of His liberating message.

But then there’s that curious explanation of Caiaphas’ words: He said this not of his own accord, but as high priest for that year. There was a deeper reality to his words, a divine reality: Jesus would die for us all, that we all might not be destroyed by our own sin.

And so it was, in fact, that a completely different, good, loving divine drama was playing out under the same contrasting events of Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Palm Sunday wasn’t a fake exuberance, leading up to a real rejection on Good Friday. The acclaim for Jesus upon His entry was real and was desired by God. Just as Caiaphas would proclaim something deeper than he knew as high priest, so the people acclaiming Jesus on the road into Jerusalem played out a divine plan much deeper than they knew, whereby the Father had decreed the glorification of His Savior Son.

It is so easy for us, at a distance of 2000 years, to abstract these deeper meanings clearly from the pages of the Gospel. Then, why is it so challenging for us to see the same profound and loving subtext in our own lives, with their triumphs and their crosses?

Why? Because we do not believe that the Father loves us as He loved His Son. We are miserable sinners, we subconsciously reason, so we are condemned to a life of unloved and unplanned randomness, befitting traitors of the Creator.

We could not be further from the truth. Even in our sinful imperfection, the Father loves us just like His Son. In fact, in a sense, it could almost be said that by sending Jesus, God the Father loved us more than His Son. Of course, this is impossible. But think about it: God sent His own Son to be crucified for us; such was His love. Why would we ever doubt that He will order our lives with the same depth of meaning and beauty that He did His Son’s earthly life, folding effortlessly even our weaknesses and sins into the story arc of saving efficacy?

And there is just one ingredient from us necessary to unlock and bring to bear this deeper reality: Our trust in God’s love for us, and the power of that love.

The dichotomy of Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday betrays a depth of meaning in the occurrences of Jesus’s life that inspires awe and is worthy of meditation. The same depth of meaning lies latent in God’s plan for each day of our lives, and we have access to see it and marvel at it, if we look with the eyes of trust.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Adore Jesus. Tell Him how thankful you are for the saving mysteries He lived for you. Contemplate those mysteries, go over them again and again in a spirit of awe and love. Then, ask Him to help you see the same providential footprint in your own life that you see in His. Ask Him to bring profound meaning from your life for the salvation and sanctification of the souls whom you love, and beyond.

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March 27, 2021March 9, 2021

The Long Game

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The gospel tells us the purpose of Jesus’ approaching death. He will be dying for the nation, but not only for the nation; also, to gather into one all the dispersed children of God.

This glorious plan is described even in the midst of the narrative of the evil jealousy of the Pharisees, who want to do away with Jesus, not in spite of His miracles such as the resurrection of Lazarus, but because of them. We must remember that the Pharisees are truly, intensely fearful of the popularity of Jesus–not because of the power of the Romans, who prove rather sleepy relative to the Jews’ internal religious squabbles, but because of what they stand to lose. Not only their status, but likewise their wealth depends, not on some official position that they have in the community (they are not rulers), but on the religious stranglehold they exert. They have a tenuous respect among the Jewish people as experts who hold the keys to understanding God’s Law, the Law on which Israel’s welfare on as a nation depends.

Jesus constitutes a massive threat against this stranglehold, as He preaches liberating mercy through God’s gratuitous gift of salvation. The more He proves the power of His message through miracles, the more the Pharisees want to do away with Him. They do not care about exploring where the truth lives. They only care about sustaining the wealth and status that is theirs, which hangs in a delicate balance.

The irony is that the division that the Pharisees cause is precisely the one that Jesus will be healing by submitting to the death that they are planning for Him. As prophesied by Simeon, He is the “light of revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for His people Israel.” (cf. Lk. 2:32) He has come to gather into one the dispersed children of God.

God is the Lord of history, and His omnipotence is such that He carries out His glorious plan not in spite of the evil hearts of His enemies but through them, incorporating their plots impossibly but truly as a fruitful ingredient into the gift He plans for His people.

And so, the prophecy of the first reading comes to pass through Jesus life, death, and Resurrection:

I will make them one nation upon the land,
   in the mountains of Israel,
   and there shall be one prince for them all.
Never again shall they be two nations,
   and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.

Today, we see great divisions in our own society. Like the Pharisees, there are many who wish to expel God from their midst in order to attain or retain worldly power, at the cost of others. It is hard for us to see this prophecy coming true in our midst, because the chaff is growing right alongside the wheat (cf. Mt. 13:24-30). But we may trust confidently that God’s plan is unfolding with an eye to eternity; it is in Heaven where we will see the fullness of His plan come gloriously to bear. Even here, amid holy souls, we can see its first blossoms.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Talk to Jesus about His coming to gather the dispersed children of God. Beg of Him to grant unity to the Christian Church by the great power of His saving act, unity that will be a sign to all nations that points to eternal destiny. Praise Him for using even the evil hearts of His enemies for salvation; ask this all-powerful savior to use your life for the salvation of others as well.

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March 26, 2021March 8, 2021

Stoned?

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Close as we are to Holy Week, today’s readings are a clear foreshadowing of those days.

The first reading speaks of those once favorable to the prophet, who now seek to trap him from every side.

The passage in the first reading prefigures the events of today’s gospel, wherein the Pharisees are ready to kill Jesus, to stone Him. If the gospel had gone differently, there would have been no Calvary, no crucifixion, and Jesus would have died here.

But it was not to be. Scriptures had foretold the manner of Jesus’ death; the events in the desert had foreshadowed it, where the seraph serpent was lifted up for the curing of the Israelites.

The Son of Man had to be lifted up, lifted up on the Cross. This was not the Pharisees’ show. The Passion was to be a very specific hour foreordained by Divine Providence. It is God’s world; His enemies are just living in it. Living in it, and against their own desires, fulfilling God’s will by perpetrating an event that is destined to spread merciful grace across the entire world.

Jesus was marching firmly toward His hour, acutely aware that His Father was completely in charge.

Do we do the same with our life’s crosses? Or do we lose hope and trust when they come? Or are we certain, as Jesus was, that they fall within the ambit of Divine Providence, and that He will never take us where He cannot protect us in His grace?

Lack of trust is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as is trust in God. When we do not trust, we truncate God’s ability to care for us, for He plays by His own rules in respecting our free choice to distance ourselves from Him with doubt; but when we do trust, we open the doors wide for Him to enter into our hearts with the gift of His salvation and sanctification.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to give you sufficient faith in His Divine love and Providence, to recognize His invitation to be purified and to help Him save through the crosses He allows into your life. Ask Him, not to reduce your suffering, but to grant you the same firm resolve of faithfulness to Him that He gave to Jesus.

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March 25, 2021March 8, 2021

Fiat

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Considered as a whole, the event of Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection was the defining moment of human history.

Today’s solemnity commemorates its beginning in time.

This day, and the entire event of Jesus’ time on earth, is summarized well by the psalm: “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.”

Jesus is sent by the Father to take on flesh. His act is not defined as much by Incarnation, birth, death, Resurrection, as it is by this one word: Obedience.

It is Jesus’ obedience that saves us. As the second reading proclaims, “As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.”

We often focus on Mary on this day, and rightly so, for she is the focal person in the gospel of the day as well. But this day, the day of the Incarnation of the Word in her womb, is about the heroic obedience of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God Almighty, on our behalf.

Mary’s obedience, the obedience of pure creature without divine nature, perfectly mirrors her Son’s, which is why she is called the new Eve. She reverses the disobedience of the first Eve, with her “Fiat” (Latin for “May it be done”): “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

The story arc of the human race may often seem to us one of success and failure; power and weakness; war and peace; romantic love, hatred, and indifference. But the story arc of the human race, the breathless drama that continues to our day, is one of disobedience and obedience.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you to focus with laser precision on the sole focus of His life, that is, obedience to the will of God. Ask Him to help you to avoid the distractions brought by temptation to sinful pleasure and temptation to the mental complications that come with pride. Ask Him to fill you with the simple joy shared between Him and His mother, the joy that comes with unconditional obedience.

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March 24, 2021March 5, 2021

Simple is Beautiful

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Sin is complicated, endlessly twisted and perverse. It can take many shapes, just as the desecration of a beautiful piece of art can occur in as many haphazard forms as chaos can casually cause.

The forms virtue takes, on the other hand, are much more refined and less random, just as an exquisite work of art is fruit of the artist’s studied and careful strokes.

The sin we see on the part of the Pharisees in the gospel is just one of the endless ugly, random embodiments of disobedience to God. In their case, they obstinately refuse His only Son, in the flesh–no matter what miracles He works, no matter what mercy He shows, no matter how compelling and eloquent His words.

The faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the first reading, on the other hand, shows forth as something simple, straightforward, beautiful, and luminous. They simply say “yes” to God, in the most difficult possible circumstance. There is really nothing fancy or novel about it. It takes on similar form to so many other “yeses” in the Bible: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David…up to and including Mary’s “Let it be done unto me according to your word.”

But like a beautiful work of art, and in stark contrast to the turpitude of the Pharisees, the “yes” of the three men–with its foundation of absolute trust in God–shines forth like the sun. The one “like a son of God” who appears in the furnace with them is a sharing in God’s power and glory, which He grants to them as a reward for their obedience.

Sometimes, we dream of the glories of this world, in all their manifold complexity. We would like our name in lights, we would like to be at the top and in charge. Sometimes we follow all of the circuitous routes, including sordid and sinful routes, in pursuit of this goal.

True glory, on the other hand, is so much simpler, more beautiful, more luminous. All that is necessary is to join ourselves to God in prayer and the sacraments, and strive to follow His will and inspirations each day. Sometimes this may seem complicated, but it isn’t. It is merely a question of giving an unconditional “yes,” over and over again, and trusting that He will provide the illumination and fortitude to carry through with that “yes.”

As with the three in the furnace, the reward for this simple faithfulness is a share in the very divinity of God itself. Adopted as God’s children and able to call God “Father” as Jesus did in today’s gospel, we receive the glorious power to walk through the fires of this world untouched.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Sin is complicated; obedience is simple. Ask Jesus to free you from the burden of worrying about figuring everything out exhaustively–to free you to focus on the simplicity of the loving “yes.” Ask Him with great confidence to take over all the detail, and to fill you with absolute trust in Him.

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March 23, 2021March 4, 2021

Restored in the Desert

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Do we not sympathize with the Israelites in today’s first reading–even a little?

They were wandering around in the desert, and even though God was providing for them, the food they had to eat was anything but sumptuous. They kept complaining, God kept punishing them, and they had an overall difficult time of it. Even today’s reading simply speaks of “their patience worn out by the journey.”

God loved His people, but He held them to a high standard of trust and obedience. He was not about to accept complaining or disobedience, much less idolatry. Their exile was not a fruit of weakness on His part or any lack of love, but of their own sin.

Yet, God continually sends signs of His love and manifestations of His Providence. Manna, quail, water from a rock, and in today’s reading, a miraculous bronze serpent that heals their wounds.

And ultimately, He sends His Son to save them, and us. As we see in the gospel of today, Jesus, the great I AM, is the one who is ultimately lifted up, like the bronze serpent, for our salvation.

God doesn’t love the Israelites only when they “behave”; He loves them when they sin. He corrects them, but He constantly sends the means to save them from their own gaffes.

And that’s what Jesus is for us. He did not come to save us because for the most part we were good, but made some mistakes along the way. He came because we performed authentic evil, but He loved us and loves us anyway; we degrade ourselves, and He restores our dignity.

Let us cling to Him, and not some belief in our own goodness and virtue, as that which restores and ensures this dignity ongoing.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus that you are deeply sorrowful for offending Him with your sin, and also, yes, for the degradation it has brought you. Tell Him that it is His ongoing, constantly ongoing restoration of your dignity that you trust, even when you are at your lowest. Ask Him never to let you be parted from Him.

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March 22, 2021March 4, 2021

The Price

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In our readings today, two women were spared from unjust execution by the mercy of God.

One was innocent of the crime of which she was accused, and the other may have been guilty of sin, but not of a crime against society.

In each case, a man of God–a young prophet for the first, the Messiah Himself for the second–averted the injustice by pointing out the inconsistency of the accusation.

There are many examples in the Bible of God coming to the rescue of His just ones. He comes to the aid of Esther, of Abraham; in the New Testament, his angels free St. Peter from chains…

We may ask ourselves why there are exceptions to this, indeed, one particularly glaring exception: God does not spare His own Son, Jesus. It would seem so much tidier and coherent if God at the last moment had swooped in and saved Jesus from death. The story would be so much cleaner, so much less tragic.

How blithely we smooth over the importance of sin and its effects in our minds. We want so desperately to think that, because we are good people, our sin can’t be that serious.

But because it upsets the order designed by the Creator, it is that serious. The evil done by sin had to be reversed; Jesus had to die, if our sin was to be erased.

In this Lent, as we strive to stir our “good” hearts to profound repentance, to recognition of the impact of the evil those hearts have committed, we do well to look upon the crucifix. Jesus did not die for our sins simply to make a point. He suffered unspeakable agony over hours and hours, finally dying in excruciating pain, because this was the price that had to be paid for our disobedience–yours and mine, the sins we committed just today.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus you are deeply sorry for your sins, not for some selfish reason, but because you know your sins caused the need for Him to suffer terribly. Tell Him that now, at least at this moment, you give Him your absolute and unconditional “yes” in obedience, and ask Him to send you His Spirit to keep you faithful to that gift.

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March 21, 2021March 4, 2021

The Grain of Wheat

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today, it is as though the first reading takes Jesus’ last line in the gospel and expounds on it.

“When I am lifted up, I will draw everyone to myself.”

I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD,
for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.

But this effectiveness of Jesus in drawing people comes at a price.

Jesus Himself says in today’s gospel that unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Jesus suffered and died to merit the grace needed to draw all people to Himself and heal them.

If we want to be effective for others as Christians, we can expect no different. While there is no reason to believe that we will suffer all our lives, nonetheless, like the grain of wheat, we must die. We must die through purification from attachment to our own goals, our own selves, our earthly wants, so that our attachment to Christ as our only good may stand alone. This purification process is a painful one, and it involves steps whereby God Himself takes the initiative and cleanses us through suffering, like gold purified in fire.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to give you the inestimable gift of Christian effectiveness for others, through the process He describes in the gospel today. Tell Him that, even though that process may be painful, you understand that it is temporary, whereas the eternal punishment of souls is permanent. Imagine Him walking up the Way of the Cross for you, and ask Him to give you the courage to walk alongside Him.

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March 20, 2021March 3, 2021

Fish out of Water

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

The Christian life makes us behave strangely.

Ordinary people, who perceive no transcendence in their lives and who live for the glories and gratifications of this world, order their lives around what they perceive to be most beneficial to their earthly existence.

This does not automatically convert people into animals. Many of those with secular ideals consider altruism, especially toward those for whom they feel affection or compassion, as part of the scope of what makes their world a better place. Such persons can be kind, understanding, and empathetic.

But to such persons, the Christian way of life is strange. Kindness may not be strange to them, but self-sacrifice for the welfare of another is. Idealism may not be strange to them, but the notion of obedience to God is. It is very strange.

Now, it may not appear to be a difference destined to cause conflict. But when we consider how obedience to God involves things like norms of basic sexual morality and the ordering of society around them, we see how obedience can clash drastically with the earth-bound ideals of our age. And because secular culture is not tethered to any constant norm, the clash can take on different forms in different ages.

From the world’s perspective, the Christian life makes us behave strangely, and at times, the world determines that we must be thwarted from this “strange” behavior.

Today’s first reading shows the Hebrews plotting against the life of the prophet Jeremiah, and in today’s gospel, we see the Pharisees plotting against the life of Jesus. We see in Jeremiah and Jesus how the world cannot tolerate the messenger of obedience to God.

But it is also interesting to note how the temple guards are not successful in arresting Jesus. Because they find His preaching so mesmerizing and authoritative, they cannot bring themselves to carry out their original intention of seizing Him.

In this sense Christians are strange as well: Obedience to God and adoption as children of God ultimately brings about an ennobling transformation in us that even non-believers can perceive–such that their reaction may be as striking as the guards’ reaction to Jesus.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Imagine Jesus asking you, “Can you drink of the cup that I shall drink?” (cf. Mt. 10:38) He asks each of us if we are willing to suffer misunderstandings, envy, and scorn from the world. Answer Him that you know that His way leads to Calvary, and that you will not abandon Him because of it.

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