Tag: <span>Faith</span>

December 18, 2020December 14, 2020

Labor Pains

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

The whole world, as it were, gives birth to the Savior with labor pains.

We can think of the difficulties not found in today’s readings. Mary had to travel to Bethlehem when very close to her delivery date–in very uncomfortable circumstances. And as her labor was starting, there were zero accommodations available. Only a stable with animals.

And in today’s gospel, we see that the lead-up to the birth of the savior was no cakewalk for Joseph. The woman that he held high on a pedestal was suddenly found to be with child. His image of her was completely confused. And then, he had to trust that the message that came to him from the angel in a dream was true, and not wishful thinking on his part. Even though he was of a wise and discerning spirit, the feelings of insecurity during the course of this process must have been grueling.

And then, he was to dedicate his life as one of service to this woman and this child that wasn’t even his, starting with the arduous and at times seemingly hopeless task of making them comfortable for the child’s birth in Bethlehem.

Only a man of great faith trust that the plan of God ended much more gloriously than it began could sustain joy and hope in the midst of such circumstances.

As we approach Christmas today, perhaps we feel the burden of the day much as Joseph did. We feel the darkness and laboriousness of the sinful world around us, and of our own fallen nature. The human circumstances and sufferings of our life threaten to overwhelm us.

Like Joseph, the differentiator for us will be our level of faith and trust that the plan of God will end much more gloriously than it has begun.

Was He doing something amazing through Joseph? Yes. If we are faithful to Him through the simply, daily gift of our selves and our lives, is He doing something amazing through us? Yes. But like for Joseph, all that He is achieving through us will not be revealed until the prophecy of today’s psalm comes to its final fulfillment: “Justice will flourish in His time, and fullness of peace forever.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus Christ to give you the same simple, humble faith and trust in the immensity of God’s plan in your life that Joseph displayed as He spent His life in service to the Holy Family. Ask Him to make today, this day, with all its ups and downs, into a great day for His plan in your life.

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October 10, 2020September 20, 2020

Amusement Park Lines

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

St. Paul’s juxtaposition of the Old and new Testament periods, to which in a general way he refers as the Law and Faith, is fascinating and rich, and includes many deep layers.

Today, he tells us that the Law held God’s people under discipline as they awaited liberation by faith, that is, by the unmerited and free gift of redemption in Christ, which no amount of adherence to the Law could deserve. The image comes to mind of schoolchildren on a class trip to an amusement park waiting in an orderly line for the park to open. The discipline of the line is certainly not the liberating joy of the park–but it is a prerequisite for getting in.

One fascinating layer of this is that this dynamic applies not only to the Old and New Testaments, but also to the spiritual life of each of us. In so many words, St. Teresa of Jesus, from 16th-century Avila in Spain, teaches us that as we get underway in the spiritual life, much of our focus is on the effort of clearing our lives of voluntary sin, which she compares to the clearing of a garden for planting. At some point, we have a taste of God that really turns our head around. Then, we find that in order to live a life in God, we need to change our lives. Upon which follows the arduous work that St. Teresa describes of removing voluntary sin, both big and small, from our lives.

Needless to say, the effort to avoid sin continues throughout the whole trajectory of our spiritual growth. But it is particularly central earlier in that trajectory.

This effort to avoid sin, that is, essentially, to follow the Ten Commandments, closely resembles the Old Testament rule of Law that reigned before the coming of Christ, which Paul describes. Even though Christ has already come to save us, we go through a period when we need to really focus on following the basics of Divine Law, in order to align our lives with acceptance of His free gift of salvation.

But like the Old Testament period of Law-focused preparation, our focus on avoiding sin is less like the joy of the amusement park and more like the discipline of the line to get in. Perfection in this discipline, as much as it might be the ideal we strive for, is not our ultimate destination, any more than it is in the amusement park line. As we progress in our life in Christ, and in particular, our contemplative prayer life, the experience of Jesus Himself becomes deeper and richer and eventually supersedes the experience of our own sin and the need to rid ourselves of it. We begin to experience the joy of the park that we will only experience fully in Heaven, and our spiritual life begins to focus on it.

Interestingly, St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross also describe how deeper moments of purification can follow after great periods of the “joy of the park.”

Two things to note here: 1) We must not rush the process of purification or grow impatient with it. God is very wise about human nature embedded in time, and that our nature needs time for purification and growth. The humility to accept God’s will associated with every phase in our spiritual growth itself is a beautiful gift to God and sign of a certain spiritual maturity. 2) We will never fully escape here on earth the need for great vigilance against sin and the sometimes discouraging awareness of our spiritual weakness and fragility. But if we make the sacrifice associated with this very realization our daily gift to God, he uses that gift as a great lever that brings disproportionate blessings and an outpouring of the grace He merited on the cross into our lives and the lives of many souls in need.

“Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it,” Jesus says in the Gospel. This means following God’s lead in our spiritual life–which may mean heavy emphasis on following the Commandments and avoiding sin at certain moments in our spiritual life, and focusing on simply enjoying God’s presence for a deepening of our union with Him at others.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Jesus indirectly references the Blessed Virgin Mary in today’s Gospel passage as her who “hears the word of God and observes it.” Meditate on her instruction at the wedding at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.” (cf. Jn. 2:5) She modeled this instruction in her own life, following God’s lead without missing a beat, even when it jolted her in a moment out of one whole reality and into another at the Annunciation. Chat with her about her expertise in this area, and ask her to help you discern God’s promptings in your spiritual life.

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September 4, 2020August 23, 2020

I Don’t Know My Judgement, but I Do Know My Judge

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

Today’s readings are overflowing with abandonment to the loving sovereignty of God.

In the first reading, St. Paul takes nothing for granted. He does not consider himself acquitted–for he has yet to undergo the judgement of God. But we do not find him afraid, either. He certainly is afraid of no human tribunal. We find this borne out amply in his life; as promised, the Holy Spirit inspires in him what to say before the courts of men (cf. Lk. 12:12, Acts 23), and in the end, Paul goes to his martyrdom without fear.

But Paul, while considering himself not acquitted, also does not fear the judgement of God. He calmly and serenely submits to the fact that God will judge him. That he does not fear that judgement, even though he knows not the outcome beforehand, teaches us a great lesson.

Elsewhere, Paul tells us, “I know him in whom I have believed.” (2 Tim. 1:12) This is the key to the apparent paradox whereby Paul knows not the outcome of his own eventual judgement, and yet is not afraid. He knows Christ’s love for him so intimately, and leans on that love so completely, that “outcomes” are secondary to him. Judgement is not his main concern. His main concern is the love of Jesus Christ, for his life “is hidden with Christ in God.” (cf. Col.. 3:3)

The interesting thing is that Paul is not utterly “selfless” in this regard, that is, devoid of a healthy concern for his own welfare. Rather, what he ultimately relies on for his own welfare and happiness is not how virtuous he will be seen to be, but rather the love of Christ that he has experienced.

How beautifully his sentiment is echoed by today’s psalm: “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.”

In the Gospel today, we find different times and circumstances calling for different behavior. When the bridegroom is present, no fasting occurs; when not, then comes the fast. We are not to remedy problems of today with the solutions tailored to yesterday. For those who treat Christianity as a rule book, this “inconsistency” can prove befuddling. Indeed, as times change and solutions evolve, those seeking absolute consistency in all things within Christianity can even come to despair of it.

Not so, those who adopt St. Paul’s attitude. Because the beauty of Christianity, the thing that intoxicates us, the pearl of great price for which we gladly sell everything else that we have, is the love of Christ. And when we understand that, we allow the personification of that Love–the Holy Spirit–to guide us day by day, through every changing time and circumstance, adjusting solutions on the fly. We have experienced the love of Christ, we have experienced the Holy Spirit, and we know that, even though “thousands fall around us” (cf. Ps. 91:7), He will not let us down.

Because we know Him in whom we have believed.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you to be faithful to your daily prayer commitment. Ask Him to build the relationship with Him that you long to have: A relationship of complete and total intimacy and trust, whereby your confidence in the Holy Spirit in your life is unfailing, solid as a rock. Ask Him to inundate you, until nothing–not even the outcome of your eternal judgement–is as important to you as leaning on His love.

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August 24, 2020August 3, 2020

Pillar of the Church

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

If you want to name a son after today’s saint, one of the original twelve apostles, you can name him Nathaniel…or Bartholomew. Same guy. Hence, on the feast of St. Bartholomew, the Gospel reading is about Nathaniel.

The Gospels never say “Jesus laughed,” but if we listen closely enough, we can hear Him chuckling in today’s Gospel reading. “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” Nathaniel lent credence to Jesus as Son of God, and anointed Him King of Israel, evidently just because He said Nathaniel was not two-faced, and that He knew this upon seeing him under the fig tree.

Despite Jesus’ wry question, we can be sure that Nathaniel didn’t jump on Jesus’ bandwagon just because he was spotted under a tree, or because he received a compliment, even one he considered to be precisely on target. As seemed to be the case with the other apostles who jumped up and spontaneously followed Jesus, leaving everything they had behind, Nathaniel had an experience of Christ upon meeting Him. Without being able to put his finger on why, he saw that there was something drastically different with this Teacher.

Our experience of faith is no different. We sometimes conceive of “faith” as some sort of logical assent, a nod of our heads to the existence of God and to Jesus as His Son and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity because it makes sense. As if we have deduced the existence of God from the order in the universe, analyzed the teachings and life of Christ and confirmed those as being logically consistent with the necessary love of a God who would create such a universe. Then, sitting back, half-closing our eyes, and joining our two hands at the tips of the fingers in a sign of our profound wisdom, we have deigned to nod our head exactly once.

If we are honest, while our faith may not derive from “sight” literally understood as the external sense, it does come from the unmistakable internal experience we have of Jesus Christ, the person, in our hearts and in our souls. We have “met” Him there. And our intuition, that difficult-to-pin-down but oh-so-real-and-necessary component of the faculty of our intelligence–a component which today, some call “emotional intelligence”–has vigorously assented that this Jesus Christ is in fact our Lord and Savior.

It is exciting to think that we have had this very real, unmistakable experience, which sustains us even when, during periods short or extended, God allows for trials in our spiritual lives wherein that experience seems to be lacking.

As we reflect on Nathaniel’s moment of clarity in faith, we detect a sort of delicious irony in today’s readings. Philip describes Jesus as the one about whom the prophets have written. Nathaniel, he who was hanging out under just another fig tree in dusty Galilee, couldn’t have imagined how he himself would be wrapped into this narrative–that, in fact, the Old Testament directly foreshadowed his own life and mission as well. As the first reading shows, the great Twelve Tribes of Israel–of which Nathaniel would be very much aware–were themselves but a foreshadowing of the twelve pillars of the Church, the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, of which Nathaniel would become one.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Reflect on your most powerful experiences of Jesus Christ, and thank Him that He calls us to faith not through intellectual deduction, but through a direct experience of Himself. Consider that, as with Nathaniel, a relationship with Jesus brings with it a cosmically foreseen and foreshadowed mission of great import. Ask Him to help you fulfill that mission with your ironically small “yes” of every day.

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