Tag: <span>gift</span>

April 23, 2021April 5, 2021

Fruit in Grace

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

In today’s first reading, we see how Paul, a murderous persecutor of Christians, received through no merit of his own the grace of conversion, ultimately to become the great Apostle to the Gentiles.

If God granted such a grace to a brutal persecutor, what graces will He not give to you, if you give your life to Him daily and beg Him for the gifts of faithfulness and fruitfulness? Sometimes we do not feel particularly passionate for the Gospel, or fruitful for the Kingdom of God. But if our daily gift to Him is sincere, we can trust that He will use it for His Church–even if we do not become itinerant preachers, as Paul did.

Jesus provides for us the clincher of fruitfulness in today’s gospel: If we eat His Flesh and drink His blood, we will have His life within us, and enlivened with that life, by His power our fruitfulness for the mission of the Gospel is guaranteed.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to help you to perceive your worth and value, not according to the measures of the world or of other people, but by the measure of faith, gift, and eternity–which was the measure of His own life, and that of His mother.

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December 8, 2020November 21, 2020

The Power of the Immaculate

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

The choice of the first reading for a day like today is something of a snub to evil: The entire first reading describes that which Mary completely avoided at the Immaculate Conception, like a halfback who makes a run free and clear around a defensive end entirely faked out by a reverse play.

Free and clear. By the retroactive action of the redemptive act of her Son, Mary never tasted the downward pull of the sinful inclinations the rest of us experience due to the taint of original sin.

There is something awesome that flows directly from the Immaculate Conception, and likewise flows from her constant (albeit simple) “yes” as described in today’s gospel.

That thing is her power. The thoroughness of the gift of her freedom to God throughout her life is a gift that makes up for a great deal of bad choices and weak freedom in many others. The gift of her freedom, the unmitigated “yes” of a free creature, stands in and gives God “permission” to invade humanity with His grace–first, literally embodied in the Son she bore, but then also in the form of invasions of grace throughout history, some of which we glimpse through her own appearances at various moments. Christ did not come to overturn our free will, which Adam and Eve used definitively to reject God on behalf of all humanity. Rather, He came to open the door to allow each of us to choose for ourselves. He allows for us to choose salvation.

Typically, however, He refrains from nudging or pushing us through that door. But it is the free gift of self of creatures like Our Lady, and those who seek to emulate her in this, her “team” as it were, together with intercessory prayer, that permits Him within His own scheme of justice to give those nudges, to give those pushes.

Thus, Mary is not merely the model for Christians of virtue. She is the Christian hero par excellence, who very literally and concretely furthers Jesus’ work of salvation.

And there is absolutely no reason why, today, we cannot attain a full sharing of her power in amplifying the effect of Jesus’ infinite saving grace, by giving ourselves to God in absolute trust, as she did.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Recall how in the Old Testament, Elisha was bold enough to ask for a double portion of the spirit of Elijah–the greatest prophet who had ever lived. Be bold. Ask Christ to shape you to be like His mother. Ask Him to bring you to wield the very same power for good, through gift of self, that she wields.

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November 23, 2020November 9, 2020

Lifeboat

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

In the first reading from Revelation, John describes those in Heaven as numbering one hundred and forty-four thousand. Whether or not that is the exact number to be saved, the fact that he cites a concrete number can make us pause and reflect: When all is said and done, the number of the saved will be a concrete number. Maybe it will be 127,239,151. Whatever it will be, it will be concrete, never to be changed–the most important number in the history of humanity. And we have the power to influence this number, to augment it, simply through our prayer, sacrifice, and daily self-offering to the Lord for others. And our works of evangelization and works of charity.

John uses a curious word when he talks about those who have followed the Lamb, and who are present in heaven: They have been “ransomed from the world.” This conjures an image of a world that holds prisoners captive, from which they must be rescued.

And so it is. The world holds so many captive with its shackles of pride, lust for power, greed, longing for sensual pleasures and comfort. Every day we decide anew to step onto the lifeboat of grace with which Jesus rescues us from these shackles. And every day we have the opportunity to help others onto that lifeboat.

Jesus marvels in today’s gospel at the woman who gives everything that she has, in contrast to those who give their surplus. She defies the captivity of the world and its allurements, making her life instead into a gift. Gift of self to God each day in prayer, gift of self to God each day in service to others–making a gift of our lives is the way not only to step onto the lifeboat ourselves, but to bring others aboard as well, and swell the numbers of those saved. 706 were saved from the sinking of the Titanic–once you have lived your life as a gift, how many will be added to the one important human number that will last forever: the number of those who have attained Heaven for eternity?

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Only God knows the number of those who will inhabit Heaven for eternity–but it is a concrete number, one which will be smaller or larger, depending on the way we live our lives. Ask Jesus His ideal for your life. How does He call you and hope for you to help Him “draw all people to Himself” (cf. Jn. 12:32)?

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August 30, 2020August 14, 2020

No Coasting

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

If only there were some middle ground.

Middle ground between the insipid rot of sin, and the insanity of the Cross.

But there is not. Many would like to rail against God for this; but in the end, man’s rebellion against God is the source of this uncomfortable dichotomy–a rebellion which we habitually take so lightly and so casually, that we fall into the absurd temptation of blaming God for its terrible consequences.

It would be so nice if we could just live a comfortable, bourgeois, care-free existence here on earth, paying God routine worship as part of our life of coasting along, and then enjoy the blessings of eternal life upon our deaths.

But this middle ground simply does not exist; it is a phantasm, a mirage. In the second reading, St. Paul tells us to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” For Jeremiah in the first reading, the mission God gives him is “like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.”

But it is in today’s gospel that Jesus gives the definitive answer to Peter, who urges Him to stop talking about the Cross and to adopt a “normal” life: “Get behind me Satan!…Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”

It would be wrong to interpret Jesus’ words to mean that every moment of a Christian’s life on earth is pure agony. But Jesus does call us to renounce the “normal,” default path of constant worldly comfort-seeking and glory-seeking, and make of our entire life, moment by moment, a gift for the happiness and welfare of others, both eternal and temporal.

And the conversion of our lives into a constant gift turns our life from something “normal,” from the default human path, into a continuous uphill walk to Calvary; a constant upstream paddle. There is not downhill roll, no downstream coasting, for a Christian. As St. Paul says in the second reading:

“Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

But if indeed that comfortable middle ground of a “good, normal life” does not exist as an option for a Christian, if we are called to renounce coasting now and for all time, the result for our lives is far from a tragedy. “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The happiness we find in the all-in choice for Christ and His path brings with it an utterly unexpected happiness and fulfillment, utterly disproportionate to the relatively small sacrifice we make in making a gift of our lives. We are raised far beyond the capacities of our limited nature, to participate in the very nature and overabundant joy of God–even here on earth. And in eternity: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Examine your life in the light of today’s readings, in the light of Christ’s radical invitation away from coasting and toward a complete gift of self, carrying your cross and following Him. Are you ready to give up the fake “middle road,” which in the end is merely a gentle downward spiral into selfishness and sin? Are you ready to jump radically into His challenge, with reckless trust in Him for your happiness–are you ready to follow Jesus Christ? Tell Him today, once and for all, that you are ready to give Him your whole heart.

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August 29, 2020August 13, 2020

A Life “Wasted”

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

What a tragedy, the final days of St. John the Baptist. The life of the last and, if we are to take Christ’s words literally, the greatest prophet (cf. Mt. 11:11), was tragically and needlessly cut short on the ridiculous whim of a man utterly enslaved to his vacillating and nonsensical passions of lust, fear, and vanity.

How much John could have done to bring the nation of Israel to its true Lord, Savior, Messiah, Jesus Christ, if Herod had been even a slightly less absurd little man, and had pointed with honesty to John’s wisdom as a signpost for his nation.

Or at least, John’s death could have been itself more glorious and significant if Herod had opposed him publicly for his difficult stances, if John had been able to give greater testimony to the truth under persecution from a worthier opponent.

But no, a sniveling king puts him to death secretly in prison to please a dancing girl at one of his parties.

And yet, this is the wisdom of the Gospel, this is glory and power of the chosen of God of whom St. Paul speaks in the first reading, and whom today’s psalm sings as blessed.

It is time for us Christians to stop dreaming of Palm Sunday, and to embrace the glorious ignominy of the cross, where our true power lies. In our comfortable world of today, we must constantly remind ourselves that our joy and happiness do not lie here. Even if we are not imprisoned or suffering agony, we can live this wisdom by sacrificing ourselves for others in the state to which Jesus Christ has called us today, whether it is eminent or mundane, stimulating or tiresome, apparently important or apparently trivial. We can give our life as He did, as John did, today, and it is by this gift of self that we add actual grace, through the power of Christ’s own sacrifice, to the economy of salvation.

It is counter-intuitive. It makes no sense. And yet, it does; it is foolishness to the world, and yet it is the wisdom of God, who has chosen the foolish of the world to shame the wise.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Tell Jesus that you cannot adopt His mindset, His wisdom, on your own. Beg Him for the gift of the Holy Spirit that is the gift of wisdom, His wisdom. Ask Him to see how your life, today, can be glorious and fruitful in the light of that wisdom. And trust Him to make it so, even in the midst of your weakness.

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