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Stoned?

Rocks

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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Bigger Than You Think

Iceberg

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


The day that Mary and Joseph left with the baby Jesus to fulfill the law requiring every first born male to be presented to the Lord at the Temple–that day probably did not feel very glorious or momentous to the couple.

We see in the Gospel how Mary and Joseph had already undertaken a fair bit of travel leading up to this time, with Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth in Judea, and the difficult trip to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born in an unfamiliar stable. And then there is the difficult flight into Egypt, to escape Herod’s persecution…

Here too, for their trip to present Jesus at the Temple, Mary and Joseph needed to plan, think ahead, and provision for this journey. They needed to make sure to prepare the pack animals and everything else they needed was ready for a uncomfortable trip exposed to the elements. There was a lot of unremarkable work to be done.

And they were not traveling in order to achieve some moment of glory. They were simply making the trip to fulfill the law.

Still, as so often is the case, the Old Testament reading from today reveals that there is indeed something glorious and profound at work here. The depth of meaning is nicely summed up in the line, “And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek.”

On Palm Sunday, we see Jesus’ triumphant entry into His city, the city that belongs rightly to Him as God, the Holy City, Jerusalem. Rightly enough, He comes honored, as a king.

But the Presentation is His first entry into Jerusalem. It is the first time the King of Glory visits the Holy City. Jerusalem, which has been pining for its promised Messiah for generations, finally receives Him. “And suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek.”

If at Epiphany we see Jesus’ manifestation to the gentiles poignantly represented, here we have Jesus’ gift of Himself to the original Chosen People, as His parents obediently present Him at the very center of that people to God the Father.

Their Messiah has come. The day so longed for has arrived. And Simeon and Anna the Prophetess give Him a worthy reception.

God inserts solemn, unexpected meaning into the mundane lives of those who are obedient to Him. What deeper meaning might He be gifting to the most ordinary elements of your life, when you are obedient to Him and give Him your life day by day?

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Think of your day, today. Think of the most ordinary aspects of it. Ask Jesus how He works through those events in your life to bring about His grandiose plan of salvation. Give Him your life in trust and love all over again, and ask Him to fill it with profound effectiveness in the fulfillment of His great plan.

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