Tag: <span>Salvation</span>

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 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 14, 2021February 25, 2021

Escape Hatch

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

Many events in the Old Testament foreshadow the saving action of Jesus; Jesus Himself refers to some of these foreshadowings explicitly in the Gospel.

The exile to Babylon described in today’s first reading, however, provides an image of the whole of human history. Man rebels against God. God strives mightily to correct him. Man ignores God. God allows man’s sin to result in the profound suffering of exile. Eventually, man feels nostalgia for the better life with God, and reaches out to God for mercy. God restores man.

This cycle has repeated itself many times in history. At the same time, there is a macro version of the cycle. Man is in permanent exile on earth since the sin of Adam. His ultimate restoration takes place only in eternity, through the salvation won by Christ. In the meantime, we find ourselves in one long Babylonian exile.

There is a way to gain a foretaste, however, of this definitive restoration. Conveniently, we find the key in today’s gospel:

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

When the people of Israel were bitten by venomous seraph serpents in the desert, God instructed Moses to build a model of a seraph servant and lift it high. Any Israelite who looked upon the servant was miraculously cured of the venom.

When we look upon Jesus lifted up on the Cross, when we look to Him and beg of Him His mercy and grace, when we center our lives on a relationship with Him cultivated in prayer and in the sacraments, when we embrace His love and saving act at the very center of our lives, we are saved from the venom of sin. But more still: We are rescued, in a sense, from the destructive state of our exile here on earth. Because of the joy in our hearts that the experience of Christ brings us, and the complete restoration and peace effected through His saving act, we live in exile as if we didn’t. As if we were already home.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Thank Jesus for being lifted up, not for our condemnation, but for our salvation. Ask Him for the gift of the total cure, which makes this earthly exile just a place, not a state of being. Ask Him to fill your heart and take it over, so that He truly becomes your All in All.

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March 13, 2021February 25, 2021

Turnaround

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

Today’s first reading speaks of the hope a soul in the midst of conversion, hope for merciful, reviving, refreshing treatment from the Lord.

Then, in that reading, we come upon curious lines:

He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.

What a coincidence! This sounds a little like the Resurrection of Jesus. Then we look again at the reading, and it speaks of God striking down, God rending–but then of God reviving. So, is this a reading about conversion, or is it a foreshadowing of the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus?

The answer: Both. Both are intertwined in the eyes of God. Sometimes we forget the totality with which Jesus took upon Himself our sins–all the sins of humanity, from all time. As He takes those sins upon Himself in Gethsemane, then takes them to Calvary to be killed with them, and then ultimately rises, He goes through a “conversion”–He defeats them and raises mankind to a new purity aimed at profound and exalted union with God.

By contrast, in the gospel, the Pharisee sees no need for conversion. He lives a stellar life, unsullied by the typical sins of mankind. He even gives a significant portion of his income to God. But he makes the mistake that St. Paul warns about throughout the epistles: He thinks to find his salvation and righteousness in compliance with the law, in his own virtue.

Jesus is looking for us to do as the tax collector does in today’s gospel: He recognizes his sin, and he seeks conversion; he begs for God’s mercy. Jesus wants us to enter into His great dynamic of conversion, the one He Himself underwent through His Passion, death, and Resurrection.

So, is Lent about foreseeing and meditating on the mysteries of Holy Week, or is it about personal conversion to the Lord? The answer: It is about both. For God, these two concepts are inextricably united. Jesus’ saving mystery is nothing other than the act of the conversion of mankind to God. And we find our righteousness and salvation, and the strength for our personal conversion, only in the power of His conversion act–in the power of the Cross.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Thank the Lord for going through the humiliation and pain of conversion for you, even though He was sinless. Tell Him that you embrace wholeheartedly His Cross and His offer of conversion even though for you, too, it is a painful process. Ask Him to make your heart a purified, total offering to the Father, like His own.

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March 10, 2021February 24, 2021

Law and Order

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

Today’s readings fit beautifully into Lent. Lent is not just a time for sacrifice. It is a time for conversion: Conversion back to the path of the Lord. And we all need it, every year–each of us who has sins in his or her life, and also imbalances and poor habits that easily lead to sin. We all need a moment to get back on track.

Today’s readings underscore heavily how this “getting back on track” involves a return to God’s Commandments. Too often, like the Pharisees, our mind gets over-complicated with all sorts of minor goals and worries, rather than simple focus on what is pleasing to God: The Ten Commandments, and their Christian summary of loving God above all things and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that He did not come to abolish these precepts, but rather to fulfill them. The need for focus on the straightforward commands of God is more pressing than ever.

But what about St. Paul’s assertions that it is not the Law that saves, but rather the Spirit? And that we are no longer under the Law (cf. Gal. 5)? Does Paul contradict today’s readings?

Paul correctly emphasizes that the Law does not save. No matter how perfectly we followed God’s commands, without the grace that comes from Jesus’ Passion, death, and Resurrection, we could not attain to salvation, because we were born into sin.

Paul also tells us that we are not under the burden of the Law. This too is important. With the coming of Christ, the Law is no longer a burden. Compliance with God’s will, which we cannot achieve on our own, becomes a joy with Christ, because the grace He won by the act of salvation provides us with more than enough resources to stay on the path of God.

Thus, the grace of Christ gives us salvation. It also gives us the strength in the Holy Spirit (through the gifts of fortitude and understanding) to shoulder what was once an onerous burden and reach what was once an unreachable ideal, that is, faithfulness to God’s Law, which outlines the path to the salvation He won for us.

It is in this very Pauline sense that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. Salvation in Christ, and the grace and strength to attain it through the gift of the Holy Spirit, is now within the reach of those who wish to align themselves with the path of God’s will and His commands.

So, let us shoulder the yoke of Lenten conversion joyfully. For Jesus’ yoke is easy, and His burden light. (cf. Mt. 11:30).

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Contemplate joyfully how Jesus returned to us the ability to follow the path of God through the Holy Spirit’s gifts of fortitude and understanding, and how He made the ideal of that path, that is, eternal life, attainable. Tell Him how grateful you are, how much you love Him, and ask Him to help you succeed in converting more thoroughly to the path of God this Lent.

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March 5, 2021February 17, 2021

The Christian Cycle

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

Of the many servants of God throughout history represented by the servants who came to the vineyard in Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel, Joseph was certainly one.

The pattern Jesus describes holds with Joseph. The vineyard tenants beat one servant, stoned another…In the case of Joseph, his own brothers cast him into a pit and then sold him into slavery.

And the son killed by the tenants in the gospel passage, of course, represents Jesus Himself.

But note the way the gospel passage ends. Jesus quotes Psalm 118:

    The stone that the builders rejected
       has become the cornerstone;
   by the Lord has this been done,
       and it is wonderful in our eyes.

And we know, of course, that this psalm perfectly prophesies Jesus’ own destiny. Though rejected and killed by His enemies, Jesus is to become the cornerstone of history itself.

But wait! There’s more. Let’s look back at Joseph’s life as well, in the light of Jesus’ own destiny. We see that for Joseph, things work out similarly, in a sense. After being sold into slavery, Joseph ultimately becomes a ruler in Egypt, with decision-making authority over those same brothers who exiled him. He is even restored to his father, whose particular love for him was the cause of his brothers’ envy and resentment in the first place.

Rejected by his family, Joseph becomes the cornerstone of his family.

Now, we may think of Joseph as a foreshadowing of Jesus, because he came before Him, and we would of course be right. But consider the inverse as well. Jesus sheds light on Joseph–He explains him.

So it may be said that He sheds light on our lives too, and explains them. For every Christian, this reality, the stone rejected by the builders rising to become the cornerstone, is repeated as well. Our destiny, even on this earth, like Joseph and like Jesus Himself, is not to descend into a deeper and deeper pit of humiliation and ignominy. It is to descend in self-sacrifice out of love for our brothers and sisters, and then to see ourselves raised up by God Himself, exalted–and endowed with the very power of salvation itself. Maybe once, maybe multiple times, maybe in different ways. But this is the Christian cycle.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to infuse holy excitement and enthusiasm into your heart for your Christian mission, replacing any fatalism or hint of despair. Ask Him to help you to see your life as He sees it; indeed, as He saw His own. Tell Him you entrust your destiny wholly into His care.

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February 21, 2021February 5, 2021

More than a Pinky Promise

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

“This is the time of fulfillment,” says Jesus. The fulfillment of what? A promise? What promise?

Today’s second reading can be seen as a sort of axis around which the first reading and gospel revolve. In it St. Peter reveals profound symbolism: The ark of Noah prefigures baptism.

Both involve salvation by water, he says. In the time of Noah, water cleansed the earth of sin. It was also destructive, however.

We cannot expect the impact of baptism to be any different as it cleanses, not the earth, but our souls. What does the spiritual “water”–sanctifying grace–destroy? If we allow that grace to act and facilitate it through prayer and regular reception of the other sacraments, it destroys our old selves, those carried along by the comfortable inertia current of our sinful tendencies. It destroys selfishness which, though evil, is sweet and cherished.

But the result is a profound, radical cleansing; the result is a new person, alike to a person bathing in clear, clean water after wallowing in a swamp.

God seals His promise never to flood the earth again with the sign of the rainbow. He will never have to wipe out humanity again. His Son comes to fulfill the post-flood promise by instituting a sacrament of water that does not need to wipe away the human person in order to wipe away sin.

This is the fulfillment Jesus came to bring. And Lent is the special time to take full advantage of the waters that poured over us at baptism by taking frequent and rich advantage of the cleansing sacraments, especially Penance, and practicing self-denial to uproot the deeper sources of sin in our lives.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Think of the day you were baptized as a small, helpless infant (or perhaps later, as a child or adult). Imagine the water pouring gently over you in the simplest of ceremonies. Consider the profound effect this sacrament has had in your life, by introducing you into friendship with Christ. Give thanks to God for this unmerited gift, and for those (for example, your parents) who had the insight and generosity to help ensure that you received it.

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February 18, 2021February 3, 2021

Black and White

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

It would be nice if life were not a binary, black-and-white choice. But it is.

It is a fact that all people are a mix of good and bad; therefore, it may be said, in a sense, that all people are good. Evil is the absence of good; therefore, since all people have good in them, all people are good.

But in the end, there are only life and death; there is no in-between. And it is not people who are all bad who choose death over life. Only good people make this bad choice–because all people are, at least in part, good. And unfortunately, the good people who make this bad choice are not few.

The choice offered to the Israelites in the first reading is a binary one: life, or death. Jesus draws the same line in the gospel, and fills it with color: Only those who lose their life–that is, give it away, to God and others–will save their lives.

Ours is an age where many want to blur these lines, holding that even those who ignore God and do not live life as a gift will be saved in the end. But this belief contradicts Jesus.

Many will die this day; many who have made the wrong choice. Our mission, like Jesus, is to offer our prayers and sufferings for sinners, that God may inject into them an extra, special dose of His grace so that they may discover how desirable He is and convert to Him.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to stir in your heart a love for the welfare, eternal and earthly, of your brothers and sisters. Ask Him to make of you a fruitful and productive offering for souls.

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January 27, 2021January 19, 2021

Many Layers

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

The mystery of the priesthood is multi-layered and rich. We have the exalted, eternal reality that we hear about today: Christ, the High Priest, entering into the everlasting sanctuary, offering Himself eternally, once and for all, for the expiation of sins.

Then we have the reality that the priest offers at the altar each day, in imitation of the Last Supper, where the bread and the wine are truly transformed into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Savior. Once again, all the intensity of love for the welfare of His disciples is present, as it was at that first Mass. And that same reality re-presents the sacrifice of Calvary itself, where the High Priest performs the self-offering that becomes that definitive eternal offering for the forgiveness of sins.

We can think of the priestly act of Christ as a response to sin; we can think of Jesus, as it were, clawing His way back to a good place for humanity with His sacrifice, with great effort.

But it is well to remember that, while God never wills sin itself, the entire drama of Christ’s sacrifice was planned by God from eternity, before Adam ever took his first step in the garden, before the serpent came calling. For God was not content with the level of union Adam shared with Him in Eden. He desired a much more intimate union, one that would come from the full mutual gift of self. And this exalted union is what Christ achieved so neatly, BOTH from the human and the divine perspective, on the Cross, and re-constitutes continuously in eternity.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: In the midst of the evil surrounding us each day, tell Jesus that you trust in the divine plan; that even the evil that occurs winds up paradoxically as an ingredient so effective for the fulfillment of His plan, that it almost appears necessary. Just as Adam’s sin was the catalyst that led to our glorious Savior. Tell Him that you trust in Him, and lean confidently on Him.

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January 13, 2021January 4, 2021

A Pound of Flesh

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

As so often happens, the first reading chosen for today’s liturgy sheds great light on today’s gospel.

The first reading tells us that, since he was coming to save, not angels, but human beings, the children of Abraham, Jesus Himself chose to take on flesh to save them through His own death in the flesh.

Then in the gospel, we see Jesus healing at a furious pace; many bring to him persons with afflictions, and he heals them all, after healing Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever.

After which, He went away to pray by Himself.

We may well consider the tenor of those intimate moments between Jesus and His Father, after a day of healing. From the perspective of the townspeople, Jesus was a boon from out of the blue–a wonder-worker with the power of God. It was all excitement, all upside.

But in the light of the first reading, Jesus knew that this boon came with a price. He knew that He would pay for each and every one of those healings with His own suffering and death. He knew that the price man had incurred through original sin was not blithely waved aside–for it had been freely chosen, and God is consistent in His homage for the independent choices of human freedom, with all their consequences.

Jesus had come in the flesh, and in the flesh He was healing the flesh of His brothers and sisters. But the healing would come at the price of the free offering of His own flesh.

How dearly He loves flesh and blood–so much so that, when referring to Himself, He favors the title “Son of Man” over “Son of God” (cf. e.g. Mt. 16:13 and many others). Ultimately, He makes His flesh “true food” and His blood “true drink” (Jn. 6:55) in the Eucharist.

He Has come in flesh and blood to redeem flesh and blood. But without any doubt, with every miraculous healing, He could feel coming the price He–true man, true flesh and blood–would have to pay.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Jesus’ self-offering was of infinite power and infinite sufficiency for the salvation of mankind. As St. Thomas Aquinas stated, even a single drop of the blood of God made Man was sufficient to rid the world completely of all evil. Yet, there is still so much evil in the world–because of the obstinate choices of human freedom. Ask Jesus how you can partner with Him to extend the effect of His saving power; how He would like you to help the weak freedom of your brothers and sisters to choose Him.

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