Tag: <span>Strength</span>

June 13, 2021June 10, 2021

Mighty Cedar

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

Today’s readings are all about the plantings of the Lord, which grow mighty and stand steadfast, providing shelter and shade to many.

In the second reading, St. Paul speaks about how those who remain steadfast in the Lord live in their bodies on earth as in exile, away from home; and how leaving our bodies will paradoxically bring us home.

So often, we believe that the Christian life is God challenging us to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps and reach the goals He has set out for us. But we see in today’s readings that in God’s eyes, the Christian life is He Himself tending the planting of His Kingdom in the willing soul, and bringing it to a mighty place of maturity and fruitfulness.

It is true that, as the Kingdom of God grows mightily within us, it remains subtle, and exiled as we are in our bodies, we may not always perceive its advance. We may become disheartened as the challenges of our circumstances and our own sinfulness overwhelm us, like the storm that frightened Jesus’ disciples (cf. Mk. 4:35-41). But today’s readings give us great hope: Imperceptible as it may be, the Kingdom of God within us is mighty, firm, reliable once we have lent ourselves to the great Gardener to cultivate it within us.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to take over your spiritual growth, and overcome the lethargy and distraction that often fills your soul. Ask Him to make your spiritual strength depend on His action, not yours, and to provide His grace for you always to give Him your willing “yes.”

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April 2, 2021April 2, 2021

True Strength

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

Throughout today’s Scriptures we find a paradox: Our Messiah is laid low, is weak and subjugated, and yet He consistently stands out as by far the strongest man in the scene, next to whom His adversaries appear weak.

When the soldiers come to arrest Him and He responds to their inquiry “I AM,” they spin away from Him and fall to the ground.

Pilate asks Him what truth is, and momentarily becomes His advocate upon hearing His merciful words about having committed the lesser sin.

Pilate recognizes His greatness: “Behold the Man!”, he proclaims about a stricken Jesus who is nonetheless still standing on His own two feet. And when challenged about writing “The King of the Jews,” Pilate stands by the inscription.

Jesus speaks of drinking His cup Himself, and it is He who carries His own cross out to Golgotha.

Jesus is not grandstanding to make some tragic but glorious point. He is simply, firmly, fulfilling His Father’s will. He is doing what He has done throughout His earthly life; indeed, even before that, in eternity.

It is this obedience that saved us.

If we give ourselves wholly to God, the cross will come. Jesus has promised it. But so will the strength to endure it, to be like Jesus even with the cross on our shoulders.

Ultimately, this is the goal of our daily contemplative prayer, where we seek union with God and His will: Obedience. Obedience to God, in good times, and in bad. Saving obedience, in union with the obedience of Jesus.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Thank Jesus for His obedience up to death. Ask Him for the gift of this virtue, whereby your life becomes complete surrender to God’s will, for the salvation of many, by the infinite power of Christ’s cross.

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February 25, 2021February 10, 2021

No Snake is Given

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

It is lovely to have an intimate relationship with God. But what about when real, palpable danger looms? Does this loving, prayerful union transform into a bulwark of defense when you really need it?

How about when you are faced with an impossible decision, with no good outcome? Is He there for you to guide you to the impossible blessed result?

How about that loved one who is making bad decisions? Is He there to turn that person’s head around in response to your prayers?

The answer is “yes,” and this is one of the most breathtaking, dramatic aspects of the Christian life.

When you have a need, ask Him in fervent prayer–perhaps in adoration; ask His mother insistently but trustingly for help. And take comfort. For He is not expecting you to “do this for Him” alone. He is there to do it for you.

So we are assured by today’s gospel:

“Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which one of you would hand his son a stone
when he asked for a loaf of bread,
or a snake when he asked for a fish?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good things
to those who ask him.”

Such was the experience of Esther in today’s first reading. She asked for deliverance, and she received it.

So too will be your experience, if you ask in trust. You will be able to say with today’s psalm: “Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Consider the worries and concerns that cause you most fear and anxiety–perhaps decisions that appear to have no good outcome, or bad situations involving loved ones that are out of your control. Beg Jesus to take control of those decisions and situations, and abandon them confidently into His hands. Tell Him you trust Him to bring them to a good conclusion, even if it seems impossible.

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December 19, 2020December 15, 2020

Manly Men

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

Today’s readings draw a beautiful parallel between the Old Testament Samson, and the New Testament precursor of the Lord, John the Baptist. They depict the announcement of each by an angel to his parents.

Later in life, the Baptist was described by Jesus as never surpassed by any man born of woman (cf. Mt. 11:11).

And indeed, if we take a look at the lives of Samson and John the Baptist, the parallels we find are those of a man of God characterized by an abundance of virility and strength, and even a sort of wildness representing that particular aspect of wildness found in the male nature: Samson never cut his hair, and John the Baptist lived in the wilds, off locusts and wild honey. Both men endured, in different ways, the most rugged of trials.

Samson, as he grows older, is gifted with superhuman strength. John the Baptist’s iron strength is shown by his resistance to Herod and bravery in the face of martyrdom.

John is described as the voice crying in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” (cf. Mk. 1:3) We imagine him almost single-handedly leveling mountains and straightening paths so that Jesus will find the ground prepared when He begins His ministry.

Both men, Samson and the Baptist, end up sacrificing their own lives to be faithful to their roles in salvation history.

God, the Creator of the male nature, loves that nature in all its fierceness, its striving, its strength, its determination, its competitiveness: In all its virility. To the man who embraces what God has created him to be, builds it up, and surrenders it in a complete gift of self in the service of Jesus Christ and the vocation to which he is called, belongs a choice role in God’s providential plan for history–whether he perceives the full glorious context of that role at every moment, or not.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Pray for the men in your life, and for your own manhood, if you are a man. Ask God for the gift, not of suppression of what makes you/them manly, but of its full upbuilding, and for the grace to gift a fully-formed man to the whole-hearted, loving service of the Lord and His people.

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