The Word of God

Daily Reflections

• Reflection – Lectionary: 290

  People are always disappointed. Think about the hateful disappointment of those over 2,000 years ago who were expecting their own created version of the Messiah! They expected a revolutionary wielding such political and military power that anyone associated with him would be called “his friend.” Selfishly, they would then somehow share in that tremendous and overwhelmingly amassed power. It is little wonder why such as these rejected Jesus Christ flat out because, astoundingly, he promoted service as a basis for greatness. He even washed feet and wounds and ate with sinners and outcasts: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.”

  Those who rejected Jesus when He first came were steeped in their mistaken ideas about who God promised and how he would save them from their sins. This still happens today as Jesus comes to us every single day of our lives, which calls upon us to set aside any biases or unrealistic expectations and accept the Lord Jesus just as He says He is for the world: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” Love Jesus today with all your heart, and then allow that remarkable decision to permeate and affect everything you do and say from now on. Sometimes the human heart needs more time to accept what the mind already knows.

  “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” C. S. Lewis

• Reflection – Lectionary: 561

  “Jesus said to Thomas, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'” How is Jesus “The Way?” Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think about how really precious is the time you have to spend whether it is at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored. (Earl Nightingale) Once we accept Jesus into our hearts and carry Him wherever we go, there is a certain appreciation for life that never leaves us. Once we realize and accept Jesus is the way I want to follow, every minute of my life is a true gift, and others begin to see and experience that as well.

  How is Jesus The Truth?: Stay true to yourself, yet always be open to learn. Work hard and never give up on your dreams, even when nobody else believes they can come true but you. (Philip Sweet) People all around us worship many things in this life, anything from money to power and pleasure. When Jesus becomes our Truth, everything He has taught us is maintained in a life of remarkable integrity. This is critical, especially in the face of temptation, when we must make that daily choice of which version of ourselves we choose to be for that moment. It also means that we are now posed to forgive even the meanest and cruelest individuals we will ever meet. Jesus is stronger than any of those!

  How is Jesus The Life?: There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. (George Sand) When a person accepts Jesus as their universe and pattern of living, love becomes nearly effortless. That is because God is love, and those who truly understand the overwhelming love which has been shown to us, especially in the death and Resurrection of Jesus His Son, then the only response can be a life of generous giving of self, amazing patience, and love. This clearly prepares us for eternal life in Heaven, where there is no more pain, no more guilt, and no more tears. “If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

• Reflection – Lectionary: 288

  “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” Joy is both a mysterious and complicated matter for some reason. What brings joy to one and not to another? Why do some people avoid being happy while others thrive on it? Part of the understanding of human nature is revealed within each person who feels and experiences life through their prism of life and love. Each person makes a fundamental decision practically every day of their lives as to what is going to make them happy, sad, angry, or even apathetic. Our purpose here is to unlock the Scriptures, that joy, like happiness, is a choice and, from the looks of things, a very important one.

  “My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me.” It comes down to this: it all depends on who you listen to. We all know friends and acquaintances that are news aficionados and who basically have their hands on the pulse of all things newsworthy or not. We know people whose very worldview is determined by those few people who occupy their inner circles. And, of course, there are those who seem aimless and lost because they apparently have no one. That is why listening to the voice of Jesus today is critical. What is He saying to you, right here, right now? So much is riding and depends on the answer to this question. If we want complete joy in Christ, we must listen. And we listen, we follow. Then our joy might be complete.

  “Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something. Prayer is to enter into that activity… Convert your thoughts into prayer. As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. The difference is not that prayer is thinking about other things, but that prayer is thinking in dialogue,… a conversation with God.” Henri Nouwen

• Reflection – Lectionary: 287

  “Remain in me, as I remain in you, says the Lord; whoever remains in me will bear much fruit.” This is yet another profound and useful image to understand our role and purpose in this life. How often have we asked ourselves or heard others ask about why we are here and what exactly our purpose is? Sometimes our vision for ourselves falls short of what is actually going on in our lives. At times our perspective on the world around us becomes bitter, and thus, our actions and words become rude, unkind, and thoughtless with numbing regularity. We mistakenly think there is no good fruit to be found, but the real truth lies in the fact that we haven’t spent enough quality time with our beautiful and loving God. When we allow ourselves the time to realize how great our God is, we begin to see and bear good fruit. Then and only then does it become much easier to choose gratitude over complaining.

  This brings us to this very telling and provocative warning from the Lord: “Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.” At the heart of the battle for our souls is a real enemy who prowls around seeking someone to devour. Evil will never stop to gain new ground and move others away from the Lord. This is yet another reason why we must be aware of those who just “talk the talk.” “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.” We must also realize that we will be able to recognize the true person living in every human being by their fruits. That includes you and me, especially in our day-to-day interaction with our fellow sojourners on this planet toward Heaven, always knowing and trusting that the Lord Jesus will make a great harvest even out of our most humble intentions as long as we remain faithful. Be great today! You may never know what kind of rich harvest you will be planting.

  “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” Robert Schuller

• Reflection – Lectionary: 286

  “And when they arrived, they called the Church together and reported what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Then they spent no little time with the disciples.” At that wonderful moment in life when everything is so clear and lucid, you do not want time to end. We might say that in those special episodes around us, time was relative. “Time is relative” means the rate of change of time is not the same for every frame of reference. Two people sitting in two other frames of reference can measure different rates of time, i.e., one’s clock can tick faster than others or vice-versa. When the grace of God surrounds you, time stands still, and everything comes into such clear focus that we do not ever want to leave that space. But unfortunately, reality knocks relentlessly, and there we go back to the grime and gristle of it all. The joy that literally overwhelmed the disciples in our First Reading understood that very well. They knew and quickly realized that great things take great sacrifices but yield even greater rewards: “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” They couldn’t spend enough time listening to all the wonders that God had done for those who never lost trust or faith in Him.

  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” We must slow down to find these deep, wonderful moments of clarity. If we think that we will finish everything we think we need to accomplish, we will definitely wear ourselves down. This leaves little time to survey and realize how God our God is to us. Try slowing down today. You’ll be so glad you did.

  “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” Saint Francis de Sales

• Reflection – Lectionary: 285

  “When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out in Lycaonian, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form.'” Have you ever wondered why many people are preoccupied with movie, sports, and music superstars? Just look at the raw energy at concerts, movie premieres, and award shows. Of course, sports events and notice how literally crazy people get over these people, who, like Paul and Barnabas in our First Reading, are just human beings like ourselves. Perhaps the answer is that too many people do not have God in their lives, so they will and have settled for a bunch of little, passing, inconsequential gods. They last for a moment until the next rage appears. So sad!

  “I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
  
  “Then he brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.'” The only remedy for this obsession over human idols, as we have heard in today’s Readings, is to be open to the Holy Spirit for wisdom and knowledge. Belief and trust in what the Lord Jesus promises: that we will have clarity in this life, peace in our hearts, and right judgments, especially when we watch the news of any given number of movies and television shows, not to mention sporting events. Jesus truly loves us and is not looking for fame or good looks but just loving Him back in return.

  “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” Elbert Hubbard

• Reflection – Lectionary: 53

  There is no such thing as a gardener without passion. Nor could there be one without creativity or deep insight about the earth and what emerges from it. For our purposes here, working with the soil and growing food and flowers that enrich our lives is an art that employs the hand, the head, and the heart altogether. During the Easter Season, we are witnesses through the Scriptures of the “first fruits” of the sowing and planting of the Gospel enriched by the Sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to produce this wonderful and life-giving fruit of the world’s garden, the Church. “The church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace. It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord, and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit it grew in numbers.”  God is like the Supreme Gardener who has placed all creation in place and order and brings all the blossoms in an all-powerful and all-loving gentle manner. This very truth inspired the Psalmist to invite us to sing with him today and forever: “I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.”

  And while we are living in a complete world of gratitude and the overwhelming sense that Jesus is right here with us through thick and thin, our behavior then reflects such living: “Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.”  Clearly, the Scriptures today proclaim the deep and life-giving connection with the integrity of life because of the One who has loved us into existence. If we believe in Jesus and follow Him, we must strive to live as redeemed and ransomed people. This is how we exhibit the closeness to our hearts with the divine mysteries of creation and redemption. Jesus, using the imagery of gardening and farming, reminds all of us of this intimate relationship in the Gospel today: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” If it is true, and it is, that you can always tell a tree by its fruit, then who will people see and experience in us today? Will they see Jesus? Who, then?

  “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt

Read more >>