The Word of God

Daily Reflections

• Reflection – Lectionary: 328

  “My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them, and they follow me.”  It is widely believed and circulated that once a proud young man came to Socrates asking for Wisdom. The Greek Philosopher took the young man down to the sea when he quickly pushed him under for a seemingly cruel amount of time until the young man gushed forth from the water, gasping for life itself.  At this point, Socrates is attributed to have said, “When you want wisdom as much as you have just wanted air, then you will be wise.” The Letter to the Hebrews underscores this train of thought: “May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep by the Blood of the eternal covenant, furnish you with all that is good, that you may do his will.” 

  The Scriptures, as the totality of the Word of God, completely and totally prepare, reveal, and glorify the person of Jesus Christ. From that sweeping statement, we can safely deduce that Wisdom is as important to life as air is to a drowning person. To obtain it successfully, we must search for it with the same desperation for oxygen. The ability to see clearly and choose correctly the best course of action on a daily basis is the veritable building block of life, of Wisdom. Jesus then adds another awesome exercise that is probably less dramatic than a near-drowning experience: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.” If that sounds too simplistic, remember with whom we are called to spend quality, enriching time. It is Wisdom incarnate, Jesus the Lord! 

  “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” Isaac Asimov 

• Reflection – Lectionary: 327

  We have been gifted with an amazing Gospel today. It describes the death and martyrdom of John the Baptist, who occupies a number of wonderful categories, including cousin to Jesus, the Last Prophet, and an outstanding voice that calls us all to listen and be ready for the greatest news we could ever receive. The Readings make this an even more thought-provoking moment as we recall how great it is to love the Lord and follow Him with every fiber of our being. John would later express this very same desire when he stated that he himself should decrease while Jesus must increase. Once we come to realize and accept our purpose here on earth, our lives are much simpler and have the potential of even greater holiness. 

  “Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.”  The place of John the Baptist could never be overplayed or misunderstood. He forms one of the most significant members of the cloud of witnesses that helps us all look intently at Jesus and never let that focus stray. For the many of us who are giving all we have to be the best we can be and please the Lord, we are heartened by the fact that God always prepares the way for us to find Jesus and stay ever-so-close to Him in this life and the next. Our call is to let Jesus increase in our lives, and our selfishness decrease. With the help of the Holy Spirit and the wonderful Eucharist, success in this field is within our reach. The death of John the Baptist reminds us that following the Lord also has a deep price that sometimes people are unwilling to consider or offer. But in the final analysis, we want to be counted among those who are faithful and loving, and true to our calling. Nothing else will do: “Blessed be God my salvation!”

  “Love does not magically change things in your life. It does not do the work for you. Love is an altering agent that must be received and applied. Love has to be in charge. Once this love is in you, then it can do work within you. Once it is working within you, it must come out of you. You are not loved just so you can walk around being loved. You are loved so you can be love. The places where love does not reach go unchanged.”  Micah Berteau 

• Reflection – Lectionary: 326 

  “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” Have you ever walked into a room and automatically felt that something was terribly wrong? And by “terribly wrong,” what is meant is an atmosphere or attitude that is so negative and critical that you just cannot get away from there fast enough. The departure is so quick and determined that you leave a trail of dust behind. The Lord Jesus knows exactly the kind of world we occupy. It is full of negative and sinful postures that seek to choke and stifle the beautiful Gospel message. He also knows that we can trust Him with every good gift and wise choice. This is why we are forewarned and thus forearmed: any belligerent or hyper-critical encounter over the Gospel must end with an encounter with the closest door and move to the next page that God has already written and waiting for us. 

  “I am going the way of all flesh. Take courage and be a man.” The great news today, among the many other blessings we see and cannot see, is the fact that the Lord has once again reaffirmed His great love for us and His constant protection over every single step we take, no matter what kind of encounter is waiting for us. All we have to do is remain faithful to His Word, be fed constantly with the Eucharist, and never lose hope even in the face of seemingly hostile and hateful rejection. 

  “Every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better.” Dr. Steve Maraboli

• Reflection – Lectionary: 325 

  “I have sinned grievously in what I have done. But now, LORD, forgive the guilt of your servant, for I have been very foolish.” At a dinner, a very proud and loving father sat next to his future daughter-in-law, who was sitting across from her future husband, the man’s amazing son. After dessert and before presenting her with his Christmas gift, he turned to her and gently said, “All I want for you to remember today is that I have been praying for you even before I met you. That means I have been loving you all this time.” What he did for her and his son, and by extension, all of us, is to give a poignant example of pure love that extends all the way into Heaven. It means that trust, love, and responsibility go hand in hand in developing a powerful and lasting relationship with God and with all who believe that love is the answer, which always means asking for forgiveness, forgiving, and always practicing mercy.    

  In the Gospel passage, however, it looks like the Lord couldn’t count on His own people to put trust in the power of God: “And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.’ So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

  The result was disastrous. No faith, no miracles, no healing. The lesson seems clear enough: when we overstep our own relationship with the Lord, either by trying to “play God” or reduce faith by arrogant grabs for wisdom and insight, nobody wins. Thank God we have a God who loves us and is always ready to forgive. Let us pray for faith that is built on trust in the One who never stopped loving us, even while we were in the womb. 

  You’d never know. There are people who pray for you without your presence and without your knowledge. Perhaps those prayers save you many times in your life. You’d never know. Stay humble. 

• Reflection – Lectionary: 324

  “Joab was told that the king was weeping and mourning for Absalom; and that day’s victory was turned into mourning for the whole army when they heard that the king (David) was grieving for his son.” Without a doubt, the Christian Life can be very difficult sometimes and seemingly just too hard to walk. This is precisely why we need to help each other and depend on the great example of the Saints of God who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith and exuberantly displaying a remarkable amount of courage in living the Faith in Christ in the face of the most formidable odds. 

  “One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward.” “There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.” In the Gospel today, we have two very prime examples of people who are in great need of a powerful miracle in their lives and who are surrounded by people who also believe, because the text tells us there were crowds following the unfolding drama. The witness and the advice given to those searching for the Lord and finding the most courageous of all faith before them help us to remember that we need each other in the walk of faith. We also need to respond appropriately and faithfully when called upon to give witness, strengthen the resolve of others who are struggling, and always pray for those who need our prayers the most. “Do not be afraid; just have faith.”  

  “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.” St. Augustine

• Reflection – Lectionary: 524

  “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.” Have you ever heard the expression, “Now I’ve seen everything!”? It is a phrase that seems to suggest that something has just occurred that took the beholder by surprise and by storm, something that could not have been imagined or predicted. Something similar has happened for us today in the Gospel that chronicles the experience of Simeon in the Temple when he beholds the Baby Jesus and realizes that life can never be the same again. You see, according to the same Gospel account, he had been promised by a special revelation from the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he actually clapped eyes on the Messiah. When he saw Jesus, he knew it was time. 

  Our First Reading today gives us more than just a subtle hint of how we can live like this, and therefore, by extension, die a very happy death: “He will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.”  It is really quite simple: if we have spent our days trying to love each other, forgive at every juncture, pray for those who hate us, and treat everyone, especially the poor, as if they were Jesus Himself, then don’t you think we would recognize the Messiah, too? You see, the refining silver image is all about our own refinement and ongoing spiritual testing in the crucible of suffering and self-sacrifice. The Letter to the Hebrews agrees with the assessment: “Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”

  On this Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, we have come to the truly last reference to the mysteries of the Christmas Season. (In fact, in the older liturgical calendar, this was actually the official end of Christmas.) In the 50 days since Christmas, what have we learned this year going forth? We must find Jesus, honor him, keep Him warm and safe in our hearts, and then bring the finest gifts of our lives, always seeking to see his face: “Who is this king of glory?  It is the Lord!”

  Almighty ever-living God, we humbly implore your majesty that, just as your Only Begotten Son was presented on this day in the Temple in the substance of our flesh, so, by your grace, we may be presented to you with minds made pure. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

• Reflection – Lectionary: 70 

  Authority is one of the things that, when used wisely, is one of the greatest assets to human development and peace, but when misused by the corrupt, it is simply and hopelessly bent on self-promotion and destroys anyone who is in the way. When God imparts authority onto His Chosen, we know that it is for a great and powerful reason: “They shall do no wrong and speak no lies; nor shall there be found in their mouths a deceitful tongue; they shall pasture and couch their flocks with none to disturb them.”  Moses, for example, was clearly a stellar figure in the Old Testament, and as “Lawgiver” from his post on Mount Sinai, he prefigured Jesus wonderfully and majestically to complete the full cycle when Jesus came down the mountain to give us the powerfully loving Beatitudes. His authority given to him by God led him to faithfully and effectively use that power without coercion, force or manipulation. This is why the Alleluia Verse  today is brilliant when we are reasonably instructed that  “Rejoice and be glad; your reward will be great in heaven.”

  As we move into the New Testament lessons of the day, we realize all too well that we live in a world where authority is used without justice and power is wielded mercilessly upon the powerless. It reminds us of what Thomas Paine maintained when he wrote, “to argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” In stark contrast, Jesus taught with love; His authority was one of commanding care and complete providence for everything we need to get back home to Heaven. This is the depth of love, which is why St. Paul was so insistent that when we would follow the Lord and respect His authority of love for us, that we should be free from unnecessary fret and worry: “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Today, as reported in the Gospel, we also may find ourselves astonished and overwhelmed with the bright hope of what our lives can be if we submit to the authority that Jesus embodies with us even now. He loves every one of us as if there is only one of us! How could we go wrong by acknowledging the awesome authority of love?

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