The Word of God

Daily Reflections

• Reflection – Lectionary: 221

  “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” We have now arrived at the First Friday of Lent, where we are reminded of that particular Friday when Jesus gave us His entire being on the cross for our salvation and eternal happiness. We are also reminded of the call to fast and go without to strengthen our resolve and our wish to be holy and ever so close to the Lord. Here we can visualize and follow the radical connection between the paths of Lent by which we are made wondrously ready for Easter.

  “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?”  Fasting assists our prayer life by helping us focus on the things in life that really matter, starting with our relationship with God and spreading into our dealings with one another. This supports our prayer life, which in turn feeds our desire to do good and avoid the near temptation of sin that we may grow in holiness and deep and lasting friendships in this life. What we know by now is certain: we cannot do this alone, and we need Jesus and each other to make or break this Lent. 

  “Only in eternity shall we see the beauty of the soul, and only then shall we realize what great things were accomplished by interior suffering.” Mother Angelica

• Reflection – Lectionary: 220

  “Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.” There are many among us who swear by the deep, internal cleansing and detoxifying process whereby the poisons and noxious substances are purged from the bloodstream. And while this is neither the time nor place to have an intelligent conversation about these purported benefits, it is safe to say that there is a deep and beneficial connection to faith and what we do with it, understood in many circles as the difference and connection between faith and works. Using another medical analogy, sin and selfishness can creep into our lives like plaque upon our gum lines. This is what can happen when a person separates what they say they believe and how they put that belief into practice. This is clearly a red flag and a five-alarm warning for all of us: “Not so the wicked, not so; They are like chaff which the wind drives away.”

  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Another crucial part of a successful spiritual journey is humility and honesty. Many have to come to understand that we are only as sick as our secrets, which basically means that a secret kept in the dark usually grows and festers and ultimately destroys a person. The good news is that once it is exposed to light and released, all its ugly power is gone. This is precisely what is intimately meant by picking up our crosses and following the Lord Jesus with all our might and with as much integrity as we can muster. People who are so proud and who refuse to admit that there are issues and areas that are in need of cleansing open this lack of self-knowledge to growing negativity and self-loathing, while keeping them sick and trapped in sinful behavior. There is hope. Always. 

  Lord Jesus, hear my prayer and walk into my soul and cleanse me with Your Love. I am yours. I can hide nothing from you. Help me be honest with myself so I may find your Truth. Amen.

• Reflection – Lectionary: 219

  “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning.” Today, we begin a most wonderful and challenging season of self-denial and hungering for the earthly pleasures that we may or may not have become overly attached to. The reason for the Season of Lent, which begins today, is to deeply understand mercy and to practice compassion and forgiveness every chance and opportunity we have. “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.” Even though this special time appears on our calendars every single year, it is not pertinent or helpful to recall how many Lents we have lived through, but rather, and most importantly, how many Lents we have successfully lived through our own lives and existence. Remember, we live in the present moment, and this is the time always to act if we are going to make a difference between a life well lived and just days and weeks to fill.   “Behold now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 

  “And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”  Let us keep in mind as well as a precautionary and important caveat as we move forward. Lent does not end at the end of the day on Ash Wednesday. It is not even for just a week. It is a journey of forty days and forty nights, which is remarkably Biblical and critical. If we truly want to glean all the spiritual and emotional benefits of such a powerful trek, we need to be ready to fall in place with all our hearts and minds and not with anything that resembles a half-hearted effort. This is also not just a thinly layered attempt to lose weight and look better. The role of hypocrisy is just waiting to take center stage during this time, and the Gospel was not unclear about the attitudes that must be present if we are to encounter a true moment of lasting integrity. Finally, this Lenten Season is about our relationship with Our Heavenly Father, just as it was for the First Lent between Jesus and His Father. Just as the Body of Christ is the Church, so this global initiative to reform and change is all about our love for God and experiencing his reciprocating love for each and every one of us. onward and upward!

  Let us ask God for hope that we can change, be transformed, be more loving and forgiving, and find our true place in this world. 

  “No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by an advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”  St. John Chrysostom

• Reflection – Lectionary: 336

  “When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up?” What can we safely assume when we think of leftovers? Let us begin with our own collective experiences growing up in a family. Leftovers meant that while there was still food from another previous meal, good money-saving etiquette dictated that we eat what we have first before buying something more. It meant that we were not a wasteful family. It meant that there was more than the distinct possibility that some dishes actually tasted better after a day or two of marinating and bathing in sauces and gravies, which made for the repeat even better than the premiere.  It also powerfully suggested that somehow, someway, we were all going to eat because the Lord Jesus was truly the head and constant guest of the family. 

  “Rather, each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.” Even with the perennial presence of such an overabundance of love and joy, our response to such memories was and is clear. We are to treat each other as members of the much larger family we know as Church and practice the same over-generous spirit with which the Lord God shows us. That means first and foremost to obey God and all that He has given us to live, not just the food on the table, but also the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Such negligent behavior has always had disastrous effects.  This mega-generous reveal can not be lost on any of us today. On that day in the Gospel, the leftovers barely filled vast bread baskets and overflowing storage because there would literally be billions coming after that miracle to be fed, and then finally to a place where there will be no more hunger or pain, just Jesus, who re-opened the gates of Paradise with His own life so that we could have life to the fullest. 

  “…true love is an irrevocable act – you can only give your heart away once – after that, you give as much as you have left …” John Geddes

• Reflection – Lectionary: 309 

  Someone once wrote that true friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. The advice is quite simple: Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island, and thereby to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune and to maintain that friend, a blessing. If this is true, then we can learn much about the two different kinds of relationships we have placed before us in the Readings today. First, take a look at the people who are approaching Samuel demanding a king. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable request, but below the veneer, there is something almost criminal. God let us know exactly what was going on: “Grant the people’s every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king.” This breach of friendship would not end well for the elders. They may have learned too late that an honest enemy is always better than a friend who lies.

  Then, paradoxically, in the Gospel of today, we see another form of acting in a different kind of trusting, life-giving friendship: “They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.” This has to rank in the top 10 most dramatic scenes of the New Testament. Visualize the moment, if you can. Four friends are convinced that if Jesus can just touch their friend, he would be saved. And he was. Note well that Jesus was also moved by this act of friendship because he clearly noticed the faith of ALL the group of friends: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven.”

  This has ramifications for all of us. We are here to help each other, but more critically, in the milieu that is created when we call someone a friend. With that comes true responsibility and care, yielding magnificent consequences. Pray for your friends today. Ask God to shine His face upon all of them. With friends like these, we may just in fact see God. 

  “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Victor Hugo 

• Reflection – Lectionary: 335

  “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” The preceding experience, which clearly caused Our Lord to sigh in what seems to be exasperation, continues into our modern world. After all we have seen as a human race during our relatively short stint on this planet, many seriously doubt the role and awesome power of the Creator. If I asked those skeptics what it would take to believe in Christ, their response could sound something like this: “I would have to see Jesus do a miracle with my own eyes.” This sentiment is not uncommon. More than one person has held that he would believe in Jesus if he could see Him with his own eyes. Today’s passage, however, indicates that this is wishful thinking. If one’s heart is fully hardened against God, seeing Jesus Himself do a miracle will not be enough to cause belief. The response of Jesus to those who had seen His miracles is instructive. God will not do tricks for those who will believe, let alone those who have hardened their hearts against Him. Thus, Jesus told the Pharisees that they would get no sign from Him. If what they had seen did not convince them, nothing would.  

  “But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.” Just as we may doubt from time to time in our faith life, we can never allow this unrelenting worry to absorb our souls to extinguish the flame of faith and love in the hearts of so many who would otherwise be strong believers. God sees everything and counts every tear that falls from our faces. He is the Great Equalizer! This teaches us that we must trust in the awesome power of the love of Jesus and starve our doubts every chance we get. Our feet and our resolve must be strong going forth into this wounded world knowing always that the Lord Jesus is always there for us.  

  “God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet. The trouble with so many of us is that we have hard hearts and soft feet.” Jackie Pullinger

• Reflection – Lectionary: 76

  “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna  (Hell).” These words of Jesus we just heard are hard words to hear. They are hard to think about. They are hard to process. They are hard because Jesus is addressing lust and adultery that cause more emotional pain and hurt families perhaps more than just about anything else. Nobody wins when a family breaks apart under the horrible weight of painful pretense and broken dreams. Love is such a supreme and, yes, even Divine gift, that any alteration or selfishness that enters such a relationship can have the most destructive consequences.  

  “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.”  We all have endured some of these painful experiences, either directly or indirectly.  Yet, it is precise because Jesus is speaking about these that we simply cannot ignore what he has to say. We live in a world that is broken, and we pick up knocks and bruises as we go through, and if Jesus has something to say about all that, we need to tune in. If Jesus had nothing to say about the things that cause us the most heartache, he’s not asking us to live in the real world when He calls us to follow him. Love, not lust, is at the basis of our hearts. Truth, not lies, is the very air our hearts and souls need to approach God and one another. When we give our hearts to Jesus, we are asking Him to allow us to love the way He does. Completely. Unselfishly. Purely. This is why daily prayer and the Eucharist are absolutely necessary for this spiritual approach to our human existence. What Jesus wants for us is not natural; it is supernatural and only when we live in His Light will we be happy in this life waiting for the one which is to come. “For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.”

  “Live life to the fullest. You have to color outside the lines once in a while if you want to make your life a masterpiece. Laugh some every day. Keep growing, keep dreaming, keep following your heart. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

Read more >>