You Duped Me

Sunday, Aug 31: 22ndSunday in Ordinary Time

Today's readings are taken from:

Jeremiah  20:7-9

Psalm 63:2-9

Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans  12:1-2

Gospel according to Matthew 16: 21-27

Jeremiah cried out to the Lord, "You duped me and I let myself be duped. You were too strong for me, and you triumphed.  All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me."  Jeremiah continues on to tell us that he is determined not to talk about the Lord anymore.  Jeremiah will be silent, but then the name of the Lord burns within Jeremiah and he must speak.

I asked myself and I ask you, have we been duped by the Lord? In a way I hope the answer is yes. Have we been seduced by Jesus to take up the mission of proclaiming the Word?  Do we stand up against the worldliness that can turn us into uncaring people, looking only for our personal gain and comfort.  Are we brave enough to speak out when needed and then accept the derision we might receive when we testify to our mission?  In many ways, we too can be prophets and then be willing to suffer the mocking and laughter that can follow. But in our hearts we can hold tight to the name of the Lord that indeed burns within us knowing that the Lord is always with us and within us.

As I reflected on the Gospel reading, I wondered if Peter too, felt that he had been duped. In the previous passages of Matthew, Jesus told Peter that he was blessed and that Peter would be the rock upon which Jesus would build His Church. Peter must have felt both fear and delight in hearing that he would be a vital part of the kingdom on earth.  Through God the Father, Peter had been able to proclaim that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter was probably both humbled and proud.

This week, as Peter hears more and more about what Jesus will endure for our Salvation, he must be horrified.  Jesus is the Son of God; things should be easy for Him.  Instead, Jesus will walk the path of humiliation, great suffering and death.  Peter rejects the possibility of a suffering Jesus and is sharply rebuked by Jesus.  Peter is compared to Satan; an obstacle to Jesus; perhaps tempting Jesus to take an easier path.  Jesus tells us, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it." 

And so Peter learns, as did Jeremiah, that the prophetic message may not be received with joy and happiness, but rather may be received with derision and even hatred.  We need to be careful not to conform to this age. We need to point out when power is abused; when our worth is defined by our wealth; when many people around us are deep into poverty and homelessness.  I'm not sure it is enough to live our lives in virtue and piety; maybe we need to take some action, speak out, etc.  I don't know what my next step should be, but I do know that when Jesus didn't know what to do next, He spent the night in prayer, asking His father to show Him what He should do next.  Maybe that's a good place for me to start.

Peace and Blessings,

Judy

Jesus Wept

A Reflection on John 11:17-44

By: Larry T

Here’s a riddle: Mary of Bethany fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then she began to sob over the death of her beloved brother Lazarus. The Jews, who had come to comfort Mary and Martha, wept with them at the tomb. Jesus became deeply troubled and wept with Mary, Martha, and the Jews. In the end Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. If Jesus knew all along that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, why did he join the mourners in weeping over the death of Lazarus?

¹⁷ When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
¹⁸ Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles  away.
¹⁹ And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.
²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
²² (But) even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”
²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.”
²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”
²⁵ Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
²⁸ When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.”
²⁹ As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him.
³⁰ For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him.
³¹ So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
³² When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
³³ When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed  and deeply troubled,
³⁴ and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”
³⁵ And Jesus wept.
³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”
³⁸ So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”
⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”
⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me.
⁴² I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
⁴³ And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
⁴⁴ The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” – John 11:41-44, N.A.B.

Principle characters in this story are Mary, Martha, Lazarus, the Jews, and Jesus. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are well known to us as siblings, but what about the Jews? In John’s gospel the Jews are not necessarily Jewish people, but anyone who rejected Jesus and his teachings. In this story the Jews were present to comfort Mary and Martha.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, offers eternal life to all who believe in him. This gospel story is all about the rejection, misunderstanding, or acceptance of Jesus and his offer of eternal life. The Jews had already rejected Jesus and his teaching. But what about Martha and Mary, how did they receive Jesus’ offer? Let’s begin with Martha.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she rushed out to greet him and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Martha clearly believed that Jesus was a miracle worker; she was convinced that whatever Jesus asked of God, even then, would happen. Sadly, her belief in Jesus’ miracle working ability fell short of true faith because she believed that Jesus was simply a teacher from God who did wonderful signs because God was with him. When Jesus tried to correct her misunderstanding of him by saying, “Your brother will rise,” she impatiently interrupted to tell him that she knew what resurrection meant: “resurrection at the last day.” When Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,” and bluntly asked, “Do you believe this?” She said, “Yes Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” Martha was expressing the first-century hope and belief that the messiah (the new King of the Jews) would come into the world, overthrow the Roman Empire, and restore the Davidic Kingdom. 

The disciples (Jn 1:41), Nathaniel (Jn 1:49), and the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:25, 29), had also expressed the same belief in Jesus as the messiah, and as exalted as their declarations were, they had all arrived at a partial conditioned belief in Jesus. The “Son of God” expression was based on 2 Samuel 7:14 and Psalm 2:7. Martha’s limited faith was exposed again when she returned to her sister and said, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” 

Particularly important for the calling of Mary in this story is Jesus’ allegory of the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:1-18). When the Good Shepherd called Mary by name she got up quickly and went to him, and when she saw him she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Mary’s unconditional trust in the power of the presence of Jesus was plain for all to see. At this juncture it was Mary, not Martha, who accepted Jesus as the resurrection and the life.

To this point in the story the Sheep was completely focused on Jesus. Then without warning Mary’s attention suddenly shifted from the Good Shepherd to the Jews who were weeping over the death of Lazarus. The center of attention should never have been the death of Lazarus, but when Mary joined the weeping Jews she made it so. When Jesus saw her weeping with the Jews, he was strangely moved. It was not compassion – or the lack of compassion – that moved Jesus to anger in spirit and being troubled. Mary had earlier shown every sign of transcending the rejection of the Jews, and surpassing the partial conditioned belief of Martha to understand the true meaning of the death of Lazarus and Jesus’ self-revelation as the resurrection and the life. Her weeping with the Jews was a reversal of her earlier response to him, and it generated anger and severe disappointment in Jesus. Would no one come to believe? 

Jesus was deeply moved by a justifiable anger and emotion, but had to proceed with the mission that had been entrusted to him - he had to wake Lazarus from his sleep - glorify God, and through this event be glorified. He asked to be led to the tomb of Lazarus, and they invited him to come and see. It was Mary and the Jews who issued this invitation. Mary’s total association with the perspective of the Jews led Jesus to tears. The Jews misunderstood the tears of Jesus as a demonstration of Jesus’ love for Lazarus, and said, “See how he loved him.”

Riddle Solution: “Jesus weeps because of the danger that his unconditional gift of himself in love as the Good Shepherd, the resurrection and the life who offers life here and now and hereafter to all who would believe in him, will never be understood or accepted. While Mary moved toward Jesus there was hope that one of the characters had come to faith. Once she joined “the Jews” in their sorrow and tears Jesus’ promises seem to have been forgotten, and Jesus weeps in his frustration.”
– Sacra Pagina, Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B. pg 331-332. 

Today who are the Jews? Aren’t they still those who reject Jesus and his teachings? How many of us are like Martha? We carelessly allow our belief in Jesus to be conditioned and limited by the newest and latest definition of him? When someone or some group hangs a new cool, fashionable label on Jesus, isn’t there a danger that he becomes a reflection of what they want him to be, rather than who he truly was and is? What about Mary? How often do we lose our initial focus and became distracted? Is Jesus simply an intrusion in our busy lives?

In this story the miracle of the raising of Lazarus can easily overshadow the importance of the call of the Good Shepherd. Perhaps one of the more important lessons in this story is that we must answer the call of Jesus and strive to remain focused on him.

Do You Love Me?

  A reflection on John 21:  15-19

Do you pray with the Scriptures?  When you read them, do you allow a word or a scene from the passage to speak to you in your heart and draw out from you a prayer?  It is essential for each of us enter into prayer in this way.  Yet, it is a direction that many "voices" - from the world, and from your own ego - will dissuade you from; because it will reveal your idols, your weaknesses.  The Lord seeks to lead us out of those "Egypts" in each one of our souls.  To do so demands much; it demands a love that endures all things, hopes all things and to be completely truthful, I do not have that love yet.  That is important for me to understand, not for me to despair but so that I can live in His truth, endure in His light and be drawn up into a more perfect love by following His voice.  

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”  Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”  Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’ and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.  Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.  And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”  John 21: 1-19

Simon, son of John, do you love me?

I need to live in His truth, I need to know who I am and  who I am called to be in His truth.  I need it desperately, and our whole culture is dying for lack of this truth.  In this Gospel, through the questions of Jesus, Peter is taken back into the bitter, memory of his betrayal of the Lord, in order to receive the profound, unfathomable mercy of Jesus so that he can be drawn up into His perfect love. What courage this takes!  We, who are so easily offended, we, who so often confess our failings in a self-justifying context, are also taken through the drama of the Lord's threefold questioning of Peter.  Three times he questions Peter’s love for Him, mirroring the three times that Peter denied Him. The anguish of Peter by the third round is palpable. I can understand this, it can be agonizing to allow Christ to plumb the depths of our individual depravity.  Especially in this hyper-sentimentalized culture, where there is no incentive to grow in a deeper more perfect love,  to have cowardice and unwillingness to suffer in order to grow in love revealed in the unflinching light of His gaze is terrifying.  Who really wants to face their own spiritual impotency?  Yet, to grow in His perfect love is to drive out fear (1 Jn, 4:18), because above all we are afraid of our own ultimate futility - our own spiritual impotency.  Christ is the only possible answer to that fear.  Moreover, when Peter submitted to Our Lord’s probing and tending to the wounds of his darkest failure, we are shown that his little love was enough for Jesus, who would transform that little love into perfect love.  And then we see how much potency in the Spirit is released!  

We must obey God rather than men!

Perfect love does drive out fear!  Look at how Peter and the apostles rejoice at the sufferings and worldly dishonor they receive on account of the Lord! (Acts 5:41) How can I be released from the bonds of my spiritual impotency?  How can I be freed the dark hidden wounds in my soul?  These wounds may not always be obvious, but they have a subtle control over my love. Again, I am not speaking of the sentimental love of our time, but the passionate, agape love of God.  The love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor 13:7)  This is the love that our fears would block us from entering into.  This is the love that Christ will so gently draw from you, if you, like Peter, allow His Spirit to enter into your darkest wounds and heal them.  And not just heal them, but as we see in Peter, transform them!  His cowardice, in the power of this love, is lifted up to courage.  The Fisherman from Galilee will endure humiliation and martyrdom for Christ and His Church.  “I will praise you Lord…You changed my mourning into dancing!” Psalm 30 2;12

Worthy is the Lamb!

It seems a little unbelievable.  In this age of stunted, materialistic love, we may be a bit jaded in our hope that we could encounter Christ as intimately as Peter did merely from reading the words of Scripture.  We may be afraid to enter into the contemplative prayer that will bring us to Christ in this profound and personal way.  Do it anyway.  Put aside your fears, suspend you disbelief.   When you read the Gospel, when you hear it proclaimed at Mass, place yourself in the readings in your imagination.  Yes, there may be detracting voices -inner voices, worldly voices- that will hurl all sorts of accusations and distractions at you.  Yes, it may take time to build up an ability to endure in this type of prayer.  Yes, you may have to let go of the insipid, sentimentalized one-dimensional Jesus that is too often presented to us;  this Jesus inoculates us against the One who is the worthy Lamb of God, in whose presence all creation trembles and cries out to in adoration. (Rev 5: 11-14)  Persist!  And be ready, because He will surprise you.  Like He did for Peter, Jesus will ever so gently direct you to true repentance and deep healing. He will take your breath away and you will begin to let the Spirit breath through you. 

You brought my soul up from Sheol

My own experience in this type of prayer is an example of how important it is to persist through those false voices.  For many years in prayer I have entered into the scene of the sinful woman we read of in Luke.  In this prayer I am the women attempting to approach the Lord, but the Pharisees are standing in my way.  They present every objection imaginable to discourage me from persisting to see the Lord.  They accuse me of my own unworthiness and some of their accusations are devastatingly accurate.  The worst one is:  “Just who do you think you are!”  They go on:  “You do not belong here, you never will!"  "You do not need Him as much as others, how presumptuous of you!"  You ought to be content to just look at Him from afar, He will just send you away!”   It has really taken me years to get through that gauntlet in any meaningful way.  Even when I did persist and I fell at His feet, I could not look at Him - I was too afraid.  And in my day to day life as well, I can tell you that this fear, fundamentally a fear of rejection, has stopped me from doing many, many things that I ought to have done.   But, one day I did look up at Him.  And He looked at me with eyes that were strong and serious, and unfathomably loving and said:  “ Well, who do you think you are?”  Wow!  Those words from Him seemed to be my worst fear coming true, but the Lord’s eyes never wavered, and drew from me the answer “I am yours.”   And He responds, “ You did not choose Me, I choose you:   Follow me.”

Alleluia!

 Take a moment to enter into this Gospel in prayer (or whatever Biblical scene you are drawn to). What would He ask you?  In those moments of prayer, much like Saint Peter encounter with the Lord, Jesus will draw you to look at yourself with unflinching honesty, but bathed in His light you begin to receive the courage, the power to be so much more than forgiven:  to be transformed, to be potent and fruitful in His Spirit.  Follow Him!

Christ is Risen!  Alleluia!

Heidi 

This post is featured on Catholic Spirituality Blogs Network, a great site to find Catholic blogs!

Pondering Mary

O Mary, most perfect ponderer and manager

 Of life's suffering and pain,

Show me your key to dealing

 With all loss or gain.

What thoughts you held,

 What psalm you reviewed,

 What helped you most

 To make it through.

You lived poverty, exile and shame, 

 Yet handled stress well.

What did you ponder,

  What prayers did you tell?
 O sweet Mother help me experience this grace,

 So I may have the peace of Jesus
As I run this race!

"My heart was not my own
It belonged to my Son.
I followed his lead
 Until his battle was won.
With Him inside me and beside me,
I lived only for Him.
I loved as I laughed with joy,
Loved as I cried about sin.
My whole life I spent pondering
The greatest love,
A heavenly gift of the Father
From way far above.
Who existed before, forever
And then
Decided to come
To make ransom for men.
One who could pay back
Our debt for all crime,
To wipe our slates clean
Time after time.
With enduring love
And selfless grace,
My Son came to be
And we looked face to face.
My eyes never wavered,
My ears always open,
To whatever He did
And to what was spoken.
My pure focus:  Jesus
My redeemer and Son,
The fruit of my womb,
For everyone.
When God's love is the center
Of all that you do
The rest of your life
Can only be right and true. 
So look on my Jesus,
Invite Him in,
Follow His ways
And you will win."




Poem by Janet Goodwin
on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

To Whom Shall You Go, updated

I have been completely absorbed in the the space trilogy by C.S. Lewis of late.  Actually, I read the first of the three, Out of the Silent Planet last summer, but I recently purchase the last two, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.   They are books that I will be re-reading again in the future because there is so much there.

It was as I was reading That Hideous Strength that I came upon a passage that really impressed me.  It is a quote by a character named Dr. Dimble who is speaking to his wife as the final battle of the book is beginning.  He is on the side of good, but there are mysteries that he is grappling with that are hard for him to fully understand and his leader, the Director, has commanded him to accept.  As he is discussing these things over with his wife he says:

Have you ever noticed,.....that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?....I mean this,....If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family- anything you like- at a given point in its history you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and codices are even more momentous.  Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse:  the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing."  pg.280-281 

That captured my attention. We are, for a time, gathered in and then - as with the Biblical image of a winnowing fan - we are separated out.  And there are examples of situations that, for a time, are accepted as morally neutral or tolerated as a necessity of an era in the Bible, but that eventually are revealed as unacceptable, such as Old Testament polygamy.  Polygamy is certainly presented in the Bible as something that is accepted, but it is definitely a falling from the original Biblical example of marriage.  And if you read your Bible carefully you see that though it is not wrong for Jacob or David to have multiple wives and concubines, it costs them something.  Look at the jealousies and rivalries that come of it.  The eventual splitting of the Davidic Kingdom has it's beginnings in the corrosive effect of polygamy.  And the cost is sent on down through the generations, until it is time to see and understand; until it is time to make a choice.  As we progress through salvation history, or even our own lives it will eventually come down to a choice, a terrible choice that requires clarity of vision and tenacious clinging to the Word of God.  Our eternal destiny will rest on it.

"They rejected his statutes, the covenant which he had made with their fathers.  The vanity they pursued, they themselves became; they followed the surrounding nations whom the Lord commanded them not to imitate."  2 Kings:17

These thoughts have been turning over in my head for a while now, the passage in That Hideous Strength just brought new clarity for me, especially in the wake of some acrimonious discussions, with fellow Catholics, over the issue of so called "gay-marriage".  But it is not that issue that primarily bothers me, that is one of many moral issues that are confronting us in our time.  It is the confluence of these moral issues, the "culture wars", and the increasing ferocity of the battles over them between fellow Catholics, that signal to me that we are coming to a point in our society.  Choices will have to be made, and I wonder how clear we, as Catholics, see what is at stake.


The  reading of the day I was writing this post  (Saturday, April 28) makes this even more urgent in my mind:

 "Many disciples of Jesus who were listening said, 'This saying is hard; who can accept it?'  Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, 'Does this shock you?  What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.   The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life,  But there are some of you who do not believe.'  Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.  And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."  As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him.  Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."   John 6 60-69

This is at the end of the Bread of Life discourse.  Jesus is telling his followers to believe that they must "feed on me" or they will have no life in them.  These disciples are shocked; they are confronted with something hard to believe, something that seems foolish and not rational (verse 42:  and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and mother?  Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?").    Many of the Lord's disciples no longer walked with Jesus from that point on. They left Him, they made a choice based on vain worldly wisdom and they departed from Wisdom in person. But Peter, shows us that he has clung to and believed in the words of the Lord, and when confronted with the choice - though he is not yet perfected in his belief, nor does he fully understand what the Lord is saying- his love for the Lord clears the way for his courageous words:  "Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life." Peter sees what is at stake!  And it is this choice that prepares Peter to humbly trust in Jesus, even after Peter betrays Him.  Peter does not despair in his failure but receives with trust and faith the abundant mercy of the Lord.

I wonder if we have been given just enough of Jesus in our religious instruction to make us think that we know what His love means, but in reality we have inoculated ourselves from being truly transformed by His radical love. His radical love is not tepid "acceptance" or "tolerance", it is a purifying fire which will make you fit for eternal life. Unless you have ordered your life on His Commandments, putting His will in the forefront of all that you think, do, and say, and humbly repenting when you fail, it will be difficult to understand what a shallow sham our culture has made of Jesus, love and religion. It will be difficult to discern the True God and his will from the culture's gods, which will send you off in vain pursuits of worldly acclaim and worldly wisdom. From this stand point a degenerative blindness seems to set in, and in the end, even when the choice is presented point blank, it becomes too difficult to perceive what is at stake. You will become the vanity you pursue and defend!

 So how can we discern the will and love of God in a time when love is perverted, materialistic, and when our lack of knowledge of our Savior Himself is used to blind and divert ourselves from Him? Do you see a hardening and narrowing happening as I do?  Does it seem that we are on the edge of momentous choices, where everything we need to make the right choice is given to us, but many cannot or will not seek it?  I fear that the longer we try to straddle between the two paths:  the one of Jesus and eternal life and the path of worldly vanity, the less we will be able to make the courageous decisions that will be required of us when confronted with a final opportunity to choose eternal life. "the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing."

To whom shall you go?  To whom shall you cling to?  A terrible choice is beginning to emerge for all of us, can you see what is at stake?-choose life, not death.

Peace and Grace,
Heidi