GOSPEL MEDITATION – ENCOURAGE DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE
Recently I was with my little dog Libby at a retreat center in the Arizona desert. I sat in a chair near a ravine filled with shrubs. Unbeknownst to me, Libby wandered down there and disappeared. Suddenly an animal’s wild shriek erupted from the area. Without thinking, I bolted down into the ravine fully expecting to see coyotes, javelinas, or rattlesnakes. I didn’t care. I desperately wanted to get Libby out of there, without any self-regard. Before I could face whatever danger lay hidden, my dog blissfully trotted out from an entirely different area, utterly unaware that I had (quite heroically) just placed my life on the line.
When the adrenaline wore off, I thought to myself: how far would I have been willing to go to save her? I don’t know. But I do know, if I had literally died, my friends and family would have certainly thought me insane for dying for a dog. No offense, Libby.
How passionately Jesus wants us to know him and his willingness to die for us! This week he says, “I know my own and my own know me,” and “I lay down my life for the sheep.” Here we encounter an insanely excessive love for us. Christianity is a relationship and not simply a religion or ethical code. In Jesus, God rescues and saves us. He laid down his life for you and me — and he has taken it up again. So often we are like Libby — blissfully ignorant of the reality of both our spiritual danger and his saving love. This Easter season, the risen Jesus calls us to be more conscious than ever before about his love. He never ceases to lay down his life for us.
— Father John Muir
April 14, 2024 3rd Sunday of Easter
GOSPEL MEDITATION – ENCOURAGE DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE
When I was a kid, a friend at my home parish told me, “If you get to Mass by the Gospel reading, it counts!”As a life-long late-arriver, it’s something I have told myself many times, especially in my earlier years as a Catholic. If the “it counts”is justifiable on a pathetically minimal scale of liturgical legalism, then the Gospel reading today shows how insanely wrong-headed it is, and how helpful it is to re-think the Mass in its light.
The famous “Road to Emmaus” story recounts, on that first Sunday of the Resurrection, the basic two-fold structure of the Mass: Word, followed by Eucharist. Jesus spends a significant period of time with two dismayed disciples, as he connects a wide swath of the Hebrew scriptures with his own suffering, death, and resurrection. They would later report that this Liturgy of the Word touched their hearts with an inexplicable fire. This Word-induced flame alone is what leads the two disciples to discover Jesus’ presence in the “breaking of the bread.”
With this in mind, how can we possibly think that the Liturgy of the Word is unnecessary or incidental? The two disciples needed the Scriptures explained to them in order to experience Jesus alive in the eucharistic breaking of bread. Sure, we say, but they had the Risen Jesus. But that’s precisely the point: Jesus is risen and accompanies us in both parts of the Mass. Imagine how much our experience of Jesus in the Eucharist would deepen if we (preachers and listeners) took even more seriously that Jesus himself sets our hearts ablaze with his Word so that we know him in the Eucharist. That Word-induced fire counts, too!
— Father John Muir
April 7, 2024 2nd Sunday of Easter (Sunday of Divine Mercy)
GOSPEL MEDITATION – ENCOURAGE DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE
A protestant pastor friend of mine was invited to meet Pope Francis with a group of other pastors. He noticed the Pope’s chair was especially ornate and set at the head of the group. He somewhat playfully said, “Holy Father, why do you get that special chair?”The group chuckled nervously at my friend’s audacious chide.
The following year, the group was invited to return. They entered the room to find only simple chairs placed in a circle. Pope Francis entered, sat down in one of the humble chairs and, looking directly at my friend, with a twinkle in his eye, asked, “What do you think of my chair now?”My friend was stunned that the Pope remembered his concerns — and took the time to answer them.
Thomas the apostle was certainly stunned by the Risen Jesus displaying his wounds in person. But he also must have been equally shocked that Jesus knew and answered his particular questions, worries, and even demands related to his faith. How humbled — and perhaps a bit terrified — he must have been to realize God remembers his concerns and cares enough to answer them.
What questions or demands about Jesus do you find in your heart? Like Thomas, will you be bold enough to voice them this week? How wonderful to know that if we do so, God will remember and respond even to our most audacious desires.
MARCH 31,2024 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord
GOSPEL MEDITATION – ENCOURAGE DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCRIPTURE
Outside Chicago, there is a small cemetery in the woods behind Mundelein Seminary, where I was a student. One night I was exploring it. I looked up and was shocked to see an imposing seventeen-foot angel towering over me and preparing to blow a trumpet. Adrenaline rushed through me. I gasped and uttered, “Oh my God!” Quickly I realized it was in fact a massive bronze statue. I tried to calm myself down. But it still freaked me out.
As we begin to celebrate Easter today, this image might seem a bit unnerving. But please recall that for the first disciples on the morning of the resurrection, it was precisely that. It wasn’t joyful at first, it was terrifying. It wasn’t peaceful, it was unsettling. In that Jerusalem cemetery, something otherworldly had happened. Angels announced that he was no longer dead, but alive. They had blown their trumpets, so to speak, and Jesus had risen. Soon the disciples’ shock in that dark cemetery would turn into joy.
We all have our own places of the dead, too, don’t we? Deceased loved ones. Our tired patterns of blame. Relationships stuck in resentment. Indifference to the poor. Lost dreams. Despair about our future. Fear of sickness and death. These are our “cemeteries” where we don’t expect much to happen. Today we enter — if we dare — those places with the disciples. See the mighty angel standing there, trumpet ready to blare!
MARCH 24,2024 Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
A few months before they married, my twenty-three-year-old sister and her fiancé planned a cross-country road trip to visit his family. My parents told them that they could only go if they slept in separate hotel rooms, offering to foot the bill. It might sound prudish, but my parents wanted the young couple to understand that their approaching unity was close, but not yet. Patience solidifies love.
What could this possibly have to do with Palm Sunday? It’s usually overlooked, but the Gospels tell us that, after entering Jerusalem, Jesus “looked around … and since it was late, went out to Bethany with the twelve” (Mk 11:11) for the night. Who cares? Why include this detail? Jews in those days believed that the new Davidic King would one day reenter and “marry” the city. A new future marked by fidelity would begin for God’s people. Israel’s God would be in union with His people forever. Without over-sexualizing the metaphor, perhaps Jesus refused to sleep in Jerusalem to remind us of his marital purpose. He was entering Jerusalem as the bridegroom-king. It was almost time, but not yet. Soon he will sleep in Jerusalem in the tomb and then something new will begin: his one body, his Church.
Lenten challenge: This Holy Week, I challenge you to keep this image in your mind all the way until Easter Sunday: Jesus is the faithful bridegroom who patiently prepares his bride for their new life together. Go to the Good Friday liturgy and kiss the cross. When you do, let that gesture be the long-awaited “I do” to our faithful God, who always waits for us.
Have you noticed it? New life is springing up all around us. What has appeared dead is now coming to life. I noticed it earlier this week when I turned the school bus into the driveway of the Mobile Home Park in New Lebanon. The tree on the right, which had been barren since the fall, had leaves beginning to sprout. The grass has gone from a dingy brown to bright green, and its growth has taken off like a jet on the end of the runway. Buttercups have broken through the ground and are blooming. Daily examples of the Paschal Mystery, the life, death, and new life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
From the Prophet Ezekiel we hear that: “God will open your graves and have you rise from them and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD”.That’s not an empty promise! He was speaking of the Jewish people who were being prepared to be released from the Babylonian Exile. Not only were the Jewish people going to be restored, but also the Temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem proper were going to be restored. Saint Paul tells us: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you”.Saint Paul is telling us to have hope because restoration and resurrection is ours if the spirit dwells in us.
No one cheats death. Not even Jesus’ best friend Lazarus. When Lazarus falls ill, Martha and Mary know there is only one thing to do and that is to send for Jesus and have someone bring Him back to heal Lazarus of his illness. Death is never kind to those we love. Martha and Mary knew if Jesus would return to Judea in time, He could save their brother. They’ve heard all the stories. The crippled are healed and walk normally. Ears of those who were deaf were touched and now they hear the birds singing cheerfully in the trees. A blind man from birth washed spittle and clay from his eyes in the pool of Siloam and is able to see. No one had ever made the blind to see until now! Wherever Jesus went, miracles happened but Jesus is days away from Judea, when Lazarus dies.
When Jesus returned, Martha met him on the way into town. Martha explained to Jesus that Lazarus had been dead for four days. A first century Judean belief was that the soul hovered around the body for three days. After the three days had passed, there was no hope that the body would ever come back to life again. Martha and Mary thought Lazarus was gone forever. Jesus had other plans, plans that will glorify the Father. So, Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will rise. Martha has a flawed understanding of what Jesus is trying to tell her. She believes that Lazarus is going to be raised on the last day at the resurrection with all those who had gone before him. Those are not Jesus’ plans, and so He tells her “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” Martha says she believes. Martha takes Jesus to where Lazarus is buried and Jesus tells Lazarus to come out, and he does. This Gospel shows us the power of Jesus over physical death. It allows Lazarus to come out from the tomb, and it gives us hope that we too will be raised from the dead. Lazarus’ resurrection is the precursor of the Lord’s resurrection. In His power, His love and mercy Jesus shows the Jews in His day, and us in our day that we need to believe and have faith that he will do what he says he will do. That we too will rise.
As the season of lent draws to a close, may our faith be strengthened, and may we come to believe that the one who raised Lazarus from the dead, and who also was resurrected, wants us to rise so that we may spend eternity with Him. That Jesus, in his humanity, at our death will weep, and then call us to Himself by saying: “My child come out!” “Come out” of darkness into light. “Come out” of sin into Grace, “Come out” past the tomb where the stone is rolled away “Come out” you are Resurrected!
Do you believe this? Come to believe!
Deacon Ken Stewart
MARCH 17,2024 5th Sunday of Lent
A middle-aged woman sat on the couch in my parish office and recounted to me a shocking list of terrible calamities in her life: addictions, terminal illnesses, financial loss, broken relationships, and so on. She smiled as she did so. “Please forgive me,”I asked, “but you seem to be smiling as you share this.” She said, “Father John, I am totally overwhelmed. But I’m smiling because I just can’t wait to see what good things God does with this mess.” She expected God would manifest His glory when she most needed it.
This week in the Gospel, God speaks from heaven for the third and final time in Jesus’ earthly ministry. It’s at a tough moment. Gentiles seek Jesus, who announces his terrible suffering, and then boldly prays, “Father, glorify your name!” John then writes: Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” Was the task of drawing the whole non-Jewish world to himself overwhelming? Or was it the terrible specter of crucifixion? Whatever it was, the crushing weight triggers his turning to the Father with an unshakeable expectation of divine glory to burst through. And indeed, it did on Easter Sunday. In our burdens, our greatest strength is to turn to God and boldly ask Him for His glory.
Lenten challenge: This week, I invite you to list out everything which is a burden to you. Write it down. Then add these words: “Father, glorify Your name in all these things!” Put that paper in your pocket or purse when you come to Holy Week liturgies next week. You might smile at the most unlikely times.
Our national pastime isn’t baseball. It’s what the Bible calls “condemning the world.” We generally enjoy pronouncing curses upon those whom we see as trouble, wrong, or evil. Don’t believe me? Listen to almost any podcast, cable news network, or social media platform to hear it. It will be some version of: “We all agree that if they are eradicated, things will be great.” Condemning is almost always clothed in virtue. It basks in its good intentions. That’s why it is so attractive. Condemning seems like our best path to saving what is good.
What a shock, then, to hear Jesus announce: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”(Jn 3:17). He comes to save the world, as we all want, but he will accomplish it without an act of condemnation. How hard it is to accept this! Condemning feels godlike. I judge who and what must be lost to protect the good. But in the light of Jesus’ endless mercy and love, this is the least godlike thing we can do.
Lenten challenge: This week, I invite you to give up the delicious experience of condemning whomever in the world you most would like to see gone. Perhaps write down their names. Secondly, I invite you to consider fasting from any media that feeds the tasty but deadly tendency to condemn.
As a college student, my prized possession was an aftermarket car stereo. It was my pride and joy: glorious audio, eye-catching display screen, and multi-disc CD changer. It drained my hard-earned dollars, but it was totally worth it. It drenched me in music everywhere I drove. On Ash Wednesday of my senior year of college, Father Tom, the Jesuit priest at my university said, “Pray for God to tell you what he wants you to sacrifice for Lent.”I did. In my heart, the answer came: “Give up listening to your car stereo for forty days.” I winced. Not possible, I thought. Can’t do it. I made other plans. The next morning, I was stunned to find that my car had been broken into, and my fancy stereo ripped out and stolen.
God’s command to sacrifice what we love is no joke. This week in Genesis 22, God says: “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love — Isaac — and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Believe me, I know. We like to be in control. It chaffs us that God sets the terms of what we must sacrifice, and how. But this is no impersonal, tyrannical process. Remember that God uses their names, Abraham and Isaac. God knows each one of us and the precious gifts He commands us to offer. Finally, our sacrifices are for our own good. Do we trust this enough to do what Father Tom asked me to do?
Lenten challenge: This week, I dare you to ask God: “What do you want me to give up?” He may ask for that which you love most. It will be something precious to you: time, money, a relationship, a dream, an opportunity. What matters is we trust Him and act sacrificially in line with His command. Whatever we sacrifice will of course come back to us as surely as the Risen Jesus — but that doesn’t make it easy.
