“Questioning What Rising from the Dead Meant,” by Wayne Miller

“Questioning What Rising from the Dead Meant,” by Wayne Miller

Second Sunday of Lent 

Sometime afterward, God put Abraham to the test and said to him: Abraham! “Here I am!” he replied   Genesis 22:1

I will bless you and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants will take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants, all the nations of the earth will find blessing, because you obeyed my command. Genesis 22:17-18 

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living. I believed, even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.” Psalm 116:10

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31 

“So, they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant” Mark 9:10

Piety

Lord, I want to see the wonder in all my experiences, and I mistake heroic actions for real heroes. While it’s admirable to go through a crisis grandly, it is infinitely more important to live every day glorifying You when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to me. Forgive me for wanting my halo now, or at least someone to say, “What a wonderful man of prayer I am!”. 

Help me to be appropriately devoted to you, Lord Jesus, so that all people notice is the Love of God coming from you through me, all the time.

Study

In Scripture, the great miracle of the Incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child. The great miracle of the Transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below.  The glory of the Resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. These passages are not the anticlimax but the great revelation of God. 

We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Incarnate Word working in us all the time. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us, making us absolutely – humanly – His. The real test of a saint’s life is not success but faithfulness to the human level of life. We measure success in Christian work as our purpose, but our aim must be to display God’s glory in human life and live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions that must exhibit the ideal life of God.”

Why did Peter, James, and John need to be at Jesus’ Transfiguration? They needed to learn how to discern their lives by total dependence on the Law, the Prophets, and the WORD. When the need for discernment arises throughout their mission to spread the Word, the Transfiguration gave them a visceral, unforgettable moment to hold onto for the rest of their lives.

Peter said — “I will lay down my life for Your sake,” and he meant it; his sense of the heroic was magnificent. It’s a good thing to be capable of making such a declaration, although Peter didn’t strictly follow through in his first challenge. But I’m not entirely sure what I would do if I faced off with a gunman during Mass.

Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Has the Lord ever asked you: “Will you lay down your life for My sake?” It is far easier to die than to lay down my life, day in and day out, with the sense of the high calling. God did not make us for brilliant moments. We have to walk in the light of them in ordinary ways. There was only one brilliant moment in the life of Jesus, which was on the Mount of Transfiguration; then He emptied Himself the second time of His glory and came down into the demon-possessed valley. For thirty-three years, Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father, and, John says, “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” But it is contrary to human nature to do it.”

Salvation is easy because it is a gift to us that cost God so much, but it is difficult

to manifest it in my life. God saves us and fills us with the Holy Spirit, and then says: “Work it out, be loyal to Me,” while the nature of everything in my worldly life wants to make me disloyal. I have called you friends. Stand loyal to your Friend and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life.” (My Utmost for His Highest, Updated Edition, Oswald Chambers, www.utmost.org)

Action

How do I manifest SALVATION in my life?

The more I listen to preachers, teachers, motivational speakers from all walks and all faith backgrounds and all “ministries,” I keep hearing the same essential, simple truths professed, although with different “spins” and vernacular: 

Piety: Be transfigured by close communication with the Triune God who lives right inside my heart.

Study: Seek the wisdom of Scripture and tradition to learn how God is calling me – today – in my worldly existence – to manifest Him in every aspect of my life. 

Action: Make a Friend! Be a Friend! Bring Christ to that Friend! (use words when necessary)

De Colores!

“This Agreement with the Lord” by Melanie Rigney (@melanierigney)

“This Agreement with the Lord” by Melanie Rigney (@melanierigney)

Saturday of the First Week of Lent

“Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: he is to be your God, and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statutes, commandments, and decrees and to hearken to his voice.” (Deuteronomy 26:17)

Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! (Psalm 119:1b)

“But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” (Mark 5:44-45) 

Piety

Jesus, help me to love.

Study

“This agreement with the Lord.” It sounds so simple, so transactional. You do what God wants, and you get the promise of eternal life. 

But call it the refiner’s fire or continual conversion or whatever you like. This agreement with the Lord requires us to dig deeper and deeper into what we say, do, and think. It requires us to shed very human emotions. It requires us to be meek, to be peacemakers, and all the other challenging things Jesus called out in the Beatitudes.

Hardest of all, it requires us to love. 

That love Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel doesn’t just extend to the politician you find odious or the businessperson you find craven or the celebrity you find untalented.

That love extends to the girl (you remember her name, don’t pretend you don’t) who was mean to you in seventh grade, the person who laughed or fell asleep during your very serious presentation last week, and the person without a mask who coughed as you passed each other yesterday at the grocery store.

That love extends to the person who last summer gave your father the virus that killed him, the construction worker who didn’t bother to mark the dip in the pavement that caused you to fall and almost lose your front teeth, and the drunk driver who killed your grandchild.

That love is not rational. That love is not easy. But the offering of that love is eclipsed only by the love God gives to each of us each day.  

Like that agreement with God, that love is so profoundly holy we cannot understand it fully. We can only open ourselves to it and say yes to the giving and receiving.

Action

Love the unlovable—in you or someone else. 

Image credit is armennano from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/photos/sadness-angel-memory-celebrate-3794945/

 

Righteousness not iniquity By Beth DeCristofaro

Righteousness not iniquity By Beth DeCristofaro

 

Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if the wicked, turning from the wickedness he has committed, does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. (Ezekiel 18:25-28)

 

Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. (Mark 5:20-21)

 

 

 

Piety

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa.  Again, it seems I stray.  Yet I trust in you, Lord, that in turning back to you, I shall surely live.

 

Study

A friend told me of her two little children who had given up sweets for Lent.  When a neighbor came over with hot cinnamon buns, right out of the oven, they told her that "Mom, we meant we gave up candy!  So can we have a bun now, right?" It's gotten easier for me to give up things for Lent since I was little, but it continues to be more challenging for me to give up sinful attitudes and habits which feel so important, so robust and energetic to me. Jesus' told his disciples that anger, even name-calling to humiliate or disrespect someone, is wrong.  But, I ruminate, "I’m right! That person is wrong, and more to the point they are hurting my feelings!”  Or whatever conversation my brain has with itself in this same vein.

 

Feelings are God-given and, thankfully so.  They enliven our lives.  Not only can we feel awe at the face of a newborn baby but be thrilled at a landscape full of the colors of sunset. Our internal fear senses help us run from lions, tigers and bears but seem dulled to more modern dangers. Attitudes, judgments, destructive behaviors born out of feelings are not “us.” Co-opting rules as did the scribes and Pharisees, are not of God. God created us in the image of the divine not our image. Again and again, Jesus tells and shows us that God is love, that his way is love, and that our mandate is love.  Living in our self-centeredness, attitudes, principles or small peccadillos, can too easily get in the way of entering fully into love, living in love which is possible only through Jesus. 

 

But wait, there’s more.  Lent’s journey is toward Christ’s Passion and Ressurection, realizing his presence in history and in us.  But it is also a chance to immerse ourselves in God’s mercy and remain there despite our inability to recognize that sweets and buns are the same, that my preferred life posture needs Jesus at the center rather than my small, sometimes destructive desires. 

 

Action

Sirach says most astutely, “If a mere mortal cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins?” (Sirach 28:5) If I cling to my anger, my self-righteousness, my addiction, or other obstacles to God, it remains in my way.  But Lent gives us a season dedicated to our approaching God who can and will remove all barriers.  What are ingrained patterns that I rationalize away that obstruct my way to God and perhaps obstruct others' path?  Today is a day of God’s mercy.  Ask and receive.  What actions can I take to continue my walk toward God and away from sin-defined life patterns?

 

 

illustration:  https://dungiljan.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-obstacle-in-our-path.html