A Restless Life

This week, we are challenged by the words of Jesus.  He tells those who were traveling with Him that no one can truly follow Him without "hating" their family.  Taken at just that line, it seems an insurmountable task, to disregard the love of those closest to us for the eternal love of Jesus.  But two keys lines, one from the First Reading from Wisdom and the second from later in the Gospel Reading, help me to (hopefully) make sense of Jesus's proclamation.  In the next part of the Gospel Reading, Jesus continues to compare being a disciple to preparing to construct a tower.  Taking that example, all other context is removed - the builder's family obligations, their taxes due, etc... - and it's a simple exercise in having the right resources to achieve the goal.  We too must remove the outside context, or distractions, and see what it is we truly need to do in our lives to be true to God, and sometimes that can be our family or our jobs or even our hobbies...

This week is about the hard truth of the Gospel.  God, through Jesus, has promised salvation, and this is undeniable.  However, we may (and will) endure hardships if way follow the way of Jesus.  Too often, it is easy to be like those in the besieged city who cast Jeremiah into the well - we bury the truth we hear from God because it is hard to accept.  It is temping to avoid the hardships, put them off for today in vain hopes that they will disappear into the ether and tomorrow will not share that burden.   But that is not how life works.  Even Jesus tells us in this Gospel reading that to follow him will be hard, and we may end up standing in contrast to those we hold dearest to our heart.  And yet, we must try to stay firm in our pursuit of the truth and love given from God.  Think of the devotion with which Paul writes to the Hebrews, speaking of the freedom we can give ourselves if only we shed the burdens of temptation and sin that surr...

This week, I am drawn to the same underlying message laid out in all of the readings this week, and its importance necessitates that I focus solely on it.  In the Gospel, we hear Jesus's words that He is our shepherd and has given us Eternal Life.  This is played out in the following of Paul and Barnabas through their preaching and we see the ultimate reflection of this in John's vision in Revelation.  What this means cannot be understated.  God made a covenant with descendants of Abraham, and only with them, and yet, through His Son, Jesus, the covenant has been expanded.  Not only are all who listen and follow welcome to partake, but eternal life has been promised through Jesus's Resurrection.   Let that sink in.  At one point, the Israelites were the Chosen, the people destined to receive God's protection and grace.  But now, through Jesus, God has extended that special relationship to every single one of us.  We all now have the chan...

In the first reading, we here of the miracles that Peter had performed in the time following Jesus's Resurrection.  As the truth spread, more and more people sought out those apostles, with Peter chief among them.  While we hear that all were cleansed and cured of their maladies, physically and spiritually, you can almost here the Psalm reverberating throughout the Temple as they gathered there, rejoicing in their newfound health, that the Lord's love is good and everlasting.  And it is interesting to note that this Psalm is also the one in which the rejected stone which becomes the cornerstone is first mentioned, and we are given a story where that new Church on that cornerstone is healing the masses at the Temple, the structure that has been so important to the Jewish tradition for generations. I must admit before continuing on that with the passage from Revelation in the Second Reading, I am out of my depths.  While I know some of the symbolism that is referenced ...

What more could I add to the glory of Christ's Resurrection?  This is the moment that all other moments point towards, both before and after.  Our life changed in Jesus's victory over death, as we now share in His triumph.  As the Psalm calls out - let us rejoice and be glad!  The celebrations this weekend are sacred and have been memorialized ever since Jesus was found to have left the tomb, as retold in the Gospel.  We hear of Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb and racing back to Peter and John to bring them back.  Peter examines the tomb and, I assume, is trying to comprehend what he is witness to, as he is looking for any indication at what has happened as he sees the burial cloths rolled up and placed aside.  John, on the other hand, walks in and understands and believes right away.   Now, it is noted at the end of the Gospel passage that they did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead in order to fulfill the scriptur...

In wrapping up my three-part entry into taking care of yourself, we’ll focus on the spirit.  Given the general nature of my blog here, you can assume that I’d devote most of this post to Catholicism and adherence to doctrine.  And while I will end with that, I think it’s important first to touch on a broader aspect that gets lost in these modern times, and that is community.  Homo sapiens are a social species – we are hard-wired to thrive in groups.   Yet with technology’s ever-growing presence, it becomes easier with each new app and tech fad to withdraw from the physical world and retreat into the virtual world.   It is easy to get lost in a virtual reality and lose touch with those around you, immersing yourself in singular viewpoints and only searching for confirmation, not connections.   Our desire to belong isn’t fulfilled online, it is only temporarily sated with an inferior product.   Physical interactions are essential to our well-being. ...

This week, I struggled in my first read through to find the common thread that I wanted to write about.  I think part of it was being distracted by the "big" events that are taking place, with God's promise to Abram in the First Reading and the Transfiguration depicted in the Gospel.  And with the weighty bookends on either side, I set my focus into St Paul's letter to look for the link, and, sure enough, there it was. I am unable to fathom being a witness to either of the great events described today, where God comes down to us.  Despite that, St Paul's letter spells out just how we fit into the Divine Order of the world around us.  We are made to be citizens of heaven and to dwell in glorified bodies, not these mortal ones.  And the path towards that is through God - and in the Psalm, we sing that the Lord is our salvation and life.   So with the theme and link established, what can we take away from the other readings, as we are unlikely to experien...

As we begin our journey in Lent, I figured I would put a quick note out about the readings today for Ash Wednesday and post my regular reflection tomorrow for the weekend's set of readings.  Ash Wednesday has always had a certain "specialness" to it in my life.  Growing up attending a Catholic school, it was a day that marked a change and didn't come with the pomp and circumstance of the other holy days - like Easter, Christmas - but was strictly about the message of the day.  Even my grandparents, who didn't attend mass often and weren't overly religious, fasted on Ash Wednesday and abstained from meat on Fridays throughout Lent.  It is weird how certain days with such outward signs (the fasting throughout the day and/or receiving ashes on your forehead) has a draw to those who long to be a part of it. However, that is where the readings come in, as we need to have the right conviction and reasons behind the actions.  As Jesus reminds us, it is imperative to ...

It is humbling to take to heart the words we hear each Sunday.  If you listen closely and reflect, there is always some aspect that we can take and apply.  This week, however, is a strong dose of reality, telling us to truly look inside ourselves.  Since the First Reading and the Gospel are comparable in their message, let's dig into the Second Reading first and come back to those.   St. Paul presents us with the great dilemma that we are in as children of God - we have a finite life in our bodies here and yet we are part of the infinite glory of God's existence.  Through Jesus's life, death, and resurrection, we have had God's immortality applied to our weak and mortal bodies, and that fact should influence all of our thoughts and actions.  The path to victory has been laid out before us, and we only have to choose that life to enjoy the rewards. And that leads us to the First Reading and the Gospel. In Sirach, we are reminded that our thoughts become...