“In all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.” Every parish has its own unique personality and charisms. Our main goal needs to be welcoming to those God is inviting to join us, especially the young. We are involved in God’s plan for the fullness of times; the present moment is surely not the whole picture. The...
Topics: Ephesians, St. Paul, Mystery, Parish charisms, Fullness of times, Salvation, World, God's plan,...
“Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” The risen Christ sustains the brothers and sisters who are being persecuted throughout the world. The Spirit of the Father will be with you, and you will yourself become amazed at what you can endure. The Christian mystery is about transformation. God came to free us from our bondage to the flesh itself , if you will, to the physical realm of existence, so that we can really live and move and have our...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Israel, Son of Man, Risen Christ, Persecuted, Father, Endure, Transformation,...
The need for forgiveness and for letting God be the judge in regard to all those who offend us or reject us or refuse us. We are not saving something for the future; we are experiencing something right now, and sharing that. Bad things are used by God for good , how suffering can be turned into something of a blessing. What Jesus is speaking about is giving the Holy Spirit with the power that the Holy Spirit has to bring salvation on a level of experience. We have been empowered to defeat evil...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Forgiveness, Right now, Suffering, Blessing, Holy Spirit, Cross
“As you go, make this proclamation: The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” All of us baptized into the Holy Spirit have authority to drive out evil and to bring healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, which of course all is gift from God. Reflect on our own religious faith. We can live in the kingdom of heaven according to what Jesus said; but do we? We have tended to substitute something else, something much more worldly. The Holy Spirit, which energized everything Jesus did. And he wants it...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Authority, Healing, Reconciliation, Forgiveness, Demons
“Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.’” All believers have to become laborers gathering together in their own way. The idea of gathering is essential to the idea of Church. He is talking about this idea of going out and gathering together those who are ready, who are ripe for this harvest. “You are the salt of the earth.” Evil undermines and destroys societies.
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Disciples, Harvest, Laborers, Gathering, Church, Salt, Evil destroys
The authors of our Constitution were not really Christians, except for one or two. True freedom is harmony with the will of God. Well that presupposes God has a goal and purpose, and that we can then choose to have the same goal and purpose God does. The thoughts and ideas that led to the formation of this country began in what was called the Enlightenment. They didn’t believe religion expressed any particular truth. The only thing that can evolve is something that has a potential to evolve....
Topics: Independence Day, Christians, Enlightenment, Religion, Indifferent, Science, Evolution, Potential,...
“So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people.” The flesh, the world, the devil, these are obstacles to real belief, belief that’s believable, belief that is rooted in God’s own self disclosure embodied in Jesus, in his words and in his works. The power of God is limited by human receptivity or lack of it, faith or lack of it. We have the freedom to push away Almighty God. Jesus was trying to write over a slate already full. Jesus’ whole...
Topics: Mark, Jesus, World, Flesh, Devil, Faith, Freedom, Gospels, People
“Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’” So Jesus is living out this statement: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” which of course then means that he sacrifices himself. It’s this type of prophetic tradition that Jesus continues and elaborates. Righteous according to the law, who are doing a good job as much as they can, but sinners, those people who can’t make it, who can’t make it in the world according to the law. The Sacred Heart is the human...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Prophetic tradition, Righteous, Sinners, Sacred Heart
God had already promised Abraham that his son Isaac would be the source of progeny. God really does want to bless you, and God wants to bless you so that you will be a blessing to others. Why would God even put Abraham to the test? In the Old Testament there are two different models of God. Everything belongs to God, but that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want us also to have it. “God doesn’t want sacrifices. God wants obedience.”
Topics: Genesis, God, Abraham, Progeny, Test, Models of God, Bless
“Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.” Among the many things that afflict humankind, Jesus was master of all of them. It’s really about how Jesus was able to take control of evil situations. But many stories mentioning demons are really not about demons at all; it’s just a way of saying that someone is either emotionally or mentally ill. The first thing we have to learn in dealing with afflictions is patience,...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Demons, Patience, Salvation, Redemption
“Simon Peter said in reply, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It’s a matter of bringing everything into relationship, and this is the work of the Spirit. Peter is speaking as the whole Church. Christ has come to us to unite us to himself. Being one with Christ-- And our goal is to let that oneness become more and more conscious within us. As it is now, most people are dominated by their senses. It’s a matter of bringing everything into relationship, and this is the work...
Topics: Matthew, Simon Peter, Christ, Church, Goal, Conscious, Senses, Holy Spirit, Bible, Shall
The Book of Genesis and the Old Testament in general has two different models of God. It is important for us to deal with stories, to think of them as stories, and to think about what they might reveal to us in our life of faith. This idea of Yahweh obviously changes as time goes on, but it gives a basis actually for the understanding of a man-like God who then in Christ becomes fully human. And that is why Justin Martyr says that Yahweh is the pre-incarnate Christ. As Pope Pius XII put it, the...
Topics: Genesis, God, Yahweh, Stories, Faith, Christ, Author's language, Blessing, Intercede
For this woman to dare to reach out was an act of courage and actually nervy. Her resolve to reach out and touch Jesus required a tremendous courage because of her uncleanness, and her courageous faith made contact with the divine energy within Jesus, and she was healed. “What is needed is trust.” Prayer is taking the initiative in reaching out to God. God truly loves and values each of us and admitting this is not false pride; it’s actually faith. God has joined us all together into one...
Topics: Mark, Jesus, Woman with a hemorrhage, Uncleanness, Trust, Prayer, Faith, Graces, Precious, God...
“Then Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.” So as we pray for healing, we might also ask for guidance in finding what areas in our lives need healing most. Jesus used the cleansing of this leper to make a point with the priests. Lepers were excluded from the community. Jesus is actually trying to minister to the priests, to help them see that he has a mission from God, and...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Leper, Healing, Priests, Community, Guidance, Wounds
“Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.” John the Baptist is actually a very important figure , this may sound strange, but connecting Jesus actually to Judaism. This requires a tremendous change because our lives are dominated by ourselves, not God. Sometimes Jesus is referred to as a rabbi, but he was very unique; he wasn’t like any other rabbi. John saw his role as awakening people to their need for conversion, God who wants to be...
Topics: Acts, John the Baptist, Judaism, Jesus, Conversion, Center, Imaginary, God-given identity, Christ
“So by their fruits you will know them.” You have to discern what God has called you to do, where your witness belongs. Fruit is the product, the ultimate result, of life. It’s important that people who are trying to follow God don’t become misled. There are false prophets. T heir great desire to be in charge, and to be listened to and admired and obeyed. It could be a very good cause, but they don’t go about it in a way that is fruitful. You have to discern what God has called you to...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Fruits, Discernment, Ultimate result, Holy Spirit, False prophets
“How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” So what Jesus here is calling for is an unusual attentiveness to one’s own life, to one’s own choices, and of course to God, especially God as we say the Holy Spirit, counselor and guide. How many best options can there be? Only one, that’s the narrow gate, the best option. Wide spectrum of choices, some relatively good, others relatively awful.
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Narrow Gate, Choices, Holy Spirit, Best
“For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.” God understands everything, and has so designed creation so that “what you measure out will be measured back to you,” perfectly. You commit murder, you are put in prison for a long time, but prison has nothing to do with murder. They are extrinsic to each other. God is drawing us together into a single communion in which we share completely what we contribute. “Stop judging,...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Judge, Measure, God, Good, Communion
“The love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died.” This great transition is moving from living for oneself, one’s survival, one’s well-being and so on, to living for Christ, who is God. The meaning of the resurrection can only be understood within the context of the cross. Christianity in the last four hundred years, and that’s quite a long time, has watered down this mystery because of the tremendous influence of the...
Topics: 2 Corinthians, Christ, Died, Resurrection, Cross, Enlightenment, Christianity
“For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” We need the Spirit to actually be rational. So to desire something that God has created, therefore something which is a creature, in preference to the Creator, is the very essence of irrationality. So there is something that is askew about human life as it is now. Therefore the remedy to this disorder, if you want to call it that, this disfigurement, the remedy has to involve the conversion of our perceptions. We have to...
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Treasure, Heart, Holy Spirit, Rational, Creator, Perceptions
“This is how you are to pray:” A God who is infinitely transcendent and yet that is in heaven, that’s what that means, infinitely transcendent and yet a daddy, infinitely concerned about every single aspect of life. Abba means “daddy.” God is infinitely transcendent, but God is also infinitely immanent, infinitely involved in every detail. First let’s pray for the will of God to be done on earth. We pray for our daily bread, and that means the bread we need now , and bread could...
Topics: Matthew, God, Transcendent, Immanent, Abba, Will of God, Daily bread, Forgiving
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites.” Jesus’ view is you have to tell the truth, act the truth, be the truth; and that means not caring deliberately, not caring what other people think, what other people say, how you appear to them. People want to present an appearance to the world. Jesus is suggesting that many people are just playing roles in life. We have to wake up to our own selves and realize how we let what we want others to think of us to determine what we say and do....
Topics: Matthew, Jesus, Hypocrites, Truth, Appearance, Actions, God
“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is the only road to peace, the only one God has provided: love of enemies, casting out all fear, even if it means that we suffer. So Jesus is saying your love must be unconditional, because that’s how the Father’s love is. Love your enemies.
Topics: Matthew, Perfect, Father, Complete, Peace, Love, Fear, Suffer, Jesus, Unconditional love
This is the life of a follower of Christ. We are God’s own handiwork and God is working through us. Although the goal of life is to flourish, there are many obstacles to that, and that’s all part of the Christian way: to learn how to live with all of these obstacles, barriers, injuries with a sense of peace and grace. Both are the fruit of living the gospel in this world: “glory and dishonor, insult and praise.” Jesus reveals a God who is not only the source of all creation, but upon...
Topics: 2 Corinthians, Christ, Flourish, Obstacles, Insult, Praise, Center, God, Enlightenment
The focus, of Jesus’ preaching ministry was the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand. That human beings willfully, voluntarily accept the will of God in their own freedom, which then would bring about a condition in which the entire creation would be freed from darkness and allowed to flourish; and this Jesus called the kingdom of God. Jesus used parables, comparisons, poetic allusions, ways of saying something without actually saying it, in a way tricking the imagination to open...
Topics: Mark, Jesus, Preaching, Parables, Evils, Seeds, Silence, Senses, Responging
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge, so...
Topics: Ephesians, Father, Spirit, Faith, Love, Christ, Sacred Heart, Rejection, Reason, Enemies
“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” The kingdom of heaven is a state of soul whereby one actually enjoys—enjoys—God. Everything we do has consequences within us. Anger If we are going to hold others to a very high standard of perfection, we will hold ourselves as well, and we will never get out of that prison. Forgiveness
Topics: Matthew, Righteousness, Pharisees, Kingdom of heaven, God, Consequences, Anger, Perfection, Prison,...
“For the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life.” For Jesus the law wasn’t something out there on paper or stone, but it was something in the heart directed by the Holy Spirit. St. Paul admits no one can actually live and obey the Law in its totality. The disciples are supposed to teach all nations to become disciples, which means to learn in the Spirit the ways that God has already provided for us to be happy and fulfilled. The glory to which we are called is unfading, because it...
Topics: 2 Corinthians, Law, Death, Life, Spirit, Holy Spirit, St. Paul, Disciples, Resurrection, Baptism,...
“You are the light of the world.” Now darkness still does prevail in many places, in many hearts, but it has not completely overcome the earth and will not because of Christ and his followers. You are a preservative. Mortal nature is on the way to death and therefore rotting is its actual goal. Those people who believe it to be the whole picture, then become despairing and hopeless. Jesus believed that his disciples were the key to unlocking the true potential within humanity, preserving it...
Topics: Matthew, Light, World, Darkness, Preservative, Death, Rotting, Despairing, Disciples
“For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.” Human beings need a dependence upon the loving Creator embodied in Jesus Christ. Whatever happens, happens for our good. Everything works out for those who become dependent on God. Superstition does not help us. False gods do not help us. So God is always trying to move us. Suffering becomes one of the most important components to human well-being. The mystery of the cross, that is the way.
Topics: 2 Corinthians, Christ, Suffering, Encouragement, Dependence, Superstition, Cross
Eucharist as the transformative action at the center of Jesus’ mission , which was and is to renew the ancient covenant between God and humanity. “Put on the mind of Christ.” Christ’s blood really does seal a new and eternal covenant elevating the very nature that we all share. Transforming our own lives, combating darkness within and filling our minds with joy.
Topics: Exodus, Hebrews, Mark, Covenant, God, Humanity, Christ, Transforming, Joy
“The great crowd heard this with delight.” Christian spirituality is often focused on the sufferings of Christ and the cross and his wounds, because in them we find compassion for our own suffering and can move on and experience the joy of new life, as did Job and Tobit and Christ. Yahweh is the one who will serve as the anointed, that is, Messiah. And when we put these two together we see Jesus is in fact Yahweh who now is incarnate fully in the human nature and therefore in that way Son...
Topics: Mark, Jesus, Crowd, Sufferings, Compassion, Joy, Job, Tobit, Christ, Yahweh, Wisdom literature,...
It’s about how God answers the prayers of those who pray to him. It’s about ordinary everyday matters and how God is caring for people in every ordinary matter, here family life, marriage. And of course it really intends to include all secular life. I believe the Catholic Church was very wise in incorporating these books into the canon, because they are the proper background for the New Testament in a way other books are not.
Topics: Tobit, God, prayers, Ordinary life, Catholic Church, Canon
“He is not God of the dead but of the living. You are greatly misled.” We have to be vigilant in openness to what the Holy Spirit is teaching us, and that we do not hold onto our own categories and our own convictions in preference to a humble openness to what the Spirit wants to teach us right now that we need to know right now and a willingness that that suffices. Human nature is fallible , c apable of being deceived. The devil’s primary purpose is to mislead and deceive. The world is...
Topics: Mark, God, Vigilant, Holy Spirit, Categories, Humble openness, Fallible, Devil, World
The Book of Tobit is in our Old Testament because we incorporated all the books used by the diaspora Jews at the time of the Church’s formation. We have to go beyond doing the right thing to becoming the right thing. Tobit always walked the extra proverbial mile. And yet, as his wife is pointing out, this did him very little good because his disposition was narrow and suspicious and negative. What is the point of virtue? It is to grow in godliness. Spirituality is a growth beyond the...
Topics: Tobit, Right action, Right disposition, Virtue, Godliness, Ordinary self
Now Mary was certainly frightened being pregnant without a husband, and so it would be quite normal for a person in her shoes, in her condition, to seek the aid, the solace, and the guidance of her dear friend Elizabeth , who was also her cousin. God in his infinite love gave himself to the world knowing the world reject him and knowing that through that rejection he would work this marvelous redemption. The great blessing that Elizabeth had in being despised by her neighbors was that she had...
Topics: Luke, Romans, Mary, Elizabeth, Solace, Rejection, Redemption, Compassion, Empathy, Holy Spirit,...
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. But you have made it a den of thieves.” The role of the Temple mediating God’s grace to the world is pushed aside and it’s replaced by an idea the Temple is a place to go and get, go and get what you want by offering God, you might say, a sacrifice. Den of thieves refers to those who conduct themselves in a way that steals from the people their actual knowledge of God. The role of the Temple was to mediate the relationship of...
Topics: Mark, Jesus, house of prayer, Temple, God, Fig tree, Church, Fruit, wither
“The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” This more debilitating blindness can be cured; it can be healed. Physical blindness in the New Testament is a metaphor for all kinds of blindness, many of which are actually much more debilitating. The many are those who are not one. God has created us for communion. Persistence in calling on God. For some reason we need to articulate our needs.
Topics: Mark, Blindness, Jesus, Metaphor, Many, One, Communion, Persistence, Articulate
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt.” When large numbers of people disregard the very principles of nonviolent love, when vast numbers of people reject spiritual values and self-importance reigns, so does crime. Self-importance is the root of almost all bad behavior. It has to be being the servant and the slave of all. That’s what true greatness is in the kingdom of God. That’s...
Topics: Mark, Rulers, Authority, Nonviolent love, Crime, Servant, Jesus
“But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.” To acknowledge one’s own nothingness, that is, to acknowledge that all we have and all we are and all we do is all gift. Humility is a recognition of the non-identity—the non-identity—of the ordinary person. Why do people give their power to others? Partly this is the brokenness, the sinfulness, of the human race. We are actually children of God. To acknowledge one’s own nothingness, that is, to acknowledge that all...
Topics: Mark, Last, First, Nothingness, Humility, Children of God, Vocation, Wisdom
Today’s gospel story is about the close relationship that Jesus established between his mother and his new family. So for us to truly have one family, we need more than just one Father; we also need one mother. For centuries the whole idea of ancestry was not about physical well-being, but rather it was about power and property and nobility and all those marks of respect or disrespect that occurred in society. “Behold your mother.” And to Mary he says, “Behold your son.” Mary becomes...
Topics: John, Mary, Jesus, New family, one Father
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” Witnessing to the power, vitality, and depth of love is the mission we share with Christ. Only God can satisfy the infinite longing for love that God has created in the heart of everyone. God’s intention is not to crush, punish, or overcome evildoers with a force superior, but rather to convert them by the superior nonviolent force of love. The resurrection is the beginning of a new life as God plans it and restores the original...
Topics: John, Jesus, Witnessing, Mission, Convert, Love, Resurrection, New life, Holy Spirit
St. Augustine says that Peter here represents all of us ; as the visible head of the body, what Jesus says to him he is speaking to each of us. It is through our caring, not just through our hands and feet, but through our very hearts and minds that the Holy Spirit actually witnesses to the goodness and the value of Christ’s own eternal sacrifice, his own total gift of himself. The evangelist of the Fourth Gospel loves language, loves word plays, loves to make important spiritual insight by...
Topics: John, Jesus, Peter, Love, Young, Christ, Eucharist, Holy Spirit
So the gospel is about the unity that God, that Christ, wills among all those who believe in him. This is a prayer that has not yet been satisfied in any obvious way. We could say the essence of sin is division, pulling away from the unity that God desires. We cannot look at appearances; appearances do not register truth. The Spirit is drawing all together. The more we are divided and the more we war with each other, the weaker we get; and the weaker we get, the more open we will be.
Topics: John, Jesus, Unity, Sin, Division, Appearances, Holy Spirit
“I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world.” The Spirit is a true source of experience, knowledge, truth, life, and is not perceived through the senses. It’s perceived through the spirit, the human spirit. The Spirit feeds us God, makes God available, unveils God. And faith means surrendering to God. letting go first and foremost of self-will. There is room in the life of the believer, of the saint, for self-love since the commandment is:...
Topics: John, Jesus, Word, World, Spirit, Surrendering, Love, Self-will
“I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.” The unity that God has with himself, Father and Son, now becomes a unity involving creatures. And the disciples are the vanguard of this new unity. As Jesus says, “I only do what I see the Father doing.” People do not want to suffer; but if you do not want to suffer, then you cannot have compassion.
Topics: John, Jesus, Friendship, Glorified, Unity, Father, Suffer, Compassion
“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” So that the world which Jesus has conquered will now live by his model and bring this about as the work of the disciple, the disciples, the community of the disciples, the Church. Rights and obligations must be equal and balanced. Torah specifying precisely how this people who have a special relationship with God and a special responsibility and obligation must live out this. Companionship with God . There...
Topics: John, Jesus, world, trouble, courage, conquered, disciple, Rights, Obligations, Companionship, Holy...
God is not somewhere in the universe, but in a totally different dimension that has no space. We need to learn our unity with God so that every day we, body and soul, can be God’s servant in the world, and through us the world will get to know what God is like. "If you loved me, you would rejoice because I am going to the Father.” Jesus is going to send the Spirit into the hearts and the minds of all his followers. Now we have to manifest God’s infinite love to others, including...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Holy Spirit, Followers, Becoming, Love, Forgive
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, that the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” Our work, our assignment from God, is closing the gap so that whatever we do or wherever we are, our true godly nature can express itself, and we can be witnesses to the power of divine love which Jesus poured out in life and death. He will work through the disciples he has formed. His mission therefore becomes our mission. But how is the Spirit...
Topics: John, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Mission, Father, Identity, Community, Love
“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,” God uses us, our bodies and our souls both, as a means for God to manifest in the world. God is the initiator of all love. What we have to do is acknowledge the love that God has for us. Now we are baptized into, yes, the human nature of the risen Christ, and so we are brought into the humanity of Christ himself and share that.
Topics: john, Jesus, God, Love, Baptized, Christ
“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.” Their relationship with Christ makes them grieve precisely because of the way the world acts. One of the basic goals that Jesus had was forming a new sense of the human family. Evil is perpetrated because of lack of knowledge of the Father. And the ultimate point of evolution is love, all-encompassing, infinite love and union since love is always uniting, a oneness...
Topics: John, Jesus, Grief, Joy, Human family, Evil, Evolution, Love, Church, Fruit of the Spirit
“They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.” This personal knowledge of God is the difference between a life that is ultimately happy and fulfilled and rich and healthy, and a life that is a waste. God is always addressing our hearts and our minds and our souls through the Holy Spirit, which is the Advocate. And the Advocate has come and been poured out over the entire world. The Holy Spirit, works in the hearts of all people; however people are free to either...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Knowledge, God, Holy Spirit, Prayer
“You are my disciples if you do what I command you.” It is love in action that infallibly transmits God’s purpose in our world and provides the witness that continues Jesus’ saving mission. Jesus in this context is aware of his imminent death, but he is very anxious that his mission continue. “Love one another as I have loved you.” He says, “I do what I see the Father doing.” Jesus knows God as ever-giving, ever-pouring out, infinitely resourceful, and this is what he imitates....
Topics: John, Jesus, Command, Love, Death, Father, Imitates, Holy Spirit, Christlike
“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything that I have heard from my Father.” Jesus wants his disciples to know the heart of the Father as well. He wants his disciples to continue his work. Everything that comes from God is of its nature good and true and beautiful and holy. This command: “Love one another,” expresses the very nature of God himself. In his humanity, Jesus still had...
Topics: John, Jesus, Slaves, Friends, Last Supper, Father, Disciples, Work, True, Beautiful, Holy, Love,...
“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” Love will never hurt anything good. It will draw us together. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Love embraces all and brings all together into communion and unity. Loving as Jesus loved us means letting go of everything that’s in the way of unity, including our prejudices, our biases, which we have to have because we are human, but we have to get rid...
Topics: John, Jesus, Commandments, Love, Unity, Prejudices, Division, One
“By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” God wants to use our bodies and everything that goes with them to manifest his will. It has to do with actions that are the product of what theologians call grace, that is, the power of God, not our power. We bear fruit when we are connected to something deeper that is not passing. This is a matter of giving permission, surrender, letting go—of what? Our self-will. God desires our well-being in every way,...
Topics: John, Father, Glorified, God, Fruit, Self-will, Listen, Respond
“If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.” God wills that you unite to him now, no matter what your external circumstances. When Jesus returns to the Father, he is taking all of them with. That is the nature of love: it’s unitive. Part of the sinfulness, the darkness, is not knowing the Father, not feeling the unity with God that actually we are born to have and we can have, even as we continue to walk on earth. “Do not let your...
Topics: John, Jesus, Last Supper, Unite, Love, Afraid, Suffering, Paraclete, Christ
“How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” Jesus empowers his disciples to go forth and to do exactly as he does. Jesus' life is a mirror of the Father and a passageway to a relationship with the Father. Jesus is witnessing to the very nature of God. This gospel is actually extremely wide in latitude in the number of people it includes into this idea of belief. Love only comes from a loving heart. We have to be transformed into Christ. The self-will, the soul of the human person, must die...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Disciples, Passageway, Witnessing, God, Belief, Love, Transformation, Christ,...
“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Cooperation and compassion, meaning feeling with and caring for the whole, that has to be our way of life or we won’t continue to live. Every single thing is connected to the Word of God or it wouldn’t be. The well-being of every single person is really of the greatest interest to each of us. Competition cannot be the primary motivating factor in our lives or we will destroy ourselves. The primary motivation in our lives must be cooperation....
Topics: John, Jesus, Vine and branches, Cooperation, Compassion, Word of God
“I am the vine you, are the branches.” We are all totally dependent upon God. Now this is the key to a good life, actually, that we acknowledge that We are all part of one living reality. We act rightly when we care about everything and everybody. We act wrongly when we don’t, we act as if it we are just a separate little branch, we can live all by ourselves. In the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist he brings about a strengthening of our communion, our union, our connection together. Jesus...
Topics: John, Jesus, First Communion, Vine and branches, Dependent, One reality, Holy Eucharist, Gift
“I am the vine you, are the branches” This image of the vine and the branches is an important key to our baptismal growth. The new birth signified in Baptism calls for a new awareness and a spiritual mindedness that is our new birthright . "Apart from the Word nothing came to be.” We have this intricate connection to the Word of God. We need a renewal of our mind. We rarely develop spiritual insight, and the culture we are living in has none of it. Passing, unsubstantial reality...
Topics: John, Vine, Branches, Baptism, Word of God, Renewal of mind, Self-destruction
“You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” It’s Jesus the risen Christ, the Word of God incarnate, that is the way. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” or the Word was divine. “Apart from the Word nothing came to be.” God is the ground of all being and therefore the ground of creation and therefore cannot be separate from it. And in Christ, the Word of God, God’s self-expression took on a human form. He has become part of us; we...
Topics: John, Jesus, Faith, Word of God, Creation, Human, Learning, Obedience, Devotion
St. Catherine of Siena. Her whole life had been nourished by a contemplative practice. Catherine lived in a very dark time for the Church, the Fourteenth century. The Church was divided in so many different ways. Eventually Catherine went to Avignon to tell the pope he had no business living in France because as successor of St. Peter and Bishop of Rome he belonged in Rome. She did everything in her power to confront both the plague and the schism in the Church. Was everything honky dory after...
Topics: Catherine of Siena, Contemplative, Action, Pope, Avignon, Rome, Plague, Prayer
St. Catherine of Siena. Her whole life had been nourished by a contemplative practice. Catherine lived in a very dark time for the Church, the Fourteenth century. The Church was divided in so many different ways. Eventually Catherine went to Avignon to tell the pope he had no business living in France because as successor of St. Peter and Bishop of Rome he belonged in Rome. She did everything in her power to confront both the plague and the schism in the Church. Was everything honky dory after...
Topics: St. Catherine of Siena, Contemplative, Action, Divisions, Avignon, Rome, Pope, Plague
“My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; the Father and I are one.” Pray that we might really believe in the unity God is calling us to, this Holy Communion we receive, to believe in it, to live in it, and to choose from it. “ The Father is greater than all,” that is spoken of course rightly and truly from within the creation of Jesus’ humanity. So Jesus is fully human and therefore can speak from within the creation, since his humanity is part of the creation. But...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Holy Communion, Humanity, Son, Friendship, Senses, Separated, Delusion,...
“So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep.” And if he calls others into sharing his ministry, that is a great privilege; but let’s face it: we are sharing his ministry. The kings of Israel called themselves shepherds as a way of saying they are descendants of David, having his authority. When Jesus uses the term “shepherd,” he is claiming that in him God is fulfilling the prophecy of Ezekiel, that is God who has come now to lead and guide and...
Topics: John, Jesus, Sheepgate, Son of David, Shepherd, Messiah, Resurrection
Where is the exaggeration in today’s story? He says, “A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Is that true? No. Now the Eucharist is given to us to bring us strength so that we can continue to pour out the love we are given and share the love we have shared and act on the love we see in others, in God. Shepherds have sheep for the good of the shepherd, and no shepherd ever lays down his life for the sheep. But Jesus is saying I am not like any other shepherd. I actually am...
Topics: John, Good Shepherd, Jesus, Eucharist, Life, Love, Action, God
“Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him.” The signs that God works have their effect when we are open to them, when we consciously desire their fruit, when we make room for them in our minds, in our time. We are now not only participating in the being of God, but Jesus wants us to share in the knowledge of God. The Eucharist is a sign of the blood that poured forth from the side of Christ, which is a result of the love that God has for us and the humanity of...
Topics: John, Jesus, Flesh, Blood, Signs, Conscious, Being, Knowledge, Eucharist, Baptism, Rebirth, Love
“Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’” A relationship with God is like a marriage. It has a lot of ups and a lot of downs as there is a lot of suffering involved. Now the instruction comes from within the body to whom the Scriptures are given. The renewal is not simply about signs and wonders. Reading the Bible literally kills the Spirit , and that’s what happened. That has happened throughout the history of the...
Topics: Acts, Philip, Isaiah, Eunuch, Bible, Renewal, Church, Egos, Mannon
“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” Salvation must involve all inhabitants of the earth. Every believer has to be completely awake and alert to the will of the Father. We need to work for the health, the whole health, of the whole people of God, which is the whole of this planet. The communion of saints continues to work and minister. ...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Heaven, Salvation, Believer, Health, Whole planet, Communion of saints
Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” We need something more than simply holding onto and defending what was handed down to us, because we may be trying to hold new wine in old skins, and that doesn’t work. Jesus didn’t believe Moses was the author or the medium for the oral interpretations. He said that was of human origin; this is how all kinds of frictions began. Now that is very easy for...
Topics: John, Jesus, Moses, Father, Bread from heaven, Frictions, Distortions, Human freedom
“Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” If we are seeking God, we are actually finding God, and so our trials and tribulations are actually moments of great joy. People looking for Jesus for the wrong reason. The loaves were a sign of the bread that has come down from heaven, which is Christ himself, who is come to offer the bread of eternal life. God’s whole interest is always in saving his people, but...
Topics: John, Jesus, Seeking, Signs, Bread of eternal life, Saving, Redemption
“Peace be with you!” A new value system must enfold Christ’s teachings and must be attractive and appealing to the world because the whole point of the Word of God becoming incarnate is to save the world. It is very hard for us to understand or appreciate the turmoil and the devastation that the apostles and disciples experienced at the death of Jesus. God’s plans for us are far greater than anything they or we could or can imagine. This new birth from above involves the death and...
Topics: Luke, Jesus, Disciples, Peace, Devastation, God's plans, Transfiguration, New, Holy Spirit, Holy...
John wants us to see the multiplication of the loaves as a Eucharistic sign. God has no intention of coming into the world and fixing everything for us. His intention is to enter our world and to help us provide. Not to do it for them, but to do it with them.
Topics: John, Jesus, Five loaves, Two fish, Eucharistic sign, contribution
“The one who comes from above is above all.” What matters is what God is doing in our lives, and how we have to learn how to cooperate with it. “The Father and I are one,” which implies unity, but then he may also say, “The Father is greater than I.” That implies less than unity. Well both are true from a different point of view. He wants that unity with the Father to be shared. God has come to us, and the goal of his coming is to elevate us into his own knowledge so that we can in...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Unity, Greater, One, Obedience, redemptive
“Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this?’” If we let the will of God direct us, all will be well and “all shall be well.” The Spirit takes you where the Spirit wants you to go, and that’s okay because you know that the Spirit is infinitely wise. Let the grace of God beget in us the very same power that is of Christ.
Topics: John, Nicodemus, Jesus, Teacher, Holy Spirit, Grace
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Realize that God is in fact ruling over everything all the time, and we are privileged to be invited to become God’s agents. Jesus is saying a person must be born from above, receive a new birth, and Nicodemus misunderstands him and thinks he says a man must be born again. We need to become children of God , and it is a conscious process. Baptism is a sign of this rebirth, but it’s just a sign...
Topics: John, Jesus, Nicodemus, Baptism, Rebirth, Conscious process, Cooperate
The story of doubting Thomas can be a warning and a cautionary tale for all of us. What is truly moral, is truly good for everyone. We rely on people we trust. Ultimately faith in Christ depends on the credibility of Christian witnesses people choose to believe, and they will believe in people they find credible. What Christians were doing was simply living as one body, recognizing the unity of all God’s creation and acting accordingly. We will all be safe only when we are all vaccinated, so...
Topics: Acts, John, Thomas, trust, Choose to believe, Witnesses, Vaccinated
The whole idea that we need to go somewhere other than where we are is itself a terrible mistake. God is interested in us and in our endeavors. It’s God who finds us, not we who find God. When Yahweh appeared, people never recognized him at first; it was only later on they said, “Oh, that must have been the Lord.”
Topics: John, God, Jesus, Disciples, Yahweh
“He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?’” We should not be too hard on ourselves or on other people or our relatives or friends or children or parents when they are hard to believe. People tend to fear what they don’t understand. Sometimes what we call incredulity is really simply being unprepared for all that God can do. We need to actually work on ourselves, work on listening and work on accepting what is coming from God, regardless of how...
Topics: Luke, Jesus, Appearances, Unprepared, Listening, God, Evangelization
“Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures.” It’s inspired by God in the sense that there is some message there , but what precisely that message is is for us to discern, not as individuals, but as the Church as a whole. Moses is another way of saying the first five books, the Pentateuch. What he is talking about is how Yahweh was always present to his people. Jesus is Yahweh. The reason why the Word of God became...
Topics: Luke, Jesus, Old testament, Yahweh, Church, Moses, Divine, Interpretation, Bible, Human, Divino...
“He testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’” Each generation has its own language, its own values, its own perceptions, and we don’t necessarily have the key to that lock. Parents should hand on the faith to their children, but the question is, can they? If love is not central, the generation is astray. Now is love ever central to a generation? I’ve never known that to be the case. Apostles and missionaries have to...
Topics: Acts, Generations, Language, Perceptions, Parents, Love, Apostles, God, Possibilities
St. Peter is talking about the workings of God and how they penetrate into human freedom accomplishing what God wants while respecting the actual free wills of everyone involved. We have a tremendous privilege to cooperate with God’s will. It is God’s will that they become friends and companions and servants eventually. God is always raising up goodness and life from the ashes of human depravity and disorder and disintegration. We need peace and quiet every day to repair to our quiet little...
Topics: Acts, Human freedom, God, cooperate, Companions, Friends, Disorder, Quiet
So the whole story of the Exodus becomes the frame of Jesus’ own passion, death, and resurrection. It takes great work and effort and moral integrity to actually live in freedom. Liberation to live God’s life —this is liberation to, not from—requires more than mere ethics or integrity. It requires the surrender of self-will. Being really peaceful and nonviolent takes an inner strength that is nothing less than God within us. The freedom that grace grants to us is to share Christ’s...
Topics: Jesus, Exodus, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Freedom, Liberation, Peaceful, Nonviolent, Father,...
“But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” Christ the new Temple, Christ the new priest, Christ the new offering. “It was the day of preparation.” Jesus’ death relates directly as source and font to the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, water and blood, by which the Church is created and nourished.
Topics: John, Jesus, Death, Soldiers, Blood and water, Temple, Preparation, Baptism and Eucharist, Church
“It is not for these alone that I pray, but for those also who through their words put their faith in me. May they all be one; as you Father are in me, and I in you, so also they be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” Without this unity, this communion, this shared love among Jesus’ disciples, the world will never believe. Jesus does not want this relationship with God to be unique anymore, but a shared property with of all his disciples. Religion arose from a felt sense...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, One, Disciples, Relationship, God, Religion, Holy Eucharist
“God so loved the world, that he did not spare his only Son.” We will flourish as a people and as individuals only when we respond and when we try to make ourselves pleasing to God by, as Jesus did, doing as we see God do. Jesus is saying my blood is going to be the atonement for many. The many are all those who are not one. That’s true discipleship, making ourselves pleasing to God and fearing otherwise.
Topics: God, World, Son, Pleasing, Jesus, Blood, Atonement, Many, One, Discipleship
“Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” Jesus glorifies himself and God in the very way he dies. It’s completely free of bitterness and revenge. If you prepare for your death and you really let go, which is the whole idea of our Baptism, then you can really live. so that they might not cling to anything that will not be later.
Topics: John, Son of Man, Glorified, God, Death, Bitterness, Revenge, Let go, Baptism, Live
“A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching.” The truth is opposition to God’s work comes from within the people of God in the time of Isaiah, in the time of Jesus, in the time of the Church. God’s chosen servants get the job done in spite of all kinds of opposition. People put themselves into confinement in their rigidity, in their certainty.
Topics: Isaiah, Bruised reed, Smoldering wick, Teaching, opposition, Rigidity
“Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.” True trust in God’s goodness and goodwill toward us. There is no evil, but only the misuse, the abuse or the negation of the good. It is knowledge of God that forms conscience. Jesus enters the creation in a way that reverses this original sin: not grasping, but pouring himself out. Holy Week and we liturgically accompany him on his passage from death to life.
Topics: Philippians, Christ Jesus, Trust, Evil, Conscience, Original sin, Grasping, Holy Week
“If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” This is all about the quality of understanding in a personal way who God is, and this is something we all have to learn. Jesus was really claiming equality with God. He came to do the will of the one who sent him. The works he did revealed the face of an unknown God. They...
Topics: John, Jesus, Father, Believe, God, Equality, Works, Totally new
“Then he says, ‘Behold, I come to do your will.’” God does not really want the holocausts themselves or the offerings themselves; rather it’s what they mean as an indication of one’s willingness to give of oneself. The whole point of the Old Testament is to please God, to do the will of God. We have to be always open to the voice of God, which means we have to be prayerful. God is committed to his creation because he created it. Mary provides the humanity that God will use to enter...
Topics: Hebrews, Old Testament, Please God, Prayer and Listening, Creation, Mary, Humanity, Curtain, Union,...
“If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We have to stop defending our little truths, so that we can all share in the truth. That is what freedom is. Everybody has some truth; nobody has the whole truth. Jesus is the Word of God, and no one can understand the Word of God completely except God himself. If we are open to the truth, then we can receive some share in it. Groups fight against each other. God...
Topics: John, Jesus, Disciples, Truth, Freedom, Word of God, Fighting, Communion of love
“So Jesus said to them, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM , and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me.’” We can believe in such a way that God’s word doesn’t get into our hearts and we can practice religiously in such a way that there is no room for the wisdom of God. Jesus looks at death as the reunion with the Father, body and soul. So it’s a return home and a triumph. Jesus, who identifies utterly with the margins...
Topics: John, Jesus, Son of Man, I AM, Father, Wisdom, Holy Spirit, Direction
Human judgment is mechanical. Divine judgment is conscious. Jesus is leading his disciples in the path of redemption. The elders wanted mechanically to follow the Law , Jesus chose rather to look through the eyes of God. God is not into inflicting punishment; God is into renewing people.
Topics: Daniel, John, Jesus, Elders, God, Punishment, Renewing
“Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” We live this double life: humanity and divinity all the time. Jesus is a twelve-year-old, who doesn’t understand at all why his parents would be worried about him. So this is the combination, God and man, man in the process of growing. The reason for the incarnation of God into humanity was in order to make possible the growth of humanity into God. We have blind spots as Jesus had blind...
Topics: Luke, Jesus, Parents, Twelve-year-old, Growing, Humanity, Blind spots, Holy Spirit
“But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” If we prepare ourselves by a devout listening to the gospel, then we will be ready to really live once again the Passion during Holy Week. Within the context of what these people believe, Jesus is telling them if only you understood the Old Testament, you would accept me. So Jesus here is identifying clearly with Yahweh. Jesus is now in his being the Temple , that is, the locus of divine presence, the locus, the place,...
Topics: John, Jesus, Passion, Holy Week, Old Testament, Yahweh, Temple, Shakina, Curtain
“My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” The Most High God was universal. Yahweh was their personal God.
Topics: John, Most High God, Yahweh
It’s a vision of the earthly temple that shall be. God’s desire to bring life and healing to, first of all, Israel but then the whole world. The temple was where heaven and earth came together. The temple was a microcosm of the whole creation. Now the Hebrew people believed that God dwelt in the Temple. All about the cleansing and purifying and vivifying of the whole of creation through the ministry of Israel. And the point of the chariot throne is that God was leaving the Temple ; he was...
Topics: Ezekiel, Vision, Temple, Life, Healing, Israel, Whole world, Creation, Departing, Return, Spirit of...
During the Exile t hey lost faith in the sense of a God who was always there for them. So Israel starts off as the great example of what a relationship is supposed to be: it’s give and take, it’s offer and response, it’s dialogic. Simply it says that the Most High God assigned Yahweh. Jesus’ whole attitude toward the marginalized, the preference that the Creator has for the weak and the marginalized because, after all, they are his. And they tend to acknowledge his dominion or...
Topics: Isaiah, Exile, Israel, Relationship, Most High God, Yahweh, Marginalized, Happiness
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