Author: DVO

Our Gospel today tells about the woman that scribes and Pharisees caught in adultery. Imagine where they were standing when they caught her in the very act. The voyeurism and perversion of these men! Then they come en masse, in the terrible enthusiasm of a mob, and they present the case to Jesus. Now, what does Jesus do in the face of this violent mob? First, he writes on the ground. The mysterious writing might indicate the listing of the sins of each person in the group. As he said in another Gospel, “Remove the plank in your own eye, and then you can see more clearly the speck in your brother’s eye.” And then he says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her.” He forces them to turn their accusing glance inward, where it belongs. Instead of projecting their violence outward on a scapegoat, they should honestly name and confront the dysfunction within themselves. Like all the stories in the Gospels, this story foreshadows the great story toward which we are tending. Jesus will be put to death by a mob bent on scapegoating violence.

We are called as Christians to have a servant’s heart. St. Josemaría Escrivá, in his book “Friends of God,” writes that it is a mystery of God’s plans that he, who is all, who has all, and who needs nothing and nobody, should choose to need our help to ensure that his teaching and the salvation wrought by him reaches all men. To follow Christ is the secret. We must accompany him so closely that we come to live with him as the first Twelve did. So closely that we became identified with him. Soon, we will be able to say, provided we have not put obstacles in the way of grace that we have put on and have clothed ourselves with our Lord Jesus Christ. I have distinguished it as four stages in our effort to identify ourselves with Christ: seeking him, finding him, getting to know him, and loving him. It may seem clear to you that you are only at the first stage. Seek him then, hungrily seek him within yourselves with all your strength. If you act with determination, I am ready to guarantee that you have already found him and have begun to get to know him and to love him and to hold your conversation in heaven. Fr. Anthony Oelrich asks, “What does it look like outwardly when the law of the Lord is written upon one’s heart?” Not surprisingly, Jesus provides us a picture of such a heart in today’s Gospel. He shows himself to be acutely aware of what is being asked of him by the God he has called Father. He knows that the time will come when he will be asked to offer, not simply words of instruction, but words of flesh and blood. Though Jesus is certainly troubled, the law written on his heart overcomes the anxiety of his emotions, allowing him to say, “Father, glorify your name.” The heart-written law is the interior movement to offer one’s whole self in loving adoration and service to the God of heaven and earth. Despite natural aversions and very real fears, the heart-written law pushes outward and upward always to give all things to God. The heart-written law is the Law of the Gift. What makes this law so natural, not simply written on stone tablets but in our very fleshy hearts, is that it is just what we were made for. The reason we are all drawn to Jesus lifted up on the cross is that to give ourselves in love as gift for others is what our hearts long for. You see, there it is, written right in there, in the heart.

We all have goals in life, and we are blessed to reach many of them on our own, but some of them require a little more help. There are things that we desire that only God can give us. When things are not going our way, and we turn to God for help, but He does not seem to hear us, we start to get discouraged. We feel He is not there for us or does not care to help us, but that is not true. God hears you, and he knows your heart’s desires. He will give you everything you desire when the time is right. When there are things that we want in life, they tend to consume our thoughts. We start to obsessively think about what we want most, which takes up much of our time, energy, and thought. We need to turn that obsessive thought into prayer. Give it to God and let Him take care of it. Stop worrying and trying to achieve everything on your own, and ask God for help. When we are faced with difficult situations and things that give us stress and anxiety, we start to panic. The first step is to take that fear and turn it into faith. Give God your problems and have faith in Him. He will help turn things around because He is the God capable of moving mountains and can help you get through anything. It is in our human nature to stress over the little things. Even the smallest of situations give us anxiety, and it may seem stupid to give those small things to God. He wants to know what gives us anxiety, no matter how big or how small; he is always there to help you and get you through anything and everything that is bothering you. Whatever you want, whatever you ask Him for, He hears you. If He does not seem to be answering, do not give up. Everything will happen in His timing. God knows what is best for you and hears your heart’s desires. Seek to do God’s will and not your own, and knowing your heart’s desires, God will answer you when the time is right. Have patience and trust in the Lord.

Sr. Ephrem Hollermann asks, “What is really going on with Jesus in today’s Gospel?” She goes on to write that the Jews become angry with this teaching, for they thought he was no more than a young man from Nazareth, a place too ordinary to produce a messiah. Sensing the growing hostility, Jesus reacted like a hunted man. Jesus did not accompany his family to Jerusalem; instead, he followed them alone in secret. So what’s up with that? He traveled secretly, then spoke openly without fear in the Temple: “Because I am from him, he sent me.” So, what is going on with Jesus here? Quite simply, it was a struggle between fear for his life and a passionate sense of mission. Jesus could not be who God sent him to be by giving in to fear. He simply could not remain silent. Not without a certain irony, Jesus refers to the superficial knowledge these Jews had of him: however, he asserts that he comes from the Father who has sent him, whom only he knows, precisely because he is the Son of God. Fr. Paul Philibert writes that today’s Scriptures prepare us for the coming drama of Jesus’ hour. When that hour comes, heaven will embrace the earth, and the Son of God will pour his redeeming blood over humanity. We have had six weeks—indeed, our entire lives—to prepare ourselves for that hour, to understand it, to ponder it, and to be transformed by it. His “hour” will also be our “hour,” since he has invited us to follow him and to share in the sacrifice he offers for our salvation.

Bishop Barron notes that Moses is, without a doubt, the greatest figure in the Old Testament. He heard the voice of God from the burning bush; he was chosen to lead the people of Israel to freedom; he was given the Ten Commandments; he was permitted to speak with God as a friend. Every teacher within ancient Judaism derived his authority finally from Moses. Therefore, when Moses speaks of a prophet who is to come, who is “like himself,” and who should be listened to—apparently of even greater authority than Moses—Israel took heed. Jesus is the prophet whom Moses predicted would come. But who, finally, could have the authority to speak the divine Word and bring healing to creation? It could only be God himself. In the Jewish scriptures, there’s a famous incident in which Moses asks God to see his face. God answers that this is impossible because nobody can see God’s face and live. When Moses persists in his demand, God offers a compromise: He tells Moses that he will place him in a cleft in the rocks, put his hand over Moses’s face, and then pass by so that Moses will get to see God’s, back, though never his face. Fr. Rolheiser writes that we struggle to feel God in the present moment, to see God’s face in the here and now. In the present, God often seems absent. Yet, when we turn around and look back on our lives, when we look back on our story, we more easily see how God has been there all along and how we have walked in a divine presence, protection, guidance, and love that were imperceptible at the time but are clear in retrospect. We see God more clearly in our past than in our present. We see God’s back more than we see God’s face. This can clarify how Christ is present to us, even when it doesn’t always feel like it.

We all fear judgment. We fear being seen with all that’s inside us, some of which we don’t want exposed to the light. Conversely, we fear being misunderstood, of not being seen in the full light, of not being seen for who we are. And what we fear most, perhaps, is a final judgment, the ultimate revelation of ourselves. Whether we are religious or not, most of us fear having to one day face our Maker, judgment day. We fear standing naked in complete light where nothing’s hidden and all that’s in the dark inside us is brought to light. What’s curious about these fears is that we fear both being known for who we are, even as we fear not being known for who we really are. We fear judgment, even as we long for it. Perhaps that’s because we already intuit what our final judgment will be and how it will take place. Perhaps we already intuit that when we finally stand naked in God’s light, we will also finally be understood and that revealing light will not just expose our shortcomings but also make our virtues visible. That intuition is divinely placed in us and reflects the reality of our final judgment. When all our secrets are known, our secret goodness will also be known. Light exposes everything. Saint Therese of Lisieux used to ask God for forgiveness with these words: “Punish me with a kiss!” Judgment day will be exactly that. We will be “punished” by a kiss, by being loved in a way that will make us painfully aware of the sin within us, even as it lets us know that we are good and loveable. This notion of judgment is also, I believe, what we Catholics mean by our concept of purgatory. Purgatory is not a place that’s separate from heaven where one goes for a time to do penance for one’s sins and to purify one’s heart. Our hearts are purified by being embraced by God, not by being separated from God for a time so as to be made worthy of that embrace. As well, as Therese of Lisieux implies the punishment for our sin is in the embrace itself. Final judgment takes place by being unconditionally embraced by Love. When that happens to the extent that we’re sinful and selfish that embrace of pure goodness and love will make us painfully aware of our own sin and that will be hell until it is heaven. – Fr. Ron Rolheiser, “Judgement Day”

As Christians, we believe that we are all members of one living organism, the Body of Christ. In that reality, Fr. Rolheiser writes that our union with each other is more than metaphorical. It is real, as real as the physicality of a living body. We are not a corporation but a living body, a living organism, where all parts affect all other parts. Hence, just as in a live body, healthy enzymes help bring health to the whole body, and infected and cancerous cells threaten the health of the whole body, so too inside the Body of Christ. What we do in private is still inside the body. Consequently, when we do virtuous things, even in private, like a healthy enzyme, we help strengthen the immune system within the whole body. Conversely, when we are unfaithful, when we are selfish, and when we sin, no matter whether this is only done in private, like an infected or cancerous cell, we are helping break down the immune system in the body. Both healthy enzymes and harmful cancer cells work in secret below the surface. This has important implications for our private lives. Our private thoughts and actions, like healthy enzymes or infected cells, affect the health of the body, either strengthening or weakening its immune system. When we are faithful, we help bring health to the body; when we are unfaithful, we are an infected cell challenging the immune system within the body. Whether we are faithful or unfaithful in private affects others, and this is not something that is abstract or mystical. We know some things consciously and others unconsciously. We know certain things through observation and others intuitively. We know through our heads, our hearts, and our guts, and through all three of these faculties, sometimes (because inside of a body, all parts affect each other), we know something because we sense it as either a tension or comfort inside our soul. There are no private acts. Our private acts, like our public ones, are either bringing health or disease to the community.  Sin robs us of our innocence by wounding and killing the child inside. To be innocent, as we know, means to be “un-wounded,” and our capacity to experience joy, as we know both from experience and scripture, is very much linked to innocence, to what’s still childlike inside us. Sin makes us sad precisely because it makes us sophisticated in a way that wounds the child inside of us. The opposite is also true. If you are here faithfully, you bring great blessings. If you are here unfaithfully, you bring great harm.

Theologian Paul Tillich said that “faith” is the most misunderstood word in the religious vocabulary. And this is a tragedy, for faith stands at the very heart of the program; it is the sine qua non of the Christian thing. What is it? The opening line of Hebrews 11 has the right definition: “Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see.” Faith is a straining ahead toward those things that are, at best, dimly glimpsed. But notice it is not a craven, hand-wringing, unsure business. It is “confident” and full of “conviction.” Think of the great figures of faith, from Abraham to John Paul II: they are anything but shaky, indefinite, questioning people. Wilfred Stinissen writes that we have been given new eyes to discover the divine reality, namely, our faith. Faith sees through the outer shell and penetrates to the substance of things. Faith reveals new areas of reality (the Trinity, angels, and so on), but faith also enables us to see everything we encounter in a completely new way. It sees the deep dimension of daily events. That is why there is no longer anything ordinary for the believer; nothing is uninteresting or boring. Everything becomes exciting and fascinating. Beautiful thoughts and theories often remain in our heads and do not change our lives. They are not our most important teachers. We are influenced by events. In Hebrew, the terms for “word” and “event” (dabar) are the same. God speaks through events. Every event is a Word of God to us. He is in everything that happens. I live in God’s presence when I accept what happens as a message from him without rebelling against it. I am aware that he is continually working to form and sculpt me. This does not require any thoughts or words. Even work that demands all of my attention does not prevent me from living in God’s presence in this way. The only thing necessary is a “yes” attitude, letting God create me. We seek him in the great things, but he communicates and reveals himself in the small.

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was also a man of privilege and entitlement but disagreed with the Sadducees. As Pharisees, he and Jesus had much more in common, philosophically and religiously. In fact, there is reasonable scholarly speculation that Jesus was raised as a Pharisee. And so Jesus’ actions in the temple must have also caught Nicodemus’ attention because here, in the chapter that immediately follows the temple story, Nicodemus has come to Jesus in the night for fear of being seen by other members of the Sanhedrin. Rev. John Forman writes that Nicodemus recognized Jesus as a rabbi and asked him deep and probing questions. Without condemning Nicodemus’ understanding, Jesus invites him—and you and I—into a deeper embrace. Jesus, in our reflection verse, is testifying that those who trust and bond with the Beloved One will not perish, not because we have fulfilled a contractual obligation, but because we, too, have become God’s offspring, children of God. In that way, we receive from God the same family honor and character that God has, and we owe God the same loyalty that blood relatives give to each other. This is the way that God loved the world. God gave the world the only begotten child so that everyone who trusts and bonds with that child may not perish but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the only begotten One into the world to judge creation but to save that creation through that One. Those who trust and bond with him are not judged, but those who hesitate and are disloyal to him are already judged because they have not trusted in the family name of the only begotten. God has loved us; God loves us and will love us. God loves us not because we have behaved correctly, because we have agreed to a checklist of doctrines, or even because we call ourselves Christians. God loves us because God is love. Loving is what God does, and God’s love abides. God’s love is wild and unconditional, not transactional. God simply delights in loving us because it is the essence of God’s being.  And that is the essence that came to us in the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ, the only Begotten child. Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, author of several of my favorite books on spirituality, has suggested that we are still a long way from trusting and bonding with the Word made Flesh and, in that way, taking on the family name. Fr. Rolheiser writes, “Do we ever really take the unconditional love of God seriously? Do we ever really take the joy of God seriously? Do we ever really believe that God loves us long before any sin we commit and long after every sin we commit? Do we ever really believe that God still, unconditionally, loves Satan and everyone in hell and that God is even now willing to open the gates of heaven to them?  Do we ever really take how wide the embrace of God is?  Do we ever believe Julian of Norwich when she tells us that God sits in the center of heaven, smiling, his face completely relaxed, looking like a marvelous symphony?” These are fantastic questions to be pondering during Lent, because as Rolheiser concludes, “the deep struggle of all religion is to enter into the joy of God.”   As Jesus continues to offer light to Nicodemus there under the cover of night and to us here in the darkness of this Lenten season, Jesus also points to a sobering truth. Even if we have seen the light, we can still choose the darkness. We can choose not to be in relation to God.  We can choose to fearfully imagine salvation to be a limited guarantee for the “there and then” and reject the life-sustaining intimate relationship that God deeply yearns for with us in the “here and now.” Choose life instead. Choose light. Choose love.

What does it mean to be merciful in the religious sense? Medieval theology taught that mercy flows spontaneously out of charity, like smoke from fire. It linked mercy to justice, seeing it as one dimension of justice. This insight is valuable because mercy does flow out of charity and ultimately takes its root in justice. But Fr. Rolheiser writes that it has its own specificity, which can be seen when we examine it biblically. In the Old Testament, mercy (hesed, often translated as loving-kindness) is a quality ascribed first of all to God. Later, the prophets begin challenging the people with it, telling them that God does not want sacrifice but mercy, as God practices. What is implied in this? Biblically, mercy is a word used to describe the feelings and actions that a very loving parent has towards their children. The concept of mercy connotes feelings and actions that are deeply personal, one-to-one, unique, special, tender, and warm. The tender love of a parent for a child dwarfs the demand for strict justice even while never violating it. The church classically taught this through various lists, which tried to summarize what is implied in imitating God’s mercy. The corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, ransoming the captive, bury the dead are one such list. In essence, these lists challenge us to be more holy and God-like through practicing a justice that is more personal, one-to-one, warm, and gracious beyond strict need. The prophets of the Old Testament made this list the acid test for faith. If you did these things, you had faith – and vice versa. Jesus goes even further. For him, as is evident in Matthew’s Gospel, the corporal works of mercy are the criteria for salvation and the measure of how we are treating him – “Whatsoever you do unto the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, and captive, you do unto me.” Long buried in the thicket, the list of the corporal works of mercy awaits such exploration.