Gospel Reflection Luke 18:35-43

In today’s Gospel passage, we read about Jesus giving sight to a blind man. As the healer par excellence, Jesus fulfills what was said about Him by the prophet Isaiah. It hearkens to the time when Jesus says to the disciples of John the Baptist “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” (Luke 7:22)

This account has two notable polarities that we should not overlook. On the one side, we read about the crowd rebuking the blind man as he calls out for mercy. Imagine being in this group of people. Surely, you would take the high road and silence those seeking to shut down the blind man, right? Or, would you encourage the blind man, just like the friends of the paralytic who opened a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was? How strong is our faith? Our sensibilities and dignity may get the better of us. We worry too much about what other people think, thus we may not want to trouble the Good Teacher. Yet, in so doing, we would risk missing the very mission of the Teacher! 

On the other side, after the man is healed the crowd rejoices and rightly praises God. This is the proper response to any work of the Lord. Yet, in many cases, it is difficult to suppress our befuddlement. Why did God choose to heal him and not me? These are often reasonable questions that point to a deep mystery, allowing us to journey further into God. However, in other cases, our petty jealousies rear their ugly heads. When God heals someone or blesses them with a gift, like a promotion at work, we tend not to be genuinely happy for the other person. To share in the joy of others in Christ, to not be focused on ourselves and what we perceive not having, is a mark of growth in our faith. It is only possible by participating more deeply in the grace and love given to us by the Lord Jesus. We should rejoice openly whenever we see God at work, which will be more often the more attentive we are. 

Gospel Reflection Luke 17:26-37

In today’s Gospel, Jesus continues His discourse on the coming of the Kingdom of God. He identifies this Kingdom in important ways with the day of the Son of Man. This was Jesus' most frequent self-attribution, indicating a radical self-understanding of divinity. 

Reading ‘the signs of the times’ is a key theme in all these verses. Jesus exhorts His followers to not be preoccupied with the wrong things. The focus must always be on the things of God, being attuned to His Spirit, His Way, and His promptings.

Despite the prophetic warnings of Noah, and the very presence of the ark being a harbinger, his contemporaries were completely caught up in wickedness. Likewise, the city of Sodom was enraptured in rebellion. For both of these places, it was not too late until it was too late. The chains of sin are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. When we orient ourselves in the wrong direction for too long, it starts to feel normal and right. So, we must be vigilant, taking every thought captive (2 Cor 10:5). 

The things of the world, most of them good in their proper order, are fleeting and transient. The right move is to leave these things behind for what is worth far more. The vultures gather at the carrion. Losing our life and forsaking all for the Kingdom is how we gain it. This is deeply counterintuitive, showing how far our thoughts and ways are from those of God. Following the Words of the Lord is the only way we will remain in the grace of God on the day of the Son of Man. 

Gospel Reflection - Luke 11:15-26

Today’s Gospel reading clarifies the reality of evil spiritual powers that dwell in the world. We must depend on the power of Christ that dwells within us to be victorious in the bloody trench warfare into which we are conscripted at Baptism.

Exorcism was one of the primary ministries of Jesus and was also done by Jewish spiritual leaders of the time. So, in the immediate context, there arises a sort of befuddled jealousy on behalf of the crowd. They are incredulous that, on His own authority, Jesus drives out demons. Just like His preaching, the Lord Jesus spoke and acted exousia - from Himself. He spoke and it was. The demons were immediately subject to Him as the very author of their existence. 

Think for a minute about what the Bible tells us about the demonic. These spiritual creatures are more intelligent and powerful than we can imagine. They are set in only one direction, and that is violent opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven. This means that evil spirits are not going to rest until they find a base from which to work. Taking up residence in complicit places, they make fortifications. Once set, they cannot be displaced unless something - or someone - stronger comes to remove them. Jesus is the One who does this. By the “finger of God,” He casts them out. 

The great inbreaking of the Kingdom of Christ makes a spectacle of the powers of evil and darkness. One by one, grace by grace, the strongholds of the scattering and dividing forces are put into place. 

Gospel Reflection Mark 11:27-33

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus (again) confounds the religious leaders of the day with a simple question. By asking them about the origin of John’s baptism, Jesus lays their souls bare: they do not care about the truth of God. They are more concerned with legalistic and political exercises under the pretense of piety than anything else. This is the markedly inward turn of sin manifest, huddled together looking at each other - ostensibly a mirror - instead of on their knees looking to God of heaven and earth. 

The chief priests, scribes, and elders are concerned with earthly authority, rank, and order. In this process, hard-baked over many years, they have become numb to ultimate Authority. The ancient Latin root of authority is ‘author’ or ‘originator’. Even more specifically, ‘’master’ or ‘leader’. Jesus spoke in the very person of God. Although shocking to many, there was no doubt He was claiming divine prerogative for Himself. The Lord knew full well that His interlocutors were numb and unable to hear anything outside their echo chamber. Seen in this light, the question Jesus asks is a merciful way of trying once again to show the religious leaders they are missing something profound. 

Gospel Reflection Luke 1:39-56

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After her great ‘yes’ to God, we read that Mary set out in haste to visit her older cousin Elizabeth in the hill country. We can feel the excitement of Our Lady as she travels to share what the Lord has chosen for her to do. As the two co-conspirators in the divine rescue plan meet, Elizabeth bursts forth in praise. The Lord Himself has come into her home! 

Elizabeth then says something very profound and instructive for us, a great summary of the Christian faith. “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” This is the very essence of what we believe, the entire basis of the confession we make every Sunday at Mass. We believe what the Lord tells us because it is the Lord who is telling us. This belief is not simply an intellectual assent, but an entire re-orientation of life around divinely revealed truth. The Blessed Virgin and St. Elizabeth show us the way. God speaks and they respond with humility and obedience. May it be so for us this great feast day and each day forward. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us!

St. Elizabeth, Pray for us! 

Gospel Reflection Mark 10:46-52

Today’s Gospel recounts the story of Bartimaeus. The idea of blindness has strong spiritual connotations. If we are blind, we cannot ‘see’ the pain and error of our sinful ways nor can we behold the truth of God. In another setting, Jesus chastises the Pharisees for being blind guides. They do not know where they are going yet confidently lead others. We are meant to see glimpses of ourselves in the Pharisees, and they should serve as an apt warning sign. Spiritual blindness is a grave danger.

We encounter Bartimaeus in a sorry state. Not only is he unable to see, but he is begging. He has put himself at the mercy of others. Lest we look down our noses at the beggar, we must remember ourselves in the same state. We are all beggars. Our sinfulness places us in the worst state imaginable. We cast about futility in many directions for sustenance. Nothing in this world can nourish. Bartimaeus realizes his state. He knows only the grace of the Son of David can help him. Even though people try to fervently deter him, Bartimaeus throws himself at the mercy of God with abandon.

What all of us sinners need, those of us who are ‘blind’, is to ‘see’ Jesus. Thus, it is instructive that at the end of the passage today, Jesus says, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Bartimaeus asks to receive sight, but he gets so much more than being able to see colors, shapes, and movement. My speculation is the first thing he sees with his eyes is the face of Jesus, while at the same time, his faith has brought him before the face of God in friendship. 

Daily Gospel Reflection Mark 10:32-45

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Christianity is profoundly paradoxical, and this is just one more example of that. Jesus raises paradox to the highest possible pitch.

Paradoxes have a long history, usually relegated to scholars of logic and mathematics. In the context of our faith, a paradox is a proposition or set of conjunctive propositions that seem contradictory but are simultaneously true. When we think about paradox, we have the notion of holding two competing notions in our minds at once. Returning to the reading today, Jesus’ claim of being the Son of Man, His most frequent self-attribution, is a claim to divinity. Yet, he also claims to be a servant. 

The tempting move here is to try and resolve the tension. The rationalist, Pythagorean instinct within us moves in this direction. I submit that we should refrain from trying to resolve the competing polarities. Instead, we should quiet our minds until they are taken up and deeper into the mystery of God. Throughout salvation history, God shows us in vivid colors what Hamlet tells the ever-pragmatic Horatio: there are more things in heaven and earth than we can dream of in our philosophy. 

Paradoxes make us uncomfortable because they illuminate the boundaries of our finitude. Yet, in approaching these limits we realize more who we are before God, and we are brought to true humility. 

Gospel Reflection Mark 10:28-31

In today’s Gospel, St. Peter says to Jesus what every baptized Christian should say “We have given up everything and followed you.” This is a stark juxtaposition from the scene we read about yesterday where the rich man cannot bring himself to part with his many possessions to follow Jesus. 

Life in Christ, participating in the abundance of the life He gives now and in the age to come, necessarily implies a cost. Not just a one-time transaction, but daily installments. To receive, we must give. We must give of ourselves. The choice of whether we will bring the sacrifice of Cain or the sacrifice of Abel stands before us each morning. 

We must give. This might be best understood in the context of divine love, which is itself the infinite gift of being. To receive the love of God, we must give love away. The goodness and blessings God pours into our lives are meant to be shared. But we are hoarders! Trying to hoard the love of God is like hoarding possessions; the one hoarding ends up being possessed. The more we try to dam the flow of divine love in us, the more parched we become. 

From a spiritual standpoint, when things, relationships, or circumstances own us, they come to define us. In turn, they create a barrier between us and God. The more we put our effort, energy, time, and focus into these things, however good they are, the higher the wall becomes until we can no longer see the Lord. Finite, contingent, and passing things are not bad in the strict sense. It is good to love our families and communities, for example. But these things cannot be the highest good. Although we experience love within them and from them, they are not the source of love. Jesus calls us to Himself as the source. When we drink deeply from His well, we can enjoy the abundant goods downstream and simultaneously contribute to their goodness.

Gospel Reflection Matthew 15:21-28

There is some potential for scandal in today’s Gospel reading. We seem to get a different picture of Jesus than the loving, welcoming, compassionate, healing Savior that we encounter in other places in the Gospels. What parent could not identify in profound sympathy with the anguish of this woman who is simply trying to do whatever it takes for her daughter to be well? Yet Jesus and His disciples rebuff her several times. It looks like Jesus is not even living up to the teachings of loving His neighbor or blessing His enemies (Canaanites and Israelites having nothing less than a contentious history). Our neighbor, as we learn in the parable of the Good Samaritan, is everyone. Jew, Samaritan, and Gentile. I believe that these passages ask us to take a closer look. If we do, a profound outpouring of divine grace appears. 

We learn that Jesus withdrew to Tyre and Sidon. This was a pagan gentile territory. I think a fair presupposition for Jesus’ perfect life and ministry is that nothing happens by accident. More precisely, it is not a random act that brings Jesus to gentile territory on several occasions. He is doing the perfect will of the Father. 

If we hearken to the Old Testament, we learn that God chose Israel to be an instrument of His grace to the world. No Old Testament prophet says this better than Isaiah. Isaiah 49:6 says “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Importantly, this verse refers to the Servant of the Lord. The Servant here was understood by the earliest Christians, who were all Jewish, to not simply reference Israel in the abstract but a particular individual. Jesus the Messiah. Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah tells of the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD and become His servants will be brought to the Holy Mountain. This reading is best understood in an eschatological sense, coming to perfection at the consummation of the present Age but asymptotically approaching until that time by the power of the Incarnation. 

Christ being present in a Gentile territory is momentous because it represents an important step in the Gentiles being grafted into the tree of Israel. Yes, Jesus is in Tyre and Sidon for a reason. He is the light to those nations. The light is present there, His illumination is a harbinger. Still, why does it not seem to shine brightly on everyone there in this passage, especially the anxious woman? 

We can easily lose sight of the fact that Jesus did many things for the sake of posterity. It seems reasonable to think that He desired future generations, those who would receive the faith handed down from the Apostles, to know about the faith of this Canaanite woman. Further, St. Augustine famously said that God wants us to persist in prayer, for our own sake. The way I understand this is that God may will to answer our prayer in the affirmative, but He wills to answer not the first but the 1,501st. If we couple these two ideas together, the passage now leaps off the page. 

What we see in the Canaanite woman, much like the gentile Syro-Phoenician woman, is that she persists in her faith. She is undeterred despite the rebukes. She continues to plead with the Lord and His disciples. We can perhaps surmise that she has run out of options. With no place to turn, she turns to the Jewish holy man who has reportedly done many signs and wonders. Or, it could be that she had a thirst for God. She knows something dark has come over her daughter that is beyond any natural cure. The spiritual/physical condition befalling the daughter can only be healed by light. Somehow, the mother knows this. We certainly resonate with the deep love she has for her daughter. What truly loving parent, we think, would not do everything for their child? Such a thought can only come from a position of love. God is love and the love any creature has, if it is indeed the agape love of willing the good of the other, originates in God. 

The petitions from the Canaanite woman betray a desire for the living God. She provides an example for all everyone by asking the Lord to have pity on her, to help her, and that merely the scraps from the table are sufficient. This could be a model prayer in itself. The woman knows that she is not owed anything from God. No creature has a claim on the Creator. She therefore humbly asks the Lord for grace. Grace in the most common parlance is unmerited favor. 

Still, why does Jesus rebuke the woman? First, to test the genuineness of her faith. There are many times in the Bible where we see tests of faith. For our sake, God wants to burn away the dross from our souls until the pure metal of refined faith remains. The Lord desires our hearts, minds, and the totality of our being. When we go to Him in prayer, it seems fair that He would want to know if we really desire Him above all else. Is it God we really want for Himself, or do we want Him simply as a means to an end? I think we see that the woman sought the Lord out of a pure heart, as evidenced by her humility. 

Secondly, perhaps knowing the woman’s faith was genuine, Jesus' verbal rebuke redounds to the benefit of those in the audience and for the sake of all who would learn of the account afterward. It was a teaching moment. There may even be times that parents have done this with their children. We take an extra second when they are asking or telling us something to peer into their soul. The way that we ask a question can communicate a great deal to the other person. Jesus relays the chronology of His mission. He first comes to the lost sheep of Israel. During this time there are brief, though significant, interludes into Samaritan and Gentile territory. The Apostles will then later take the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit to the ends of the earth, baptizing all nations. The light is Christ, carried by His followers. Thus, Christ is very much present to the Gentiles, even after His ascension.

One might think that in this passage Jesus calls the woman a dog, which is a perjorative reference to Gentiles. However, the context does not fit well with this interpretation. He is not just letting her know that Jews think Gentiles are dogs. I think the Lord is intimating the potential for risk in taking something good, like the wonderful grace of healing, and providing it in such a way that it would be trampled underfoot, abused, or taken for granted would be profane (think about Jesus opponents accusing Him of casting out demons by the prince of demons). The woman responds that the food scraps are sufficient and have great value; which we might understand as follows: there is nothing wasted in the giving of grace. Isaiah 55 tells us that God’s word does not return void. This must be true of anything done by the divine Word, Jesus Christ. There is no wasted divine action. On some level, the woman realizes that only a word from the Lord will heal her daughter. Even a scrap of grace is enough to get us through the hardest of times. In another place, Jesus warns against casting pearls before swine. There are certain situations where a hostile or unholy audience will try to trample upon or defame the grace of God. We must be wise to this. Yet, the woman in today’s passage clearly shows where the lines of delineation are between genuine, persistent faith and folly. 

Let us recognize the great example of faith, persistence, and love that the Canaanite woman exhibits and seek to emulate this in our own lives. May we receive God’s grace with humility and seek to share it with others. And may we be vigilant in our prayers for God to help those in most need of His mercy. 

x

Gospel Reflection Matthew 8:28-34

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus casts two demons into swine that careen off a cliff. The unclean is cast out into the unclean, and then into the deep abyss. Pigs root around in the mud and muck. They consume everything and anything, increasing their size indiscriminately until properly fattened for slaughter.  Where there is muck, sin, and debasement, demons flock and gather. Evil spirits gravitate toward their natural abode. In the process, they seek to turn men into pigs. They drive men into filth and thicken them up for the butcher. 

What we see in the passage is that God comes among us to put things into their proper order and place. Demons have no place among the children of God, who are in fact children of the light. The right place for man is with God, enjoying the Creator who is blessed forever. Jesus faces down the savage facade of the demons and sends them on their way. He makes clean the spiritual house of the demon-possessed men and restores them to their right minds. From here, they can begin a new life. For these men, the pig trough will never look as appetizing again as it once did. May it be so for us as we reflect on our own faith and conversion. 

Instead of welcoming Jesus as the healer and one who restores order, the people of Gadarene town want to cast Him away. I suspect many cities and towns today would react the same way if Jesus walked among us. Many would not want their lives disrupted. They are too happy to just walk around the savage demons blocking the road or take a long way around to maintain the status quo. Jesus came to usher in the Kingdom of God and banish the power of the evil one. He came because the way things are is not how they should be. Again, how easy it is to fall into the trap of becoming like swine, wallowing in our filth instead of letting the Lord clean us. 

Gospel Reflection Matthew 5:38-42

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus radically subverts our ideas of justice. When we follow the Lord’s teaching, we come to see that our conceptions of proper disposition and conduct must be aligned with the divine will in order for us to progress in happiness and enjoyment of fellowship with God. 

Our first reaction when someone does violence to us, physically, psychologically, or economically, is to respond in kind. I would even venture to say our inclination is often to respond disproportionately. If someone strikes us on the cheek, we want to hit them back even harder. We have all witnessed the “sue ‘em for everything they have” mindset in civil litigation, another example of a disproportionate response. Our culture of sin and vice encourages fantasies about retributive violence and glorifies vigilante justice. None of these modern ideas of justice carry any brief with the teachings of Jesus and His Church.

For many, when they witness injustice in the world, there is a rush to take up arms. This type of armament can be in the form of guns and gangs or social ostracizing and silencing. It seems as though asymmetrical and perturbed forms of retributive violence are part and parcel of the human condition. Jesus acknowledges as much through His pivotal teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. One of the problems with this condition is that we have come to almost revel in it and joy in perpetually rationalizing and taking matters into our own hands. We believe that we can always make things right by taking our own path. We can show the other person or put them in their place. Things will be put right and we are to do the racking, drawing, and quartering. Jesus gives us the better way. 

We can hold too fast to that which is temporal and fleeting at the expense of the eternal and permanent. Should we give up our lives to save it from the thief stealing our cloak? Should we involve ourselves in endless cycles of legal trauma trying to get back that which is already gone? Again, our sense of justice formed in the absence of divine light might indicate we answer in the affirmative. Jesus asks us to think again. 

Our sense of something being wrong when we experience injustice is a good thing. We should feel it in our souls. We should be moved to compassion. The questions of how we think about this and what exactly we do about it are important. If we are moved and motivated solely by passion, we will end up only serving ourselves and not God or our fellow man. On the other hand, if we listen carefully to the teachings of Jesus, we can begin to see the world through the lens of divine justice. We can step into the path of the Lord and walk with the One who was treated with supreme injustice. This walk does not move us to complacency or apathy. Quite the opposite. It moves us to rightly ordered action that enures to the benefit of our souls and the souls of others who suffer. 

Gospel Reflection Mark 10:28-31

At the end of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says “...many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.” God’s way of ordering things sometimes runs contrary to ours. And we do well to reorient ourselves. The sooner, the better. Those who are ‘last’, in the sense of not having worldly goods or pleasures, giving these things up for the sake of the Kingdom of God, or being deprived entirely because of injustice, will be ‘first’. The privation of goods now becomes seeds of abundance for later. 

Jesus asks us to trust in the cosmic justice of God. Our own sense of justice, while capable of latching onto the truly Just, is often skewed. Thus, we lean not on our own understanding when God has spoken for our benefit on a particular matter. Indeed, the Lord will render properly to each his or her due. One day everything will be properly ordered. Until then, disciples of Jesus are called to give things up for the Gospel. For some, this means committing to a religious life of poverty. For some, a life of chastity. For some, it means enduring persecution. And for others, it means a life of continual sacrifice of the self for the other. A thousand and one pangs of the soul, wrestling the ego into submission only for the battle to begin anew tomorrow. Whatever the Lord has called us to sacrifice, may the Holy Spirit strengthen us to do it with joy, peace, and hopeful hearts for a heavenly reward. 

Gospel Reflection John 17:1-11

Today’s Gospel reading continues with the Farewell Discourse. In these passages, from John chapters 13-17, we get a very intimate, first-hand account of the final hours of Jesus’ life and teaching. If you ever wondered what it would be like to be a ‘fly on the wall’ among Jesus and the disciples, the Farewell Discourse is a great place to start. 

In the passage today, Jesus says “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” The word ‘know’ in this verse intends to communicate a personal acquaintance or first hand experience. To have eternal life is to experience the life of God first hand. We are told in other places that this comes about through the life-giving power of the Spirit (John 3, et. al.). The mysterious and glorious interplay of Trinitarian relations is involved in each step of the Christian journey. This is but one reason why so much was at stake in the early Church over doctrinal matters concerning the nature of the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

To have eternal life is not to be a floating apparition. Eternal life is not an unending, mindless state. It is not going to someplace in the sky.  It is to have the “life of the Age’, to be a full participant in the age to come which is a remade and properly ordered cosmos. Eternal ife is a qualitatively different kind of life. It is elevated. Free from inordinate passion and malice. Free to worship and live in harmony as God intended from the beginning. 

Gospel Reflection John 16:29-33

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world." Time and again, Jesus tells His followers to expect difficulty and struggle in the world. The world is the kingdom and dominion of the fallen ones. It represents the order of those powers, principalities, people, and systems opposed to God. 

We should be wary when things are going well for us in the world. It means that either we are not doing things God’s way or that our opponents are operating in a subtle manner. We must not be fooled into thinking there is some safe quarter within the world. However, we do not need to walk on eggshells. We do not need to be anxious about when the shoe will drop. We can trudge on circumspectly. The proper attitude of the Christian life is one of the virtuous mean. 

The Christian knows their pilgrimage is a trail of tears. They know that life gives fleeting glimpses of heaven. And we know, as the Gospel today says, that Jesus has overcome the world. The system of evil and death is in its waning days. 

We cannot see far from our vantage point; thus, we cannot always see clearly how Christ has conquered. Yet, if we look closely, the signs of His victory come into focus. We see the newly baptized coming into the Kingdom. We experience the forgiveness of our sins. We nourish our famished souls in the Holy Eucharist. We elevate our souls to God when we hear the music of the heavens. We sing with the angels and saints “holy, holy, holy.” The victory of Christ is evident if we look for it by its own phosphorescent-like illumination, and not by the dingy bulb of the world. 

Gospel Reflection John 16:20-23

Life is rhythmic and cyclical. The book of Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything. Weeping and laughing. Mourning and dancing. We are from the dust, and to dust we shall return. Our existence in space and time is corruptible, insofar as we are composed, the breath of God and dust, and are then subject to decomposition. Joy is vain. It slips from our grasp the moment we gaze upon it. Grief is constant. We wade through the floodwaters of this valley of tears until we are eventually overcome by the crashing waves. 

Through the storm of life, with its respites of calm and monotonously blasting gales, Jesus speaks to us. He offers words of comfort in today's Gospel passage. Comfort that does not, and cannot, come from the world of ashes and decay. The Lord says that anguish will come before a joy that is not vain. Happiness, the quietude of our wills, can be snatched away from us now. But not forever. Our hearts will rejoice when they are no longer breakable. 

The Christian message has been fraught with tension from the beginning; the already-but-not-yet. Jesus is already Lord of all, but the instantiation of His Kingdom across the cosmos is not yet fully realized. Jesus is already raised from the dead and exists incorruptibly; we are not yet like Him. Creation groans in travail. Still, Jesus promises that our longing to be with Him is like the birth of a child. Agony will dissolve into bliss. Death will be swallowed up by life. 

Gospel Reflection John 16:5-11

Much of what Jesus says seems counterintuitive. He tells us to turn the other cheek instead of striking back in violence. He tells us to walk an extra mile if compelled to walk the first. He tells us that it is better for Him to leave His earthly ministry than to stay. As St. Paul says, the wisdom of God is deep and rich and unsearchable. 

How could it possibly be better for God among us to leave us? Perhaps only if God the Holy Spirit then comes to dwell among His people. We are not left without the presence of God within us and among us. Perhaps only if we can understand a shred of the divine plan for human redemption, seeing that, like a flower, each flower petal is slowly opening up toward the eternal sun. The first petal must give way so the innermost buds can be nourished. We see through the glass darkly now, but later…

Jesus unequivocally tells us the Holy Spirit is a ‘He’. “...I will send Him to you…He will convict the world…” The divinity of the Holy Spirit is given to us, if even somewhat opaquely, in these passages. But not only these. The early Church prayed and thought, and prayed and thought some more, before articulating what had God revealed for the sake of furthering the Kingdom and spreading joy far and wide. 

We behold the great mystery of the inner life of God with wonder and awe. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each at work in our redemption and deification. As the Spirit comes to convict the world of sin and righteousness and condemnation, He does so in perfect harmony with the Son who gives Himself and the Father who is glorified in the Son. 

Gospel Reflection John 15:26—16:4

In today’s Gospel, Jesus again tells His disciples to expect persecution. And this even unto death. Opposition to the Kingdom of God is fierce. The hostility is often much more than we can fathom. We read about martyrdom in our time. We know we should expect ill-treatment. It comes in ways obvious and subtle. What is unique about the Christian faith, and the call to radical discipleship, is that this state of affairs must not force an inward turn. 

Instead, Jesus still calls us to love our enemies. He calls us to bless those who persecute us. There is no chip on our shoulder. The other shoe will drop. But we do not walk in trepidation. Jesus tells us He has overcome the world. If we abide in Him, we abide in the life of God, the giver of all life. If we are grafted into that life, we have a life that cannot be taken from us. We have happiness and fellowship that is not fleeting. The Holy Spirit is our constant companion and often reminds us that we are pilgrims on a journey toward something greater. 

 

Gospel Reflection John 15:12-17

One of the things Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading is “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.” Then, He says “You are my friends,” and “I have called you friends…” There is no greater love than what Jesus does in laying down His life for us. He calls us His friends. He gives Himself up for us, and continually gives Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist because we are joined to Him in friendship by grace. 

Because of the way He was killed and how our imagination works, our thoughts can easily drift to the idea that Jesus’ life was taken. We often speak of this way when a person passes away. We say they ‘lost’ their life or they were ‘robbed’ of life. This is not the case with Jesus. 

Jesus was indeed brutally killed by Romans at the insistence of the vocal Jewish religious leadership contingent in Jerusalem. Yet, we must always recall that He willingly came into the world and willingly allowed these events to transpire. Nothing forces God to act. Nothing extrinsically compels the Son of God to take on human flesh. Nothing and no one can mandate that Christ suffer and die for the sins of the world. The incarnation of the Lord Jesus, His life, and His sacrificial death are simply the overflowing divine love. The love that exists eternally in the Triune God infuses itself into creation. There can be no greater love than Jesus laying down His life because there can be nothing greater, and therefore no greater love, than God. 

Much is made of the difference between how the Church has defined love, willing the good of the other (as other), and how the modern world has perverted this definition into a reductionist, emotivist description of the concupiscible. The absurdity of the colloquial ‘love is love’ is sharply contrasted with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. There is love, which is what Jesus does and shows, and then there is something else. 

Gospel Reflection John 15:9-11

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” Throughout the Farewell Discourse, Jesus issues several conditionals with a similar theme. For example, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Conditionals involve an ‘if/then’. When the condition is true, meeting a sufficient condition will always produce the event or outcome provided in a valid statement or syllogism. 

While it is true that God always loves us unconditionally, we choose how we respond to the outpouring of divine grace. The Christian life is a living and active response to God. God always makes the first move. While we were still yet sinners, Christ died for us. God gives us everything, including the grace and individual capabilities to say ‘yes’ to Him every day. 

What guarantees - because of the One who grants such a guarantee - that we will remain in the love of Christ is that we keep His commandments. For instance, that we love God above all and love others as we love ourselves. And that we obey the other things He teaches us through Sacred Scripture and His Holy Catholic Church. Such obedience must not be thought of in a slavish or arbitrary sense. Rather, we heed the teaching of Christ and His Church because God tells us that in so doing our joy will be complete. We can indeed be free from what truly enslaves us, which is sin. Obedience and discipline in Christ bring this freedom. 

It is for our eternal beatitude that we become who God created us to be. We also reap benefits in the here and now, by having peace with God and with our fellow man. God does not love us or guide us because He stands to gain anything. His love for us is an outpouring of the divine life, and His commandments to us are so that we may fully enjoy that life to the utmost.  

Gospel Reflection John 15:1-8

In today’s Gospel, we read that Jesus is the true vine. We are grafted into Him and, if we remain in Him, we will bear fruit. If we do not bear fruit, then we are cut off from Him. What fruit comes forth when we abide in Christ? St. Paul tells us “...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…(Galatians 5:22-23). 

The fruit we bear comes from our being nourished by the flowing waters of new and eternal life in Christ. By conversion, faith, baptism, continual repentance, and walking in daily humility before God, we abide in the true vine. Abiding is not meant in a passive sense, as if we are joined to the true vine and then all we do is just sit there. We must take an active role in following the Lord Jesus. The passive branch is the one that will wither away just as much as the branch that rebelliously cuts itself off.