Matthew 3:13-17

This passage is where Jesus is baptized and in the book it says to practice imaginative prayer with myself being Jesus. In trying to imaging myself as Jesus, I realize I can't do this. I am so proud and so vain that I can't even pretend to be Jesus. My thought as I was waiting in line to be baptized in the Jordan was, "Why am I waiting here? I don't even need this." I am reminded of the passage, God's ways are not my ways nor are His thoughts like my thoughts... So high are His ways above mine that I can't even imagine thinking like Him. Then I hear God's words to me, "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased." It sounds so good to hear these words. This is all I've ever wanted to hear, that I am loved by and pleasing to God. Lord, open my ears and my heart that I may hear you speak these words to me and help me to remember tht it is only by Your Grace that I can merit this statement from you. Help me to avoid all vanity and pride so that I may one day hear you say to me, "You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

My prayer got stuck on this thought... Isn't amazing how God uses the seemingly ordinary and makes it extraordinary?  That sounds cheesy, I know, but I was struck by this reading Luke's account on the birth of Jesus in Luke 2:1-14.  For context for those who have not read, Luke focuses mainly on Mary and Joseph and the time in which Jesus was born into.  It blew my mind that the God of the universe had to report in the census.  I mean, He was/is God and He still took to the way of the culture of the day.  He came as an unborn child with Mary, God's sinless masterpiece as his vessel, with Joseph the Terror of Demons by their side and not a soul knew!  They probably traveled with people, neighbors, friends all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem and they all thought it was business as usual.

But God came there.  He chose to be there.  It was His diveine plan to come to the ordinary.  Not only the ordinary, but something that was seen as a total power move of the Emperor Augustus.  He came to this ordinary event and said, without saying a word, proclaims I am the real and new ruler of this land and of your hearts.

THEN, God was like, I'm not done.  No one has room for Him in Bethlehem because they are OK with their lives being ordinary and He is born in essentially a cave and is placed in a feed trough (a manger) surrounded by animal poop.  He comes into our ordinary s#$t, literally, and transforms it back to beauty.

DOUBLE THEN, God appears to shepherds and tells them of the glorious act and tells them to go find Him there..  And where were they? Living their ordinary lives, at work, being who they were supposed to be that day.  And from there the Scripture says, "the sky opened and a multitude of angels rejoiced" in the presence of these shepherds.

SO MY TAKE AWAY was this… I/we so often neglect God in the ordinary moments of our lives.  he shows us that, if we live the way we are called with everything in the light of his grace, life is not just life.  It is no accident.  There is a flood of grace waiting to be poured out on us if only we let Him into every moment.

That is may prayer this week… join me.

An Arduous Challenge

I'm woefully tardy, but I suppose late is always better than never.    I had been reflecting on a passage that I accidentally read a week early, but I'll wait until next time to post about that one.

I prayed Ezekiel 36 today.  My main focus was on these words: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities... I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you... you shall be my people, and I will be your God."  It seems so simple!  If we could only humble ourselves and release the control that we think we have over our lives, God would fill us with the riches of his love (which is what every one of us constantly seeks, wether we know it or not).  Jesus tells us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  This is what comes with his love when we humbly kneel before him and embrace him as he reaches out to us.

Unfortunately, letting go of all that the world seems to offer us is far from easy!  I want to show God that I value my relationship with him more than all the other things in my life, but I constantly struggle to do that when faced with the decision between prayer and relaxation/entertainment or between volunteering for a noble cause and socializing with friends or between daily mass and a round of golf.  Perhaps my challenge at this point will be to find happiness a bit more in my relationship with the Lord than in my hobbies or social events.  Challenge accepted.

Lord, Is That Really You?

My usual, long-winded blogging self was left speechless this last week in prayer.  I was left speechless by Jesus on the Crucifix.  Let me explain...

I was having a friendly discussion about the Protestant Reformation and the topic of Martin Luther, his credibility and honestly, his ego.  I learned something about him that I never knew before.  In the midst all his effort to "reform" the Church, Martin Luther became very adverse to the Crucifix.  In fact, he was never able to look at  a crucifix again.  This struck me.  And I took that with me this week.  I took it with me into my own prayer and contemplation on John 21: 15-19 and 1Peter 2:21-25.

I had a hard time connecting with the Lord in these stories.  I am not sure if it was just the state of my soul this week or a deeper spiritual level that Jesus is beckoning me to dig to.  Nonetheless, Jesus was a distant figure.  I read the story of Peter and the resurrected Jesus talking at the end of John's gospel and was not moved by Jesus as I usually am in that story.  I am always moved as if I was Peter in that story.  I love how Jesus loves him.  He shows him that his mercy is beyond anything he can do, including turning his back on him after three years of intimate friendship.  I saw myself as Peter again, but this time grappling with the depths of my knowledge of Jesus and really the basis of our relationship.  I asked myself, what do I see when I see Jesus in that story?  Do I see resurrection?  Do I see mercy?  Most importantly, do I see redemption?

I know redemption is real and attainable, but my heart does not know the depths of it.  Like Martin Luther, if I was in that story, I would struggle to look Jesus in the eye.  I struggle with the confidence of knowing his mercy and his call to continue walking with him.  That took me to 1 Peter where I meditated further on Jesus the person, but this time on the Cross... "by his wounds you have been healed."

I am left asking, is that the same Jesus I am desperately wanting to know?  What is getting in the way of me getting there?  And can I look at the Crucifix with that same desire to know him and love him right where he hangs?

Lord, is that really you?  

What should we pray for?

This blog won't stick to the agreed upon blog structure; it does not relate to one of the five given passages this week.  However, it does relate to an earlier reading from July, and does correspond to the current question on my heart, so I'm going with it.

Today, I'm trying to finalize some of the plans for my trip to Italy and France: 19-ish days on pilgrimage to see as many of the holy and beautiful sites and cities that the two have to offer.  I say 19-ish because I began to read back through my flight itinerary and I noticed a small highlighted section that read "You saved money by choosing an alternate date flight."  I scanned over the flight details time after time before selecting the flight, only to find now that I must have opted in for a discount option to move my return flight forward a day.  The result is I miss one of the days of the Meeting in Rimini, the conference for Communion and Liberation that I was partly centering my trip around.

So what?  I miss one day of a conference, while still spending 18 days in France and Italy.  I'll get over my neglect and carelessness in choosing my flight, but this experience returned me to a topic I have been contemplating the past several weeks: the consideration that all of reality is positive.  This is an idea that Father Giussani of Communion and Liberation has continually stressed and a concept verified by Romans Chapter 8 that I read earlier this week.  Verse 28 states "We know that all things work for good for those who love God" and verse 31 follows with "If God is for us, who can be against us?" I would ask not only who, but what can be against us?  If we are living an experience that God ordained to come to fruition, an experience that God not only knew would occur, but planned for it to occur, how can it not be for our good?  The only way God's good can be undone in any event of life is if we, through our free will, succumb to temptation and sin and choose it to be so.

I have been trying to look at every part of my life in this regard, and while I can't always see the fullness of God's goodness in every situation, it usually sheds light on how God is working in my life through sacrifice and suffering.   In looking at life with this in mind, it has also led me to question how I am meant to pray.  So often, I find in my prayer and hear in others' prayer, requests for issues to end a certain way, or that God deliver a certain outcome in a struggle.  Consequently, if all of reality is positive, if the given events have unfolded in accordance with God's plan, who are we to pray for a different reality?  When I am praying for a sick loved one to be cured, for peace in the world, or a number of other good intentions, am I attempting to reduce God's plan?

You may say, as I initially did, that not all of reality is of God, and that the devil's influence negates some of the positivity in reality.  However, is the devil's influence not only as powerful as God allows him to be?  If God allowed it, are the devil's actions not paradoxically a part of God's plan? Again, "we know that all things work for good for those who love God.".  If this verse is actually true, regardless of the reality we are facing, I must maintain that all of reality is inherently good because it was given by God.

Thus, what should I pray for if all of reality is inherently good?  Shouldn't prayer essentially be that our will be conformed to that of God's? Similarly is it wrong to pray for our favored outcome of reality?  We may participate in a reality that is not always pleasing to the flesh, but I have to believe that it most certainly is the reality that will form our soul to be what God desires, if we only choose that thy will be done.  Please share your thoughts, as this is a topic I have been continually revisiting.

The Nativity, Luke 2:1-14

I think that I fall in love with Mary. Her grace and beauty and tenderness as she cares for her son. My Lord and Savior was just born in the flesh because this young woman said yes. She trusted in God's plan. She didn't let her fear of the unknown control her. She trusted. I look upon the beauty of the scene which was possible because of her trust and her yes. The angel tells me, "Do not be afraid." I can have no fear in this moment gazing upon Mother and Child. I see and know that this is my savior. Then I realize His birth and life and death and Resurrection is real at all times, I should never be afraid. I have a Savior! Mary looks at me with the same gentleness that she looked at her Son. I feel so loved and so safe. With my Savior and the love of His Mother, I can have no fear.

Forgiveness at the Pharisee dinner party

Men,

Sorry for the delay.

I decided to Oremus this past morning, something I have only done once since the beginning of Oremus-ing. Today I meditated on the sinful woman at the Pharisee's home (Luke 7:36-50).

I was blown away by the faithfulness and sincerity of the woman who knew that Jesus was more than just another prophet. I imagined going into someones home uninvited, ignoring everyone except one man, and begging forgiveness from a man I have never met before. What faith! I knew immediately that today was the day to go to confession - to drop everything and meet Christ in the confessional. I was the last person to make it through the confession line! It felt amazing to approach Christ with the mind of the sinful woman, leaving nothing behind.

I pray that we can be like the sinful woman everyday, washing Christ's feet with our tears, not because of shame or regret, but because of sacrificial love.