Losing sight

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today touch on the sometimes cyclical experience of moving toward and away from our intimacy with Christ.

On track

The reading from the Book of Acts describes the changes in the people while Paul was in Corinth.

* [18:2] Aquila…Priscilla: both may already have been Christians at the time of their arrival in Corinth (see Acts 18:26). According to 1 Cor 16:19, their home became a meeting place for Christians. Claudius: the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome ca. A.D. 49. The Roman historian Suetonius gives as reason for the expulsion disturbances among the Jews “at the instigation of Chrestos,” probably meaning disputes about the messiahship of Jesus.1 

Psalm 98 is a hymn extolling God for Israel’s victory.

* [Psalm 98] A hymn, similar to Ps 96, extolling God for Israel’s victory (Ps 98:1–3). All nations (Ps 98:4–6) and even inanimate nature (Ps 98:7–8) are summoned to welcome God’s coming to rule over the world (Ps 98:9).2 

In the Gospel from John, Jesus predicts His departure and return.

 Jesus’ Departure; Coming of the Advocate3

Chas Kestermeier, S.J. shares that we need to trust that God is always near us, always loving us, always encouraging us to grow whether we detect His presence or love or not.

When we come to know Jesus at first, to really know Him, we experience a warmth and a joy that sustains us in our faith, but with all our comings and goings we seem to lose sight of His constant presence.  We start to doubt His power and His love and can't seem to feel His hand guiding our lives. But if we remain as faithful to God as we can, as willing to sacrifice our time as we are able, to exchange our confidence in ourselves for complete trust in Him instead, then we will see and experience Him in our lives again.4 

Don Schwager quotes “Christ our physician,” by Saint Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"God sent the human race a physician, a savior, One Who healed without charging a fee. Christ also came to reward those who would be healed by Him. Christ heals the sick, and He makes a gift to those whom He heals. And the gift that He makes is Himself!" (excerpt from Sermon 102,2)5 

The Word Among Us Meditation on John 16:16-20 asks why would Jesus think it was important for us to “see” him again? Didn’t his cross and resurrection take care of our salvation?

 Simply put, no. And thank God for this truth! We need to “see” Jesus every day. We need to hear his voice, to receive his love, and to be formed by his wisdom. As St. Paul taught, Jesus gave us the Spirit “so that we may understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).6

Friar Jude Winkler comments on Paul and his actions in Corinth and discusses the message of Jesus to His disciples about His going away and returning.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares John Philip Newell’s beautiful summary of the visions of Julian of Norwich (1342–1416).

What Julian hears is that “we are all one.” [9] We have come from God as one, and to God we shall return as one. And any true well-being in our lives will be found not in isolation but in relation. She uses the image of the knot . . . to portray the strands of time and eternity intertwined, of the human and the creaturely inseparably interrelated, of the one and the many forever married. Christ’s soul and our soul are like an everlasting knot. The deeper we move in our own being, the closer we come to Christ. And the closer we come to Christ’s soul, the nearer we move to the heart of one another. In Christ, we hear not foreign sounds but the deepest intimations of the human and the divine intertwined.7 

Our vision of Jesus may be blurred as we move away from our inner reality. The Spirit is always nudging us to deeper intimacy with Christ.

References

1	(n.d.). Acts, chapter 18 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved May 30, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/18
2	(n.d.). Psalms, chapter 98 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved May 30, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/98
3	(n.d.). John, chapter 16 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved May 30, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/16
4	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved May 30, 2019, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
5	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved May 30, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
6	(n.d.). Meditations - The Word Among Us. Retrieved May 30, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/2019/05/30/
7	(2019, May 30). Our Deepest Desire — Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved May 30, 2019, from https://cac.org/our-deepest-desire-2019-05-30/