The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today emphasize mindfulness in our relationship with God that offers us the best outcomes on our journey.
 |
| Looking at our day |
Moses, in the Book of Deuteronomy, declares God’s Fidelity and Love as he urges being faithful to the Law.
Israel’s God is represented as totally committed to his purpose, and Israel is put on notice to take him and his directives for their life as a people with equal seriousness.1
In Psalm 77. the question is posed to God: Will you allow the people you created to be destroyed?
* [Psalm 77] A community lament in which the speaker (“I”) describes the anguish of Israel at God’s silence when its very existence is at stake (Ps 77:2–11). In response the speaker recites the story of how God brought the people into existence (Ps 77:12–20). The question is thus posed to God: Will you allow the people you created to be destroyed?2
Jesus outlines conditions of discipleship in the Gospel from Matthew.
* [16:24] Deny himself: to deny someone is to disown him (see Mt 10:33; 26:34–35) and to deny oneself is to disown oneself as the center of one’s existence.3
Cindy Murphy McMahon advises the daily Examen of St. Ignatius of Loyola as one simple way to realize God’s hand in our daily insights and encounters.
If we do that – as well as many other practices and prayerful efforts – we will not only see the hand of God in our lives, but we will find it easier to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus, has he teaches in today’s Gospel. And that is how we truly find ourselves and the lives we are intended to live.4
Fr. Dennis Hamm, SJ, a scripture professor at Creighton University, calls the Daily Examen “rummaging for God.” He likens it to “going through a drawer full of stuff, feeling around, looking for something that you are sure must be there.” That’s an accurate description of what it’s like to pray the Daily Examen. We look back on the previous day, rummaging through the “stuff,” and finding God in it. We know he is there.
This is a version of the five-step Daily Examen that St. Ignatius practiced.
1. Become aware of God’s presence.2. Review the day with gratitude. 3. Pay attention to your emotions.4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.5. Look toward tomorrow.5
Don Schwager asks, “Are you ready to lose all for Jesus Christ in order to gain all with Jesus Christ?” as he shares the prayer of Ignatius of Loyola, (1491-1556)
"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will, all that I have and possess. You have given them to me; to you, O Lord, I restore them; all things are yours, dispose of them according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for this is enough for me." 6
and quotes, “Walk as Christ has walked,” by Caesarius of Arles (470-543 AD).
"When the Lord tells us in the Gospel that anyone who wants to be his follower must renounce himself, the injunction seems harsh; we think he is imposing a burden on us. But an order is no burden when it is given by one who helps in carrying it out. To what place are we to follow Christ if not where he has already gone? We know that he has risen and ascended into heaven; there, then, we must follow him. There is no cause for despair - by ourselves we can do nothing, but we have Christ’s promise... One who claims to abide in Christ ought to walk as he walked. Would you follow Christ? Then be humble as he was humble. Do not scorn his lowliness if you want to reach his exaltation. Human sin made the road rough. Christ’s resurrection leveled it. By passing over it himself, he transformed the narrowest of tracks into a royal highway. Two feet are needed to run along this highway; they are humility and charity. Everyone wants to get to the top - well, the first step to take is humility. Why take strides that are too big for you - do you want to fall instead of going up? Begin with the first step, humility, and you will already be climbing." (excerpt from SERMONS 159, 1.4–6)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 16:24-28 reminds us about our God. He is faithful and trustworthy. He wants only what is best for us, even if it means that we have to give up something that we think we can’t do without. He wants to lead us personally, just as he led the Israelites, away from anything that keeps us far from him or that divides us from the people we love. But he won’t force us; he wants us to surrender to him willingly and trustingly.
Remember too that God doesn’t usually ask for something earth-shattering. Maybe he wants you to give up some time catching up on the news in the morning so that you meet him in prayer first. Maybe he is asking you to refrain from office gossip and use that time to listen to a colleague who is going through a hard time.
Spend some time today thinking about what you might need to “lose” in order to find more of your life in Christ. Even if it’s something difficult, remember whom you are giving it up for. You can trust this great wonderworking God. He won’t ask you to give up something without giving you something much better in return. He is a good God, and he wants nothing but good for you!7
Friar Jude Winkler contrasts the understanding of the Law by Moses and Paul. Our choice of life or death is the message in today’s texts. Friar Jude reminds us that today is the day of conversion.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, is encouraged by the rediscovery of the broad and deep contemplative mind, which for the first two thousand years of Christianity had largely been limited to monks, women religious, and mystics. It is not our metaphysics (“what is real”) that is changing so much as our epistemology—how we think we know what is real. For that, we can thank a combination of insights from psychology, therapy, spiritual direction, history, and Eastern religions, along with the rediscovery of the Western and Christian contemplative tradition, starting with Thomas Merton in the 1960s. He offers comments from C. G. Jung, Episcopal priest and friend Matthew Fox, and quotes Howard Thurman (1900–1981), a mystic who sought to make peace between religions and founded the first major interracial, interfaith church in the United States.
Now if I hear the sound of the genuine in me and if you hear the sound of the genuine in you it is possible for me to go down in me and come up in you. So that when I look at myself through your eyes having made that pilgrimage, I see in me what you see in me and the wall that separates and divides will disappear and we will become one because the sound of the genuine makes the same music. [3]8
Being mindful of the Law, praying the Examen, and seeking the genuine in others may redirect our focus to deny selfish temptation and remain open to mission in our relationship with God.
References
No comments:
Post a Comment