Seeing our connection to God

A theme in the texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invites contemplation on special connections to God.

Why ‘Earthrise’ Matters https://t.co/UwWkJu6kht

— marilyn mcneil (@mcneil_77) February 28, 2018

The Servant of the Lord in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah will be the agent to gather the diaspora to return to Jerusalem under the guidance of God in a feminine depiction.

* [49:8] You: the individual is not named; perhaps Cyrus or the prophet.

In the Gospel from John, Jesus declares His connection to God as Son.

* [5:28–29] While Jn 5:19–27 present realized eschatology, Jn 5:28–29 are future eschatology; cf. Dn 12:2.

Mike Cherney can replace “Him” with “Her” in the text and see the same kind, loving, protecting and merciful God from a different perspective.

Jesus makes known His extraordinary personal charge in the Gospel. This is not just a commitment to be a servant of God’s will, but it also reveals His special connection to God. I can imagine myself as one of the religious leaders. In that role I know how I would have slandered Jesus, but His response would be the type of thing that would put me over the edge. This reflection leaves me wondering today what my special connection to God is. How willing am I to demonstrate and to bluntly express my relationship with God?

Don Schwager explains Jesus role as a "covenant" to the people.

Jesus was sent by the Father as "a covenant to the people" to reconcile them with God and  restore to them the promise of paradise and everlasting life. Jesus' words and actions reveal God's mercy and  justice. Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah when he brings healing, restoration, and forgiveness to those who accept his divine message.

Friar Jude Winkler connects the infrequent use of a feminine image of God in the Hebrew Testament to concern with confusion with the fertility gods of the Middle East. The masculine image of God in John is used to affirm that Jesus and the Father are One. If we accept Jesus we will be living in the Love of the Trinity.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares the thoughts of Joanna Macy on The Great Turning. She and Molly Young Brown are optimistic that despite our conditioning by the industrial society of the last two centuries, we want to name, once again, this world as holy.

The insights and experiences that enable us to make this shift may arise from grief for our world that contradicts illusions of the separate and isolated self. Or they may arise from breakthroughs in science, such as quantum physics and systems theory. Or we may find ourselves inspired by the wisdom traditions of native peoples and mystical voices in the major religions . . . that reminds us again that our world is a sacred whole in which we have a sacred mission.

The mother gathering dispersed children and the Son as the agent of the Will of the Father offer images of God that will be crucial as we act to restore the world ravaged by our greed in the last few centuries.

References



(n.d.). CHAPTER 49 The Servant of the Lord 1Hear me, coastlands, listen .... Retrieved March 14, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/isaiah49.htm

(n.d.). CHAPTER 5 Cure on a Sabbath. 1After this, there was a feast of the .... Retrieved March 14, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/john5.htm 

(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections .... Retrieved March 14, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 14, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 14, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/

Hope, Change, and the rules

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today resonate with themes of Hope, challenge for change, and testing the rules.

The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel foresees the Wonderful Stream that the restoration of life for the Babylonian exiles returning to Jerusalem will bring.

* [47:1–12] The life and refreshment produced wherever the Temple stream flows evoke the order and abundance of paradise (cf. Gn 1:20–22; 2:10–14; Ps 46:5) and represent the coming transformation Ezekiel envisions for the exiles and their land. Water signifies great blessings and evidence of the Lord’s presence (cf. Jl 2:14).

In the Gospel from John, Jesus gives a sign of cure on a Sabbath as He seeks confirmation that the change that will result from His action is acceptable.

* [5:17] Sabbath observance (10) was based on God’s resting on the seventh day (cf. Gn 2:2–3; Ex 20:11). Philo and some rabbis insisted that God’s providence remains active on the sabbath, keeping all things in existence, giving life in birth and taking it away in death. Other rabbis taught that God rested from creating, but not from judging (=ruling, governing). Jesus here claims the same authority to work as the Father, and, in the discourse that follows, the same divine prerogatives: power over life and death (Jn 5:21, 24–26) and judgment (Jn 5:22, 27).

Chas Kestermeier, S.J. probes our openness and asks How do we respond to Jesus offer?  

Do we really understand what is happening to us or what the true name of our Lord is?  How we can show proper thanks?

The question is always how this might apply to us.  We are that man, sinful but patient, looking to God for forgiveness and healing, for a fresh start to our trying to know, love, and serve Him, and we are (or should be) amazed that God looks at us a second time and even talks to us, heals us, or becomes human so that He can approach us and touch us more deeply.

Don Schwager asks "Do you really want to be healed?" as he quotes Augustine of Hippo, 430-543 A.D., on so great a Physician.

"Our wound is serious, but the Physician is all-powerful. Does it seem to you so small a mercy that, while you were living in evil and sinning, He did not take away your life, but brought you to belief and forgave your sins? What I suffer is serious, but I trust the Almighty. I would despair of my mortal wound if I had not found so great a Physician." (excerpt from Sermon 352,3)

Friar Jude Winkler sees in the Temple description of Ezekiel a river of grace that is a gift of the Holy Spirit  that creates a mystical energy and goodness that transforms the world. After a period like the 38 years in the Gospel do we  want to be healed? Because we are so used to our state are we ready to be something different or why not just keep the rules?

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, quotes John Philip Newell (b. 1953), a poet and scholar known for his work in the field of Celtic spirituality, who traces the roots and impact of the doctrine creatio ex nihilo. Newell offers an alternative, still orthodox, view of creation based on the writings of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon.

Irenaeus intuited that this would be a disaster, that to neutralize matter, to teach that creation does not come from holy substance, would lead to the abuse of creation. It was a convenient “truth” . . . [meaning] that the empire could do whatever it wished to matter. Matter was not holy. It had not come forth from the womb of God’s Being. Rather it was made from nothing. It was essentially devoid of sacred energy. So, every imperial mind could ravage the earth’s resources with impunity. It could disparage the rights of creatures and subordinate the physical well-being of its subjects. Religion had become the accomplice of the state’s subordination of the earth. It had sanctioned the separation of spirit and matter.

Fr. Aiden, explores the work of Thomas Aquinas on creatio ex nihilo and reveals a difference of opinion with St Bonaventure.

I’m certain, however, that the Seraphic Doctor did not have the Angelic Doctor in mind when he referred to philosophers with tiny intellects

Fr Richard Rohr offers a fitting final remark that the Christ story is the universe story. The birth of the divine-human child is a revelation, a lifting of the veil to show us that all life has been conceived by the Spirit in the womb of the universe, that we are all divine-human creatures, that everything that has being in the universe carries within itself the sacredness of Spirit.

References


(n.d.). Ezekiel, chapter 47 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/ezekiel/47

(n.d.). John, chapter 5 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john5:51

(n.d.). Online Ministries - Creighton University. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 13, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/

(2016, February 1). St Thomas Aquinas: Does Creatio ex Nihilo Exclude an Everlasting .... Retrieved March 13, 2018, from https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/st-thomas-aquinas-does-creatio-ex-nihilo-exclude-an-everlasting-universe/

Faith signs and healing

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary take us from contemplation of an ancient apocalyptic description of abundant life as a gift of the universal God in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah

* [65:17–18] The new creation (cf. 66:22) is described with apocalyptic exuberance: long life, material prosperity, and so forth. As the former events in 43:18 are to be forgotten, so also the new creation wipes out memory of the first creation.

to Jesus Word acting to response to the faith of a royal official to restore life to his son in the Gospel from John.

* [4:43–54] Jesus’ arrival in Cana in Galilee; the second sign. This section introduces another theme, that of the life-giving word of Jesus. It is explicitly linked to the first sign (Jn 2:11). The royal official believes (Jn 4:50). The natural life given his son is a sign of eternal life.

Source: https://salemnet.vo.llnwd.net/media/cms/CW/Couples/singles/32425-womaninfield-lavendar-sunset.1200w.tn.jpg

George Butterfield confesses his belief that sometimes God blesses us with signs and wonders. He asks can we trust the words of God, whether or not we ever experience miracles?  His faith is that God is gracious and gives us what we need.

Don Schwager quotes Gregory the Great, 540-604 A.D, to address the question of why the one who had come for a cure heard the words 'Unless you see signs and portents, you do not believe.'

"Why, then, did he hear the words 'Unless you see signs and portents, you do not believe,' when he believed before he saw the sign? But recall what he was asking, and you will see that his faith was in doubt. He asked Jesus earnestly to come down and heal his son. He was asking for the physical presence of the Lord, who is nowhere absent in his spirit. He had little faith in one he thought could not heal unless he was physically present. If he had believed completely, he would have known that there was no place where God was not present. He was considerably distrustful, then, since it was not the Lord’s greatness he esteemed but his physical presence. He sought a cure for his son even though his faith was in doubt, since he believed that the one he had approached had the power to cure, and yet he thought he was not with his dying son. But the Lord whom he asked to come revealed that he was not absent from the place he was invited to. He who created everything by his will performed the cure by his command alone." (excerpt frpm FORTY GOSPEL HOMILIES 28.24)

Friar Jude Winkler shares background on Trito isaiah, likely written after 539 BCE, in which a universal restoration by the God of all people (Universalism) is described. He notes the parallelism in the Gospel of John between the healing of the official’s son and the raising of Lazarus. The little healing is matched with the restoration of life.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, explains the connectedness understood by St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a Doctor of the Church, who recognized that the human person is a microcosm with a natural affinity for or resonance with its macrocosm, which many call God.



She also saw an inherent connection between the physical world and the divine Presence. This connection translates into energy that is the soul and seed of everything, an inner voice calling you to “Become who you are; become all that you are.” This is our “life wish” or what Carl Jung called the “whole-making spirit.”Hildegard said, “O Holy Spirit, you are the mighty way in which everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.”

Christa Black Gifford is a dynamic worldwide speaker, worship leader, and bestselling songwriter who lives, as a Christian, with a broken, bleeding heart as a consequence of the death of her daughter.

After years of living as a Christian with a broken, bleeding heart that continued to spew out all sorts of unpleasant things, I finally uncovered a mine of precious jewels that seemed too good to be true, but actually was true. And it began with a Holy Spirit–guided journey to the center of my truest self—the heart that Jesus loved so much that He died to live inside of it. I realized that in order to find out what it meant to live each moment from my inheritance of wholeness, I needed to learn how to let the Healer make me whole. And in order to do that, I had to let Him have full access to every emotion, every trauma and shameful truth.

Our deep resonance with life means, as Fr. Richard Rohr reminds the Nature is not a mere scenic backdrop so humans can take over the stage. Creation is in fact a full participant in human transformation, since the outer world is absolutely needed to mirror the true inner world. There are not just two sacraments, or even seven; the whole world is a sacrament!

References


(n.d.). Isaiah, chapter 65 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/isaiah/65

(n.d.). John 4. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/john4.htm

(n.d.). Online Ministries - Creighton University. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/

(2016, June 10). How God Can Make You Whole Again -Spiritual Living, Christian Faith. Retrieved March 12, 2018, from https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/how-god-can-make-you-whole-again.html

Looking deep for beauty truth and love

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today highlight truth love and soul as aspects of our connection to God who gives us an invitation to an eternal relationship.

The passage from 2nd Chronicles reviews the history of the relationship of God with Israel and the difficulties encountered by the people when they had forgotten God.

* [36:22–23] These verses are identical with those of Ezr 1:1–3a and were to prevent the work from ending on a note of doom.

In the text from Ephesians, Paul speaks of justification: by grace, through faith as the gift of God and not from works.

* [2:1–10] The recipients of Paul’s letter have experienced, in their redemption from transgressions and sins, the effect of Christ’s supremacy over the power of the devil (Eph 2:1–2; cf. Eph 6:11–12), who rules not from the netherworld but from the air between God in heaven and human beings on earth. Both Jew and Gentile have experienced, through Christ, God’s free gift of salvation that already marks them for a future heavenly destiny (Eph 2:3–7). The language dead, raised us up, and seated us…in the heavens closely parallels Jesus’ own passion and Easter experience. The terms in Eph 2:8–9 describe salvation in the way Paul elsewhere speaks of justification: by grace, through faith, the gift of God, not from works; cf. Gal 2:16–21; Rom 3:24–28. Christians are a newly created people in Christ, fashioned by God for a life of goodness (Eph 2:10).

The famous Gospel passage John 3:16 speaks of Jesus as a gift in the incarnation and in the crucifixion.

* [3:16] Gave: as a gift in the incarnation, and also “over to death” in the crucifixion; cf. Rom 8:32.

Edward Morse alerts us to unlikely sources of mercy and initial interpretations.

Today’s gospel reading contains a famous passage from John’s gospel — John 3:16 — which many know by heart.  It is part of a larger narrative in which Jesus tells Nicodemus about his saving mission. I once read this passage as validation of the prominent role of faith in our salvation, but I now see that works matter, too.  Indeed, this gospel warns those who think they can believe but persist in doing wrong.
Our faith should not stay in our head.  It should be reflected in our hearts, arms, legs, fingers, and toes as we do works that proceed from love of God and love of neighbor, which St. Augustine

Don Schwager believes that If our love is guided by what is true, and good and beautiful then we will choose for God and love him above all else.

Hilary of Poitiers, 315-367 A.D.
"God, who loved the world, gave his only begotten Son as a manifest token of his love. If the evidence of his love is this, that he bestowed a creature on creatures, gave a worldly being on the world's behalf, granted one raised up from nothing for the redemption of objects equally raised up from nothing, such a cheap and petty sacrifice is a poor assurance of his favor toward us. Gifts of price are the evidence of affection: the greatness of the surrender is evidence of the greatness of the love. God, who loved the world, gave no adopted son but his own, his only begotten [Son]. Here is personal interest, true sonship, sincerity; not creation, or adoption, or pretence. Here is the proof of his love and affection, that he gave his own, his only begotten Son." (excerpt from ON THE TRINITY 6.40.27)

Mary M. McGlone invites us to look at our prayer, our belief and our life and to ask ourselves: How does our prayer form our belief? What image of God is in our heart when we hear that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son? And perhaps most importantly, how is our prayer and our image of God made manifest in our daily interactions?


On this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we are invited to look at our prayer, our belief and our life and to ask ourselves: How does our prayer form our belief? What image of God is in our heart when we hear that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son? And perhaps most importantly, how is our prayer and our image of God made manifest in our daily interactions?
When Jesus speaks of his being lifted up as our salvation, as a light and a path to life, we begin to realize that he is talking about the cross as the ultimate revelation of love. Instead of compensating to God for human sin, Jesus reveals God's self-offering to humanity, God's unceasing love. No matter what we do to reject that love, God continually offers us eternal life. All we have to do is accept it.

Friar Jude Winkler reviews the quick overview of how God heard and rescued the people of Israel in Chronicles. The free gift from God who knows our sinfulness yet nevertheless plans to rescue us as John declares in the Gospel.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, quotes Pope Francis and “geologian” Fr. Thomas Berry about the theology of scarcity that led us to believe that we did not have enough love left to cover all of humanity!

When you love something, you grant it soul, you see its soul, and you let its soul touch yours. You must love something deeply to know its soul. Before the resonance of love, you are largely blind to the meaning, value, and power of ordinary things to “save” you—to help you live in union with the source of all being. In fact, until you can appreciate and even delight in the soul of other things, even trees and animals, I doubt if you have discovered your own soul either. Soul knows soul.

References


(n.d.). 2 Chronicles, chapter 36 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/2chr/36:162

(n.d.). Ephesians, chapter 2 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/ephesians/2

(n.d.). John 3:16-17. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/john3.htm

(n.d.). Online Ministries - Creighton University. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2018, March 10). Fourth Sunday of Lent: Living in God's love | National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/scripture-life/fourth-sunday-lent-living-gods-love

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 11, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/

Attitude reversal

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today explore some attitude reversals that will help us grow in holiness. The Prophet Hosea points to the fickle piety of the people of Israel. In the Gospel from Luke Jesus tells a parable of the true righteousness in a humble prayer for mercy. Mary Lee Brock is challenged by the declaration of Pope Francis to explore her identity as a sinner. Don Schwager offers his prayer and a reflection of Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D. Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, quotes Pope Francis in Laudato Si on an attitude of the heart which is capable of being fully present to someone.

Resonance and Results

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today connect a resonance of love and compassion, a discipline of daily prayer, and results in an attitude of nonviolence toward all God’s Creation.

Care for Creation

The poetry of Hosea invites a change of heart in an abandonment of the previous ways of conflict.

* [14:4] These good intentions promise a reversal of Israel’s sins: no more reliance on “Assyria,” i.e., on foreign alliances (see notes on 8:9 and 12:2), on “horses,” i.e., on human power (10:13), and on idolatry (8:4–6; 13:2). Israel will trust in the Lord alone.

Psalm 81 captures the otherness of the Word of God and how it resonates with our being.

* [81:7] I heard a tongue I did not know: a Temple official speaks the word of God (Ps 81:5b–16), which is authoritative and unlike merely human words (cf. Nm 24:4, 16).

In the Gospel from Mark, the response of Jesus to the question of the scribe strikes a note of deep wisdom in which Jesus commends the closeness of His interrogator to the Truth.

* [12:13–34] In the ensuing conflicts (cf. also Mk 2:1–3:6) Jesus vanquishes his adversaries by his responses to their questions and reduces them to silence (Mk 12:34).

Larry Gillick, S.J. reflects that the faithful Jew (to the Shema) recalls often the unique relationship God has with him/her. As a consequence, loving that God will be a “want-to” rather than a “Have-to.” The more we experience being loved, the less loving is burdensome.

Jesus then reminds the scribe, and us as well, that the love of God is more than a personal validation or embrace or a celebration of singularity. We are so selective about many things and unfortunately about many other persons. We pray these days of Lent to expand our personal boundaries, but not with walls, but welcomes, not with “who can make us greater,’ but “to whom can we reveal the same saving-love of the One God, Our God, the God of us all?"
Listen! Listen! Listen to who we are. Listen to who she is, he is. We are not, the others are not, objects to be selected/rejected, but similar “others” whom God loves as well.

Don Schwager quotes Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D., on the fire of God's love.

"Gravity keeps everything in its own place. Fire climbs up, while a stone goes down. Elements that are not in their own place are restless until they find it. This applies also to us. My weight is my love; wherever I go, I am driven by it. By the love of God we catch fire ourselves and, by moving up, find our place and our rest." (excerpt from Confessions 13,9)

Friar Jude Winkler develops the case for the Incredible compassion of God to the people of Israel and how they will be restored though they do not deserve it. The Shema Israel commits our intellect, our persecution, our clear conscience, and our possessions for the Lord. Jesus extends our commitment to loving the other as ourselves.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, exhorts us to live nonviolently—both toward humans and nature— This requires that we recognize God’s image in each living thing. He shares thoughts from friend and nonviolent activist John Dear’s new book, They Will Inherit the Earth.

This is the journey we are all called to live, to make the connection between active nonviolence and oneness with creation, so that we all might dwell peacefully in this paradise. . . . I [see] not just the vision of peace and nonviolence, but the vision of a new creation, where we all live as one in peace with one another, Mother Earth and her glorious creatures. It’s that vision of peace, nonviolence, and the new creation, the vision of the promised land before us, the practice of proactive nonviolence, that offers a way out of environmental destruction, as well as permanent war, corporate greed, systemic racism, and extreme poverty.

The recognition by the scribes of the wisdom of Jesus is a place for us to begin to deepen our commitment to action in His Name.

References:


(n.d.). Hosea, chapter 14 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 9, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/hosea/14

(n.d.). Psalms, chapter 81 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 9, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/psalms/81

(n.d.). Mark, chapter 12 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 9, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/12

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 9, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 9, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/

Threats to our openess

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today remind us of three attitudes; turning our back, hardness of heart, and creating division, with which we may find ourselves separating from others.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/truusbobjantoo/

Jeremiah found the rulers of Judah did not obey God but looked backwards rather than forward.

In the Gospel from Luke, Jesus point to the lack of logic in the attempts of the religious authorities to discredit Him.

* [11:19] Your own people: the Greek reads “your sons.” Other Jewish exorcists (see Acts 19:13–20), who recognize that the power of God is active in the exorcism, would themselves convict the accusers of Jesus. See also note on Mt 12:27.

Andy Alexander, S.J. suggests how we might be more attuned to the everyday threats to our openness to God's liberating grace.

If I were the Evil Spirit, that's exactly what I would do. This is so effective. In the presence of anything that is truly blessed by Jesus' liberating love, there's nothing better the Evil Spirit can do than to create a diversion by saying the Healer himself is evil. It's the signature, the calling card, of the Prince of confusion.
If the Evil Spirit can get people to demonize each other, the work of Jesus will be frustrated. If suspicion and distrust can be sown, what room could there be for compassion and love? Hard hearts find it very difficult to be moved by devotion, to be filled with gratitude, or to seek the path of peace and reconciliation.

Don Schwager offers a prayer and the wisdom of Augustine in how to avoid conflict that divides.

"O Lord, our God, grant us, we beseech you, patience in troubles, humility in comforts, constancy in temptations, and victory over all our spiritual foes. Grant us sorrow for our sins, thankfulness for your benefits, fear of your judgment, love of your mercies, and mindfulness of your presence; now and forever."  (Prayer by John Cosin)

 "When we transform our old life and give our spirit a new image, we find it very hard and tiring to turn back from the darkness of earthly passions to the serene calm of the divine light. We must ask God to help us that a complete conversion may be brought about in us." (excerpt from Commentary on Psalm 6,5)

Friar Jude Winkler comments on the prophecy of Jeremiah that Judah would be punished for turning their backs on God. A kingdom divided against itself will not stand. Luke declares that we must choose Jesus or the evil one.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, writes that when we are connected, in right relationship, there is the life of God flowing freely, there is the authentic image or body of God revealed. This body is more a living organism than any formal organization, denomination, or church group.

As St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179, also a Doctor of the Church) writes:
Human beings alone are capable of disobeying God’s laws, because they try to be wiser than God. . . . Other creatures fulfill the commandments of God; they honor [God’s] laws. . . . But human beings rebel against those laws, defying them in word and action. And in doing so they inflict terrible cruelty on the rest of God’s creation.

Father Rohr reminds us that Jesus taught that if we would “first seek God’s Reign” (Matthew 6:33), and obey his command to “love God and love one another” (Matthew 22:37-40), all the rest would take care of itself. We would no longer defy the laws of nature but seek to live in harmony and sustainability with Earth and all her creatures.

References


(n.d.). Jeremiah, chapter 7 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 8, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/jeremiah/7:23

(n.d.). Luke, chapter 11 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved March 8, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/lk/11:3636

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 8, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 8, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/