Lent

Thursday, First Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for March 13, 2025

Esther C 12, 14-16, 23-25, Psalm 138: 1-3, 7-8, Matthew 7: 7-12

Today’s readings appear to be quite clear about what they are trying to tell us. Rely on God when you are in need, call to God for help and God will answer and turn your mourning into gladness. It is important for us to recognize our need for God. In more ways than we may care to admit we are dependent on God and should seek God’s help especially when we are desperate, feeling alone or overwhelmed. That is an important fact of the spiritual life.

However, the difficulty I think is we’ve all had times in which we needed help or wanted God to help someone who was clearly in need and the problem we faced wasn’t solved or the good we prayed for didn’t happen. So I think the question is, why does Jesus tell us in very plain language that “everyone who asks, receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened?” No doubt you have prayed for someone who was dying and they did not recover. You have prayed for people who needed food and assistance yet their needs went unmet. How are we to understand what Jesus and the Psalms say when we read, “I called for help and you answered me.”

I have often heard people try to deal with this situation by saying that God did answer their prayer but God said no. I think there are other ways to think about this that are closer to what our faith is trying to tell us.

Consider Deuteronomy 4:29-30, talking to the Jewish people, God’s chosen people, God says,

“When you have grown old, when you have grown corrupt, doing what Yahweh regards as wrong and so provoking his anger you will vanish from the country which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will be utterly destroyed. Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, only a small number will remain.

If however, from there, you start searching once more for Yahweh your God, if you search for him honestly and sincerely, you will find him. You will suffer everything I have said but in the final days you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice.”

 What this passage suggests is that God isn’t promising the Jewish people a rescue from their devastation, but rather an open door to welcome them home when they seek to be close to him.

I think that we have too readily thought of this asking, seeking and knocking in terms of our physical needs and current situation. I think what Jesus is talking about is deeper. His is a view to our outlook and attitude towards life, our trust in God. Will we be overwhelmed and give up or no matter what happens will we make the best of it? Even if “the best” means working through really difficult situations. I don’t think God promises us that life will be easy, or that he will rescue us from physical peril. I do think God offers us the chance for life to be rich, full of wonder, beauty and meaning. God says if we come looking we will find life offers us that outlook, a faith that allows us to see the big picture and be happy with our place in it. Isn’t that what we really want, a life of meaning, to see where good comes from. To know that we counted for something, that we made a difference in this world. I think we can all put up with difficult and even devastating times if we knew the result was worth it.

Let me give you one simple and concrete example. We’ve all seen stories on TV about the family whose house is destroyed but no one is hurt. All they can say is how glad they are that all the kids are OK and they’ll figure out what to do next because they’re so glad everyone is still together. That’s the kind of deeper meaning and values that are addressed by the seeking that Jesus is talking about. When everything has gone wrong with the way we think things should be and we can we still see that life itself is good and worth living then God has opened the door and we have been given what we were looking for.

Monday, First Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for Monday, March 10 2025

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18, Psalm 19:8-10, 15, Matthew 25: 31-46

Today’s readings are so straight forward we might be tempted to think there is nothing left to say. Leviticus is a list of rules of behavior, the Psalm says God’s laws are perfect and Matthew says at the end of time Christ will separate who goes to heaven from those who doesn’t.

I don’t think these readings are trying to frighten us into good behavior. Too often we focus on the last judgement scene and take it literally as what some future reality will look like. I think it’s more about recognizing that human behavior has consequences. It’s saying God values what people do. Our behavior is important in the grand scheme of things. What we do matters to how life turns out.

Leviticus itemizes a list of behaviors that are all about loving and respecting our fellow human beings. These are concrete practical statements about how to act. This list finishes with the command we all recognize because Jesus famously uses it to answer the Pharisee who asks what is the greatest commandment of the Law. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But this is not just a list of rules. It is an invitation by God for us to be holy. It’s in the second line of this reading, “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” God is saying be like me. Be my friend by doing what I do. Act this way because that’s how I act.

When we get to Matthew, we find out why in Leviticus God gave those guidelines, why it’s so important to love and care for our neighbor. The Son of Man explains, twice, once to the saved and again to the damned, that everything we do for or against others we do to the divine presence. God is here with us, a part of life in this world. That means everything we do in this life has ultimate consequences and importance. Each of us lives a life of value to God and therefore is significant to the life of the world. Each of us will make a difference with the life we live. The only question is what kind of difference. Today’s readings say we are invited to do what God does and be holy as God is.

Ash Wednesday

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for February 14, 2018

Joel 2:12-18, Psalm 51: 3-6, 12-14, 17, 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2,

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Is anyone confused by today’s gospel? Jesus says in three different ways, don’t parade your religious practices around for others to see: don’t trumpet your alms giving, don’t make a show of your praying, and when you fast don’t make it appear like you are fasting. Yet here we are at Ash Wednesday and many of us will receive a great big cross of ashes on our foreheads. That isn’t exactly praying behind closed doors where no one will see. You can be sure everyone is going to see ashes all over your forehead.

So why does this reading question public displays of almsgiving, prayer and fasting when that is exactly what Lent asks us to do? Perhaps this story of Jesus teaching about traditional acts of piety isn’t about being modest or unassuming in our religious practices?

The first thing I noticed when I spent time praying with this reading was the repetition of the word, hypocrites. We have three different religious practices, almsgiving, prayer and fasting. But we have one type of behavior that keeps getting criticized, being a hypocrite. Whatever Jesus may be saying about almsgiving, prayer and fasting we know he finds fault with hypocritical behavior.

Every time the almsgiving, prayer or fasting is secret or hidden, it is rewarded by God.  When it is done for others to see, it is considered hypocritical behavior. I think, Jesus is saying the key to the value of our actions is the attitude we have in doing it. Unlike the hypocrite, our thoughts, our feelings, the hidden inner, secret part of us should match what we do in the open.

Jesus isn’t promoting hiding our almsgiving but rather a giving to others that expresses our real concerns. Jesus isn’t against public prayer, he wants our prayer to be about who we are. Jesus isn’t worried people will know we are fasting, he wants us to fast as a way to focus on what we may too often ignore, those inner feelings or attitudes we hide even from ourselves. Jesus wants us to ask ourselves, are we hypocrites? Do we live based on what we believe? Or do we cover our true feelings with phony behavior? Perhaps, it is what we hide deep inside that should concern us most?

So how does Lent and receiving ashes today help? Why the emphasis on almsgiving, prayer and fasting during Lent? The practices of Lent are meant to break into our patterns of behavior. Just as Joel called for trumpets to blow, just as Paul said this was the day of salvation, we need something to get our attention. Coming to get ashes, not eating meat today and on Fridays in Lent, giving money or our time to others, adding a time to pray or changing how we pray during Lent gets our attention so we can practice doing what God’s asks of us. We are being asked to make it intentional so it can become part of who we are.

To use a baseball analogy, think of Lent as our annual spring training. Lent is about getting ready for the regular season. In every sport we understand that to play the game involves learning the skills, doing the drill to get it right. We need to practice what we are going to do during the game so it is part of us. Lent is practice for the game of everyday Catholic life.

We all know everyday life is responsible and rigorous. It is taking care of our children, making decisions at work, building loving relationships, figuring out what is the most important use of our time. The question Jesus poses is: will what we do each day match our Catholic faith? Will what we do, match our innermost feelings and attitudes? What we do with Lent could make a difference. Make the decision to do something different in Lent, put in the practice it takes to make a difference every day from now on.

Monday, 5th Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ 1 Comment

Scripture Readings for March 27, 2023

Daniel 13:1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62 or 13:41c-62, Psalm 23:1-6, John 8:1-11

There’s an amazing contrast in today’s readings. An innocent person and a guilty person are both saved by God’s actions. To make the contrast even more compelling it’s the same alleged crime, adultery. Committed supposedly by a member of the same powerless group of people, women. That is so clear and powerful we should stay with that and ask simply what that says to us?

God rescues both an innocent person and a guilty person. There’s a serious difference between guilt and innocence but God’s action is the same. That tells us something wonderful about God. God’s love and mercy are real and clearly beyond our typical understanding. All of which suggests should we take it at face value. We need to accept that God’s care, love and actions are there to support us not condemn us. We can read Psalm 23 and believe what is said.

Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff that give me courage.

The challenge, of course, is our own feelings. Guilt, shame, perhaps righteous indignation at things we’ve experienced or seen. We need to remember we aren’t God. Whatever stuff we have to deal with has to be faced honestly, openly and with the other people involved. Both the stories in Daniel and John’s Gospel occur in public settings. We can’t solve our issues or deal with the feelings that divide us by ourselves brooding alone or ranting about injustice. This is conversation time that has to be thoughtful and compassionate. Daniel makes everyone go back to court and Jesus takes his time writing in the sand. Both then ask questions of the accusers that reveal the hidden truth, the hidden agenda in each situation.

I think a similar setting is required to get out from under our own fears and uncertainties. Can we ask for help? Can we face the challenge of revealing the feelings that need to be out in the open? I think it’s the only way to eventually accept ourselves as we are, just as God already does. Guilty or innocent isn’t the issue. Love and acceptance are.

Wednesday, 4th Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ 1 Comment

Scripture Readings for March 22, 2023

Isaiah 49:8-15, Psalm 145: 8-9, 13cd-14, 17-18, John 5:17-30

These readings are about the basics of our faith, the foundational principles we should never forget. In Isaiah, God is speaking about loving the people of God no matter what, bringing them back to an ideal world. The Psalm is about God’s mercy and how God is always with us. Finally, John’s Gospel makes clear that Jesus is God’s very presence among us doing God’s work.

It’s easy to forget some of this, to let the prescriptive rules of Lent or what was often a church culture that emphasized penance and the examination of our consciences to avoid sin push us down the rabbit hole of doubt, worry and fear. Rather we need to hear today’s readings and take them to heart.

God’s message has always been one of hope beginning with the idea that we are not left to our own devices. Isaiah uses the extreme example that even if a mother were to abandon her child God will not abandon us. Jesus in John’s Gospel makes clear he does nothing on his own. What Jesus, a living breathing human being from the little town of Nazareth, does is the work God is doing. The person of Jesus is a message to us about how close God is to our lives. We do not operate on our own much as we might think we do. The question is, can we hear what God present in the world around us is trying to say? Can we read Isaiah and accept the possibility of a road, a pathway that cuts through the mountains of challenges, the stacks of worry, the treacherous terrain of life and provides the refreshing spring of water that satisfies our thirst?

Today’s Gospel is filled with statements of how Jesus does what God does, how Jesus can give life just as God gives life, how believing in Jesus takes a person from death to life. This is all about how God’s presence in Jesus, God’s presence in the world, is transformative and can make all things new here in this world, in this life. That is the promise of the Christian faith that we should believe.

In general, the problem for us is we are often coming from a place where we struggle, falter and fail to live as we have hoped. We can feel guilty for little and big things. It all can become a problem, a burden that feels too big to solve. Which is where today’s Psalm can help remind us of God’s mercy.

The LORD supports all who stumble and lifts up all who are bowed down.

The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call on him from the heart.

No matter how off the path we might go, God, the one as near to us as ourselves, still loves and accepts who are and is ready for us let go of whatever is doing the damage.

It is today’s Psalm that perhaps best captures the message:

The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.

To this message of love and mercy we add, the element expressed in today’s Gospel, “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” God is still at work. Jesus is still at work. John is trying to tell us that the world is not finished but still being created by all who live in it. Because it’s a joint project, God and all God’s creation. We, with God, are creating that wonderful world Isaiah foresees and it’s to be done with compassion, graciousness and mercy supplied by God so we can try and try again, do better and find our path to a space of peace and joy.

Tuesday, Fourth Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for March 13, 2018

Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12; Psalm 46:2-3,5-6,8-9, John 5:1-16

Every time I read this passage from Ezekiel I love the image. The water that flows from the temple gets deeper and deeper, wider and wider and transforms the desert into a place of abundance even changing the salt water in the sea into fresh. It suggests to me the abundance that comes from God. It says abundance is what God wants for us. A place where there is new fresh fruit every month.

I believe the challenge for us to recognize the gift and appreciate the source. Clearly according to the Gospel not everyone is willing to rejoice over good things. A man who has been lame for 38 years is cured but Pharisees are angered because he picks up his mat on the Sabbath. It makes me wonder if there are good things that we miss because we’re too focused on something else. Are there things we decide are wrong, over react to, while good stuff escapes our notice? I know my personal issue is poor driving behavior. I can become obsessed with other drivers for not following the rules of the road. This includes when people stop the flow of traffic to let others in or let other cars turn into traffic before making their left turn off the road. They are probably trying to be nice. Sometimes I can let it go but other times I find myself upset that they are making up their own rules. So this is a very odd little example but I want to suggest that we all have things that we think of as right. We would say this is the way it’s supposed to be and that righteous attitude blocks our ability to actually experience the fullness of what is happening at the time. I suspect we all have some attitudes like that. The question is, if we can box ourselves in with petty little concerns like that, could we also be missing the big picture? When do our pre-conceptions interfere with what else might be happening. More simply, are we too quick to judge. Do we need to be more open?

I know of only one way to go after this kind of thing. Prayer. Praying to God about all of our life and its experiences. Talking to God and then listening to God’s response. We’re in Lent so this is a great time to put aside some additional time to spend in prayer. Maybe a kind of prayer we haven’t tried before. If you are a rosary person try praying with scripture. If you are great with scripture start examining your everyday experiences and talking to God about them. If you do lots of conversational prayer try the rosary as a meditation. In the end, it is about spending time with God so we can see the world in which we live as a person who has a deep trust in God’s involvement in our life and the lives of everyone around us.

If we’re going to get better at recognizing this world in all its aspects as something God gives us every day we have to spend more time deepening our relationship with God. Because on our own we’ll just reinforce our own prejudices. We’re like the lame man by the pool for 38 years, until Jesus comes along he can’t make it to the healing water in time. Jesus is the one who can heal us. Time spent in prayer is the flowing water that will wash us, heal us and quench our thirst.

Monday, Third Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for March 5, 2018

Kings 5: 1-15, Psalm 42: 2-3, 43: 3-4, Luke 4: 24-30

These two readings try to tell us that God’s loving care is extended to everyone, that God doesn’t play favorites. There is no “inside track” for some people to be in God’s favor while others are on the outside.

Since Nazareth was Jesus’ hometown the townspeople no doubt thought that they had a real “inside track.” Surely Jesus would do some spectacular miracles here just as they had heard he had done in other places. But that isn’t what Jesus talks about, instead he reminds them of the Hebrew scripture stories in which God had saved and healed outsiders, people who were not Jews, who were not “the chosen people.” They got so angry they tried to throw him down the hill.

This is not so different from our first reading. Naaman wants to be cured of his leprosy. This is obviously a big deal and Naaman wants Elisha to make it a big deal by a special display of invoking God. He is looking for something extraordinary just as the people of Nazareth were looking for something spectacular. They both want contact with God to be something special, to be “out of the ordinary.” Instead both these stories say God’s presence is available to everyone which means its available everywhere, in all the ordinary aspects of daily life. We don’t have to be special to get God’s attention.

What we have to ask ourselves is, in what ways are we acting like the Nazareans and Naaman? Do we expect God to be a spectacular, extraordinary God? Can we envision a God that is part and parcel of everyday life? Does God act in our everyday life or do we save God for special concerns, dire circumstances and times when there is nowhere else to turn? Is God our personal safety valve?

Instead, can God become, for us, our companion? Someone with whom we talk over how our day went. Someone to be consulted when we find ourselves confused or worried. Someone with whom we share good news and surprises. Someone we just spend time with, as the kids would say, hang-out together?

These readings suggest that God is a lot more available than we might think. Remember who pointed out to Naaman that he would have done anything extraordinary that the prophets asked? It was his servants who “reasoned with him” so that he would follow Elisha’s instructions. And who was telling the people of Nazareth that the day of God’s favor had dawned on them. The home town boy, the one they all knew from when he was a kid. These are the people we least expect to carry the wisdom we are seeking. It suggests that God is embedded in the ordinary things and people we live with every day.

In Church language we say God is immanent. It is also called the sacramental principle. God is here with us in the concreteness of our lives. It’s why we have Lenten practices that are concrete things to do. Pray more, give to the poor, sacrifice something you like. In other words, do something that changes, even in a little way, the way you live. If you make real changes, even little ones, you will be changed as well. If we don’t start with the little stuff, we’ll be waiting for some spectacular event, some fireworks, something big to make it obvious what we should do. We want the big event to make the change for us.

Today’s readings say, the spectacular isn’t going to happen. Not because God isn’t offering us the salvation, the care and the love we are looking for but because we are looking for God in the wrong places. Look at home, look at family, look at work, look at friends, that’s where you will find God and all God’s blessings.

Tuesday, Second Week of Lent

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Scripture Readings for February 27, 2018

Isaiah 1:10, 16-20, Psalm 50:8-9, 16-17, 21, 23, Matthew 23:1-12

When I first read today’s readings my reaction was, boy this is really heavy Lenten stuff. The readings present a clear challenge of turning our lives around. Turning from bad behavior to good behavior. But then I got defensive about it, I don’t know that my behavior is all “that bad”. I don’t think I have lots of really crimson sins or scarlet letters that need wiping away. Getting defensive kind of stopped me. Then after a little bit of time I read it again.

This time I noticed the very first words of Isaiah, “Hear the word of the Lord” and I noticed that what the Lord was saying was, “Come now, let’s set things right.” I realized that the readings weren’t so much about us and what we may or may not have done in the past. These readings are about moving forward and how God views our lives. When Isaiah talks about crimson red becoming white as snow or scarlet becoming white as wool it seems to me he is talking about the change itself. The subject is who we are now and not what we have done in the past. It suggests that what is important is our responding to God in this moment regardless of past behavior. That’s why even the worst of sins, those crimson and scarlet things, can become white as snow, because God wants us to be part of God’s plan, part of God’s life right now and going forward.

I think the message here is God doesn’t carry a grudge but makes all things new in this moment. We simply have to listen to God’s instruction today and respond. To do otherwise is to give past behavior power over our present. Worry and guilt about what we’ve done or should have done creates a burden God doesn’t see. It’s why Jesus in the Gospel is so hard on Pharisees and Scribes because they had gotten all caught up in what is required, rules that meant listening more to other people instead of God. As leaders they worried about what other leaders would say, they looked for approval from others and therefore became more concerned about how things looked than for the real needs of other people. They were being hypocrites, betraying their tradition by letting the past tradition supplant what God was doing in the current moment, what people needed right now.

So Jesus’ advice is that we simply work together as servants of each other to help where needed, since none of us has the final answer or the ultimate truth. Our challenge is to “hear the word of the Lord”. That word can come to us in lots of ways: a reading from Scripture, a surprising family situation, a person in need, a friend offering to help. Life itself presents God’s word to us and we have to be ready to grasp it and respond. We have to do what the Psalm says, “Go the right way” and I would add, do it right now. Go the right way, right now. In the present moment respond to what God is asking of us and don’t worry about what came before. When we do that it will be like we wash ourselves clean and as our Psalm says, encounter “the salvation of God.”

 

Tuesday of Holy Week

~ Retired Bill ~ Leave a comment

Today’s Scripture Reading

Isaiah 49:1-6, Psalm 71:1-6, 15, 17 John 13:21-33, 36-38

We are in the midst of Holy Week. This week contains the events that are the core of our faith. Jesus goes to Jerusalem to announce the coming of God’s reign and the authorities are so challenged by him that they successfully organize his death on the cross. What looked like the end of Jesus turned out to be the beginning of God’s reign, where life triumphs over death.

However, the story of Holy Week is more than a retelling of an historical event. It is God trying to tell us something about what God wants. So let’s begin with the first reading which is part of the scriptural groundwork for the events of Holy Week. Today’s reading from Isaiah is the second of four descriptions of the servant of God. We hear Isaiah tell of the servant being called from the womb from the very beginning of life, about being formed as a weapon of God, about calling Israel back to God, about toiling in vain but then with God as his strength being a light for the world. As Christians we have come to apply all this to Jesus as the ideal servant of God. That certainly is a valid understanding. However, I want you to notice that this section is written in the first person with only the end being the voice of God. What I want you to consider is that the wording makes it easy to apply what is said to the reader, to each of us. The reading says, “The Lord called me.” We need to take that seriously, each one of us. We are the ones who God has honed into a sharp edged sword and protected so we could bring distant peoples back to God. We have been made glorious in the sight of the Lord and God is our strength. The scriptures always tell us what God wants for each of us. Jesus is the perfect example of what Isaiah is describing but it didn’t end with Jesus. If it had we wouldn’t be believers today. We are the people of far distant lands. From Jerusalem, Massachusetts is pretty much the end of the earth. Jesus was only the first of the servants of God, we need to continue what has been passed on to us. We need to hear Isaiah and John as a personal message directed at us.

So if we accept that Isaiah is calling us to be a light to the nations and continue to spread God’s salvation what can we take from today’s Gospel? I think it offers a view of the challenge of following Jesus. Judas and Peter have both been with Jesus as part of his inner circle of Twelve closest supporters. Individuals Jesus called personally, just like God has called each us to believe in Jesus. Yet now when Jesus is in Jerusalem to confront the seat of Jewish faith and to call them to reform, Judas can’t go along. He decides to abandon Jesus. He chooses another path. Peter on the other hand when confronted with the challenge of an unknown journey says he is ready for anything, even death to support Jesus.

I think we face these kinds of decisions all the time in our lives. We’re not sitting in a room with Jesus as he eats with us but we come to be fed by him and believe he shows us the way to a better life. The question is, can we be faithful, will we stay the course as events present themselves in our lives. We probably aren’t going to turn our backs on Jesus as Judas did. But it may be hard to remember that grand enthusiastic acts aren’t the answer either. Everyday decisions at home and at work may say more about the kind of person we are. We know Peter denied Jesus three times the same night he promised to fight to the death for him. So we may not always follow through as we would like but Peter is a great example of the ability to accept forgiveness and stay the course. We need not give up because at times we fail. Rather we should take to heart what Isaiah says, “Though I thought I have toiled in vain, and for nothing, spent my strength … I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord and God is now my strength.” We need to consider that we were made from the beginning to be servants of God, precious in God’s sight, formed and called by God. Can we accept God’s call? Can we see ourselves as precious and will we say, “Yes, I’ll try.”