Follow Christ with Hope in the Future

Rembrandt's Emmaus

There’s a saying: “it’s better to light one candle...” Hopeful people can accomplish much, because they persevere, despite obstacles and setbacks, in achieving their goals.

Today's word of God, from one viewpoint, is about persistence.

Peter had denied he had been with Jesus, denied he was a disciple, denied he even knew Jesus.  But Peter suddenly realized what he did and wept bitterly. He begged forgiveness. He wanted to start afresh. Peter had fallen badly, but God lifted Peter up.

God continually lifts us up so that we can begin again to live a life worthy of our baptismal calling as sons and daughters of God our Father. God empowers us to persevere in becoming our true self, the very “likeness of God.”

In the Acts of the Apostles, a repentant Peter, on fire with the Spirit, fearlessly proclaims that Jesus, once crucified and now risen, lives and because he is gloriously alive, we live. That is the Easter message.

The letter of Peter explores perishable and imperishable things. Peter contends that perishable stuff like silver or gold didn’t free us from death. No! The imperishable blood of Jesus, the lamb of God, freed us death and nothingness so that we can be with God forever.

And so, with our eyes of faith fixed on this imperishable prize, God graces us to live like new creatures. Imagine: the awesome triune God dwells within us and we dwell within the triune God.  We are becoming new creatures, in the likeness of God!

The Gospel of Luke describes two disciples walking on their way to Emmaus. Even as they walked and talked with the resurrected Jesus, they didn’t recognize him at first. They’re disheartened.  Eventually in the breaking of the bread (the Eucharist) the two recognize with their eyes of faith the transfigured bodily reality of Jesus Christ.

God also reveals himself to us if we persistently seek God with faith. So seek God in prayer, and especially in the Mass. Seek God's wisdom in the Bible; ask his Spirit to guide us in trying to do the right thing; and become aware of God's presence in  our daily lives. 

The Bible highlights what God wants us to know about himself, his relationship with the universe, and his purpose for us. The Bible is not about scientific theories; it's about religious truths, communicated by many authors through the languages and literary forms with which they were familiar. At the heart of the Bible is Jesus, the incarnate Word of God,  who entered our history so that we could become “like God.” Jesus is the way into a glorious future, the exemplar or model or blueprint of our true self and the life in and through and with whom we breathe and live. We hear from God about baffling questions: Who really am I? What is the purpose of my life? How should I live?

Seeking requires persistence. We pray for the grace to seek God daily, to patiently listen to God especially in the sounds of silence. Jesus explains the importance of persistence. Keep on… Everyone who asks receives; and they who seek find; and to those who keep knocking, the door shall be opened. That’s what Luke, Chapter 11, verses 9 on is all about. I think of that great hymn “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

We may have doubts like the many heroes and heroines of Christianity. We may wonder, if I ask will I receive? Of course we should seek the right things. The point is: never give up seeking God, his grace and his Spirit.

Seek God enthusiastically in daily life. We are meant for something beyond getting and spending, beyond having a nice home, a big car. But what is that something we are meant for? The answer points us to a relationship with God; and out of that relationship with God will flow our love for others will flow: into our families, our friends and colleagues and our neighbors.

We have to pursue our ultimate purpose in life. Seek God daily, persistently, and enthusiastically and we will find God in all his fullness, and his life – divine life – will transform us into new creatures so that we can become "like God" and love and serve one another.

With Eyes of Faith

Presentation of the Child Jesus to God in Temple by Raphael

The Super Bowl gets plenty of attention each year. But Sunday Feb. 2nd we celebrated the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

In the readings, the author of the book of Malachi, in the fifth century BC, scolds leaders for their careless worship of God which jeopardizes the special relationship (or covenant) God made with the Hebrews centuries before. But God never reneges on his promises. God will send a messenger to prepare the way before him who will purify God’s people so that they can give true worship.

Malachi may challenge us to ask, what is leadership? I think of three ingredients, three Cs: character, courage, “can do”: Character, at our core, who we are at our core,  when no one is watching. Courage is moving beyond fears and doubts to achieve something worthwhile. Finally, leadership presumes a “can do” attitude. At different times, all of us are called to be leaders.

The Letter to the Hebrews describes how God became human in Jesus. Jesus is indeed the face of God among us. And through his death and resurrection, God gifts us with his divine life; we are brothers and sisters to one another and sons and daughters of God our Father. We are consecrated in baptism, sanctified, to be in relationship with God forever. Our faith in Jesus Christ proclaims that one day, God will transfigure us into a new heavenly life as God transfigured Jesus.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem, Simeon took Jesus into his arms, praised God and said, “My eyes have seen your salvation…a light….” Quite a recognition of a child for an old man.

At home in Nazareth, Jesus grew up--wise. His family was a vital factor in his human development. Even in his teens and “roaring 20s” Jesus prayed, studied and stayed close to family and to God.

More than two millennia later, Pope Francis urged that families develop “a healthy sense of leisure.” Yes, set aside time to do things, to communicate. Sundays are for family.  Enjoy one another's company, do things together whether is'a at a dinner table or in an outdoor/indoor activity.  Think positively about one another.

Someone wrote: “Twenty years from now we will be more disappointed by the things we didn’t do than by the ones we did.” Think about it. Don’t put off until tomorrow….

Remember, the BIBLE stands for Basic Information Before Leaving Earth. Do good now, not later. Life is not a rehearsal. It’s the “real thing.”

Jesus, and Mary, and Joseph lived a life as a family, a holy family, a life with no regrets.
May God on this feast of the Presentation of the Lord grace us: with trust in God’s unconditional love for us; with faith in Jesus Christ, as in the letter to the Hebrews, as our healer, our reconciler; and may God grace us, as He did Simeon and Anna, with the eyes of faith to see Jesus as our salvation, a light who illuminates our darkness.

Persevere in Prayer

The Bible Points to Jesus as THE Revelation of God

The word of God takes us back to a defining moment in the life of ancient Israel: the Exodus of the Hebrews from their oppressors. In the wilderness, the Hebrews encountered dangers everywhere. Here they are fighting. Moses, atop a hill, displays the staff of God, a symbol of God’s presence, and extends his hands, almost magically. Every time Moses lifts his hands up in prayer, the tide turns in favor of the Hebrews.

The message is simple: persevere in prayer, because God does hear us.

Paul here emphasizes the significance of the Bible and its importance in our lives. The Bible is the very breath of God which empowers us to be faithful disciples of Jesus.

In the Gospel according to Luke, the widow doesn’t give up in her demand for justice, and the judge eventually yields. The parable challenges us to persevere in doing what we can to right wrongs.

The Bible is a guide in life. Through the inspired word of God, it is a two-way conversation. We should be ever attentive and responsive to the word of God.

Yes, God authored the Bible in the sense that the Bible includes what God wants us to know about God, his relationship to the universe, and his purpose for us.

But the authors of the Bible were real authors, using the languages, images, literary genres, and worldviews they knew to communicate religious truths, not scientific theories. They knew nothing about evolution, the solar system, galaxies, or the International Space Station – which this past Friday conducted its first all-female spacewalk.

Moreover, the Bible is not one book, but a library of books written over 1,500 years by at least forty different authors—in prose and poetry, fiction and history, historical narratives and short stories, etc. The Bible often speaks symbolically, as in the parables of Jesus.

Just as we interpret literary genres differently, we have to interpret biblical literary genres differently, to discover more easily the fundamental religious truth that it is trying to communicate. The creation stories, for example, communicate religious truths. The biblical authors communicated through the cultural images and legends and traditions they knew.

I invite us to read the Bible prayerfully. Not to find specific answers to questions the biblical authors never thought about, but to become the kind of person for our day that Jesus was for his day.

The scriptures point to Jesus as the unique or definitive revelation of God to us. In other words, everything that God wanted to do for us or say to us, God did in Jesus. The Spirit in the global Catholic community guides us along the journey to our heavenly dwelling place, in light of new challenges in new generations and evolving cultures.

I invite us particularly to nourish our spiritual life through the Sunday readings in the Liturgy of the Word. We gather every Sunday in churches across the globe to listen to God in the Liturgy and to presence sacramentally and mystically Jesus Christ gloriously alive in the Eucharist, to become one with Him in Communion, and then to go forth to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ, until he comes again.

Saved by Hope

Rembrandt's Ascension

We have been celebrating the Easter Mystery these forty-some days: the death and resurrection of Jesus, today his ascension to our Father in glory, and next Sunday Pentecost or the descent of the Spirit upon the disciples. These are four different aspects of the one Paschal or Easter Mystery.

The ascension is Jesus’s final leave-taking so something awesome can happen. Let us take to heart Jesus’s parting words: “you will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth” Yes, Jesus leaves to us the mission of continuing God’s work on earth: proclaiming the good news to all.

The ascension connects the Gospel and the book of Acts which heralds the beginning of the church’s ministry.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to proclaim the good news to all people, and that Jesus, gloriously alive, will send the promise of God, the Spirit, so they can continue his saving ministry until he comes again at the end-time to transform this universe into a new, indescribable reality. And then Jesus was taken up into heaven; and the disciples were filled with hope.

Hope is a confident anticipation of something yet to come. Pope emeritus Benedict XVI captured its meaning magnificently in his encyclical Saved by Hope. This hope looks forward to seeing God as God really is—face-to-face.

Hope looks for the good. Hope discovers what can be done. Hope propels us forward.

History is filled with people of hope. One of my favorites is Helen Keller, who overcame physical obstacles that most of us can’t imagine. Here is a thought of hers that speaks of hope. Helen wrote, “When one door of happiness closes, another opens but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

Helen Keller also observed, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an unchartered land or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” We too, with a positive can-do spirit, can find a world of possibilities.

Hope points to the future. We are fascinated with the future. What will it be like? We see change everywhere. Some may not like it. But how react?

There is only one Christian response to the future: hope. Images of hope weave in and out of the bible. God by the power of the Spirit transformed the earthly Jesus into a heavenly Jesus. And Christ anticipates God’s future for all of us.

Yes, the universe in which we live has an ultimate purpose. Hope challenges us to do everything we can to usher in the future: always to be in relationship with God and in relationship with one another as compassionate, generous, forgiving and fair human beings. Above all, hope challenges us to reach out to that which alone is of everlasting value—the human person, the image of God, no matter how unkempt the appearance. In the end, all hope will be realized when the risen Christ, by the power of the Spirit, hands over the universe at the end of time to his heavenly Father.

May God fill us with hope this Ascension Day and every day.

Finding our Way to God

Doing good as long as ever you can

GPS apps are a splendid way to navigate, and to route around obstacles. It’s a powerful spiritual metaphor. We have a “voice” to guide us: our conscience, informed by the bible, the guidance of the church, and the wise counsel of holy women and men.

As I have learned to trust the GPS electronic voice while driving, so I need to learn to trust my informed conscience, as I navigate to my ultimate goal: eternal life with God.

Sunday’s word of God carries us back to a defining moment. Moses experiences the awesome presence of God in the image of “fire flaming out of a bush.” God reveals himself as the creator of this universe: “I am the one who causes to be all that is,” as one biblical author translated this mysterious phrase. And then God empowers Moses to free the Hebrews from their oppressors.

St. Paul, in his letter to the Christian community in Corinth, compares the Hebrew Exodus experience to our baptismal experience; just as God was a rock in the wilderness, out of which flowed life-giving waters, so too Christ is our rock, from whom comes our salvation, eternal life.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus deals with the question of evil. There is of course no satisfactory answer. Why mindless killings in New Zealand, why so many people suffering violence? Evil is ultimately a mystery.

And then Jesus speaks about a barren tree. The point of the parable: yes, God is patient, but God will hold each of us accountable for our life, our attitudes, and our behaviors. Jesus urges us to repent now, to turn to a God-centered/other-centered life. Yes, live in light of your ultimate purpose, life in relationship with God here and beyond.

Often people live in the future. Some imagine, My life will begin when I get a new job, when I rebuild my home, etc. Life will begin in the future? Naomi Levy, in her book Hope Will Find You, wondered, while caring for her critically ill daughter, when could she realize her dreams and goals. She wrote: “… just then something snapped inside my soul:…all of us have to learn to live inside the imperfect lives we have here and now.”

Lent is a time to re-assess our lives again, to decide what we believe to be truly important, and then act on these priorities now.

Our Christian faith proclaims that life has meaning, that there is indeed an all-good, compassionate, and merciful God who seeks us out in our everyday experiences. This God became incarnate in Jesus, and renewed God’s covenant with us through his death/resurrection and thereby opened up to us life beyond this earthly life. This same God is alive among us today by the power of the Spirit.

We can participate in God’s triune life: by regular prayer, by fasting from attitudes and behaviors that jeopardize our relationship with God and one another, and by living a life of generous service.


 

Best Friends Forever

DaVinci's Last Supper in Milan, Italy

It’s “back-to-school time.” I’m going to give you a 2-part quiz. Part 1:
Who were the last two teams to win the Super Bowl?
Name the two wealthiest people in the world (according to Forbes Magazine).
I didn’t get 100%. Now part 2:
Think of two teachers who made a difference for the better in your life.
Name two friends who helped you through a difficult time.
I bet you named people there.

The point is simple: we quickly forget "super bowl" headlines. However, we don't forget those “heroes and heroines” who mentored or coached us through challenges, and who helped us answer the question: what on earth am I here for.  That, my friends, is precisely what Jesus does: our way, our truth and our life.

In the Gospel according to John, Jesus says he is the bread of life who can transform us into new creatures. Elsewhere Jesus works a sign/a wonder: he multiplies the loaves and fish, sharing with the hungry crowd.

As a community of disciples, Jesus satisfies our spiritual hunger at the table of the Lord with the bread of life, the Eucharist.

Jesus is our rabbi/teacher who shows us purpose in life, to live in relationship with Gode and one another forever.  He is our trustworthy friend who is always with us especially as we face challenges. And he's our mentor who graces us so that we can become the best version of ourselves.

This living Christ invites us, so says John 15:15, to be “friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

Now, what is a friend? I recently came across a survey of 800 so-called young millennials. The results gave a snapshot of a lonely generation. Many had a large number of “Facebook friends” but still felt a sense of loneliness. Social media, of course, is no substitute for real, face-to-face friendships.

The Bible is very realistic about friendships. We see examples of relationships at their best, and also at their worst.

For me, friendships include at least three ingredients. First, partnerships. Jesus sent his disciples out two by two. From the beginning of Christianity, we see friends working together. Paul and Barnabas, for example, “dedicated their lives ... to Jesus Christ.” We read they had a disagreement, parted company. But in the providence of God, Barnabas found a new partner in Mark, Paul partnered with Silas, and they went “through Syria and Cilicia, bringing strength to the churches.” (Acts 15:41). Yes, value partnerships, in marriage, in work, in the community.

Second, nurture friendships. Martin Luther King Jr. gave some good advice about how to do this, reminding us: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.” Absolutely true in nurturing friendships.

Finally, make loyalty a priority.  If we sow loyalty, we will reap loyalty. We will even become trustworthy among those who aren't our friends.

Above all, think of Jesus as our best friend, soulmate and confidant, our kindly light forever.