Thoughts on Spiritual Living

 

Something of God is at Work in You

We have to learn to live fully in the present, because God is always the God of now, of here. The day in which we live is the day of the Lord. If anything is happening that is spiritually valid, it is happening here and now, at this moment. As you sit here. As you pray. It is always here. The great art of spiritual living is to pay attention to the breathing of the Spirit right where you are and to trust that there will be breathing of new life. The Spirit will reveal itself to you as you move on. That is the beauty of the spiritual life. You can be where you are. You don't have to be anywhere else. You can be fully present to the moment and trust that even in the midst of your pain, in the midst of your struggle, something of God is at work in you and wants to reveal itself to you. Be here. Be quiet. Listen.

“ At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do."   – Luke 10:21

Thoughts on light

 

Mark 4:21–25

Friends, today’s Gospel shows how the light of Christ affects our lives.  Well, light is wonderful in the measure that it illumines and brightens and delights. But light can also be disconcerting. Think of how bad most of us look in direct light! I discovered this while filming the CATHOLICISM series. I much prefer the indirect light that you can produce indoors. The full glare of the sun reveals every flaw, imperfection, and peculiarity of your face. Think of what happens when you suddenly shine a light into a dark corner in your basement or down a lonely alley. The bugs and the vermin reveal themselves. Unsavory things scurry about for cover, afraid of the light.  When you invite Jesus into your life, you are inviting the light into your life. Again, this is wonderful, but it is also frightening. Jesus will shine his light in every corner of your life, in every room of your house. Things that look okay in the dark or in the indirect light will suddenly stand out in all of their unpleasantness. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the conversion of Paul

 

Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle

Mark 16:15–18

Friends, today we reflect on the significance of the conversion of St. Paul. Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus was an answer to this question: When would God gather the nations and through Israel bring his rule to the whole world? When Paul met Jesus he realized that the promises of God had been fulfilled, that the expectations of the prophets had been met—but in a most unexpected and extraordinary way.  He knew from his tradition that God, through Israel, would deliver the world from sin, gather the nations, and establish peace and justice everywhere. That was the hope. The usual version of that hope was something like an avenging military/political ruler like Solomon or David, or a great lawgiver/leader like Moses.  What Paul saw in Jesus was someone greater than Moses, Solomon, or David—and someone wholly unexpected. God is establishing his justice, his right order, his way, through a crucified and risen criminal, and now returned from the dead? Forgiveness, compassion, nonviolence, having no truck with the ways of death? This is God’s justice, and it judges all of the fallen powers and kingdoms of the world. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on unity

 

This week’s Sunday Mass readings collectively represent a call to let go of old ways and embrace a new program for action.

The reading from the prophet Nehemiah describes the return of exiled Jews to their own ancestral land. They should be happy to be going home but are instead discouraged, finding the task of reestablishing life according to the Law of Moses an exhausting one.  Their leader, Ezra, reminds them that living by God’s Law should not be depressing but uplifting, because it gives people identity, dignity and purpose.

The conviction that we are energized when we recognize that God, not we, are in charge is found also in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  Paul is concerned that men and women are reluctant to use their gifts in service of the common good. Paul is also unhappy that they are reluctant to appreciate and encourage the personal gifts of each other. In response, Paul uses the metaphor of a body to underscore the unity among themselves which believers must have based on their relationship with Christ.  

What makes this new (and happier) way of living possible, of course, is the impact of Jesus on human history. As Jesus embarks on his public ministry, he explicitly links his mission to the great traditions of prophecy in Israel.  And he calls for a restructuring of the way people relate to one another.  

Jesus’s challenge is as valid for us today as it was during the years in which he walked the earth.  We know that even those who are committed followers of Jesus are often inclined to see others and their gifts more in terms of competition than of cooperation.  And too often, the excellence of the other person looks more like a threat than a promise.  Let us take to heart the “program for Christian life and action” as Paul and Jesus propose it, recognizing our own gifts and truly rejoicing in the gifts of others, so that we may more fully become the people that God desires us to be. 

-Fr. Frank Reale, SJ

Thoughts on discernment

 

God is active in daily life

Discernment is a spiritual understanding and an experiential knowledge of how God is active in daily life that is acquired through disciplined spiritual practice. Discernment is faithful living and listening to God's love and direction so that we can fulfill our individual calling and shared mission.

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn”   – Isaiah 51:1

More thoughts on healing

 

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

Mark 3:1–6

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus withstands the opposition of the Pharisees to heal a man with a withered hand.  His healings signify the arrival of the kingdom of God. When Jesus began to preach, his theme was that the kingdom of God is at hand. In his own person an entirely new way of ordering things was on offer. Then—in his love and nonviolence, in his confrontation with the Pharisees and religious establishment, in his healing and teaching—Jesus was demonstrating precisely what the reign of the God of Israel looks like. This way of life inevitably awakened the opposition of the powers that be. At the climax of his ministry, Jesus faced down the resistance of “the world,” to use the typical New Testament term, meaning that whole congeries of cruelty, betrayal, denial, violence, corruption, and hatred by which human affairs are typically ordered. He permitted all of that darkness to wash over him, to crush him, to snuff him out. But then, on the third day, he rose again from the dead in the power of the Holy Spirit, and thereby outflanked, outmaneuvered, and swallowed up the darkness. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Jesus as Lord

 

Memorial of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

Mark 2:23–28

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus acknowledges that he is “lord even of the sabbath.” And the claim of the first Christians was Iesous Kyrios—Jesus is Lord. This was bound to annoy both Jews and Gentiles. The Jews would be massively put off by the use of the term Kyrios in describing an ordinary human being. Moreover, the implication that this man was the Messiah of Israel—when he had died at the hands of Israel’s enemies—was simply blasphemous. And for the Greeks, this claim was subversive, for a watchword of the time was Kaiser Kyrios—the emperor is lord. A new system of allegiance was being proposed, a new type of ordering and lordship—and this was indeed a threat to the regnant system. Christians should enter the public arena boldly and confidently, for we are not announcing a private or personal spirituality, but rather declaring a new King under whose lordship everything must fall. If Jesus is truly Lord, then government, business, family life, the arts, sexuality, and entertainment all come properly under his headship. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on healing

 

First Week in Ordinary Time

Mark 1:29–39

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus heals many of the townspeople of Capernaum. His healing of physical ailments points to his spiritual healing—to his being the doctor of the soul. The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus’ healing encounters with those whose spiritual energies are unable to flow. Much of Jesus’ ministry consisted in teaching people how to see (the kingdom of God), how to hear (the voice of the Spirit), how to walk (overcoming the paralysis of the heart), and how to be free of themselves (so as to discover God). Jesus was referred to in the early Church as the Savior (salvator in Latin). The term speaks of the one who brings healing—indeed, our English word salve is closely related to salvus, meaning health. When the soul is healthy, it is in a living relationship with God. When the soul is sick, the entire person becomes ill, because all flows from and depends upon the dynamic encounter with the source of being and life who is God.  We heal the soul by bringing to bear the salvator, the healer, the one who in his person reconciled us with God and opened the soul to the divine power. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on being focused

 

A Focused Life

There is something of the wanderer and something of the person who just sits there in all of us. If you look at this world you might think, “I am so tired. There is so much fatigue, so much experience of heaviness in this world, that I find myself sometimes as a wanderer and sometimes as a sitter.” It is into this deeply tired world of ours that God sends Jesus to speak the voice of love. Jesus says, “Follow me. Don't keep running around. Follow me. Don't just sit there. Follow me.” The voice of love is the voice that can completely reshape our life from a wandering or just-sitting-there life to one that is focused and has a point to go to.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”   – Romans 12: 1, 2

More thoughts on Jesus' Baptism

 

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Luke 3:15–16, 21–22

Friends, this great feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a good time to reflect on the significance of the sacrament of Baptism. One of the earliest descriptions of Baptism in our tradition is vitae spiritualis ianua, which means “the door to the spiritual life.”  To grasp the full meaning of this is to understand something decisive about Christianity. For Christianity is not primarily about “becoming a good person” or “doing the right thing.” Let’s face it, anyone—pagan, Muslim, Jew, non-believer—can be any of those things. To be a Christian is to be grafted onto Christ and hence drawn into the very dynamics of the inner life of God. We don’t speak simply of following or imitating Jesus. We speak of becoming a member of his Mystical Body. Do you see why it is so important that we are baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”? For Baptism draws us into the relationship between the Father and the Son, which is to say, in the Holy Spirit. Baptism, therefore, is all about grace, our incorporation, through the power of God’s love, into God’s own life. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Baptism of Jesus

 

Gospel accounts of Jesus’ Baptism are quite brief, but behind them is a lot of history and imagery. Prior to Jesus’s entry, people were going to John in the wilderness and were being immersed by him in the river Jordan, from which they emerged as “baptized.”  This action evoked memories of the “baptism” which the Jewish people experienced in the time of Moses when they first entered the Promised Land.  Doing so, they emerged from slavery and homelessness and were re-established in their identity as God’s Chosen People.

In St. Luke’s gospel, we hear John the Baptist assert that it is not he but the Christ who is coming who will baptize with true authority and power.  Then, almost as an afterthought, we are told that Jesus was among those who submitted themselves to John’s baptism.   We are also told that as Jesus participated in this ritual of re-entrance into the vocation of Israel, the divine Spirit came upon him, and a heavenly voice named him as the beloved and favored Son.

The celebration of the baptism of Jesus is in large and practical sense the celebration of the Spirit of Jesus in which we his followers are called to live, today, right now.  As Jesus comes forth from the water, he undertakes a mission that will be fulfilled ultimately through others… and that includes us! It is a mission to bring the justice and peace, the love and mercy, of God to the peoples of the earth.  It is practiced by bringing those gifts to the people I encounter here and now, in my work, in my play, in my family, in the store, etc.

As we again thank God for the gift of the Savior and his saving mission, we might consider two questions: (1) In what ways do I know myself as beloved of God, the object of God’s delight?; and, (2) Experiencing myself as “favored,” what gifts is the Spirit prompting me to use to foster the mission of Jesus, his Beloved Son, among those whose paths will cross my own today? 

-Fr. Frank Reale, SJ

Thoughts on the Feeding of the 5000

 

Mark 6:34–44

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the five thousand. There is no better exemplification in the Scriptures of what I have called the loop of grace. God offers, as a sheer grace, the gift of being, but if we try to cling to that gift and make it our own, we lose it. The hungry people who gather around Jesus in this scene are symbolic of the hungry human race, starving from the time of Adam and Eve for what will satisfy. In imitation of our first parents, we have tried to fill up the emptiness with wealth, pleasure, power, honor, the sheer love of domination—but none of it works, precisely because we have all been wired for God and God is nothing but love. It is only when we conform ourselves to the way of love that we are filled. Thus, the five loaves and two fish symbolize that which has been given to us, all that we have received as a grace from God. If we appropriate it, we lose it. But if we turn it over to Christ, then we will find it transfigured and multiplied, even unto the feeding of the world. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Epiphany

 

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Matthew 2:1-12

Friends, the story of the Magi told in today’s Gospel is a summary of the principal dynamics of the spiritual life. Watching the night sky with scrupulous attention for signs of God’s purpose, the Magi evoke the importance of alertness in the spiritual order. We must keep our eyes open to see what God is up to.  Once they saw the star, they moved, despite the length of the journey. Sometimes people know what God wants them to do, but they don’t act, either out of fear, laziness, or the influence of bad habits. The Magi teach us to move.  When they spoke to Herod of the birth of a new King, he tried to use them to destroy the baby. When you walk the path that God has laid out for you, expect opposition.  The wise men came to Bethlehem and gave the child their precious gifts. When you come to Christ, break open the very best of yourself and make it a gift for him.  Finally, they returned to their home country by another route. As Fulton Sheen commented so magnificently: of course they did; for no one comes to Christ and goes back the same way he came! Bishop Robert Barron

What are we looking for?

 

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious

John 1:35-42

Friends, in today’s Gospel, two of John the Baptist’s disciples follow Jesus and encounter him. Jesus’ question to the two young men—“What are you looking for?”—is an indispensably important one. Many people go through life not really knowing what they most fundamentally want, and accordingly, they drift. The correct answer to Jesus’ question is “eternal life” or “friendship with God” or “holiness.” This is the simple, clear, unambiguous articulation of the end goal that any believer should have as he endeavors to lead his life. Now, other people may know more or less what they want spiritually, but they lack the courage and attention to pursue that end in the face of distractions and opposition. They know that they should be growing in holiness, but the secular culture proposes sex, pleasure, power, and honor so attractively that they lose their way. Or perhaps they receive withering criticism from those who are stuck in the old, standard way of life, and they give in. What are we looking for? Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Trinity

 

John 1:29-34

Friends, today’s Gospel contains the first biblical presentation of the Trinity. It happened during Jesus’ baptism. The Gospel of John doesn’t include all the details, but we learn in another Gospel that after Jesus was baptized, the sky opened and John the Baptist saw the Spirit of God descend like a dove and hover over him. With that, a voice from the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This is the first time in the Bible that the tri-personhood of God is on display, making it one of the most important theophanies in Scripture. In love, the Father sends the Son into godforsakenness, into the muddy waters of our own sin, and the Spirit is the love that connects the Father and Son, the love in which the Father sends and in which the Son is sent.  So now we see that the God who is just and demanding (and those both remain in place) is, through and through, love. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Magi

Many of us enjoy a good mystery novel, movie or TV show. As the story unfolds, we begin to wonder how it is going to work itself out, and indeed we often feel an increasingly intense “need to know” as the story develops.  One important criterion of this kind of storytelling is that the conclusion cannot come completely out of nowhere.  Even with false leads, the mystery’s conclusion is satisfying only if we have been given hints of the “truth” along the way.  Another criterion is that once the mystery has been revealed, the whole plot ought to make sense.

God, it seems, has been luring us all along with his own mystery.  This Sunday’s reading from Ephesians is just one of many times when St. Paul speaks of God’s mystery, a mystery, which contrary to expectation, reveals that non-Jews and Jews alike belong to the same body and are co-heirs and partners in Christ Jesus.

Of course, like any good mystery, hints were laid from the beginning.  For example, in the book of Genesis, we learn that all the families will be blessed through Abraham.  Isaiah the prophet -- who provides us with this Sunday’s 1st reading -- often declares that God’s salvation reaches to the ends of the earth.  While the glory and light for the world are centered on Israel, that light draws peoples from all the nations.

And that brings us to the Magi whose story is told in the Gospel.  Their journey from afar, and their worship of the newborn King, manifest that God’s universal salvation has indeed come.  While God’s desire that all peoples come to know him and be saved seems obvious to us, really integrating that truth into our hearts can be very challenging.  We may believe that everyone is created in God’s image and therefore cherished by God, but we still find ourselves putting others “on the margin,” outside the circle of those whom we love.  A great gift, a great epiphany, is to know the glory of God’s love revealed in everyone we meet.  It is truly a profound mystery which challenges us to make our love more like God’s. 

Fr. Frank Reale, SJ

Thoughts on the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Luke 2:16-21

Friends, today we celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. St. Irenaeus says that, throughout the history of salvation, God was trying on humanity, gradually suiting divinity and humanity to one another—preparing for the Incarnation. All of that preparation was a prelude to the Israelite girl who would say yes to the invitation to be the Mother of God. To say that Mary is the Mother of God is to insist on the density of the claim that God truly became human. As Fulton J. Sheen commented, Mary is like the moon, for her light is always the reflection of a higher light. Catholic theology has drawn a further implication from Mary’s status as Mother of God—her role as Mother of the Church. If she is the one through whom Christ was born, and if the Church is indeed Christ’s Mystical Body, then she must be, in a very real sense, the Mother of the Church. She is the one through whom Jesus continues to be born in the hearts of those who believe. This is not to confuse her with the Savior, but it is to insist on her mission as mediator and intercessor. Bishop Robert Barron