Thoughts on Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is kind of an “in between” day. Yesterday, Jesus was put to death. Tomorrow, he will rise from the dead. Today... not much happens. Try to imagine yourself there, in the Gospel, as one of Jesus’ followers. Your friend, your savoir, he is dead. You aren’t totally sure he’ll come back from the dead. You are confused and disoriented. Holy Saturday is a day to be disoriented; it's a day to be confused. Lean into those emotions. Then ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?”

Matthew Kelly

Thoughts on Good Friday

GOOD FRIDAY OF THE LORD’S PASSION

JOHN 18:1 - 19:42

Friends, today’s Gospel is John’s wonderful narrative of Christ’s Passion. On the cross, Jesus entered into close quarters with sin (because that’s where we sinners are found) and allowed the heat and fury of sin to destroy him, even as he protected us. We can see, with special clarity, why the first Christians associated the crucified Jesus with the suffering servant of Isaiah. By enduring the pain of the cross, Jesus did indeed bear our sins; by his stripes we were indeed healed. And this is why the sacrificial death of Jesus is pleasing to the Father. The Father sent his Son into godforsakenness, into the morass of sin and death—not because he delighted in seeing his Son suffer, but rather because he wanted his Son to bring the divine light to the darkest place. It is not the agony of the Son in itself that pleases his Father, but rather the Son’s willing obedience in offering his body in sacrifice in order to take away the sin of the world. St. Anselm said that the death of the Son reestablished the right relationship between divinity and humanity. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Palm Sunday

Eradicate Blame

We spend a lot of energy wondering who can be blamed for our own or other people's tragedies - our parents, ourselves, the immigrants, the Jews, the gays, the blacks, the fundamentalists, the Catholics....

But Jesus doesn't allow us to solve our own or other people's problems through blame. The challenge he poses is to discern in the midst of our darkness the light of God. In Jesus' vision everything, even the greatest tragedy, can become an occasion in which God's works can be revealed.

How radically new my life would be if I were willing to move beyond blame to proclaiming the works of God.... All human beings have their tragedies.... We seldom have much control over them. But do we choose to live them as occasions to blame, or as occasions to see God at work?

Prayer For Today

My God and my refuge, strip away my habit of blaming - either others or myself - for any big or little tragedies in my life. Challenge me to move beyond the "blame game" and to understand that these misfortunes and setbacks are not under my control. Teach me instead to live through these events and see them as fruitful opportunities for faith and love.

Amen.

Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on adversity

Thoughts on trials

“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NIV)

When crisis hits, you have to do the smart things necessary to get through it. You listen to what the experts say, you make good choices, and you keep moving forward, remembering at the same time that this will pass. It’s not going to last forever!

The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:12, "Dear friends, don't be bewildered or surprised when you go through the fiery trials ahead, for this is no strange, unusual thing that is going to happen to you" (TLB).

In this world, there will be times of trial and testing—it’s guaranteed! Since sin entered the world, nothing works perfectly. Everything on this planet is broken—the weather, the economy, your body, and even your best plans. Nothing works perfectly in this life because sin broke everything on earth.

Isaiah 24 says, “The land suffers for the sins of its people [for they] have twisted the laws of God and broken his everlasting commands . . . The earth has broken down in utter collapse" (v. 4-5, 19 TLB).

Everything is lost, abandoned, and confused. Even nature is groaning. We may wonder why God allowed sin and evil to enter the world, but it’s because he gives us a choice.

We're the ones that cause evil. We're the ones that are selfish and self-centered and cause problems in society and in our environment. This is why we're to pray the Lord's Prayer—"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"—because this is not heaven. Heaven is a perfect place with no sorrow, no sickness, no sadness, no stress, and we shouldn't expect heaven on earth. One day we'll get there, but we're not there yet.

We will get through this trial. One day the coronavirus crisis will be a part of our history. Soon enough we will marvel at all that God did in the midst of this trouble as we look at it from the other side.

And there will be more challenges to face and adversity to endure. This is part of our reality on this earth. But we always hope, because "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:17-18 NIV).

Rick Warren

Thoughts on grace

A Season of Grace 
Lent is a season of penance. Now, that sounds terribly negative to our modern thinking, but it does not mean that God’s judgment is rising up out of spite or wrath. Rather, it means that this is a season of grace, where we are invited to put first things first and return to God. In Hebrew the word for repentance is shuv, and it means a turning back, a return to God. Lent should be a turning point where we start to prioritize the spiritual over the worldly. 

A Change of Thinking 
We can get overly focused on pursuing the comforts and entertainment of the world by seeking security in investments, retirement funds, government, and just about anything other than God. But in Matthew 6 in His sermon on the mount, Jesus warns that our treasure is not threatened with loss. The Greek word for conversion is metanoia, which means a change of thinking. Here we see that conversion is not just accepting a proposition—that God died for my sins—as true as that is, but metanoia restructures our whole mindset. All our worldly values are shaken up and turned upside down by true conversion. 

Please consider helping us in our mission to evangelize—to bring true conversion—throughout the world.

Shalom,

Tim Gray

Thoughts on fasting