Thoughts on home

 

Make Your Home in Me

From: Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective

When Jesus says: “Make your home in me as I make mine in you,” he offers us an intimate place that we can truly call “home.” Home is that place or space where we do not have to be afraid but can let go of our defenses and be free, free from worries, free from tensions, free from pressures. Home is where we can laugh and cry, embrace and dance, sleep long and dream quietly, eat, read, play, watch the fire, listen to music, and be with a friend. Home is where we can rest and be healed. The word “home” gathers a wide range of feelings and emotions up into one image, the image of a house where it is good to be: the house of love.

Reflection Question: If Christ were the house of love I live in, what parts of my life would finally be able to rest and be healed?

“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”   - John 15: 4, 5

Thoughts on power

 

Matthew 20:17–28

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the mother of James and John asks Jesus on their behalf to place them in high places in his kingdom. They are asking for two of the classic four substitutes for God: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. The two brothers specifically want the last two. Power is not, in itself, a bad thing. And the same is true of honor. Thomas Aquinas said that honor is the flag of virtue. It’s a way of signaling to others something that’s worth noticing. So then what’s the problem? The problem is that they are asking for these two things in the wrong spirit. The ego will want to use power, not for God’s purposes or in service of truth, beauty, and goodness, but for its own aggrandizement and defense. When honor is sought for its own sake or in order to puff up the ego, it becomes dangerous as well. What’s the way out? Jesus tells us: “Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.” When you serve others, when you become the least, you are accessing the power of God and seeking the honor of God. Bishop Robert Barron

More thoughts on the Transfiguration

 

Second Sunday of Lent

Matthew 17:1–9

Friends, today’s Gospel celebrates the transfiguration. Christ came not just to make us nice people or morally upright folks but rather to give us a share in his divine life, to make us denizens of heaven, people capable of living in that new environment. What gave the first Christians this conviction? The answer is the resurrection—and the great anticipation of the resurrection, which is the transfiguration. This ordinary Jesus somehow became transformed, elevated, enhanced in his manner of being.  The first thing we notice is that his appearance becomes more beautiful. These somewhat grubby bodies of ours are destined for a transfigured, elevated beauty.  Secondly, in his transfigured state, Jesus transcends space and time, since he is talking with Moses and Elijah. In this world, we are caught in one moment of space and time, but in heaven, we will live in the eternal now of God’s life.  Have you ever noticed that even as we appreciate all that is wonderful about this life, we are never really at home? There is a permanent restlessness about human life. But a higher, richer, more beautiful, and spiritually fulfilling life awaits us. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on loving our enemies

 

First Week of Lent

Matthew 5:43–48

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to love our enemies. The first reason we love our enemies is because this is the best way to test the quality of our love. Love is not primarily an emotion but an act of the will. It is willing the good of the other as other. A second reason to love your enemies is that they tell you about yourself. There is a very good chance that the people who most bother you are those who most reveal to you unsavory truths about yourself.  Third, perhaps the person you consider your enemy is actually pointing out to you the inadequacy of your own life. Maybe he is right and good, and it’s you who are off-center. Could it be that your enemy is in fact a kind of saint who is indirectly indicating your own weakness and lack of moral courage? A final reason to love your enemies: You might win them back. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Transfiguration of Jesus

 “Coming down the mountain”

“This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”—the words from the Father, as we contemplate the Transfiguration of Jesus on this second Sunday in Lent. This is a moment of complete affirmation and loving support for Jesus. This loving affirmation prepares Him for the future, for the way he will be called to live out all the events of his life on his journey to Jerusalem: his suffering, death, his self-gift. We will see, as we continue our Lenten journey, that He never” forgets” who He is. He will be encouraged by those affirmations, especially in those moments of trial and suffering.

For us, too, in times of trial or suffering, memories of those moments of “transfiguration” and confirmation are meant to buoy us up on our journey with Jesus as our companion. He shares our journey with us.

As Jesus comes down the mountain from this beautiful experience, he tells his friends that the “whole story” had to be lived out so that we could know/trust that God’s love and companionship will prevail in our lives as well.

Peter says, “It is good for us to be here.” The Father says, “Listen to Him.” Entering into this scene through our imagination, and joining Jesus and the disciples could offer us a joyful and loving opportunity to unite with Him in His journey, and to take to heart these words from God meant for us as well: “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”



Len Kraus, S.J.

Thoughts on celebrations

 

Celebrating Life

From: Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective

Celebration is not a party on special occasions, but an ongoing awareness that every moment is special and asks to be lifted up and recognized as a blessing from on high. There is Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the many feast days of the Saints. There are countless birthdays, anniversaries, and memorial days. And then there are days to welcome and to say farewell, to receive guests and to visit friends, to start a project and to finish it, to sew and to reap, to open a season and to close it. But even these moments do not exhaust the full meaning of celebration. Celebration lifts up, not only the happy moments, but the sad moments as well. Since ecstatic joy embraces all of life, it does not shy away from the painful moments of failure, departure, and death. In the house of love even death is celebrated, not because death is desirable or attractive, but because in the face of death life can be proclaimed as victorious.

Reflection Question: In what ways do I resist celebrating the difficult or sorrowful moments of life, and how might God invite me to see their meaning?

Thoughts on prayer

 

First Week of Lent

Matthew 6:7–15

Friends, the Gospel for today is a great moment, for in it the Son of God teaches us to pray. Our teacher is not just a guru, a spiritual sage, or a religious genius, but the Son of God. This is why the Our Father is the model of all prayer. A desire to pray is planted deep within us, the desire to speak to God and to listen to him. We can forget to pray, neglect to pray, become lazy in prayer, but we can never really lose the desire to pray. And so let us attend carefully to the first words of Jesus’s great prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Our basic problem is getting our priorities mixed up. We seek all kinds of worldly things—money, pleasure, power, honor—all of which are unsatisfying. What we should desire, first, is God. This is precisely what the prayer to hallow the name of God is all about. It’s not that God’s name isn’t in fact hallowed, but we’re praying that we might keep it that way, that we might honor God in all things. We’re praying for a radical reorientation of our consciousness. Bishop Robert Barron