Why have you forsaken me

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

One of the first questions I had when I first returned to the Church was why did Christ say this on the Cross? To me, it almost sounded like he did not trust God, that he thought God abandoned Him. It seemed so odd. I mean Christ knew this was going to happen. How many times did he allude to it when speaking to the disciples? I just didn’t understand what this meant and so, like I have always done since I was a little girl, I asked my dad.

My dad, who is also Catholic, responded to me in the way that anyone would who had been brought up in the Baptist Church; he told me to pull out my Bible. At his instruction, I turned to Psalm 22 and read it all the way through. After this, he asked me to answer my own question. And so I ask the same of you. Read Psalm 22 (posted below from the New Living Translation) and contemplate what Christ meant when he said, “My God, my God, why have you Forsaken me?”

Psalms 22

My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?
Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help?

Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.
Yet you are holy. The praises of Israel surround your throne.

Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them.
You heard their cries for help and saved them.
They put their trust in you and were never disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all!
Everyone who sees me mocks me.
They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
Is this the one who relies on the LORD? Then let the LORD save him!
If the LORD loves him so much, let the LORD rescue him!"

Yet you brought me safely from my mother's womb
and led me to trust you when I was a nursing infant.
I was thrust upon you at my birth.
You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near,
and no one else can help me.
My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;
fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!
Like roaring lions attacking their prey,
they come at me with open mouths.

My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax, melting within me.
My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.

My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;
an evil gang closes in on me.
They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count every bone in my body.
My enemies stare at me and gloat.
They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments.

O LORD, do not stay away!
You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!
Rescue me from a violent death; spare my precious life from these dogs.
Snatch me from the lions' jaws,
and from the horns of these wild oxen.
Then I will declare the wonder of your name to my brothers and sisters.
I will praise you among all your people.

Praise the LORD, all you who fear him!
Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!
Show him reverence, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not ignored the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned and walked away.
He has listened to their cries for help.

I will praise you among all the people;
I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.
The poor will eat and be satisfied.
All who seek the LORD will praise him.
Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.

The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him.
People from every nation will bow down before him.
For the LORD is king! He rules all the nations.
Let the rich of the earth feast and worship.
Let all mortals -- those born to die -- bow down in his presence.

Future generations will also serve him.
Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord.
His righteous acts will be told to those yet unborn.
They will hear about everything he has done.

So, what did Jesus mean when He quoted the first line of this psalm while on the Cross? Well, to understand that, it is important to understand the Jews of that time. Do not forget that Jesus Christ was Jewish. He was raised a Jew within a Jewish Culture. As a Jew, like our Gospel writers and the other Jews of the time period, He would have been very familiar with the Old Testament.

It was common then to quote Psalms by simply saying the first line of the Psalm. So when Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He is not asking God where He went? He is not telling us that God has abandoned Him. No, quite to the contrary; He is telling us that He is the one foretold in Psalm 22. The people who heard Him would have understood what He meant as they would also have been very familiar with the Psalms. But if Christ did not say this because He felt abandoned, what is the significance?

Christ is alluding to what will come – the fulfillment of God’s Promise to us as declared in Psalm 22.

“For he has not ignored the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned and walked away.
He has listened to their cries for help.

I will praise you among all the people;
I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.
The poor will eat and be satisfied.
All who seek the LORD will praise him.
Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.

When Jesus speaks His Fourth Saying, He is promising us the great joy that will come to us when we fully realize the Redemptive Power of His Sacrifice. We may mock Him and jeer at Him during His final moments, but He knows that the Father’s Love is transformative and infinite. When He has fulfilled the prophecy, we will turn to the Father, The Son and the Spirit and we will praise Him with everlasting Joy.

Who ever thought such a seemingly sad statement made by a dying man in agony while nailed to cross, referred not His own predicament but to the fate of those who Crucified Him, you and me. And it was not filled with spite or hatred for what we did. No, as the first Saying tells us, even on the Cross, He pleads for the Father to forgive us. Again, Christ tells us that have the Father’s love, that our suffering can be in solidarity with His, our Death can be with Him so that His Resurrection can be ours too. Even on the Cross, Jesus displays such infinite Love.

Sweet Jesus! For how many ages have you hung upon your Cross
and still men pass you by and ignore you?

How often have I passed by you,
heedless of your great Sorrow, your many Wounds, your infinite Love?

How often have I stood before you, not to comfort and console you,
but to add to your Sorrows, to deepen your Wounds, to spurn your Love?

You have stretched forth your Hands to raise me up,
and I have taken those Hands and bent them back on the Cross.

You have loved me with an infinite love,
and I have taken advantage of that love to sin the more against you.

My ingratitude has pierced your Sacred Heart,
and your Heart responds only with an outpouring of your Love in your Precious Blood.

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.

Amen

Behold your mother

“Woman, behold, your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." (John 19:26-27)

The Third Word or Saying of Christ on the Cross is from the Gospel of John. To begin, perhaps it is a bit prudent to share some background and exegetical information about the four Gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels. This is because these three Gospels are very similar to one another. Mark is thought to be written first and perhaps was written as a catechetical tool to welcome new members into Christianity. Luke and Matthew were written a little later and both incorporate Mark’s Gospel as well as other possible sources (such as the Q Source which is theorized to be a list of Jesus’ sayings). Luke is writing to a Gentile audience while Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience (thus his emphases on the Law and fulfillment of the Law, etc).

But what about John’s Gospel? This Gospel account is completely different than the other three. But why? The three Synoptic Gospels were thought to have been written between 70 A.D and 80 A.D., while John was most likely written around 90 A.D. Therefore, by the time John wrote his Gospel account, the other three were already well known so there would not have been a need to simply tell the same story again. So, he tells a different story.

Some people say that John’s Gospel is the Gospel of Love. Probably one of the most quoted scripture passages is John 3:16, “For God so loved the World that He gave His only Begotten Son.” It could also be viewed as the Gospel of the Holy Spirit.

However, a very significant characteristic about John’s Gospel is his decision to not properly name two key people: Mary and one of the Twelve Apostles. Mary is only known as the Mother of Jesus and the apostle is only known as the Disciple whom Jesus loved. These are the two people Jesus is speaking to in today’s saying.

And this brings me to the question of who is the ‘Beloved Disciple.’ The Gospel Writer wrote this disciple as faceless and unnamed so that we can ask and ponder over this question.

All the references tell us that the Disciple whom Jesus loved wais unswervingly loyal to Jesus, he loved him absolutely and he was devoted as was the only disciple who was with Christ and His Mother at Calvary.

So why call him the Beloved Disciple? Why leave him faceless and unnamed? Why leave him as an empty silhouette of an abstract personality?

Just as we are all responsible for Christ’s crucifixion as I pointed out in my first reflection, we have all been forgiven and as Luke7:37-50 points out, the more we are forgiven, the more we have to be thankful for. How much more can be forgiven than every sin, what greater ransom for our sins than that which can grant us eternal life?

So where does that leave us? If you owed so much money that you could never pay it and someone came a long and settled that debt for you, would you not be eternally grateful? Would you not be unswervingly loyal? Love that person absolutely and remain steadfastly devoted, even in the face of death? But the key here is love. Christ loves us and He asks us to love him. The message in John’s Gospel, regarding the Beloved Disciple, is that if we accept Christ’s love and love Him with all our hearts, mind and souls, we, too, are the Beloved Disciple, the one whom Jesus Loves.

It is interesting to note that the Beloved Disciple is mentioned by this title about five times in the Gospel (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20). Now, what I found to be most significant was that John did not refer to this disciple as the one whom Jesus loved until John 13:23 immediately after Jesus announced that one among them would betray him. The very next seen depicts the Beloved Disciple as reclining on Jesus’ breast.

I could not help but wonder and reflect upon the juxtaposition of these two passages? We are guilty of Christ’s death through our own sinfulness but we also love Him and He loves us, so could we perhaps be both the betrayer and the beloved, sitting together at the table of Christ? On one hand, leaning against his breast in fullness of love, but on the other plotting against him for our own worldly desires?

We betray him with every sin, but when we accept His forgiveness and Love and truly allow His love to transform us into the disciple that would stand next to His Mother at the Foot of the Cross, we become the Beloved Disciple – betrayer and beloved in one person.

So looking at the third saying again, let us read it with the understanding that we are the Disciple whom Jesus Loved: “Woman, behold your child,” then looking at you, He said, “child, behold your Mother.”

So now we must turn to the second person in the Third Saying of Christ and that is the Woman. John loves symbolism. Aside from the Passion and Death of Christ, the Wedding at Cana is the only time we see Mary in John’s Gospel. And while John refers to her as the Mother of Jesus; Jesus, Himself, refers to her as ‘Woman.’ This is an allusion to the woman in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel." By calling her ‘Woman,’ John is showing us that Jesus is the offspring who will strike the head of the serpent.[1]

So, now we know who the woman is but why is she important to us now? Her Offspring has done His job, what more is there for her to do?

Jesus gave us so much more than we deserve when He gave up His life for us but yet he still wants to give us more and so He gives us His mother to take as our Mother. Mary, the woman that God chose among all women to be the Mother of His Son. Mary, the new Arc of the Covenant, the new Eve, the most Blessed of all Women, surely the most glorified creature of all creatures in the universe, the Queen of Heaven and Mother of God – this woman, Mary the Immaculate, has been given to us to be our Mother too.

There is another important consideration in John’s Gospel. According to Father George Montague, SM, a Marianist Priest and Founder of the Brothers of the Beloved Disciple, Mary conceived Jesus through the Power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave Mary to the Beloved Disciple before He died. However, as the Synoptic Gospels recount His Death, they say that he “breathed his last” (Mark 15:37, Luke 23:46). However, John says that he “handed over His Spirit” (John 19:30) [2]. And so Father Montague combines the elements of Virgin Birth, Spirit and Jesus’ exhortation on being born again of Water and Spirit (John 3:5) into one thought – “As Jesus was born of Mary by the Power of the Holy Spirit, so the disciples are born again, becoming brothers and sisters of Jesus, children of the Father and children of Mary through the Power of the Holy Spirit”[3]

Jesus gave us many things, salvation, forgiveness, love, the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit and His Mother. If we are the Beloved Disciple than the Third Saying represents one of the ways we are invited to receive all that Jesus has to give, which is to accept the gift of Mary as our Mother”[4]

Just as we are called to have a personal relationship with Christ, we also can have a personal relationship with Christ’s Mother, through Christ. And just as she wept at the Foot of the Cross for her Son, whom she loves more than life itself, she also weeps for us, her children, whom she also loves as a mother loves her child.

For some people it may be difficult to see Mary as mother, perhaps because we did not have a strong maternal presence in our lives, perhaps for any number of reasons. If this is the case, maybe this reflection can be an invitation or an opportunity to get to know Mary, the woman God choose among all women, to be your Mother too.

Behold your Mother.

Lord Jesus we gather in spirit at the foot of the cross
with your Mother and the disciple whom you loved.

We ask your pardon for our sins which are the cause of your death.

We thank you for remembering us in that hour of salvation
and for giving us Mary as our Mother.

Holy Virgin take us under your protection
and open us to the action of the Holy Spirit.

St. John, obtain for us the grace of taking Mary into our life
as you did and of assisting her in her mission.

May the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit be glorified
in all places through the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

Amen.

[1] George Montague, The Visions of the Beloved Disciple: Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John, (Staten Island, New York: St Pauls, 2000), 73
[2] Ibid.,78
[3] Ibid.,79
[4] Ibid.,80

Today you will be with Me in Paradise...

“Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43).

As you know, Jesus was speaking to one of the men who had been crucified next to him. This man, a thief had asked Jesus “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom,” and Jesus replied to him when he said that he would be with him in paradise. But just who is the man on the cross?

I know that when I first heard this story and up until just recently, in fact, I had always thought that this man was just there already. I had never really thought about how he got there. But I discovered that Roman law dictated that executions had to be carried out the same day as the sentence. Therefore, it can be concluded that the thief was at Jesus’ trial. He knew Jesus was innocent because he witnessed the conversations between Jesus and Pilate. He saw the crowds choose Barnabas and he watched as the Roman centurions flogged, tormented and ridiculed Jesus. Finally, he was a part of the deadly procession to Golgotha. This man was not simply there already, but had been with Jesus the whole day.

For that matter, so had the other thief – the man who said to Jesus, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us" (Luke 23:39). They had both been witness to the same cruel and callous treatments, harsher then even their own as ancient pictures depict the two thieves to have been tied to their crosses while Jesus had been nailed. Yet these two men had far different attitudes towards our savior. It is these two attitudes that I want to reflect upon.

I wish that I could stand here before you today and tell you that I have led the perfect Christian life. But this is simply not true. I have struggled with my faith my whole life and I struggle with it still. There have been times in my life when I saw going to church as laborious and almost like a punishment. I would be happy if I got sick and was excused from going. As I grew older and lived on my own, I did not always attend church but I did always want Jesus to be with me when I was having a problem.

I think you could have labeled me as a ‘bad day’ Christian because I only turned to God when I needed help. “Lord, you are the great all-powerful God; can you not help me out of this mess?” Does this not sound like “If you are the messiah then save me?”

I read a very interesting analogy comparing some people’s view of God as a car-jack. In this analogy the car is our life and a flat tire represents our problems. Do you know where I keep my car-jack? Do you think I give it a place of reverence in my car for all the times it helped me when I was stranded? No, I keep it in my trunk – hidden away and only taken out when needed. Then, when I am driving and my tire is flat, I say, “If you are such a good-jack, fix my tire. Fix my marriage, or fix my job, or fix my life”[1].

I have said this so many times, for years Jesus was my car-jack, only to be called upon when I needed to change a tire. If my car-jack didn’t do its job, I would become angry…angry at God, angry with myself, angry with the world.

The thing that I never understood until now is that I have acted like the unrepentant thief on the cross. Every time I demanded Jesus to help me through something, I was telling Jesus to save me and afterwards, I would callously put him back in the trunk—hidden until I needed his help again.

Perhaps most of us, at one time or another has been the first thief. But have we also been the second thief? Have we also been repentant?

The second thief was penitent; he knew his crimes and knew he was being punished justly. He feared God and knew Jesus was King and he did not ask for salvation for his mortal life but for his spiritual life. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”

I have a history that involves a lot that I am ashamed of, but it is not the details of my history as a sinner that are important, for my sins have been washed away. What does matter is that I sought redemption and when I did, I was crucified alongside Jesus, allowing my body to die to sin so that I might be remembered in His kingdom.

If you are wondering why I would say that I was crucified with Jesus, I would like to examine one more aspect of the Gospel account and that is the narrative in comparison to Mark and Matthew. Both Mark and Mathew wrote of the criminals who were crucified with Jesus; however, neither goes into detail. They are nothing more than passing footnotes. In Mark, it reads, “Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him (Mark 15:32) and in Mathew it says, “The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way.” (Mathew 27:44).

So why did Luke go into such detail, even to say that Jesus spoke to the man, welcoming him into paradise. That, I think has to do with who Luke was speaking to through his gospel. It is commonly accepted that Luke was writing to the Gentiles. Luke traveled with Paul and they ministered to the Gentiles, wanting them to know the Christian message was for them too. So, who was the man on the cross? Was he just a pawn in the gospel to show us God’s forgiveness? Or is he something more?

As I mentioned, Luke traveled with Paul and Paul said in Galatians 2:20 “For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ.” Luke was not writing of the thieves on the cross to simply make the scene more dramatic. He was trying to tell us something – that Christ came for us all. He came so we would all be with him in Paradise.

When Jesus spoke his words on the cross he was not speaking to one man but to all humankind. We are called to be co-crucified with Christ[2]. It is in this humbling of ourselves, through our own suffering and repentance that we may find the grace to say, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” And it is our greatest hope that on that day, Jesus will turn to each of us, as he did the thief, and say, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Jesus on the cross, I love you. As I stand near the cross, help me listen to Your words with faith and love. Let Your love for the Good Thief inspire and console me. Give me some of that freedom to open myself to others, to never lose hope in them. Help me, Lord, to understand that You invite me too, to paradise.

Amen.

[1] Piper, John, Today You will be Me in Paradise, (Good Friday Reflection, Bethlehem Baptist Church, April 17, 1981). Retrieved from http://www.soundofgrace.com/piper81/%20041781.htm.

[2] Heaster, Duncan, The Death of the Cross, (Online Source, n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.carelinks.net/books/dh/cross/1-1-10Today_You_With_Me_Paradise.htm.

Father Forgive Them...

When Jesus was crucified, he suffered for three hours on the cross. During this time the people around him who had crucified him jeered at him and they mocked him. The only people of all his apostles and friends who were with him were his Mother, Mary, Mary Magdalen and John, the Beloved Disciple. During this time, Christ spoke seven times from the cross. Over the next seven days, I intend to post a reflection on each of his sayings...

"Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

Can you imagine the pain Christ endured? He was beaten, scourged - whipped so badly that pieces of his flesh was ripped from his body. After he was whipped and beaten close to the point of death, he was further mocked with a crown of thorns jabbed harshly into his head. Each razor sharp thorn piercing his skin and tearing it little by little with every moment, every time he wrinkles his brow, wants to cry out in pain. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, cannot even cry out in pain without bringing about more pain.

It hurts for him to breathe, to move, the stand to sit. All he can feel is every wound on his body. He knew this would happen when he was in the Garden of Gethsemene. He knew his fate then and he feared it, so much so that as he sweat blood, he cried to his Father to take this cup from him, but also accepted the Father's will, "not my will but yours be done." Oh yes, he could have turned away, he could have denied his ministry, his purpose and our salvation. But he didn't.

As he stands there with the thousands of bloody gouges all over his body, feeling excruciating pain in every part of his tortured body, he still says 'Yes.' He says yes to suffering, yes to death on a cross and yes to the Father's love for all of us.

Even as the guards give him his cross to carry up to Golgotha, even as they continue to beat him, laugh at him as he falls not once but three times under the weight of the heavy cross, he still says yes.

Even as they hammer the first nail into his wrist, and then into his second. Even as they strike the nail into his feet and raise the cross up. Even as he is on the cross, held up only by nails in his wrists and feet, as he struggles for breath and puts more pressure on his feet so he can fill his damaged lungs with air, even as his mother looks at him in horror, her son in his last moments of life and she is powerless to do anything for him. Even as all this is happening, he still says yes to us.

He says yes to us when he says, "Father forgive them for the know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Perhaps we think he is speaking to the Roman guards who were following orders or the Pharisees who were so against him. Maybe it was the Saduccees who were politically motivated or the Jews who supported Barrabas...but maybe he was speaking to you and me? Maybe he was speaking to all of humanity...

His death gave us all salvation - he paid the price for all our sins. The scourging, the crown of thorns, the weight of the cross, the nails hammered into his flesh - all of it was my doing. I scourged him, I put the crown of thorns into his flesh, I laughed at him when he fell and I drove those nails into his wrists and feet, I crucified Jesus. I killed him. And so did you.

"Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Even as we were killing him, he still prayed for God to forgive us. Even as we were so unworthy of even being his enemy, he loved us. He loves us still.

He said yes to me. When I nailed him to the cross with my bare hands, he said "Yes, my love, I will die for you. I will die so you may live." Jesus, my Lord, please forgive me for my part in your death. Thank you for your love and for your sacrifice. I know that I can never be worthy of your love and I am always astonished that you continue to offer it to me - that you continue to offer yourself to me in every way despite my unworth.

Dear Lord, remembering the hour when You experienced death

So that we might have Eternal Life,

May we appreciate in our hearts the necessity of Your sacrifice for us

And with Your help, Your guidance, and Your grace,

May we be made worthy of it.

Amen

Priest: Husbands and Fathers to us all

I recently met our new Arch-Bishop and it was awesome! He is the most loving and warm man I have ever met, priest, religious or lay! He greets you with a hug and is very gracious and humble in all that he says and does. I cannot explain how much I love priests!

I know that there are some that don't do as they should, but there are people everywhere who do not do as they should. Any good priest will tell you that he is a sinner too and that he needs confession and the sacraments as much as the lay. Any good priest will serve the Church with humility and grace. But most of all will serve with love - Love for God and Love for neighbor.

A good priest will think this way because he knows that he is human too. No one is perfect except for Jesus. Priests are human and they make mistakes - some might be criminal too - but there are such people everywhere in this world...not just the Church.

Perhaps we think that a priest should be held to a higher standard because of his calling. Its funny how if a priest makes a mistake, such as possibly has an affair with a consenting adult, it is so scandalous and an outrage but if a married man does the same thing it is not such a big deal. Breaking a vow is wrong and both have erred, but through the love of Christ, both are offered forgiveness.

But I digress, I did not intend to post about priests except only to say that they need our love. They are human too and like anyone else, they have needs for community, for family and for friends. Don't see your priest as some abstract leader in your church - he is not a robot who comes in and consecrates the Eucharist and transports from place to place throughout the day. He is a flesh and blood man who has sacrificed his desires for a wife and children in order to serve the Children of God.

This position deserves respect, but moreover, he needs to be loved. Do not be afraid to invite your priest to dinner, to hug him as you leave Mass, to tell him how much you appreciate him, to send him a birthday card or a Christmas card. He is called father because he is our father in a spiritual sense and we ought to love him the way we love our own fathers. He is a priest because he stands as a representative of Christ Jesus, who loves the Church as a husband loves his wife (Ephesians 5:25). As the Church, we are called to love him as our spiritual husband.

So, I ask of you, love your priest. Show him you care, that his ministry is important, help him in his efforts to spread the love of God to the World starting with your parish and working its way outward to the local community. We were all created to be relational creatures, priests included. Next time you see yours, let him know he matters to you!

Common question-Why don't Priests get married:

"I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction" (1 Corinthians 7:32-35).

How could a priest be husband and father to his people if he is husband and father to hid own children. They would always be his first priority as a family ought to be. However, our priests can put their ministry as their first priority and truly dedicate their lives to God's service. He does not need to divide his prioroties.

As a lay woman who lives in the secular world but engages in Church ministry during my free time, I know that I could not do half the things I do if I were married and had children. My married friends are constantly having to balance their ministry with the needs of their families. Sure, I would like to marry someday, but as a single woman, I am so much more useful to my community because they are my priority. My ministry, my Love for God and my support of my priest is and will remain my number one priority.

I see myself as married to Christ and I honor that relationship the same way I would honor a marriage to a man. I support the Church, I support our priests and I support our mission. I truly see my parish priest as husband and father and I love him in the purest sense of the word.

Prayer for Vocations:

Loving God, You speak to us and nourish us through the life of this Church community. In the name of Jesus, we ask you to send your Spirit to us so that men and women among us, young and old, will respond to your call to service and leadership in the Church.

We pray especially, in our day, for those who hear your invitation to be a priest, sister, or brother. May those who are opening their hearts and minds to your call been couraged and strengthened through our enthusiasm in your service.

Amen

The Wilderness

This Lenten Season has been more difficult for me than most. I have been struggling with these deep feelings of emptiness and loneliness. It did not make sense to me to feel this way when I am so in love with God and with the Church. I usually walk away from Church feeling exuberant, joyful and full of God's Love for all of us.

But lately I have not been feeling that way. After Mass, I have felt empty. Not empty in the sense that God is not there or that my faith is in question. That is simply not an issue for me. Oh, I feel God's presence, but He has not been filling me with His presence the way He usually does and it is an odd feeling. I could not understand why (though I know He has a good reason). But then I realized what He is doing.

The Season of Lent is a time to empty ourselves. We are to empty ourselves of everything. We do not say "Alleluia" because we cannot say it - we live through 40 days as if Jesus' salvific event on the Cross has not yet occured. We do not say "Alleluia" because we do not have such a thing to celebrate (figuratively speaking). We sacrifice something for this time (I gave up meat) while we contemplate Jesus' sacrifice for ourselves. It is a time to reflect upon ourselves as a sinful people, as miserable creatures unworthy of God's Love.

We are emptied and pour all that remains of ourselves into the crevices of humility and sacrifice. We are journeying with Moses in the wilderness, we are journeying with Hagar after she was cast out with her son, we are journeying with Jesus. Moses led the Israelites for 40 years with no true idea of where they were going or how they were to survive - every day was a gift from God and they survived because God kept His promises.

Hagar was sent away with her son Ishmael where they were on the verge of death. She knew that death was imminent so she placed her son under a shrub and she sat down away from him, so that they could die. Her last words were "let me not watch to see the child die." God heard their cries and delivered them, promising Hagar to make Ishmael a great nation and they survived because God kept His promises.

Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus, the Son of God, both human and divine, lived in the desert with nothing for 40 days. He suffered temptation and he conquered it. Jesus did not triumph against the enemy in the desert simply because He is the Third Person in the Trinity for that would mean that sin cannot be conquered by anyone who is not God. Jesus was also human and his ability to resist temptation was a human act of faith in a God who keeps His promises.

No we cannot be perfect, but we have it in us to persevere, to never give up, to always try to do better. God calls us to be Holy as He is Holy, we are called to be Saints and to ask ourselves, "what would Jesus do?" Being a Christian is not about always having fun and feeling God's love everywhere you go. Being Christian is also about suffering, serving others, making difficult sacrifices, but above all, trusting God. God wants me to be empty of Him right now, He knows that I need this wilderness, my own personal desert of temptation in order to grow as His child.

Yes, I will stumble, I will make mistakes and I will sin - I am not perfect and far from being a Saint. But I try, I confess my sins, strive to do better and trust that God will keep His promises. Moreover, I know that as I reach the climax of the Lenten Season - the Triduum, I will be stripped of all that remains of me, completely empty and barren as a deep canyon only to be wholly filled once more during the Easter Vigil - the Holiest Day of the Liturgical Year.

Lord, I offer to you all that I am and all that I want for myself. I ask you to use me in accordance with your will. Please help me to use the Season of Lent to empty myself of my selfishness, pettiness and greed so that I can be filled more fully with your Love. I pray that you grant me the grace I need to accept your will in my life, to be a better Christian and steward to my neighbors and to be the person you created me to be. In your Holy name I pray. Amen.

The Lord Is my Hope

When things were going badly for me, it seemed easier. If my job was not going well or friendships were strained, I could say, trust in God. He has the best in mind for me (and for all of us)...but it seems easier to say this when things are going bad because it is the comforting solution. But what about when things are not going badly?

I do not necessarily mean that they are going well, I just mean that they are not bad... If my job is going badly and I think it might be time to leave, so I start looking and schedule a job interview...then it starts going better.

So I still don't like my job, but it pays well and I am good at it. It pays enough that I can support myself, go to school and get out of debt in the next three years so I can be debt free in time to enter doctoral studies. But if I leave, what if I get a position where I am not as valued (reduced job security), that does not pay as well and hinders my plans.... Then again, who I am to question events as affecting my plans?

The point of trusting God is trusting that His plan is the best. I don't need to leave my job and I don't need to stay. The only thing I need is to earn enough money to support myself in order to live out God's will for me. Furthermore, if I am living out His will, then I will be able to support myself in the way He has planned for me.

This is the point of surrendering one's self to God. I surrender myself to God's will and whatever that means for me... The point is that following God's will will lead to happiness - greater happiness than any earthly pleasure. This is because God wants the best for us and to say 'yes' to God, you are also saying 'yes' to yourself in the truest sense.

It is not easy to Trust God, in fact, trusting Him is one of the hardest things to do because everything inside of us tells us to trust the world, to trust material things and to trust what "feels" good. These are the things that can make us happy in the most immediate way, but this will not last. It is a false contentment, it is all a deception because in the end, it will leave us feeling empty.

I spent many years searching for happiness in love, money, success, possessions, social status, etc. What I found was that none of this ever lead to any sort of true, lasting happiness, joy or peace. I found peace and joy in the Lord. He is everything I need, he is everything any of us need. He is all we need.

The Lord Is my hope and my glory.
The Lord is the song that I sing:
so tender and loving a shepherd,
so rooted in justice, a king (merciful king).
When shadow confuses my vision,
when sorrow lays claim to my heart,
God is my refuge, my rock and my shield.
I will rely on the Lord.