John 4:43-54 Your Son Will Live

Today's Gospel is a beautiful faith story about the royal official whose son is dying and begs Jesus to save the boy.  The man believed and the boy was saved.  As the man came home he is met with servants who tell him the exact hour that the boy began to feel better and it was about the same time that Jesus told the father that the boy would be saved.  The entire household is then comes to believe in and follow Jesus.

Today's readings are in line with the hope from Laetare Sunday.  They express that happiness for is to come.  The child was dead, but now he's brought to new life.  Not only the boy, but the father and all the household are called to a newness of life within Christ.  Isiah tells us today: "Thus says the LORD: Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create;
For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight" (Is 65:17-19)  God is good.  He creates life, not destroys it. 

What about miracles though?  Everyone seems to want one at some point, not a small one, but a big one.  There is a video of  Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the Robert Barron of his day, where Sheen speaks of going to Lourdes, France and waiting for a miracle, but none occurred.  At least that was what he thought initially.  Miracles come in different forms.  When we ask for God to intervene in our lives, we usually want a particular outcome.  We forgot that God, who sees all, will respond in the way that we need most, even if it is not apparent at first.  For some that starts with an inner healing before it is outwardly manifest.  For others it is a deep forgiveness of ourselves for past wrongs and reconciling with God that can bring us to a newness, a fullness of life.   Through faith God can and does perform many miracles in our lives.

Matthew 5:17-19 I Have Come to Fulfill the Law

Yesterday was "Super Tuesday" and several states voted in their primaries.  Apparently history was made. This morning the Supreme Court decided to take the case on whether to uphold a Texas law that forces abortion clinics to upgrade their facilities to hospital standards in case of emergency and women's health.    Presidents and laws are people that we elect to govern us and laws that are to govern us.  They are civil laws made by men. 

Moses on the other hand was a man of God.  To him, his prophet, God gave instruction and laws to not only help his chosen people get along together in a society, but to teach them humility that they were not the end-all, but that their strength came from something far greater than them.  The Israelites listened.  God said, ‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’

When Jesus came and seemed to defy some of the Laws that the religious leaders enforced, like restoring life through healing to the injured and sick, or picking wheat on the Sabbath because he and his disciples were hungry, many thought he came to abolish the law.  Jesus taught that there was no life in the Law that the Father had given the people because the people had made it all about the rules and forgotten that God so loved them.  For them it was a chore to be fulfilled.  It was empty without the love that was intended as part of it.  Jesus tells us in today's Gospel that he did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  He comes as love itself and as God made manifest is able to complete the Law and offer us a new covenant.  Unlike our man-made laws that change as our needs as society changes, God's covenant and agreement with us will never change because he created us each unique, knew us before we were born, and loves us completely. 

Mark 6:1-6 Forgive Me, Lord

For today's readings:  http://usccb.org/bible/readings/020316.cfm

We have heard variations of this Gospel reading a couple of times in January.  Hearing it so much we are mindful of those times that he inflate ourselves and think ourselves all-powerful, losing sight of the fact that we should be humbled before the presence of our all-might ever-living God the Most High. 

The early Christian church was plagued with heresies in which Jesus was considered totally God, or completely man.  Even the Jewish people, many of them in Jesus' time took him merely as a prophet.  Yet it was revealed to a few, and then to billions of people throughout the last two millennia that this was truly God made manifest.  We are called to reflect on our sins and bow down before him in true contrition to ask forgiveness before he turns his back on us as he did those who rejected him at Nazareth.  The Lord offers us the opportunity to repent just as he did his servant David.  We are given the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which we can be given absolution for our sins and given new life with purity of soul and a clean heart.  Let us embrace this Sacrament while we can. We are the Lord's beloved and he wants nothing more than to be in full communion with us.

"Lord, forgive the wrong that I have done." (Today's responsorial psalm.)

Mark 2: 23-28 Picking the Grains of Wheat

Have you ever judged anyone before learning about their circumstances?  Sometimes this happens to each of us.  This happens within today's Gospel, and even the first reading (1 Sam16:1-13 where Samuel is seeking for God's anointed one, not the strong and mighty, but the young inconspicuous boy, David.) In today's Gospel the scribe watches Jesus picking the wheat and eating it on the Sabbath.  Based on his strict religious laws, he is judging Jesus and the disciples.  The scribe isn't looking at them with the love, compassion and understanding that they laws could originally have held, especially if he understood how hungry they were carrying nothing for food and wandering for days without shelter overhead.  No, the scribe looks upon them in judgement with the rigidity of the old law. 

Jesus on the other hand reminds the scribe of how David long ago ate what was apportioned to the priests even though it was unlawful because he and his companions were hungry.  Then he makes a further statement, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even over the Sabbath."  The Sabbath is that day set aside for rest and worship.  Yes, what Jesus and the disciples was doing was considered work, but it was necessary so they did not starve.  Jesus' point is that it was necessary for life and thus overruled the law.  The Sabbath was created to remind all of human kind to give thanks to their creator, and that is why the Son of Man, God made manifest is ruler of the Sabbath.

Mt 4:12-17, 23-25

Jesus Christ was manifested to us.  We are called to acknowledge Christ in all we do.  St. John helps us ask the question, "How do we know where Jesus Christ is manifest?"  We need to discern the Spirit and what Jesus calls us to do by what he says and does.   

In today's Gospel we learn of Jesus' reaction to the arrest of John the Baptist.  What does he do?  He does not act rashly or build an army to storm the prison.  No. Jesus withdraws.  Often when we withdraw from a situation, what does that entail?  Often it is  deep consideration of where we are in our interior life.  Perhaps a reprioritizing of those things that are important. 

We are told, "From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand."   

This was a huge step forward in Jesus' ministry.  He is a light to all nations.  People from all around recognized him through his healing message and followed him.

Today is the feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton who like Jesus, reveled in the Kingdom.  She is the first saint born a US citizen.  She was not a Catholic to begin, but her heart was touched by the fire of Christ's mercy. Despite her family and friends, she became Catholic.  She became a bastion of hope and mercy for others.  She is our example today of how to prepare our interior life for the kingdom; that it isn't our will that ought to be done, but that our desires should take a back seat to those of God.  This is one of her prayers:

O Father, the first rule of Our dear Savior's life was to do Your Will.  Let His Will of the present moment be the first rule of our daily life and work, with no other desire but for its most full and complete accomplishment. Help us to follow it faithfully, so that doing what You wish we will be pleasing to You. Amen.

Mt 2:1-12 Feast of the Epiphany

"...Behold the magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem."  What a beautiful story of the magi arriving to adore the Christ child.  What motived them?  Prayer comes from that first initiation from God alone.  He calls us closer to himself, into communion with himself, into prayer.  So this calling of the magi to come to adore the newborn King, that was something that only God could have put into their hearts through the grace of the Holy Spirit to walk that faith journey, through difficulties, through foreign lands, to search for the Child, to not lose faith when they learned the child was not of Herod's line, but of a royalty far deeper.  They were not the Jews, but they recognized God made manifest.  God had manifested himself to all through his birth, but now He manifests himself as a savior to all human kind through these Gentiles. 

Indeed St. Paul reminds us that Christ came for people of all races, all backgrounds, all beliefs.  Yes, there will always be those who choose not to accept Christ and his gift.  There are those who will ridicule and persecute the followers of Christ.  However, it is our duty to recognize the face of God in all whom we encounter.  ALL are called to the Table of Plenty.  It is God who calls us, not ourselves, not a special few who give us the invitation, It is God and God alone who first imparts that call within our hearts and creates that desire to know Him.  May we strive to find God in each other today and show Him love.