A Restless Life

This week, I'm going to focus on faith.  It is this strength of conviction that God loves us, that Jesus died for us, and that the Holy Spirit is here with us, that provides the lens that we Christians must view life.  Without this perspective, we are wandering in the wilderness, lost without a cause.  And how do we show our faith?  Look at these readings - eleven lepers were healed for their faith, and only two of them (Naaman from Kings and one of the ten lepers from the Gospel) showed reverence and thanks to God.  Did the other nine fail to praise Jesus because of ignorance, or do they think it was their own doing that brought about their healing?  Which is worse?  And now, put up the contrasting image of those other nine former lepers with that of St. Paul in chains from his epistle, and see that the image is striking.  If they won't even give thanks when they have been healed by Jesus, do you think they would suffer and go to prison just to p...

This week is all about the journey we all take with God.  This path is not supposed to be easy - God did not reach from heavens to immediately answer the call of Habakkuk and Jesus did not increase His Apostles' faith with the wave of His hand.  We are called to work to be worthy of the heavenly love and gifts available to us.  If only we humble ourselves and heed the Word that we hear each week, we can begin to approach our path.  Unfortunately, it is, even then, tempting to become haughty and prideful once you have begun on that true path, and it becomes ever more important to be the servant that Jesus references in the Gospel.  Yes, the journey is hard, but that is why we have the Bible, the Saints, and all those holy people that have come before and those that live around us - they are our guides providing a direction.  But it is ultimately up to us whether we choose our humility, our self discipline, our strength to fortify our souls for the journey to...

 The curse of comfort.  That theme echoes throughout the readings this weekend.  It is easy to lose ourselves within the relative comfort of our surroundings.  We become accustomed to being able to have anything we desire within two days shipped to our house, watch anything that want, and generally surround ourselves with the news and self-confirming voices that appease us.  Comfort may be more dangerous today than it ever has been.  How many of us are like the brothers of the rich man?  Even with the Word of God, we still continue in self-indulgence.  Would the return of a spirit change our ways?  Do we believe enough that we would even be able to comprehend the message?  We are the stewards of our souls, and we must strive each day to combat the sloth and greed that surround us.

You cannot serve two masters.  One of the last lines of the Gospel reading this week is something that I, and all humanity, struggle with daily.  We are constantly bombarded with secular temptations, and these can (and do) cause blind spots shutting us out from the great parts of our nature (those given by God).  We have to diligently practice what we hear each Sunday and show that Love which our souls yearn for.  This set of readings provides some guidance on how to do that: caring for the poor and dealing honestly with others in all matters.  It is easy to lose the big picture of our life here on earth and focus only on ourselves, but in doing so we miss out on the whole reason for our existence - to live and love in harmony with the creations of our Creator. Disclaimer: This will be at the bottom of all reflections, but I’m not intending to put out any sort of professional critique, attempt at a homily, or investigation into the historicity of the readings, b...

In this set of readings, we have a rare opportunity to hear from Jesus how the imagery from the Old Testament is retold in the New Testament through Jesus.  Usually these glimpses into the "rhyming" nature of the Old and New are revealed less plainly and alluded to, but here Jesus does not mince his words.  In the Old Testament, the people sinned against God and repented to Moses asking him to seek God's forgiveness.  To this end, Jesus tells us that He has become that symbol of forgiveness, that saving grace.  And the Second Reading succinctly summarizes this notion that we must keep in mind: God sent Jesus for us and our salvation.  Jesus was not sent to this earth for His own benefit or to take control; on the contrary, He suffered here and was "obedient to death", at which point God raised His Son to become the exalted symbol of His Love for all. Disclaimer: This will be at the bottom of all reflections, but I’m not intending to put out any sort of professio...

This week, we are challenged by the words of Jesus.  He tells those who were traveling with Him that no one can truly follow Him without "hating" their family.  Taken at just that line, it seems an insurmountable task, to disregard the love of those closest to us for the eternal love of Jesus.  But two keys lines, one from the First Reading from Wisdom and the second from later in the Gospel Reading, help me to (hopefully) make sense of Jesus's proclamation.  In the next part of the Gospel Reading, Jesus continues to compare being a disciple to preparing to construct a tower.  Taking that example, all other context is removed - the builder's family obligations, their taxes due, etc... - and it's a simple exercise in having the right resources to achieve the goal.  We too must remove the outside context, or distractions, and see what it is we truly need to do in our lives to be true to God, and sometimes that can be our family or our jobs or even our hobbies...