The coming of the Messiah

In Is 35: 1-10, Isaiah prophesizes about the fulfillment of God’s promise of sending a Messiah to turn the world back to God.  We know that, through Christ Jesus, we will be saved.  Satan, seemingly totally out of control in today’s world, will be overcome. Evil will be destroyed along with those who perpetuate evil and do not repent.  “Here is your God,” Isaiah says, “he comes with vindication” Is 35: 4),  All of us, in some way or another, long to be exonerated now. However, our justification might not happen until we enter eternal life, as it did not happen for Jesus until His resurrection.

Isaiah tells us that when the Messiah enters our lives and our world, our eyes and the “eyes of the  blind will be opened”, our ears and “the ears of the deaf will be cleared” (Is 35: 5).   Wars will cease between individuals, families, nations, cultures, men and women, rich and poor, homosexuals and heterosexuals; human trafficking and drug trafficking, and violence of any kind will cease. With the coming of the Messiah into our personal lives we will create a world in which the integrity of every human being will be honored, each one’s needs will be met.

Am I ready for this Messiah? Am I preparing a path in my life where Jesus is welcome, where the Spirit is heard and God’s instructions followed?  If so, how is that happening? If not, what do I need to change?

God's Charity, Poverty and Humility

In the Franciscan Office for today, one of the readings is St. Clare’s Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague, who became a poor Clare, leaving all of her wealth to follow Jesus. St. Clare writes:   “At the surface of the mirror [of the Cross], consider the holy  humility, the blessed poverty, the untold labors and burdens that Jesus endured for the redemption of the whole human race. Then, in the depth of this same mirror, contemplate the ineffable charity that led Jesus” to suffer excruciating pain and unutterable torture throughout his passion and death.  Consider God’s charity in hanging naked on the cross dying a shameful and humiliating death for our sakes.

As I contemplated God’s charity, poverty and humility, I was brought to my own knees.  Here is the Creator of the Universe nailed shamefully and cruelly on this tree of torture, giving up His very life for my sake, for the salvation of us all. What do I do when I am asked to give up something for the sake of the other, for the common good of the family, the community, the mission of the Church? I had to admit my own shortcomings, weaknesses, and, yes, even sinful selfishness when it comes to letting go, not of my very life as Jesus did, but of my addiction to work, my clinging to my way, my unwillingness to sacrifice for a good greater than myself.

What about you? Ever find yourself face to face with this challenge of selfless giving, of being poor for the sake of the other, of needing to ask forgiveness for a pouting stubbornness and entrenched selfishness that reveals itself in your withholding love, being unwilling to turn off the TV, put down the cellphone, turn off the computer in order to help another?

The Pearl of Great Price

The story in today’s Gospel, Mt.13: 44-46, is about the merchant who searches for “a treasure buried in a field.” He/She goes out to find that treasure. When found, this person sells all that he/she has and buys it. The author of the reflections for this Gospel given in the July/August 2012 issue of The Word among Us, p.52, suggests to us that the merchant is God.

Each of us is the pearl God is seeking. We got buried in debris, so to speak, when Adam and Eve disobeyed and distrusted God—a disobedience and a distrust that all of us inherited. Their turning away from God intensified God’s search for us. The Son of God took on human nature to show us the way back to God and to redeem us from the destruction of sin: the loss of right relationship with God, our Creator, ourselves and one another.

 

Imagine God saying to you:

 

(Insert your name), you are the treasure I seek and for which I sent my only begotten Son into the world. He paid your ransom. You are now my precious pearl of great price. I want to find you, no matter what. I will look for you in any place where you have hidden yourself. I will walk on whatever thorny path you are traveling and enter whatever cistern into which you have fallen. Even if you have wandered off into murky, muddy waters, I will enter those waters in search of you. When I find you and you accept being found, I will polish you until you glow with my glory as the brightest star shines in the heavens.

 

God's heart is bent on us! Where is your heart? For what does your heart pine? What treasures are you seeking? God is seeking you to join Him and all the angels and saints at the eternal banquet of love, beginning here on this earth.

God: our mother, foster parent, guardian, savior

Today’s readings abound with statements of God’s love, a love that is eternal and is practical. God’s love brought us into existence, put us together in our mother’s womb, taught us to walk and talk, to think and understand, to feel and respond with compassion.  “I fostered [you] like one who raised an infant to his cheeks; …though I stooped to feed [you, you] did not know that I was [your] healer’( Hosea 11: 1, 3-4, 8c-9).  God goes on to say “My heart is overwhelmed, my pity stirred…I will not give vent to my blazing anger” when I see you walk away from Me, the Source of your life. I will not blaze out in anger toward you when I see you worshipping false gods, looking for fullness of life in empty cisterns; mocking Me, beating me, abusing Me, cursing Me,” as you do whenever you do these things to your family members, loved ones, strangers, your neighbour, persons different from you because of race, gender, or culture (cf. Mt. 25: 40). God seems to be reminding us that He is as hidden in the other person as He is in the Sacred Host.   My faith tells me that every human being, all of creation, is a sacrament, a sign of God’s  love for me, of  God’s Presence, of God’s life-giving Spirit, for in God,  “we live and move and have out being” (Acts 17:28). What does your faith tell you?

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the feast of God’s love. The second person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Son, in total obedience to the Father assumed human nature to show us the way back to the Father, that is, the way of obedience to our God.  In total self-giving, Jesus becomes the unblemished Lamb sacrificed to redeem all of humankind and so we pray at every Mass, the Lamb’s Supper, when the heavens open up and the Son of God comes down upon our altars:  “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”  Such love! What sacrifices am I willing to make in return for this love?

God's Intimacy

Today’s first Scripture reading, Is. 40: 25-31, begins with “To whom can you liken me as an equal?”  In another part of Isaiah, we read: “I am Yahweh, there is no other” (Is. 45:5).  Hear Jesus say to you: “I created  you in God’s image and likeness. I redeemed you by sacrificing my life in obedience to My Father and yours. No one else could rescue you or humankind from the eternal distance and perpetual darkness disobedience to one’s Creator causes.”  No one could restore the shattered relationship of humankind with God except One who is God.  “I am God; there is no other.”  God creates the darkness,  (cf Is 45:7) the chaos, the woe that envelopes the person who chooses to commit evil, to walk the path of disobedience. God is the One who restores a sinner’s relationship with God when that person repents. The act of repentance opens the person’s heart, my heart, to Christ’s redeeming graces: darkness turns into light; chaos into order; ugliness into beauty; sin into holiness. “I am God; there is no other” (Is. 44:6). “To whom can you liken me as an equal? (Is. 40: 25)? O God, how great Thou art! And You don’t ever “grow weary”  (Is 40:28) of this redemptive grace with sinners, like me.

God's acquittal

Romans 8: 31b-39--"If God is for us, who can be against us.  He did not spar his own Son but handed him over for us all...."  From time to time we go through  experiences worried about being reprimanded, rejected, judged, and/or accused of coming up short or, in fact,  doing something judged "horrible" or unacceptable.  And many  times we are our own worst critic.  In this "courtroom of life" sits God, who handed His Son over to the accusers to saved us from all in life of which others, or we ourselves, reject us, question us and, yes, at times  condemn us.  With God on our side, with God as our judge, no human verdict separates us from God's love, God's compassion, God's mercy and God's acquittal.  What makes us feel alienated from God and others, many times, is our own condemnation.