Patience in the face of suffering

In today’s first reading, Acts 16: 22-34,we read about Paul and Silas’ arrest, being beaten with rods and put in chained shackles.  They are treated cruelly, shamefully, disdainfully. It is night. No bed. No comforts.  They turn to their faith and spend the night singing, thanking and praising God. Suddenly an earthquake shatters the prison, breaks open their chains and they could be free men. However, they do not escape. The jailor is terrified of his fate when he discovered the prison doors wide open, the chains broken. In his desperation he  is about to commit suicide when Paul yells out: Don’t harm yourself!  God uses Paul and Silas’ heroic faith and love to save the jailor and his family, who turn to Christ, are baptized and minister to Paul and Silas, taking them to his home; treating their beaten, bruised bodies and giving them a meal.

As I reflect on my reactions to things in my life that are irritating, humiliating and distasteful on a much smaller scale than what Paul and Silas went through, I am humbled as I reflect upon their faith response.  I rant and rave at much smaller injustices, far from turning to the Lord in prayerful praise, as Paul and Silas had done.  When life throws me “a curve ball” or all hell breaks loose on my efforts, what if my response flowed out of my faith instead of my anger, my demand for just treatment or my insistence on being treated righteously.  What miracles the Lord could perform!

The "Spirit speaking beforehand"

In today’s first reading, we are told that “…the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand….”  If in the time of the early Church, the “Spirit spoke beforehand, ” and God did, don’t you believe that God speaks beforehand in your life and mine as well? I believe that wholeheartedly, not that it is easy to accept God’s providence and designs for our lives, especially when we do not fully understand what God is doing or why God did what God did in the histories of our lives.  But, for instance, we know that when God met Adam and Eve in the garden after they failed to trust Him, He already had a solution for their disobedience, when He announced to Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head while you will strike at his heel”  (Gen. 3:15).  Satan’s head was crushed by Jesus from the Tree of the Cross, the Tree of Life that replaced the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Paradise.  The plan of salvation is always active. As of old, we, too, move in and out of obedience to God, in and out of truly trusting God. God intervenes. He has a plan for our salvation in every event of our lives and the life to the Church today just as in the past when Peter and the first apostles followed Jesus’ call.

Partnering with Christ

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says to us: “As the Father has love me, so I have loved you”  (John 15:9).   How has the Father loved Jesus?  Jesus, John tells us in John 1:3 is the one through whom everything comes into existence.  To involve the Son in the act of creation reveals God’s love, respect and confidence in Jesus. Jesus’ love of us is similar. In effect, He, too, says to us: “I love you so much that I invite you to be a co-creator with me.  I want to create new life, new hope and a deeper love in the world through you. In fact, I invite you to partner with me in reconciling differences, healing wounds, building bridges between the rich and the poor, the oppressed and the oppressor, the deaf and those who hear (those spiritually deaf), the blind and those who see (again more than physical blindness).,\  Just as the Father said to me at my baptism in the Jordan:  ‘This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” I say the same to you.  I want to share with you the bond and the love that exists between the Father and Me. We are one. I want to be one with you as well so that you will know a peace and a joy the world cannot ever give (John 14:27).

 Are you willing to be Jesus’ partner or do you want to go it alone?

Persevering in the faith

In today’s first reading, Acts 14: 19-28, we read further about the problems Paul encountered in his efforts to spread the Good News about Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension.   Some “Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside of the city, supposing that he was dead.   …[When]the disciples gathered around him, he got up…[and] on the following day left with Barnabas for Derbe.  …[T]hey… proclaimed the good news to that city,…made considerable…disciples [of Jesus and then] returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, …[where] they strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in faith, saying, ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.’”

Wow! What inspiration and instruction for us Christians today!  Living the Christian life has always involved obstacles to be overcome, misunderstandings to address, and, yes, persecutions, martyrdom, a dying and a rising with Christ to new life to be endured in faith.  Like Paul, to get up after being down, whether downed by others or by ourselves, we need other disciples, others persons living their faith in Christ, to help us up!  Getting up from whatever problem or tragedy we’ve encountered in being faithful to the Gospel, we, in turn, are called to “proclaim the good news,” make “considerable disciples,” and strengthen “the spirit of [other disciples].  That is what my mother and father have done for me, and, hopefully, for you as well. That is what Mother Frances, the Foundress of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother and many of my fellow religious have also done for me.  Who does that for you and for whom are you a strengthening companion in the faith?

The Power of the Spirit at work

In today’s first reading, Acts 14: 5-18, Paul and Barnabas are in a dangerous situation and consequently relocate.  That is an important message for all of us. We need to be alert to times when we, too, are in a situation in which we are in danger or stuck. Are we where we will be able to meet our goals? Are we where we will thrive in the Lord, doing that to which God is calling us?  And, if not, what is holding us back from taking action?

The “dangerous” situation could be coming from within, that is, from negative attitudes, from a critical, judgmental self, attitudes of inferiority and low self-esteem. To accomplish what we are capable of becoming because of Baptism—dying to sin and rising to new life with Christ—and Confirmation in which we were given the same Spirit that transformed the disciples from cowards into bold men and women, from “I-can’t” to “I-can” persons.  Following the descent of the Holy Spirit, the disciples boldly assumed their responsibility to spread the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection, even though, around them, was the threat of imprisonment and death.  They knew what they could do empowered by the Spirit of Christ, the Power that raised Jesus from the dead.  What about you and me? Is our faith that strong and active in our lives?  Or are we cowering from that of which we are afraid?

Connected to our Source

“Remain in me as I remain in you” (John 15:4). As we walk through parks or even around the properties where we live, invariably we see branches broken off trees. Their leaves quickly fade. The branch dies. It no longer is capable of bearing fruit or fulfilling the purpose for which it was created.

Like branches on trees, we, too, are connected to Someone and Something bigger than ourselves, to all of creation, to everything that moves and breathes and has being from the Creator of all. “For by him (Christ) all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him” (Col. 1:16). Apart from Christ, from God, we are incapable of accomplishing the good for which we were created. “Whoever remains in me,” Christ tells us in today’s Gospel(John 15: 1-8), and I in him/her will bear much (emphasis mine) fruit, because without me you can do nothing. The things we do without Christ, disconnected from God, self (our true self) and others in love is not life-giving, not community building, is not of God. Disconnected, we spread discontent, confusion, chaos and we deepen our emptiness, blow out “smoldering wicks” (Is 42:3) stamp out “budding seedlings,” crush broken spirits and, “yes,” bring death. Do I want to live isolated from Christ, the Source of my Being? Or do I want to stay connected through the Scriptures, the Eucharist, through striving to love others as God loves me,by showing compassion towards others as God shows compassion toward me?

 

Wanting instantaneous answers

In today’s Gospel, John 10: 22-30, some Jews corner Jesus on the Portico of Solomon and ask Him bluntly: “How long are you going to keep us in suspense. If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  We are not that much unlike those people wanting their questions, their confusion, their doubts cleared up once and for all.  We do the same thing.  Do we not ask, for instance, how long we have to put up with a distressing situation without any clear cut answers.  Do we not badger each other about how long  we have to wait for better times, for answers to questions about the economy, about war, about terrorism. Do we not corner our spouses and/or our children demand an answer to something about their lives that have been bothering us for a long time.

We want to trust God. We want to have faith. We want to grow in or fall in love. We want to reconcile, or whatever.  But we want “it” instantaneously.  Jesus’ response to the questioning Jews is: I’ve told you already. If you would be observant and pay attention to the works I do, you would know the answer to your questions.  Is it possible that if we would be listening to one another, to innuendos in each other’s behavior, to hints around us, to  the Lord in the Scriptures, to  the Sunday homilies and liturgies, to the events of the day, to the quiet of nature,  to the whisperings of our hearts that we would find the answers to that which throws us into asking a frenzy of questions of each other or of ourselves.  Jesus, I believe, asks us to weigh the evidence before us and not get into forcing answers.  God Himself will not force an answer from us, as He waits for our total self-giving to Himself as Savior and to each other in love and forgiveness.  He waits! He know when we are not ready and respects readiness. Can we do the same?