Your Royalty as God's Child

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of Christ, our King.  This morning in prayer I imagined the following conversation with the Lord. It went like this:

 

                I am King.

                You are a King’s daughter.

                You are royalty!

                You are the recipient of my inheritance,

eternal  life in my Kingdom.

                I secured that inheritance for you

 by my obedience as Son of Man to My Father’s will

—your salvation and the salvation of the whole world.

When I was nailed to a cross,

 when I crushed the head of Satan,

all nations, all kingdoms of the earth, all languages (cf. Daniel 7: 13-14)

were brought under My rule and reconciled to My Father.

As Daniel prophesied, “all peoples, all nations and languages

serve [God].

[ M]y dominion is an everlasting dominion

that shall not be taken away.”

(M]y kingdom shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7: 13-14)

 

Look, Lord, at the world!

 

The world as you know it is passing away!

God shall reign forever.

God reigns now and has reigned before this world ever came into existence and will reign eternally.

Hope Eternal

In today’s Gospel, Lk 20: 27-40, Jesus tells us that those who have passed through the door of death “can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

 

That is the hope to which all believers cling. It was the hope to which the 130,000 Vietnamese martyrs clung (we celebrate their victory today) when they were tortured and killed for their faith.  No matter how difficult or horrifying life becomes for those who believe in God, adhere to the values of the Gospel and stand up for what they believe, we know that our “crucifixions,” our dying with Christ is followed by a rising with Him.  Throughout this sojourn on earth, the Lord, as stated in today’s responsorial psalm, “trains [our] hands for battle, [our] fingers for war” (Psalm 144).  It is God at work in our lives who will give us the same victory He gave to David, his servant, and to Jesus, son of David and Son of God, who assumed human nature and was obedient to God even unto death for our sakes. 

What sacrifices am I willing to make for my faith, for the wellbeing of my family, my religious community, the good of the country, the civic and church community in which I live?

Rightful Relationship with God

Yesterday, for me, there was something very sacred about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, a little taste of heaven, a giving thanks to God through bands, music, dances, and artistic displays of gigantic helium balloons and millions of people, in the midst of dealing with the destruction of Hurricane Sandy, gathered together to enjoy this expression of gratitude.

In this week’s liturgical readings, Jesus wept over Jerusalem, chases the money changers out of the Temple (those using religion for financial gain) and is Himself being pursued by those who want to kill him.  We, too, have within ourselves two opposing forces: those that want to give God His rightful place within our lives and within the world and those forces that want to silence God, want God removed/out of sight/destroyed. Knowing that Satan roams the world seeking someone to devour by his deceit and his rebellion against God, Jesus stays with us in the Eucharist,  in the Scriptures, and, yes, hides Himself in the details of our lives.  By savoring God’s Word, memorizing Scripture passages, reflecting on the daily liturgical readings—“hanging on his words,” as did Jesus’ disciples as related in today’s Gospel, Lk 19: 45-48)—we arm ourselves against those evil forces, i.e. against Satan’s helpers bent on not allowing heaven and earth to be recreated as a place where God’s voice is not silenced.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Honor God’s name!
Acknowledge God’s presence!
Prepare God’s way!
Probe God’s messages!
Yes, know that God is always speaking Truth, seeking Truth, and inviting us to Truth!

The Lord is King!

Halleluiah!
Always present is my God! Halleluiah!
Now and forever near to those who seek Him,
Knowing my comings and goings and my thoughts from afar!
Sound the trumpet! God is near!  Halleluiah!
Give glory and honor and praise to God’s holy name!
In times of darkness and of light, in sorrow and in joy, in life and in death
Verify that God is God,
Invisible and infinite,
Never far from the brokenhearted is our
God and Savior!

In today’s first reading, Rev. 4: 1-11, we are told that there are creatures before the throne of God who, day and night, praise God, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.”

The author of the book of Revelation sits in awe of who God is.  Awe is a form of praise. It is also humility, a holy respect of self, God and the other.  Praise draws us closer to God and God to us. Authentic praise of self and others creates intimacy.  Praise sanctifies us, cast out negativity and fills us with positive energy (cf. The Word among Us, November 2012, p. 40).  When we genuinely praise another, it has the same effect.  Praise is the antithesis of sin in us.  The author of the meditation for Nov. 21, 2012 in The Word among Us, p. 40, writes:

                “To understand this truth, reflect on these words of Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa,

               preacher to the papal household:

                 ‘Praise is, par excellence, anti-sin. If, as St. Paul has said, the

                             mother-sin is impiety, that is a refusal to glorify and thank
                             God, then the exact opposite to sin is not virtue but praise!....’”

It behooves us each day to develop the art of gratitude. We might do that at the end of each day by asking ourselves the following questions:  for what today am I grateful? What today has my spouse, my children, my co-workers, my fellow religious done that has been music to my ears, put a song in my heart and lifted my spirit? Keeping a gratitude journal, so to speak, will change your life!  Expressing gratitude--looking for the good each person in your life does each day--will also change the environment in which you life.

"Hot" Discipleship

Both of the readings in today’s liturgy, Rev. 3:1-6, 14-22 and Lk 19: 1-10, are invitations to conversion, to a change of heart and mind.  In Revelation, God tells us that He will not settle for “lukewarmness,” for apathy,  lethargy, or  half-hearted discipleship. “I wish you were either cold or hot…[B]ecause you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” 

Am I caught in an “I don’t care attitude” when another invites me to commit to Christian living--to being honest and upright, to being transparent in a spousal relationship,  to being loving and caring, forgiving and respectful, to building relationships within community if I am a member of a religious community? 

Zacchaeus, a tax collector, working for the Romans, was known  for extorting money from his fellow Jews. He was, in short, a crook, one engaged in cheating, in being deceitful and conniving.  He was also a man who must have heard about Jesus and wanted to see him. Being short in stature and knowing Jesus was coming down the road, Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree in the area. Jesus spotted him and invites him “to come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” Jesus invites. Zacchaeus accepts the invitation.  As a result of his encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus is converted totally—no half measures anymore. He repents of his sinful ways, makes restitution for his crimes against his fellow Jews, and  promises Jesus to give back 4xs the amount he extorted from others in the payment of taxes to the Romans.

That kind of transformation is what happens in our lives when we truly let Jesus, our Savior, into our “houses.”  Am I willing to risk a visit from Jesus? Am I willing to have my lukewarmness, my apathy, my half-hearted discipleship transformed into full discipleship?  Am I willing to have my indifference transformed into being  “hot” in building the Kingdom of God here on this earth, in the world that I occupy: my home, my workplace, my parish, my community?

Fidelity to the Call to Reach out to Others

Today’s first reading, 3 John:  5-8, begins with the phrase: “Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters, especially for strangers; they have testified to your love before the Church.”  Immediately, I thought of the Foundress of my religious community, Venerable Mother Frances Streitel, and the young women who dedicated their lives to the Gospel as Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother between the years of 1883-1895.  From 1888-1895, many of these young women were sent to the U.S. from Europe, beginning in 1888. In 1889, 1890, 1891, 1893 and 1895 hospitals, orphanages, schools and a health resort were opened to attend to the needs of immigrants, of the sick and the poor and parentless and uneducated children.  These young women religious left everything to follow Jesus.  Strangers could count on these women to respond to their desperate need.  These acts of heroism continue to this day by men and women religious and by lay men and women who leave their homelands in search of ways to support their families and to respond to brothers and sisters in Christ.

And Jesus says: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me (Mt 25:40).

These strangers testify, today,  before God in eternity “to the love of these young women religious who had  given their all to meet unmet need with the wealth that consumed them: God’s love, God’s compassion, God’s mercy.  They had little of nothing of this world’s goods but like Peter and John before the poor man sitting at the door of the Temple they could say: We have no money, but in the name of Jesus, we give you God’s love,  God’s compassion and God’s mercy. 

These heroic deeds on the part of women and men religious and parents who sacrifice everything to give their children what they need—that is, God’s love, God’s compassion and the good that comes from sacrifice  and learning to give of their all  to help others—continue to this day.

 

What role are you and I playing in this world so much in need to selfless giving for God’s sake?