Memory verse for this week: He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.â€
Psalm 91:1-2
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, You are my Good Shepherd and my shelter. Lead me to life abundant. Grant that I may live Your life in my every action.
One way.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep… Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.â€
It is pretty easy to picture Jesus as the Good Shepherd. We have all seen many beautiful and heart moving images of the Good Shepherd, Jesus cradling us as the lamb in His arms. This Good Shepherd Sunday we are asked to consider Jesus as the gate to the sheepfold.
Jesus as the gate to the sheepfold seems a little odd to us. If we come at it from the perspective of modern farming and ranching, we might see Jesus as a wooden gate or a metal fence gate. That seems – well – weird. We have to take a step back to Jesus’ time to recognize what He was really talking about.
In Jesus’ time, the gate to the sheepfold was a man. There would be a big stone pen with a man who stayed at its entrance guarding the sheep. The shepherds would lead their flocks in, and one would ensure their safety. When the time came the shepherds would return, the gate-man would allow them entry. They would call their sheep by name and they would follow the shepherds out to pasture. The gate-man would fend off robbers and carnivorous animals, protecting the sheep.
There are many allusions to shepherds and some even like to focus on those who are bad or indifferent shepherds. Let’s not do that. Our only focus should be on the Good Shepherd. Jesus is called that for a reason.
The reason He is called the Good Shepherd is because He is indeed Good. His shepherding is awesome. His voice is trustworthy. His words are music to us. He draws us to Himself. He leads us. He protects us. He has saved us. He suffered for us, fending off the power of sin and death to rob from us and to destroy us. He took up our defense at the cost of His flesh and blood; at the cost of His life. Finally, as the gate-man to heaven, He opened the door to everlasting life in the joy of the Kingdom – the promise made to each of us His faithful.
The people Peter and the eleven were speaking to were cut to the heart by the truth of Who Jesus is. They asked: “What are we to do, my brothers?†The answer is not fancy or complex, it is simple. Be baptized, enter in through Jesus, the gate-man. Enter through His death and burial so to rise to new life, life to the full, and live like you got it. “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.†Live like you got it.
This week’s memory verse: Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
1 Corinthians 3:13
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, alight my heart, fill me with the fire necessary to do Your work, to go into the flames of the world and bring your true light.
Realization.
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?â€
Let’s start again this week from music. Would we happen to know how many songs talk about ‘hearts on fire,’ ‘hearts aflame?’ There are at least twelve. Probably a lot more.
Songwriters like the image of hearts on fire because it evokes a passion and desire so necessary to them in drawing pictures of love and even loss. Bryan Adams ‘Hearts On Fire’ is from his album ‘Into The Fire.’ Those titles, cobbled together, speak to what the disciples on the road to Emmaus were experiencing. They went from hearts burning within them to hearts on fire for the gospel, for bringing people to the knowledge of Jesus. Their hearts would not let them stop as long as there were souls in need of salvation.
In their journey with Jesus the disciples felt their hearts being enkindled by the words of scripture, and in fact by Jesus’ very presence. They were experiencing God with us, Emmanuel, Jesus in their midst. They felt. within themselves, an urge for more.
Hearts on fire is a motivator to action and to living the gospel way. We, like those disciples, are called by the fire within us to go out into the fire, to bring Jesus word and way to souls in need of salvation.
St. Paul traveled about, proclaiming the gospel message, often to people who wanted nothing to do with it. He could not, nor would he, stop. We might ask ourselves why he did it. After government officials, Jews in the diaspora, followers of empty stone rejected him over and over, after they tried to stone him, after numerous arrests and ninety-nine plus percent of people rejecting his message – why still try? Because the fire would not let him stop, not even rest. It needs to be the same for us.
In this time of crisis, we feel the fire deeply. If we long for normality, if we long for something in particular, how much greater our longing should be for, our fire be, for the salvation of souls.
The debate over faith of the heart or the brain has gone on for ages. Is faith felt or intellectualized? The reality is that Jesus speaks to each of us in the way that best ignites the fire, the passion, the drive to be His witnesses to all who are without hope, whose hearts and minds also cry out to be lit aflame by the Lord. Now is the time to self-listen, to recognize our hearts already aflame with the Lord, His gospel, and to help others realize their faith and hope are in God.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant me the grace to turn doubt, anger, and hunger to the fullness of life in You.
Doubt, anger, hunger.
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.â€
The Grand Ole Opry hosted a Bluegrass night last night. Dailey & Vincent sang By The Mark.
When I cross over
I will shout and sing
I will know my Savior
By the mark where the nails have been
By the mark where the nails have been
By the sign upon his precious skin
I will know my savior when I come to him
By the mark where the nails have been
A man of riches
May claim a crown of jewels
But the king of heaven
Can be told from the prince of fools
By the mark where the nails have been…
Indeed, we are, in these days very closely in touch with St. Thomas. Consider what he had been through. Everything he had heard and seen at the hands of Jesus followed by betrayal, suffering and death. He was filled, as we are in these days, with doubt, anger, and hunger.
Maybe Thomas hungered for how it was. I believe we do. We haven’t been separated from the way things were long enough to really evaluate the implications of our choices. In fact, recent protests focused on reopening and going back is a sinful desire for old ways. No lessons have been learned there. Thomas rather learned a very important lesson. He would not believe unless he could go back. Jesus charged him instead with going forward, to act on faith and to have confidence. Thomas, move forward.
Maybe Thomas was angry. His apple cart was upset, his cheese had been moved. He had to re-evaluate and adjust, but that can make us upset, uncomfortable, and sometimes even angry. If you read some social media messages the anger is palpable and deeply immature. Is that where Thomas stayed? No, of course, but he could have. He could have stayed angry, lived in the past. Instead, encountering Jesus in a new way he came to new life. He moved from angry and hungering disciple to Apostle, bearer of the Good News. Thomas, move forward.
Thomas doubted. How could it change, how could it get better? He learned it was not by going back or by being angry. Thomas learned, as we must, it is by the mark and living in the promise of Jesus, by living Jesus’ way, and by knowing our life is not here, but in Jesus’ holy name.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13
Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant me the grace to encounter You anew each day and to pursue those things that are above; my sole hope.
Seek! Encounter!
Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
Early in the morning Mary’s heart would not let her sleep. Her heart broken in the experience of witnessing her beloved Lord and Master’s cruel death called out to her – Go, be with Him. Still dark, she ventured out. Wending her way through the city in the early morning, avoiding the Roman soldiers, Temple guards, and other ne’er-do-wells she headed out to the tomb. On her way there she would look up and see the hill on which He was crucified, the crosses still standing in the dawn’s rising sun. Arriving in the garden near the hill she found the stone removed. Shocked she runs off to tell the apostles. St. Matthew tells us that she saw the angel descend to roll away the stone. He told her to run to the apostles. On the way to the apostles, she encounters Jesus.
We have been called into our own monasteries, our convents, our Sketes. We have been, in a way, in this time of confinement and separation, been called apart from the world and are being asked to encounter Jesus. In the silence of this time, let us anew seek what is above, where Christ is seated at God’s right hand. Let us think, ponder, reflect, and lift ourselves up with a focus on what is above. Lifting ourselves to Jesus, let us find hope and more than that – assurance in our encounter with Him.
In facing our current fears, we are closely aligned with how the apostles and Mary felt that morning. Their hearts were broken, and their bodies worn out from grief. And Jesus broke through! He said, I am going before you to Galilee where you will encounter me once again.
Early each morning let us too venture out, out of the things that confine our hope, that break our hearts, that keep our eyes pointed low and down. Let us go to be with our Lord and Master, to sit with Him in prayer. Let us look up to the hill where the cross stands and encounter in it the tree of salvation and freedom. Let us see the tomb empty, knowing that He has risen, knowing that we too are inheritors of that glorious resurrection.
St. Paul calls the people of Colossae and us to a key truth. If we have encountered Christ’s resurrection let us keep our eyes, hearts, thoughts, and spirits focused on Him. The joy of this day is ours forever and nothing can take it from us. It is ours!
Yet it was our infirmities that He bore,
our sufferings that He endured.
This day, this Good Friday, in the midst of pandemic and crisis, causes us to stop and absorb reality in a new way; to understand what life is really about. To focus on Jesus.
Brothers, sisters,
Jesus took on the world. He took on the sinful state of the world. Why?
When sin entered the world, along with it came all of sin’s consequences. Sickness, pain, poverty, abuse, injustice, war, disease, plague, destruction, pandemic – these and more. Man finds ever new ways to take the gifts of God and to corrupt them.
Along with all that came death. It was not death as we, in our Christian perspective and understanding, perceive it. It was death without hope, without a promise. It was a long, an eternal holding pattern.
The souls of the dead were warehoused.
Why did Jesus take on the sinful world? The why is answered in this: By Jesus’ love sacrifice for us He frees us of all hopelessness and reorients us. He reorients us. He offers us a powerful, beautiful, and hope-filled life pointed at the eternal. What life is about.
The Cross is not an occasion. Good Friday is not a day. It is profound change. Our future, our direction was changed this day. We gain today an understanding and appreciation for what life is about.
Remember those warehoused souls? It was Jesus’ first act – to free them from Sheol. He descended to hell, to the dead, and He freed them. From hopeless stasis to heavenly joy and glory, He freed them to what life is about.
Our current crisis brings this reality home. The light needs go on in our minds and hearts. What is life about? What have i been caught up in? Where have I been dwelling? What am I even praying for now? To go back to how it was? To get on with getting on?
We are each called to work out our salvation, as is said, in fear and trembling.
As we come to the Cross, let us pray – not for a going back, but for a going forward. Stop for this moment. Absorb the fact that Jesus took on fever, pain beyond measure, exhaustion, loneliness, dehydration, abandonment. He bore our infirmities to give us far more than the here and now. Let us focus our eyes, minds, and hearts on what we are truly living for and where out life will take us.
Through His suffering, My Servant shall justify many.
The door to heaven is now open. Let us live intent on making it through that door to life eternal. Let us appreciate what life is really about. That is the profound charge we have in the Cross. That is why.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
Psalm 116:12-13
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
King David sat down to write a psalm, a hymn of thanksgiving. How appropriate that it be proclaimed this evening.
On this very night, Jesus gifted us with means by which we remain in union with Him whether in good times or bad, whether celebrating or in danger. By this union with Jesus, we have the means and grace necessary to transcend all things. On this night Jesus took the bread and cup and left us His body and blood. On this night, Jesus left us the power to wipe away sin, to lose and to bind. On this night, Jesus gave to His Church a share in His ministerial priesthood so that His great grace, our source of strength and transcendence, might live on in a real and effective manner.
We receive His grace in a real and effective manner as we gather, in person or even remotely, before the altar. What is the altar? It is Jesus Himself. On this night Jesus gave us Himself as the altar, the sacrifice, and the priesthood that offers the sacrifice so that we might always remain part of, really full participants in His eternal transcendent reality.
It is interesting that on this night we read from John’s gospel. John focused completely on the nature of Jesus as transcendent. Transcendence is a rich word meaning “that which is divinely other and loftier, wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws and rules.†John most aptly expresses the great truth that our Lord Jesus Christ is God. On this night Jesus provides us with Himself so that we might receive His grace and be pulled up into Him, to transcend with Him as sharers and partakers in His nature. To move beyond.
In repeating David’s hymn of thanksgiving, we acknowledge our deliverance in a lively, i.e., joy filled, expression of devotion, love, and gratitude. We must now, in this moment, lift our souls up to God. We are called to be a thankful people, thankful in the midst of every situation because we are not just in the here and now. In the midst of struggle, fear, and anxiety. In the here and now we are more than the here and now. We are transcendent beings whose eternity surpasses all.
David was once in great distress and danger, so much so that it almost drove him to despair. He seeks God and cries out to Him in that distress. David experiences God’s goodness and his prayers are answered. God heard him, pitied him, and delivered him. Note that David took care to acknowledge the goodness of God, even asking, ‘how could I possibly make a return to God for His goodness?’ He does it by taking up, as we are privileged to do at every Holy Mass, the cup of salvation. He vows to continue calling on the name of the LORD. God helped David to transcend his situational problems as a symbol of what God’s Son, a descendent of David, would do for us. Jesus’ gift to us is complete and eternal transcendence over problems, situations, sin, and death itself.
David certainly gave thanks, only understanding in shadows what we know fully. We know that God graciously delivers us from every trouble. His deliverance is beyond the here and now – and why the Eucharist is so important, for in our time before the altar we are pulled into God’s eternity. This is important! Our troubles are but for a time, but our assurance transcends. Jesus delivers us from the now to the forever. Draw strength from that brothers and sisters, all who partake at the Lord’s table and who share in Jesus’s transcendence. Amen!