Reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent 2021

Working to change.

As they were coming down from the mountain, He charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Lent calls us to change, to reform. Lenten discipline presupposes that we need reform. We may need reform because we lack an understanding of God’s call, or our religious practice has become just habit, or we are just going through the motions without knowing why, or just maybe, we are comfortable and do not want to change or reform.

Throughout our shared Lenten journey, we are studying the means and methods by which we achieve conversion, change and reform. This study will help us to reset our lives, right set our expectations, and get to the change and reform necessary to be ardent and faithful livers of Jesus’s gospel way.

Last week we studied the discipline of fasting. We learned that as we fast from what pulls us away from the gospel, we feel Jesus filling that space with new longing to live the gospel as well as His grace power to do so. 

In the coming weeks we will continue with the subjects of prayer, study, and proclamation. Today we focus on giving, also known as sacrifice.

There is no more poignant call and answer to giving than Abraham’s. As the Passover sacrifice of a lamb prefigures Jesus, so Abraham’s offering of his son prefigures God’s giving of His Son Jesus.

Sacrifice is a call and a response. Abraham could have easily said: No, I’m too busy, I don’t feel like it, Your request goes too far, Moriah is too far. Yet, no matter how impossibly difficult it was for Abraham he answered yes, â€œHere I am!” In Lent we are called to answer yes to sacrifice and giving more than we normally would, to doing the harder things, and to permanently change the way we answer.

In our sacrifice and giving, God recognizes our devotion. As He said to Abraham: I see how devoted you are. God recognized that Abraham did not quit or hold back. Even more, God recognizes the fact that Abraham did not grumble afterward, but rather saw the gifts around him and he gave them to God. Because of that, God promised His abundant blessing in terms of descendants, victory, and that others will find blessing because of Abraham’s giving.

In Jesus dying and rising those gifts are carried forward for us. Because of Jesus’ devotion to His Father’s call and His giving response, we can call ourselves His descendants. We have the only victory that matters, and others find blessing in us. 

Lent calls us to give and sacrifice. Let us respond recognizing that we are doing so from the storehouse of abundant blessings He gives us and as the legacy Jesus left.

Bible Study for the 1st Week of Lent 2021

This week’s memory verse: So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

Ezra 8:23
  • 2/21 – 1 Corinthians 9:27
  • 2/22 – Ezra 8:21
  • 2/23 – Isaiah 58:6-7
  • 2/24 – Zechariah 8:19
  • 2/25 – 2 Chronicles 20:3
  • 2/26 – Deuteronomy 9:18
  • 2/27 – Jonah 3:5

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, renew the fast within me. Grant that my fasting may open room for me to better live Your gospel and empower me to do so.

Reflection for the 1st Sunday in Lent 2021

Working to change.

Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

On Ash Wednesday we heard that Lent calls us to change, to reform. 

Lenten discipline presupposes that we need reform at different levels. Perhaps we need to reform because we lack an understanding of God’s call. Perhaps our religious practice has become habit rather than challenge. Perhaps we are still doing things because mom or dad said so. Maybe, just maybe, we are comfortable and just do not want to change and reform.

Here we are and now is the time to convert, to change and reform. But how do I get there and do it?

Throughout the Lenten journey we are sharing together we will study the means and methods by which we will achieve conversion, change and reform. This study will help us to reset our lives, right set our expectations, and get to the change and reform necessary to be ardent and faithful livers of Jesus’s gospel way.

Here is what we will study – the disciplines of the season: fasting, giving (sacrifice), praying, study, and proclamation – and how though these disciplines we come to conversion, change and reform.

Each of the Lenten disciplines are work. If any were easy to us, we need to find a way to make them a challenge. It may not be just in doing more of x, but in doing x in a different way.

Let’s say we love fasting; it is never that hard. Well, let’s fast in a different way, from a thing other than food, from a thing that pulls us away from living the gospel way.

Today we focus on the fast. As the hymn proclaims, these forty days of Lent O Lord, with You we fast (and pray).

Fasting is a means by which we rend (i.e., break) our hearts, tearing them away from the attractions that trap us and hold us back and refocusing our time and attention on Jesus’ gospel path. In fasting we separate ourselves from the things that distract us from the gospel cause.

There is so much that tries to distract us, pull us away from the gospel way. Here is a great question to ask ourselves in relation to our fasting: I would be sitting here reading scripture or praying or doing good works except that I am _______. I would be reading scripture or praying or doing good works far more often if I wasn’t _______. There is our stop doing that.

As we fast from what distracts and pulls us away from the gospel way, we will feel Jesus filling that cleared space with new longing to live the gospel and the power to do so. 

Bible Study for the 3rd Week of Pre-Lent and the Beginning of Lent 2021

This week’s memory verse: And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Revelation 21:5
  • 2/14 – Isaiah 43:19
  • 2/15 – Romans 12:2
  • 2/16 – 2 Corinthians 5:17
  • 2/17 – Ephesians 4:22-24
  • 2/18 – 1 Peter 1:3
  • 2/19 – Lamentations 3:22-23
  • 2/20 – Colossians 3:9-10

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, You have clothed me in the new garment of salvation. You fill me each day with the new wine of Your grace. Grant that I may share Your ever new love with all those I encounter.

Reflection for Quinquagesima Sunday 2021

Cleaning out.

  • First reading: Hosea 2:16,17,21,22
  • Psalm: 103:1-4,8,10,12-13
  • Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
  • Gospel: Mark 2:18-22

“No, new wine is poured in new wineskins.”

We are in the final half-week of this short season dedicated to preparation for our Lenten journey. It is a season of ‘cleaning out the old’ to make room for the new thing God has waiting for us.

In the first Sunday of Pre-Lent we recognized our likeness to the leper in the Gospel. We acknowledged the fact that we need Jesus to make us clean, clean from old idols and rebellion against God. We were asked to trust that He will indeed cleanse us.

Last week we saw Jesus forgiving sin and showing forth this authority to do so through the curing of the paralytic. Jesus came to cleanse us at an entirely different level – like with the paralytic a cleansing so deep it is complete. St. Paul reminded us that God’s promises are sure and firm. He will do what He says, providing us complete cleansing, forgiveness, and healing. We need only trust.

Today we focus on the room we have made by cleaning out the old and by trusting in God to cleanse us. The room we have made prepares us for the new thing God has waiting for us.

Have you ever reflected on how amazing God is at doing something new? Who else but our God would do new amazing things like lead His people dry shod through the midst of the sea on their way to freedom? Who else would cause the walls of the world’s strongest city to fall before His people? Who would allow His servants to walk safely through the hottest oven ever built? Who would give victory to His armies in the face of overwhelming opposition? Who would send His Son to save us? Who would love a prostitute?

Wait, what? Yes, who else, beside our amazing God, would be bold enough to do what no one else would do, love a prostitute.

The story of the Prophet Hosea is exactly that, God’s next new thing. Hosea was commanded to go out, find, clean up, and marry Gomer the prostitute. Hosea was commanded to go after her, even when she chose to leave him so she could go back to prostitution. In this relationship, God shows forth the depth of His love, a love ever new and renewing. A love deep, complete, and powerful to do new for Gomer and for us.

Jesus speaks of clothes and wineskins. Imagine your oldest most threadbare clothes. God’s ever new way is not to fix up your old clothes with patches, trying to cover the holes that leave us exposed. Rather, He has prepared new brilliant white clothes for us to wear into the kingdom. He does not want to fill the old us with His new wine, His word and His very self. If He did, we would burst. Rather He makes us new, in and out, and ready to receive His next new thing this Lent. 

Bible Study for the 2nd Week of Pre-Lent 2021

This week’s memory verse: And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:6
  • 2/7 – 1 Corinthians 13:10
  • 2/8 – John 1:14
  • 2/9 – James 1:4
  • 2/10 – John 6:40
  • 2/11 – Psalm 16:10
  • 2/12 – Revelation 14:12
  • 2/13 – Matthew 8:16

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant me your yes and amen. Heal me completely from every ill: physical, spiritual, and mental. Help me to rise from my mat and go forth proclaiming your Holy Name.

Reflection for Sexagesima Sunday 2021

Cleaning out.

  • First reading: Isaiah 43:18-19,21-22,24-25
  • Psalm: 41:2-3,4-5,13-14
  • Epistle: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
  • Gospel: Mark 2:1-12

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

We are in the second week of this short two-and-a-half-week season dedicated to preparation for our Lenten journey. It is a season of ‘cleaning out the old’ to make room for the new thing God has waiting for us.

Last Sunday we recognized our likeness to the leper in the Gospel. We acknowledged the fact that we must throw away the old idols within us and clean ourselves of the rebellion against God that is in us. We must ask Jesus to cleanse us of our ẓaraʿat, and trust that He will cleanse us.

Jesus pointedly brings that message home to us today. We must trust that He can and will cleanse us.

The story of the paralyzed man and his friends is dramatic. A crowded street and entryway to a home. People pressing in on all sides, the man and his friends unable to get to Jesus. They get up to the roof and tear it open to lower their friend to Jesus. It is miracle time. Jesus is going to cleanse him of his paralyzing condition.

Jesus had been sitting there speaking the word to them. He was proclaiming the gospel message, repent and believe, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I have come to free you from your handicaps, from your blindness and captivity. He was alluding to the words of Isaiah: The past is forgotten; a new way is being made. No matter how obstinate you have been, no matter how sinful, for My own sake I wipe out your offenses, and remember not your sins. I have come to cleanse you at a whole different level – completely.

Some in the room were listening, others not. Along (or down) comes the paralyzed man. The room goes silent. What will happen next. Will he walk? Will Jesus fail?

Jesus looks up and says: â€œSon, your sins are forgiven.” I am hereby cleansing you of every sin, every failing, every fault. 

The Scribes (read lawyers) were shocked. Jesus cannot cleanse that way. That is blasphemy. So, Jesus confronts them. He asks them what is harder, the cleansing of forgiveness or of healing.

Jesus shows that His cleaning is God’s cleaning and that His cleaning is at a different level – it is so deep it is complete.

St. Paul got our doubt about the completeness of Jesus’ cleansing. How could God free me, heal me, cleanse me. That is why Paul told us that Jesus is YES and AMEN. In Greek “yes” means “sure” and “amen” means “firm.” All of God’s promises are sure and firm. They are unchanging, unwavering, and unmovable. He will do what He says. He will provide us complete cleansing. Jesus has forgiveness and healing waiting for us. Yes, we can trust in Him.

February 2021 Newsletter – Cleaning out

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

December 2011, a stage jam packed with artifacts, boxes, materials, technology, bric-a-brac, and everything else. A counting room, two sacristies, choir loft, closet, and an odd side room off the parish hall similarly situated. It took months, but much of it was reorganized, labeled, filed, sent to the diocesan and general Church archives, and some simply recycled or discarded. But some of it… it ended up in that odd side room off the parish hall awaiting a decision. Here we are in February 2021, nearly ten years later and the time is now. That, my brothers and sisters is what Pre-Lent and our walk through Lent is all about. It is about assessing what we have, the stuff in our lives that stands as clutter between us and God. The amazing thing about our Lord and God is that He has no clutter, no obstacle – He is ever available to us. We, on the other hand tend to have stuff that gets in our way to Him. Over years of Pre-Lenten and Lenten seasons we have worked to remove those obstacles. Yet we still have those set aside rooms where there are lasting issues, stuff remaining between now and paradise. It is time to diligently set to cleaning out those things that stand between where we are and where we must be as Jesus’ disciples. Once we identify the clutter, let us take steps to clean it out and discard what gets in the way. Those things in us await a decision. They nag at us, will you cling to me, the clutter and mess, or will you give me up? Now is the time to clear out.

February is here and we are celebrating the Pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima and preparing ourselves for the beginning of the Great Lent. 

Lent in our 100th year as a parish gives us amply opportunity of reflect on what we must clean out so there is room for what Jesus has prepared for us.

We have an incredibly busy month ahead.

This month we focus on Jeremiah the Prophet and the Spiritual Works of Mercy in our discipleship journey. We hold our annual meeting, a tradition and obligation instituted by those who organized our parish – honoring each person’s voice and vote in the governance of the parish and the management of its funds. We hold our annual month long Valentine’s Raffle event. We celebrate Scout Sunday and also encourage you to apply for music scholarships, and share a reflection on “Being a Light in a Dark World.” Don’t forget about our weekly “Together in Faith and Love” Zoom get-togethers.

Check out all this and more here in our February 2021 Newsletter.

Bible Study for the 1st Week of Pre-Lent 2021

This week’s memory verse: God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

Psalm 68:6
  • 1/31 – Proverbs 17:11
  • 2/1 – 1 Samuel 15:22-23
  • 2/2 – Acts 5:29
  • 2/3 – John 8:44
  • 2/4 – Jeremiah 28:16
  • 2/5 – Isaiah 30:1
  • 2/6 – Isaiah 1:19-20

Pray the week: Lord Jesus, grant that I may turn over everything to You and in humility wholeheartedly follow Your will and Your word. Destroy all rebellion within me.

Reflection for Septuagesima Sunday 2021

Cleaning out.

  • First reading: Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46
  • Psalm: 32:1-2,5,11
  • Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:31 – 11:1
  • Gospel: Mark 1:40-45

He remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere. 

Just prior to Holy Mass I noted that we enter the Pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima today.

This short two-and-a-half-week season is dedicated to preparation for our Lenten journey. It is a season of ‘cleaning out the old’ to make room for the new thing God has waiting for us.

The Hebrew term ẓaraÊ¿at is traditionally rendered “leprosy” because of its Greek translation as “lepra.” The Greek word for leper covers a wide range of diseases that produced scales including many non-contagious types. Greek lepra may have included true leprosy but was not limited to it. It is likely that the banished, like the man who approached Jesus in today’s Gospel, were lifelong sufferers.

Leprosy was most often attributed to the sufferer’s sin. In scripture, whenever a reason is given for an attack of ẓaraÊ¿at, it is in connection with a person challenging duly constituted authority. Miriam challenged the prophetic supremacy of Moses (Numbers 12); Gehazi disobeyed the will of his master Elisha (2 Kings 5); and King Uzziah challenged the exclusive prerogative of the priests to offer incense (2 Chronicles 26).

In this first week of Pre-Lent, let us consider our ẓaraʿat, the leprosy we carry from our challenges to God’s duly constituted authority and that imparted to His Holy Church by the Holy Spirit.

Did our spines and muscles tense just then. What do you mean I have to listen and follow, give up my way of doing things and do what God and that Church are telling me to do? Are you kidding me? I am free to decide! And there is our ẓaraʿat. It lives in our rebellious natures.

From Lucifer to Adam and Eve to the people of Babel and Abraham, to Miriam, Gehazi, and Uzziah, rebellion was the ẓaraÊ¿at that needed to be cleansed in them. 

Rebellion is the leprosy that needs to be cleansed in us. Rebellion is bitter, angry, violent, corrupt, and stubborn. It is contention and dispute, pridefulness. Rebellion defies God’s will and is the enemy’s bad fruit. It is the refusal to turn ourselves over to God.

We choose rebellion because we fear placing our complete trust in God. To solve rebellion in us, we must be wholeheartedly His. We must take the courage to step out and hand over everything to Christ.

Like the leper in today’s Gospel, we must ask Jesus to cleanse us. We must throw away the idol within our heart that says, ‘You cannot have me.’ Yes, we must come to Him from wherever we are, with our whole being, and beg to be cleansed of our ẓaraʿat.