Living Water

In Tomorrow's Gospel reading we see Jesus experiencing one of those human emotions that many of us can truly empathize with.  The Scripture says that he looked around at them with anger.  Oh, anger, how I wish to be rid of thee.  Sometimes though, we should be angry!  Here Jesus shows us one of those times.  These same men have been confronting him for some time now in the readings.  They accused him of blasphemy for healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof.  Then again on the Sabbath for his disciples working and not fasting.  Now here they are once again, thinking in their hearts that he is sinning for healing.  

They aren't watching him to get an example of how to live the Gospel.  They are refusing to see him for who he really is.  They are blinded by their own jealousy, their own fear of losing their influence, their own humanity.  Jesus demands to know, is it wrong to do good?  Is it wrong to save life?  Christ taught us that lesson over and over, that though we should avoid unnecessary work on the Sabbath, works of mercy always supersede our desire and need for rest. 

The Pharisees though did not see God standing right before them.  The Son of Man was standing in their midst, showing them the true breadth and width of the Law, that is he was showing them how to Love.   He offered them a relationship with God.  He offered them a way of living that put the law in it's proper place, as a means to bring rest to the weary and justice to the land.  Instead, they have chosen time and again to refuse his message, to reject his call.  This not only angered him, it grieved him.  Doesn't that normally happen?  When we are trying to give someone something that we know will be good for them, when we offer them love and hope, and they reject it for something they think is better?   Doesn't it frustrate us?  Anger us?  Grieve us? 

Jesus of course heals the man with the withered hand.  He shows us by his own actions the example that we should be following.  He teaches us that our relationship with God is first and foremost, and that the way we live that relationship is through a relationship with one another.  It is in loving others that we serve God the most.    The Pharisees were stumbling over Jesus doing good on the Sabbath, demanding rather that he sit and rest, avoiding work, fasting.  They forgot the words of the Prophet:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:...
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard."

Isn't that then our lesson for this reading?  God desires mercy more than sacrifice, obedience more than burnt offerings.  He wants us to follow Him.  God created the Sabbath to show man that he could both take the rest that he needed and still emulate God.  God didn't need the rest, we did.  He took our own nature and emulated it so that we could then in turn be more like him.  How generous a God is that?  Then he gave us His Son, the visible sign of the invisible God.  He gave us the perfect example to follow.. so in being like Christ, we become more like God.

We are in a world that is filled with temptations and trials.  We constantly have to fight our desires, our flesh.  The early Church Fathers talk about how David and Goliath is the story of the Church, of the fight between Satan and the Body of Christ.  David has given us an example of one who doesn't trust in armor, or trust in swords.  He doesn't put his faith in his own ability to beat Goliath, but rather in the Holy One of Israel.  He steps on to the field armed with only with the tools of a Shepherd.  In the end he is triumphant with just a sling and a stone.  The Lord is our rock.  It is when we arm ourselves with the Rock of the Lord and launch it toward our enemy that we can hope to beat him. 

That means reading Sacred Scripture.  That means studying the Word of the Lord.   That means receiving the Sacraments, often, reverently, and with expectant hope.  That means being more like Christ.   That means reaching out to the widow, the orphan, the refugee.... There is this image from the book of the Prophet Amos that says:

But let justice roll down like waters,    and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

Isn't that what our Church is?  The Eucharist is the source of life, the living waters, the presence of Christ himself.  How much more so should that stream overflow out of us and into the world?  Do you think of yourself as a fountain?  Are you letting Christ overflow from your heart that the rest of the world might experience just a drop of his justice?  Oh, how parched a land this world is, and how refreshing a single drop of that heavenly water to the soul in need.  We have work to do!

His servant and yours, 
Brian 

"He must increase, I must decrease."  

Aliens!?

In tomorrow's first reading there is a challenging statement by the John the Evangelist: If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.   Love is often a challenge isn't it? God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ that it is the very nature of God.  The Catechism of the Catholic church phrases it like this: God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.  (CCC 221)  Doesn't it make your heart sing to know that God has trusted you with a secret?  A secret that he expects you to share with others and not keep to yourself? 

That's the funny thing about love.  It's kind of like water that we try to hold on to with just our hand.  Sure we might get a puddle to stay for a while, but eventually it's going to drain out in the cracks.  The thing about this water though is the more of it we give away.. the more of it we find.  It's only when we give it away that it becomes love.  Love is never about self.  It's always about other.  That is the gift of the trinity, the beauty of it... the image of an eternal sharing of love... that was so great and vast that it poured out into the universe to create us.  It still calls to us with every breath saying, "I love you." 

The Word became flesh so to be our model of holiness (CCC 459). Jesus in the Gospel reading begins to read from a scroll a prophet from Isaiah.  In it he declares an outpouring of God's grace and mercy, he declares that the passage has been fulfilled right in front of them.  That God has given us what we need to receive forgiveness, liberty and justice.  All of it, right there in Christ himself.  He is the very model of the Beatitudes himself, and challenges that all of the Law and the Prophets hinges on just one thing: Love one another as I have loved you.  Jesus modelled love.  He loved so strongly, so fully.. that he went to his death for us. Love is not just a word.. it's an action.

That brings us to the question: who is our brother?  Let us take the example of Christ himself and ask, what do we know about who he loved?  "God so loved the world."  Just as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, our brother is not just the one we choose.  Jesus did not go to the cross for just the Catholic or the Jew, he did not go for just the sinner or the saint, he did not go for just the believer or the atheist... he went for all.  He gave himself up for every single person, and that my friends is the challenge.. that is our brother.

The citizen and the immigrant.  The refugee and the comfortable.  The ignorant and the knowledgable.  Yes, our challenge is to love everyone.  Pope Francis released a new video just recently that expresses it better than I ever could.

How about you?  ¡Creo en el amor, tambien!  I believe in love, as well.  Now comes the hard part.  Do you live that love?  John reminds us that For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments.  That means following the rules.  Obeying them.  They are a guard rail.  Not a wall.  You can go outside of them if you want, but that means not only that you are putting yourself in danger.. but that you are saying "I don't love you God."  It means loving that person who really gets on your nerves.   That one who doesn't necessarily loving you back.   It means reaching out to the widow, the orphan, and the alien.  We often forget that one don't we?  The widow and the orphan people are quick to pipe up and help.  We start talking about the Alien, the refugee, the immigrant, the illegal. Oh that changes things doesn't it?   God declared that we should be kind to the alien.  We should be generous to them.  We should take care of them and help them as well.  They deserve dignity and justice just as much as you and I do.

We have work to do.  Every day at Mass we pray, "thy will be done, thy kingdom come."  That doesn't mean that we sit back on our hands and wait.  Love is an action.  It means giving up yourself.  It means sacrificing yourself.  For them.  For the other.  It's not about "doing something for myself because someone has to."  That's ego.  No, it's doing something for the other.. even if they don't appreciate it.  Even if they don't say thanks.  Even if they recognize it or realize you've even done it. 

We are the body of Christ.  This week find something to do for someone else.  Something that they don't know that you even did.  Send a letter.  A gift.  Bring up a trash can.  Shovel some snow.  Not to be noticed.  Feed someone. Make a difference.  Not to be seen.  Just out of pure love. Then we can truly say that our right hand, didn't know what our left was doing. 

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease. "