Sometimes we are called to step out of the boat.
As my husband and I were approaching our wedding day, we would say, “We’re stepping out of the boat together!” In prayer, my husband had had an image of us stepping out of the boat, like St. Peter, walking toward Jesus. We had spent time dating and discerning marriage with each other and had experienced a lot of confirmation that God was calling us to live out the vocation of marriage together. Even in the confidence that this was God’s plan, there was a reality that we didn’t know what our journey as husband and wife would look like. We were stepping out into the ocean of unknown, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, praying that we’d always have the grace to keep our focus on Jesus.
We’ve been married under a year and a half, and this stepping out of the boat theme has continued! Most significantly, we relied on this image as we became parents. Every day as a parent can bring surprises and unknowns and encourages us to be open to the waves or the calm while relying on Jesus’ guidance. It’s an exciting and truly joy-filled adventure.
Currently, my husband and I are in the midst of another “stepping out of the boat” situation, facing some big decisions for our family. And even though there is fear as we look at each other and say, “well…we are stepping out of the boat again,” we have confidence in the Lord, as He has never failed us before. He has proven the power of His guiding hand to each of us, first as single individuals, and now as a couple, over and over again. He calls us out onto the water, where the uncomfortability and risk are apparent, but where we have the choice to stay close to Him… through prayer, through trust in His promises and provision, through His grace and knowing His love for us.
Because we are currently in the midst of a stepping out (or more like jumping out) of the boat season again, there is an uncomfortability as we are asked to step into the unknown and to cling more truly to Christ. Christ calls us. He asks us to follow Him. It may often be uncomfortable and feel risky. It may look very risky from a worldly perspective. But the risk is where God can show up most clearly. He reveals Himself and His power. There is a theme and a refrain through the chapters of Exodus. God is revealing His Divine power to the Egyptians and Israelites. He is revealing who He IS. “…that they may know that I am the Lord” (cf. Exodus 7:5, 14:8, 29:46, emphasis added). We worship the same God. And His actions in our lives reveal who He is. He reveals Himself and His power not only to us, but to those we know. Our lives can point others to God as He calls us and we follow, putting our trust in Him. And so in the middle of the uncomfortable, risky times, preparing to step out into the waters ahead, we must trust His promises and stay focused on Christ. He never fails us.
As we look back, we will see His unmistakable fingerprints in our lives. He always leads us into goodness that we couldn’t have imagined or planned ourselves. This is who our God is. And this is the adventure of life with Christ. Our stability is truly in Him alone. And it’s a stability beyond anything earthly. His promises are true. “Do not be afraid, my child. I am with you wherever you go.” How is He calling you to step out of the boat and place your trust in Him? Whether it is not clear to you right now, or very clear, you can trust that He is with you and guiding you. Let us open our hearts to His Love, listen for His guidance, and follow where He asks us to come. Even if it means stepping out of the boat into the unknown.
Author: Melissa
Melissa is a wife, mama, and Catholic artist striving to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit. Whether onstage or with a pen and paper, she finds deep joy and fulfillment in sharing God's truth and beauty through singing, acting, and writing. She has performed on Broadway and in the National Tour of Les Misérables. Currently, she is pursuing a M.A. in Theology through Augustine Institute, and alongside her husband, Stephen, does music ministry, having previously led the music of Frassati Fellowship in NYC. Follow their music at www.treelilymusic.com and on IG @treelilymusic
Awakened by the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood
“So there are three who testify,
the Spirit, the water, and the Blood,
and the three are of one accord.”1 John 5:7-8
At church this past Sunday, we stood in line to receive a personal dousing of Holy Water from the priest in renewal of our Baptisms. My baby girl had finally fallen asleep in my arms, but you better believe she awoke when she felt that Holy Water spray her! Luckily, and no doubt in God’s freshly bestowed grace, she fell right back asleep. Earlier during the liturgy, drops of the Precious Blood of Jesus in the Eucharistic form of wine woke her from her slumber as the priest placed them upon her teeny lips. Twice on Sunday she was awoken by sacramental encounters with Jesus.
If you have never heard of a baby receiving the Eucharist or a communion line-style Baptismal renewal, don’t worry. These traditions were foreign to me a few years ago. They are traditions of the Byzantine Catholic Church. When I met my husband he introduced me to the Byzantine Rite, an Eastern rite of the Catholic Church in full union with the Pope and the Roman, or Latin, Rite of Catholicism. While the Roman Catholic Church will celebrate Jesus’ Baptism this coming Sunday, we celebrated it last week in the Byzantine Church. In both rites of the Church, especially through the Sacraments, we encounter the Spirit, the water, and the Blood John speaks of in today’s first reading.
Some of us may be familiar with this standard definition of a Sacrament: “an outward sign of an inward grace” instituted by Christ Himself. Indeed, the sacraments are physical realities in which we encounter the living Christ and His Holy Spirit. In the three Sacraments of Initiation, Baptism, Confirmation/Chrismation, and the Holy Eucharist, we encounter the water, the Spirit, and the Blood of 1 John 5. (NOTE: In the Eastern Tradition, babies and children entering the church receive the three sacraments of initiation at the same time. Yes, even the youngest, the baby Byzantines, receive a drop of the Precious Blood of Jesus on their lips. This explains why my baby had been awoken by the Eucharist on her lips in church this past Sunday.)
The waters of our Baptism, through God’s grace, signify that we have become His precious son or daughter. The Holy Chrism, or oil, of our Confirmation or Chrismation, is the sign that communicates the seal of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit which were made ours through our Baptism. The Precious Body and Blood of Jesus present in the Eucharist unite us more fully to Him and allow us to enter into the Mystery of the Cross. We are members of a Church that makes the spiritual realities of the faith tangible. We actively participate in these Sacraments to signify our spiritual relationship with the Living Son of God. John’s words in the first reading are a call to action, a call to live out our faith in Christ. The Sacraments of Initiation provide our initial encounters with this Spirit, this water, and this Blood of Jesus.
The Gospel shows us how this call moves outside the sanctuary of the Church to the world beyond Her walls. Jesus’ healing of a leper reminds us of the cleansing He has imparted on our own souls — and how we can now be His hands and feet to impart this on others. See, we have been healed by Christ not only for our own sake, but also for the building up of the Kingdom. We have been sacramentally initiated, welcomed into the family of the Church by our good Father through His Son Jesus and His Holy Spirit. This is why celebrating His Baptism every year, renewing our baptismal promises, and being doused anew with the waters of the Spirit is so important for our spiritual life. Each week we are nourished by His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. God provides us with the grace we need to share our own healing with others, so that they may know that they are loved by God in this same way, and may be invited into His healing love. Most of us are in a continual process of healing of whatever forms of “leprosy” we are sick with — the Divine Healer continues to heal, cleanse, and purify us. Though even as we are in the process of deeper healing, He wants to use us to bring the people we encounter into His healing Love.
May we all be awoken by the drops of Holy Water that land on our faces and by the drops of Jesus’ Precious Blood that touch our lips. His Spirit is alive and well and among us. In fact, it dwells within us. Let us ask Him how He wants us to share the Spirit, the water, and the Blood that we’ve been so blessed to encounter.
A Great Light
The Christmas season is marked by light. Lights strung around the tree, candles burning in windows, fireplaces warming homes, storefronts decorated with lights… Many families will take a drive to go see the lights or see a tree in their city adorned with lights. The beauty of light clearly draws us in.
I’ve been rediscovering the glory of light as I watch my 2.5-month-old stare at lights — not just Christmas lights, but any kind of light. I am realizing that we are born with an innate draw to the gift and mystery of light. And while my sweet little baby stares with wonder at light, she is often being stared at by the people around her. When we introduce her to friends and family, people find themselves circled around her, staring in wonder in the same way she herself stares at a light. I’ve had two friends say in the past week that babies are like campfires — you feel like you can just stare at them forever. There is a beauty, a wonder, and a joy in the presence of a baby and in the light of a campfire that draws our hearts. This mystery of light is at the beginning of creation, as God himself created light before anything else (Genesis 1:3). And this mystery of light is revealed to us further at the beginning of the Gospel, the beginning of our re-creation in Christ, as the Light of the world comes to us as a newborn baby. How everyone present at Christ’s Nativity must have stared at this baby with an unmatched wonder and awe, as they stared at the One True Light Himself.
Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.
The refrain of today’s Psalm taken from the Gospel of John (Jn 8:12) reminds us that as Christians, we possess the gift of light, for Christ is the fullness of light. It is through Christ that we are called into union with the Creator of light, the Father, and made partakers in this light by the fire of the Holy Spirit. We may already be well aware that as Christians we possess the light of Christ, but this Advent, perhaps the Lord is calling us deeper, asking us to receive His light more fully. What area or aspect of your heart or life remains in darkness? These areas may take some prayerful digging to find. Anxiety, fear, hopelessness… Ask the Lord to reveal this place to you, in His gentleness and love. This is where the Lord yearns to be invited. To bring an end to any remaining darkness with the light of life.
I hope that every light we see this Advent and Christmas points us to the One True Light Himself. The Savior of the world, God Himself, was born to us a beautiful, sweet baby. Come let us adore Him, and stare in wonder at the baby Jesus, the Light who changed everything.
Moment by Moment with the Lord
On September 21st, mine and my husband’s lives changed forever as we welcomed the baby who had been growing in my womb for nine months into the world! In her first eight weeks outside the womb, our sweet little girl has already encouraged and challenged me to grow. One immediate change I’ve experienced in my day to day is how little my ideas of a plan or schedule really matter. Of course, the words ‘plan’ and ‘schedule’ mean nothing to an eight-week-old, and that is the beauty (and challenge) of it. By nature, I tend to be pretty go-with-the-flow and not much of a planner, but even a plan as simple as making breakfast and coffee when I get up in the morning may or may not come to fruition in the way I imagine now that I have a little one depending on me. Breastfeeding, a diaper change, and/or a snuggle may all need to happen before I have a chance to take a sip of that coffee. In short, any number of little things can re-route my simple daily plans. Equally as often, I am anticipating my little girl getting hungry only to find that she is perfectly content and smiley, giving me an unexpected opportunity to get something done that I wasn’t expecting to do or enter into that smiley moment with her. As I’ve begun to adjust to caring for my sweet little infant, I’ve realized how it encourages me to be present to the moment. I can choose to cling to my ideal plan and be disappointed or upset when it goes differently, or I can choose to be open to what is most important moment by moment.
Holiness is a calling that asks for our whole present selves first and foremost. God asks us to come into His presence and everything else flows from there. Plans and schedules are not bad at all – they are in fact very good. A plan for our day or our entire life plan can be a beautiful source of Hope. What’s important is that this Hope is rooted in the Lord and not the plan itself. He is the source of all Hope and our plans only matter insofar as we don’t lose the source Himself in the midst of them. We must learn detachment from the plans themselves. And while our plans can be good, meaningful, and holy, God often has surprises up His sleeve anyway. As a good friend of mine always says, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of His second coming, when the “Son of Man is revealed” (Lk 17:30). These Scriptures make me ask myself, “What can I be doing to be ready when the Lord comes?” But I think that question can be misleading. At the center of anything I am “doing” to prepare for the Lord, is the simple act of being in Him. Through the grace of God, made concrete through our baptism and the other sacraments, we are in Him and called to remain in Him (Jn 15:4) moment by moment. The Holy Spirit speaks to us and calls us outside of our own plans into His own. At the core, we yearn to be so attune with Him that we don’t miss His voice because it didn’t fit into our own schedule.
How do we become more attune with Him? Talk to Him, spend time with Him, welcome Him in to every moment. And as often as we forget to do this, ask Him to forgive us and start again, asking for His help because we can’t do this in our own power. And He will. He will teach us, just like He is teaching me through the presence of my daughter. In a time where my prayer time is sporadic, He is teaching me through the very vocation He has given me. He is speaking a specific lesson to me through my daughter in these first weeks of her life. I ask Him to help me be open with each moment so I don’t miss an opportunity to play with her when she is awake or use the time she is sleeping peacefully to eat something… or write this reflection. My motherly instincts are encouraging me to become attuned to my daughter and what she is communicating to me. And so it is with the Lord… He welcomes us to become attuned to Himself so we may not miss the important things He is communicating to us. How is He currently communicating to you through your life, and how can you invite Him in more fully to each moment?
Lord, I welcome you into this day, into each moment. Teach me how to surrender my plans and live more truly moment by moment with you. In Christ we pray, Amen.
The Art… or Heart of Christian Hospitality
In today’s gospel, the Pharisees ask Jesus which commandment is the greatest… and He more or less gives two answers. (Jesus is very clever like that.) The first commandment is the greatest and “the second is like it.”
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”-Matthew 22:37-40
Jesus teaches us that loving God with our whole heart, mind, and soul is inherently connected to loving others.
I recently listened to a Catholic podcast on hospitality (for link to the podcast episode, see below or click here – I highly recommend listening!). This has had me thinking and praying… What does hospitality mean for us as Christians and what does it look like lived out? I know it can look different for each person, depending on stage of life, vocation, etc, so it calls us to pray about what it looks like for each of us. But at its heart, hospitality is a universal Christian call. One of the priests on the podcast makes a beautiful connection between hospitality and receptivity. In fact, ‘warm reception’ is a synonym for hospitality. This receptivity, or openness, is not only at the heart of a hospitable person who opens their door to warmly welcome a visitor, but also at the heart of the visitor who openly accepts (receives) this gesture. Being hospitable doesn’t require a perfectly clean home, the ability to cook a fabulous meal, or having a guest room – it requires a heart open to a visitor, or any person you encounter. At the heart of Christian hospitality is a quality of being present to the person and the moment. Thusfar, I’ve spoken of hospitality in specific terms of welcoming a guest, which is what I initially think of when I hear the word. While this is a very tangible and beautiful example of hospitality, it is a specific example and many of us can think hospitality doesn’t really apply to us unless we often welcome visitors into our home. (Though I do hope we will think of these things the next time we do host a friend or family member in town).
The Christian essence of hospitality is its sacrificial and serving nature. It’s the sacrifice of your time, your energy, yourself to receive another person, even, and especially, when it’s unexpected or last minute. This can happen with a visitor from out of town, or a stranger at church who strikes up a conversation maybe looking for someone to talk to for a moment, or something as simple as being present and receptive to the person working the register at the coffee shop or grocery store. For many of us, welcoming visitors into our homes may not happen often, but we all encounter strangers, acquaintances, friends, family – others – everyday. These are all our neighbors. Our current cultural challenge is to be present or to be receptive to our neighbors… to love our neighbors… to welcome each as though he or she is Christ. This can be more simple than we think. Making eye contact with the person ringing up my coffee order, instead of checking my phone. Saying hello to her and asking “how’s your day?” Taking a moment to ask an acquaintance at church or work how he is doing. Being receptive to those around us, as Christ is to us in every moment. The two commandments Christ speaks of today are so interwoven because loving God is to receive from Him… and this moves us to love to our neighbors. “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). When we love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul, we are transformed to see every person for who they are – a soul loved by God, a soul whose very human nature reflects God. We see Christ in them. And we learn to welcome them as such.
In our culture of inwardness, where it is easier to stay inside of ourselves, in our bubble, and not extend ourselves out into the reality around us, we can easily begin to lose touch with our call and ability to be present. This not only challenges our ability to extend hospitality, but also to receive the hospitality of others. We feel bad if someone offers to help us…we don’t want to inconvenience them…it will be easier to just take care of this on our own… We are uncomfortable receiving. (Listen to the podcast for more on this). This doesn’t mean we must forgo all sense of personal boundaries and, for instance, lose the ability to end a conversation when necessary or decline a visitor at a truly inconvenient time for your family. Though, if we fail to practice and become aware of how to live hospitality and receptivity in our day-to-day lives, we may miss opportunities to share Christ’s warm reception and hospitality with others when He is calling us to. It can be a great challenge to stay present to our reality. But it is in this very reality that we meet God and others. This is the receptive heart of hospitality – being present to opportunities, big or small, to serve another.
It may just be my perception… reading through my modern lenses and bias… but in the first reading today, I perceived Naomi being uncomfortable with Ruth joining her. As though it would be easier if Ruth stayed with her native people and Naomi was able to go on her journey alone. But Ruth has a heart full of love for God and wants to be with her mother-in-law Naomi out of her total love – heart, mind, and soul – for the Lord. His love takes us outside of ourselves and our inner worlds and connects us to each other in the tangible world. It leads us to our neighbors. But the source of this kind of service must be the love of God. We must first allow ourselves to receive His love so we can emulate this authentic love to our neighbors.
As the Lord leads each of us into our vocation, our mission, or as He guides those of us already in our vocation, I pray we are each given opportunities to extend Christian hospitality in many ways. Some days it may be sacrificing time you ‘need’ to get something done to be present to a friend, a parent, your spouse or child, or a fellow friar or sister in your community. And sometimes it may be hosting visitors you know through a friend of a friend and welcoming them into your imperfect (maybe even slightly disorganized) home with the respect and attentiveness you’d give to Christ. The Christian host is not defined by the perfection of her home, but by the warmth and openness of her heart. But a Christian does not have to own a home to be hospitable or to be a host in the Spirit of Christ. He can be a young person, living anywhere, who extends a warm, open heart to those he encounters.
Let’s pray together for an awareness of what Christian hospitality can look like for each of us – in our individual stages of life, in our vocations, or wherever we are on our path of discerning our vocations and the mission God is calling us to.
Lord, how are you calling me to be more hospitable in my life? How can I be more receptive of others? Help me to receive your love more deeply into the crevices of my heart, mind, and soul. Transform me and conform me to your heart, so I may understand what it means to be truly hospitable, to truly love my neighbor. Thank you, Lord. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray all of these things. Amen.
Catholic Stuff You Should Know Podcast – “Chateau de la Rode”
The Words of Everlasting Life
Today’s readings provide a great opportunity for us to reflect on God’s Word. We read one of Scripture’s most well-known teachings, the Ten Commandments. Perhaps because this ancient Law of God is so familiar, it can be easy to gloss over the reading and not give it much thought. The psalm and Gospel, however, gently guide us back to this very familiar passage of commandments and remind us the danger of taking these fundamental words of the Lord for granted.
‘Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.’ (John 6:68)
In God’s gift of this law to the ancient Israelites, the ten commandments, he gave the gift of everlasting life. His Law outlined a way of life radically different from that of the world. He gave them guidelines that would help them live lives that looked different from the rest of the ancient world, lives centered around the one true God and informed by His love, peace, and mercy. These very same commandments of God have the same effect on our Christian lives today. Let’s quickly think about a couple of them… Though worshipping idols today may look different than it did for the ancient Israelites, we are tempted daily to worship false idols – money, social media, career or academic success, etc. Even inherently good things can easily become idols when we begin to place their value above the Lord’s. Another of God’s commandments, our commitment to keeping the Sabbath, to spending quality time each week at rest, can be easily threatened by our busy schedules and many commitments. How often do we truly have time to rest and soak in the goodness of the Lord? Even by beginning to explore these two commandments, we can see how God meant these not as rules to restrict us, but as guidelines to help us flourish and find peace and joy. God teaches us how to center our lives around Him which ultimately brings freedom, peace and joy.
I am grateful for today’s psalm and Gospel because those readings encouraged me to go back to the first reading and really try to open my heart to God’s Ten Commandments anew. I began to realize that my heart was not quite the rich soil that Jesus asks us to be in His parable of the sower. We need His grace and Holy Spirit to enrich the soil of our hearts, that His Word, no matter how familiar we think we are with it, may be planted more firmly and flower more richly than it has in the past. God’s Word is alive and it will flower more and more beautifully as we allow God to till that soil in our hearts. I encourage you to prayerfully think through the Ten Commandments to understand them on a truer and deeper level than you did when you first learned them. (This is the joy and beauty of a living faith! We can always grow deeper in our understanding of our Lord and our faith.) Lord, give us the grace to be open to receiving your words of everlasting life.
Today we celebrate Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of our Blessed Mother Mary. I imagine this saintly married couple must have had hearts of rich soil, ready to receive the life-giving words of the Lord and live their lives according to His words. Generationally, they passed down a love of Scripture to their daughter Mary, who not only bore the words of Scripture on her heart, she literally bore the Word of God himself, Jesus. And in this reality of Mary’s extraordinary human experience, we can come to grasp a beautiful truth. Scripture is not just meant to be read or heard, but to be lived. Joachim, Anne, and Mary (in a unique way) knew the words of Scripture and allowed those words to live and dwell in their hearts, and thus be made manifest through their lives. This is what it looks like to be a man or woman of faith, to live differently than the rest of the world.
The ten commandments of God are the foundation of His Word. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not to abolish this foundational law but to fulfill it, and exemplified how to live it. In their humble and ordinary vocation of marriage and parenthood, Saints Joachim and Anne each lived an extraordinary existence. They lived out their faith, open to God’s mission for their lives. Through their cultivation of God’s word in their hearts and lives, God brought forth the Word made flesh through their daughter Mary. God wants to bring forth the living Word, Jesus Christ, through each of our lives.
Saints Joachim and Anne, we remember your lives of faith in a special way today. Pray for us, that we may have hearts open to God’s Word, so that Jesus himself may be manifest to others through our lives. Pray for those of us who are called to the vocation of marriage, as well as those called to parenthood, for the grace to live out these calls faithfully. And pray for each of us, that we may be open to God’s Word anew… that our hearts may become like rich soil, ready to receive the Word, understand it and live it, so that our lives may bear beautiful fruit for your glory! Amen.
Your Heart Is My Home
About 8 months ago, while on a retreat, I glanced through the retreat house’s library to borrow a book for the weekend. Though I can’t even recall the title of the book, the spiritual nugget that the Lord gave me through it has stuck with me. And on today’s Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I am reminded of this nugget.
The book was a sort of prayerful and guided walk through St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle, and while I barely had time to skim the book, this specific principle stuck with me. The author encouraged the reader to prayerfully discover a personal representation of the place within her (or his) soul where she meets and dwells with God. I wish I could more accurately remember how the author guided this meditation, but the point is, it was an opportunity to create a visual “place” that resonates with you personally to help you enter into the presence of God in the innermost chambers of your heart and soul.
For me, as I took time to allow the Lord to show me this “place,” I began to visualize a flower. The flower petals opened gently, and there, safe within the beauty of the petals, I saw a tiny version of myself. I was “Honey I shrunk the Kids”–sized, peacefully dwelling in the center bed of this flower. A peace came over me as I received the gift of this image from the Lord. It was like He had given me a new way to enter in to His presence in prayer through the uniqueness of this image of my heart and soul.
Even though I began this prayerful meditation trying to visualize my own heart, as I sat with the image, I felt this security of being enfolded in the Lord’s Heart. It is difficult to describe the experience, but I think it represents the reality of the exchange of hearts we partake in when we are in covenant with the Lord. A Christian covenant is more than a contractual exchange of goods—it is an exchange of persons. And we are loved enough by Him to be in a covenant relationship, a dynamic exchange of love, with our Lord Jesus Christ. Our heart, the place where He dwells, is swept up in His own precious and Sacred Heart. I believe it is this mutual abiding of hearts, mine and His, that I was experiencing in prayer.
I invite you to spend some time in prayer, asking the Lord to help you see your own heart in which He dwells, and so come into contact with His Heart. Today’s readings illustrating Jesus’ role as our Good Shepherd remind us of His overwhelming love for each of us. He will go out in search of you, His single lost and beloved sheep, to bring you back into His Sacred Heart. He loves you personally, deeply, and unashamedly.
Allow yourself to sit and receive this immeasurable love of His Sacred Heart today. Dwell in the joy of your covenantal relationship with Him. May this remind us that Jesus’ love is this genuinely personal for each and every person. I pray that we can receive this great love of our Savior each and every day, so we can in turn reflect this love to every soul who has yet to experience this love. Right now, I hope you will take a few moments to dwell in the reception of His love for you.
“Why should I love God? …if one seeks for God’s claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us.”
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God
To further your meditation, check out this song that guides me right to His heart… Will Reagan — “Your Heart is My Home” Listen on Spotify | Listen on YouTube
The (Divine) Life Within
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
He will sing joyfully because of you
-Zephaniah 3:17
Take a moment to soak in the reality of those words of Scripture. The Lord God is in your midst. He dwells within you. Close your eyes for a moment and draw close to that reality of God in you right now.
It is so rare to take moments to intentionally focus in on the reality of God within us. This is something I want to do more regularly throughout my day to maintain a sense of connection with Him – the almighty God who dwells within me.
Currently, I have a very unique and physical way of learning how to do this – my husband and I are expecting our first child in a few months, and as our child dwells within my womb I am brought inward to the reality of this life within. As our baby grows, this reality is becoming more and more apparent as I have begun to feel our baby’s movements throughout my day. However, up to this point in my pregnancy, it has been easier than I would have imagined to go about much of my day without actively thinking about the life inside me. Then a gentle movement within reminds me to connect, to say hello to him or her, and thank God for the life He has placed within me. This experience has me thinking about the other life dwelling within me – the Divine Life. Each of us has the source of all life dwelling within us, and it can be all too easy to go about our days without consciously connecting to this Divine reality. Today’s readings remind me of how present and powerful our Father’s love for each of us is and that He is here for us at every moment, and loves us so much that He has chosen to dwell within us through His Holy Spirit.
The inner life of Christ in us finds its source in the love of the Father, which is exclaimed so beautifully in today’s optional reading from the book of Zephaniah, especially in the passage that I used to begin this reflection. The Lord is in your midst, He rejoices over you in gladness, He renews you in His love… He sings joyfully because of you. The psalm continues with this incredible theme and reality: The Holy One is among us and this should inspire us to “give thanks,” “proclaim,” “sing praise,” and “shout with exultation!”
As we enter into this reality, as we allow ourselves to be still and receive this love and blessing of our Father, we meet the heart of Mary. Today’s Gospel guides us into Mary’s reality. Mary is the perfect example of the reception of God’s blessing. Mary’s confidence in the Father’s love, her trust in His plan, and her “strength and courage in the Lord,” as today’s psalmist says, have opened her heart to receive the Lord into her very being. The source of all life, God Himself, took on human form and grew within the humble being of our Blessed Mother. Though Mary was granted the special privilege of bearing God in a unique way as His mother, we all have been granted the privilege of holding and nurturing the life of Christ within us through our baptism, the Eucharist, and all of the sacraments of the church. His life IS within us and Mary exemplifies what it looks like when we are open to receiving this love and connecting with this Love everyday.
As Mary visits Elizabeth, the simple sound of her greeting is so full of the Father’s love and such a pure channel of the life of Christ within her that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb – the unborn St. John the Baptist – leaps! This is the power of God to touch, inspire, and ignite others by His love. The Divine presence is so alive in Mary (literally!) that He moves through everything she is and everything she does. Her magnificat, her magnification of the Lord (Lk 1:46-55), found later in this Gospel passage reveals, yet again, the source of this life within her – the Father’s love.
Because Mary is so united with the Father’s love and the life of Christ, her being is truly filled with the Divine Life of God. So her soul can’t help but “proclaim the greatness of the Lord.” Her spirit can’t help but “rejoice in God!” This is the transformation of grace we are all invited to partake in. It all begins with the Father’s love and blessing – and our reception of it. Zephaniah reminds us how the Father loves us and pours this blessing over us and Mary reveals how the Divine life can be received by us and then pour forth from us, in the grace of God and by the power of His Holy Spirit.
May we be inspired today, and everyday, to become more aware of the Divine Life within us. As an expectant mother becomes more aware of the subtle movements of the child growing within her, may God’s grace help us become increasingly aware of every movement of His Spirit within us. As our own awareness of this Divine and powerful life within us grows and we allow ourselves to receive Him more fully, He will continue to transform us. His grace is abundant and can’t help but pour forth from a soul so united to Him. Let’s look to Mary’s example and become channels of the Father’s love and life so that each of our souls can’t help but “proclaim the greatness” of our God!
Our Mission: Holy Boldness
Their message goes out through all the earth – Psalm 19
If we have a familiarity with the Gospels, we are familiar with stories of Jesus healing people. We know his healing of the blind man, telling the paralyzed man to pick up his mat and walk, and his raising of Lazarus from the dead (Jn 9; Mt 9; Jn 11). But how familiar are we with current stories of Catholics healing in Jesus’ name? Have we seen someone be healed? Do we even expect Jesus to heal people now? Have we ever thought to pray for healing for someone in person, in Jesus’ name? This is where my own spirit of skepticism likes to make its entrance (and I have a feeling I’m not alone in this)… ‘Those things don’t really happen now…’ ‘Well, Jesus only heals through certain people who have that gift and I don’t think I do…’ ‘I definitely believe Jesus can do those things, but…’
Are these thoughts in line with what we are learning from Scripture during this most wonderful season of Easter? Actually, not at all. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says:
“[w]hoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these because I am going to the Father.”
Wait a minute… Did Jesus say only certain Christians with certain spiritual gifts will do the works that He does? No! He says, whoever believes in Him. So wait…. that includes me? Yes! I definitely believe in Christ, and if you believe in our Lord and Savior, this includes you! Wow. This is really exciting and can also seem kind of scary. And I can imagine the first apostles didn’t feel much differently than you or I.
Today’s feast celebrates two apostles, St. Philip and St. James. The apostles were not exempt from that same spirit of skepticism. In the Gospel, after Jesus has just told them that if they know Him they also know the Father, James responds that it will be enough if they can just see the Father (Jn 14:7-8). Many, if not all, of us can identify with James. Truly, it is only through God’s grace that our skepticism can be healed and we can receive greater faith in its place. In the book of Acts, God reveals to us His mission for His Church: That as the Father has sent the Son, so now the Son will return to the Father and send the Holy Spirit to believers, that WE may perpetuate and carry to completion Christ’s earthly mission – the restoration of the Kingdom (Jn 20:21, Acts 1:6-8). What characterized His earthly mission? Teaching and preaching the good news, accompanied by signs & wonders — healings. As Christ promised, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles at Pentecost — the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. And this is the same spirit each of us have received through the grace of our baptisms. It is through the Holy Spirit of God that Christ can do His work in and through us, just as he did through the first disciples of the early church. These are Jesus’ words that we read today:
“And whatever you ask in my name, I will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”
In His name, He has promised to work great signs and wonders through us for the glory of God. The rest of Acts is an exciting account of how the first disciples of the Lord lived out this mission of the Church. The Church is still called to this mission today.
In the past couple of years, the Lord has worked to transform my skeptical heart. He has taken me to places I never could have imagined by inviting me to partake in healing ministry. He has drawn me in to witness His healing firsthand and, in His grace, He has built up my faith, inspired me, and ignited me. I have seen the glory of our God through miracles of a woman’s cancer healed, people’s chronic pain be healed, my own husband’s injured wrists be healed, and felt my own body and uneven shoulders be restored to even-ness through prayers of healing, among other countless miracles, all for the glory of God. As I have witnessed these incredible physical healings, I’ve seen and experienced personally the greatest miracle – how God uses His signs and wonders to bring inner healing, convert our hearts, and set us free. Our God is alive and at work through his church worldwide. He only asks us to have faith and not be afraid to step out in faith in His name, and this is how we partake in and perpetuate Christ’s mission.
Today, may we ask our Lord for the gift of holy boldness in our faith, through the intercession of Sts. Philip and James. Let’s ask this for ourselves and for every Christian. That as we approach Pentecost, the fire of the Holy Spirit would reignite our hearts and enflame us with the all-consuming love of God.
Holy Spirit, come, fill our hearts with the fire of your Love. Lord Jesus, thank you for inviting us into your earthly mission. Father, thank you for drawing us in to your divine plan of salvation for the whole world. Lord God, ignite our hearts anew with holy boldness. Heal our hearts of skepticism, we surrender our skepticism to you and ask for greater faith. Help us to know who you are more fully. Fill us with your charity, your burning love, your endless mercy and compassion, and inspire us through your most Holy Spirit to live out the mission you have given us. We pray all of these things through the intercession of St. Philip and St. James, and in the most Holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
For more info, I highly recommend: The Spiritual Gifts Handbook: Using Your Gifts to Build the Kingdom by Randy Clark and Dr. Mary Healy
Stay Close to Me, My Child
I was moved deeply by today’s psalm…
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted”
Lent is a penitential season – a season for us to grow in self-awareness, to look inward and acknowledge our sins and weaknesses. It is a blessing to be reminded to reflect in this way, especially as we are called simultaneously to be drawing near to Christ’s Passion, reminding us to do this in the presence of the Lord. Facing our weakness and sin without being immersed in God’s mercy and grace can be detrimental. In our self-reflection, guilt will likely come up and this is a wonderful thing inasmuch as it draws us to contrition, confession, God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness and freedom. If we have confessed, we must trust God’s forgiveness and allow ourselves to receive that mercy and blessing. Though at times, guilt, rather than being constructive and leading us to God, can be destructive. At times it may tempt us toward focusing and dwelling so much on ourselves and our sin that, instead of drawing us to God’s grace, it draws us further away from Him as we dwell on our failure, our weakness, our inability, our hurt pride, or our disappointment. Did you notice a pattern there? Note the emphasis on ourselves. This way of thinking is subtly undermining God’s power and revealing that we may be trying to achieve holiness in our own power. Now, we mustn’t fall into even more destructive guilt upon realizing this, but ask God for forgiveness, trust in His mercy, and be led to dwell on the awe-someness of His power. We can’t achieve holiness in our own power – it is only in humbling ourselves, receiving His power and His divine life within us.
This is the goal of a penitential season – to increase our self-awareness of our weakness, not so we may dwell in it, wallow in it, and so be led further into a self-centered mindset, but to understand our weakness and so empty ourselves to allow Christ more fully in. To feel true sorrow for our sins and weakness so we understand better the Lord’s love for us and be drawn more fully into it. Receiving the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist are beautiful and integral ways of encountering God’s grace during this time, in addition to personal Lenten commitments (personal prayer, fasting, almsgiving). (NOTE: if you haven’t been keeping up with your Lenten commitments very well, don’t wallow! I’m right there with you. Let’s ask for the Lord’s forgiveness and strength in these last couple weeks. He wants you to draw close to Him. It’s not too late to have a beautiful Lent!)
The key is to approach this time in close proximity to the Lord and His grace. He is close to the broken-hearted. As sins and weaknesses are revealed to you this Lent, even throughout the day, immediately invite the Lord into those places. As you reflect, keep Him close. The Lord desires a truly contrite and sorrowful heart, and wants to bring His mercy into that heart – in fact, when He is invited in, he can’t help but rush in. Love and mercy are who He is. In his Confessions, St. Augustine writes to God that he is recalling his “most wicked ways and thinking over the past with bitterness so that you may grow ever sweeter to me” (2.1.1, emphasis mine). It is my prayer that our Lent does not draw us further into our guilty selves, leaving us feeling self-pity or disappointment or with a hurt pride, but that it draws us ever more deeply into the sweetness of God. As we are emptied out and His love pours in, He will heal us and lead us into deeper freedom. We cannot do it. It is only in His grace.
Thank you, Lord, for your inexhaustible love and mercy! Thank you that self-awareness may help us know your sweetness all the more. Lord, we invite you into our hearts now and throughout this season of Lent. Draw us close to your heart. We come to you with hearts sorry for our sins and we ask your forgiveness. Help us to see ourselves the way you see us, most loving Father. We surrender and consecrate the remaining days of Lent to you in gratitude for this beautiful season. In the precious name of Jesus, we pray, Amen.
Frassati Reflections 