Leaves the Ninety-nine

Dear fellow pilgrims, 

In today’s Gospel reading, I hear Jesus responding to the Pharisees’ implicit belief that tax collectors and sinners are to be shunned, avoided, looked down upon. (“He welcomes them? Why?”) Interestingly, Jesus does not address a broader assumption of the Pharisees – that they are not sinners but those people obviously are – but rather, highlights His Identity as Redeemer, finder of the lost. Jesus is also responding to the Pharisees’ implicit beliefs in Him as someone who is on the earth to make an impression, be a big name, gain power, shake things up. (“Why would someone like him be with people like them?) 

No, Jesus tells them in two parables that He has come not to wine and dine with the elite, but to seek and find the lost. He is on a rescue mission, not a publicity tour promoting his new ideas about the world. The lost sheep are the ones He is looking for, because His joy is bringing them back into the fold. 

Perhaps you too thought of the very popular worship song “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury when you read this passage. (“Leeeeaves the niiiiinety niiiine…”) I think this song has gotten so popular because it speaks the Gospel message to the heart of this generation of young people who longs to be seen and chosen out of the crowd as an individual worth losing everything for.

It’s easy to feel like your love as a millennial is being pulled in a thousand different directions. We are so used to calculating risk and reward with relationships – and also used to internet algorithms literally calculating which ads will draw our love and affection towards which products – that we are so compelled when we encounter a reckless, uncalculating love.  

Why did the sheep wander? Why do we wander from the fold?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s easy to fall into the lie that our absence wouldn’t be noticed or appreciated. We forget how we are loved. We forget that we are irreplaceable. That image of the shepherd leaving all of his other sheep to find the one lost sheep speaks truth into that lie in  my heart of being forgettable. And even if I am forgettable to other people, Jesus will never leave or forsake me. 

In this passage, Jesus is helping the Pharisees see both the lost sheep as worth the sacrifice and Himself as the determined shepherd, looking to keep his flock together as one. And, even more so, He is highlighting that He seeks those who are lost because they are lost; He rejoices when they are found, and desires others to share in this joy. 

Jesus, may we yield to your pursuing of our hearts. 

Reclaim the lost of this world, especially those who are farthest from your heart. 

Show us the parts of our heart that are still far from You.

Thank you for never giving up your pursuit of our hearts. 

Pax, 

Alyssa

Counting the Cost, Reaping what He Sows

A brief one for you today:

 

Today’s readings provide some pretty sobering material for reflection. Phrases like “counting the cost” and “poured out like a libation” rarely make for light reading, no matter the context.

Yet it’s important to read past the easy interpretation of St. Paul and Jesus’ words as grim resolve or cynical fatalism. Look for the positive language; phrases like “children of God without blemish,” “rejoice and share my joy,” and “successfully oppose”.

During a recent small group session, one of the other men their talked about the challenges of having children who could, at some point in their life, stray from the faith. Our conversations moved from their to sharing our faith in general. How can we, imperfect men (and women of course, but you all weren’t at the small group!), make a compelling case for the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

One of the key themes we settled upon is sharing our excitement. What about our pursuit of the Kingdom of God excites us? How does the Lord bring us joy? What value do we see that makes “counting the cost” and “pour[ing ourselves] out” worthwhile?

Take some time over the rest of the week to reflect on the gifts from God that bring you joy. Try to share those things that make you happy. They may be simple hobbies or pleasures in your day-to-day life, or you might think of how Jesus has delivered you from significant sin or suffering. Take time to think of how the Lord makes your life better, and can do so every day

Then don’t hesitate to share it.

 

What’s For Dinner?

I used to think that my name, Grace, was a bit of irony from God.  But I have come to realize that it is in fact the best name for me.  Not because I am graceful (ha!), nor because I am full of it, but because it is what we say before food.  Even not-yet-two Zippy knows this.  When they tell her: “Say Hi to Aunt Grace!” she tries to make the sign of the cross, thinking that food must be coming.  And that’s about right.

As a lover of food, I can’t help but find today’s Gospel rather puzzling.  Who, when invited to a royal banquet, would prefer lesser things?  Who would say No to the promise of such a feast?  Who indeed.

The invitation to faith is the invitation to trust in the goodness of God. It is the invitation to reverse the sin of Eden, to reverse the decision to doubt, to reverse the decision to choose lesser but attractive foods.

True faith is trust in the goodness of God, in His Providence for us in all things.  It is also trust in the desires that He Himself gives us.

In C.S. Lewis’s novel Perelandra, a man named Ransom finds himself in a new paradise.  He is in a world of floating islands, filled with trees bearing the most wonderful fruits he has ever tasted.  Every need is provided for in this new Eden, but there is one catch.  Because the islands are floating, constantly changing, it is impossible to “save,” to “keep,” to “hold on to for future use” anything at all.  The Tempter comes, proposing an alternative: A Fixed Land.  The choice is proposed: trust in continued Providence, or choose the safety of control.

It is easy to know the right choice, turning pages from the comfort of an easy chair, with my cup of coffee and a chocolate chip muffin still warm in my belly.

But when the hunger sets in—and I have nothing saved for myself—do I still trust?

What if the hunger is itself food, itself a gift?

In the song Blessings Laura Story wonders if our sufferings—the “rain, the storms, the hardest nights” are in fact blessings in disguise.  But then she goes a step further:

…All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things…
…What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?

We all know that sometimes things that seem to be evil can turn out to be good.  But what if the longing for good, the thirst for God, is itself a good to be sought?  What if hunger is a gift?

C.S. Lewis argues that desire for heaven is one of the proofs for the existence of God.  He notes that all desires have a corresponding means of fulfillment on this earth, all but one—our desire for eternity.  “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world” he concludes.

St. Augustine is known for saying “our hearts are restless oh Lord, until they rest in thee.”  He wrote extensively on the longing for God—and held that the longing itself increased the soul’s capacity for God.

“The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive the gift, which is very great indeed…The more fervent the desire, the more worthy will be its fruits. When the Apostle tells us: Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16), he means this: Desire unceasingly that life of happiness which is nothing if not eternal, and ask it of Him alone who is able to give it.”

Saint Thérèse  of Lisieux lived total confidence in God, was confident that He would make her a saint, in spite of her littleness.  She believed that her desire for God was itself a pledge, that He would not give her very great desires if He did not mean to fill them: “I am certain, then, that You will grant my desires; I know O my God! That the more You want to give, the more You make us desire.”

Indeed, many saints have written that as they have ascended the heights of holiness, plumbed the depths of prayer, that their desire for God, rather than being satiated, was only increased.

May we be fed today with renewed hunger for God.  See you at the feast!

Banquet_in_the_House_of_Levi_by_Paolo_Veronese_-_Accademia_-_Venice_2016_(2)

Photo attribution: Banquet in the House of Levi © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro 

Inhale

“Brothers and sisters:
If there is any encouragement in Christ,
any solace in love,
any participation in the Spirit,
any compassion and mercy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love,
united in heart, thinking one thing.
Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory;
rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,
each looking out not for his own interests,
but also everyone for those of others.” -Philippians 2:1-4

I’ve been doing a study on the four female Doctors of the Church with a couple friends, and it has been wrecking me. Last week, we reflected on St. Hildegard of Bingen. She was a pharmacist, mystic, abbess, poet, theologian, and composer (so she was basically amazing at everything), and she wrote several books and over 300 letters.

St. Hildegard often struggled with self-doubt, but as she grew in allowing herself to receive Christ’s love into the deepest depths of her being, her voice was freed and the doors of her heart flew open to letting the Holy Spirit work through her in powerful ways.

Today’s first reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians talks about participating in the Spirit. A few years ago, a friend of mine asked: “What would happen if we prayed for the same response to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles had at Pentecost?” My initial reaction was one of fear. “What kind of crazy things would God call me to?” I thought. How often fear prevents us from saying yes to the greatness the Holy Spirit wills to do in and through us.

This one mind, heart, love, and thinking that St. Paul is talking about is all wrapped up and rooted in the Holy Spirit. He is our healer, comfort, strength, and guide. We all have the awesome opportunity and responsibility to allow the Holy Spirit to bring life and transformation to others through our words and actions. Let’s not squander that gift.

Will we have the courage to respond? In order to lead others to Christ, we must first look inward and do a heart-check on ourselves. Last week at a retreat for my youth ministry teens, the speaker said, “God wants to breathe new life into us, but we have to inhale.” And not only that, but once we let the Holy Spirit fill our beings, we have to exhale His fruits for others, and never stop breathing in.

What gifts has God given you that the Holy Spirit is calling you to use? What is one way you can be obedient to the Holy Spirit and exercise those gifts today? It may be as simple as texting a friend that God puts on your heart to let them know you’re thinking of them. It may be having the courage to have a difficult yet needed conversation. Maybe God is calling you to serve Him in a new way.

God has given each of us a light that no one else in the world will ever be able to give. You are an integral part of building up God’s Kingdom, whether you feel like it or not. Do not give into the temptation that someone else will do it, that you are not good enough, or that He may ask too much of you. Why are we often so afraid to shine?

“We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light.” -St. Hildegard of Bingen

Memento Mori

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace.
—Wisdom 3:1–3

In my catechism class this week, I was teaching about the saints, and my students all wanted to find out which saint’s feast day fell on their birthday. One girl said, “My birthday’s November 2. What feast day is that?”

“Oh, that’s All Souls Day! It’s when we pray for the souls in purgatory,” I answered.

Disappointed, she replied, “That’s…kind of morbid.”

I can understand her reaction—it’s hard to get excited about reflecting on death, especially as a kid on your birthday. It’s a topic that most of us avoid thinking about, because it makes us feel uncomfortable. But there has long been a Catholic tradition of meditating on death, not as some kind of penance or self-imposed misery, but rather as a way to transform our fear of death into hope in the Resurrection.

Memento mori—“Remember your death”—is a refrain to keep us grounded amid the distractions of this world. Thinking about death does not seem appealing to us, but ignoring it will not make it go away. Death is an inevitable reality, and it’s not something we can control. But if we approach it from a perspective of Christian hope, deeply rooted in the promises Christ has made to us, we will begin to see that we don’t have to be so fearful of death. It is more of a beginning than an ending, an obscure mystery that only begins to make any sense to us when we see it through the lens of the Gospel. Meditating on death is itself an act of hope: that as we look more deeply into this mystery, there will be more to discover than bleak, existential materialism. There will be redemption and rebirth.

Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble, a young sister with the Daughters of Saint Paul, has been keeping a ceramic skull on her desk for the past year as a reminder of death and tweeting about Memento Mori each day. She says:

Death, I think, is a very, very unpleasant topic, especially if you don’t believe in God. When I was an atheist, it was something I definitely did not want to think about because it’s the annihilation of the self. But for people of faith, it has a totally different dimension. We’re able to think about the reality of death and how it’s been transformed by Jesus.

Meditating on death not only lessens our fear; it also increases our sense of urgency to answer the callings God has given us. We are called to become saints, and we have no time to waste. We can go forward to carry out this calling filled with joy, not with fear, confident that if we are united with Christ in death, we will also be united with Him in resurrection.

For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.
—Romans 6:5

All (of our) Saints Day

Dear Fellow Pilgrims,

Today we celebrated our Church Triumphant, that is, all the saints in Heaven who share the beatific vision of God Himself. They are those described in our readings today as “robed in white,” those who have “survived the time of great distress,” those who have “washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” In the communion of the saints, we celebrate those who have gone before us triumphantly throughout life, holding onto Christ more and more during this life to then be carried by Him to their final destination: the very center of His Heart and Being. We praise God for our family in Heaven, who petition for us, the Church Militant, night and day.

My favorite description of what the Saints do for us is probably Fr. Mike Schmitz’s anecdote from one of the times he and his family completed an Iron Man competition. Side note: It always strikes me as odd how normal Fr. Mike talks about his family doing Iron Mans… because it’s totally not a normal thing to just say your family “does;” and Iron Man consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, followed by running a FULL marathon – 26.2 miles. Anyways, each competitor has exactly 24 hours to complete this (insane) race, and if they do not finish within that exact time frame, they are marked as a “DNF” (did not finish), even if it’s one second after the 24 hour mark.

So, after Fr. Mike and his excessively physically gifted family finished their respective Iron Mans, they decided to wait at the finish line. He mentioned there is a tradition of some folks who finish their Iron Mans earlier on in the day to go back into the race and run alongside those who need extra encouragement to get to the finish line, and how fun it is to watch people finish the race again with others they have helped “run in.”

One year, Fr. Mike said there was one last guy who was a few miles out from the finish line and it seemed like he was not going to make it in before midnight, but the announcer encouraged people to go help run him in. After more and more announcements informing the rest of the Iron Man people about this man, it’s becoming actually possible that this guy may make it to the finish line in time. Fr. Mike describes this giant crowd of people who have already run their race running in with this guy, who is absolutely sprinting towards the finish line with everything he has. He ends up finishing the race with just a few seconds to spare, in an incredible effort that could have only been possible with the help of all of the people who had ran back to run with him and cheer him on.

This is such a powerful vision of what the communion of the saints is to our race in life, a family I like to think that I “married into” when I made vows to the Church during my Confirmation as an adult about seven years ago. And truthfully, a profound encounter with the communion of the saints was a huge impetus that led to my conversion to the Catholic Church from non-denominational Christianity.

I was just studying on a normal night in college during my freshman year at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I was alone in my dorm room, nothing special was happening, until I felt a sudden onset of spiritual attack (a term I didn’t quite know or understand at the time). I felt bombarded in my mind and spirit, all at once, with feelings of doubt, despair, loneliness, confusion… it was an onslaught I didn’t understand, but knew intuitively that it wasn’t a mental breakdown. This was torment from outside me, not a symptom of dysfunction from within. I ended up calling or texting quite a few friends to come over and/or pray for me. No one picked up or texted me back, and I was feeling even more lonely as this attack continued. Then, I remember having an idea to “test out” this “communion of the saints” I knew about from my studies on Catholicism. It was as much as a last-ditch effort as it was a sincere SOS call into a spiritual realm I didn’t even fully believe existed.

“All you saints and angels in Heaven… if you’re there, please pray for me!”

And then, I felt an even greater onslaught of peace hit me like a giant ocean wave. The wave instantly quenched the fire burning within me. It left as abruptly as it arrived. I was left with a very clear conviction that the Saints’ intercession was real. I had felt it in my bones, in the depths of my soul. I had felt the effect of their intercession, and felt their love in that they responded to my call in a time of distress. I like to think in my own little story about my spiritual life that in that moment, all the saints who would help me in my life, who I would get to know personally, stepped forward and claimed me as their own (enter Pier Giorgio Frassati! “And I shall give her friends. She needs some friends.” followed by St. Therese “I can be her friend!” – she was my confirmation saint).

After that whole ordeal, I attended a praise and worship adoration event where I finally heard a definitive answer from God about His Presence in the Eucharist. (Read more about my testimony here if you’d like.) So now, when I look back on my whole testimony, I see how the evil one was trying to attack me on the precipice of a major encounter I was to have with God, and also how the Saints took me under their wings when I asked for their help. They ran and rallied behind me and helped me finish that little race, that challenge before me at the time.

And so, on every Solemnity of All Saints, I think back to when I first learned to believe in their goodwill for my life, and how powerful that intercession was. As a practice, when I go up to receive communion, I ask all of the saints to pray for a worthy and efficacious reception of the Eucharist. I’m sure there’s a way you can incorporate throwing up an “All you saints and angels, pray for me…” prayer during one of your spiritual or everyday routines.

The saints are always waiting for us to ask for their intercession. Let’s keep them busy.

Pax Christi,
-Alyssa

Would You?…Why?…For Whom?

“I want names,” he said.  I remember his words.  I remember his eyes, red and swollen.  I remember his face, creased with grief and pain, there on the nightly news.

His young wife had been struck with malignant melanoma while carrying their unborn daughter.  She was considered brain dead, but was kept on life support for three months in the hopes of the saving the baby.  The baby was born and lived for a few weeks, bringing joy in the place of sorrow.  But then the baby also died.

“They say God has a plan, that He can use our suffering for good.  That it can help others.  But I want a list of names.  I want details.  I want to know exactly what good will come from this…”

“I want names.“  Although it’s been many years, his words have come back to me recently.  It is easy, when in the throes of suffering, to question, to wonder just how such pain can come from a loving God.  Theology tells us that all things work for our good, but abstractions don’t comfort.  We know to trust, to hope, but how does one exercise this, practically, in the midst of darkness?

There is a game the kids play called, “Would you rather…?”  It is a conversation game, in which questions are posed: Would you rather be able to fly, or be able to change shape?  Would you rather be an elephant or a lion?  Would you rather have a pool full of chocolate pudding, or a pool full of skittles?

The questions suggested are silly and innocuous, but in my experience, they usually turn a bit darker (or maybe I know morbid kids).  Would you rather be buried alive, or burnt at the stake?  Would you rather go blind, or go deaf?  Would you rather be eaten by a lion, or by sharks?  But I have found that the real question is not “What you would suffer?” but “Why?” or, “For Whom?”

When my mother was first in the hospital in 2016, and I spent my days looking around for the adult in the room, for someone else to take over what I could not handle, it was my little orphan babies that gave me the strength.  Certainly the prayers of the six that I held, all baptized, before they went to heaven.  But it was the memory of little faces, little arms reaching up, little eyes questioning, seeking love, seeking to know they were not alone, not ultimately abandoned—these little ones carried me.  “Would you suffer this, for them?” a voice inside would ask.  “Yes!” was the only answer.

I had prayed to stay in China.  I had asked to give my life to rescue more little ones like these, to be love for the abandoned.  God said No.  But in the mystery of suffering, the economy of grace, He answered my prayer to help them in a different way.  To learn to intercede from afar.

More recently other suffering in the world, in the Church, has been splashed across headlines, across social media.  “Lord, something has to be done.  Help me be part of the solution.”

Would I suffer this (whatever I am going through)…to save a child from abuse?  Would I…to ease the trauma of someone who left the church because of unspeakable crimes by her clergy?  Would I…to stem the rising hate across the political spectrum?  Would I…to heal my friend from her disease, to save him from cancer, to stop the one about to commit suicide?

“The interesting thing about the Scriptures,” said the priest in a recent homily, “Is that they don’t speak of suffering as something that comes down.  They speak of it as something that is lifted UP, that is offered.”

The real offering of course, is Jesus on the Cross, Jesus lifted up for us.  But we with our little mustard seeds of love, can offer our little crosses in union with His.  And He can grow them, magnify them, until the smallest of seeds becomes the largest of shrubs, in which all the birds of the air come and find rest.

 

 

Mustard Seed

Image Credit:

Distant Shores Media/Sweet Publishing [CC BY-SA 3.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Be Found

“Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.” (Luke 13:10-13)

Eighteen years. Whoa. Can you imagine her suffering? The demon had caused her such pain and grief that her whole body was crippled under the weight of it all. She couldn’t even stand up properly.

There is so much we can learn from this woman.

First of all, she was in the right place. She was in the synagogue, the Lord’s house. She was praying. The woman turned to God for healing. We don’t know her full story, but I would imagine it would’ve been tempting for her to have given up long ago. She could have become bitter and angry. She could’ve let what other people were saying about her and thinking of her eat away at her heart: she could’ve believed the lies that she was worthless, hopeless, not wanted, unwelcomed, inadequate. Yet she showed up in God’s presence. She put herself in a position to be found. She prayed. She let herself be vulnerable before the Lord, coming before Him as she was, brokenness and all.

She allowed Jesus to heal her. Do we allow Jesus to heal us?

Then, when Jesus cast the demon out of her, she immediately glorified God! She gave Him all the glory for His goodness and faithfulness. She was unafraid and unashamed to praise God for her healing, even though the synagogue leader and the crowd were furious with Jesus for healing her on the sabbath.

Jesus heals the woman with compassionate, tender care. He sees her. He knows her. He calls her “woman,” intimately acknowledging her dignity as God’s daughter when she probably didn’t feel very confident in her womanhood. He lays hands on her, an act not just of healing but a physical sign of His love. He knew that she needed to know she was deeply wanted, seen, and beautiful. He doesn’t define her by her suffering, but by who she is in Him.

God made us, body and soul. Sometimes when our souls are sick and hurting, our bodies can become physically ill, as with the crippled woman. While you may not have suffered from something for eighteen years, we all have things that cripple us. Maybe you’re going through a particularly difficult season of life right now that leaves you feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. What is crippling you? Does a situation in your life right now seem hopeless? Has your heart been hurting for a long time, so long that it feels like the darkness won’t end? Whether it’s sin or a wound or both, bring that to Jesus today. Do not be afraid to step into His presence and reveal your whole heart to Him. He sees you. He knows you. Ask Him to heal you. He surely will, in His perfect timing and goodness. He so desires your healing. Sometimes we have to take the courageous step to lay it all bare before Him and let Him in. Put yourself in a position to be found. God is faithful.

The Cave

Jesus said to the crowds,
“When you see a cloud rising in the west
you say immediately that it is going to rain–and so it does;
and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south
you say that it is going to be hot—and so it is.
You hypocrites!
You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky;
why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
—Luke 12:54–56

In the daily rush of work deadlines and subway delays, I often lose touch with an awareness of God’s presence. I’m so focused on my own plans and worries that I’m not really looking for Him. To use the analogy Jesus tells the crowds in today’s Gospel, if the “signs of the time” are being revealed through rising clouds and blowing winds, I’m not even looking up at the sky. I’ve closed myself off into a cave of my own complacency, safe from the winds but unable to hear the voice of God speaking to me through Creation. My desire for normalcy is greater than my desire for intimacy with God, and so I fall into a routine of keeping the status quo.

So how do I begin to take those first steps out of the cave and into the light? I think the most important step is to move beyond perfunctory prayer and to be truly honest and open with God. I know that I can fall into the habit of treating prayer as a chore to be completed rather than a conversation to engage in. As in any human relationship, if we come to each encounter with an agenda, then we aren’t able to fully see the other person and simply appreciate them for who they are. I’m trying to find more times in my week when I can simply be with God, without any agenda. My requests and petitions can come later; first I need to soak in His presence, and then everything else will flow from that.

And when we are attentive to the signs of God’s presence, we are called to point them out to others, to wake them up out of their own complacencies and reveal to them the beauty that surrounds us all and the greatness to which we are called.

Fire and division: Preparing for Advent

Dear fellow pilgrims,

Today, I feel like the readings today are so strong and self-explanatory they do not even need to be discussed. St. Paul is speaking such fire to the Ephesians in an amazing series of verses we should all memorize. (Check out my brother’s blog post about how a changing understanding of this verse was pivotal for his decision to become Catholic). And, Jesus is challenging our view of Him as the one who brings only comfort and joy and peace to our lives.

Across the two readings, here is what I see…

These readings leave no room for Christian mediocrity or laxity. St. Paul longs for the Ephesians to be filled with the “fullness of God” that “surpasses all knowledge.” Jesus longs for the world to be set on fire with His love, and already aches for it to be “already blazing.” Jesus goes on to say that He has come to incite division, which says to me that if your belief in Christ and discipleship with Him are not producing any friction or difficulties in your life, you’re not really living out His teachings. Jesus’ message does not fit into a neat and tidy box we can open and admire when it’s convenient and put away when it’s scary or inconvenient. Jesus anticipates His own death (the “baptism” He speaks of), which itself would testify to the boldness of His message and its implications.

I also see a theme of family being the place where either division or wholeness manifests.  The readings speak of families as the Church as well as domestic families and across generations. God “names” each one of these families, He knows in advance in what context we will encounter our faith in Him and also challenges to that faith.  Most often, it is the hardest to evangelize and talk about God with those closest to us… but we must do so to be authentic in our faith.

It is so difficult to speak with family about difficult issues of faith because of the fear of division, but without genuine sharing and knowledge of each other, how authentic can we claim these relationships to be? Of course there are complex family issues that take a long time to pray over and find the right time and way to communicate in the most effective way, but how often to we use that plan to shield our own sense of responsibility instead of propelling us to deeper prayer and discernment? How deep is our belief in Heaven as our one true home, heaven as the undivided Heart of God?

(Note: I also have to mention that I have seen many Christians abuse this verse, and other verses in the Bible that talk about how the world was against Jesus, to justify uncharitable ways of confronting people of their sin. As St. Paul says, we must first be “rooted and grounded in love,” but this does not mean being endlessly accepting. There is space here to jump off into a broader discussion and more research into a “right” way of having conflicts between Christians and between Christians and Non-Christians that I encourage us all to have in conversation with others in person!)

As we approach the beginning of Advent, I invite us all to examine how we long to keep our relationship with Jesus in a comfortable space where we are not challenged but always affirmed.

In what ways have the fires of love for Jesus in our hearts grown dim?

How have we compromised the authenticity of relationships with family members or close friends over not wanting to cause division, when we are really being called to witness to the truth of His love?

How can we anticipate celebrating a very warm and fuzzy holiday season with wide-eyed wonder, but also humble reverence and holy fear of why God came to us as a helpless infant?

I don’t have all the answers for you, but I can assure you that if you ask, God will guide your heart to special treasures of contemplation that He has in store for you this Advent.

Pax Christi,

-Alyssa