Extreme Makeover

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Extreme Makeover”

Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B

One of the most emotionally charged psalms in the Old Testament is the one we read today. It is attributed to King David and is so appropriate as our Lenten journey nears completion. David is guilt ridden, and rightfully so. (Read 2 Samuel, chapter 11 to see why). In this dreadful state he wants his guilt taken away and to be washed clean. Mindful of the damage he has done to others, himself, and to his people, he turns to God and begs, “create a clean heart in me, O God.” Most of us can relate to David because we have been in his shoes. And we, like David, would like to have a fresh start, an “extreme makeover” to renew and purify us through and through.

If we have engaged in the difficult work of spiritual introspection this Lent, we most likely have encountered some of our flaws, and that’s a good thing, one of the primary purposes of these forty days. But then comes the more challenging task…. changing our ways…. And that’s very hard to do. Yet all the energy, time, and effort we may make to bring about changes in attitudes and behaviors will, by themselves, likely won’t be enough; we are going to need even more. So we turn to God and ask Him to cleanse us, renew us, and give us a willing spirit to change our ways.

The truth of the matter is that most of us carry around burdens of the past; burdens that weigh us down and rob us of the joy and happiness God intended for us to experience is this life. In this we can easily identify with David.. David finds comfort in the compassion of God, and so can we. Sinners that we are, God is always seeking to create a clean heart in us so that we can grow in His love and share in the joy of His salvation. These last few weeks of Lent give us ample opportunity to confront our shortcomings and defects so that we can join in the Easter celebrated as people who have been given a special blessing, an “extreme makeover,” and a fresh start that we enjoy life to the fullest as God intended for us from the foundation of the world..

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

By Grace You Have Been Saved

Deacon Tom Writes,

“By Grace You Have Been Saved”

Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year B

In the brief passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians we hear the phrase “By grace you have been saved” several times. According to St. Paul, grace is the dynamic principle at work in our lives, much like an invisible force, that leads us to faith in Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines Grace as “the free and undeserved gift of God given to us to respond to His call.” Grace, then, is intended to activate or awaken within us the desire to respond to God in some manner or fashion. It is when we cooperate with this gift from God that we come to discover Him and desire Him above all else.  

The Franciscan Friar, Richard Rohr, explains grace this way:  God’s love is total, unconditional, absolute and forever. The state of grace – God’s attitude toward us – is eternal. We are the ones who change.

Fr. Richard goes on to explain: Sometimes we are able to believe that God loves us unconditionally, absolutely, and forever. That’s grace! And sometimes because we get down on ourselves, and carry guilt and fear and burdens, we are not able to believe that God loves us. Biblically, that’s the greatest sin: not to believe the good news, not to accept the unconditional love of God. When we no longer believe God loves us, we can no longer love ourselves. We have to allow God to continually fill us. Then we find in our own lives the power to give love away.  

What a powerful dynamic grace is! Grace engenders faith; faith leads to the awareness of God working in and through our lives. God working through us touches the lives of others while transforming each one of us so that “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). And by this divine formula, or can we say by this Amazing Grace, we and the world are conformed to Christ and each other.

May God’s grace be with us in our efforts to smoothen the rough edges of the stones of our lives during the remainder of our Lenten journey.  

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

That "Aha" Moment

Deacon Tom Writes,

“That Aha Moment”

Third Sunday of Lent, Year A 

(Optional – Scrutinies)

The gospel today is fascinating in many respects. Jesus has crossed over to Samaria, the land East of the Jordan, a place where Jews were not welcomed, to say the least. He stops to rest at a well and when a Samaritan woman comes to draw water, he asks her for a drink. This was unusual since it was not the custom of the day for men to engage in conversations with women, especially given the tension between Jew and Samaritan. Then there is the depth of the conversation. Here the story becomes remarkable!

Jesus and the woman share intimate truths about themselves. She is a sinner; Jesus is the Messiah. This encounter with Jesus changes this woman’s life forever, and that of her entire village. This simple woman, struggling with life and relationships, meets a complete stranger who turns her life around in a moment of truth. She has one of those “aha” moments, a time when she has deep insight into the mysteries of life and “she gets it.” During this brief encounter with Christ she comprehends that Jesus is the Messiah; grace has enlightens her mind. If you have ever had one of these experiences, you know the profound effect it can have on you and the rest of your life. The conversion of St. Paul comes to mind.

The story of the Samaritan Women is from the Third Sunday of Lent, Year A and is one of three optional reading proclaimed on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent as part of the rite of scrutinies. These Rites are intended for the catechumens i.e., those who are to receive Baptism, Communion, and Confirmation and are celebrated by the entire community each year to remind us that we all can have an experience similar to that of the Samaritan Woman. Any and all of us can have an “aha” moment, a moment when we experience Jesus in the depth of our being, a point in time when we realize that our lives our empty without Him. This encounter may take place as we watch the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, during quiet reflection, or at a time when we feel lonely, isolated, and alone. We encounter Jesus at unexpected and sometimes inconvenient places. Most likely, we meet Him when and where we are most in need of Him, just like the woman at the well.

May the remainder of our Lenten journey provide us with many chances to deepen our relationship with Christ, many opportunities to have our own “aha” moments when we are able to meet Jesus and experience His forgiveness, gentleness, and His love.

Enjoy the Day,

Deacon Tom

Psst, Can You Keep A Secret?

Deacon Tom Writes

“Psst…Can You Keep a Secret?”

Second Sunday of Lent,Year B

“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.” (Mark 9:9)

Mark is the only writer of the Synoptic gospels that weaves the mysterious theme we hear today in which Jesus charges his disciples to keep his identity a secret. Mark makes us aware that Jesus understood the mounting opposition against him and his need to be in control of the events that were to unfold at the end of his life. All four evangelists record that Christ believed he was commissioned by God and acted with His authority. Yet, it is only in the Gospel of Mark that we encounter this unusual language instructing his closest followers not to reveal His divine identity. This desire to withhold that Jesus was the Messiah from the larger population is known as the “Messianic Secret.” 

William Wrede first used the term “Messianic Secret” during the late 1800’s in his attempt to explain that Jesus was not understood to be the Messiah during his lifetime. Wrede theorizes that in those instances where Mark recounts Jesus telling others not to reveal the secret of his Messiahship     
(Mk 7:36, Mk 8:30, Mk 9:9), he does so to explain that it took the Resurrection for people to realize fully that Jesus was the Messiah. In this sense Mark, according to Wrede, was using the Messianic Secret as a literary device to reconcile Jesus’ identity with the very unmessianic character of his ministry. This technique works nicely to focus the mounting tension between the mission and purpose that Jesus came to fulfill, and that which existed in the minds of the people.

Jesus avoided any claim on the title of Messiah for fear that it would trigger the notion of political kingship. The Jewish people expected just such a Messiah who would lead them in revolution against their Roman occupiers. But that was not the role Jesus intended to fill.

We know that Jesus had a different kingship in mind, one that would introduce the “reign of God”, one that would be better understood after he had risen from the dead. Then, Jesus’ true identity would be revealed throughout the world and throughout the ages. But until that time, he told them, “not to relate what they had seen…”

In some obscure way the obtuseness of the "Messianic Secret" is a great equalizer in portraying even those who witnessed the ministry and work of Jesus as having no particular advantage to having been there. Some like Thomas stood side by side with Jesus through it all and yet he needed the reassurance of putting his hands into the very wounds that Jesus suffered. Other, like the Centurion, believed once they witnessed the crucifixion. That the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, is the central focal point of Christianity is without question. The debate over whether Mark developed the "Messianic Secret" to ease the tension of the early Christian community that saw Christ as the Messiah amidst a hierarchical Jewish establishment that failed to do so has been the subject of debate for many years. But in a more profound way, the secrecy that Mark records in his gospel narrative provides the veil into the life and times of Jesus that we all experience until we, perhaps like Thomas, through the gift of faith, are able to proclaim with certainty, “My Lord and My God”.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Tough Nuts to Crack

Deacon Tom Writes,

“Tough Nuts To Crack”

First Sunday of Lent, Year B

The image was striking: a woman with the sign of the cross in ashes on her forehead tightly hugging a child (daughter?) both sobbing bitterly. Their photo captured by the reporter at the scene of the Ash Wednesday shooting at a Southern Florida High School where 17 people died tragically and many others wounded, and reasonable people left asking, “How much more of this can we take?”

Immediately the debate began over gun control, over mental illness, over the violence in this country, and so on. All are appropriate and, if past experience holds true, nothing will come of it. What is missing from the conversation is the mention of the word “sin.” We are missing a critical element contributing to this tragedy if we are not able to see “sin,” that is evil at work in our world as a source of the problem. Unfortunately, the word “sin” doesn’t enter the conversation. How then can we have “contrition” if we aren’t able to recognize the “sin?” How then can we ever have a solution to the many similar problems that plague us if we can’t acknowledge their source?

The word “Contrition” comes from the Latin word contritio, a breaking of something hardened. Contrition is the action we take to break away from our patterns of behavior that cause us pain, our self-inflected wounds if you will. In spiritual language we call this behavior, “sin,” and the desire to break our attraction to what harms, no longer to be “crushed by guilt.” is called, “contrition.”

To experience such a horrific act on Ash Wednesday encourages us to look at the sin in our lives and our need for contrition, “for what we have done and for what we have failed to do” as our Catholic faith reminds us of our active and passive participation with sin.

It is interesting that the word “contritio” connotes a breaking something hardened. Scriptures warns us about “hardness of heart” in Psalm 95... If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.  Pharaoh’s heart was hardened as were the hearts of the people of Israel as they crossed the desert to the Promised Land. Scripture reveals that nothing good results from a spiritual hardness of heart. There is much evidence to suggest that many of us suffer from some form of hardness of heart today. Take our attitudes, for instance. There are many who have become hardened to one degree or another by life’s experiences A homeless person will approach us on the street and ask for some change and we refuse them. We justify our actions in many different ways…They need to get a job…. They will only buy booze… and on and on.

Our attitudes are fixed on every topic from A – Z, from abortion to xenophobia and we are not about to change our positions, only hunker down on them.

That is exactly what the Season of Lent is all about. It’s time to make some changes in our attitudes and, as Philippians 2:5 says, “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.” And our attitudes can only change when we take steps to change the focus of our life from ourselves to Christ as the epicenter.

I don’t think many of us enter Lent looking to do a complete makeover of our lives. Most of us know that even small changes in our behavior are very difficult to make. Just try to stop smoking or go on a low cholesterol diet! We find out then how making small changes really impacts many other facets of our lives

Maybe that’s why we approach Lent so cautiously. We are afraid to go messing around with some of those attitudes that need to be adjusted Let’s face it; it is easier to give up a meal here and there than to try reaching out to a co-worker who is always making our lives miserable. It is much easier to say a Rosary than to say, “I forgive you” to someone who has hurt us in the past. It is much easier to do nothing because the problems we face are too big than to look at our own complicity with sin with a contrite heart and make the changes we need to make.   

During this Lenten season, let’s ask God for His grace that calls us to a spirit of “Contrition” so He may help us in our efforts to breakdown any and all of those attitudes that keep us separated from His love, mercy, and compassion.

Enjoy the day and remember to say “I Love You” to the special people in your life.

Deacon Tom

Image Credit: doodlescribble/1306@deviant.com