Lent (Page 22)

Saturday March 7 Readings: Dt 26:16-19; Mt 5:43-48 In Deuteronomy we witness God saying to Israel, “Are we good?  You understand what we’re agreeing to, right?” God says, “Here are my laws.  Obey them with your whole heart and soul and you will be my people.” It gets me thinking a lot about our Lenten journey and the personal commitments that we have made in this world – commitments that maybe only you and God know, commitments that are written…

Friday March 5 Readings: Ez 18:21-28; Mt 5:20-26 Today’s readings focus on following “the law” – God’s law, that is.  And we hear Jesus say, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven?” What was he critiquing? The scribes and Pharisees were two religious groups who were really good at following the religious rules.  And they were upset that Jesus did not follow these rules and developed a following of…

Thursday March 5 Readings: Est C:12, 14-16, 23-25; Mt 7:7-12 The lectionary for today pairs a reading from Esther when she offers a heartfelt plea to the Lord with Jesus’ famous words from the end of the Sermon on the Mount: ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened. When I read the story of Esther, I am not sure that I have ever prayed like that or had to pray like…

Wednesday March 4 Readings: Jon 3:1-10; LK 11:29-32 In today’s readings, we are introduced to Jonah the prophet.  Most of us know the part where Jonah was in the belly of the fish for 3 days and probably saw this depicted in cartoon form as a kid.  Cute story. Yet in the gospel, Jesus seems to indicate that this is the only “sign” that’s going to be given to us to understand God’s kin-dom.  So if we don’t understand this…

March 3 Readings: Is 55:10-11; Mt 6:7-15 Today we hear that words matter.  Just like God’s word goes out and does not come back until it accomplishes what it needs to, so do our words.  Words have energy and they go out into the world and have an impact.  This is why right speech (as the Buddhists call it) is so crucial, and great historical figures like Gandhi remind us that “Your words become your actions, Your actions become your…

March 2 Readings: Lv 19:1-2, 11-18; Mt 25:31-46 In the first reading from Leviticus, we hear God instructing the people to be holy as God is holy. Two things. First, growing up Catholic I was never really taught very much about the “Old Testament” (which are now referred to more respectfully as the Hebrew Scriptures) and I found passages from books like Leviticus boring and, frankly, just skipped over them. Second.  That was a big mistake on my part. If…

Sunday March 1 Readings: Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11 I’d be engaging in a near impossible task if I tried to sum up the first two readings – the first being the story of humans in the garden of Eden and the second being a very complex theology of sin put forth by St. Paul.  Yet both represent a profound wrestling with the idea of brokenness in the world and in our own lives. Almost any time you…

Saturday February 29 Readings: Isaiah 58: 9B – 14; Luke 5: 27 – 32 The scriptures are always filled with action words. In today’s reading from Isaiah we hear the following:  remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;  bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted. We’re then told that once we do that, our light will shine, God will guide us, and our strength will be renewed.  We will be known as “repairers of…

Readings: Isaiah 58:1-9A; Matthew 9:14-15 I find this reading from Isaiah a very challenging one. God says that the people keep crying out (and I am paraphrasing), “God, how come we keep doing religious observances and praying for things to change but you do not hear us?” Then God says in response, “You say you are fasting, but instead carry out your own pursuits!”  And God goes on to say that the ‘real’ fasting that you should be doing is,…

Readings: Deuteronomy 30: 15 – 20; Luke 9: 22 – 25 In our first reading, God sets a choice before the people, “life and prosperity, death and doom.”  While we are encouraged to “choose life”, God won’t force it on us.  And then Jesus reminds us in the gospel that it does us no good to “gain the whole world” yet lose ourselves in the process. Yet that seems to be what our culture has opted for.  We seem to…

At the beginning of Lent, maybe we can just sit with the words from Joel where God says, “Return to me with your whole heart…”

Easter Sunday Readings: ACTS 10:34A, 37-43; COL 3:1-4 or I COR 5:6B-8; JN 20:1-9 I want to start today’s reflection with a heartfelt, “Thank you!” to all of you who have been on this journey with me.  It’s been an honor to be able to do this for Spiritus, and I fully acknowledge that there are so many people who could have written fantastic reflections that would have brought us to very different spiritual places.  And those would have been…