Overflowing

In today's Gospel, we read:

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

--Luke 6:36-38

What you give is what you will be given by the Father. And yet, we are promised that what we will be given will be overflowing abundance. Thus, the only measure that can call forth that reciprocal response of mercy, nonjudgment, noncondemnation, forgiveness, and gift is a superabundant measure. In order to be capable of receiving God's overflowing grace, we must become the sorts of beings who can accept such abundance. But how to grow into being capable of giving and receiving goodness that overflows all natural bounds? With His supernatural help. We are not called merely to be somewhat merciful, or somewhat forgiving, but to be supernaturally, superabundantly merciful and forgiving. This is not a task for unaided human nature. So ask for His help!

Tathāgata

As we read in today's Gospel, Our Lord in His Incarnation is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets:

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.

-- Luke

What was this new exodus which Our Lord was going to accomplish?

Dove Strategy

In today's Gospel, Our Lord asks the impossible of us:

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

--Matthew 5:43-45

Promise to Peter

In the wake of Pope Benedict's brave and self-effacing recent renunciation of the See of Rome, today the Church celebrates the "Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle." In today's Gospel, Our Lord promises the first Pope:

And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

-- Matthew 16:18

Sometimes it seems as if Christ's Church is in insurmountable crisis. Concern trolls in the media have said as much in their cynical reflections on Pope Benedict's revitalizing and reformist renunciation.

Ask!

In today's Gospel, Our Lord counsels:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.

-- Matthew 7:7-11

Perhaps, as in today's first reading, from the Book of Esther, your prayer will be answered in this mortal life. Perhaps afterward. But God knows what you need--and what your heart really wants--far better than you know yourself. And He rejoices in giving it to you, with a Father's love. So ask!

Starfish, not Yoda

Today's first reading says of God that He "repented" (Jonah 3:10) of the destruction of Nineveh because the Ninevites had fasted. How can the author of Jonah speak of God repenting? After all, Aquinas teaches us that God is necessarily immutable, and His will necessarily unchangeable.

Sheep and Goats

In today's Gospel, we are warned of the standard against which we will be judged:

Temptation need not be sin

In today's Gospel, we read:

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.

--Luke 4:1-2a

Our Lord is completely without sin. And yet He was tempted!

When we are tempted, that is not in itself a sin. It is an opportunity to grow in holiness by resisting the temptation.

The Doctor is in

Today's Gospel finds Our Lord feasting at the house of a tax collector:

The Pharisees and their scribes complained to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus said to them in reply, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.”

-- Luke 5:30-32

As collaborators with the Roman oppression of the Jewish people in Palestine, and as a group that frequently collected far more in taxes from the peasantry than were actually due to the Roman state (so as to enable embezzling by themselves), tax collectors were seen as grave sinners indeed. But it was to such lost sheep that Our Lord's mission of mercy and forgiveness was especially directed. Our Lord has a special love for those of us who struggle with sin: like me and you.

Take up your Cross

In today's Gospel, Our Lord says:

If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?

-- Luke 9:23-25

To find peace before death and everlasting life thereafter, there is only one path forward. Put away self-infatuation. Let go and love God. Lent is here. Take up your Cross.

Ashes: because we all fall down

Today's first reading begins:

Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart....

-- Joel 2:12

God is always waiting for us, like the Father of the prodigal son. Let us turn toward Him. Lent has begun.

Tithing isn't enough

In today's Gospel, Our Lord remonstrates with the Pharisees:

“You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”(meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

--Mark 7:8-13

Seeds of Distributism

Today's Gospel reminds us of the goodness of growing things:

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it.” And so it happened: the earth brought forth every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. God saw how good it was. Evening came, and morning followed–the third day.

-- Genesis 1:11-13

No pain, no gain

In today's first reading, the prophet Isaiah has a terrifying vision of the Glory of the Lord:

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above.

They cried one to the other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!” At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it, and said, “See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

-- Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-7

The lips are a sensitive part of the body, filled with nerves. But for Isaiah to be able to stand in the presence of the Holy One of Israel, Isaiah's very lips are purged with a searing ember. The chastisements we suffer, in our lives and in Purgatory, are necessary if we are to withstand the Glory. There is no other Way but that of the Cross.

Not lone wolves, but sheep

Today's first reading instructs us:

Obey your leaders and defer to them, for they keep watch over you and will have to give an account, that they may fulfill their task with joy and not with sorrow, for that would be of no advantage to you.

May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep by the Blood of the eternal covenant, furnish you with all that is good, that you may do his will. May he carry out in you what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

-- Hebrews 13:17, 20-21

We are to defer to our overseers, the bishops. Each bishop is the shepherd of the flock in his diocese, in service to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd of His Church.

The marriage bed and the plated head

In today's first reading, we are admonished:

Let marriage be honored among all and the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the immoral and adulterers.

-- Hebrews 13:4

Power loathes the speaking of this truth, as is illustrated by today's Gospel concerning the murderous hatred of Herodias for St. John the Baptist.

Perfection

In yesterday's post, we looked at how Divine chastisement is preparing us to be sons and daughters of God in Heaven. In today's first reading, we read of the saints in Heaven described as "the spirits of the just made perfect." (Hebrews 12:23). This is why life's sufferings have to be so hard. God isn't molding us into slightly better people. He is making us literally perfect. We're growing into something beyond our wildest dreams, so there are a lot of growing pains.

Chastisements from the Father

In today's first reading, we are instructed:

Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as his sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

-- Hebrews 12:7,11

Be not afraid

In today's Gospel, Our Lord remarks, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” (Mark 5:36)

To borrow a hackneyed expression: Words to live by.

Broken iron

In today's Gospel, Our Lord banishes a "Legion" of demons from a man they've been victimizing. These demons had been so powerful that even when chains and shackles had been put around their victim to keep him from harming himself, they had broken them. Not every problem is solvable with human technology....