Is God Your Genie in a Bottle?

FROM THE CATHOLIC LITURGY FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT- MARCH 12, 2017 - Matthew 17:1-9. On this Second Sunday of Lent we hear and reflect on the Transfiguration of Jesus, which took place soon after he informed his disciples that he was going to be arrested and crucified. Tradition says it took place on Mount Tabor, which was a symbol of great military victory for the Jewish people about 2,500 years before Jesus. These two events - the prophecy of the Passion and the military victory are important to understanding today's Gospel - because the many of the Jews of this time believed that the Messiah-Savior promised by God would come among them as a great Warrior-King who would free them from Roman tyranny and establish the Kingdom of God in this world.

That this Messiah would be captured by the Romans and be shamelessly put to death was the polar opposite of their expectations. That his liberation would be from sin and death, and his kingdom not of this world, didn't even enter their minds.  And it was because of this understandable but erroneous political-military image of the Messiah that the Transfiguration took place.  Jesus intentionally gave the grace of the Transfiguration to these disciples because he wanted to strengthen their faith in him and who he truly was. And God the Father wanted to assure them of who Jesus was by thundering his declaration, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."

We all have ideas about who God is and our own expectation of what we want him to do in our lives. And so often, if we are honest with ourselves, I think we might discover that one of our images of God is oftentimes much like that of a magic genie, and our expectation is that he will grant us our wishes and make our lives perfect, according to our definition of perfection. And when this false image and expectation fail us, we run the risk of shaking a fist at God and can easily fall into the temptation to think that he has no real care or concern for our lives. 

In order to help us avoid this danger to our faith and to transfigure our self-centered very human idea of who God is, Jesus intentionally left behind him on earth a living Church that would continue to be his voice and mystical presence in the world. And of course, he remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle, always available to us. And when we come before the tabernacle to spend time with him, to hear his voice in our hearts, we can then experience for ourselves what Peter exclaimed in today's gospel, "Lord, it is good that we are here!"

First Sunday of Lent: The Problem and the Solution

From the Catholic Liturgy for the First Sunday of Lent, March 5, 2017. Genesis 3:1-7; Romans 5:17-19; Matthew 4:1-11. Einstein once said: “If I had an hour to solve a difficult situation, I would spend 55 minutes getting to know the problem, and then I would need just 5 minutes to come up with the solution.”  In other words, if we don’t have an accurate handle on what’s wrong, we cannot come up with an effective way to fix it. And I think that is what today’s readings are telling us as we confront the Problem of sin and evil in the world and in our own lives.  So, the first thing to do, following Einstein’s advice, is to name the Problem and discover where it comes from. We find the key to this in our first reading from the Book of Genesis and discover the root of the Problem is our fallen human nature, alienated from our Creator by the free choice to live life on our own terms. In our second reading, St. Paul tells us that the Solution to our problem is found in the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Only God created the human person and only God can recreate us and make things new again.  And he did exactly that by becoming one of us and living a life of obedient love. In today’s Gospel, we see that Jesus even goes up against Satan, the enemy of the human race, who instigated the Problem right from the beginning. Satan tries to do to Jesus what he did to Adam and Eve but he fails, Jesus triumphs in the name of us all. And by a personal relationship with Jesus, through the ministry of the Church with her sacraments, we join in His victory and are able to overcome the Problem with the Solution.

Ash Wednesday - Lent is All About Love

From the Catholic Liturgy for Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2017. Matthew 6:1-18. In today’s Gospel Jesus gives us the 3 spiritual practices which focus on the relationships we have with God, others and ourselves: prayer, almsgiving and fasting. While we are meant to carry out these three practices all year long, they are especially emphasized during Lent because Lent is, above all else, a Season of Love and of Relationships, because Christianity itself is a religion centered upon Love and Relationships. In the order of priority, our first relationship is that with God. We owe Him first place because He created us, He gives us life and keeps us in existence. He takes care of our needs and has promised to be with those who seek Him. Can you imagine what our human relationships would be like if we never made time to be with the ones we love? We never sit down and talk with them or never give our attention and listen to them? So Jesus tells us to pray to our Father and to do so in the quiet of solitude. The next relationship we should evaluate as we begin this Season of Lent is that with others, especially those who are in need. Almsgiving means the financial assistance we give to the needy and Jesus tells us it should be done without the desire to be praised and rewarded in this life. That makes a lot of sense if we remember that a giving-relationship focuses on the needs of the other and on me. Finally, Jesus gives us a third spiritual practice of love: fasting, which can also be any form of penance, of self-denial. This is meant to help us develop and preserve a healthy love for ourselves, one that is not self-centered and self-seeking. This is where we get our custom of giving something up for Lent.  And when it comes to deciding what to do, each of us should chose something that it small, simple, doable but directly to the point for something in our character that we know needs a bit of training. Bu embracing these three spiritual practices of love we can become more conscious of God’s real presence in our lives and, through us, God’s love can become more real in the lives of others.