Category: Lectio Divina

“My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
No one can take them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,
and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.
The Father and I are one.”

John 10:22-30

My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

In the time of Jesus, the families of a village often kept their herds of sheep together in a common pen. In the morning the shepherds would come and call their own sheep by name. The shepherd had such an intimate knowledge of his sheep and a genuine love for them, that he would call them individually to follow him to green pastures and streams of running water.

Following the shepherd, then, is a matter of love and being cared for. It is a relationship of trust and belonging. When Jesus speaks of his followers he refers often to shepherding, because he wants us to know how much he longs for us to willingly adhere to him with all our being and to trust him to provide for us. Sheep know they belong to a shepherd. They are named, known, and counted at the end of every single day before being settled down for the night.

There are two ways a shepherd would lead his flock. Most often we see the shepherd walking in front of the sheep. There the shepherd can recognize danger and lead the sheep in the safest path. The shepherds lead by showing the sheep the best path to take.

At other times, the shepherd leads his flock from behind. In this case the shepherd is driving the sheep toward the destination and making sure that they don’t dilly-dally along the way, wandering off after some distraction or other.

In what area of your life is Jesus desiring to shepherd you more closely? Is there a destination or goal on the horizon to which he is drawing your heart? Have you found patterns of distraction in your life which keep you dilly-dallying along the way? Can you hear your Shepherd’s voice? Do you recognize when he calls your name?

Image: Gerd Altmann; Pixabay.

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

Image: Myriams-Fotos; pixabay.com

That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him….
As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, “Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him….

Luke 24:13-35

“‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.’ So [Jesus] went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.”

I wonder what Jesus felt when he was invited to stay with these two disciples making their away from all that had transpired in Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. Certainly, Jesus had met these two disciples on the road. He had listened to their discouragement and disillusionment. He had even spent quite a bit of time teaching them, “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.” With all of that, however, Jesus was hoping for more. We need more than to be heard and understood and have our minds and hearts refreshed with an encounter with Truth. Deep down, the human heart yearns for intimacy and so does the heart of Jesus.

I can imagine Jesus, as he was clearly “giving the impression” that he was intending to go on his way, feeling overwhelmed with joy when the disciples invited him into the intimacy of their home. Jesus never forces his presence and his love on anyone. We can imagine them scouring about making sure there was a bed prepared and thinking about their evening meal.

When we invite Jesus into our hearts with this great hope of satisfying the longing for intimacy that both Jesus and we have, we often scurry about preparing things for his stay, telling him things, saying prayers, asking for what we need, tidying up our hearts as best we can. Jesus enters where he is invited in order to give himself entirely to us. And so when they sat down for their evening meal there is no mention of what the disciples had prepared. Instead, there is recounted the meal Jesus provided them. “And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”

Today, Jesus is “hanging around,” to use a somewhat colloquial phrase, hoping that you will invite him to stay with you. Invite Jesus in. Don’t be too worried about what your heart looks like or how you will make him feel welcome. Instead, for this time, just watch him. Experience his joy at being invited to your house, to your heart. Let him be the giver and you the receiver. Allow him to share his joy with you.

Image: Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

Image: Myriams-Fotos; pixabay.com

Amen, amen, I say to you, 
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, 
it remains just a grain of wheat; 
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.

John 12:20-33

Have you ever noticed how the Scriptures are filled with people just like ourselves whose lives take unexpected turns and then blossom in ways that can only be described as flourishing in and for the Kingdom of God.

Take Jacob. His “before” was manipulating his father’s blessing from his brother Esau and then serving his uncle Laban for many years, eventually marrying his daughters Leah and Rachel. His “after” was as the patriarch of the twelve tribes of Israel who escaped from Egypt, received the Law, and were chosen by God to be his covenant people. And even to this day, we read in Revelation 21 that on the twelve gates that belong to the New Jerusalem are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The New Jerusalem itself sits on twelve foundations representing the twelve apostles who would reign over the twelve tribes of Israel.

Take Moses. His “before” was the life of Pharoah’s daughter’s adopted son in Egypt. We all know the story. His “after” was the fulfillment of God’s call to be the leader of his people to the Promised Land. And even to this day, the Christian understanding of the Paschal Mystery is rooted in the Exodus narrative.

Between the “before” and the “after” of each of these biblical figures there is a point of struggle and epiphany.

When Jesus says that the grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die if it is to be more than just a single grain, if it is to bear fruit, Jesus is talking about just this dynamic which plays out also in our own lives. Who we think we are, who we discover ourselves to be as we grow up and mature and try to figure out life, all this eventually needs to give way to the fullness of the way God lifts our lives up into his mighty and eternal plan. We each have a role to play in God’s Kingdom. We each have a mission in life. We each were created for a purpose. It is in those “hinge” seasons of our life between the “before” and “after” in which we feel the weight and sorrow of the grain of wheat dying. If you are in one of those “hinge” moments, know that this too is a way in which God raises you up to fulfill more completely the fullness of your life and his glory.

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
“Two people went up to the temple area to pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity —
greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week,
and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

Humility, that most misunderstood of virtues, saves us from the theatrical pretensions to which all of us are drawn. Who hasn’t boasted occasionally of something they’ve accomplished, or been grateful, even in the secret of their hearts, that they aren’t in the class of people who they view to be beneath them as regards intellectual capacity, religious actions, cultural possibilities, or moral behavior?

The Pharisee praying in the synagogue was not exaggerating. He most probably did keep the law for that is what Pharisees did: they followed the legal traditions ascribed to the traditions of the Fathers. However, the special kind of prayer called the berakhah or blessing, so much a part of Judaism, is meant to be an expression of wonder at how blessed God is. For example, a typical blessing Jews recite before eating or drinking would acknowledge and bless God as the creator of the food and drink about to be enjoyed. The blessing for bread praises God as the one who brings forth bread from the earth. The blessing for wearing new clothing praises God as the one who clothes the naked.

These blessing prayers make clear that our true dignity lies infinitely more in God that in ourselves and can only be reached when we are united to God. The first truth that leads us to a great wonder in God’s glory and his goodness to us we find in Genesis. We are created from nothing. This very gift of an eternal existence make us utterly dependent on God and acutely aware of our own unworthiness. In love God created us and in love God upholds us. We have no being of our own but what we receive from God. Blessing God for his glory is in order!

The tax collector here is an image of all those who realize that they are dependent on God, gifted with life and an eternal purpose whose object is God, and that they can never come to completion without being perfectly united to God. In this case, sorrow for sins, even the grieving that comes from knowing that we will never be all that we were created to be, is appropriate and actually a necessary part of our relationship with God. Does this also sound familiar? We begin every Mass with a Penitential Act followed by the Glory to God. We take our place once again as God’s dear children so in need of his grace to live lives of  truth and goodness and beauty.

So today, bless and thank God as the source of every good in your life, acknowledge your dependence on God for reaching the final completion of your life in Christ Jesus, sorrow for your sins and never stop believing in God’s love for you.

Image: Aberdeen Art Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

When God does things, he does them lavishly. The book of Genesis opens with the stunning array of all creation being poured forth from God’s hands in his limitless love. And here, in the familiar story of the rich man and Lazarus, we see two accounts of lavish living. The rich man clothed himself in fine linen and dined sumptuously, extravagantly, lavishly.

On the other hand, we see Lazarus taken after his death to the bosom of Abraham, a term which means being in the seat of honor at a banquet. One of my favorite word-paintings of God’s lavish feast-giving is penned by the prophet Isaiah:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
    of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear (Is. 25:6).

Simply reading these words often brings tears to my eyes. There are so many who are suffering under burdens that weigh them down, crushing burdens mostly not of their own making. They are afraid to lift their eyes to this feast of rich food that “the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples.”

God is telling you, however, “I want you at this banquet. Don’t make banquets of your own. Don’t hoard riches on this earth for yourself. Don’t give up hope when you are not wealthy. Trust entirely in my lavish love for you.”

Let us break open this lavish love of our God. The word “lavish” appears in 1 John 3:1, which reads, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (NIV)

Paul helps us understand what this means as he almost sings exultantly:

“[God] raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable [we could read here, lavish] riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6-7).

The riches of God’s grace are not able to be measured, and they will be lavished on us for all eternity. In fact it was take eternal ages for God to show us the riches of his grace through the kindness shown to us in Christ Jesus his Son. God will be ever greater in glory and we will be ever more completely satisfied with the outpouring of his unending mercies.

There in the “bosom of Abraham,” like Lazarus, our tears will be wiped away, we will finally rest in the security of God’s provision and loving protection. We will be home in our God who can never be outdone in his lavish kindness.

Let us lift our eyes from our own wealth, however great or small it may be, and rest our gaze on the riches of God given to us even now in Christ Jesus: to live in communion with God through the sacraments in ever closer intimacy and unending joy.

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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Two words in this Gospel are almost terrifying. Jesus “touched him.”

So far removed are we from what leprosy signified in biblical times, that this image of Jesus stretching out his hand to touch a person whose body was consumed by the disease has no affect on us.

Lepers were the walking dead who were banished to live outside towns in caves, tents, or garbage dumps. Even breathing the same air as a leper was thought to be dangerous, since leprosy was considered highly contagious.  Leprosy consumed a person’s body, leaving stumps where fingers, hands, feet, or noses had once been. The laws dictated that lepers were to maintain twelve steps distance from others, cover their mouths with a cloth, and cry out “unclean, unclean” to announce their presence.

Most of us still have lingering in our memories the fear we experienced with COVID-19, when even being within six feet of another or breathing the same air as they, conjured up the possibility of a painful death. We learned to stay from others to protect ourselves and those we love.

Jesus, instead, “touched” the leper.

Jesus stepped over the imaginary line of demarcation, entering into the dangerous zone of closeness with the leper.

Jesus got close enough to this man to smell the putrid smell of his decaying flesh. He could feel the man’s foul breath on his face.

Jesus got closer still in order to touch the body of the leper, putting his fingers into the wounds of oozing sores.

Jesus conveyed to this man that he wanted so much that he would be healed that he himself was willing to risk his life, to give his life.

Jesus was close enough to look directly into the face of a person whose face was horrifically disfigured and perhaps even unrecognizable.

And Jesus touched him.

Sometimes we may feel that we have become disfigured, unrecognizable, because of the wounds we have received in our life and the brokenness of our own sin.

And Jesus touches us.

There are certain others in our life that we consider “lepers” in the sense that they think, speak, or act in ways that threaten us or that walk outside the path of discipleship of the Lord Jesus.

And Jesus touches them.

There is no leprosy that frightens Jesus away, no disfigurement that makes him draw back. One day, when thinking of certain others in my life, wondering how they could be at peace with what they were doing, I heard God say to me this: “I know. Only I know.”

Jesus touches each of us in the places of our leprosy. We are each of us known intimately and lovingly by a God unafraid to enter into our misery and travel with us the journey to the Kingdom.

Today you might ask yourself in a moment of prayer: “Jesus, what does this say about you and about me?”

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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