Category: Lectio Divina

“Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.”

Matthew 18:15-20

Every time I watch the altar server carrying the cross and leading the procession to the altar while the entrance hymn is sung, I feel slightly overwhelmed. We are being gathered together by Christ himself. It is something that is happening to us, given to us, being done through us. We are entering into the presence of Christ as into a new “dimension” which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life.

We are not gathering together like we gather at a meeting or a club house or a restaurant.

We are doing something more than going to this or that Mass in one parish or other at a time most convenient to us.

We are answering a call to do what is most natural to the human creature: to adore. We are answering an invitation to keep our hearts lifted high. We are plunging in liturgy and sacrament into the new life of the Kingdom. We are approaching the altar which is a sign that we have been given access to the heavenly sanctuary.

“Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.”

In the Mass celebrated Sunday after Sunday, day after day, Jesus brings our personal reality into harmony with his own heart, his own truth, his own will. In the assembly, our voices and even our lives are more and more harmoniously united, as we become more and more like Jesus himself. That is why Jesus makes clear that we are responsible for each other, that we are “brother and sister” to each other. If one member of the communion gathered in Christ is having difficulty, or straying, or offending in some significant way, indifference or tolerance is not an acceptable response, since Jesus himself outlines in this passage a process for winning back our brother or sister to live more deeply their new life in Christ.

In the end, we do not belong to ourselves. We belong to Christ. We belong to each other. When we have answered to the initiative of Christ who gathers us together, we grow more completely into one harmonious voice with him and with each other as we offer praise to the Father and intercede for the world.

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Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter’s son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?”
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house.”
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.

Matthew 13:54-58

When you reach a certain age you worry about things like your legacy, what you have done with your life and what would have happened if you had made different choices. There is something in us that even unconsciously compares the outcomes of our life achievements with those of others. Physically, financially, spiritually we wonder why we are deficient. Why our life hasn’t been marked with “more”: more beauty, more strength, more wealth, more success, more holiness…. Always more.

Hollywood and social media tickle this very human desire to be and to have more. It’s difficult to settle for being ordinary, unknown, insignificant, not a major player around whom everything revolves and on whom everything depends. As the years pass and we reach our senior years, this begins to feel a little desperate. We know instinctively that we are running out of time and opportunities to make “more” happen.

The people in Nazareth, the neighbors of Jesus’ mother who still remembered Joseph the carpenter every time they used something he had made for them, wanted more stardom in a prophet. Who does he think he is? We rub elbows with his mother at the village well. We know his family. They are just our  neighbors. Just like us. They are no better than us. Who does this Jesus think he is?

Unknowingly, however, they were proclaiming the glory of the human race. God’s Son was born of a virgin, protected and raised by a foster-father who had a normal, everyday job. The Son of God is Emmanuel, God-with-us, God-in-our-midst, God who took flesh from a member of the human race, Mary, and who became a familiar presence as he grew up around the town of Nazareth. God who is our brother and who would one day call his followers his friends, God rooted in our human reality, God who would feed us with his own Body and Blood.

This Gospel passage proclaims the humble origins of the Messiah and the way in which he has “woven” himself, if we could say it that way, into our very humble human reality. We can be sure that as Jesus stands before his Father in heaven, interceding for us, he knows. He knows from the inside out our reality. He understands every bit of our sorrows and the full extent of our joys. He lifts us up into communion with God where we make our forever-home in the Trinity, where we will be eternally “of God” and “in God.” This is what Jesus was inviting his neighbors to join him in, but they wanted more they wanted something else.

Jesus will seem to stumble into your very humble days. In ways that are far from magnificent, he will take up his home in you. As he does this, every day, listen to what he has to say. Let him tease your heart away from the earthly importance you seek, whatever it is, so that he can incorporate you into the glory of the divine life he wishes to share with you for all eternity.

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Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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Jesus said to his disciples:
“Hear the parable of the sower.
The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom
without understanding it,
and the Evil One comes and steals away
what was sown in his heart.
The seed sown on rocky ground
is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.
But he has no root and lasts only for a time.
When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word,
he immediately falls away.
The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word
and it bears no fruit.
But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Matthew 13:18-23

Jesus is the divine Sower who sows the seed of his word in the community of followers he is calling apart from the world. It is in hearing the word of God that the seed takes root in us.

To hear, to really hear, to absolutely hear the voice of God and not the myriad other distracting voices that call out for our attention, we must do something that is very difficult. We must cultivate silence.

Most retreatants discover on the first day or so of a retreat, in the quiet of the retreat house with nothing to do except listen to God’s voice, that a thousand other voices—strident and loud—all of a sudden appear, clamoring for attention. Listening to their stories and letting them go can be an essential first step to creating the silent soil that can receive God’s word.

We don’t need to be on a retreat to enter into this ambient of silent recollection. It is possible to spend a short period every day as a mini-retreat to cultivate the soil of our heart. We can start by disconnecting from social media and our phones.

At first it may seem frightening to be cut off from the torrent of words and images that flood our media-saturated consciousness. We might feel nervous as we wait in silence for the work of the divine Sower. Our soul may feel fragmented and untilled and unprepared for the seed. In patience we will acquire the stillness that longs to receive the fullness of God’s word.

It is a spiritual art and discipline to be able to distinguish the harmony of God’s voice from the discord of worries, temptations, desires, and ambitions. This discernment comes precisely from the experience of entering into silence.

Pope Benedict XVI said, “‘Only in silence can the word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the word and, inseparably, woman of silence’ (Verbum Domini, n. 66). This principle — that without silence one does not hear, does not listen, does not receive a word — applies especially to personal prayer as well as to our liturgies: to facilitate authentic listening, they must also be rich in moments of silence and of non-verbal reception” (General Audience, March 7, 2012).

How does God desire you to open wide your heart in silence? Ask the Lord what practical steps he desires you to take to recover this contemplative dimension of life.

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Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me.” The words of a lover. Powerless words. Vulnerable words. The one who says these words must wait upon the response of the one to whom they are addressed.

“Will you come to me?”

The loved one must answer yes or no.

If he or she answers “Yes,” than this love of Jesus has triumphed, and Jesus can open his heart completely to pour out on the loved one that fullness of the life he shares with the Father. If the answer is “No,” a love refused, then the gift of love has met with a tragic end.

Ultimately, the invitation of the Father and the Son to the world, inviting  each person into their eternal loving and living and giving is, in fact, limited only by human refusal.

As soon as we say our “Yes” to Jesus, we discover that the pressures that weigh upon us from both the world and our own selves begin to fade away. We are let in on the “secret,” so to speak, of the mystery Jesus came to reveal to us.

We begin to see how we receive all from the Father, every last thing that we are and have and accomplish. In Jesus we see the way to live in relation to the Father: in blessing and thanksgiving, wasting our time in worship and wonder. We make the astounding discovery that in truth the world has no power over us when we make our home in God.

Jesus asks you today and every day, in situations of joy and in pain, in laughter and in tears, in circumstances that demand outstanding courage and those that require a humble peace, “Come to me!”

Jesus stands at the door of our hearts as a beggar, but—oh!—how much joy fills his heart when we reach out our hand to take his that we might go with him wherever he leads. Image: Leiloeira São Domingos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
Do not take a false oath,
but make good to the Lord all that you vow.
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Do not swear by your head,
for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.”

Matthew 5:33-37

The single most important shift I have experienced in my relationship with God, the deepest transformation I have received in my prayer is connected to today’s Gospel passage…

I am not the Center of the universe. I do not and cannot ever understand what life is all about. Relying on my powers of understanding has led me repeatedly down a dead-end street.

And God said to me on one quiet day of retreat, “I know. Only I know.”

Those words have changed my life.

Someone who swears something on oath is basically exhibiting their  reliance on their own personal power of making sense of the world. One who swears an oath manipulates words to convince others of their own version of what is real, true, or good. Perhaps their version does correspond to what is real, but most of us have to admit we have only a slight comprehension of the total picture of anything that concerns us or the world. In an almost idolatrous way, the one who swears an oath proclaims, “I know. Only I know.”

In this passage Jesus says that the vast reaches of the cosmos should give a person pause. The wonder that the universe should spark in our heart should humble us to realize our own impotence and dependence on the Creator.

God knows all things. Only God knows what is true, what is really happening. God alone can see how everything is connected and how all things participate in a mysterious way in the overflowing of his loving wisdom that guides all things. We can simply and sincerely only attempt to understand all that is unfolding.

Before the glory of heavens and the beauty of earth, therefore, I can only humbly bow. I can leave God free. I can leave others free. I can entrust myself to him, holding nothing back. I am secure enough to let things be.

Because of this transformation, I can examine my words. Are they manipulative? Are they pressured? Are they self-oriented? Am I inwardly disturbed?

Or are my words simple? Are they free? Are they trusting? Am I at peace?

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Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”

Mark 9:41-50

How would you live differently if you knew the full glory that awaits you in heaven? I think we really need to stop and sit with that question, more so perhaps than our ancestors in the faith. In a world where the here and now, the immediate satisfaction, the hard work required to just survive leaves us exhausted and burnt out, we have little spiritual energy to think about the beyond.

What is heaven? Pope Francis described it this way: “Paradise is not a fairy tale, nor is it an enchanted garden. Paradise is an embrace with God, (who is) infinite Love, and we enter thanks to Jesus, who died on the cross for us” (Wednesday General Audience, October 25, 2017).

On another occasion Pope Francis reflected: “‘So what’s heaven?’ some ask. There we begin to be unsure in our response. We don’t know how best to explain heaven. Often we picture an abstract and distant heaven… And some think: ‘But won’t it be boring there for all eternity?’ No! That is not heaven. We are on the path towards an encounter: the final meeting with Jesus. Heaven is the encounter with Jesus. Heaven will be this encounter, this meeting with the Lord who went ahead to prepare a place for each of us” (April 27, 2018).

In heaven we will have an unimaginable capacity for joy, a joy that will ever increase, a joy that will never entirely be satisfied because God will never come to the end of giving himself to us to be our everlasting happiness.

When our heart is lit with the anticipation of God’s glory and the immense happiness the Lord will have in satisfying our deepest human longings with his life and love, it is easy to understand why Jesus says, “If something gets in the way of the this, throw it off and keep running to your ultimate destination. Say, ‘Good riddance,’ and surround yourself instead with people and things and activities and ways of being and living and loving that fulfill your dignity as a child of God and a citizen of the Kingdom.”

Pope Benedict leads us to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle in us the fire of your love! We know that this is a bold prayer, with which we ask to be touched by God’s flame; but above all we know that this flame and it alone has the power to save us. We do not want, in defending our life, to lose eternal life that God wants to give us. We need the fire of the Holy Spirit, because only Love redeems. Amen” (Feast of Pentecost, May 23, 2010).

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Praying with this Passage of Scripture

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