I received this today in my email, a 3 minute Easter video message of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa. I always love to listen to him and read his reflections, for they are the voice of courage and faith in the midst of darkness. Since we all share in the confusion and fear of the present turmoil, I thought to share with you his Easter message and his faith:
“We need to celebrate Easter because we need to announce with our life and our gestures that we belong to the powerful love of God in Jesus. Despite everything we need to keep testifying our our life, with what we are doing, what we are, how beautiful it is to live with Jesus, our Risen Land, here in our land. Don’t be afraid. The Love of God is more powerful than any sign of darkness.”
“What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are. But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to. But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God” (1 John 3 MSG).
I want you to read again this translation of these verses in the First Letter of John. Read them slowly.
It is as if John the Evangelist, John who had laid his head on the heart of Christ at the last supper and listened to the love that beat in his Lord’s most sacred and divine Heart, was trying to find the words to convince us that we are God’s children. Certainly, we’ve heard that a billion times before: with baptism we become God’s children. Do we consider how BIG A DEAL this is? My niece and nephew often played fondly with children of their friends. But now that they have their own child, it is a different story altogether. This is THEIR CHILD.
You can’t help but notice the delight in their eyes when THEIR CHILD tries to smile. It is impossible not to see the concern over every wail from their five-week-old bundle of joy that is THEIR CHILD. The sacrifices of sleep, time, and freedom are acknowledged but willingly made for THEIR CHILD. My nephew said to me, “She’s just perfect!”
“Accept being loved”
I think it is interesting in this quote from John’s First Letter, “That’s who we really are. But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to.”
Try reading this verse to yourself, but substitute “my mind” for “the world.” “My mind doesn’t recognize me as being a child of God or take this seriously, because it has no idea who God is or what God’s up to.”
As we grow into our toddler years and beyond, if not before, our interpretation of what is happening around us or to us begins to crowd out the reality of what is in its most given and true state. Mom is slightly late to answer me when I cry out and my mind begins to interpret the world as not safe, a place where my needs may not be met. Or maybe the one watching me at the playground is on the phone and doesn’t show interest when I call out to show them the new things I learned, and I interpret the world as a lonely place, where I may not be seen or important. Maybe my brothers or fellow schoolmates laugh at me, and I interpret this to mean that I have no worth….
Gradually as we enter our childhood and then adult years, it is our mind’s interpretation of who we think we are and what we can become that takes the drivers seat. We begin to “have no idea of who God is or what God’s up to” in our life. We forget that we are HIS CHILD WHO FILLS HIM WITH JOY.
One thing that will help you become the Child you are…
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you slow down enough to catch the thoughts you say to yourself about what things mean and who you are. Notice which type of thoughts make you feel happy, rested, trusting. And which thoughts depress, sadden, and frustrate you.
Make a list of each. At the beginning of the day visualize two or three things you know will happen that day and watch yourself internalizing the thoughts of a CHILD OF GOD. At the end of the day you can look briefly back at these same situations and notice where the other type of thoughts snuck in. Relive the situation in your mind at that point internalizing the attitudes and beliefs of a CHILD OF GOD.
“When Israel was only a child, I loved him. I called out, ‘My son!’—called him out of Egypt. I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek, I bent down to feed him. (cf. Hosea 11:1, 4)
What keeps you up at night? What is in your heart that you wish you could share with someone who cares? In this Holy Thursday meditation, Jesus gathers you tightly into his embrace as he looks in to your eyes and says: “When will you give all this to me?”
Lord, you have searched me thoroughly. You know me….
This can be a scary thought. We want to be known, and seen, and loved, and respected. Not searched.
Later in the Psalm we learn how wonderful and loving is the one who knit us in our mother's womb. His "searching" eyes are there to see our slightest need for him. How wonderful he is in his care for us in all things….
This is a quiet meditation to bring to our inner space a sense of safety and trust.
Music by Petrushkasound from Pixabay
In our relationship with God, even distress has meaning. It is often in the wounded places of our lives that he bows the heavens and comes down, reaches down into the darkness and draws us into his immeasurable light.
Today, the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe, my community and I went to the Cathedral of St Thomas More for Mass. Since it was the first time I had been there after a recent renovation I walked around the church, looking at the new statues and stained glass windows…and there were a lot of them!
On the level of soul, of presence, of awareness of what is most real, I had this sense that when we are in a church, when we are immersed in the divine action of the liturgy, we are in a different world, there, surrounded by the saints and angels, offered by Christ to the Father. In the world, yes, this world, but also in the Kingdom of the Father.
So I simply want to share some antiphons from Morning Prayer today in the Liturgy of the Hours, a reflection from various homilies of Pope Benedict, and a few phrases of the hymns we sang. I’m hoping that somehow they will share with you the profound sense of Christ the King by which we can make sense of life and history, a profound sense that we are already in that kingdom won by him that:
he might present to the immensity of [God’s] majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. (From the Preface)
A man will come whose Name is the Dayspring; from his throne he will rule over all; he will speak of peace to the nations.
From Pope Benedict:
Jesus of Nazareth is so intrinsically king that the title “King” has actually become His name. By calling ourselves Christians, we label ourselves as followers of the King.
The King is Jesus; in Him God entered humanity and espoused it to Himself. This is the usual form of the divine activity in relation to mankind. God does not have a fixed plan that He must carry out; on the contrary, He has many different ways of finding man and even of turning his wrong ways into right ways.
The feast of Christ the King is therefore not a feast of those who are subjugated, but a feast of those who know that they are in the hands of the one who writes straight on crooked lines.
The Lord will give him power and honor and kingship; all peoples, tribes, and nations will serve him.
In this final Sunday of the liturgical year, the Church invites us to celebrate the Lord Jesus as King of the Universe. She calls us to look to the future, or more properly into the depths, to the ultimate goal of history, which will be the definitive and eternal kingdom of Christ. He was with the Father in the beginning, when the world was created, and he will fully manifest his lordship at the end of time, when he will judge all mankind.
From the hymn Crown Him with Many Crowns: Crown him the Lord of peace, Whose pow’r a scepter sways From pole to pole, that wars may cease, Absorbed by prayer and praise…
The Cross is the “throne” where he manifested his sublime kingship as God Love: by offering himself in expiation for the sin of the world, he defeated the “ruler of this world” (Jn 12: 31) and established the Kingdom of God once and for all. It is a Kingdom that will be fully revealed at the end of time, after the destruction of every enemy and last of all, death (see 1 Cor 15: 25-26). The Son will then deliver the Kingdom to the Father and God will finally be “everything to everyone” (1 Cor 15: 28).
From the hymn: Rejoice the Lord Is King: His Kingdom cannot fail, He rules o’er earth and heav’n. The keys of death and hell Are to our Jesus giv’n.
The way to reach this goal is long and admits of no short cuts: indeed, every person must freely accept the truth of God’s love. He is Love and Truth, and neither Love nor Truth are ever imposed: they come knocking at the doors of the heart and the mind and where they can enter they bring peace and joy. This is how God reigns; this is his project of salvation, a “mystery” in the biblical sense of the word: a plan that is gradually revealed in history.
From the Preface for the Feast of Christ the King:
For you anointed your Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with the oil of gladness as eternal Priest and King of all creation, so that, by offering himself on the altar of the Cross as a spotless sacrifice to bring us peace, he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption, and, making all created things subject to his rule, he might present to the immensity of your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.
INTERCESSIONS Let us pray to Christ the King. He is the firstborn of all creation; all things exist in him. May your kingdom come, O Lord
Christ, you are our savior and our God, our shepherd and our king. – lead your people to life-giving pastures.
Good Shepherd, you laid down your life for your sheep. – rule over us, and in your care we shall want for nothing.
Christ, our redeemer, you have been made king over all the earth. – restore all creation in yourself.
King of all creation, you came into the world to bear witness to the truth. – may all men and women come to acknowledge your primacy in all things.
Christ, our model and master, you have brought us into your kingdom. – grant that we may be holy and blameless before you this day.
Touching the Sunrise 