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Risen From The Dead!

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We know that we must believe in order to be saved. Sometimes, we must admit that our belief is little more than lip-service. But we owe God all of us, as the Sh’ma states: “the Lord is our God, the Lord is One… And you shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” We must love God with our whole being, and as the best Teacher, He will give us opportunities to engage and express that faith, just as he did in today’s Gospel.

Imagine the depth of faith of the “official” (most probably not a Jew) whose daughter is already dead. This is the time for mourning, not for running after some itinerant Jewish rabbi. The professional mourners are already about their business, but this official leaves to find Jesus, interrupts his teaching, and kneels before him in deference, confident that he will be heard, confident that Jesus will intervene. Perhaps the official has seen Jesus work miracles before; but has he ever raised the dead back to life? No doubt impelled by love for his daughter, he dares to believe that Jesus will do just that. He asks him to come and lay his hand on the girl, and Jesus, somewhat astonishingly, rises to follow him.

Now imagine the thoughts running through the mind of this official when the woman with the hemorrhage interrupts their journey! A delay of this urgent business must have caused some anxiety; he is challenged to be patient and remain steadfast in his faith, even though the outcome is delayed.

The woman with the hemorrhage (who has been unable to worship with the community for twelve years, because she is ritually unclean!) expresses her faith by touching Jesus’ cloak, trusting that she can be cured by simply coming in contact with his clothing. Her trusting touch is indeed rewarded, but Jesus points to the cause for her healing: “Your faith has saved you.”

Finally, the group arrives at the official’s house, and as if to underscore the reality of the daughter’s death, the Gospel tells us that the mourners ridiculed Jesus for saying the girl was only sleeping. These people certainly knew death when they saw it; there could be no doubt that the girl was really dead. But Jesus touches her, takes her by the hand, and “the little girl arose.” The official’s faith and trust were rewarded with healing, as the woman’s had been.

There is another parallel in these two intertwined stories: the woman expressed her faith by touching the cloak of Jesus; the girl is healed when Jesus touches her. In these actions, we see how Jesus’ presence is “incarnational” – he respects the nature he has given us and uses material things to accomplish spiritual purposes, affirming bodiliness. There is nothing in our minds and memories that wasn’t first in the senses; we know and remember what we have experienced.

The healing of Jesus came through touching and words, and his grace still comes to us through matter and word and ritual in the sacraments. The sacraments are signs that point beyond themselves to invisible realities, using water and oil, bread and wine, signing with the cross and laying on of hands and eating and drinking to bring us into contact with the living God. We must receive them in faith, so that we can be healed and freed and restored to life by Christ, as the woman and little girl were in today’s Gospel.

Kathryn is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to two, and a lay Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and also as a writer and voice talent for Holy Family Radio. Currently, she serves the Church as a writer and presenter, and by collaborating with the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, individual parishes, and Catholic ministries to lead others to encounter Christ and engage their faith. Learn more at www.kathryntherese.com or on Facebook @summapax.

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Trust in the Lord

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Imagine you are an ancient king, responsible for a vast area and the lives of many people. Neighboring kings have joined forces and are destroying nearby kingdoms, and now send the message that you are next. What would you do? Would you panic? Would you begin scrambling for a solution? Would you remind yourself that you are in charge and if something must be done, you must do it? Would you try to negotiate a treaty or run and hide yourself in the mountains and wait out the destruction? Would you rally your troops to defend the kingdom and lead them into battle or find safety for what you treasure?

This is the situation in today’s first reading from 2 Kings. And Hezekiah, king of Judah, did none of those things. When he received a message from the king of Assyria, who was threatening doom, Hezekiah went immediately into the temple of the Lord and put all his hope in the God of Israel. He first praised God as the One above all others, the One Who is over all the powers of earth. Then he begged the Lord to consider the threat of Assyria, and how they are a taunt against the one true God. And then he humbly asked God to save the kingdom of Judah from the power of the Assyrians – but not for their own sake, but “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” Hezekiah begged the Lord to show his power so that others might believe. God responded with the promise that the Assyrians would not win, that the Lord himself would “save this city for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” God, faithful to his promises in every generation, struck down 185,000 soldiers and sent them packing back to Nineveh. Hezekiah won by putting all his trust in the Lord.

This brings us, by an indirect path, to the Gospel for today. We know many of these words, as they have become adages in our language: pearls before swine, do unto others, the narrow gate. Our familiarity with the phrases might obscure for us some of the subtleties in the message. Jesus is very clear about something that we can be a little foggy about: “the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.” When I read that, I am shaken by the truth that many are following the way to destruction. This turns my understanding of the world on its side. I want to believe that most people are good and generous most of the time, that most people follow the rule to “do unto others,” and so they are on their way to eternal life. The Lord’s words tell a different story. “How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” How can this be?

It’s simple, really. The narrow gate and constricted road are not the way of niceness, or the way that our culture sees as “successful.” To understand it, we must look beyond the surface, so that we see it is the way of complete trust in the Lord, rather than self-reliance, no matter how “successful” that makes us.

It is the radical trust that goes to prayer before mustering an army, that trusts in the Lord to fight our social and emotional battles rather than insisting on fixing everything ourselves, that entrusts all the people we love and all their situations to the goodness of God before reaching in with our very limited human resources. It is the deep trust of a child to her loving Father, even when that Father is unseen. It is the loving trust that allows us to finally let go of our worrying and questioning; the love that casts out fear and sets us free.

Most of the people I know ARE good and generous and kind. But God sees into the heart, and he knows the narrow places in each of us that we do not even know ourselves so He knows whether, deep down inside, we rely on ourselves and our own weapons and tools and resources or, like Hezekiah, truly put all our trust in the Lord.

This does not come easily to our fallen human nature, and it is certainly not “the way of the world.” Let us each ask God to show us the ways we insist on taking care of things ourselves, and to give us the grace to entrust each of these things completely to him, so that we at last truly trust in him and are set free to do His will rather than our own.

Kathryn is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to two, and a lay Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and also as a writer and voice talent for Holy Family Radio. Currently, she serves the Church as a writer and presenter, and by collaborating with the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, individual parishes, and Catholic ministries to lead others to encounter Christ and engage their faith. Learn more at www.kathryntherese.com or on Facebook @summapax.

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Jesus is the New Way

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Jesus is intent on making clear that what he brings to the world is the fulfillment of the Old Law. The Old Law was good, and it drew hearts that were open into the truth, but there was more to come. Jesus brings MORE; he brings a new way.  Jesus IS the new Way.

Today’s Gospel is part of a long section in which Jesus points out the ways he has come to fulfill the Old Testament. He begins with what his listeners already know, and then nudges them deeper; what they know is a superficial observance, but the truth must be observed in the recesses of our hearts.

He begins by explaining that the commandment against killing (which is external) includes anger (which is internal), and the commandment against adultery (external) includes lust (internal). Then he turns to swearing falsely: his listeners already know that they should not take false oaths but be true to their promise; Jesus tells them they should not need to swear at all. In a sense, oaths are meaningless because whatever they would “swear on” is beyond their control. Where is all this going?

Jesus is calling his hearers upward, inward. They are to be people of integrity, who do not need to make an oath to increase their trustworthiness. If they are people who live truth in the heart, then their YES means YES, and their NO means NO. From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Next, Jesus will raise the bar on loving one’s neighbor to include loving and praying for one’s enemies. This is unheard of in a culture that has lived by “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”! As he does in so many other interactions, Jesus calls those who hear him to move past any superficial or merely external observance of the law or ritual formalities and to internalize them, to be pure in heart, to worship him in spirit and truth. Even more, he calls all his followers to enter into something new and be transformed from within, so that their obedience and faith and trust are deep and genuine, rich with the light and peace of the Spirit. Only in this way can their interactions with one another be blessed.

What does this mean for us today? We must open our hearts to the light of the Spirit, and ask for the grace to see any areas where we are holding back something for ourselves, maneuvering for our own advantage, or remaining in a superficial or merely external mode of obedience. Do we show up for Mass on Sunday without preparing as well as we can, simply because “we should”? In our interactions with others, are we thinking of our own wants and needs before those of others? Are our habits of mind and action simple courtesies or genuinely impelled and guided by charity?

Let us pray for the grace to allow Jesus full access to our hearts and minds, so that we can be transformed by his love and become the true images of God we are created to be.

Kathryn is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to two, and a lay Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and also as a writer and voice talent for Holy Family Radio. Currently, she serves the Church as a writer and presenter, and by collaborating with the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, individual parishes, and Catholic ministries to lead others to encounter Christ and engage their faith. Learn more at www.kathryntherese.com or on Facebook @summapax.

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Mary, Mother of Jesus

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Today the Church celebrates the obligatory Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so the sequential readings are set aside so that we can hear in the Gospel something about the Heart of Mary. The verses that have always struck me to the heart and refocused my attention are repeated in two places in the second chapter of Luke: And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart (Luke 2:19); And his mother kept all these things in her heart (Luke 2:51).

She knew how to “BE WITH” events and circumstances and to know God in them, which is something that can only be done if we are open to the Spirit in our lives. We often see the events and circumstances and people in our lives as hurdles to overcome, tasks to be checked off, goals to reach. But if we open our hearts to the influence of the Holy Spirit, these things can reveal to us the will of God, and the gifts He is pouring over us. This is what Mary did.

But Mary sometimes gets a bit sidelined; we’re not sure what to make of all this, so we can sometimes reduce her to a kind of sweet “conduit” through which Jesus appeared on earth for us.

This would be to misunderstand the nature of motherhood in general and of this motherhood in particular – the mother-child relationship can never be reduced to mere passing “functionality.” We don’t give birth and then a child has no need for us! And in this particular case, it would be ridiculous to think that God would use a person and then minimize the role that person would play in the rest of the story.

Christ did not fall to earth, ready-made and complete. He, too, required loving and nurturing and instructing. Christ is the seed of the Word, planted by the Father and the Spirit in the womb of the Virgin of Nazareth; and Mary is the fertile earth that nourished and gave growth to that Seed so that we may eventually eat the fruit of the Tree of the Cross, the Eucharist. The Flesh that feeds us was formed under the Heart of Mary. The Blood that we receive from the altar first flowed through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Mary was made for this, and she cannot ever be anyone other than the Mother of God; everything before the angel Gabriel came to her prepared her for this role and there is no point at which she is not the Mother of God. Mary did not stop being the Mother of God once Jesus was born, or once he came of age, or when he left her to preach, or when he died on the Cross, or rose and ascended into Heaven. She is Christ’s mother and – because we are members of his Body through baptism – she is our mother too.

In her fiat at the outset of the work of redemption, she is both accepting God’s gift of redemption for herself and prefiguring/making possible the act of faith of the whole church yet to come. She speaks her YES on behalf of all of humanity, as the new creation begins in her womb.

In fact, “Mary, Mother of God” underlies the whole mystery of our redemption; from the Son’s conception in her womb by the overshadowing Holy Spirit to our own conception in the womb of Mother Church “until Christ be fully formed in us,” Mary is part of our salvation. And the Scriptures tell us that this is because of her great faith: blessed are you because you believed (Luke 1:45). Mary’s deepest identity is believer: one who encountered the Word of God, accepted it, assented to it, and never wavered, all the way to the cross and beyond.

There is nothing that Mary does without its being undertaken under the impulse of that original and ever-active grace of the Spirit that filled her from the beginning. This grace that filled Mary drove her in haste to the hill country of Judah to help her cousin Elizabeth, and also made her sensitive to the needs of the family hosting the wedding feast in Cana; we see in these events Mary’s essential role as Christ-Bearer and ready intercessor, who comes to our aid even without our asking! She is, in a sublime and motherly way, attentive to our needs.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is the example for us of complete receptivity to the Word and a ready YES to every breath, every movement of the Holy Spirit. Let us allow her to mother us into the arms of her Son, Jesus, and into eternity with him.

Kathryn is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to two, and a lay Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and also as a writer and voice talent for Holy Family Radio. Currently, she serves the Church as a writer and presenter, and by collaborating with the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, individual parishes, and Catholic ministries to lead others to encounter Christ and engage their faith. Learn more at www.kathryntherese.com or on Facebook @summapax.

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God Delights in Me

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Sometimes, the “key” to the Mass readings is found in the Antiphons. Today’s Entrance Antiphon invites us to see and receive our chosenness: “The Lord became my protector. He brought me out to a place of freedom; he saved me because he delighted in me.”

“Delight” is not the word that comes to mind when I consider how others – or God Himself – see me. Do we believe that God “delights” in us? Much of the time, I only see my faults and failings, and I don’t like myself too much. But God still delights in me, or at least in who He created me to be (and I am still in the process of becoming). When we know deeply that God delights in us, that He has saved us, that we have been “born anew” through His Word, we learn to stop grasping for more than we are meant to have. We are content with being loved by Love and we can at last begin to seek ways to love in return.

In today’s Gospel, it is clear that the disciples still do not understand Jesus’ mission of love, even as he takes the Twelve aside to tell them that he will be handed over and condemned to death, mocked, spit upon, scourged, and executed! After this explication of what is about to happen, James and John still come to him to ask for a share in his glory.

What glory? We can assume they were not referring to eternal glory; they still believed, somehow, that Jesus would overthrow the oppression of Israel and establish his rule on earth, and they were close enough to the Master to suggest to him that they should sit right next to him when he took his throne.

Jesus points out to them that they do not know what they are asking. And the other ten apostles become indignant at the request of James and John, concerned that they are being out-maneuvered, left out of the glory, somehow at risk for being given less authority and recognition! As he had done so many times before, Jesus patiently explained that the truth is the exact opposite of what the world values: authority, position, and glory are not found in the power to rule over others but rather in the humble love that serves others like a slave: “Whoever whishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.” And he holds himself up as the model when he points out that he did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom.

This lesson must have sunk in deeply and become indispensable “Gospel Grammar,” as St. Peter writes in today’s first reading about our being ransomed with the precious Blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18). Christ poured himself out for us completely, holding nothing back, so that we who were prisoners to sin and darkness might be bought back from the futile ways we learn from the world. The disciples learned this lesson as they walked with Christ and watched him hand himself over to death.

Are we still learning this lesson? Are we still acting according to the futile conduct the world insists will bring us happiness? How far are we on the path to becoming full citizens of the Kingdom of God, surrendering to God who surrenders Himself to us? Are we afraid to put ourselves in service to the Kingdom? Christ is the model to which we must conform our lives: we must be willing to become Bread for the world, to be a libation that is poured out completely for the sake of others.

This does not come naturally to any of us. Self-gift is made possible when we let go of the idea that we need to earn God’s love. And we are impelled to pour ourselves out by the presence of the Spirit and Fire of Jesus within us, which we are given at Baptism and Confirmation.

Finally, we are conformed to the image of the Son when we know with certainty that God saves us because He lovingly delights in us, and we live within the horizons of this unearned dignity.

Kathryn is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to two, and a lay Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and also as a writer and voice talent for Holy Family Radio. Currently, she serves the Church as a writer and presenter, and by collaborating with the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, individual parishes, and Catholic ministries to lead others to encounter Christ and engage their faith. Learn more at www.kathryntherese.com or on Facebook @summapax

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Like Children Before God

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What kind of man is this, who speaks with authority yet is so approachable that the young mothers and children come near to be touched and blessed by him? This is no stern and critical Rabbi, judging and joyless! In this Gospel, we can easily share the view of those who watched him and listened to him speak the Good News: Jesus must surely attract with his joy and sincerity, tenderness and mighty calm, kindness and self-giving love.

These children and their mothers are confident Jesus will receive them, even as the disciples are rebuking them and shooing them away, no doubt trying to protect the Master from those who seem to them no more than a nuisance.  In contrast, Jesus does not rebuke those who swarm him to be touched, but becomes indignant and rebukes the disciples for trying to prevent them, because his heart is moved by their innocent eagerness to draw near. Jesus wants to embrace them and bless them!

Jesus then opens the activity of this moment to teach a profound lesson: “the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” This must have surprised the disciples. The religious leaders they knew were nothing like children! They were rather decidedly not childlike – Jesus himself said they were full of greed and self-indulgence (Mt 23:25-6); they were like “whitewashed tombs…full of dead men’s bones” (Mt 23:27-8); cut from the same cloth as those who murdered the prophets of old (Mt 23:29). This is far from childlike.

What could Jesus have meant by telling the disciples that “whoever does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it”? What does it mean to be childlike in regard to God? We must distinguish between childlikeness and childishness: the childish refuse to grow up; the childlike mature and yet retain – or return to – the attitude of a child before a loving Father: trust, wonder, joy, love.

Childlikeness is the trust that we reach beyond the limit of our self-reliance and self-assertion; it is the ability to wonder that is found beyond our demand for proof and explanation; it is the joy that is experienced when we let go of the questions and fears that hold us captive within the confines of our own skulls; it is the love we give freely beyond conditions and reasonings.

The children are drawn to him. The young mothers trust him with the children they love. And Jesus always touches and embraces and blesses those who are open to his presence in their lives.

“The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these”: those whose hearts are transformed to be like the Son’s own Heart by drawing near to him so that they are full of childlike joy and wonder and trust in the Father’s never-failing love and mercy. It is this loving trust and openness that frees us to accept the Kingdom of God.

Kathryn Mulderink is married to Robert, mother of seven, grandmother to two, and a lay Carmelite. She has worked as a teacher, headmistress, catechist, Pastoral Associate, and DRE, and also as a writer and voice talent for Holy Family Radio. Currently, she serves the Church as a writer and presenter, and by collaborating with the diocesan Office of Faith Formation, individual parishes, and Catholic ministries to lead others to encounter Christ and engage their faith. Learn more at www.kathryntherese.com or on Facebook @summapax .