.
FIRST WEEK OF LENT
MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK Lev.19,1-2,11-18; Matt.25,31-46) The Commandments...our response to the love of God...It is an amazing thing to realize that God comes out to us and tells us what is right and wrong in order that we may live in the Covenant with Him. The Commandments are not the “do’s” and’” don’ts” as much as they are the rules to free ourselves from the weakness of own selfishness so that we can love.
Really, when we look carefully they are the rule of Love.
To forget oneself, to look at God, ones neighbor.
To search out the possibilities of living the Commandments in our daily lives..this is a great challenge.
What do I mean? To translate them into where I live now. The not to give honor to false gods, to honor mother and father, not to kill, or steal if taken without looking at their implications stand the danger of being washed over much to quickly. They become irrelevant in our lives.
To take one Commandment a day and ask some questions about it would be a good exercise. For example what does it mean to say: Thou shalt not kill. I know I will not kill anyone today at least in the physical sense. But how about the times I may do something to someone which may take a little bit of life away from that person, a quick word, no understanding?. How about the times I deprive myself of life by letting the cares of the day weigh so heavily upon me that the joy of being alive is taken away? Simple questions about the Commandments may make them alive.
The Gospel once again reminds us that the Commandments are meant for flesh and blood and concrete actions. Love has to be enfleshed. Today I may not meet someone who is “hungry” or “naked” but hunger and nakedness in a different sense are all about. A co-worker who needs a little help, to make the place where I spend so much of my day a little more pleasant...to feed the hungry.
Questions:
1: Think of the Commandments in the light of where you now in your life?
TUESDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK .(Is.55,10-11; Matt.6,7-15) A good opportunity to renew our faith in the “word of God.” The first thing which has to be grasped is that it is really and truly God speaking to me. When I reflect on what my words can do to people, make them happy or sad, give them hope, be accepting or rejecting, I get a glimmering of what power the Word of God holds. If a rather weak human being has that much power, how much more power must the very Word of God hold. To “listen” rather than “read.” To reflect, use the mirror of the “speaking God” to look at life. The presence of God in His word....When we hear the word proclaimed, either in the silence of our own rooms or in the liturgy, the Lord is present. He is teaching, consoling, encouraging, and yes at times, scolding us the same way He did 2000 years ago. That word has the power to cut our hearts, the power to heal them...It has the strength to bring light to the darkness, to take away the false light of complacency, and to plunge us into a darkness not of despair but of the beginning of a new day. To make the Word alive, however, demands a certain vision of life. We have all heard the Word many times. Some passages are deeply engraved on our hearts, for each these may be different. How is the Word of God alive in your life? Pick out a parable and ask the question: when and how did any of these come into my life? The Word was meant to be lived and it has been lived in our lives. Sometimes it is necessary to re-affirm the life which has come through the living Word.
Question:
1: Have you ever given life to someone by what you said
WEDNESDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK (Jonah 3,1-10; Lk.11,29-32) The “sign of Jonah”...Jonah has always interested me. He was perhaps the least enthusiastic of all prophets...He actually ran away from God. Therefore,he experienced the storm, and his being cast into the sea and swallowed by the whale. Scripture tells us that Nineveh was such a large city that it took three days to cross it ,yet Jonah did it in one day. One gets the impression that Jonah used a bicycle, or the equivalent thereof, to go through the city. He did what God asked but he did not particularly care. He cried when the Ninevites; converted, he would have been happy to see God do away with them. God indeed chose a strange instrument. Of all the prophets this man who was the least enthusiastic was the most successful. The other great prophets preached and preached but to dead ears. Perhaps because they preached to people who thought they were “entitled”...Jonah preached to the Gentiles.
The simple lessons I learned from this reading are that God will choose the people He wants to bring me to a deeper conversion. Many times people without faith have said things to me which have deepened my awareness of the Covenant. I could not cast their words aside with: “they don’t know what they are talking about,” but had to accept them as the word which God wanted me to hear today.
The other lesson is that just as Jonah spoke to people without faith and called them to faith, I learned that I listen to God with that part of me which does not yet believe. There is that part of me which has not yet turned to God in a responsive way. Finally, I learned to accept the conversion within myself and to rejoice in it as a great gift from God. They will probably be very simple things, almost “common sense” things but so important.
Question:
1: Are you sensitive to all the people whom God chooses as instruments of His grace?
THURSDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK .(Esther C 12,14-16; Matt.7,7-12) ”Ask and you will receive, search and you will find, knock and it shall be opened” For what do we ask , seek or knock for? Jesus’ words touch at a part of me where my own self interests reside...These words rather than being promises to get what I want are words which ask me to let go so that I can seek the will of God....Are these words “me” focused or God focused? How often they are used to look at ourselves rather than God. They are invitations to enter the life of God...We allow Christ to cut those strings which tie us to our own interests so that we may see His will in our lives...these words are a prayer of liberation from ourselves and to see God.
When I hear these words silence becomes necessary. In that silence the Lord will speak to us .
They are not calls to speak but to listen ,so that we may be taught by God. They propel us into the sunshine of life with God.
FRIDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK (Ez.18,21-28; Matt.5,20-26) Lord create in me a new heart...The beautiful words of the psalmist ring through today’s Gospel...It is so easy to become satisfied with externals and to identify ourselves by “what we do” rather than “who we are”....Ideally they should mix so nicely that the “who” and the “what” become the same. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Christ is asking us to be open to the power of the Spirit so that the “who” and the “what” may be united into one heart...Another aspect of this Gospel is that we are asked to be open to other people and let them know who we are. We don’t have to cover ourselves over with frantic activity in order to protect ourselves from letting others know who we are.....Lord, create in me a new heart.
Questions:
1: Do you think God wants to do or to be? What does this mean? :
SATURDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK. (Dt.26,16-19; Matt.5,43-48) .”TODAY” the word explodes off the page...God says it is not tomorrow or next week but rather that His words must be put into action now. It is so easy to say we have plenty of time… The words of God loose their immediacy...Iit’s not that we do not accept their importance it is just that we get inundated by the things around us...The other reason is that making the jump from knowledge to action is difficult. The famous dictum “to see, to judge, to act” is so important in living the “today”…To be sensitive to the implications of the Lord’s commands so that as we live our lives in the hum-drum of daily events we may see how God wants us to live today.
FIRST WEEK OF LENT
MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK Lev.19,1-2,11-18; Matt.25,31-46) The Commandments...our response to the love of God...It is an amazing thing to realize that God comes out to us and tells us what is right and wrong in order that we may live in the Covenant with Him. The Commandments are not the “do’s” and’” don’ts” as much as they are the rules to free ourselves from the weakness of own selfishness so that we can love.
Really, when we look carefully they are the rule of Love.
To forget oneself, to look at God, ones neighbor.
To search out the possibilities of living the Commandments in our daily lives..this is a great challenge.
What do I mean? To translate them into where I live now. The not to give honor to false gods, to honor mother and father, not to kill, or steal if taken without looking at their implications stand the danger of being washed over much to quickly. They become irrelevant in our lives.
To take one Commandment a day and ask some questions about it would be a good exercise. For example what does it mean to say: Thou shalt not kill. I know I will not kill anyone today at least in the physical sense. But how about the times I may do something to someone which may take a little bit of life away from that person, a quick word, no understanding?. How about the times I deprive myself of life by letting the cares of the day weigh so heavily upon me that the joy of being alive is taken away? Simple questions about the Commandments may make them alive.
The Gospel once again reminds us that the Commandments are meant for flesh and blood and concrete actions. Love has to be enfleshed. Today I may not meet someone who is “hungry” or “naked” but hunger and nakedness in a different sense are all about. A co-worker who needs a little help, to make the place where I spend so much of my day a little more pleasant...to feed the hungry.
Questions:
1: Think of the Commandments in the light of where you now in your life?
TUESDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK .(Is.55,10-11; Matt.6,7-15) A good opportunity to renew our faith in the “word of God.” The first thing which has to be grasped is that it is really and truly God speaking to me. When I reflect on what my words can do to people, make them happy or sad, give them hope, be accepting or rejecting, I get a glimmering of what power the Word of God holds. If a rather weak human being has that much power, how much more power must the very Word of God hold. To “listen” rather than “read.” To reflect, use the mirror of the “speaking God” to look at life. The presence of God in His word....When we hear the word proclaimed, either in the silence of our own rooms or in the liturgy, the Lord is present. He is teaching, consoling, encouraging, and yes at times, scolding us the same way He did 2000 years ago. That word has the power to cut our hearts, the power to heal them...It has the strength to bring light to the darkness, to take away the false light of complacency, and to plunge us into a darkness not of despair but of the beginning of a new day. To make the Word alive, however, demands a certain vision of life. We have all heard the Word many times. Some passages are deeply engraved on our hearts, for each these may be different. How is the Word of God alive in your life? Pick out a parable and ask the question: when and how did any of these come into my life? The Word was meant to be lived and it has been lived in our lives. Sometimes it is necessary to re-affirm the life which has come through the living Word.
Question:
1: Have you ever given life to someone by what you said
WEDNESDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK (Jonah 3,1-10; Lk.11,29-32) The “sign of Jonah”...Jonah has always interested me. He was perhaps the least enthusiastic of all prophets...He actually ran away from God. Therefore,he experienced the storm, and his being cast into the sea and swallowed by the whale. Scripture tells us that Nineveh was such a large city that it took three days to cross it ,yet Jonah did it in one day. One gets the impression that Jonah used a bicycle, or the equivalent thereof, to go through the city. He did what God asked but he did not particularly care. He cried when the Ninevites; converted, he would have been happy to see God do away with them. God indeed chose a strange instrument. Of all the prophets this man who was the least enthusiastic was the most successful. The other great prophets preached and preached but to dead ears. Perhaps because they preached to people who thought they were “entitled”...Jonah preached to the Gentiles.
The simple lessons I learned from this reading are that God will choose the people He wants to bring me to a deeper conversion. Many times people without faith have said things to me which have deepened my awareness of the Covenant. I could not cast their words aside with: “they don’t know what they are talking about,” but had to accept them as the word which God wanted me to hear today.
The other lesson is that just as Jonah spoke to people without faith and called them to faith, I learned that I listen to God with that part of me which does not yet believe. There is that part of me which has not yet turned to God in a responsive way. Finally, I learned to accept the conversion within myself and to rejoice in it as a great gift from God. They will probably be very simple things, almost “common sense” things but so important.
Question:
1: Are you sensitive to all the people whom God chooses as instruments of His grace?
THURSDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK .(Esther C 12,14-16; Matt.7,7-12) ”Ask and you will receive, search and you will find, knock and it shall be opened” For what do we ask , seek or knock for? Jesus’ words touch at a part of me where my own self interests reside...These words rather than being promises to get what I want are words which ask me to let go so that I can seek the will of God....Are these words “me” focused or God focused? How often they are used to look at ourselves rather than God. They are invitations to enter the life of God...We allow Christ to cut those strings which tie us to our own interests so that we may see His will in our lives...these words are a prayer of liberation from ourselves and to see God.
When I hear these words silence becomes necessary. In that silence the Lord will speak to us .
They are not calls to speak but to listen ,so that we may be taught by God. They propel us into the sunshine of life with God.
FRIDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK (Ez.18,21-28; Matt.5,20-26) Lord create in me a new heart...The beautiful words of the psalmist ring through today’s Gospel...It is so easy to become satisfied with externals and to identify ourselves by “what we do” rather than “who we are”....Ideally they should mix so nicely that the “who” and the “what” become the same. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Christ is asking us to be open to the power of the Spirit so that the “who” and the “what” may be united into one heart...Another aspect of this Gospel is that we are asked to be open to other people and let them know who we are. We don’t have to cover ourselves over with frantic activity in order to protect ourselves from letting others know who we are.....Lord, create in me a new heart.
Questions:
1: Do you think God wants to do or to be? What does this mean? :
SATURDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK. (Dt.26,16-19; Matt.5,43-48) .”TODAY” the word explodes off the page...God says it is not tomorrow or next week but rather that His words must be put into action now. It is so easy to say we have plenty of time… The words of God loose their immediacy...Iit’s not that we do not accept their importance it is just that we get inundated by the things around us...The other reason is that making the jump from knowledge to action is difficult. The famous dictum “to see, to judge, to act” is so important in living the “today”…To be sensitive to the implications of the Lord’s commands so that as we live our lives in the hum-drum of daily events we may see how God wants us to live today.
No comments:
Post a Comment