Author: LisaMarie McNally

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Read more about the article The Book of Job

The Book of Job

Then the LORD* answered Job out of the storm and said: Who is this who darkens counsel with words of ignorance? . . I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its size? Surely you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, and who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God* shouted for joy? Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place for taking hold of the ends of the earth, till the wicked are shaken from it?  Then Job answered the LORD and said: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be hindered.  I have spoken but did not understand;  things too marvelous for me, which I did not know. (Job 38:1-7,12-13, 42:1, 3) (Bible.usccb.org)

This excerpt from the Book of Job is familiar to all of us.  Job has lost everything and everyone. His body is wracked with sudden disease and pain.  He is a good man.  Why is this evil visited upon him? He demands answers from God.  We have all been in Job’s shoes to some extent at some point in our lives.  We understand Job and can empathize with his sorrow, anger, and despondency.  Miraculously, God enters into a conversation with Job.  The conversation does not go as Job planned.  Instead of answering the question Job asks, God shows him the depth and breadth of creation – oceans, jungles, stars, galaxies.  Job is overwhelmed.  With humility he realizes with Whom he is speaking and how little he has appreciated everything God created simply so that man could exist.  He reconciles with God, not because God answers his question, but because God answered the question buried deep in the recesses of Job’s heart that he was afraid to ask:  Have you abandoned me? Do you still love me?  When God entered into a conversation with Job, He was telling him that he did indeed matter.  He had not been abandoned.  When God showed him the entire universe in a glimpse, Job finally realized that everything was created for his benefit; everything was created to support life on this little blue-green planet, because as tiny and insignificant as we seem in comparison to the universe, we matter. We are loved.

Even if God had answered Job’s original question, Job would not have understood the answer.  The Incarnation had not happened yet and Job could not have comprehended the answer. We can see Job as one of us, but he is also a type of prefiguring of Christ.  Job is a good and faithful man who loves God with all his heart.  Jesus is perfection and loves God perfectly and completely. As Job’s fortunes go from bad to worse, he does not curse God but instead continues to bless His Name.  Even after Jesus is arrested and tortured, He remains in His Father’s Will, moving toward His plan of redemption. When Job finally he cries out to God and submits himself to His will, everything is then resurrected for him.   Jesus cries out to the Father from the cross, then hands over His spirit; in three days He is resurrected.  It is only through Jesus that we can make sense of suffering.

So why do bad things happen to good people?  Bad things happen because sin and death entered the world when Adam and Eve, created in a state of grace, chose to sin — and the rest of us haven’t done any better.  There is no such thing as a private sin that doesn’t affect anyone else. The sin of a single person affects everyone.  Because sin creates disorder, there is a ripple effect everywhere, even in nature itself.  

But this isn’t cause for despair because God has fulfilled His promise.  The Incarnation – God becoming man has happened and that has changed everything.  When Jesus chose to take on human form and experience every single human frailty and hardship, He gave value and meaning to these experiences. As a baby in Bethlehem born in shivering cold, hiding in Egypt away from all family connections, losing his beloved St. Joseph, hungry for 40 days in the desert, chased out of town for his teaching, betrayed by one of his closest companions, abandoned by his friends, maligned by people for speaking the truth, tortured and put on a cross for a crime He did not commit, He experienced every possible suffering that can be experienced. 

He did not come to end the human suffering in the world.  He entered into it with us, immersing Himself into the entire human experience, using every moment of it to glorify God and thus giving value and meaning to all of it.  So, when we experience injustice and suffering, we can offer these up to Jesus as prayers.  As we ask Jesus to join our suffering to His suffering on the cross, He takes this offering and gives it redemptive value.  No longer is suffering meaningless pain, but a gift offered to the Father for the salvation of souls.  When we give this gift with love, it is then we become most like Jesus.  The angels rush to our side to comfort us, our Blessed Mother embraces us, and Jesus makes His home in our heart and gives us His peace.  It is the gifts of love, given with a generous heart, that store up our treasures in Heaven, treasures that will never pass away.  Suffering is therefore not an abandonment by God, but an invitation to imitate His Beloved Son.

Thank you to Bill Fuller for giving me permission to share this beautiful photograph of the desert sky which inspired this post.

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Read more about the article Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Poor in Spirit has nothing to do with wealth; it has to do with detachment from material things.  Yes, it is pleasant to have a nice home, an expensive car, beautiful clothes, and a respected reputation in the community, but these things are only pleasures for this world and do nothing to advance our holiness and lead us to Heaven. 

Detachment may seem difficult, but it is easy when we have the right mindset.  I have known many people who received a cancer diagnosis and not one of them ever said to me, “I don’t want to leave my stuff.”  On the contrary, they were worried about leaving children behind, or how their families would suffer. With all the fires in California in the last few years many people had to make split second decisions on what to take with them.  They took children, pets, their cell phone (which connected them to family and friends), and family photographs if they had time.  No one showed up at a shelter with their big screen tv or their trophies or awards.  We really do know what is important when we have perspective; we just need to put it into practice on a regular basis.  Recognizing these material blessings as temporary gifts intended to be shared, is where we begin.  These material gifts only bring graces to us when we use them as God intended. 

My father-in-law was a wonderful example of sharing his gifts with others. At his funeral, a man told my husband that his father had loaned him money for funeral expenses.  Someone else approached and said, “Your father is the only person who would loan me money for my son’s legal expenses when he was in trouble.”  My father-in-law never mentioned the debts to anyone, including his wife, and always treated these gentlemen with courtesy and respect.  Both of these people eventually paid him back in full and were grateful for his kindness and generosity.

It is in true charity that we encounter the face of God.  To see Jesus in the face of the one in need and be moved to reach out in love, is an encounter with God.  To receive that gift knowing that our loving Father has sent this person to help us because He loves us, is also a grace.  True charity is the virtue of love in practice.

“. . .For Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”

This is the great truth the world does not know.  We gain all things in Heaven by being detached from the things of this world and using them for good.  A paintbrush is merely a tool, but in the hand of Michelangelo it was used to create the paintings in the Sistine Chapel.  For hundreds of years millions of people have contemplated God in that Chapel.  In sharing our gifts with love, we open ourselves to intimacy with Our Lord and this is how we experience the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.  God is love.  Love is in the eternal now, so the only treasure we have on Earth that we take with us to Heaven is Love. This is the treasure we can store in abundance.

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Read more about the article Baptism in the Jordan

Baptism in the Jordan

When we think of John the Baptist, we tend to picture a “fire and brimstone” preacher telling people to repent.  But the Baptism in the Jordan leads us in a better direction to reveal who John the Baptist was.  John was present when the Blessed Virgin Mary visited his mother Elizabeth.  He recognized his savior and leapt for joy in his mother’s womb.  From this moment we know that John was special. Luke 1:15 says “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb.”  The Holy Spirit filled John with sanctifying grace and he responded to this grace throughout his life.

John spent years fasting and praying.  Fasting magnifies our spiritual life and deepens our relationship with God far beyond what prayer alone can do.  Fasting allows us to see the things of God more clearly and be more open to the direction of the Holy Spirit.  So when John preached to the people, there was no doubt he was responding to the Holy Spirit.  And how does a preacher convince people to repent?  By being a force so full of love that people respond to him and his message.  He speaks in truth, yes, but also in love and mercy, drawing people in and inviting them into a deeper relationship with God.  In order to do this, John radiated peace, love, and joy.  He also radiated humility, “I am not worthy to untie the strap of his shoe.”  The people came to him in droves and confessed their sins.  As Catholics, we often choose to go to priests who connect with us, respond with love and understanding, and give us spiritual guidance. The people of John’s time were the same.  They came in droves because he did not condemn, but offered them love, hope, and mercy. 

St. John the Baptist was able to offer these gifts because he was a man of humility, the most misunderstood of the virtues. Humility is not putting ourselves down or wallowing in feelings of worthlessness.  On the contrary, humility is the grace to understand who God is as Creator, to know who we are as His creatures, and to see our neighbors as beloved souls created in the image and likeness of God.  In true humility we grow to love God more and seek a deeper relationship with Him.  Just as fasting magnifies our prayers, it also enables us to grow in humility, and as a result, experience the fruits of the Holy Spirit.  Because of John’s great humility, the Holy Spirit revealed the Messiah to him and he proclaimed for our benefit: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn 1:29).  He knew what most of Israel did not; he knew the Messiah would restore the people to the intimate relationship with God they had lost through Adam’s sin.

John’s call was a call to love, a call to willingly transform their hearts so that God could make His home there. The words of John still speak to us today, inviting us to transform our hearts through prayer and fasting.  Our Lord loves us so much that He offers us the same grace that He gave John — to come before Him face to face and experience the love that surpasses all others.  He humbles Himself in the form of bread and waits for us to approach in Eucharistic Adoration so that He may speak to us in the quiet of our hearts. And if we invite Him, He will make His home here.

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Read more about the article Eucharist

Eucharist

From the Question Box: If Jesus is in the bread, why do we eat Him?

This question touches the heart of our faith and ponders the very nature of who God is and what His relationship with us is.  The people of Jesus’ time asked this question as well.  To begin to understand this mystery, which is the very center of our faith, we need to contemplate several theological truths.

First, consuming the Eucharist is not cannibalism.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 1367 that the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist is one and the same, although the manner of offering is different.  The Eucharist is a non-bloody sacrifice.  The Eucharist makes present the sacrifice of the Cross and applies its fruit: everlasting redemption (CCC#1366).

Second, we consume the Eucharist because Jesus told us to do so.  Jesus reveals the Eucharist to us in John 6: 51 – 58:

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is food indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eats me, will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread, will live for ever.”

To comprehend what He is telling us, we need to look at God’s revelation to us in the Old Testament.  We must realize that the entire Bible should be viewed as one book, one tapestry if you will.  Just as colors are woven into a beautiful cloth and each color enhances the entire picture and contributes to the images, so too each book of the Bible contributes to our understanding of the truths God has revealed.  One must look at the entire Bible to understand the context and meaning of each book.  Just as removing one color from the tapestry removes depth, beauty, and meaning from the picture, so too we need every book in the Bible to understand what God is revealing to us.

Our first encounter of bread and wine being offered is in Genesis when Melchizedec, the King of Salem (Salem means peace and we refer to Jesus as “the Prince of Peace”), appears to Abraham and offers the sacrifice of bread and wine.  Catholics link Jesus’ priesthood and that of our priests to Melchizedec:  “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedec (Psalm 109:4 and Hebrews 5:6).”  Melchizedec, whose name means “my king is righteous,” is a foreshadowing of Christ who will establish his priesthood and offer Himself as sacrifice and perpetually offer Himself to the Father as sacrifice in the form of bread and wine at every mass.

We again see the image of bread coming down from Heaven when The Lord feeds the Israelites in the desert: “Yahweh then said to Moses, ‘Look, I shall rain down bread for you from the heavens. Each day the people must go out and collect their ration for the day. (Exodus 16:4)”.  The Israelites, wandering through the desert were completely dependent on God for their sustenance and God provided for all their needs.  The Israelites were fed this ‘manna’ for forty years (Exodus 16:35).  This bread coming down from Heaven nourishes the physical needs of the people so that they will not die; it is a foreshadowing of Christ coming down from Heaven in the form of the Eucharist to nourish our souls so we may have eternal life.  The manna is described thus:  “and next morning there was a layer of dew all round the camp.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist the priest says, “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body + and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”  This prayer connects us to scripture and enlightens us in our understanding.  Just as the manna came down from heaven to feed the Israelites, so too does Christ come down from Heaven to feed us.

John begins his gospel with the words:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….And the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us (Jn 1:1, 14).  Jesus who is present in the Old Testament as The Word through whom all things were made, comes down from Heaven to us in history as fully human, “in the flesh” born of a woman.  He continues to come down to us from Heaven daily in the form of the Eucharist.  Jesus, knowing that we could not grasp this truth immediately, starts with baby steps.  He gathers the people together and feeds them literal bread before revealing His intention to feed Himself to them as spiritual bread.

In the New Testament there are two stories of Jesus feeding crowds of people with only a few loaves.  In Matthew 15, Jesus reached the shore of Galilee and went to a mountain where a crowd of people gathered and he healed many of them.  Jesus was moved with compassion for them, for they had been following Him for three days and had nothing to eat.  Jesus took all the food that the disciples had – seven loaves and a few fish – gave thanks and had his disciples distribute the food to 4,000 men not including women and children.  When everyone had eaten his fill, the apostles collected the scraps and filled seven baskets.  In Mark 6, he is preaching to a crowd who has followed Him from great distances to a deserted place.  The apostles have 5 loaves and two fish.  Jesus took the food, gave thanks, and had the apostles distribute the food.  5,000 men ate and there were twelve full baskets of bread after all had eaten.  (Mark 8 repeats the story of the feeding of the 4,000 that is found in Matthew 15.)

The number of loaves – 7 and 12 — left over is significant.  The number seven is a sacred number to the Hebrews because the word seven spelled out in Hebrew is the same word that is used for ‘covenant.’  The twelve loaves left over symbolizes the twelve tribes of Israel.  The apostles understood that the God of Israel who fed their ancestors in the desert, was now feeding them.  They were also reminded of the covenant that God made with Moses, who acted for the entire nation of Israel.  God kept His end of the covenant, but Israel (like all human beings) continually broke it.  Jesus is now making a new covenant between man and God, and it is Jesus who is fulfilling the covenant for us.  Thus the covenant between God the Father and God the Son can never be broken.  When the priest offers the bread and wine and gives thanks, he is repeating the thanksgiving that Jesus gave to His Father.  The sacrifice of the Mass recalls the perfect and unbreakable covenant between Jesus and Our Father that was made for us.

Jesus gave us the gift of Himself in the Eucharist and offers it to us daily.  When He taught us to pray the prayer we call the “Our Father,” He says “Give us this day our daily bread.”  The early Greek-speaking Christians had a special word used for Eucharist which appears only in the Lord’s Prayer and nowhere else in Greek literature: “Give us this day our epiousion bread.”

The richness of the Eucharist is displayed in the earliest attempts to translate epiousion:  “daily,” but also “supersubstantial” (the translation of St. Jerome for the Vulgate which became part of the Roman Canon), “perpetual,” and “necessary.”  When epiousion is translated “future” or “coming” the eschatological thrust [our understanding of final matters, i.e., death] of the Our Father is emphasized:  Give us today the bread for tomorrow, our sustenance for the next step in the journey.  (Abbot Jerome Kendall, from ‘Our Father’, published in “Give Us This Day” January 2013 monthly edition).

The Eucharist is our daily bread which nourishes us now spiritually and its benefits extend into eternity.  Our Lord is so in love with us that He wishes to give Himself to us every day. 

When He tries to explain this mystery of the Eucharist to His disciples, many of them are scandalized and walk away.  He does not stop them and say, “don’t go; this is only a parable.”  No, He clearly states the truth again:  “He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him … This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate manna, and are dead. He that eats this bread, shall live for ever. (Jn 6:56-59).  He then turns to His 12 apostles and asks them if they wish to go too.  We are moved by Peter’s response:  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of everlasting life.  We have believed and have known that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” (Jn 6: 69-70). We often, however, overlook the meaning of Jesus’s words “abides in Me and I in him.”

These words reveal to us exactly what the Eucharist is and what happens in our souls when we receive Him.  The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus.  Jesus is fully present in the Eucharist and in the Precious Blood.  If we were only to partake of one of the forms of the Eucharist, we would receive the complete Eucharist because Christ is fully present in each form.  When we receive Him, His Body merges with our bodies, His Blood flows through our veins, His Soul unites to our souls, His Divinity is shared with us.  Because of Jesus, our souls will exist into eternity with Him.  Our God is so crazy in love with us that He enters into every cell, every fiber of our being.

To put this into an easy to understand analogy, take a glass and fill it half full with water.  This represents Jesus.  Then add one more drop of water which represents you.  You and Jesus become one.  You can no longer reclaim and separate the drop that was originally added; it is now all one.  This is what happens in Holy Communion.  To extend the analogy, add drops of water for each person going to Communion.  All are now part of the mystical Body of Christ.

This brings us to another theological truth to be realized: Jesus unites Himself with the entire Body of Christ, the Church, of which we are members.  We refer to the Eucharist as Holy Communion.  This expresses the truth that we are in communion with the pope, bishops, and Catholics throughout the world.  We are in communion with the teachings of the Church.  To be in communion means to be in agreement with the truth that Jesus revealed to His Church.  We cannot pick and choose which teachings of the Church we choose to believe and follow and which we disregard.  The truth cannot be divided into pieces we accept or reject.  The truth is like the entire glass of water.  Either we are part of the whole truth or we are not even in the glass of water.  Every time we come forward to receive Holy Communion, we are affirming by this act that we are in communion with all the teachings of the Church which were given to us by the one who founded our church –Jesus Christ.

Our souls were created to be with God.  We were created with the innate desire for God.  Our souls long to be one with Him.  To receive the Eucharist with love and an understanding of Who we receive fulfills our souls’ deepest longings and desires.  There is nothing else on earth that we can experience or possess that will fulfill us completely.  The Eucharist fulfills our souls’ desires for completeness, for wholeness, for oneness.

In order to deepen your love for the Eucharist, there are two beautiful prayers that will assist you.  The first, The “Anima Christi” (which means Body of Christ) is said after receiving Communion and brings with it indulgences (time off from Purgatory).  The second is the Angelus.  It is normally said at 6am, noon, and 6pm.  Because it is most frequently done with a group (either before or after mass is a common setting), there are the verse and response parts to it, but if saying it alone then say all the parts.

Anima Christi

Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from Christ’s side, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. O good Jesus, hear me. Within Thy wounds hide me. Suffer me not to be separated from Thee. From the malignant enemy defend me. In the hour of my death call me And bid me come to Thee. That with Thy saints I may praise Thee Forever and ever. Amen.

The Angelus

V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.

R. And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.   

Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with Thee; Blessed art thou among women, And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, Now and at the hour of our death. Amen

V. Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

R. Be it done unto me according to thy word. 

Hail Mary, etc.

V. And the Word was made Flesh.

R. And dwelt among us.   

Hail Mary, etc.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

V. LET US PRAY

R. Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the Incarnation of Christ Thy Son was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

References: The Holy Bible, Douay Rheims Version; Ewtn.com search engine for biblical references, Ewtn.com and our catholic prayers.com for the above mentioned prayers. Thanks to Lindsey West, Cheryl Amalu, and Father Bud Stevens for mentioning important things that inspired me in the writing of this article.

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