forgiveness

Read more about the article Your Faith Has Saved You

Your Faith Has Saved You

In the Gospel of Mark we encounter the story of the woman with a hemorrhage who follows behind Jesus in a crowd. She touches His cloak and is immediately healed. (Mk 5:21-43)  It is one of Jesus’s many miracles -- in the Bible and throughout history.  He continues to work miracles in our lives today, but so many times I hear people complain “Well, I prayed for healing and He didn’t listen to me.” These are among the most bitter people, disappointed and angry with God. So why does God heal some but not others?  I certainly cannot presume to know the mind of God, but I have pondered this question, and as I do, I turn to scripture as the key to unlock some answers.  “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 18:3) There’s that word we all run away from: “change.” None of us really want to change ourselves.  We would be much happier if God would change and run things our way, so that’s the first stumbling block. He says to become like “little children.” Little children are humble and trusting.  They don’t think they have all the answers.  Instead, they turn to their parents.  They aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know” because they haven’t had enough time on earth to become prideful -- and they trust completely. Would it be so terrible to become like little children? Wouldn’t it be a welcome respite to not feel the need to have all the answers? To not have to be in control? To not feel responsible for everything? Wouldn’t it be a relief to put down those heavy burdens He never asked us to carry in the first place? True freedom actually comes when we have the courage to change – to become humble, to become trusting, to let God be in control. This was the disposition of the woman with the hemorrhage. She didn’t demand Jesus’s attention. She didn’t try to bend Him to her will. She didn’t even try to delay Him.  She only wanted to touch the back of His cloak. She was humble. She had complete faith in Him, trusting that she would be healed. He says to her, "Your faith has saved you." He didn't just heal her physical body; he saved her soul for eternity. The woman did something else we usually overlook. She listened when He spoke to her.  Do we do the same? Prayer is a dialogue with God which means both people talk and both people listen. Do we just talk at God to give Him our list of wants and consider our “prayer” done? Do we sit with a closed heart, hoping not to hear the voice of God because we aren’t sure we are going to like what He has to say? What about forgiveness? Have we forgiven our brothers and sisters from our hearts before approaching God? If my child comes to me with dirty…

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Read more about the article Be Ready, For The Son Of Man Is Coming

Be Ready, For The Son Of Man Is Coming

The Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent (Mt 24: 37-44) calls us to be alert to the coming of The Lord.  We do not know when He will return for the final Judgement, or if we will first experience our personal judgement at our own death, but we do know that Christ is coming at Christmas.  As we move forward with buying gifts for our families and friends, have we considered the birthday gift we want to offer Jesus? We certainly can’t buy Him stuff because everything we have is really on loan to us by Him while we are here.  So what can we give Him that is truly ours to give?  The gift of our hearts is what He desires most, and while it is the simplest gift to give, it is paradoxically the hardest to give.  A heart worthy of being a gift to God takes a good deal of work on our part.  Advent is a call to do two things: turn away from being the innkeepers and turn toward being the shepherds. The innkeepers had no room for Jesus and thus missed out on the precious gift of welcoming Him.  Their hearts were completely closed to Him, and this happens to us when we choose not to forgive. After starting with a good Confession, we must make room in our hearts for Him to dwell and this means dispelling the resentments, grudges, and stones of unforgiveness that are taking up room there.  The real challenge is to see that these things do not keep our enemies trapped and bound by our wrath – they keep us trapped.  Forgiveness does not mean that others “get away with” their wrongs, it means that we let God do God’s job and free up our time to build His Kingdom.  Forgiveness releases us, gives us peace, and prepares our hearts to receive numerous graces including the indwelling of Jesus who longs to be one with us.  One of our most heroic saints, St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Church, demonstrates the power of forgiveness.  While he is being stoned to death, he prays for those who participate in the stoning, including Saul of Tarsus, who later becomes St. Paul.  Had it not been for Stephen’s prayers, there would have been no Paul and a great deal of the New Testament would have been absent.  Forgiveness goes well beyond healing our own souls; it brings graces that the entire world desperately needs. Advent invites us to renew our commitment to the Gospel message, and to do the good that St. Paul exhorts us to do (Heb 13:16). Volunteering in a soup kitchen, putting up Christmas lights for an elderly neighbor, buying gifts for needy children, offering our musical or vocal talents in retirement homes, sending care packages to soldiers, or joining the Christmas choir at church are some ways we can reach out and bring Christ to the lonely and the poor. These gifts offered with love fill…

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Read more about the article I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

The past two years of isolation has caused us to turn inward and the constant fear surrounding us has tempted us to focus on ourselves and our own needs and wants to the exclusion of seeing the suffering and loneliness and despair of others.  This fear is not from God; this fear from the enemy who seeks to separate us from our brothers and sisters when we most need to come together as the family of God.  Jesus offers us a way out of this cycle of fear: “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (Jn 14: 27) I AM the Way Jesus calls us to focus on Him, not on the chaos surrounding us.  He calls us to focus on following the Divine Will of the Father.  This is difficult because we have been following our own wills for so long.  Even after choosing to follow Jesus, we constantly backslide because we are human and our will is weak.  We get tempted to follow our will because we think we know what will make us happy.  We often treat God as a vending machine, praying for exactly what we want, determined to get Him to give it to us.  While we may want good things, we do not have the long term perspective to see what obstacles are around the bend or the long term consequences of our plans, so we become filled with anxiety as we struggle to control the outcomes.  Our loving Father truly desires the highest good for us; trusting Him means allowing Him to navigate the way for us.  If we allow ourselves to become like children, trusting in our parents to drive us safely to our destination, how much more can we enjoy the scenery as we live in the present moment in peace instead of anxiety? I AM the Truth At Jesus’s trial, Pilate asked “Truth? What is Truth?”  Although he meant it sarcastically, each of us has to discern how we know what is truth.  Many times young people say “I am speaking my truth.”  My truth? Really?  I can voice my opinion, share my perspective, and explain my point of view, but The Truth belongs to Jesus.  None of us have the Truth apart from God Who is the eternal, unchanging truth.  Seeking this Truth in the world today is a challenge.  Russia and Ukraine are currently locked in conflict and rumors on all sides abound.  Before any shots were fired, truth was the first casualty.  In any war, all sides mount propaganda in an effort to persuade others to their point of view, but the danger of propaganda is that it causes us to divide into enemy camps and regard our enemy as less than human.  When we allow hatred to cloud our judgement, we give ourselves the excuse to commit horrible atrocities against one another.  While claiming the moral high ground for ourselves in justifying these acts, we damage our own souls in the process. …

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Read more about the article Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

Even now, says the LORD,            return to me with your whole heart,            with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;Rend your hearts, not your garments,            and return to the LORD, your God.For gracious and merciful is he,            slow to anger, rich in kindness,            and relenting in punishment. (Joel 2:12-13) This was the first reading for Ash Wednesday. God speaks to us through Scripture and also through the natural world.  It is no coincidence that Lent begins in the winter and yields to Easter in the Spring.  God uses these cycles to call us back to Him, to deepen our connection to Him.  If we approach Lent the way we approach a garden, we can yield beautiful flowers in the garden of our hearts. First, we begin with weeding.  The biggest weed is gossip. Weeding needs to continually be looked after just as we need to continually mind what comes out of our mouths. This is difficult for all of us, but we can ask St. Joseph for help with this.  St. Joseph had a major secret – his betrothed was pregnant and the baby wasn’t his.  He was devastated by this, but instead of telling anyone, he kept it to himself, preserving Mary’s reputation.  In the end he found out that he had misjudged the situation, but he had caused no harm to Mary in the process.  Gossip is difficult to overcome, especially when we think we are in the right, but St. Joseph can teach us how to receive the gift of silence. Second, we must get rid of all the large rocks in our garden.  Some of them are quite big and heavy because as we carry resentment for past wrongs the rocks grow larger and heavier with each passing year.  Forgiveness cannot be achieved alone, so St. Theresa of Calcutta is there to help.  She would often beg for food for the poor.  One day she brought a child into a bakery and asked for bread.  The shopkeeper spit in her face.  She calmly said, “Thank you for that gift for me. Now how about some bread for this child?”  The child received the bread. She understands well how to react with humility and forgiveness in the face of wrongdoing and she can help us get rid of those rocks. We must then add amendments to our soil so it will be a healthy place for our plants.  Even after forgiving others, some wounds are very deep and still need healing.  Psychologists say that the greatest thing they do for their patients is listening to them.  In our culture listening is a lost art.  How often have we tried to have a meaningful conversation with someone who was constantly checking every alert on their cell phone?  How often have we done that to others?  To heal these deep wounds, we need to take them to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Spending time with Him in the silence, pouring our hearts out to Him and giving Him time to speak…

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