A Father Who Provides

It is a temptation that every father faces at one time or another - to think that providing for the material needs of his family can take the place of his presence in the home. Tired from a long day of work and sometimes frustrated by the daily humiliations of life, fathers can want to tune out their wives and children when they come home. They tell themselves that it should be enough that they provide their families with a place to live, clothes, food on the table and whatever else they may possibly want. In reality, their children want nothing else than to spend a little time playing with them when they get home, and their wive wants nothing else than a few minutes to tell them how their day went. No amount of material goods can take the place of a father's loving, attentive presence in the home.

God, our heavenly Father, does not suffer from such a temptation. Even while he showers us with blessings and provides for all our needs, he wants nothing more than to be by our side giving us the opportunity to love him. God never tells himself that he has done enough for us. Rather he seeks every opportunity to meet our needs. Nonetheless, considering every good gift that he could give us or every miracle he could perform for us, God wants nothing else than to give us his very self. Just as no amount of material goods can take the place of a father's presence in the home, so nothing God could give us can ever take the place of God himself.

The first reading is from the book of Exodus which chronicles how God acted powerfully in freeing the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. During their forty year journey through the desert, they would often grow weary and complain. In today's reading, they are afraid that they will not be able to find enough food in the barren desert. Their fears and grumbling are understandable, and God wants them to know that he hears them. At the same time, how could they ever doubt that God would provide for them when they had already witnessed the plagues he visited on the land of Egypt and how he parted the Red Sea for them? Moreover, they had seen the glory of the Lord traveling with them as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Was it not enough for them that they were in God's presence and were witnesses to his mighty deeds? By leading them through the harsh desert with all its dangers, the Lord was trying to teach them that if his presence and glory were not enough for them, then no amount of food or comforts would be either. Again, God is happy to free his people and provide for them, but, more than anything, he wants to be loved by them.

Something very similar takes place in today's reading from the gospel according to John. Remember that last week we heard the story of how Jesus fed 5000 men with only five barley loaves and two fish. The people who witnessed the miracle followed him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to see if he would perform some other wondrous deed. They must have been thinking that if he could multiply loaves and fish then maybe he would start handing out other things like money and clothes. Whatever it might be, they did not want to miss it. Jesus recognizes right away what the intention of the crowd is. He must have felt sad to know that he was no more than a curiosity to so many of them. But he uses the occasion not to scold them but to invite them to a deeper level of understanding. What he is offering them is much more than bread or any other material thing. It is even much more than God offered the Israelites in the desert. He is giving them his very self - his flesh and blood. And the work of God is not miracles and mighty deeds but faith in Jesus who is sent by the Father to be his living presence among us. Belief in Jesus as the Son of God is the bread that satisfies us for all eternity.

We are not unlike the Hebrews who wandered through the desert in search of food or the people in Jesus' day in search of a miracle. Most of our time and energy are devoted to making a living for ourselves and providing for our families. We are all too aware of how helpless we are at times and how insecure our lives can become. When faced with our neediness, we have two choices. We can grumble, complain and despair. Or we can turn to God with trust, thank him for all we have, and ask him with confidence to supply us with what we lack. Whatever difficulty we may face, it is an opportunity for us to learn to rely on God and his power. God often withholds his help from us for a while so that we will learn just how much we really do need him. Then, in the nick of time, he rushes in to meet our need and assures us that he is always by our side.

At the same time, God wants to meet our deepest need, the most profound pang of our heart, which is friendship and union with him. Like a good father who does not allow the pursuit of material goods to take away from his loving presence in the home, God wants nothing else than to give us his time and his presence. 

All things are ours if we believe in Jesus. Most especially, God is ours forever! We are about to celebrate the supreme example of God's self-giving love in the Eucharist which is the bread come down from heaven to feed us so that we may never hunger again. Let us approach the altar with confidence and faith knowing that it is nothing less than Jesus himself whom we are receiving.  What more could we hope for? What more could we need?

Love Never Fails

When children first learn about God, they can believe that he created all things and that he is everywhere at the same time. What they have trouble believing is that God knows every single person on earth by name. It is just too much for their little brains to comprehend. And when you tell them that not only does he know everyone who is living now, he knows everyone who ever lived and everyone who will ever live in the future, you might think that their heads would explode. However, as they get over the shock of realizing God's vast knowledge and power, it is a joy to see their eyes open with wonder when it begins to sink in that God knows each one of them personally, by name. They then begin to realize that God not only knows them but loves them.

It is important for us every now and then in prayer to ponder over this simple but profound fact. God knows each of us by name. He knows every detail of our lives. He knew us before we were even born. He knew us in our mother's womb, and he knows us now. Why is he so interested in us when he has a whole universe to watch over? Very simply, because he loves us. His love for us is the one thing that can never change in our lives.

Today's first reading is taken from the beginning of the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is being called by God to be a prophet at a time of much corruption in Israel. He knows that it is going to be a struggle speaking God's truth to the nation's power brokers. He knows that he will be ridiculed, persecuted and maybe even killed. God does not assure Jeremiah that it will be easy or that people will listen to him. Instead, he tells Jeremiah that he knew him in his mother's womb, and that he will always be with him. That knowledge that God is always by his side will give Jeremiah the courage and strength to speak the truth to the people, to shoulder their ridicule and rejection and to face his own death. His confidence is not in himself. His sense of security does not come from whether or not people like and accept him. Rather he needs nothing else than to know that God loves him and is with him.

In the gospel proclaimed today, Jesus is preaching in his hometown of Nazareth. One would think that it would be the safest place for him to be, among those who have known him since he was a boy. But his words meet with opposition even there. In fact, the people are so incensed by his message that they drag him out to the edge of the town to throw him off the cliff. But Jesus calmly walks away. He knows that God is with him, that it is not his time to suffer and die, and that his Father would not allow a hair on his head to be harmed until the time was right. Any of us would have been devastated to have our friends reject us as Jesus' friends rejected him. Though Jesus was no doubt hurt by them, he was not devastated. The source of his identity and confidence did not come from the esteem of the people of Nazareth. Rather it came from the Father's love for him. Knowing that he could never be separated from that love gave him the courage to labor on preaching the good news even in the face of such hostility.

Where do we place our security? Where do we draw confidence from? If our security and confidence are not based on God's love for us, then they are misplaced. There is nothing else on earth that we can count on as surely as God's love for us. Our money eventually runs out. Our loved ones eventually die and leave us. Our health gets weaker as we age. When all is said and done, it is only God's love that is constant in our lives.

Our society is suffering from an epidemic of anxiety. Our world feels unbalanced, and fear can so easily creep into our minds and hearts. We have placed our confidence in money, relationships, our talents and our health, and realized just how shaky all those foundations can be. When we sense that fear is nipping at our heels, it is time to turn to our Heavenly Father and reaffirm our faith that he is in control of our lives. It is time to put our confidence in his unfailing love. Such an attitude will not solve our problems. But it will give us the confidence to face them and the perspective necessary to not be overwhelmed by them.

Our second reading today is one of the most popular in all the New Testament. It is Saint Paul's song of love. The love which Saint Paul describes, however, is not an emotional love full of drama as we might see on a soap opera. Rather it is the love of Christ displayed in all its glory on the cross. God loved each of us so much that he sent his beloved Son to die for us. If God has loved us so much, he will do all else for us besides. And we can never lose that love. No matter what we may have done in our lives, no matter how far off we may have drifted, God always calls us back to him. We can count on God to forgive us and to put behind us whatever sins we may have committed. The one thing we can count on in life is God's forgiving love.

God knows each of us. He knows every detail of our lives. He knows what we need before we ask. He knows our future, and he knows our past. Why would rely on anything or anyone else when the God who created the universe loves us so passionately and so completely? How could we ever doubt that everything will be okay when God himself is watching over us?

God's Love Affair

God is love.

Throughout history, God has tried to show that He is not just some distant being who lived beyond the clouds but a personal God, a Heavenly Father, who knows us intimately and loves us affectionately.

This love affair of God with the world began with the people of Israel. He chose them among all the nations on earth to be a people all His own. He freed them from slavery in Egypt to show them His power. He gave them His law to show them His wisdom. And, throughout their history, He provided for them. God’s dream was that, through the people of Israel, the whole world would realize that He is a God of love and would come to love Him in return.

To show how deep His passion for us really is, God chose to speak of it in terms of a marriage. There is no higher human expression of love than the faithful commitment of a man and a woman in matrimony. Therefore, God uses the image of marriage to describe His relationship with the people of Israel.

We hear this in today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Israel was undergoing a severe trial. The nation had been devastated by invasions and exile. As is so often the case when disaster strikes, they felt abandoned by God. However, through Isaiah, God communicates to His people that He has not left them and that His love for them is stronger than ever. He promises to save them saying, “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in His bride so shall your God rejoice in you.”

This love affair does not end with the people of Israel. Rather it finds its highest expression in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God who is sent to the world to save us. As Saint John tells us in one of the Bible’s most memorable verses, “God so loved the world that He sent His Son not to condemn the world but to save it.” Jesus came to consummate God’s marriage to His people. What is promised in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament through the Son of God.

That is why Jesus’ first miracle takes place at a wedding. The miracle at Cana not only reveals His power over nature but echoes God’s desire to enter into a marriage covenant with all His people.

It is also no mistake that Mary is there as well. The whole story takes us back to the first wedding, that of Adam and Eve. Jesus is the new Adam and Mary, the new Eve. Whereas Eve tempts Adam to sin, Mary encourages Jesus to perform a miracle. Whereas the first Eve invited Adam to disobey God, Mary invites the waiters - and us - to obey Jesus telling them, “Do whatever He tells you.” Whereas the first human marriage brought forth sin and suffering into the world, this new marriage of God with His people would bring salvation and healing.

This also explains why Jesus calls Mary, “Woman”. It sounds disrespectful and can make us wonder why Jesus would have spoken so harshly to His Blessed Mother. However, when we understand the connection with marriage, it all makes sense. The first time the word, “woman” appears in the Bible is in the book of Genesis. After Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden of Eden, the Bible tells us that Adam called his wife, “woman”, because she would be the mother of all the living. Therefore Jesus refers to Mary as “woman” because she is the new Eve, the mother of all those who will be saved by Him, the new Adam.

The word, “woman”, also helps us to understand how God would bring about the marriage of God with His people. There is only one other time in Saint John’s gospel that Jesus calls Mary “woman.” It is at the cross when He gives His mother into John’s care saying, “Woman, behold your son.” Again we are taken back to the garden of Eden. Our first sin took place at a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now our redemption takes place at another tree, the cross, where Jesus, the new Adam,  is obedient unto death.

On the cross, Jesus consummates the marriage between God and His people. In fact, His last words, “It is finished” are translated in Latin as “Consummatum est” or, “It is consummated.” God show His love for us by sending His only Son to die for our sins. As Jesus will tell His disciples, “Greater love has no man than to give his life for his friends.” If we want to know how much we are loved by God, there is no greater sign than the cross. If we want to know what love means - real, self-sacrificing love - there is no better school than the cross.

What happens after Jesus dies? A Roman soldier takes a spear and thrusts it into His side. Blood and water flow out from the wound. The water represents the waters of baptism and the blood, the blood of the new covenant in the Eucharist. We see here an echo of the miracle of Cana where water was turned to wine. But we also hear an echo of creation. We remember that God took a rib from Adam’s side to create Eve. Well, just as Adam’s bride was created from his side, so God’s new bride, the Church, would be created from Jesus’ pierced side, particularly through the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist.

There are many beautiful images for the Church. Saint Paul calls us the Body of Christ each of us serving as His members. Saint Peter refers to the Church as the temple of Christ built up by living stones. But the most Biblical of images for the Church and the one which is probably closest to the heart of God is the Church as the Bride of Christ. Just as a man is faithful to his wife, so our God is faithful to us. Just as the union between a man and woman is permanent, so God’s love for us can never change. And just as a man and woman become one flesh bringing children into the world, so we become one flesh with Jesus through the sacrament of His Body and Blood which brings new life to all of creation.

God Of Surprises

Our God is a God of surprises. He can be found in the most unexpected places and circumstances.

No one knows this better than a young woman named Kate.

Since she was young, Kate always felt a close relationship with God. However, in her late 20’s, she found herself working a high-pressure job and planning her wedding. There was just not as much time for prayer and spiritual reading which at one time had been a priority for her. Little by little, she felt herself losing her connection to her Heavenly Father. In fact, the only time she prayed was when the stress from work and wedding planning got to be too much for her. She would simply cry out, “Where are you, God, and why aren’t you helping me?”

One day, while rushing to catch the subway to work, a homeless person stopped her and asked her for change. She just did not have the time to stop and blurted out to him, “Please leave me alone!” Though he was startled, he calmly replied, “That’s okay, ma’am. I’ll still pray for you.”

Kate was struck to her core by his response. It helped her to realize how selfish she had been. She had allowed the pressures of life to squeeze out what had always been important to her, namely, being attentive to the needy. This man had helped her realize that God had not abandoned her, but she had abandoned God. She had been wondering where God was but it turned out that He had never left her. And she discovered this truth in the most unexpected of places and in the most surprising of ways - on a subway platform from a homeless person.

Today’s scripture readings speak to us of this God of surprises who reveals Himself in the most unexpected of ways.

In the first reading, God takes some of the Spirit which is on Moses and bestows it on seventy elders to assist him in leading the people of Israel through the desert. Though, two of the elders are outside of the meeting place, they too receive the Spirit and begin prophesying. Moses’ closest assistant, Joshua, is offended by what he sees and urges Moses to stop them. But Moses recognizes the work of the Spirit and understands that he cannot control it. He was used to God working in unexpected ways. It was a lesson that his young assistant would also need to learn.

In the gospel, Jesus’ closest friend, John, witnesses some people casting out a demon in Christ’s name. Like Joshua, he is offended by it and urges Jesus to stop them. It must have been an especially stinging event to witness since only a few chapters earlier, the disciples themselves were unable to exorcise a man who had come to them possessed with a demon. Like Moses, Jesus assures His disciples that they should welcome any good works done in His name no matter who does it. The Spirit of God does not follow our rules or limit Himself to our expectations. He is a God of surprises who always does what is unexpected. Soon enough, the disciples would discover how true Jesus’ words are when He is unexpectedly raised from the dead and when they finally receive the fullness of the Spirit themselves empowering them to preach the good news.

If God seems distant to us, if we feel as though we have lost touch with our Heavenly Father, could it be that we are looking in the wrong places? If we are unsure what God expects from us, if the direction of our lives is unclear, could it be that He is working in an unexpected way to bring about our sanctification and salvation? Are we so expecting God to work in a certain way and to reveal Himself in a certain place that we are not open to His surprising us from time to time? And if He is working in mysterious ways, how can we discover it and become aware of it.

The great spiritual master, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, can help us. Unlike many of the Church’s other spiritual masters, Saint Ignatius developed a spirituality for people with busy lives. It is not necessary to quit one’s job and spend hours in prayer to follow the way he proposed. One of his spiritual exercises which is especially helpful is called the examen. Like the examination of conscience, Ignatius has us spend a few minutes in the evening reviewing our day. However, the examen is not just concerned with how we may have sinned. It is also focused on how God revealed Himself to us that day.

We begin by taking a few moments to quiet ourselves down and to thank God for everything that happened during the day, both the good and the bad. Then we ask for the grace to review our day, hour by hour or period by period, looking for the ways that God may have been revealing Himself to us and how we responded. Like Kate in the subway, it might be through a homeless person we encounter. It could be at a moment when we look out a window and are struck by how beautiful the world is. As we remember those moments throughout the day, we thank God for revealing Himself and ask Him to give us the grace to recognize Him the following day. If we have failed, we ask for forgiveness and the grace to do better.

Taking that time at the end of every day will not only help us to see how God has been at work in our past but will prepare us to recognize Him when He does appear to us in so many unexpected and surprising ways. It will also give us confidence that no matter how chaotic our lives may seem, God is in the midst of it with us and we can be assured that He will manifest Himself to us in it and lead us through.

We worship a hidden God who can manifest Himself to us in infinitely various ways. Through prayer, we can learn to recognize Him and can allow ourselves to be surprised by Him. Now He comes to us in the most glorious of ways, through the Body and Blood of His Son. Nourished by the bread from heaven, we can now show the God we have discovered to others so that all the world can be charged by the glory of this God of surprises.

Weeds and Wheat

Anyone who has ever taken care of a lawn or tended a garden knows how dangerous weeds can be. Whether it is crabgrass or dandelions, not only are weeds ugly, but they leech nutrients and minerals from the good plantings. The only solution is to pull them up from the roots or poison them with chemicals. There is a risk to these treatments, however. Very often, in trying to uproot the weeds, some of the good grass is pulled up leaving an ugly bald spot on the lawn. And, with chemical treatments, the good plants can also be poisoned along with the weeds leaving an unsightly burn mark behind. Once weeds take root, they are very difficult to extricate from a lawn or garden.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus tells the parable of a landowner whose wheat field becomes infested with weeds. The weeds which Jesus describes, which Bible scholars sometimes translates as "darnel", are not the type of weed which farmers can recognize right away. Unlike a dandelion or crabgrass, darnel mixes in with the wheat. It is not until the crop matures and starts to yield grain that you can tell the wheat from the weeds. Because the crop is already so far along, the landowner fears that ripping up the weeds will do damage to the wheat. He is content to wait until harvest time rather than risk ruining any of his crop.

Jesus tells us this story to teach us something about God and about how He manages the world. As Jesus explains, the field is the world and all the people in it. The wheat represents good people and the weeds represent bad people. Like the landowner in the parable, God does not act right away to pull up the weeds. But God's failure to act does not mean that he is not offended by our sinfulness, and it certainly is not a sign of weakness. Rather God waits patiently for sinners to repent and to change their ways. As we hear in the first reading from the book of Wisdom, God shows his power not in his willingness to punish but in his willingness to forgive. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son and the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep, God does not want to lose any person he has created. And so, he deals patiently with sinners in hopes that they will recognize his love and turn to him for pardon. God gives each of us the time we need to turn to him for forgiveness.

There is a good reason for God's patience. Unlike the landowner in Jesus' parable, God has the power to change weeds into wheat. God can work in our heart, helping us to recognize the error of our sinful ways and calling us to embrace the love he offers us. Saint Paul alludes to this in the second reading. None of us is able to pray as we ought. We get distracted or fail to make the time necessary for God. Nonetheless, God's Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness by interceding for us. The Holy Spirit is within us as we pray so that our prayer can become acceptable to God. Just so, the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts and minds calling us to be holy and transforming us from weeds which are useless and harmful into wheat which provides food for the world. As long as we are alive, God never gives up on any of us but is always trying to find ways to get our attention so that we can become a shining harvest for him.

There is another way we can understand Jesus' parable. The field can represent not only the world, but each of us. Each of us is a mixture of good and bad. There is some wheat in us and some weeds. We love, but we also have resentments. We forgive some people, but judge others. We may wonder why God allows us to be so weak in some areas of our life. Could it be that, like the landowner in the gospel, God is allowing some weeds to grow within us? Could it be that God is trying to teach us something through our weakness and our temptations?  Very often, God allows some failures in our life to keep us from getting proud. There is no weed which is as dangerous to our spiritual life as pride is. It is the sin which made the devil himself fall from heaven. If it were not for our sinfulness, we could begin to think that we were better than others. We could even begin to think that we had no need for our heavenly Father. If it were not for our weakness, we would not know how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, as Saint Paul tells us. If it were not for our human frailty, we might not turn to God at all. And so, God can allow some weeds in the garden of our heart to remind us that it is he who is the landowner and that he is the one who makes our garden grow.

Because God wants us to be saved, he is patient with us. He gives us the time we need to recognize our sinfulness and to turn to him in repentance. As we receive the gift of finest wheat, Jesus' Body in the form of bread, we must pray that we never become discouraged by the evil we see in the world or the evil we see in ourselves. In our weakness, we must pray to understand that God's purpose is somehow being served despite the sinfulness we see around us and in us. If we can entrust ourselves to God in our weakness, then he will transform us into wheat to feed the world. And, when God finally comes to reap his harvest, we will have confidence that he will gather us up to the reward he has prepared for us.