December 26, 2021January 3, 2022 civilwarrose5

Rescued – Part 1

I am writing this blog post the day after Christmas. The day on which all Christians celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It was on this day that we were given the gift of hope and new creation. Why? Exactly why did Jesus come to earth? Was it merely to teach us parables and give us new commandments? No. He came to RESCUE us. I am sharing what I have learned from a tremendous book by Fr. John Riccardo. Rescued: The Unexpected and Extraordinary News of the Gospel is an amazing book and one that you should definitely read. Today I want to discuss the third part of this book.

Remember, in the last two posts, we learned how we have been captured by Satan because he HATES us. Satan’s ultimate goal is to destroy, degrade and enslave us. He’s doing a pretty good job at it, too. What did God do? Did he send others to see if they could free us? No. He came HIMSELF. We are so important to him that the creator of everything came to earth to fight for us.

“”The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.””
Luke 4:18-21 (NABRE)

Why would he do this? Why did Jesus take on human form? He did this to fight for you and me.

“Whoever sins belongs to the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil.”
1 John 3:8 (NABRE)

Wow. Jesus came down to destroy our enemy and set us free. If this was a movie we would see him getting into his uniform, gathering his weapons, putting on his face paint, and really gearing up for the battle ahead of him. The inspiring rock music would let us know just how serious and courageous this warrior really is and the big task that he has ahead of him. He would be muscular, athletic, and undaunted. Just looking at him would reassure you and make you think that everything will be okay.

Yet, I’ve never heard my church portray this version of Jesus. Have you? Is this new information to you, too? You hear about how Jesus is love, how he is compassionate and heals the sick, he teaches us parables so that we know that God loves us and forgives us no matter how bad we’ve been in the past, and that we can get to our Father only through Jesus. To be completely honest, I had always pictured Jesus as a wandering hippie who was trying to turn everybody’s heart to God. This Jesus in my mind was mild-mannered, softly spoken, and not very interesting. Boy, was I wrong!! Maybe it’s because when I read the stories about Jesus turning water into wine, giving the blind sight and raising people from the dead, it doesn’t seem “real” to me. It’s similar to when you were in history class and your teacher stood there telling you about past events in a flat voice that almost lulled you to sleep. Yet, how many times have you read a different approach to the same event and saw it in a completely different (and much more fascinating) manner?

Instead of just reading the words, let’s use the Ignatian method of reading scripture and actually put ourselves in those moments. There are so many examples, but I want to focus on just one. Let’s take a look at the woman with a hemorrhage.

“There was a woman afflicted with hemorrages for twelve years. She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?'” And he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.'”
Mark 5:25-34 (NABRE)

You may need to read that a few times, but feel the emotions of hoplessness that the woman must have felt after suffering for so many years. She had spent EVERYTHING she had in order to be cured, but nothing worked. Then, somehow, she hears about Jesus. He can heal the sick. Others talk in amazement about the leper who was cured and the other man who had been possessed and how easily it seemed that Jesus was able to cure them. If he could cure leprosy and exorcised demons, then maybe he could cure her, too. She didn’t have money, but she had hope and faith. When she saw him in the crowd something made her go up and touch his cloak, knowing that just the slight touch would cure her. She had THAT much faith. And it worked!

Now flip it around and imagine being in the crowd trying to catch a glimpse of this Jesus character. You’d heard all the stories, too, and you were curious. What did he look like? How did he act? Would you be able to tell that there was anything special about him just by being near him? Then you see him stop and ask who had touched him. Hmmm, this was interesting. Where was this going? The guys traveling with him seemed to dismiss this reaction, but you can see on Jesus face that something happened. You notice a woman come out of the crowd to fall down in front of him. You are close enough to hear her story and read her face, which convinces you that every word she has spoken is true. This is amazing! The joy, amazement and awe on her face clearly beams out for everybody to see. Then lovingly Jesus tells her that her faith has saved her and to go in peace. What feelings do you experience from having witnessed this exchange? Can you imagine how much more powerful it would be if you were actually there?

The feelings that were experienced as crowds witnessed these actions were what caused Jesus to be so interesting. Yet, how often are we bored in church wondering how busy the breakfast place is going to be after we get out? How often do we dismiss the miracles that Jesus did? How often are we afraid to even say his name because it might ‘offend’ somebody? He wasn’t just a random hippie blowing through these various towns. He was awesome. He did things that nobody had ever seen before. The tales that went raging ahead of him had to seem unbelievable until you finally saw him and could absolutely believe everything that was said. This was a guy who caused tax collectors (the greediest, most affluent, and wealthy people in a town), prostitutes, gamblers and others who were only out for their own pleasure, to drop what they were doing and follow him. He drew crowds of thousands!! People had to tear open other people’s roofs in order to get their sick friends close enough for healing. Back when the population wasn’t very big, this was a huge deal. Think of Elvis, the Beatles, New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, and One Direction all rolled into one. That’s the kind of presence that Jesus had. In fact, he had such an aura of power about him that the Pharisees instantly hated him and wanted him killed; Herrod had been so afraid that he had ordered all males under the age of 3 to be killed (and this was when Jesus was just a BABY). What person has that kind of power that exudes from him so that all can feel it without having to be IN his presence? This is Jesus, our Lord and Savior, who has come to destroy Satan’s hold on us. As I leave you this week with these thoughts to mull over I want to add just a little more kindling to the fire.

“For when peaceful stillness encompassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne leapt into the doomed land, a fierce warrior bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.”
Wisdom 18:14-15 (NABRE)

August 29, 2021 civilwarrose5

What’s In Your Heart?

Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the

marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles [and beds].) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts,’ You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” ~Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NABRE)

If you’ve read some of my previous blog posts you will realize that there seems to be one theme that I bring up a lot: the power you have over what you put out into the world. Perhaps that’s because it was a common theme with Jesus, too. He taught about love, charity, mercy and so many more ways to love one another. Growing up Jewish he knew that there were laws that the Pharisees held to be more powerful than the Word of God. If they were truly men of God then they would not only recognize that everything Jesus was teaching was filled with God, but also they wouldn’t have been so upset about what Jesus was doing. They really had a problem with this guy. I mean, who did he think he was?? God?? Only THEY could interpret and teach God’s law to others. They obviously weren’t listening very closely to what Jesus was saying.

You may wonder why I chose a picture of a kitten (unfortunately, not mine) to start this post. I think that if Jesus had led the Pharisees into a room full of kittens, they wouldn’t have been so grumpy about the disciples breaking their laws. Have you ever been in a room full of kittens? You can NOT walk out of there without a smile on your face. To have that little ball of fur purring and loving on you is one of the best feelings in the world. As you hold that kitten and it rubs its little face all over yours while it’s purring, your heart just about bursts with love. That’s how you defeat evil. There is no room in a kitten-filled heart for all of the nastiness that Jesus listed in today’s reading. Okay, so let’s say that you’re more of a dog person. I won’t be offended if you swap out a puppy for a kitten in this example. As long as your heart is bursting with love, that’s what I want you to think about.

The Pharisees are a good example of how people can start out with good intentions, and then before you know it they’ve veered off the path and are insisting that you follow them because they are the ones in charge. When Moses brought the 10 Commandments down from Mt Sinai I don’t recall any of them saying that you must wash your hands before eating, or wash anything else that might come into contact with your food before you eat it. From what I can recall from memory, most of it was about LOVE. Love God. Love your neighbor (don’t covet, steal, or murder). Love and honor your parents. There’s a lot of love in those ten laws. Unfortunately, at that time, the people had a hard time keeping just those ten! Then over a period of time the leaders started making up clauses and addendums to the laws that then also included these other behaviors that you couldn’t do. By the time Jesus comes along the Pharisees are more concerned over these imposed human-created laws than the original law of God. No longer is the faith about God, it’s about the constraints that have been imposed upon you.

That’s why Jesus was such a non-conformist. He worked on the Sabbath. He didn’t make his disciples wash their hands before eating. He even dared to heal people with all kinds of problems whenever he felt like it! What a rebel! He was breaking the law and thumbing his nose at the authorities. Except, what they didn’t understand, was that he was actually following the law of the ultimate Authority. The Author of all creation. That’s why it doesn’t matter what you ingest. If you have a clean heart and are spreading the love of God then you can eat with the dirtiest hands and God won’t strike you down. I mean, He really might think, “Geesh, your hands are nasty. A little water and soap wouldn’t hurt!” but he’s not going to condemn and judge you for it. As long as you are living a Jesus-centered and Christ-like life, you will be allowed into heaven with your dirty hands.

July 19, 2021 civilwarrose5

Rest and Recharge

The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.

People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. ~Mark 6:30-34 (NABRE)

At the beginning of this scripture Jesus is trying to teach the apostles a lesson that many of us today need to learn, too. You must make time for yourself to be quiet, rest and recharge. When you are constantly interacting with people, processing lots of information and trying to act on what needs to be done, it really takes a toll on your body. Both physically and mentally. Jesus knew this very well. How often do we read about him going off by himself to pray? Quiet time to re-center, re-group and re-charge is what everybody needs. Even God rested on the seventh day!

How often do you see family, friends or coworkers who are so frazzled and at their wits end because they have so much to do and not enough time to do it in? Between work and home we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. A few years ago I actually suffered from stress hives for almost five months because I wasn’t taking care of myself. Stress is horrible, too. It can cause all sorts of issues including weight gain, weight loss, hair loss, hives, excema, heart attacks, etc. You have to learn to say no and put yourself first. If you break down then you can’t help others.

The only “problem” is that when Jesus disembarked from the boat he saw the vast crowds and had to help them. Their need for what he had to offer was greater than his need for quiet time. Parents know this all too well. How many times do you feel like just plopping on the couch and zoning out in front of the TV, but then little Johnny comes up and needs help with something or just wants you to spend time with them doing some other activity? Do you tell them no, that you need to have Me time? Of course, not. You probably sigh and then get up to go spend time with your child.

That doesn’t mean that you never again take time for yourself. You have to know your limits and know when to say ‘no’. It doesn’t specifically say that Jesus weighed his exaustion level against the need of the crowd and decided that he had a little more to give. If you read further in this chapter of Mark you read about the feeding of the five thousand and then you arrive at Mark 6:46, “And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray.” Jesus helped all of those people and then still found some time to recharge his batteries.

When I start to feel guilty that I’m doing something for myself such as spending time crocheting instead of cleaning the house, I just remind myself of this chapter in Mark. Don’t feel guilty for taking some needed downtime. Don’t feel guilty that you sat and read a good book for an hour instead of dusted the house. Now, if all you’re doing is Me things, you definitely need to re-prioritize. I’m hoping that the pandemic helped a lot of people learn that a lot of what kept them busy was nonsense stuff. I hope they learned how to just sit with themselves in quiet or realize that what they had been doing was just a bunch of noise. Take a lesson from Jesus; do good works and help out your fellow man, but don’t forget to be quiet and talk with God.

July 4, 2021 civilwarrose5

Rejection

He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not

the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. ~Mark 6:1-6a (NABRE)

Prior to Jesus arriving in his home town he had been traveling around teaching and performing miracles. Everywhere he went people would crowd around him asking to be healed. They huddled close to hear his teachings. There was the woman with the hemorrhage who had so much faith that she knew if she only touched his clothes that she would be healed. Complete strangers had such faith in him that they sought him out. I do believe that Jesus was more humble than most of us would be in this situation. If it was me, I would be feeling good about all the things I was doing and the number of people showing up to hear what I had to say. He was working toward rock star status. His groupies followed him from town-to-town and there were the crowds crushing around just to be near him.

Then he arrived in his home town. This is the place where he should be an even bigger star, right? They knew him before he went out and became important. They acknowledge that he has done might deeds and that he speaks a lot of wisdom, yet in the end they reject him and have little faith. I can almost hear one of the men in the neighborhood who used to play ball with Jesus when they were younger, “Yeah, I knew Jesus before he became famous. Sure, he can heal the blind, but when we were kids he never wanted to do anything fun. We would play tricks on our other friends, but he was too good to join in on the fun. He’s nothing special. I don’t understand what all the hoopla was about. It’s just Jesus.”

Many people feel like that in their own families. They go out into the world and make a career for themselves or gain notoriety for something they’ve done. Yet, when they go home they don’t carry the same status. They are treated just like they were before they made a name for themselves. Some people might be very happy with this kind of treatment. Others, like Jesus, are disappointed because not only are they being rejected, but the good that they can do is being rejected as well. How many people in Nazareth could have benefitted from not only the healings, but also the knowledge and faith in God that Jesus was teaching?

Jesus tells us that this is going to happen, but you must stick strong to your principles. No matter what people tell you or ridicule you, your belief in Jesus and your love of God must always come first. You can’t give into the feelings of rejection that might happen due to your faith.

“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
Luke 12:49-53 (NABRE)

This verse from Luke is very personal to me. When I think about rejection in the Bible this verse always comes to mind. I grew up in a household that considered ourselves to be Methodist, yet we really didn’t attend church or talk a whole lot about God. As Protestants we really didn’t care for Catholics and how we thought they were a bunch of hypocrites who would “sin” throughout the week and then be considered clean after going to confession. Then I married my husband and decided that I wanted to become a Catholic. While going through RCIA (Roman Catholic Initiation for Adults) I read the Bible for the first time and talked about how the readings affected me. I never really talked to my parents or sister about becoming Catholic because I didn’t think they would be very happy about it. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes or know what they were thinking about the Catholic faith. My parents love me very much and are supportive of me, even if we don’t see things from the same point of view. At this time in my life I knew that a relationship with God, and one formed in the Catholic church, was very important to me. When I read this verse from Luke I knew that this could possibly be my reality. I knew that I would choose my faith over my parents’ feelings.

Rejection hurts, no matter who is rejecting you. If you are sticking to your faith and principles then it doesn’t matter who rejects you here on earth because your heavenly Father will welcome you with open arms. Just keep the love of God in your heart and let the holy Spirit move you. You are wonderfully made in God’s own image. You are loved.