Second Sunday of Lent

Why in the world was I thinking Second Sunday of Advent as I typed the title of the blog is beyond me, perhaps I want to go back in time. Here's the link to the readings. 

So the first reading is where Abraham is told to sacrifice his son Isaac.  We just studied in my Biblical Call Narratives class and some interesting points were made.  When we think of this story we often pictures Isaac as a teenager, but it is possible that he was an adult, say in his thirties when this happened.  I guess part of our imagining Isaac as a teen comes from the use of the word boy. Another point that was made is that this may not have been a command of God to sacrifice Isaac but rather question put to Abraham. Again our take on it could come from the words that are used in the translation.

We so often see what we deem an angry God in the Old Testament.  Really who commands someone to give up their son, oh wait, God, Himself does that out of love for us.  We take more notice over the idea of Abraham almost killing Isaac that we completely forget that Abraham is actually talking with God and God is responding back.  How we all long for that type of relationship with God, where we actually hear what He has to say and Abraham has it, yet we never talk about it.

I'm always amused with how easily the characters in the Old Testament responded with, "here I am." As if God didn't know where they were, of course He knew; He's just waiting for us to acknowledge Him.  We skip over Isaac questioning his father. Isaac wasn't stupid, he realized there was no animal for the sacrifice. Abraham does a nice bit of not answering the question with the whole God will provide answer.  We also leave out the fact that Abraham tied Isaac up to be sacrificed and we go right to the "don't do it" answer from God.  Put yourself in Isaac's shoes, well sandals, I'd be saying, what the hell dad, what's going on, which he did and rightfully so.  God deals with what we give Him, so maybe He did ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac or maybe God just posed a question either way, we find out that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son.   Abraham is promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand in the desert.  That's a lot of kids.  There's a theory out there about this as well. We often assume that God and Abraham were talking at night so you'd see a ton of starts, but what if they were really talking during the day and the only star you could see was the sun. Anyway, what matters is that God and Abraham entered into a covenant of sorts and we are Abraham's descendants, so yes God kept His promise, like He always does.

I have a feeling this will not be the psalm that I hear at Mass, as I will be at our 6pm Mass and they tend to not stick with the given psalm of the say, but use one of the alternative ones, but we shall see.

*update* it wasn't the Psalm used at Mass, we sung "If today your hear God's voice; harden not your hearts."

The refrain is "I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living."   What strikes me is the idea of walking before God.  This harkens back to the idea of being able to talk to God, yes, prayer is our way way of talking to God, but the idea of walking with God makes it that much more personal.  So often we act like like having a personal relationship with God is unattainable.  In the verses of the Psalm we see that even though we are afflicted, that we are precious in God's eyes, that we are His servants, not the sweep the floor and looked down upon type, but the I love what I do type,  and we say that we will show God to others.  Well, that's my take on the Psalm, doesn't have to be everyone's and I am by far not a Biblical scholar despite studying it in college.  The Psalms rarely are preached on and it can be difficult to see what each verse it, but I think this Psalm is reminding that we are God's children and that we should do what He is telling us to do.

The Second reading, is actually one of my favorite readings.  I'm always reminded of Fr. Bill when I hear and use the line, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"  It happens to be Fr. Bill's favorite verse, or it was when I was in college, we all know things can change.  This is a line that I should listen to and pay attention to more often. So many times we fall into temptation forget that God is there for us no matter what, and that if what we are doing is what He wants, then no one can be against us.  St. Paul once again reminds us that God the Father did not spare His own son, but rather handed him over.  This ties in nicely with the first reading with the whole giving up your only child.

The Gospel is the Transfiguration, which we are all familiar with.  We all know the story Jesus takes Peter, James and John up to a mountain and Jesus appears with Moses, Elijah and He and His clothes become a dazzling white.  Peter excitedly, or at least I think he was excited, asks Jesus if he can set up some tents.  We're told that they were terrified as they should have been, imagine how you would be if you actually saw Jesus appear in His full glory and then a voice from the Heavens says, "This is my beloved son. Listen to him."  I'd be terrified too.  I'm always amused that Jesus tells them to tell n one about what happens.  I know it says that they are to wait until after Jesus dies and rises from the dead, but I still only hear the don't tell anyone about this comment.  I guess Jesus was preparing these three for what they would eventually do.  I read and I think it was Fr. Barron who mentioned it in his lenten reflection, that this is in a way a physical version of the Old Testament being fulfilled in the New Testament.

My Sunday was spent watching the freshman in our confirmation program be on retreat, which was great to watch as they actually got something out of it, but I was done by the time we got to Mass so I don't remember much of the homily except that Fr. Ray preached mainly on the first reading and slightly on the Gospel.

SCC the digital version or my "homily" for the 1st Sunday of Lent.

J.M.J. 

I decided to start my Lenten book challenge off easy, I was already reading Mark Hart's Behold the Mystery and have most of Cardinal Dolan's Doers of the Word read so I decided that they counted as one book and would be read on Ash Wednesday and the days that followed.  I did finish both of them, but they were easy reads.  In Behold the Mystery Mark Hart suggests spending time with all four readings for Sunday's Mass.  I always think of Small Christian Communities (SCC) at Seton Hall when I think of this, because that's exactly what we did.  A bunch of us met each week with Fr. Bill to discuss the readings for the upcoming Sunday.  I know we inspired a bunch of homilies for him and it was fun and interesting to discuss the readings for Sunday.  We typically came up with about 4 or five questions to go over, and by we I really mean me. No, it was mainly Fr. Bill until one day I heard "hey, Mar, my newest, bestest, best bud, do you want to write the questions for SCC tonight."  I know I had some sort of smart ass response but I can't remember it, but I do remember him saying, "but your's are good and better than mine" or something along those lines to me.

I've decided to do a digital version of SCC though it's more of a Lectio, which now that I think about it is what SCC was, but we never treated it that way.  Now, I know why Fr. Bill suggested Lectio Divina years later, and that's what makes him one of the best priests I know.  This also makes me laugh at how God works.

Any way I figured I might as well spend time with the readings and what better place to "talk" about it but the almighty inter-webs.  I know that a lot of people don't read this and it's mostly for me, but hey you never know who might find it and learn something.  Here's the link to Sunday, February 22, 2015 Mass readings  .  The USCCB page was giving me issues before, so I'm not sure if it will load correctly or not, but they should have an interactive calendar on the home page if the link doesn't work.

So the first reading comes from the Book of Genesis and it involves Noah and we can assume that the ark was involved too.  The daily readings link doesn't give you the footnotes like the actual Bible pages do; the New American Bible Revised Edition aka the NABRE is on the site. I have to give credit to said Bible as my bishop, Bishop Arthur Serratelli, spent "7 years of his life" working on it. It's also the Bible we hear at Mass.  I was going to look for the footnotes, but the website is not loading on Chrome anyway, not sure about other browsers.

Anyway, back to the first reading. Most of us know the story of Noah, the ark and the flood.  In the first reading we get the promise from God to Noah that the world will not be destroyed by water again.  God saved the world because of one righteous person, Noah, well eight people if we count Noah's wife, sons and daughters-in-law. God promised that He wouldn't use water to destroy the Earth again.  I'm currently sitting through a Biblical Call Narratives class for my Masters and Certificate program, so we've been discussing the Old Testament far more than the New Testament and I'm fine with that because we so often skip over the Old Testament that we don't look to it for wisdom, even though it is one of the books of the Old Testament.  God made a covenant with Noah and his family and the sign He gave them was a rainbow, or so we traditionally say it is.  Even today we are always in awe when we see a rainbow in the sky.  I remember a few times when my family was in Ireland that I was told, "get you're camera, there's a rainbow; oh it's a double rainbow; quick before it goes away."  I happily oblige as there is something special about rainbows precisely because we don't see them that often.  I usually think of pots of gold at the end of a rainbow long before I think of God's promise to Noah.  I don't think oh that's a reminder that God will take care of His family, I think oh that's pretty.

We have a glorified idea of Noah and the Ark, that thing had to stink to high holy hell with all those animals on it; yeah think about that, gross isn't it.  The stench didn't stop Noah or his family from doing what God told him and that ark wasn't small, it did have to fit two of each animal and 8 humans on it; so the hard work didn't stop Noah either.  Noah trusted God and was rewarded for it; God saved the world because of Noah's faith and actions.  One person saved the world, that sounds familiar doesn't it.  As my pastor reminded us at his Lenten Friday Night Lights aka his seasonal sessions on Catholic things, we, the younger generation often look at the Old Testament as some nice stories that we hear but don't really pay attention too. It's true we look at a rainbow and think, oh that's pretty, we don't think oh God's reminding us about how He saved us all those years ago with Noah.


I was about to jump to the second reading when I read the psalm. So often the psalm is forgotten or not preached on.  A few weeks ago Fr. Ray spoke of the psalm because it happened to be his favorite and the music ministry happened to play his favorite setting of it.  I don't remember what psalm it was but it reminds me that as Mark Hart said in Behold the Mystery we so often forget about the psalm.

The refrain of the psalm is "Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant." My initial thought as I read it in church was, how the heck are we doing to sing this one.  It's interesting that the psalm uses the work covenant.  Today we don't think of covenants, we think of contracts which is sort of what a covenant with God is.  I try to say Liturgy of the Hours every day, there are plenty of days where I don't say one or any of the hours, but it has allowed me to get to know the psalms better or least notice which ones they use all the time.  The first verse of the psalm has us asking God to teach us His ways.  The second verse has us asking God to be kind to us and to remember us in His compassion.  The third and final verse reminds that God guides us, teaches us and shows us the way.  When we pay attention to the readings we see how they are linked together. Noah followed God's ways and kept the covenant and therefore passed on the faith to the generations that followed him.

The second reading is from St. Peter's letter.  It's rare that the second reading is not from one of St. Paul's readings just because he takes up the majority of the New Testament.  When I went to type the blog at first I kept thinking where did I hear "prefigured baptism" it must have been in one of the books I read, no it was from the second reading as I realized as I sat in Church. I think my mind had wondered during this reading, and I laughed to myself as I thought of Mark Hart's comment of well, at least you will have gone over the readings in case you start to not pay attention at Mass.  In this reading we are reminded that Jesus suffered for sins once, that righteous one suffered for the unrighteous.  Here we have that righteous man saving the world again.  Yes, that righteous man from the first reading is in essence a prefiguring of Jesus for one man saved the world.  Rarely do we have the readings so connected, or at least it seems that it's rarely that the first and second readings connect; let alone mention the other.  Noah was a prefiguring for our baptism, though the water of Baptism we are saved, but we can't forget about Jesus and how His saving act is what truly saved us. St. Peter reminds of that at the end of the reading.  Our salvation is not about being physically clean but about having a clean and clear conscience.

The Gospel is one of the shortest ones I can remember. It's literally three verses long. It's five sentences from the looks of it.  Of course on the first Sunday of Lent we are reminded that Jesus was in the desert fasting and was tempted by Satan.  This reminds that Jesus knows exactly what we go through each Lenten season.  Jesus knows that we are going to be tempted to eat what we gave up or tempted to not pray because I'm tired or some other excuse. In this short Gospel we get the idea that Lent will not be easy and that we will be tempted.  In the second portion of the Gospel we hear the words that we also hear on Ash Wednesday, depending on what saying the person who is placing ashes on your forehead uses.  "Repent and believe in the Gospel."  The gospel is the good news that Jesus came to save us all but we are so far removed from it that we often forget it.

I always try to get one thing out of the homily and while Fr. Ray actually preached on the first reading, using a great example of the Benedictine Abbey in Newark and how they because the ark for young men in Newark it was his preaching on the Gospel that stuck with me.  Fr. Ray mentioned the idea that we are obsessed with survival shows.  It got me thinking of Naked and Afraid, Bear Grylls' shows, the one with the military guy and the hippie guy and of course Survivor.   The line that got everyone to laugh was, "Survivor: they send people out to a remote island for 40 days and have all these tests and rituals they have to go through; we've been doing that for 2,000 years it's called Lent."

It's so true we are throwing ourselves out into the dessert to hopefully be drawn closer to God by giving something up or whatever we planned on doing for Lent.  It won't be easy as we will be tempted, but at least we've not voted off the island.



In cause you were wondering why the J.M.J. (Jesus, Mary and Joseph) randomly appeared; I've been writing it on my handwritten notes since college and after seeing another blog with it and Cardinal Dolan post a homily with the letters at the top I figured if they can do it so can I.

What are my gifts?

So as part of our Evangelization Certificate program and eventual Masters of Theology we have Saturday sessions and this past weekend we talked about what our Spiritual gifts are and what ministries we might be suited for.  As a part of this we took a spiritual inventory and took a look at the answers.  Oddly I wasn't surprised by my answers, well order of gifts and when I read the ministries that are afflicted with my top three (five as three of them tied) I was pleasantly surprised to see me described to a tee.


Here are how my Spiritual gifts ranked:
Serving
Faith
Craftsmanship/Pastor/Teacher
Apostle/Giving/Deeds of Power
Evangelization/Exhortation, Encouragement/Hospitality/Knowledge/Prophet
Discernment/Musician/
Intercession
Mercy
Tongues
Caregiver
Healing/Wisdom
Administration
Missionary

I found it interesting that serving ended up on top, but I'm not surprised by it as I do tend to lean towards serving people and the Church.  I was sort of surprised to see faith up there as high as it was because I haven't felt like my faith was strong at least not as strong as it was in college.  The ministries that use my tops gifts also fit me, I do volunteer with social ministries, I have no problem doing mundane tasks.  I am a lector, greeter, and Eucharistic minister and I would totally run and participate in Bible studies and take pictures of the events in the parish.  CCD teacher, youth leader and teaching are stuff I do already and I've often said I would love to teach the teachers, so it was nice to have my gifts and ministries reaffirmed.  I would love to find a way to get paid to do all this stuff, but that will come I guess.

Hopefully there will be more to come on this later but for now I am off to read for class ;)

Go to your room!

"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

So this week's reading is from Matthew's Gospel.  What comes to mind is the idea of praying in "secret" or alone giving the fact that the highest form of Catholic prayer is public it amuses me that we are told to pray alone.  The word prayer jumps out too as in I need to pray more.  Oddly or not oddly I do tend to pray alone either in the car or in a room away from my family so that I don't get any questions about what I am doing.

My favorite form of prayer is and has been Eucharistic Adoration mainly as I can be by myself.  I've always been the leave me alone type of person not because I don't like people but I just like being by myself.  So I guess I have always found a way to go to my room and pray.  We were given an assignment of doing an Examen prayer in the style of St. Ignatius Loyola.  We're supposed to do it daily at the end of the day so we can look over our day.  I don't mind doing it, I just don't want to look at my life that way as I'll see how imperfect I am.  I mean really who wants to see what they are really made of.

Grad School and Scripture

I have to spend time with Scripture passages for grad school so why not blog about them.  Hey why not right.

So our first reading assignment was Luke 5:1-11


"While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him." 

We were asked to spend time with the scripture passage so of course my mind went straight to doing Lectio Divina with the passage.  You know read it, think about it, read it again, think about it again and pray with it.  Yeah, easier said than done. I read it and attempted to do Lectio but it wasn't the best effort.  My thoughts alway turn to how human St. Peter is.  Of course we discussed it in class and each person thought of something different.  As I was reading the passage I thought of my past trip to Ireland specifically our tour of Donegal, especially the fishing village of Killybegs because when I saw the picture that is below, I thought of this Scripture passage.  What, I am a theology major it makes sense.  What came to mind as I read the passage was the stench of the net; it was nasty.  So I went on to think well ministry can be smelly as it's not always easy and well dealing with teenagers does mean getting dirty literally and figuratively when you discuss the heavy hitting issues.

I always think of the USCCB Vocations video when I read this passage as well, it is called Fishers of Men after all.

The beginning of the film is pretty much this scene from Luke's gospel or is at least meant to make you think of it.  While the video is strictly for priestly vocations it doesn't mean that they are the only ones who can catch the fish.  

In class we discussed Peter's progression of seeing Jesus, listening to Jesus, stopping what he was doing, getting in the boat, which Jesus was already in, listening to Jesus again and finally acting on Jesus' words and asking for help from others.   I wonder how Andrew, James and John feel being in the backseat to Peter.  We know they become Apostles and followers of Jesus, but while they are always around they often take a backseat to Peter. Maybe it's because  we can so easily relate to St. Peter in his ways of really getting it one day and the next falling flat on his face.  However Jesus doesn't care how long it takes us to get it or how often He has to speak to us to get it.  

Ministry is something I have been doing for the majority of my life and so often I wonder am I doing what God wants me to do.  Peter, Andrew, James and John literally drop everything and leave it all behind to follow Jesus.  Do I trust God enough to leave what is comfortable and a pay check behind to do His will?  I honestly don't know and that's been the question on and in my mind since I returned from the Defending the Faith Conference at the end of July.  

We had a session on spiritual gifts and charisms trying to figure out what our individual gifts are.  It was an interesting session which I will get into in another blog  but the session ended with us getting an assignment of spending time in prayer so the next Scripture passage is quite appropriate.

Our second reading assignment is Matthew 6:6

"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."

More to come on this later after I sleep and after I actually spend time with it in prayer.