5th Sunday in Lent (A)

Short Reflection for the 5^th Sunday of Lent (A): The Raising of Lazarus

Readings: Ezekiel 37: 12-14; Romans 8: 8-11; John 11: 1-45

Text:  And when Jesus had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" (John 11: 43)

Meditation:  The drama of raising Lazarus from the dead confronts us anew of the same question asked of Marta and Mary… "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

We need to hear the call of Jesus, the Lord, anew and come out from the tomb of fear, unbelief, powerlessness and isolation. Let us all come out from the tomb of impotence that is ourselves.

Now that the hole world is threatened by contagion of Corona Virus – 19, we need make that profession of faith. And by professing Jesus is the Life and Resurrection would mean, in the concrete, caring for each other and the whole creation else we all perish!

Visit:  www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Listening to Christ's Heartbeat

LISTENING TO CHRIST'S HEARTBEAT

When you put your head upon someone else’s chest, your ear is just above that person’s heart and you are able to hear his or her heartbeat.

Hence, in John’s image, we see the beloved disciple with his ear on Jesus’ heart, hearing Jesus’ heartbeat, and from that perspective looking out into the world. This is John’s ultimate image for discipleship: The ideal disciple is the one who is attuned to Christ’s heartbeat and sees the world with that sound in his or her ear.

Then there is a second level to the image: It is an icon of peace, a child at its mother’s breast, contented, satiated, calm, free of tension, not wanting to be anywhere else. This is an image of primal intimacy, of symbiotic oneness, a connection deeper than romantic love.

For John, it is also a Eucharistic image. What we see in this image of a person with his ear on Jesus’ heart, is how John wants us to imagine ourselves when we are at Eucharist because, ultimately, that is what the Eucharist is, a physical reclining on the breast of Christ. In the Eucharist, Jesus gives us, physically, a breast to lean on, to nurture at, to feel safe and secure at, and from which to see the world.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/listening-to-christs-heartbeat/#.Xic2-VNKg_8
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4th Sunday in Lent 2020

Short Reflection for the 4^th Sunday of Lent (A): The Blind Man

Readings: I Samuel 16: 1. 6-7. 10-13; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9: 1-41

Gospel Passage:  Then Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind." (John 9: 39)

Meditation:  Jesus Christ becomes the lens for seeing and not seeing… Through him we do see/not see the poor, the needy, and the injustice and the wrong against neighbors. 

Pope Emeritus Benedict wrote about today’s Gospel: “The Gospel confronts each one of us with the question: “Do you believe in the Son of man?” “Lord, I believe!” (John 9:35; 38), the man born blind joyfully exclaims, giving voice to all believers. The miracle of this healing is a sign that Christ wants not only to give us sight, but also open our interior vision, so that our faith may become ever deeper and we may recognize him as our only Savior. He illuminates all that is dark in life and leads men and women to live as “children of the light.”

Lent is a season for new seeing…

Visit:  www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

God and Violence

GOD AND VIOLENCE

We need to keep in mind that whenever scripture speaks about God as being offended, as getting angry, as wanting to wreak vengeance on his enemies, or as demanding that we kill somebody in his name, it is speaking anthropomorphically, that is, it is taking our own thoughts, feelings, and reactions and projecting them into God.

We get angry, God doesn’t. Our hearts crave vengeance, God’s heart doesn’t. We demand that murderers be executed, God doesn’t. Scripture contains a lot of anthropomorphisms that make for a bad and a dangerous theology if read and understood literally.

When scripture says that we experience God’s wrath when we sin, it doesn’t want us to believe that God actually gets angry and punishes us. There’s no need.  The punishment is innate, inherent in the sin itself. When we sin, it is our own actions that punish us.

We may feel that the punishment as coming from God, from God’s anger, from God’s wrath, but it is nature’s wrath and our own that we are feeling. God has no need to extrinsically punish sin because sin already punishes itself. Nature is so constructed. There is a law of karma. Sin is its own punishment.

But at the level of feeling, this is felt as if God is punishing us. However, as Jesus shows in forgiving his own killers and forgiving everyone who betrayed him, God forgives sin. God has no need for vengeance or for a justice that extracts a pound of flesh for a pound of sin. Nature already does that. Indeed, given a proper understanding of God’s nature and transcendence, it is presumptuous on our part to even believe that we can “offend” God.

To read more about how scripture texts that attribute violence to God are also archetypal, click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/god-and-violence/#.Xic0rlNKg_8
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3rd Sunday of Lent (A) - The Samaritan Woman

Short Reflection for the 3^rd Sunday of Lent (A): The Samaritan Woman

Readings: Exodus 17: 3-7; Romans 5: 1-2. 5-8; John 4: 5-42

Gospel Passage:  Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4: 13-14)

Meditation:  We have drunk of the well of Jesus. We shall never be thirsty again and that water in us will become a spring welling up to eternal life. Moreover, In Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman, he shows that he has crossed the borders of ethnicity, religions and cultures. Jesus reminds us that “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship, too, in Spirit and truth.” (Jn 4:24)

Yet, frontiers and borders of religion, ethnicity and politics, often, confine our God.  We are tied to a place or a sanctuary or rituals, yet the true God’s worship  is in the heart and deeds by living the Truth that is Jesus Christ.  Yes, God resides in our hearts and in our deeds!  Visit:  www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

The Following of Jesus - in Letter or Spirit?

FOLLOWING JESUS – ACCORDING TO THE LETTER OR THE SPIRIT?

What I do find disturbing within church circles though, is that too many of us can be bitter, angry, mean-spirited, and judgmental, especially in terms of the very values that we hold most dear. We justify that anger by giving it a prophetic cloak, believing that we are warriors for God, truth, and morals when, in fact, we are mostly just struggling with our own wounds, insecurities, and fears.

What makes us genuine disciples of Jesus is living inside his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and this is not something abstract and vague. If one were searching for a single formula to determine who is Christian and who isn’t, one might look at the Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter 5. In it, St. Paul tells us that we can live according to either the spirit of the flesh or the Holy Spirit.

We live according to the spirit of the flesh when we live in anger, bitterness, judgment of our neighbor, factionalism, and non-forgiveness.  When these things characterize our lives, we shouldn’t delude ourselves and think that we are living inside of the Holy Spirit.

Conversely, we live inside of the Holy Spirit when our lives are characterized by charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, longsuffering, constancy, faith, gentleness, and chastity. If these do not characterize our lives, we should not nurse the illusion that we are inside of God’s Spirit, irrespective of our passion for truth, dogma, or justice.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/following-jesus-according-to-the-letter-or-the-spirit/#.XhZQQ-t7k_8
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2nd Sunday in Lent A)

Short Reflection for the 2^nd Sunday of Lent (A): Jesus is Transfigured!

Readings: Genesis 12: 1-4; 2 Timothy 1: 8-10; Matthew 17: 1-9

Gospel Passage:  “And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.’ (Matthew 17: 2-3)

Meditation:  In the following of Jesus, we, too, are invited to have our lives transfigured or transformed - NOT as dramatic as Jesus’, but equally true. Our lives need to be transformed unto the image and likeness of God. In many ways, this transformation means thinking and acting like the Lord!

We also hear God’s voice in our hearts - ‘you are my BELOVED SON or DAUGHTER - whom I am well pleased.  When we become God’s son and daughter, that is our own transfiguration! Visit:  www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step:  Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.