Re-created in the Light

Reflection for 4th Sunday of Lent

1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Psalm 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Ephesians 5:8-14; Gospel: John 9:1-41

When was young, I had my hair curled by a permanent.  After that, I had a crew cut.  I loved poetry; then, I read only science fiction.  I hunted and fished.  I forgot that when I found golf.  When I was young, I constantly changed.   Now, I pray and read the bible.  I am a husband, father, and grandfather.  I work too many hours. This is who I am.  Isn't it funny how only time truly allows us the wisdom to know who we become.

This is the tale we see in the readings.   They outline stories of change and how God can re-create us.

The readings in Lent prepare us for the paschal feast.  The OT readings outline salvation history.  The second reading explains that baptism provides for our participation Christian life in the death and resurrection of Christ.  The Gospel readings tell of the great signs in the Gospel of John that reveal the saving event of Christ’s death and resurrection.

In these readings there are several themes.   The two that this reflection focus on are:

• God wants to re-create us; 
• Christ is the light that recreates us. 

The Gospels portray Jesus in many ways. Jesus is the vine, the bread of life, the good shepherd, and the gate.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  But in this Gospel story of the “man born blind,” Jesus announces “I am the light of the world.”  This is the light Paul refers to in his letter to the Ephesians.

Jesus used his spit to make clay and smeared it on the blind man’s eyes. In this Jesus removes the darkness and re-creates the man. Jesus gives himself. The man anointed by Jesus as “I am” becomes an unyielding believing disciple.  This man is so new and recreated that not even banishment can sway him from Jesus.  The “I am” gives light and life and in this our God gives and receives love.

God re-creates those who do his will to a new life.   God chose David to be re-created in a new life from shepherd to king.  Jesus chose the blind man.  By Jesus’ anointing, the blind man is re-created to a new life, from unseeing to believing.  Paul states that it is by baptism, we are re-created to a new life; changing from “darkness” to “children of light.”  Through God’s grace, we can be re-created by the “I am” who is “the light of the world.”  God never ceases to draw us to him. (CCC 27) In this, we can find life and happiness. (CCC 30)

Each of us faces some darkness in our life.  The darkness of sin, of lost faith, of unbelief, a darkness created by the world we live in.  The water baptism washes away the darkness and changes us.  Jesus’ spit and clay removed the darkness and re-created the blind man.  Just like the blind man, we are recreated, Christ will give you light so you do not have to fear the darkness.

God created us by breathing into us the breath of life. Jesus re-created the blind man by giving himself in his spit.  We are re-created by the light of Christ. God's shares himself in our creation and re-creation.  He gave himself totally to us in Jesus' sacrifice.  In baptism we are recreated.   We then receive the Lord, the Light of eternal life through the body and the blood of Christ in the Eucharist. (CCC 1336)

Pray and Ask for Forgiveness

This was it, the final meeting with the Bishop before ordination.  I had broken out a new pair of pants and Janet had all her make-up on before we got into the car.  This was such an important meeting that we were on time. Together, we were excited. I was nervous.  Hopefully, we would present ourselves well.  I was not worried about Janet.

I think about this meeting and am reminded of the story that Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  Both go to the temple to pray.  Jesus says the Pharisee “spoke this prayer to himself” as a righteous narrative.  The tax collector prays like a guilty person.  He recognizes his unworthiness, beats his chest and prays for mercy. 

The meeting with the Bishop went well.  When we got to the car, Janet told me that I had cut her off when the Bishop asked her a question.  Honestly, I thought she was through and I wanted to add a comment.  So now, here I am asking for her mercy. (Just kidding)

Sometimes situations in life throws us off-course.  Speaking with friends, we will talked about children who have been thrown off-course.  Each of these parents is a person of faith..  But they see the lives of their children and are afraid that maybe they have forgotten Jesus.    

But Jesus Christ has not forgotten.  Jesus was there for the sinners, the fallen, and the outcast.  And, Christ Jesus is there for us.  As parents or just someone who cares, we do not need to be like the Pharisee.  No matter how righteous or how broken, we are sinners and must pray like the tax collector.  We need to recognize our unworthiness and pray for God’s mercy.  For some, like those we worry about, it may take them longer to recognize this need.  We pray for them.

Maybe in my nervousness, I talked too much.  I am sure the Bishop will forgive me.  Maybe in my nervousness, I hogged the conversation; Janet will forgive me.  Maybe in life, we become lost.  Maybe, we fall again and again; but, God’s grace abounds with mercy and forgiveness.  Pray and forgive others.  Pray and ask for forgiveness. God will forgive us.

Love and Prayers on a Dark Night

In 1986, my wife, Janet, and I had been married a little over a year.  We had moved to Shreveport so I could find a job.  I had not found a job.  Janet, however, was working at a gas station on the night shift.  I would go with her to work and sit in the parking lot.  When her boss left; I would come into the store.  I did this to make us both feel safe. 

One night a tall distinguished priest filled up his car and came into the station to pay.  When he came in, my wife introduced us as Catholics who had just moved to the area.  She also told him I was without a job and asked that he pray for us.  He said he would. My wife then asked where his parish was so we could visit.  He introduced himself as Bishop William Friend, Bishop of the Diocese of Shreveport. (Before this I always thought he traveled with an entourage.) We asked for his blessing.  He blessed us and left.

Pope Benedict XVI said that “an act of love is where we find true happiness.”  When I heard this, I thought the act of love would bring true happiness to the one who brings the act of love.  I remember this simple act of love now and how it has led me to true happiness.

Everyone has a time when we feel alone.  Sometimes it happens when there are people all around us who love us.  Sometimes it happens to even those of us who know Christ and know that God is always present.   It is a feeling of an absence from God and grace.  It is something that everyone goes through.   St. John of the Cross called it the Dark Night of the Soul.  None are spared the dark nights.  These are are necessary so we can learn.

My dark night lasted for many years.  It began before college.  A dark place when I placed myself before God through worldliness.  St. John of the Cross says that God dwells substantially in each of our souls.  I built a wall around that presence of God.   

During this time, I looked for Him.  Searching I visited many different Churches; but, I was not going to look for my answer in a Baptist or Catholic Church in which I had been raised.  In all this looking, I could not or would not open myself to Him. Always, I found a way to place a wall of excuses between Christ and me.   My damaged character caused me to question where was God in my life.   

College was a time when I was looking for my expectations of perfection.  I was looking to please my self.  Many of the women I dated, probably pulled me further away from God; but, the faith that lived in me anchored me so I did not drift too far away. 

Then God brought a beautiful person in my life.  She chose me.  She pursued me and with God’s plan for both of us, she caught me.  I look back and see how great this was. This was my wife Janet, who would bring to me a solid foundation of faith.  Janet is one of God’s greatest gifts in my life. 

My future mother in-law insisted that we would be married in the Catholic Church. I had been baptized Catholic but raised in the Baptist Church.  I had a relationship with Christ.  I knew He was my savior.  But, by the time we got married, inside I felt separated from God.

After we got married, it only got worse.  My father died.   I had a hard time finding a good job. This made me feel that I was not a good husband.  I would get a job and then loose it.  I thought any company that would hire me, would surely be closing its doors within a year.  

During this time, I especially felt that God had abandoned me; but, He never does.  God loved me.  My family and friends loved me.  My wife loved me.  In all my emphasis on me, maybe, I think that I did not love myself.

Janet put up with a lot.  One night with no place to stay, we slept in our car at a rest area along the side the interstate.  I had just found a job so we could not leave the area.  We did find an apartment and then a house.   But this just added to my self torment.  Being a naive and honest person, I did not think a bank would take advantage of me.  Through some creative bookkeeping they allowed me to buy a house I could not afford.  Then, I lost my job, again.  I suffered from self pity.  I remember wanting everyone feel as bad as I did. But my wife always gave me all that she was.  She believed in me and gave me all her love, support and all her trust.  

My wife, mother and mother in-law always said, pray and leave it in God’s hands.  Janet insisted that we go to mass.  Most Sundays, if we had gas money, we did.  She rolled a lot of pennies.  In those times, I would pray for the strength to abandon myself and to be truly led by God.  It was a time of learning; but, a time when I did not know I was learning.  If you want quick happiness, God does not always work that way.  Looking back, I see I had too narrow a perspective.  I saw only me.  My perspective was narrowed by those walls I had been building.  I did not see God in me or the love of Christ that was all around me.

Through the prayers and help of many, I was able to get a good job.  Then the day after I found out I had gotten the job, again the bottom fell out.  Janet was eating lunch with my sister in-law when she lost consciousness and could not be awakened.  The emergency responders had to call in a life support helicopter to rush her to a trauma hospital.  I was driving to meet them for lunch and I saw them place Janet in the helicopter and leave.  All I could do was pray and follow.

Janet was flown to the Schumpert Medical Center, a Catholic Hospital in Shreveport.  When they let me see her, she was awake.  I again felt an absence of God and that inner darkness.  Emergency room, helicopter life flight, emergency doctors, neurologist, now what was I going to do?  When I got the bill, it was devastation.  I was directed to the director of the hospital a sister who told me not to worry.  She asked if I we were Catholic.  Yes, I answered.  She prayed for my family and told me to speak with my priest.  I was such a good Catholic; I didn’t even know the priest name.

God does not expect us to be perfect and without faults.  God just expects us to keep trying never giving up in our spiritual fight.  I could have but I never did.

My wife began to have seizures and these scared me.  I turned to the only help I really knew.  Many nights as she would have seizures, I would sit beside her, place my hands on her and pray. I would ask God for help and to give me the strength to take care of my wife.  But God does not work our demanded schedules.

God’s miracles sometimes happen in ways that we do not see.  My job started and it provided medical benefits.  Janet could afford to go to specialist.  Then my children were born.  I would hold them and pray for them to be safe and healthy.  I turned everything that was important to me, my wife and my children, over to God’s hands.  All the prayers and turning everything over to God worked miracles in me.

I had many people praying for me.  Prayers came from my mother and mother in-law, relatives and my church family, priests and religious sisters and a bishop.  Always praying for me was my wife.  Even though I prayed with my whole heart, I still had that feeling of the absence of God.

Prayers are simple acts of love that bring true happiness.  It had been a long time since I had truly felt close to God.  It had been almost 20 years that I had felt that absence, since I was a teenager and now I was in my thirties.  I had become active in my small Catholic community.  I always went to mass.  When my oldest daughter was preparing for her first communion, I told my wife I wanted to make my first communion at the same time. 

With Janet behind me like she had always been, I walked forward.  I was behind my daughter and five other first graders making first communion.  The Priest held the Eucharist before me and said “The Body of Christ.”  With Christ on my tongue, the darkness left.

Faith and Trust

Genesis 12:1-4a; , Psalm 33:4-5,18-20,22;  Timothy 1:8b-10; Matthew 17:1-9

This week’s readings teach about living in faith and trust.  To be truly alive, to live truly in love, a person needs to listen to God’s call. Following this call must be done in faith and trust.  Following His call opens us to God's purpose and plan.  This is where a person can truly find blessings and happiness. 

Christians hear this call in Christ.  After Jesus’ transfiguration, the voice from the cloud said to the disciples, "Listen to him!"  Listen to what he is saying, Listen to Christ’s call to your heart.

God is always calling us; God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will man (humanity) find the truth and happiness that he never stops searching for (CCC 27).  He called “Where are you?” in the Garden when Adam and Eve hid from him.  Even in our human failings, God is always calling.

God's plan for this world since He created and made man the principal being was to share His own eternal happiness with him.  This plan is  found in the call of Abram.  Abram was a pagan living in Mesopotamia.  God called Abram and convinced him that God alone was the true God.  God alone should be served. This calling had to be a powerful experience because Abram left everything; family, home, and country for God’s call.  This was an act of faith and trust.  In was in this act that Abram would be blessed.  Abram became Abraham and received blessings and happiness. 

The passage from Timothy picks up the message of being called.  Paul explains that the call to be a Christian is not based on our merits.  We are called in God’s purpose and plan just like when He called Abram, the pagan.  This purpose and plan is now found in Jesus Christ and accomplished thorough the strength of faith and trust.  God's purpose and plan is unchanged and unchangeable. In Christ, His plan would come to all.

This introduces the theme of the transfiguration, in which Jesus is manifested as the Savior who brings God’s purpose and plan into the world.  The voice from above says “Listen to him.”   Listen because Christ brings God's purpose and plan to the world.  It is found in Christ’s faith and trust of the Father.  Jesus Christ calls us to the same.  He calls with a reassuring touch to our hearts, “Get up, and do not be afraid.”  In the transfiguration, Jesus showed how we are to let go of where we are and leads us to a new place of blessing of happiness.

No matter how much humanity thinks otherwise, all our vision is limited by the boundaries of human experience.  An experience enclosed by our imperfection, suffering, and sadness; but, in God’s purpose and plan we are all called to blessings and happiness.  In Jesus, we can find the glory that is ours to come. It is God’s purpose and plan, the gift found in blessings and happiness to those who listen to His call with faith and trust. 

Do we serve God or Do we Serve Ourselves?

Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 

Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17

Romans 5:12-19

Matthew 4:1-11

Who do you serve?  Bob Dylan sings: 

". . . you’re gonna have to serve somebody. 

Yes indeed, you're gonna have to serve somebody.  

It may be the devil or it maybe the Lord,

But you're gonna have to serve somebody."

In the modern world, people take temptation lightly.  In the Bible, the temptations are usually more serious than just being tempted by a fancy dessert.  In these readings are two separate examples of temptation with consequences that has affected  each of our lives and salvation. 

Temptation is enticement.  An enticement focused on self and ego.  In the face of temptation, Adam and Eve chose to put themselves first instead of the wishes of God.  They fell to temptation.  Adam and Eve had everything but they failed to resist the temptation of the one thing they did not possess. 

Since, Adam and Eve did not resist temptation, the consequences have been felt by humanity for many lifetimes. It made them realize their human weaknesses and it separated them and us from God. 

The second temptation story tests the weakness of humanity as well. Despite his divinity, Jesus was in total acceptance of his humanness.  He entered so deeply into this humanness that all he could do against temptation was abandon his human weaknesses to the divine will of the one who sent him.

Jesus Christ in his humanity did resist temptation and gave  the promise of a new life.  Adam and Eve represent every man and every woman.  They begin a history of human weakness which brings sin and death.  However, Christ gives us a new beginning.  A history that has life and righteousness.  The problem is we are more often going to be like Adam and Eve, even though we are called to be more like Christ.

The Psalm points out the issue of temptation as something we may not understand. “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”  It is not a sin based on shame but pride. 

Both of these temptations could be restated, who you gonna serve?  Will you serve the self-centered sin of our ego.  The sin of denying our need for God. The other choice is the love that is God. Who you gonna serve?

Love, Patience and Mardi Gras Music (?)

The Thursday after Ash Wednesday, I was sitting in a coffee shop with a friend of mine in Covington, Louisiana.  We enjoyed the coffee, friendship, and atmosphere.  Overhead the festive jazz of New Orleans and Mardi Gras still played through the speakers.  A well coiffed and finely dressed lady approached us.  She wore a nice dark pants suit, high heels, and what appeared to be expensive jewelry.  Her look did not portend her future oration. 

It began, “Do you gentlemen like Mardi Gras music?”  And, she appeared to be holding flyers that are used to announce music venues in her hand.

My friend Rusty, a resident of the area, quickly answered “yes.”  She gave him a flyer and then began a machine gun like rapid fire apostletizing.  

“Do you believe the Jesus is coming again?  He will come in three years.  The world is about to come under attack by the Antichrist.  A new computer is being developed that can bypass every password; this will begin the totalitarian dictatorship of the Antichrist.  We will be required to have numeric codes on our foreheads and on our hands. This will happen within three years and Jesus will come at that time!!” 

Then, she abruptly stopped, turned around and left.  There was no time to ask questions, discuss her statements, or extrapolate a reply.

I wanted to challenge her. But I remembered that Christ died for all, both the knowledgeable and the weak. God has patience and love for all; even those whose search has lead them on a different road.  Christ is their persistent beacon of return. This should be our example of love and patience

Rusty who has searched through the Catholic, Baptist and Assembly of God churches, look at me and said, “That was strange.  I don’t think I have ever read about computers in the Bible.”  Then he added, “and what about the Mardi Gras music.”