Monthly Archives: July 2009

Reflecting on John 6:1-15

We just got home from our annual San Diego vacation at my sister’s house, and I’m thinking about the way some things just want to multiply over and over again.  Like love, for example.

Mollie and John with two of their angel grandkids

Mollie and John met before Thanksgiving in their freshman year in high school in 1964, and that was that.  When he was only fourteen and way too cool to take the bus, John walked―yes―seven miles from his house to ours on Saturdays and Sundays to see my sister.  They ignored all wise counsel and got married one year out of high school.  They made a budget and have stuck to it every day for forty years.  They joyfully (and frugally) raised three smart, accomplished daughters.

They’ve been faithful Catholics all their lives and are at the center of the social justice programs in the amazingly active San Diego diocese.  John has now served as the foreman for 190 house-builds in Tijuana.  That’s almost four straight years of weekends in Mexico, in the heat, all because of love.

Their tiny basket, begun many years ago, continues to be taken and blessed, broken and shared.  It’s a mathematical miracle, this multiplication stuff.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What good work in your life just keep bearing fruit?

Reflecting on Mark 6:30-34

What a relief it must be for a sheep to be in the care of a good shepherd.  More than any other livestock, sheep require meticulous, daily care.  Looking at any sheep ranch it is immediately clear whether the shepherd is caring for the sheep.  Are they plump and healthy?  Their shepherd is grazing them on lush, green pastures.  Are they calm?  That means that they are washing in clean, restful waters, for sheep cannot hold themselves up in fast-moving waters and they become quickly agitated and fearful.

Are their eye sockets clear? Since they can’t clear the gunk out of them themselves, how blessed they are to have a shepherd who takes each of them gently in his arms at the end of the day and clears their eyes by anointing them with oil.  Are they able to be herded, especially through dark valleys, without becoming panicked and getting lost, or even attacked by wild animals?  They fear no evil, for their shepherd is guiding them with a careful rod and staff.

And just in case any evil shepherds try to steal them, they each are branded on the ear with the sign of their good shepherd.  The world can see, by looking at them, whose mark they bear.  Lucky sheep.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Can the world see, by looking at you, that you are marked by the sign of the cross?

Reflecting on Mark 6:7-13

The ancient world was a dangerous place.  When Jesus sent the Twelve out, two by two, he instructed them to take nothing with them that could have given them any kind of security on the road.  They were going to be completely at the mercy of those who extended hospitality towards them.

The Jesuits have a similar experience during their novitiates.  They are sent out, alone, to fend for themselves for a few days in a city or area that is new to them.  Have you ever tried it?  I took a class downtown at Emily Griffith Opportunity School several summers ago.  I locked my wallet in my scooter―I didn’t want all the “street people” bugging me for money―but when I got out of class, and the school was closed, and it was boiling hot outside and I had no water, my scooter wouldn’t start.  And within minutes I became one of those beggars, asking for help.  It’s amazing how quickly all the things we thought could keep us secure can fall away, and we see how truly dependent upon the Body we have always been.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to depend on the kindness of strangers?

Reflecting on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

His grace is sufficient for you

This weekend, as we celebrate our Independence Day with hot dogs and fireworks, it’s good to remember the founders of our great nation.  They endured the sweltering Philadelphia summers, holed up in airless committee meetings decked out in their suits, leggings, and powdered wigs, pounding out the tenants of the Declaration of Independence to which Thomas Jefferson would put such majestic and inflammatory words.  And more than just write it, they signed it, big enough for King George to read it without his spectacles.  They knew they were making history, and the believers among them trusted that it was God who had given them the grace for that good work.

Last Monday, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the international Year of Paul came to an end.  He, too, was a “founder”― a radical religious leader who had come to the extraordinary conclusion that salvation, independence from the tyranny of sin, was available to every person.  His letters were a Declaration of Independence for all time, and he backed them up with a lifetime of suffering, ending with the final, fatal sting of Nero’s sword.  God’s grace was sufficient for him, and is sufficient for us too.

St. Paul, that orthodox, kosher-keeping Jew, would probably eat a hot dog at the Fourth of July party.  He understood true freedom.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

How will you trust in God’s sufficient grace this week?