Reflecting on 2 Cor. 12: 7-10

Okay, St. Paul, I admit it. I’m curious. What exactly WAS your “thorn in the flesh”? I mean, you brought it up. It can now be admitted as evidence. What so tormented you that you begged the Lord three times to take it from you?

Some contemporary cultural cues set in. Hmm. Did you have an eating addiction? Could you not leave the hummus and pita alone? It seems unlikely, since you voluntarily traveled thousands of miles away from the cities that were a secure source of food in order to bring Jesus to the most remote parts of the Roman Empire. I need to know where the refrigerator is at all times, but you willingly put long distances between yourself and the comforts of food for the entire second half of your life.

Or maybe you were lonely, and were tempted to leave the mission fields behind in order to have a wife and family. That’s a significant “thorn.” You worked with married couples throughout the empire, and must have envied the consolation they provided for each other. And you were always meeting and working with women who have no husbands! Lydia, for example, was a successful businesswoman and your first convert in Europe. At her insistence you stayed at her house after you baptized her. Was it love for her about which you begged to be free?

Or did you struggle with alcoholism? Were there three episodes during your missionary life when you over-indulged, and then begged to never touch another drop? If so, you are in the company of millions and millions of people who have “taken the pledge” too.

I find it immensely helpful just knowing that you struggled with something. Thanks for sharing.

What successes have you had against your own “thorn in the flesh”?

Reflecting on Mark 5: 21-43

Ah. Here it is again. Every time it shocks me to the core. St. Mark gives us a fascinating account, loaded with hidden meanings, of the healing of two females within a few moments of each other.

Find yourself somewhere in this story. I believe that is exactly what Mark intended.

Jesus meant to stay by the sea. But the synagogue official, terrified of his daughter’s sudden illness, begged him to change his plans. You’ve been there too, haven’t you? You’ve allowed your time and your plans to be changed on a dime when someone has needed you.

And perhaps you’ve also been the frantic relative, begging Jesus to heal your loved one. There is no terror like that of a parent whose child is desperately ill. Have you been there?

And I’ll bet you’ve also been that hemorrhaging woman, exhausted from chronic illness, worn out from endless doctor’s visits, still in pain, still a burden to your loved ones. Maybe it’s that nagging back pain, or arthritis, or the old football injury that makes your mornings so painful. You know what it’s like to long for healing.

And haven’t you also been the suffering child? Was there a time when you were miserable with illness, and your parents dropped everything to get you to the doctor? I will never forget the earache that came on during fourth-grade long division. (Both memories can still give me a stomachache.) Whoosh came my mom into class. Whoosh came the doctor, and the blessed shot, and blessed relief.

I think that Jesus, the Healer, has changed his plans today, and is heading your way. Go out to meet him.

How do you position yourself in order to be healed?

Reflecting on Mk. 4:35-41

Some of my happiest moments in recent memory have been during the extravagant rains and thunderstorms in Colorado these past many weeks.  Is there anything as heavenly as being snug in bed when the skies open, and thunder roars, and lightning turns the dark sky to mid-day, then back again?

It’s thrilling to stand out on the porch and watch gallons of water pour down on our green, green lawn.  The neighbors all wave and point to the skies. Nature is so cool, isn’t it?

Except when it isn’t. Except when floods roar through narrow mountain canyons, or hurricanes break levees, or tropical storms cause biblical mudslides, or earthquakes trigger tsunamis that drown tens of thousands of people.

The ancients had it right. The sea isn’t that charmingly domesticated lake where we take the family vacation. The sea is chaos, and rage, and is stunningly indifferent to the terrors one might feel, say, on a boat on the Galilee when a violent squall sends waves crashing over the side.

We can stand in the safety of our covered porches and glory in the wildness of creation, but one day our own sufferings will send the raging sea straight at us. When the tsunamis of uncontrolled pain, or heartbreaking  loss, or the indignities of lonely old age sweep over us like a bitter wave over the sides of our boats, we’ll  do what the disciples did.

We’ll call out to the One who knows our pain. He who participated in our suffering by experiencing the chaos of the cross, and through it became our safe port in the storm, is the reason we know for sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

In what ways do you sense the nearness of God in the midst of fear?

Reflecting on Mark 4:26-34

This is how it is with the kingdom of God. When morning dawns, with birdsong and gracious light, we say “Thank you.”  At mid-day, looking over the tasks ahead (and the health we have to perform them) we bow and say “Thank you.” At night, when the cool air and the evening rains restore us and the earth, we lift up our hearts and say “Thank you.”

And so the years unfold.  In childhood, we exult in wonder at the chick breaking open the egg, at the blade that pulls out of the earth and into the sun, at the deliciousness of swimming pools, and wet grass, and fluffy white clouds telling stories in the sky.

As we age, we partner with God in the re-creation of these gifts. We take careful watch over our food sources, always grateful, always conservative. We revel in the beauty of the earth.  We bring children into this radiant world, and plant our grateful hearts into theirs.

And when we come to die, when we rush through that tunnel towards the Light, we remember every delicious ear of corn, every velvet summer night, every sweet baby’s kiss, every beautiful song we ever heard. We remember the faces of all of our funny and kind friends, and, if we were so blessed in this life―for we will all surely be blessed in the next―the inexpressible bliss of our beloved’s arms around ours.

As we are embraced by the Light we melt into the warmth of the endless ocean of love that surrounds us. The fruit of our lives is an eternity of wonder.

How? We do not know. But it begins and ends with “Thank you.”

What is the most wonder-full thing in your life right now?

Is it wrong that what I most remember about my First Communion is what we had to eat afterwards? I have lots of pictures of my beautiful dress, but I wish someone had taken a picture of the great food at the party after Mass. Unforgettable!

After Mass, Sister Vivian led our huge First Communion class into the school cafeteria, magically transformed with balloons and beautiful tablecloths. There were little paper cups of mints and nuts at each place, pancakes and scrambled eggs, tiny glasses of orange juice, and even little cups of hot chocolate. Heaven.

The truth is, I remember the food at all the sacraments of my youth. At my baby brother’s baptism party, held in our garage, we had platters of sloppy joes and chips, and that most blessed of childhood memories, chocolate cake and homemade ice cream. Confirmation was spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, brownies and ice cream, and Shirley Temples for the new soldiers in Christ.

Don’t you just love sacraments? Just thinking about them makes me hungry.

I hope you feel hungry today on this great feast day of the Body and Blood of Jesus. The Eucharist is the Mother of all sacraments. And guess what? It relies on food―real Bread, real Wine―to make Jesus Really Present.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink (John 6:55).

I knew it at age six, walking into that lovely cafeteria with beaming parents and sweet pancakes. I’ve known it at every sacramental party of my life.

It’s all about food―real food that sustains real people, hungry for a relationship with the Real Jesus.

Sacraments make me hungry. They’re supposed to. Happy Feast Day, Church.

What is your favorite memory of food at a sacramental celebration?

The best things come in threes, it seems to me.  Let’s see. The sun, the moon, and the stars all seem to go together.  They are all beautiful, and give light, and fascinate us.

Families come in threes. It takes a mother and a father to create the third person in the family, the child, who is the combination of both of them, with about a billion individual characteristics thrown in for good measure.

The day is divided into three sections: morning, noon, and night. Our basic necessities seem easily divided into food, clothing, and shelter.  St. Paul noted that the greatest virtues are three: faith, hope, and charity. There were three magi who sought the Christ Child, and at his most intimate moments with the Father, Jesus invited Peter, James and John to be with him.

Time is divided into past, present, and future. We enjoy breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  And at those meals we generally use a knife, a fork, and a spoon.

One voice is beautiful, but add another on top and a third underneath and you’ve got a trio―God’s own music.  Think of the Andrews Sisters. The Three Tenors.  Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. Now there is some great music.

It takes three branches of our government to keep the country from imploding. And, of course, it took three ships sailing the ocean blue to “discover” this land in 1492. That’s right, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

This feast of the Holy Trinity just resonates with us because our human clock seems to be set for threes. When we talk about God, we somehow think in threes.

I’m hungry. How about a BLT?

Do you have some significant threes in your life?

Hey, Holy Spirit, come over here.

You created this world, and all we hold dear.

We live in deep gratitude, but just now and then.

Come, Holy Spirit, renew us again.

First, give us new eyes to see how our sin

Has helped lay the groundwork for evil to win.

We gasp at a distance at terrible things

But won’t own the deeds our own apathy brings.

The suffering in Syria, the graves in Iraq,

And so many martyrs, we try not to keep track.

Come, Holy Spirit, breathe peace to the world.

And please, Holy Spirit, #BringBackOurGirls.

We weep for the suffering lives in Nepal.

Oh hover there, Spirit, and comfort them all.

And for plane wrecks, and train wrecks, and violent deaths,

Oh Spirit, draw near with Your soul-stirring Breath.

Pour into us, Spirit, infuse us with grace.

We promise again to stay true to the race.

Hold us and mold us, create us anew.

There’s no stopping what those who live for You will do.

Reflecting on Acts 1: 1-11

We’re not supposed to leave Jerusalem. We don’t know why. We are hankering to go, to get out of here, where they murdered the prophets and crucified the Savior. We want to do what he told us to do before he was taken up. We want to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth, and we are ready to go NOW.

But he ordered us to stay here in Jerusalem until we are “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” Whatever that means. We are terrified to stay. We spend the nights in sleeplessness, expecting the swords and torches of the Romans, coming to take us away as they did our Christ.

But they haven’t come. Instead, we spend our time remembering him. We talk about our years with him. We whisper in astonishment at the signs that we saw. We nod our heads when one of us says, “Did we really see those five thousand people eat their fill from five loaves and two fish?” “Was that really Jesus on the Galilee that night of the storm?” “Did he really die that day on Calvary?” “And was the tomb truly empty when the women visited it the day after the Sabbath?”

His mother is here with us, staying in the upper room. She wants to hear the stories again and again. And she has many of her own, stories we hadn’t heard before. On the night he was born in Bethlehem, for example, angels filled the sky with singing.

Is that what we are waiting for? Angels in the sky? We don’t know. Jerusalem will be packed next week for the great festival of Pentecost. Maybe something will happen then.

What special intention are you praying for during this Pentecost novena?

Reflecting on Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48

Today was the greatest day of my life. Even though I am a Roman centurion and not a Jew, I love the God of Abraham, and I longed to learn more about this Jesus whom the entire territory is talking about.

When the angel appeared to me and told me about a man named Simon Peter who was staying in Joppa, I hoped that this was the same Peter who was the great apostle of Jesus.  I sent messengers to ask him to come here to Caesarea.

When he entered my house I was overcome. I fell to my knees, but he lifted me up and said, “I too am only a man.” So this was Peter. He possessed great power, and a quiet strength born of great suffering. I had prayed that the man whom the angel told me to summon was he. And now this legend, this man whose faith Jesus said he would build his church upon, was standing in my home.

And a Jew! Standing in the home of a Gentile! We were all in shock. As it turns out, he had just had a vision himself, just before my messengers arrived in Joppa. In his vision he saw animals of every kind, clean and unclean, and then God told him that all food was “clean,” and good to eat.

Everything we thought we knew about God has been turned upside down! From now on, the Jews don’t need to keep kosher dietary laws any more, and we Gentiles can be part of God’s salvation even though our men aren’t circumcised! Peter said, “I begin to see that God shows no partiality.”

And, one by one, we all began to see it too.

In what ways have you learned that God loves all people?

Reflecting on John 15: 1-8

It’s May. It took forever to get here, but the springtime feast of the senses is finally, gloriously underway.  The fragrance of the luscious apple blossoms makes a non-stop bike ride to the park impossible.  What sort of robot could catch a whiff of their perfume and not stop to take in that heavenly scent?

The branches are already heavy with blossoms. Soon, apples will begin to grow at the center of the flowers, and the buds will fall to the ground, turning the grass and gutters into a stunning sea of pink and white.  After the fruit is picked in the fall, the trees will appear naked as winter approaches. But that, like death itself, is an illusion. In fact, the buds for next year’s fruit will already be in place.

There’s something sad about seeing a flowering branch that has become separated from the rest of the tree.  Within days, without the nurture of the vine, it grows brown and old, good for nothing but the fire.

Jesus used this familiar image when, on the night before he died, he gathered his loved ones together and begged them to remain in him. He knew he was going to the Father, and he knew that they could still be nurtured and sustained by him by living in him. Only by separating themselves from intimacy with him would they grow bitter and old.

Resurrection, like a bud on a tree, is hiding in plain sight. When we remember him, and dwell in him, there he is in our midst. For he is the Vine who lives forever, and we who stay connected to him will bear great fruit.

What is your favorite Easter season flower?