Showing posts with label Lenten reflections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lenten reflections. Show all posts

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Forty six, Holy Saturday, Jesus can be our coach.

My Reflections...: Reflection for Saturday April 20: The Easter ...

Day Forty six, Holy Saturday
Jesus can be our coach.

Luke 24: 1 - 12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 

Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

The Romans killed Jesus and His disciples took Jesus’ body down from the cross and put it in a burial cave. And that was that. Jesus' physical body was deader than a doornail.

It is Jesus’ female disciples who go the first day of the week, which in that culture would have been on Sunday after Jesus died and was buried on Friday, to anoint the body with spices but when they arrive and look for the body it is not there. Where did the body go seems to be the question of the moment.

According to Luke’s telling some angelic phantoms appear and tell them that Jesus prophesied his own “rise again” which we interrupt as his bodily resurrection since there is no body there. When the female disciples go and tell the male disciples the males don’t believe them. Peter has to go and check himself and when he doesn’t find the body the story tells us Peter went home amazed.

At this point in the story, what happened to the body is the mystery. Cultural Christians get caught up in explaining the mystery of what happened to the body and this focus misses the point of Jesus’ teaching, arrest, execution, and the physical body disappearing.

Losing track of the physical body of Jesus has little or nothing to do with anything. What is significant is how Jesus died. And the story of the so-called passion, the crucifixion scenario, was that Jesus forgave His executioners. Jesus spiritually and psychologically rose above His attack and torture. It was in His forgiving of his executioners, and those who conspired to have them engage in this activity, that Jesus demonstrates the power of rising above the illusory actions on the path of the ego and focus on what’s really important which is the path of the Spirit which is unconditional love.

What happened to the body is beside the point. What is of real significance is what happened to Jesus’ spirit. Jesus rises above the injustice, the pain, the suffering, the physical dying itself, and forgives. Would that we all could be such big persons. Would that we could follow Jesus' example and rise above and forgive those who attack us, are unfair to us, abuse us. Jesus is demonstrating, in the way He died, that He is not a victim, that He had the power to choose how He would respond to the abuse He was subject to, and He chose to forgive rather than hate or freeze in fear.

Today is the last day of Lent. Lent has been about renouncing the path of the ego so that we can embark on and walk the path of the Spirit. This effort, this intention, the practices we have engaged in do not end here, but have only just begun. Lent has been the pre-season practice and warm up, and now we are ready to begin the season and play the game of life at a whole new level. Hopefully, we can move from the minor leagues to the majors, and we can succeed with Jesus as our coach.

Friday, April 10, 2020

Lenten Relfections, Day Forty five, Good Friday, Is There Any Hope For Us?

Jesus Is Arrested in Gethsemane | Children's Bible Lessons

Day Forty five, Good Friday
Is there any hope for us?

John 18: 1-19, 42

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” 

They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 

 Jesus replied, “I am he.” 

Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesush said to them, “I am he,”  they stepped back and fell to the ground. 

Again he asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 

Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.” This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken, “I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.” 

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave's name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 

So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people. Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?”

He said, “I am not.” 

Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself. Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.

The time has come. The s**t has hit the fan. The Chief Priests have had an arrest warrant out for Jesus and a bounty has been placed on him. Judas betrays Jesus and the police come for him.

Peter, impetuously tries to defend Jesus, cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus tells Peter to knock it off. And the armed guards of the high priest take Jesus off to the high priest’s courtyard where Peter, for the first time, denies that he knows Jesus.

Don’t we follow Peter’s example and deny Jesus all the time? Every time we choose the ego over the Spirit we deny Jesus’ teachings. Every time we are confronted with the choice of  looking out for ourselves or doing what Love would have us do, we usually look out for ourselves. If the scenario weren’t so deadly, it would be comedic.

All through Lent we have been asked to make a choice ten or more times a day between the ego and the spirit and if we are honest we have to admit that most of the time we’ve chosen the ego. We’ve done this out of habit more than making a conscious choice and yet this is what this whole story is trying to teach us - that we have a choice between the ego and the spirit.

Jesus chooses the spirit while Judas, Peter, the high priest and his henchmen have chosen the ego. Which would we have chosen? Which do we choose many times every day?

Jesus tells his disciples to stand down. Things will be all okay in the end, but the drama of the ego has to play out. It is in pointing out this choice that we call this day, “Good” Friday. It is good, indeed, to know that the suffering, the tragedy, the angst of the ego is illusory and not really real. It is stuff we must deal with and are challenged by which leads us to have to decide if we will think of ourselves as victims of circumstance or agents of miraculous transformation in Spirit.

We are seeing what choice Jesus made. If He can do it, maybe there’s hope for us.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Forty four, Maundy Thursday, Washing people's feet.


Day Forty four, Maundy Thursday
Washing people’s feet.

John 13: 1-15

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 

Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 

Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” 

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 

Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord— and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

If you are to actually follow the teachings of Jesus, you are to wash the feet of others. Jesus is very clear in His teaching. He even acts it out. The teaching put simply is “Love as I have loved” which means to love one another.

But the ego doesn’t like unity. The ego likes to separate and divide and make special so that there is a pecking order where one’s ego can be bolstered by diminishing another. We do this many times a day, every day, every time we make a judgment and determine that another is “less than” they should be and in calling this a “fact” we make ourselves feel better because we think we are better than them.

What Jesus does on what we now call Maundy Thursday is counterintuitive. Peter highlights this by saying we would never allow Jesus to wash his feet, but Jesus tells him unless he allows this they cannot be one. Peter then says, “Well in that case, wash me all over from head to toe.”

What Jesus is demonstrating is the renunciation of the ego and the embracing of the Spirit. This is the main message of Lent. This is what Lent is all about. You will know that you have had a good Lent if your ego is a little weaker and your Spirit has been invigorated. During this Lenten Season have you become more loving, more generous, more empathic, more peaceful, happier? If so, you have had a good Lent. If not, maybe you would like to try again.

Renouncing the path of the ego and embracing the path of the Spirit does not end when Lent is over, it is the work of a lifetime. You can continue by washing a few people’s feet. And whose feet should you wash? Anyone that life puts in your path. Start today. Start right now.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Forty three, Wednesday of Holy Week, Awakening to peace and bliss.

Spy Wednesday Gospel Matthew 26:14-25... - Clonard Monastery ...

Day Forty three, Wednesday of Holy Week
Awakening to peace and bliss.

Matthew 26: 14 - 25

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” 

They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him. On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” 

He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” 

So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal. When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” 

And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” 

He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” 

Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” 

He replied, “You have said so.”

The way John tells the story he is blunt and to the point. Jesus was a wanted man by the Chief Priests and Judas became the bounty hunter. For Judas it was all about the money so the story goes and whether there was more to his disloyalty and betrayal we can only speculate. Judas obviously loved money more than Jesus and for most cultural Christians the same is true today. Some popular Christian celebrity preachers even capitalize on this desire of the ego by preaching what is called the “prosperity gospel,” meaning that God’s favor is manifested by enabling people to obtain lots of money.

Jesus knew that His teaching of God’s unconditional love and the innate holiness of every human being was falling on deaf ears. The situation, though, was not only the ignoring with deaf ears by those in power, but the vengeance to attack, and silence by killing. Jesus, apparently, could feel it in the air and knew that His days were numbered.

Did Jesus silence Himself and drop His teaching? No. He was true to Himself and to the God He believed He was working for and moved ahead anyway. This takes tremendous integrity, courage, fortitude, and mindfulness. Jesus manifested clearly His choice and power to walk the path of the Spirit instead of the path of the ego.

It is Jesus' example which motivates and vivifies the purpose of Lent which is to remind us that the path of the ego will not make us happy but only lead to betrayal, disillusionment, suffering, and death while the path of the Spirit leads to an awakening to peace and bliss.

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Forty two, Tuesday of Holy Week, Unconditional love is found on the right frequency.

YEAR A: HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK (1) - Catholic For Life

Day Forty two, Tuesday of Holy Week
Unconditional love is to be found on the right frequency.

John 13: 21 - 38

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” 

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples— the one whom Jesus loved— was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” 

Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” 

So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot.After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” 

Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. 

So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” 

Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.” 

Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 

Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.”

This is the saddest part of the gospel story as it depicts the betrayal by Jesus’ closest friends. Everyone has been betrayed by a friend, a lover, a spouse, a boss, a teacher, a pastor. The expression that gets used is to have your heart broken. The body is nothing, but the heart is something far more important.

We all have been betrayed many times, and we have betrayed others. The breach in trust is the biggest sin in the world. It is the separation and divisiveness of rapport and unity. It cuts us to the quick. Conditional love usually ends badly.

Juxtapose betrayal and breach of trust with Jesus’ injunction to love one another. Jesus says it is this unity, this trust, this rapport with one another which will be the sign by which other people will know that they are His disciples. Jesus is talking about unconditional love which is very rare in human experience.

We are moved by compassion, generosity, cooperation, support, helpfulness, understanding. We are distressed by judgment, stinginess, stubbornness, sabotage, attack, and calumny.

As we come to the end of this Lenten Season, we once again are reminded of the dissatisfaction, pain, suffering, and agony of the world of the ego. Special relationships where we burden another with the responsibility for our happiness always fail in the end because we are looking for love in all the wrong places. Holy relationships are based on unconditional love, a love which is our natural inheritance. It is a love we have forgotten as we have become socialized and conditioned into believing that happiness is to be found by putting our faith in the world of the ego. Unconditional love is emanating throughout creation and we can experience it if we tune in on the right frequency.

Monday, April 6, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Forty one, Monday of Holy Week, Love or Money?

Pin on religious art

Day Forty one, Monday of Holy Week
Love or money?

John 12: 1-11

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “ Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” ( He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 

Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” 

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.

The plot thickens as Judas has issues with Mary doing nice things for Jesus and now the Chief Priests want to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus because Lazarus’ life is a sign of Jesus’ good works and because of these good works people believed in HIm.

Isn’t that often the case that when people do good things for others, there are always some people who resent it whether they are jealous, envious, competitive, and/or fearful that they are losing control and dominance.

When people do good things, there will always be people who want to shoot them down, but you should do good things anyway.

Jesus is demonstrating to Judas that love is more important than social activism. Paul has told us that social activism without love are dead works.

Does Mary know that Jesus is going to die and she is giving Him an early send off anointing HIs Body with fragrant oils? This is one of those stories where the reader or listener can read all kinds of things into it. Are you on the side of Judas or the side of Mary? How would you like to be in Lazarus’ position?

At this time of Lent we are reminded to renounce the things of the ego and to pursue the things of the Spirit. Simply put, what is more important: love or money?

Sunday, April 5, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Forty, Palm Sunday, Journeying through Holy Week

Palm Sunday 2020 - Calendar Date

Day Forty, Palm Sunday
Journeying through Holy Week takes us to Truth.

Matthew 21: 1-11

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 

This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, “ Tell the daughter of Zion, Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” 

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The crowds were asking then as they do today in regard to Jesus, “Who is this guy?”

Some were saying that He was a prophet, but many perceived Him as a trouble maker. Some of my acquaintances today say that He was a revolutionary and a terrorist.

Jesus is the screen onto which people project all kinds of things. What people project tells us more about their minds than who Jesus was, and still is in spirit as a character in a world gripping drama which has been repeatedly told for over 2,000 years.

Palm Sunday is the first day of holy week in the Christian tradition which starts with Jesus’ acclamation and idealization and then descends into ignominy, suffering, and death, and ends with the resurrection of the Spirit into hope for Love, peace, and bliss.

The Lenten season is about giving up the things of the ego for the things of the Spirit. Palm Sunday, paradoxically, can be interpreted as the glorification of the ego. This idealization and glorification of the ego gets quickly flipped on its head as fear and hatred take over and Jesus is arrested, tortured, and killed. How does a person in the minds of the crowd go so quickly from hero to villain?

The world of the ego is a fickle place and reflective people come to the point where they understand it is not to be trusted. There must be something better to put one’s faith in. This question of what’s better leads to a search. We are looking for something beyond the world of the ego and this search takes us to the realm of the Spirit. This is the realm that the story about Jesus finally takes us if we choose to go there.

We come to realize that we are not bodies. We are not bodies with spirits, but spirits with bodies and it is the Spirit that ultimately is where peace, bliss, and Love lie. Holy week demonstrates this truth if only we can discern it..

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Lenten Reflections, Day Thirty nine, Sixth Saturday of Lent, "What would Love have me do?"

John 11: 45- 56 Archives - PottyPadre

Day Thirty nine, Sixth Saturday of Lent
What would Love have me do?

John 11: 45-57

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” 

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” 


He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. 

So from that day on they planned to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples. 

Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?” Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.

According to John, Jesus is in deep shit. The Jews have enough trouble with the Roman occupation and don’t need one of their own stirring up more trouble leading to the Romans cracking down on them even more. So the boss of the Jews, Caiaphas, decides that it's better to kill Jesus to shut Him up than to give reason to the Romans to impose even stricter control over them.

Jesus, according to John, high tails it out of town. But with Passover coming the question arises as to whether He will  come back for the ritual celebration or not?

Caiaphas and his buddies put out the hit order that if Jesus were to show His face back in town, people should let them know so they could arrange to have Jesus arrested and have Him killed..

Things have not changed with human nature in 2,000 years. Those in power are still willing to sacrifice a few poor, oppressed, and easily victimized people to maintain their power and control. It’s not so much a matter of sacrificing a few for the good of the country as it is the powerful being able to stay in power. This is the dynamic of national war making and the dynamic of mob control of corrupt and lucrative enterprises.

As we have been studying this Lenten season, this scenario is a major dynamic of the world of the ego which seeks power at others expense. Once this scenario unfolds we have created a world of fear and attack. Jesus is operating in quite a different world, the world of the Spirit, which is the world of Love. The world of the Spirit, though, cannot be entered when one is still in the world of the ego. The world of the ego must be renounced and given up.

Only when we are liberated from the conditioning and socialization of the world of the ego, are we free to enter into the world of the Spirit. Jesus’ life is a demonstration of this “truth” but few people apprehend it.

We always have a choice. We can choose the world of the ego or the world of the Spirit. That choice becomes manifest when we answer the question, “What would Love have me do?”

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