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Meditation of the Day – God Wishes Us to be Meek
Morning Offering – The Patient and Humble Endurance of the Cross
“The patient and humble endurance of the cross—whatever nature it may be—is the highest work we have to do.”
— St. Katharine Drexel
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Daily Reflection – You Woke Up This Morning Because He Wanted You To
//Dynamic Catholic//
Minute Meditation – The Thread of Hope
“The same God who called Abraham and made him come down from his land without knowing where he should go is the same God who goes to the Cross in order to fulfill the promise that he made. He is the same God who in the fullness of time will make that promise a reality for all of us. What joins that first instance to this last moment is the thread of hope. Therefore, what joins my Christian life to our Christian life, from one moment to another, in order to always go forward— sinners, but forward—is hope. Yet, what gives us peace in the dark moments, in life’s darkest moments, is always hope. Hope does not disappoint: it is always there, silent, humble, but strong.”—Pope Francis
These powerful words from Pope Francis remind us that hope is one of three “theological virtues,” along with faith and love. With St. Paul, we believe that the greatest of these is love, but hope is the virtue that keeps us going when even love seems to fail. Sometimes our ordinary use of the word hope can reduce it to something like wishful thinking: I hope I pass this exam. I hope my test results are good. I hope my children will be happy and successful. We use the word for things that are out of our control. We use it for times when perhaps our efforts have fallen short. We use it for all the uncertainties in our daily lives. Pope Francis reminds us that the real source of our hope is always in God’s faithfulness and mercy. Abraham has always been the prime example of this kind of hope. He left everything to follow God’s call. We all have times in our lives when we, too, find ourselves going forth into the unknown darkness. In those times, hope in God’s promise is all we have to cling to—and cling we must, sometimes with only our fingertips. The image of hope keeping us from drowning can seem all too real at times when we are overwhelmed by life’s struggles: addiction, despair, depression, death. The theme of our Lenten reflections is hope. The hope of Lent is clearly Easter and the resurrection. But there’s a deeper hope that is with us each and every day, that knows no times or seasons. It’s the ground on which we stand, the bedrock of our foundation. That thread of hope runs strong and resilient through our lives, caught at each end by the grace of God’s merciful love.
— from the book The Hope of Lent: Daily Reflections from Pope Francis
by Diane M. Houdek
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Spiritual Vaccination
We have all seen the rod of Asclepius, or its common variation, the caduceus, on medical insignia throughout the world. It was the symbol of this Greek god of healing, but is also found here in our First Reading from the book of Numbers (21:4–9). It is a single or double serpent winding around a pole, and we are not sure if the Greeks or the Hebrews had it first. But surely its meaning was a universal discovery that today we would perhaps call vaccination! In short, “the cause is also the cure”! Who would have thought? It seems to be true both medically and psychologically. At any rate, we have Moses prescribing such medicine to the complaining Hebrews in the desert, who were being bit by winged/fiery serpents. The meaning and healing symbol returns again in John’s Gospel on many levels, all of them significant. The recurring phrase is, “the lifted up one.” It has now become a rallying cry for the Jesus who was raised up on the cross and thus “vaccinated us against” doing the same (3:13 and 19:37). Jesus being “lifted up” is offered as a healing icon of love to all of history (12:32), and finally, as a victory sign of the final resurrection and ascension of all the human ones, as is prefigured in today’s account about the archetypal “Human One,” Jesus (8:28). This is powerful material, just as vaccinations always are. We have a Divine Medicine brought down to a small but potent dosage so we can handle it and it can handle us! That is what true spiritual symbols always do. Remember what we said earlier in Lent: Any direct contact with God is like contact with an electric wire—it burns you unless you have some good filters and a very humble humanity to receive it. No wonder so many Catholics and Orthodox never tired of hanging images of the crucified Jesus in their homes and in their churches. We needed to “lift up” and “gaze upon” the transformative image just as Moses first did in the desert. It can and did and will change many lives and much of history.
— from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent
by Richard Rohr, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – Light is About Seeing Correctly
“I do not know whether [Jesus] is a sinner or not, I only know this much, I was once blind, and now I see.”—John 9:25
“I came into the world to divide it, to make the sightless see and to reveal to those who think they see it all that they are blind.”—John 9:39
Our lack of self-knowledge and our lack of wisdom make humans do very stupid and self-destructive things. Because humans cannot see their own truth very well, they do not read reality very well either. We all have our tragic flaws and blind spots. Humans always need more “light” or enlightenment about themselves and about the endless mystery of God. Here are some themes from today’s Gospel reading.
• The “man born blind” is the archetype for all of us at the beginning of life’s journey.
• The moral blame game as to why or who caused human suffering is a waste of time.
• The man does not even ask to be healed. It is just offered and given.
• Religious authorities are often more concerned about control and correct theology than actually healing people. They are presented as narrow and unloving people throughout the story.
• Many people have their spiritual conclusions before the facts in front of them. He is a predefined “sinner” and has no credibility for them.
• Belief in and love of Jesus come after the fact, subsequent to the healing. Perfect faith or motivation is not always a prerequisite for God’s action. Sometimes God does things for God’s own purposes.
• Spirituality is about seeing. Sin is about blindness, or as Saint Gregory of Nyssa will say, “Sin is always a refusal to grow.”
• The one who knows little, learns much (what we call “beginner’s mind”) and those who have all their answers already, learn nothing.
“God of all Light and Truth, just make sure that I am not a blind man or woman. Keep me humble and honest, and that will be more than enough work for you.”
— from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent
by Richard Rohr, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Saint of the Day – March 3rd
Katharine Drexel (November 26, 1858 – March 3, 1955)
If your father is an international banker and you ride in a private railroad car, you are not likely to be drawn into a life of voluntary poverty. But if your mother opens your home to the poor three days each week and your father spends half an hour each evening in prayer, it is not impossible that you will devote your life to the poor and give away millions of dollars. Katharine Drexel did that.
Born in Philadelphia in 1858, she had an excellent education and traveled widely. As a rich girl, Katharine also had a grand debut into society. But when she nursed her stepmother through a three-year terminal illness, she saw that all the Drexel money could not buy safety from pain or death, and her life took a profound turn.
Katharine had always been interested in the plight of the Indians, having been appalled by what she read in Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor. While on a European tour, she met Pope Leo XIII and asked him to send more missionaries to Wyoming for her friend Bishop James O’Connor. The pope replied, “Why don’t you become a missionary?” His answer shocked her into considering new possibilities.
Back home, Katharine visited the Dakotas, met the Sioux leader Red Cloud and began her systematic aid to Indian missions.
Katharine Drexel could easily have married. But after much discussion with Bishop O’Connor, she wrote in 1889, “The feast of Saint Joseph brought me the grace to give the remainder of my life to the Indians and the Colored.” Newspaper headlines screamed “Gives Up Seven Million!”
After three and a half years of training, Mother Drexel and her first band of nuns—Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored—opened a boarding school in Santa Fe. A string of foundations followed. By 1942, she had a system of black Catholic schools in 13 states, plus 40 mission centers and 23 rural schools. Segregationists harassed her work, even burning a school in Pennsylvania. In all, she established 50 missions for Indians in 16 states.
Two saints met when Mother Drexel was advised by Mother Cabrini about the “politics” of getting her order’s Rule approved in Rome. Her crowning achievement was the founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic university in the United States for African Americans.
At 77, Mother Drexel suffered a heart attack and was forced to retire. Apparently her life was over. But now came almost 20 years of quiet, intense prayer from a small room overlooking the sanctuary. Small notebooks and slips of paper record her various prayers, ceaseless aspirations, and meditations. She died at 96 and was canonized in 2000.
Reflection
Saints have always said the same thing: Pray, be humble, accept the cross, love and forgive. But it is good to hear these things in the American idiom from one who, for instance, had her ears pierced as a teenager, who resolved to have “no cake, no preserves,” who wore a watch, was interviewed by the press, traveled by train, and could concern herself with the proper size of pipe for a new mission. These are obvious reminders that holiness can be lived in today’s culture as well as in that of Jerusalem or Rome.
Sermon Notes – Maximizing the Minimum
“Maximizing the Minimum“
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
February 20 – 21, 2021
Gospel: Mark 1: 12-15
How can you love God more? How can you experience more of His love? The answer is really very simple. By loving yourself less. God is love Himself. He has no need of our love and is totally self-sufficient. But, God wants to give us His love. Unfortunately, God, being the perfection of all virtues, including politeness and courtesy, won’t break into our souls. We have to open our souls up to Him. If our souls are closed off by self-centeredness, He cannot come in. He wants to give us His immense love and to fill our souls completely with Himself.
We can grow in the love of God by taking on little penances and pious practices. Doing so will help, but two things are important. They have to be small, and they have to be practical. Too often, people say they will grow in the love of God by doing a lot of grandiose things. But, it’s impractical, because they won’t do it. Instead, take little steps. The first step to take is to realize that we need to improve. That’s actually a big step, because many people are satisfied with maximizing the minimums. “Father, I go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.” “I go to confession once a year.” “I don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent.” “I obey the Ten Commandments.” “I don’t rob banks.” Okay. But, there’s a lot more in the book our Lord tells us to do. You know that, right? We tend to maximize the minimums. “Father, I am good.” Well, I don’t know about that. The Lord said not to call anybody “good.” We are called to be perfect. That’s in the black part of the Bible, not the white part. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. “I’m here at Mass.” You are physically here but is your mind? Look! Squirrel. Distraction during prayer is normal; just come back to it.
Giving yourself totally over to God, to overcome self-centeredness is what we always must work toward. Our first parents disobeyed God, and we continue to do the same thing. “I won’t let God in until I need Him.” “I will only go to church if the Mass is in English, or Spanish, or Latin, and only if it’s at 12:00 on my day off, if I’m not too tired, or if it’s over by 5:30 because I have dinner reservations somewhere.” We use all these stipulations, and the Church has unfortunately bought into to it. “I will only go to confession if there are reconciliation rooms.” So, parishes have spent thousands of dollars creating reconciliation rooms. Come on! I hear confessions…I wish I heard a lot more.
We must take up our cross every day and follow Him. The ego is a terrible thing and destroys people. In any 12 Step program, you must have ego deflation at depth. Where did they get that I wonder. From the Catholic Church? Go figure. How do we overcome our ego and self-centeredness? By doing little things. “I need to pray more.” Well, then pray more. Say the rosary. By the time you get to Coy’s laundry mat or to the court house, you have plenty of time to say a decade of the rosary. There are five stop lights, so you have plenty of time to say it. You have to sit there anyway. You can’t zip right through the traffic lights, although they made it less likely to be caught when they have moved the police station. My point is that you have plenty of time to do little things. “I want to lose weight and to eat better.” Then do it, one step at a time.
God has no limit on His love. We are the ones who limit His love with our self-centeredness. We determine our salvation. God says, “I will give you the way to salvation if you let Me into your soul.” We say, “I’ll get back to you. Thank you very much. Appreciate the offer.” We want to cling to ourselves. One of my good friends who recently passed away, a judge, used to say, “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.” I deserve to speed, because I’m important. I have business to attend to. That would be me. However, I should mention that a lot of cops are not Catholic. We want what we want when we want it. That’s what we all have to fight…our self-centeredness. “You can’t tell me what to do. “I deserve this.” That kind of thinking shuts God out.
We have to be humble. In fact, we are commanded to be humble. The 4th and 5th Commandments command us to obey our physicians and caregivers. You don’t go to your physician’s office and say, “Oh, what the heck do they know.” Doctors are very intelligent, so listen to them and do what they tell you. That’s humility. “I don’t want a colonoscopy.” That’s humility, especially when I had mine. I know everyone in that department. I work there. I knew them all. Having a colonoscopy is not a side of me they wanted to see, but what the heck…if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. As Saint Therese de Lisieux said, when you are humble, you are small and safe. As long as you continue doing small acts of penance, day after day, you are growing in God’s love and opening the door to your soul so that He can come in. God will not force his way in. He does not need our love. God is self-sufficient. But, He wants to give His love to us, because that is His nature. We are the ones with selfish self-centeredness and close the door on love. But, if we focus on the little things, we will grow spiritually and gradually open the door more and more to allow the love of our good Lord into our souls.
The Law of Physics says that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If our souls are full of ourselves, God cannot get in. God isn’t going to push us aside. He isn’t going to make us love Him. We have to decide to love Him by renouncing ourselves and our attachment to things. You will discover that once you become detached from things, you will have far more joy and pleasures than you ever could have imagined. Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas both said that if there is any labor involved, love is no labor at all. It’s all a joy. Each sacrifice is a joy. Each sacrifice makes a way for greater enjoyment and greater love. It creates a way for a greater union with the Almighty and, therefore, a greater union with one another. So, we are the ones who determine how much we will love. The secret of loving God and experiencing His love is really easy. We just have to love ourselves a heck of a lot less.
How will you apply this message to your life? Are you maximizing the minimum? Will you fight to overcome self-centeredness and make room for God in your heart and soul?
You can read all of Father Fitzgibbons’ sermons by going to https://annunciationcatholicalbemarle.com/ and clicking on “Blog” then “Categories” and then “Sermon Notes. From a cell phone, click on “Blog” then “Menu” and then “Categories” (located at the end of the page). There is also a search box if you are looking for a specific topic.
Meditation of the Day – Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
“Furthermore, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. Let us also love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us have charity and humility. Let us give alms because these cleanse our souls from the stains of sin. Men lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world, but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give. For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve. We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh. Rather we must be simple, humble and pure. We should never desire to be over others. Instead, we ought to be servants who are submissive to every human being for God’s sake. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on all who live in this way and persevere in it to the end. He will permanently dwell in them. They will be the Father’s children who do his work. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ.”— St. Francis of Assisi, p. 333