2nd Sunday of Lent (March 13, 2022)

 

Prayer

Luke 9: 28b-36

 

Jesus took Peter, John, and James to the mountain to pray.  The three were “overcome by sleep.”  Later, while “fully awake,” Peter spoke to Jesus, “but he did not know what he was saying.” 

 

Can we relate to those experiences in our prayer?  Sleeping?  Saying things that we do not know what we are saying?

 

We are consoled and encouraged to know that it is Jesus who leads us when we pray.  It is Jesus, the head, who prays in us, His body.  It is also Jesus who is speaking to us the words that God invites us to listen to.

 

As God spoke to the disciples, God still speaks to us.  In addition, whether we are awake or asleep, God’s presence and glory always embrace us. 

 

Prayer really does not depend on us and our efforts.  It is God’s initiative to draw us into relationship with God. 

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1st Sunday of Lent - C (March 6, 2022)

 

Jesus – Our Way and Power

Luke 4: 1-13

 

Our Christian life is a journey. 

 

While on that journey, we need regular opportunities to recalibrate our progress and direction. 

 

The annual observance of Lent offers us the opportunity to recalibrate.  And Jesus gives us the direction.

 

The direction of Jesus’ life is oriented towards God and humanity.  As seen in the three temptations in today’s Gospel, he did not use his power to serve his needs, to control others, or to supplant God. 

 

His life culminated at the cross.  There, he gave himself as the sacrifice of love that all humanity might live.  There, he offered the sacrificed of perfect obedience to God the Father. 

 

With the power of Christ’s gift of self in the Eucharist, may this Lent help us to recalibrate our Christian life according to how he lived and sacrificed himself for us.  

 

 

8th Sunday - C (February 27, 2022)

 

“Fullness of the Heart”

Luke 6: 39-45

 

Lent begins later this week. 

 

We often plan on what to give up for Lent.

 

What if we push ourselves a little further, and focus not on what to give up but on what we should make room in our hearts for?  It might still involve the giving up, but it takes us to the next level. 

 

In fact, it’s even better to ask not “What?” but “Who should we make room in our hearts for?”  Last week, when we listened to an earlier section of this same Chapter 6 from Luke, Jesus invited us “to be children of the Most High,” and to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

 

With God’s grace, the holy Season of Lent will make our hearts somewhat fuller with God.  

 

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7th Sunday - C (February 20, 2022)

 

Children of the Most High

Luke 6: 27-38

 

Two observations on this Sunday’s Gospel:

1.     Sometimes, or even often, we might view God’s law as a burden, or something that God imposes on us.  That attitude is both wrong and not helpful.  We need to appreciate that God’s law is a gift from God to help us become more like God, to live as “children of the Most High.”  God’s law is thus not a burden.  It is a privilege. 

2.    Have we found it hard to love people who we do not like, or worse, those who have done us wrong?  Jesus is quite practical in his commandment of love.  He tells us to “do good, bless, and pray for them.”  We might not be ready to do good for them.  We can start by asking God for help as we pray for them.  

 

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6th Sunday - C (February 13, 2022)

 

Hunger for Jesus

Luke 6: 17. 20-26

 

St. Luke lets us know that the crowd of people who came to listen to Jesus kept growing in numbers and in their hunger for his teaching and healing. 

 

Two Sundays ago, Jesus was preaching in the synagogue of his home village of Nazareth.  Their reception went from curiosity to fury at him.   Last week, he was on the lakeside in Capernaum.  He needed to preach from a boat because the crowd was bigger and they were “pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God.” 

 

Today, “A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases”  (6: 17-18, v. 18 is not included in the passage used in Church).

 

More and more people were coming to be with Jesus, to listen to him, and to be healed by him.

 

Does my hunger and desire for Jesus grow with time?

 

 

 

5th Sunday - C (February 6, 2022)

 

They Followed Jesus

Luke 5: 1-11

 

Responding to Jesus, Simon said, “We have worked hard all night…, but at your command, I will lower the nets.”

 

Still, later in the passage, Jesus said, “from now on, you will be catching men.”  Simon now did even more.  At Jesus’ words, he and his friends, “left everything and followed him.”

 

Incredible faith!  Simon put his faith in the words of Jesus, which is the strong kind of faith. 

 

One can argue that Simon had witnessed Jesus’ power.  Nevertheless, he did not know what the future would hold.  Still, he followed Jesus.

 

How about me?

 

 

PS.  Today, World Day for Consecrated Life is observed in parishes.  Please pray for priests, brothers, sisters, lay consecrated people, and those God continues to call to follow Jesus in this way of life.  

 

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4th Sunday - C (January 30, 2022)

 

My Attitude toward God’s Gift

Luke 4: 21-30

 

The people of Nazareth “all spoke highly of” Jesus and “were amazed at his gracious words.”

 

The word “gracious” of course has the same root with “grace,” which refers to God’s free gift.

 

But the people did not seem to recognize that Jesus’ words are a gift.  They were not content.  They demanded Jesus to do more for them.

 

In our relationship with God, it is easy not to be grateful, to have a sense of entitlement, and to demand more from God.  We all can, and many probably have done that.  I want more.  I want you, God, to do this, or that for me.

 

Not receiving what they demanded, the people turned on Jesus. 

 

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus will never come back to Nazareth. 

 

Let’s this be our warning. 

 

Moreover, later on in this Chapter, Jesus moved on to other places to preach there also (4: 42-43).

 

God’s Good News is a grace.  We must always accept it with humble gratitude.  And it is not for us to keep.  God gives it to use to save us, and to share it with others, particularly the outsiders like Naaman, and the people who are poor and outcasts, like the widows in Zarephath.

 

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