Category: Scripture

The Risk of Hope

The Risk of Hope

Hope is a risk.

When encountering difficulties, it is a good practice to turn to the Lord in prayer. And while there are many true sayings like “God is faithful” and “trust in God” and “God provides” and on and on, there is never a guarantee that God will act in the way that I want Him to act. It is true that God is all good and that He uses all things for good. It is also true that God has a more beautiful plan for our lives than we do. He is faithful, He is just, He loves us beyond measure.

And yet.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were still thrown into the fiery furnace.
Daniel was put in the lion’s den.
The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years.
John the Baptist was beheaded for proclaiming uncomfortable truths.
Jesus was crucified.
Rome was converted by the blood of martyrs.
St. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake after a sham trial which declared her a heretic.
St. Jeanne Jugan was sidelined and isolated in the very religious community she started.
Bl. Franz Jägerstätter refused to fight for the Nazis and was imprisoned before being executed.
St. Carlo Acutis died as a teenager after a battle with leukemia.

It seems important to remember that in all of these situations, God provided.

For the first four men, there was a miracle which prevented them from dying in the manner their persecutors planned. But for so many throughout the ages, God’s method of bringing about the greatest good can only be seen in glimpses, darting around the edges of our comprehension as we risk being overrun by the sorrow and pain which is so easy to perceive. There are many things which will only properly be understood from the perspective of eternity, from the view which God has as He weaves lives together and pulls beauty from sorrow.

However, it can be too easy to just quit praying, declaring that it doesn’t matter if we pray because God does whatever He is going to do. We can simply be resigned, trying not to care too much either way, denying that we have feelings and instead insisting that all is as it should be.

Hope, in many ways, is the riskiest option. The challenging task of seeking the fulfillment we desire in the moment while remaining focused on the eternal. There are so many hopes I have in my life, so many desires I want the Lord to fulfill. And I often have very particular ways I would like the Lord to fulfill these longings. The question isn’t if God loves me or will provide or if He is good or if He should be trusted. All of those things are true. But it seems to be the task of a lifetime to entrust our desires to the Lord, knowing He may choose to work in a different way, and yet have hope that, come what may, all will be truly, eternally good.

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His Yoke is Easy and His Burden Light

His Yoke is Easy and His Burden Light

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(Matthew 11: 28-30)

His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

Over the past few weeks, I have wondered, “Is it really easy and light? It doesn’t feel that way.” I’m not certain it generally helps to consider that Christ suffered far more than I do. It isn’t a comparison game I want to play. Instead, various circumstances in life arise which can make us wonder how Jesus can say that what we are receiving in life is easy and light. The stress might not amount to the crucifixion, but it can still feel paralyzing. The pain might not compare to the scourging, but it can still feel crippling.

And yet Jesus always speaks what is true: His yoke is easy, His burden light.

Not that long ago, in a Bible study in prison, we were talking about this passage from Matthew’s Gospel. As different questions were asked, we spent a little time talking about a yoke and how it would look to be “yoked” to Jesus. The image that came to mind is one that stuck with me in the days that followed. I had mentioned that we step into the yoke/harness shared with Jesus and that He never abandons it, even if we run from the yoke. And I kept coming back to that image of Jesus faithfully shouldering the burden, while I so often long for escape and to slip out of the offered yoke.

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It Will Not Delay

It Will Not Delay

The wallpaper of my phone is a picture of a quote which says, “It will surely come, it will not delay.” Next to the plastic, rose-bespeckled skull on my desk at school is another quote which says, “The Lord is not slow about his promise.” I think I feel compelled to post these passages of Scripture around my life because I feel like I’m inclined to not believe them and I know that I must.

I find myself doing similar things in other situations, too. There is a massive paper I need to write (yet which I have done essentially nothing on) and I have a desire to write about the role of hope in suffering as a Christian. This is not because I feel particularly hopeful or because I view myself as a very good suffer-er. And yet there is an attraction to this tension between suffering and hope. Or, as another example, recently, I read the description of a fictional story and it repelled and annoyed me, sounding far too similar in some ways to my own life, and so I bought it.

I’m not sure I love the tension that life offers to me and yet there is something intriguing about it. At times I run from it, not wanting to parse the particular stresses and contradictions in life. Other times, I sprint towards it, wanting one strain of my heart to engage in a head-on collision with another. Or for the misconceptions or untruths I believe to smash brilliantly into the truth or clarity which they don’t want to encounter.

Perhaps it is simply reflected in how I feel about Advent. I love the time of anticipation, the preparations, the slow moving from darkness to light, the delayed gratification. However, I also feel the tension in the season and am quick to see how I also greatly dislike that same tension in my own life, when the end of the journey is not quite so clear-cut and the conclusion unknown. The season of Advent continually calls this tension to mind as we prepare both for Christmas (clearly marked out for December 25th) and the end of our lives (very unclear and uncertain for most of us). It is a delight and a sorrow, a thing of great pleasure and one of profound suffering. Yet it is a tension in which we all must live.

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Answering Prayers We Didn’t Pray

Answering Prayers We Didn’t Pray

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’

The rich man in today’s Gospel received a beautiful, difficult blessing. He was able to ask Jesus how he could inherit eternal life and then he was told the answer.

It seems, however, that the rich man was hoping for a different response. Perhaps he wanted Jesus to say, “You don’t need to do anything else–you will inherit eternal life.” Or maybe he wanted Jesus to have some small request or some additional rule to follow. Instead, he is invited to follow Jesus after selling his possessions. This does not seem to be what the man had anticipated or he might not have asked Jesus the question. This good news, this call to discipleship which others received with wild abandon, is met with sadness and a disheartened turning away. The rich man asks a question, receives an answer, and then sulks away. How difficult it is to seek and then find that the cost is higher than you are willing to pay!

This is often true for us, too. We want the Lord to provide an answer to a present difficulty. Hoping for guidance and direction, we implore Jesus to show us the way. Yet when an answer, a path, or a gift is offered, we quickly realize it isn’t what we hoped we would receive. His ways and thoughts are far above our ways, yes, but we keep hoping, over and over again, that they will match up. We find ourselves desiring that just once our meticulously crafted and very comfortable plan will be the one the Lord has also been preparing for us. Many times we, like the rich man, ask questions with specific answers in mind or ask for grace but are focused on very particular graces.

Jesus sees this man wholly. He knows him through and through. The deep desires of his heart and the secret dreams and imaginings are known perfectly to the Lord. It is in light of this knowledge that Jesus offers the answer of sell what you have, give to the poor, and follow Me. Jesus doesn’t need more information to offer a better response. He offers the answer which is perfectly crafted for this man’s heart. Jesus looked at him, loved him, and then placed His finger on the very point which needed His attention right then. The Lord invites him to eliminate what separates them and to become His disciple.

Perhaps before every hard thing that enters our life, the same situation unfolds. Jesus looks at us, loves us, and then points to a lack in our hearts. He does this not to hurt us or to unnecessarily grieve us or to cause us to turn away from Him. Instead, it is this abundant love and great knowledge of our innermost being which causes Him to offer us a grace we didn’t ask for and mercies we didn’t expect. They often come wrapped in problems, accompanied by heartache, and bathed in tears. We don’t want them. We generally desire to resist them. And yet they come, through various means and different channels, from the hand of the Lord.

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Hugging Lazarus

Hugging Lazarus

“Do you know how long it has been since I’ve been hugged by someone who cared about me?”

The words themselves were striking. And yet it was even more striking as they settled in us, bearing the weight they ought to have, as we simply looked upon the one who had asked the question.

Of course, how could we know the answer?

I think his words were revealing to himself. His eyes were rimmed in unshed tears, the ache visible and arresting. He was surprised by the sweep of emotion and we were likewise caught up into that surprise. The moment before had been ordinary and now we found ourselves in suddenly deep waters, like when you walk along a riverbed and shockingly find yourself underwater when you simply expected the next step to be like all of the others.

It was another evening in prison, practicing the music before Mass. I don’t remember what preceded this conversation, but I remember the moment when we plumbed the depths. One of the men was sharing about how it was against the rules to hug volunteers and then another mentioned how he had recently been hugged by a pastor when he was struggling with a situation. And, suddenly, there we were in the depths as the man recognized the importance of that human contact, the need he had to be embraced by someone who cared about him.

I wondered if he even cried in the moment of receiving the hug. After he asked that question, those of us nearby could only turn and look at him, reveling in the stillness and sincerity of the moment. It was a window into his soul. We didn’t know what he had been struggling with at the time, but we were certain that this simple action from a pastor was life-giving and humanizing.

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Like A Lamb in the Midst of Wolves

Like A Lamb in the Midst of Wolves

In Luke 10, Jesus speaks of how He is sending His disciples, the few laborers for the abundant harvest, out like lambs in the midst of wolves. When I heard this at Mass several days ago, an image leapt into my mind which has been with me ever since. I imagined a little lamb, still with softly spun small coils of wool, walking down a path surrounded by wolves, growling menacingly at the tender lamb. Yet the lamb moved forward, head held high, and seemed unfazed by the danger that lurked around it.

I considered how vulnerable this lamb was, unable to defend itself from the predators and with little strength to offer on its own behalf. And I thought that perhaps that was exactly the point. Maybe this image of the lamb in the midst of wolves is exactly what Jesus desires for us. This little lamb is aware of its weakness and it is likely this knowledge of its weakness which is its greatest strength. If it fixated on the vicious wolves that surround it, the sheep could never move forward. It is rather gentle by nature, with no claws or sharp teeth to maim an attacker. The lamb surrounded by wolves finds its strength in knowing that the Shepherd will provide.

The moments or situations in life where I have known God placed me in a particular situation, and yet I felt wholly unqualified for the task at hand, are the situations where I have needed to rely entirely on the Lord. In this reliance, there is a strength that is given. I don’t know that I was a better teacher ten years ago, but I was far more likely to storm Heaven prior to a difficult class or to beg for guidance in the midst of students’ questions. It isn’t that I don’t ask for God to help me now, but I’m more confident in my own abilities than I used to be. Yet the littleness, the weakness I felt as a new teacher was also a source of strength. I’ve experienced the same in different ministries or experiences which forced me to offer the Lord unrestricted access, imploring Him to provide in the places where I saw an abundant lack.

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We Know Not How

We Know Not How

The kingdom of God is like a seed.

The Gospel for this Sunday focuses on a common image in the parables of Jesus. A little seed yields abundance and the kingdom of God that Jesus is proclaiming is like that.

Jesus said to the crowds: “This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”

Mark 4: 26-29

What strikes me the most in this passage is how the silence and waiting bring about a harvest. A seed is scattered on the land, but unlike some parables, the focus isn’t on the soil. Rather, the emphasis is on the seed. Despite the sleeping and rising of the farmer, the seed flourishes and gives rise to a harvest for him to gather. Does the farmer understand it? The Gospel proclaims “he knows not how” the seed sprouts and grows.

The same is true in us. God’s work is slow and gradual and we know not how He does it. Like the child who plants a seed and then looks eagerly each day, expecting immediate growth, if we are fixated on seeing magical growth, we will be disappointed. The seed of God grows in us, slowly and almost imperceptibly. Weeks or months or years later, we have the joy of looking back and seeing how God moved and worked. In the particular moment, we don’t always see the movement or the purpose.

The work of God is silent. So much takes place beneath the surface before we even see any fruit. But the Lord loves to work in the quiet. An immense work is happening in wombs and Eucharistic holy hours and monastic life and a night’s sleep and the quiet of the early morning. We often want the Lord to be striking and bold. Sometimes He is. But sometimes He is thirty hidden years at Nazareth, cared for a father with no recorded words in Scripture and a mother who is so often pondering things in her heart. A hushed unfurling of God’s word in our hearts leads us into a love that is not showy or boisterous but rooted and deep.

In so many areas of my life, I want things to happen quickly. I don’t like the struggle of the waiting or the in between, the time of growth that is often painful as we develop roots to sustain us in later storms. The act of starting is so often delayed because I fear what happens once something is set in motion. Or sometimes it is the opposite fear: what won’t happen despite the steps taken. But if the kingdom of God is like this little seed, then the same could be applied to God’s kingdom dwelling within me. It grows, step by slow step, in the hidden hours, though I know not how.

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Jesus Knows What it is Like to Wait

Jesus Knows What it is Like to Wait

Within the past year, I stumbled upon a verse in Scripture that gave great comfort to my heart. I know I’ve read this verse before and so it surprised me when I read it before quickly backpedaling to read it again. Maybe I had always read it in a slightly different translation or it didn’t seem like it applied to me, causing me to gloss over the words. Whatever the reason, the particular moment I read it was the perfect one for it to have an impact.

Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.

Luke 3:23 (NRSVCE)

I paused.

One sentence helped lay to rest some of my worries and concerns.

The God-man began His work when He was about thirty years old. Perhaps I’m not behind. Perhaps this isn’t all a waste. Granted, I didn’t spend the first thirty years of my life with the profound intentionality of the Incarnate Word, but it was a gift to be reminded that missions can begin at thirty.

It isn’t that I think thirty is ancient. I don’t. It is simply that I had assumed I would arrive at different milestones before reaching this particular one. This time hasn’t been a waste, but it is difficult to see what has been accomplished. In high school and college, one moves from one grade to the next, learning information, being continually formed, and preparing for what lies ahead. And I’m still very much on an academic calendar, with neat endings and fresh beginnings. Yet…there doesn’t always seem to be movement.

Interestingly, it wasn’t that I longed for a life filled with adventure. I mean, I did and yet I was entirely prepared for a life that was normal, ordinary, even repetitive. Oddly, it seems that doing mundane tasks for someone else would seem far more fulfilling than doing mundane tasks for myself. Realistically, I know that is simply the lie, the trick that makes one think that the things that frustrate wouldn’t if they were shrouded in different circumstances.

Jesus lived a hidden, ordinary life for thirty years. Over the past year, I’ve returned repeatedly to this reality of angels heralding His birth and then shepherds and magi and then…a seemingly ordinary child grows up. Each day wasn’t lived in a glorious ray of light. People weren’t continually falling at His feet, acknowledging His divinity. He played, studied, prayed, and lived with others and nobody recognized God was pitching His tent among them.

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Salt and Light

Salt and Light

This past Sunday, the Gospel spoke of how we ought to be the salt and light the world needs. It concluded with this line:

Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

Matthew 5:16

After we read it in class, we spent time on Friday discussing it. Near the end of our conversation, I pointed to the reaction that we should desire from others. As we strive to live as salt and light, we should desire that people give praise to God for what they see instead of praising us.

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Living and Active

Living and Active

It continues to surprise me how extremely relevant Scripture is to the lives of prisoners. Whether I’m reading an Old Testament prophet or the epistles of St. Paul, the circumstances of the imprisoned are never far from any given page. Listening to the readings in prison, as Paul speaks about the chains he bears for the sake of the Gospel or how many times he found himself imprisoned, adds a whole new depth to the readings.

Earlier this week, as my sister and I drove to prison for a bible study, I read the Gospel passage aloud that we were going to discuss. It was something I’ve heard and read dozens of times and yet my eyes were opening in a new way, something that has happened innumerable times since I started going into the prison. The passage for the upcoming Solemnity of Jesus, King of the Universe, was about Jesus on the cross and the conversation He had with the good and bad thief.

The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.” Even the soldiers jeered at him. As they approached to offer him wine they called out,
“If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.” Above him there was an inscription that read, “This is the King of the Jews.”

Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Luke 23: 35-43

I could hardly believe it when I read the passage to my sister. How striking. A passage about how Jesus, the sinless one, who enters into our lives and takes on our sin, dying amongst criminals who were sentenced justly for their crimes. What would it be like to hear this as a prisoner?

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