Year 2 Monday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 27:1-3.13-14; John 12:1-11

There is a big difference between understanding Jesus as miracle worker and believing Him to be the Christ, Son of the living God. The first flows from the second but it does not do so necessarily. It’s important to note that Jesus’ attitude to His own miracles is ambivalent at best. Jesus would still be the Christ even if He performed no miracles! The greatest miracle of all, of course, is His resurrection.

The Lord understood the spectacle His miracles made. He knew the curiosity they generated. He knew that based on stories of what He had done making the rounds that many sought Him out not for salvation, not forgiveness of their sins, not life everlasting, but to see a magic show or to have some immediate material need met.

After feeding 5,000 on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus went back across to Capernaum. The crowd followed Him. It’s easy to forget that the Bread of Life Discourse begins with the Lord chiding the crowd: “I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”¹ Keep in mind that “a sign” points to something beyond itself.

Towards the end of our Gospel today, the inspired author tells us explicitly that the large crowd gathered around the house in Bethany not only because Jesus was there, “but also to see Lazarus.”² Who wouldn’t want to see someone who had been dead for four days and then, by simple command, was brought back to life?

In our age, we would be more prone to launch a scientific investigation into the physics and biology of someone who was dead coming back to life. What is missed by looking either through the lens of magic or science is the genuinely metaphysical aspect.

Even if it was possible to explain how this might’ve happened or prove that such a thing is, in fact, possible, the question “Why?” is ignored. Understanding how doesn't necessarily tell you why. For what purpose did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? So “that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”³

Jesus did this to demonstrate exactly what He said to Martha on the dusty road leading to Bethany: “I am the resurrection and the life.”⁴ Raising Lazarus was but a preview of what was to come. Lazarus, after being raised from the dead, died again. Hence, what he experienced was more a resuscitation than resurrection. Of course, it is no less stunning for that. He was dead and brought back to life!

Although it appears in the following chapter, this scene in which Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with oil and then dries them with her hair, is referenced at the beginning of the pericope about the Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. In a parenthetical statement, the author notes: “Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.”⁵ This reinforces the significance of Mary's humble act.

The significance of Mary’s anointing Jesus is a recognition that He is Messiah, whom the Bethany siblings believed Him to be. Messiah means “anointed one.” It also pointed to Jesus’ own death. Jesus’ rebuke of Judas Iscariot indicates both these things.

What this means is that to have Jesus is to have everything. The only concise definition of eternal life that we find in all Sacred Scripture is also found in Saint John’s Gospel: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”⁶

At the Great Paschal Vigil you, too, will witness the miracle of the dead being brought to life. It is the miracle of baptism. Just like in Jesus’ day, you must have eyes to see. As a sacrament, baptism, too, is a sign.

As Catholics, we say that a sacrament is an “efficacious sign.” We designate them as such because sacraments, while certainly pointing beyond themselves, don’t merely signify something, or stand in for something that is absent. A sacrament “actually makes present what it signifies.”⁷

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1 John 6:26.^↩
2 John 12:9.^↩
3 John 11:4.^↩
4 John 11:25.^↩
5 John 11:2.^↩
6 John 17:3.^↩
7 USCCB. Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, 32. 2009.^↩

Year A Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion- Procession

Reading: Matthew 21:1-11

The procession, which will start right after this, is our symbolic journey with Jesus, the King of Israel through the line David, into Jerusalem. We are privileged to participate liturgically in the Lord’s triumphal entry into the holy city. Hence, it is not something that happens before Mass, something added on. It is an integral part of the Passion Sunday liturgy. Mass has begun!

Processing is different from merely walking. While joyful, a procession is a solemn act of worship. A procession has a destination. Ultimately, of course, our destination and our destiny is the city of God, which will descend from heaven to earth.¹ It is here that Christ will reign forever.

Our procession today culminates by our entrance into the Temple. Our Church symbolizes the Temple. We are those hailing and lauding Jesus as He enters the Temple precincts. Father Andrzej, acting in persona Christi captis, represents Christ.

To walk without a palm branch is walk and not process. It makes no sense to process without a palm branch. These branches are signs and symbols of your recognition of Jesus as Messiah, Savior, and Lord. Far from being incidental, these palm branches are an essential element of today’s liturgy.

During this procession, the sound that should be heard is our joyful singing- All glory, laud, and honor to You, Redeemer King. . .

Sisters and brothers,
like the crowds who acclaimed Jesus in Jerusalem,
let us go forth in peace

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1 Revelation 21:2..^↩

"Though there's pain in the offering"

Here we are, the last Friday of Lent. This holy season concludes, as it does each year, with Evening Prayer next Thursday. Evening Prayer on Holy Thursday ushers in the shortest of liturgical seasons: the Sacred Triduum.

The Sacred Triduum constiutes something like our Christian high holy days. It might be more accurate to say "our Christian high holy day." Holy Thursday's Mass of the Lord's Supper has no concluding rites, no dismissal. Instead, we process with the Blessed Sacrament to the chapel of repose. Good Friday has no introductory rites, but begins with the Collect. Good Friday, too, ends without a dismissal. We're not dismissed until the end of the great Paschal Vigil, which both brings the Sacred Triduum to an end and inagurates the season of Easter.

All Catholics really should make an to participate in the entire Triduum. Do it once and you will want to keep doing it.

For me, it's been an eventful year so far and an vibrant Lent. About halfway through, I began working for the Church full-time, which event was more than a year in the making. To say that I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at present would be to put it mildly. Nonetheless, I remain excited and forward looking. It's an opportunity to extend my Lenten discipline of being gentle with myself!

Earlier this week, I had a beautiful experience during my morning walk. It was a gorgeous spring day. I decided to listen to some glory and praise music, as it matched my mood and weather. As I noted in my homily last Sunday, we don't observe Lent, or even Good Friday, pretending that Christ isn't risen from the dead. That level of pretense belies Christian realism. Besides, as Richard Foster noted in his seminal work, Celebration of Discipline, "Joy is the keynote of all the Disciplines" Just as "happiness," at least as it is popularly understood, shouldn't be confused eudaimonia, neither should it be mistaken for joy. Happiness is fleeting. Joy abides. Happiness is superficial. Joy runs deep.

Anyway, our traditio is then-Sister Cristina Scuccia with an acoustic version (suitable for its simplicity) of "Blessed Be Your Name." In or around 2022, Cristina left religious life after 15 years. She's emphatic that the time she spent as an Ursiline sister were "splendid years." She is also insistent that she has not abandoned the faith. While we don't use the "A-word" during Lent, we do praise Jesus Christ always and everywhere!

Year 2 Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Readings: Daniel 13:41c-62; Psalm 23:1-6; John 8:1-11

Our reading from the Book of Daniel is perfectly paired with the pericope of the woman taken in adultery. Referred to as pericope adulteræ, this text has its own colorful history. The story of Susanna has this in common with the story of the adulterous woman. Susanna's story only survives in a Greek and a later Syriac translation of the Septuagint. Even in ancient times, there was no received text in Aramaic or Hebrew. This called it to be questioned by no less than Saint Jerome, among others. But these are issues in themselves and not relevant to our reception of these inspired texts.

Our first reading requires some context. The two men Daniel interrogates are people of high standing. Men who were, in fact, judges and who adjudicated cases people brought before them. As it happens, they were also men of low character. The place where they carried out their duties was seemingly next door to Joakim’s house.

Each day when they finished their business about noon, the lovely Susanna entered her garden for a walk. Watching her over time led these two men to lust after her.

One day, they observed Susanna bathing. She had dismissed her attendants and was bathing alone as these two watched her, hidden by some trees. As soon as her attendants left, the two men approached Susanna and made the crudest of propositions to her, telling her that if she did not agree to it, they would both accuse her of adultery with a young man.

Susanna, being a woman of character and integrity, knowing full well that the testimony of two respected judges would most likely lead to her execution, refused their disgusting offer. And so, the wicked judges made their false accusation, which was believed. Not being given the chance to plead her case, Susanna was doomed to die.

As she was about to be executed, Susanna prayed out loud to God, pleading for deliverance. This is where Daniel comes in. Refusing to take part is what he saw as a miscarriage of justice, Daniel puts a stop to Susanna’s execution. He protested that she had been tried and sentenced without any evidence and without being examined or her accusers even being questioned.

Hence, Daniel’s confrontation of the two wicked judges. Daniel had these men separated and questioned them individually. Their inability to tell the same story quickly reveals their attempt to frame Susanna. But the vile nature of what led them to make their false accusation does not appear to have been revealed.

What I’ve always found interesting about Jesus’ encounter with the woman taken in adultery is that her partner in crime, the man, seems to have gotten away. In cases like this, it literally does take two to tango. Unlike Susanna, this woman seems to accept that she is guilty of that of which she stands accused.

Further, this poor woman seems resigned to being stoned to death. She does not shout out something like, “What about him, the man I was with?”, let alone identify him to the merciless mob, all of whom would’ve been men, so he could be punished too. We are told nothing about the circumstances under which she was caught. Perhaps she was a woman with no close male relative to take of her who was reduced to prostitution just to survive.

Jesus isn’t interested in any of this. He takes the situation at face value and, unlike Daniel, doesn’t say, “Wait a minute! Not so fast.” Instead, the Lord gives an example of what is beautifully summarized in the Letter of James: “For the judgment is merciless to the one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over justice.”¹

We acknowledge this everyday when we pray in the Our Father “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”² What the Lord makes clear to those gathered to stone this woman is that they, too, need mercy: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”³ Maybe Jesus wrote "mercy" in the dirt.

You see, the prospect of justice, of getting what you deserve, is scary. In the end, I don’t want what I deserve. I don’t want that for you either. As a wise mentor once told me: “Whenever to point the finger, there’s three pointing right back at you.” I’ll go with grace over karma any day. As U2 sang:

Grace/She takes the blame/She covers the shame/Removes the stain. . . It's also a thought that could change the world⁴

When some Pharisees questioned His disciples about why their Master ate with “tax collectors and sinners,” Jesus told them, quoting the Hosea, "Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."⁵

Lent is a great time to grasp mercy. And, not being condemned, go your way and sin no more. “Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.”⁶

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1 James 2:15.^↩
2 Matthew 6:9-15; Roman Missal. The Order of Mass. The Communion Rite, sec. 124; Liturgy of the Hours, Morning and Evening Prayer.^↩
3 John 8:7.^↩
4 U2. "Grace" off All That You Can't Leave Behind album. Released 2000.^↩
5 Matthew 9:9-13.^↩
6 U2. "Grace."^↩

Year A Fifth Sunday of Lent- Third Scrutiny of the Elect

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130:1-8; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

Today marks the third and final Scrutiny of the Elect prior to their receiving the sacraments of Christian Initiation at the upcoming Paschal Vigil. Especially to the Elect, I say that if at this point you don’t recognize that you are the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, that you are the man born blind who was given true sight by the Lord, and that you are Lazarus, called forth from the tomb, you may not be ready. This also goes for those of us who are baptized, for whom Lent serves as preparation for renewal of our baptismal promises at Easter.

These passages from Saint John’s Gospel, used by the Church since ancient times for the scrutiny of the Elect, should deeply resonate with us all. This resonance is what the term catechesis means. In nearly 2,000 years of Christian usage, the Greek word katekeo doesn’t mean merely to echo. Echoes quickly fade. It means to resound.

The verb, “to resound” means to fill a place with sound. What the Church resounds is not merely the “teaching” of Christ handed by the apostles and through the Church’s apostolic ministry, but Christ Himself. The Holy Spirit is the mode of His post-Ascension presence in, among, and through us.

Each of these three Gospel passages tells of the kind of personal, life-changing encounter that makes one a Christian. You can’t give faith to anyone and no one, except God, can give you faith. Being a supernatural virtue, faith is a gift from God.

Like love, particularly agape (i.e., self-giving, self-sacrificing love), faith is a verb. In a Christian context, faith is not a generic term, reducible to mere belief in something. For Christians, faith requires, not an object, but a subject. Not a something but Someone: Jesus Christ. It is to Him that a Christian actively and completely entrusts herself.

Foremost, the Church is the community of faith. It is a community of people who haven’t only been given this saving gift (which God offers to everyone) but who have accepted it by embracing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Those whose deepest desire is to be like Him.

By its nature, as Christ’s establishment of the Church demonstrates, faith is a team sport, or a communion. More exactly, the Church is koinonia. While “communion” is typically used, there is no English word that directly translates koinonia. Hence, it can be described as fellowship, intimacy, solidarity, sharing, and acting in common.

Of course, the central way we act in common is by participating in the Eucharist. It is the Eucharist that makes us together the Body of Christ and individually members of His Body. In a single word, koinonia captures how Christians are meant to live. Koinonia is how the redeemed are sanctified. Just as one person is no person (there needs to be a thou for there to be an I), one Christian is no Christian. We need one another!

Rather than a moral philosophy or a systematic theology, let alone what author Herman Hesse described as “the glass bead game,” Christianity is a Person. At the start of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI insisted:

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction¹

There is an interesting line in our long Gospel reading that is easy to pass-by. It is uttered by the same disciple who refused to believe the testimony of the other disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead: Thomas. As a result, he is usually referred to as “doubting Thomas.”²

A few days after learning that His friend, Lazarus, was gravely ill, Jesus said to His disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” To which someone responded” “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?”³ To which Jesus, implying that He knew Lazarus was dead or was going to die, replied in the affirmative.

Just before they headed south to Judea, “Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us go die with him.’”⁴ Die with whom, Lazarus? No, to go to Jerusalem to die with Christ. This exhortation by “doubting” Thomas should not be forgotten when it comes to his insistence on seeing the Risen Lord for himself.

Could it be that Thomas understood what it might mean to die with Christ but fail to grasp what it means to rise with Him to new life? I think sometimes, as Catholics, we understand the dying bit quite well while giving short shrift to living the life of the redeemed. Like those who observe Lent as if Christ isn't already risen from the dead. We even enter Good Friday knowing how the story continues.

It was this excessive, even morbid, focus on dying that prompted Nietzsche, in the voice of Zarathustra, to say this about Christians:

Better songs would they have to sing, for me to believe in their Saviour: more like saved ones would his disciples have to appear unto me!⁵

When Saint Paul refers to “the flesh” in our reading from Romans, he is not referring to the body. Instead, he is invoking the carnal mindedness that results from the fall. (For those who care about these things, it is the sarx/soma distinction) You know, all those natural tendencies that cause you to go against the teachings of Jesus, like holding a grudge or getting even rather than forgiving, returning evil for evil instead returning good for evil, seeing others as a threat rather than a gift, refusing to welcome the stranger, putting your good before that of anyone else. .

Because death is the result of sin, it is these fleshly tendencies, according to Paul, that cause “the body” to be “dead because of sin.” The Christian life, therefore, is not a matter of overcoming your body, which will be raised from the dead, but overcoming sin and whatever leads to you to sin so that your body can be and remain a temple of the Holy Spirit, a place where Christ dwells.⁶

Just He ordered those present untie Lazarus “and let him go,” Christ wants to liberate you from the bondage of sin that leads to death.⁷ He wants you to live and to joyfully sing better songs so that others may also believe.

Do you think Lazarus’ life was ever the same after Christ raised him from the dead?

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1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est, sec. 1. Promulgated 25 December 2025.^↩
2 See John 20:24-29.^↩
3 John 11:7-8.^↩
4 John 11:16.^↩
5 Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus Spake Zarathustra. XXIV. Second Part. "The Priests." Trans. Thomas Common.^↩
6 See 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.^↩
7 John 11:44.^↩

What do with the time left in Lent?

What follows is my reflection for the diocesan staff's weekly Lenten gathering for Morning Prayer, which takes place on Wednesdays of Lent. There are still a few weeks left of this holy season. Reflecting on what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be baptized, is really important.

__________________________________________

Reading: Deuteronomy 7:6.8-9

As I was thinking about preparing for this morning, forgetting it was Lent, I wondered if today’s reading was really the same as that for last Wednesday and the Wednesday before that. After all, the book is Deuteronomy, means “second” telling not fourth telling.

During Lent, the readings for Morning and Evening Prayer are repetitive. By means of this repetition, the Church tries to focus on what really matters. As with the Israelites’ forty-year trek through and all around the Sinai Peninsula, Lent is meant to be a journey through the dry desert of our souls, in which, as The Police sang, “I always play the starring role.”

Our annual journey culminates at the baptismal font. This is not only true for the Elect, but for all the baptized. Lent, which means springtime in old English, is the time we are given each year to prepare for the renewal of our baptismal promises. It is a time for new life.

Baptism is our crossing of the Red Sea as well as our crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land. It is the womb from which we are reborn and tomb from which we arise with Christ to live a new life. Baptism is our deliverance from slavery to sin and death, enabling us to live in the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Holy baptism, not holy orders, is the fundamental sacrament of the Christian life. Those who are ordained should always remember, as we vest for liturgical celebrations, that the alb is a baptismal garment. Everything else goes on top of the alb: stole, chasuble, dalmatic, cope. "Every baptized person," Pope Leo noted in today's Wednesday audience, "is to bear consistent witness to Christ.”

It is through baptism into Christ that the Lord, our God, who is ever faithful, includes you in his merciful covenant. And so, over these final few weeks of Lent, prepare to renew this covenant, which is your covenant with the living God. How do I do this, you might ask?

Before I answer, it’s important to realize that God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it. God’s love is the rock on which we can firmly stand. So, the question is, what might I love more than I love God? All sin is a matter of not loving God, “whom,” we acknowledge in the Act of Contrition, “I should love above all things.”

Traditionally, those things we love more than God (or neighbor) are called “disordered attachments.” Lent is the time to identify and, with God’s help, strive to be delivered from them. And so, let this Lent be a time of deliverance. Let God bring you out of Egypt by His strong arm and ransom you from Pharoah.

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A fair amount of the time, on Fridays, I reflect on time. Taking my cue from Trevor Hudson, I like to refer to Lent as "a time-gift." So, our traditio for this Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent is from Jesus and Mary Chain's still very good Darklands album: "On the Wall."

Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: 2 Sm 7:4-5a.12-14a.16; Ps 89:2-5.27.29; Rm 4:13.16-18.22; Matt 1:16.18-21.24a

It’s fairly obvious from the Infancy Narratives found in both Saint Matthew’s and Saint Luke’s Gospels that Jesus’ Davidic lineage comes through Saint Joseph. Nonetheless, Joseph, the very end of whose genealogy marks the start of our Gospel reading for this Solemnity, remains an intriguing figure.

It was only in the nineteenth century that popular devotion to Saint Joseph really took off. If Saint Patrick’s Day is the “Irish” day, then Saint Joseph’s Day is the Italian day. But since 1870, Joseph has been Patron of the Universal Church. Being a Solemnity, today is a holy day of obligation in traditionally Catholic countries.

In the words of Saint Paul from our second reading, Saint Joseph is certainly to be numbered among “those who follow the faith of Abraham.”¹ Like Abraham, Joseph led his family from their home to a foreign land. Unlike Abraham, when the danger they were fleeing subsided, Joseph led his family back to the land promised to Abraham and his descendants.

If we adhere to Matthew’s narrative, God communicated to Saint Joseph by means of angels who appeared in his dreams. Joseph was meticulously faithful to the divine direction he was given. We learn of his first dream in our Gospel reading today.

It isn’t hard to imagine the consternation Joseph must've felt upon learning that Mary, his betrothed, was pregnant. It’s clear Joseph knew that the child was not his. He understood how pregnancies normally occur.

Do you think that if Joseph had been angry, resentful, and bitter upon learning the woman to whom was betrothed was pregnant that he would’ve been receptive to the revelation he was given concerning the child’s conception? Do you think that he might not have received it in the first place?

Even though Joseph “was a righteous man” and, like the Blessed Virgin, no doubt chosen by God for this very important vocation, like her, he was free to decide how to respond to circumstances.² You miss a lot if you fail to see that God is a big risk taker! What’s riskier than love in any of its forms?

A statue of Saint Joseph in Rome, by Paul Haring for CNS

Rather than seethe with anger and resentment, upon learning that Mary was pregnant, Joseph was concerned about protecting both her dignity and her safety. You see, genuine love is selfless. It is about desiring the good of the other, even above your own good. Joseph gives us an example of how to move this from a nice sentiment to a living reality. It is no small matter that he is forced to confront.

To mark the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Pope Pius IX declaring Saint Joseph Patron of the Church Universal, on 8 December 2020, which is also the Solemnity of the Immaculate Concepion, Pope Francis promulgated his Apostolic Letter on Saint Joseph, Patris Corde- “With a Father’s Heart.” I recommend Patris Corde to you. It is an exquisite reflection on Saint Joseph by someone with a deep devotion to this righteous man.

After noting that every Catholic prayerbook contains prayers to Saint Joseph and that each Wednesday as well as the entire month of March are to dedicated to him, just as Saturdays and the month of May are dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, Pope Francis revealed in a footnote to Patris Corde that each day for more than forty years, at the end of Morning Prayer, he “recited a prayer to Saint Joseph” from a nineteenth century prayerbook published by a Congregation of French sisters.

Pope Francis noted that this prayer, “expresses devotion and trust, and even poses a certain challenge to Saint Joseph”:

Glorious Patriarch Saint Joseph, whose power makes the impossible possible, come to my aid in these times of anguish and difficulty. Take under your protection the serious and troubling situations that I commend to you, that they may have a happy outcome. My beloved father, all my trust is in you. Let it not be said that I invoked you in vain, and since you can do everything with Jesus and Mary, show me that your goodness is as great as your power. Amen³

In addition to being Patron of the Universal Church, Saint Joseph is the patron of a happy death, the patron of workers (the Church observes the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker on 1 May), Guardian of the Redeemer. And last but not least, Saint Joseph is the Terror of demons.

So, don’t hesitate to entrust cares and concerns to Saint Joseph’s intercession. As Sacred Scripture teaches, “The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.”⁴

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1 Romans 4:16.^↩
2 Matthew 1:19.^↩
3 Pope Francis. Apostolic Letter, Patris Corde, footnote 10. Promulgated 8 December 2020.^↩
4 James 5:16.^↩

"Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord"

Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b.6-7.10-13a; Psalm 23:1-6; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

"Not as man sees does God see," the prophet Samuel is told as he tries to determine which of Jesse's seven sons to anoint, making him king of Israel to replace Saul (who was not yet dead). What man sees is the outward appearance, he is told, "but the LORD looks into the heart."

To see things clearly requires light. Christ is the Light of World, the One who illuminates this present darkness. His Light is what allows you to see things how they really are and for what they really are. One of the best "takes" on Jesus' Transfiguration, which we hear each year on the Second Sunday of Lent, is that Peter, James, and John get a glimpse of reality. For a brief, nearly unbearable moment, reality absorbs them.

To truly see requires being given the gift of true sight. This allows you to see through/beyond appearances. Appearances can be deceptive. If you've ever been taken in by a phony, you know what this means. Phoniness fades, authenticity remains. To judge by appearances, the authentic person is usually not the most outwardly expressive or ardent. The most ardent are usually the phonies. Being inauthentic often consists not only of trying fool others but fooling oneself.

In today's Gospel, it is the man born blind who, having been enlightened by Christ, who truly sees. Those who insist they can see are blind to the reality of who Jesus really is. So, despite insisting they can see, they remain blind, engulfed by the darkness.

After being baptized during the Easter Vigil, the Elect will be presented with a candle, lit directly from the Paschal Candle. The Candle is presented to the godparent of the newly baptized person, with the words, "Receive the Light of Christ." Once all the newly baptized are holding their lit candles, lit from the same Source, the presider prays:

You have been enlightened by Christ.
Walk always as children of the light...

After this, the candles that the already baptized have are relit, also from the Paschal candle (though not directly). We then renew our baptismal promises. This is that for which Lent serves as preparation.

So, once again, you find yourself at a moment of decision. The real questions are direct, requiring a simple "I do." What these boil down to are- Do I really want to be like Christ? Am I committed to walking and living in the Light of Christ? This is your summons to awake, to rise from the dead, to be illumined by Christ, who is the Light of the world.

The twenty-third psalm, which is one of the best known and best loved of all the psalms, one that bears memorizing and meditating on over and over, provides a poetic excursus on what living this way looks like.

"But for now we live on these streets"

Friday the thirteenth!!! As noted in my last post, I am not supertitious. Superstition is really quite a pagan disposition toward reality, not a Christian one.

Is thirteen considered unlucky because that is how many steps to the gallows or are there thirteen steps to the gallows because that number is unlucky?

As I have noted a few times over this Lenten season, mortality is a reality of which one must remain mindful. This is the point of the "Remember you are dust..." exhortation on Ash Wednesday. After a certain age, however, one is frequently reminded. Viewed strictly in the horizontal plane, we're all making our way to the gallows.

Even for someone who believes in and has hope for eternal life, death remains the horizon over which it is impossible to see. Let's be honest, even as people of faith, apart from resurrection, we don't really know what happens after we die. We especially don't know what we will experience between death and resurrection. Since we don't believe that we are souls trapped in bodies, a thoroughly Gnostic notion, what might it be like to be a disembodied soul?

I am not going to attempt to answer that question.

Momento mori- Remember death. Not only will your mortal life not last forever, it is very short. This is true even if you live to be 100!

Life's shortness should cause everyone to ponder life's meaning. This begins with the uncomfortable question, Does life have meaning? Having a meaning is what gives life purpose. Purpose gives direction. Being Christian is not just a way of life but a mode of being. Our direction is following Christ.

Just as practicing Christians tend to recoil at "I'm spiritual but not religious," Catholics are equally dismissive of the dichotomy between religion and relationship made by Evangelicals. But for a Christian, religion (i.e., right worship) requires relationship. Hence, it is the Catholic both/and. If it's just religious observance, then you are only going through the motions. One shouldn't hold onto either horn of a false dilemma. And, believe it or not, it isn't always better to go through the motions.

There are no small number of people who were raised Catholic, became Evangelicals, and returned to the Church. Most will tell you that detour was an important part of following Christ. I think this observation is important because Lent isn't about being more religious for a concentrated period of time. It's about opening yourself up to God's grace, seeking a deeper relationship with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

While I would never dissuade someone from adhering to the five precepts of the Church and, in fact always urge them to do so, I would say that sometimes, maybe especially during Lent, religious observance can be a dam rather than a channel of divine grace. I don't mind repeating this Friday that what the Lord is helping me with during this holy season is being more gentle with myself and extending that gentleness to others.

Our traditio for this Friday of the Third Week of Lent is Rick Elias' "A Man of No Reputation," which was recorded on The Jesus Record. It was a song slated to come out an album Rich Mullins was working on at the time of his death. Instead, it came out on a posthumous record.

The lyrics from this song I used as the title for this post reminded me of Madeleine Delbrêl's "We, the Ordinary People of the Streets." In this piece she insisted:

We, the ordinary people of the streets, believe with all our might that this street, this world, where God has placed us, is our place of holiness

Year 2: Monday of the Third Week of Lent

Readings: 2 Kings 5:1-15ab; Psalm 42:2-3; 43:3-4; Luke 4:24-30

Rather than to Israel, Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel could easily refer to the Church. This is an unpleasant possibility, is it not? It was certainly unpleasant for those in the synagogue of Jesus’ hometown.

Too often it is lost on us how unassuming Jesus seemed to most people. Our Gospel yesterday clearly showed that apart from being a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman, He did not seem particularly noteworthy as He sat by Jacob's well.

It would be difficult to think of how unassuming the Lord would’ve seemed to the people of His native place, many of whom were no doubt His relatives. Knowing someone, encountering them often, speaking with them, observing them closely tends to remove their mystique. There is a lot of truth in the saying, familiarity breeds contempt. At the very least, it often breeds indifference.

This observation, of course, serves the theological point that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man. Yes, He is consubstantial with the Father, true God from true God, but, through the womb of the Blessed Virgin, He is also consubstantial with us, truly human.

What tended to set Jesus apart are the seemingly outrageous things He said. To the Samaritan woman at the well, He said directly that He is the Christos, the Christ, the Messiah, the One for whom she was waiting to tell her everything.¹

What caused the kerfuffle in today’s Gospel is Jesus proclaiming to His fellow townspeople the same thing, namely that He is the Messiah. He did this by reading a passage from Isaiah about the Messianic age and then giving a very short homily: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”² This prompted someone to say, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?”³

Over two millennia, the Church has had many unassuming prophets: the deacon, Francis of Assisi, to name perhaps the most popular and radical one. Closer to our own day, Dorothy Day, Daniel Berrigan, and Madeline Delbrêl. In the mode of Pope John Paul II, we might even recognize the Protestant, Dietrich Bohoeffer and Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew, who perished, as did so many European Jews, in Auschwiz.

In his Angelus address yesterday, Pope Leo quoted Hillesum. Talking about the thirst, the desire, that constitutes our humanity at its deepest level, the Holy Father, cited her diary, where she wrote about sometimes drawing near to God before admitting “more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then he must be dug out again.”⁴

Our Lenten project each year is dig God out again. It is to prepare ourselves to renew our baptismal promises at Easter. When taken rightly, this is no sentimental journey. The question before us, especially now when so many terrible things are happening with some trying to be covered with a Christian veneer, is Do I really want to be like Christ? Have I decided to really be like Him?

One’s answer is revealed by whether one takes stock of oneself to identify those things that need to change for such a transformation to occur. Do I practice the disciplines of Christ as an apprentice would to master anything else? Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving aren’t just for Lent.

A Christian is one who, far from being put off by them, believes Jesus’ outrageous claims. A Christian believes He is the Lord, not a liar or a lunatic. But what is the point of believing Jesus is Lord if you don’t commit yourself to living, even now, in God’s kingdom, seeking to make it a present reality?

Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino insisted, “Forgetting the poor has gone hand in hand with forgetting the Kingdom of God.” Referring to the Church’s early conciliar history, which coincided with the Church being accommodated (some insist co-opted) by the empire, Sobrino asserted: “By the time of the fourth-century conciliar debates it is clear that the Kingdom of God plays no role whatsoever in Christology.”⁵

This is why being a disciple is so very important in every age. Following Christ shows that His humanity matters as much as His divinity, not more and not less. Being truly human means being like Jesus.⁶ Being His disciple means endeavoring, as scripture enjoins, “to live [just] as he lived.”⁷

---

1 See John 4:25-26.^↩
2 See Luke 4:16-19.21.^↩
3 See Luke 4:22.^↩
4 Pope Leo XIV. Angelus Address, 8 March 2026^↩
6 Jon Sobrino. “The Kingdom of God and the Theological Dimension of the Poor,” in Who Do You Say That I Am?: Confessing the Mystery of Christ, Ed. John C. Cavadini and Laura Holt, 109-145.^↩
6 Second Vatican Council. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et spes], sec. 22. 1 John 2:5-6.^↩
7 1 John 2:5-6.^↩

Quenching Christ's thirst

Gospel: John 4:5-42

The major theme of today's readings is thirst. Almost without fail, our focus tends to be on how much or how little we thirst for God. If you're not as thirsty as the world's most interesting man says you should be, then something is wrong. This is, of course is true. Who doesn't long for more? But it's also something you can't fix on your own.

If one takes the lovely Preface for the Eucharistic Prayer specfic to this passage from Saint John's Gospel, which is geared toward Christian initiation, what it tells you is that Christ thirsts for you. Not only is the liturgy the primary place for encountering Sacred Scripture, it is also prima theologia.

Let's step back, or rather, step forward, moving from the fourth chapter of Saint John's Gospel to the nineteenth. It is here that Jesus says, as He hangs dying on the cross, "I thirst" (John 19:28). This phrase was adopted by Saint Teresa of Calcutta as much more than a motto. These words constitute the foundation for the mission of the Missionaries of Charity. "I thirst" is also the Fifth of the Lord's Seven Last Words.

You can't "get" faith. No one can give you faith. You can't give faith to anyone. As a theological virtue, faith is a gift from God.

This Preface notes that prior to His encounter with this woman at Jacob's well, Jesus "had already created the gift of faith within her." Continuing, we hear that "so ardently did he thirst for her faith, that he kindled in her the fire of divine of love." To ardently thirst for her faith, which created in her, is a way of saying He ardently thirsted for her.

How the Lord kindled the fire of divine love in this Samaritan woman unfolds over the thirty-eight verses from the fourth chapter of the Gospel According to Saint John that comprise our Gospel for today. He lit this flame by gently pointing out how unsuccessful she had been at finding love. The fact she was then with someone, even if in an illicit arrangement, shows she still hadn't given up.

There is no shame in wanting to be loved and to love. This desire constitutes our humanity. This is why, at some point or another, love makes fools of nearly all of us.

At its deepest level, the Good News is that you are always already loved with an unquenchable, unfathomable love. "God," after all, "is love" (1 John 4:8.16). "In this is love," we read elsewhere in the Johannine corpus, "not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). God loves you and there's nothing you can do about it!

So, before you ever thirst for Him, the Lord thirsts for you. Without His thirst for you, you couldn't thirst for Him. And He can't help but thirst for you.

To quote the usually neglected first part of the sentence that contains Saint Augustine's massively overused phrase, found near the beginning his Confessions: "You have stirred in us the desire to praise you, for you have made us for yourself. . ." (Book I, Chapter 1).

Year A Third Sunday of Lent: Thristy

I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ.

      And hope does not disappoint. . .

I am he. . .

Jesus Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well, Gustave Doré, ca. 1880 (Public Domain)

     But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves. . .

Saint Saturus

Even though it is an optional memorial on the Roman calendar, each year I personally observe the Memorial of Saints Perpetua & Felicity during my celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours. I do so especially by praying the Office of Readings. While none of these are the second reading for the Office of Readings for this liturgical memorial, every year I read one of Saint Augustine's sermons for this observance of the martrydom of his fellow North African Christians (Sermons 280-282).

As to the second reading for the Office of readings for today's memorial, I was struck today by an aspect of this passage "From the story of the death of the holy martyrs of Carthage" that had never really hit me before, focused as I was on the heroic virtue shown by Perpetua. It has to do with the martyr Saturus, who is certainly Saint Saturus.

Entering the arena, by Fyodor Bronnikov, 1869

Serving at the colisieum on the day of this gruesome spectacle, was the Roman soldier Pudens. Apparently, Pudens, too, was a Christian. After being savaged by the hungry leopard who was set upon them, Saturus told Pudens not be frightened by what he was witnessing but to let his faith be strengthened by these things.

Saturus then asked Pudens to hand him "the little ring" Pudens was wearing on one of his fingers. Pudens did so, "After soaking [the ring] in his wound," Saturus returned it to the soldier "as a keepsake." The soldier was gifted a relic.

Saturus, who this account tells us was the first to die, is last seen helping a badly wounded Perpetua. While I admit to being more than a little biased in this regard, Saturus' words and actions strike me as more than a little diaconal.

What follows is an addendum to my original post:

Thinking about Pudens watching his sisters and brothers being devoured by a feral, hungry leopard while serving the power subjecting them to this horrific death, kind of epitomizes cognitive dissonance. Many Christians today find themselves in a predicament similar to that this soldier serving the empire.

What unfolds before this Christian Roman soldier's eyes is nothing less than the kingdom of God, as the Lord Himself taught and lived it, versus the kingdoms of this world. In worldly, existential, terms, winning for Christians often looks like losing- "if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!"

But, Saturus speaks words of hope to his brother who is working on behalf of the power putting him to such a gruesome death while giving him a bloody keepsake to strengthen him. One wonders, strengthen him for what?

"I am my own worst enemy"

February was a month during which I had the s*#t kicked out of me. One crucial piece of the armor of God as described in Ephesians that is missing is a cup or protective codpiece. I can point to four events last month that together really shook me. It was cumulative effect, as each of these things separately, while a bit distressing, would not leave me feeling the way I felt. Looking back, last February was the beginning of what turned out to be a very difficult year. Not being superstitious, I am not worried about an exact or even similar repeat. It was interesting to notice this.

I think this adversity is helping, not hardening, me. I am grateful for the grace to be open to the needed growth that can only come from experiencing difficulties, both those I bring on myself and those that arise from nowhere. I'd be lying if I told you that there are no unguarded moments when I catch myself being angry, bitter, and a bit resentful. When I catch myself feeling that way, it is opportunity to take it to the Lord and offer it to Him all over again. At some point, I am sure I will be able to just leave it.

We sing, say, and cite the Prayer of Saint Francis ad nauseum. As it goes with everything that is overused (i.e., "thy will be done" and "our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee, O Lord," etc.), it isn't usually taken to heart, remaining a nice sentiment in the moment. I have really been grappling with the petitions "may I not so much seek . . . to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love." This is proving to be some hard sledding.

Most Catholics are well-acquainted with the corporal works of mercy, but less so with the spiritual works of mercy. Two in particular challenge me: enduring wrongs patiently and willingly forgiving offenses. As difficult as these are for me, the lesson I am really learning so far this Lent is to be gentle and patient with myself.

Treating myself the way I want others to treat me, applying the golden rule and fostering a just love of self is my unbidden, Spirit-led, Lenten project. Trying to gaze on myself with the same tenderness with which Christ gazes on me is a new perspective. I am finding this way harder than patiently enduring wrongs and forgiving others. In the face of these things, I am very quick to shame and demean myself. This starts the cycle of anger, bitterness, and resentment.

I know how unlike Christ I am. It can easily be and sometimes is discouraging. In my better moments, not being more like Him grieves me. I was very struck by the Collect for Monday of the Second Week of Lent:

O God, who have taught us
to chasten our bodies
for the healing of our souls,
enable us, we pray,
to abstain from all sins,
and strengthen our hearts
to carry out your loving commands

Trevor Hudson referred to Lent as a "time-gift." It's a time to let Christ heal my soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. A time to experience His love when I feel unloved and unloveable. No shame, no guilt, no condemnation, just pure, unbounded love, that only He can give and that I need so badly but want only intermittently.

And so, our traditio is Lit with "My Own Worst Enemy."

Letting go of Why?

Why? It is the most human of all questions. As human beings, we are creatures of meaning, always deeply desiring meaning. We often tend to manfacture meaning. Because this question is human, all too human, it is limited. Hanging on to "Why?" limits you.

The Book of Job shows what happens when one clings to "Why?" In the end, Job doesn't really receive a satisfying answer to his question. Rather than asking "Why?", it's usually more important to grapple with "that."

That really happened. What now? It's okay that you can't make sense of it. I am of the view that in a fallen and badly broken world, there is often no sense be made of things. And so, it's very often the case that any meaning you assign is an overlay, an imposition, a figment of your imagination. This is especially true when trying to determine someone else's intentions. Most of the time, we don't know our own reasons why!

Most of the Book of Job consists of either Job's friends trying to answer Job's "Why?" or Job rejecting their facile answers (i.e., God is punishing you because of something you did) even as he continues imploring God. In the end, the divine answer Job receives can be summarized by this passage from Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways . . . For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thought (Isa 55:8-9)

When reality is overwhelming, disorienting, bad, or even traumatic, "Why?" is a natural response. Like a lot of natural responses, the Spirit leads us beyond that. In his lovely little book Prayerfulness, Robert L. Wicks inists that "until we can let go of this question ["Why?"] and find new ways of relating to God and the event, moving on and moving deeper in our life is almost impossible" (90).

Perhaps the most pagan way of relating to God is to think that when something bad happens God is punishing you and when good things happen it is because God is pleased with you. God is not capricious. God is probably never the formal cause of what happens to you. Perhaps sometimes He might be the efficient cause. God is certainly the final cause of all things. If we're willing to let go of "Why?", God can and will make amazing things happen. Only God can bring life from death and create something from nothing.

Trust is earned. Trusting someone, even God, involves a risk. Most of the time the risk isn't whether or not things will work out for the better or maybe even just be okay. Rather, the risk is not having things work out the way you want them to. What we often want is for bad things to just go away. Far from being an evasion of reality, Christian faith is a deep engagement with reality. Hope is realized by facing reality squarely.

More than God's pleasure or displeasure, I think the worst temptations are not to believe in God or to believe God is indifferent toward you. Of these two, the latter is worse than the former. We are not to put God to the test, which, scripturally, refers to trying to force God to do what you want Him to do. Trusting God when reality seems arrayed against you, which requires submission to His holy will and realzing that it isn't just all going to magically go away, is necessary. This means having no idea how this is going to work out or how I am going to make peace with this and imploring God, surrendering to Him.

As Eugene Peterson wrote: "When nothing we can do makes any difference and we are left standing around empty-handed and clueless, we are ready for God to create."

Year 2: Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Readings: Daniel 9:4b-10; Psalm 79:8-9.11.13; Luke 6:36-38

Our God is awesome because, for anyone who repents and seeks His mercy, He does not deal with him according to his sins. In other words, if you turn to Him, you won’t get what you deserve in the end. If this isn’t good news, I don’t know what might be.

In essence, the Gospel is pretty simple. Human life, “real” life, is what is complicated. A very complicated situation arises whenever someone who has done something truly terrible turns to the Lord and truly repents.

Of course, repentance consists of acknowledging the terrible sin(s) committed and accepting, perhaps even embracing, the just consequences that follow from them. Genuine repentance is not a way of avoiding responsibility or consequences. In his encyclical Spe salvi, Pope Benedict XVI noted:

Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value¹

He also pointed to something axiomatic: “Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so.”² We must humbly acknowledge that ultimately, only God can judge. And judge He will. So, how you live your life matters both here and now and in eternity. This is Christian realism at its most stark.

Today, the Lord does not comfort us. Rather, He provokes us: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”³ Today’s readings are summed up nicely in a passage from Ephesians:

And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. [And] be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ⁴

In his magisterial address with which he opened the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pope Saint John XXIII insisted:

In our time, however, the Bride of Christ prefers to use medicine of mercy rather than severity. She wants to come to meet current needs, showing the validity of her doctrine rather than renewing sentences⁵

In his first message for Lent, Pope Leo invited us

to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor. Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander and speaking ill of those who are not present and cannot defend themselves⁶

Striving to be like Christ means endeavoring to follow follow even His most difficult teachings. To love your enemies, pray for them, do them good. In the verses leading up to our short passage from Luke for today, Jesus asks:

For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same⁷

Christians reject the lex talionis, which insists on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Like Tevye, the main character in Fiddler on the Roof, we realize that the only result of living according to the lex talionis is that everyone winds up blind and toothless.⁸

By following Christ Jesus, we go a better way.

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1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, sec. 44. 2007.^↩
2 Ibid.^↩
3 Luke 6:36.^↩
4 Ephesians 4:30-32.^↩
5 John XXIII. Gaudet Mater Ecclesiae. Address to Open the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. 1962.^↩
6 Pope Leo XIV. Message for Lent 2026.^↩
7 Luke 6:32-33..^↩
8 Fiddler on the Roof, film version, directed by Norman Jewison, 1971.^↩

Year A Second Sunday of Lent

Readings: Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 33:4-5.18-20.22; 2 Timothy 1:8b-10; Matthew 17:1-9

The Lord’s Transfiguration is the fourth Luminous mystery of the Blessed Mother’s Holy Rosary. This mystery’s fruit is the desire for holiness. In the part of the Sermon on the Mount known as the Beatitudes, which we spent several Sundays listening to just before Lent, Jesus calls blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.¹

What does it mean to be holy, to be righteous? It means to be like Jesus. This requires obedience to the Father by listening to His Son’s teachings and endeavoring to follow them. Transfiguration or, more succinctly, conversion, is a better way to think about repentance than just being sorry for your sins, which, while necessary for repentance, is far from sufficient.

This holy season is a time-gift we receive each year. Receiving this time gift means repenting and believing in the Gospel, which is not a self-improvement project. As our responsorial for today puts it: “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”² To be like Christ means surrendering yourself to God. Indeed, Christ “saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design.”³

Abram, later Abraham, our father in faith, exemplifies this our reading from Genesis, which is summarized in the final sentence: “Abram went as the LORD directed him.”⁴ Jesus Christ is the Gospel. He is the Good News of salvation, the One who surrendered Himself completely to God, relinquishing His own will for the sake of love, even to the point of death.⁵

In the whole of our uniquely Christian scriptures, which together we call the New Testament, eternal life is clearly defined only once.This definition is found in the Gospel According to Saint John:

Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ⁶

Being a Christian means to desire holiness. It means being hungry and thirsty to be like Christ, a desire that is strengthened by the Eucharist. Becoming holy requires me to confront myself in those ways I know I am not like Him.

Transfiguration, by Titian, 1560 (Public Domain)

These realizations should cause me, in words from our Ash Wednesday reading from the Book of the Prophet Joel: “Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God.”⁷ This exhortation ends on a note of encouragement that gives hope:

for [the LORD] is gracious and merciful
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
and relenting in punishment⁸

The Lord taught that those who truly hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.⁹ Without repentance, there is no hunger, no thirst for Christ. Hence, there is no forgiveness, no conversion, no salvation. What good is a gift you refuse?

The good news, in part, is that, at least until death, God never ceases offering you the gift of salvation, purchased by the death of His Son, no matter how many times you refuse or ignore it. But that part, at least until death, recalls that I am dust and to dust I will return. This realization gives the Lord’s call great urgency.

As Count Leo Tolstoy wrote in a pamphlet at beginning of the twentieth century: “everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”¹⁰ While you cannot be transfigured into Christ’s image merely by your own efforts, you certainly can’t be so converted with no effort!

Today, with Lent in full-swing- though it’s never too late to start- the Lord says to you: “Rise and do not be afraid.”¹¹ He desperately wants to hear you respond, “Jesus, I trust in You.”

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1 Matthew 5:6.^↩
2 Psalm 33:22.^↩
3 2 Timothy 1:9.^↩
4 Genesis 12:4a.^↩
5 Matthew 26:39.^↩
6 John 17:3.^↩
7 Joel 2:13.^↩
8 Joel 2:13.^↩
9 Matthew 5:6.^↩
10 Leo Tolstoy. "Three Methods of Reform." Translated in 1900.^↩
11 Matthew 17:9.^↩