Saturday, 1st Week: Love Your Enemy

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

A number of years ago I heard Fr. John Powell, SJ, say that each and every one of us is a unique and unrepeatable image of God.  Beautiful words – until I realize that they apply just as much to my enemies as to me.  God made our enemies, and loves them, so we are commanded to love them too.

How can I love my enemy?  Jesus tells us to pray for our enemy.  I can pray for both of us to have a new heart and new attitude toward each other and God.  It goes both ways.

That’s easy enough as long as I don’t have to meet my enemies face-to-face.  What then?  

Here is the way chosen by Martin Luther King, Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.  I quote him:

“To our most bitter opponents we say:  We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering.  We shall meet your physical force with soul force.  Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.  Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you.  Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you.  Do to us what you will, and we shall still love you.  Be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.  One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves.  We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”

Who are my enemies? What action of love can I make for an enemy today?

reflected by Sharon Sullivan

Friday, 1st Week: Forgiving Is a Healing In Our Own Hearts

“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” - Matthew 5:23-24

How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? Our deepest desire is that the forgiveness we offer will be received. This mutuality between giving and receiving is what creates peace and harmony. But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the other is first and foremost an inner movement. It is an act that removes anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge from our hearts and helps us to reclaim our human dignity. We cannot force those we want to forgive into accepting our forgiveness. They might not be able or willing to do so. They many not even know or feel that they have wounded us. Yet, when we reach out through forgiveness, we move forward toward inner healing and peace. We also invite those we seek to forgive to a similar conversion.

The only people we can really change are ourselves. Forgiving others is first and foremost healing our own hearts.

What forgiving have you delayed? Can you do it now, with God’s grace?

adapted from Henri Nouwen

Thursday of the First Week of Lent: Ask, you will receive.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened…Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” — Mathew 7:7-12

Most of us have heard some variation of the adage, the road to recovery begins with admitting you have a problem. So often, we come to this point after self-reliantly laboring to find our own answers. Accustomed to independence, we exhaust every conceivable alternative before, aghast, we even consider reaching outside of ourselves for help. The American ideal of self-reliance casts a powerful shadow against the instinct to connect with others, with God, and thereby heal.

Jesus reminds us that it takes experiencing the limits of our own understanding to have the impetus to expose and ultimately own our vulnerability. It is in this tender stance, conceding our own unknowing, that we make space for God to dwell. In asking God, in seeking God, we engage our dependence on God. And only then, can know true freedom.

The Golden Rule, do unto others, gives us additional perspective here. Let us give God our presence, that we may in turn be illuminated by his.

“Lord, I ask you show me how obstacles manifest in my life to keep me from growing in your love. I ask that you sustain in me the will to seek your light. I know I am not meant to walk alone today. Give me the courage to shed what stands between us.”


reflected by Alma Morales Risse

Wednesday, 1st Week: God Wants to Forgive and Heal

Jesus preached to the people, asking them to repent, just as the Ninevites had done, saying, "They turned from their sins when they heard Jonah preach." - Luke 11:32

An old legend portrays what takes place outside the gates of Heaven after the world ends. The last group of saints and repentant sinners has just climbed up the golden stairway that connects the earth to Heaven. Everyone is in a festive mood, singing, and dancing. Everyone excepts Jesus. He stands alone at the top of the stairs, looking towards earth. He is obviously looking for someone. When a saint asks Him who it is, Jesus says, “I’m looking for Judas, hoping he may have had a change of heart before he died and join us."

The God of Jesus has no room for hatred, desire for revenge, or pleasure in seeing us punished. God wants to forgive, heal, restore, show us endless mercy, and see us come home. But just as the father in the “Prodigal Son” parable lets both of his sons make their own decisions, God gives us the freedom to refuse divine love, even at the risk of destroying ourselves. Hell is not God's choice. It is ours. God's choice is to forgive, heal, and embrace completely.

"In what area of my life might I long for yet resist a deeper conversion of heart?
Might this affect the way I forgive someone who has hurt me?" 

inspired by Mark Link SJ

Tuesday, 1st Week: Thoughts Can Actually Help us Toward God

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven ...” - Matthew 6:7-9

Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, or daydream. Much of the time, we worry about the future and fret about the past. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is "unceasing." Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with God, who is the source of all love.

One way of listening to the Spirit's prompting at the core of our being is just to let our thoughts be, without judging ourselves as we experience these thoughts nor feeding them. Letting them be while inviting God in can be a way of praying unceasingly.

Let us allow the One who dwells in the center of our beings to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds. Let us listen to the One who hides in our thoughts.

“O Holy Spirit, convert my never-ending flow of thoughts into prayer.”

adapted from Henri Nouwen

Monday, 1st Week: Choose Love By Taking Small Steps Daily

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” - Leviticus 19:17-18

Often we speak of love as if it were a feeling. Rather, it is a choice. A continual choice: a commitment to nurture the spiritual growth of ourselves or another. Yes, it is difficult to choose love when we have experienced so little of it. Nevertheless, we can choose love by taking small steps of self-giving love. A smile, a handshake, a word of encouragement, a phone call, a card, an embrace, a kind greeting, a gesture of support, a moment of attention, a helping hand, a present, a financial contribution, a visit – all these are little steps toward love. It may even involve taking more rest or better self-care so that we can better care for others.

St Thérèse of Lisieux reminds us that love lies not in the magnitude of the deed but in the totality of the self-giving. Mother Teresa puts it similarly: “We can do no great deeds, only small deeds with great love.” In choosing to love through simple self-giving deeds, we are acting into a new way of being. These small steps ground our love in the One who is Love, beyond our feelings.

“O Lord, help me to take the small steps of love I need to take today.”

inspired by Henri Nouwen

Sunday, 1st Week of Lent: Loneliness Leads to the Heart of God

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” - Lk 4:1

“Because he clings to me, I will deliver him; I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him.” - Ps 91:14

We never talk about loneliness; yet, it is so prevalent. It visits us all. Yet, our culture frowns upon it. It is “bad” to feel lonely. However, loneliness affects all of us, so much that some of us are paralyzed into fear; and many of us throw ourselves into a maelstrom of activity, secretly hoping it will go away.

Jesus allowed the Spirit to lead him into the desert. He faced his suffocating loneliness and its temptations. Through it, he grew more radically dependent on God_Abba; he came to a deeper realization of who he was and who he was called to be – God's Beloved. Like him, when we are open to our loneliness - our particular kind of suffering - something mysteriously creative happens. We can come to know ourselves in a deeper way. We can stand with others who suffer their particular loneliness. And even though ours and theirs are not the same loneliness, solidarity is born. Compassion grows. Moreover, we come to know and love Jesus more intimately. Mysteriously, we grow in greater intimacy with ourselves, others, and Jesus. On the way, our heart becomes more tender and more like the heart of God.

“Jesus, help us to enter our loneliness with you and cling to God.”

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, "Follow me."
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

Two very simple words: Follow me. It can be daunting sometimes to think that Christ calls us to labor with him in the vineyard. How can he possibly call me? We sometimes get in the way of allowing a grace-filled moment to change our lives even when it is right in front of our face. Jesus reminds us to recognize our own vulnerability, weakness, and humility so that we may share in the Lord's labor. For one very simple reason, we turn our attention away from ourselves to God. Humility is an awareness of who we truly are in the eyes of God. Through this awareness, we celebrate and give thanks for the gifts God has bestowed on us. We are all like Levi: sinful, broken, and desiring to be better. Levi dropped everything because he saw in Christ: truth, love, and joy. A simple request from Christ allowed Levi to trust that God was calling him to an experience of radical service and love. In this Lenten Season, how is God inviting us to recognize our weaknesses in order to serve his greater glory? Through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we too can be transformed to move outside ourselves and identify and encounter the love of Christ that compels us to serve and to love the Church and one another.

reflected by Alex Llanera, S.J.

First Friday of Lent Reflection

I always seem to find myself struggling to “get into the Lenten routine.” No matter how much I plan ahead, or look ahead on the calendar, it always seems to sneak up on me. I find myself struggling to figure out something “to do” – whether it is an addition of a new positive practice or a giving up of something that might help me to focus more on God. A handful of times in my life I think the practice I adopted during Lent really affected my life. Often though, I have had trouble really identifying some practice that seems appropriate for Lent.

I get the same panicky feeling like when I am trying to order food at a place like Panera Bread and the line is piling up behind me, people sending menacing glances my way. So I just blurt out the first thing on the menu that catches my eye, only to sit down with something that looks totally unappealing to me. I pick a Lenten practice so that I have something to answer when people ask “what are you doing for Lent?” but whatever I select to do usually doesn’t feel like it is bringing me any closer to God.

The Psalm for today focuses on the cultivation of a “heart contrite and humbled” (Psalm 51). The humble heart is the offering to God, not the practice of fasting or self-denial itself. Instead of stressing about finding something to DO for Lent, I spent time focusing on this attitude of a humble heart before God. The practices I am adopting are things that I felt would help me on the real journey of Lent, the preparation of my own heart to journey with Christ in his suffering. Whatever we chose to do in regards to fasting, serving, praying, and giving, these things are an opportunity to prepare ourselves to more fully for this offering of self.

If you are like me sometimes and have not committed to any particular practice yet, ask, “Lord I want to offer my heart to you? Is there anything I can do in my daily life that would help me in that desire?”

reflected by Jen Horan

Being Transformed in the Everyday

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” – Luke 9:23-24

Today’s Gospel reading stirs up challenging, even uncomfortable questions for me. Taking up my cross and losing my life for Jesus is a tall order. How can I live up to His words?

Yes, the invitation is radical; and the promise, significant – “life and prosperity” in God, as Moses reminds us in the first reading. Thankfully, Jesus keeps it simple. He invites us to take up our cross daily – that is, one day at a time, in the midst of where we are. How wonderful it is that we are already where we need to be, and can meet Him there! As we begin to enter into the mystery of Jesus’s life these 40 days, Jesus is just as much if not more so meeting us in the mystery of our own lives. It is the wisdom of a God who so lovingly and humbly embraces our confusion, struggles, boredoms, doubts, failures, to break new life into our everyday.

Second, Jesus reminds us losing our life for His sake means we will never have to go it alone. How often I’ve thought that I had to be the one to get my life in order, and figure it out myself, before I could get closer to God! If we lose our lives for His sake, we are entering into a communion - a two-way dialogue, journeying together, where Jesus takes the lead and brings forth the growth. The focus then becomes not our own efforts, but rather God’s transforming grace and love.

What’s left then? I’m just going to try my best to show up and get out of God’s way. That can’t be too bad, right?

Where am I invited to be present to God in my daily life this Lent? What grace can I ask for to help with this?

reflected by Quyen Ngo