When you fall in love with someone, you can’t stop thinking about him; you look for every opportunity to be with her; you look for ways to show your love for him; you want to tell everyone else all about her. So I had to ask myself:
How often does Jesus occupy my thoughts; how frequently do I seek ways to spend time with him; do I look for ways to show him my love; do I find myself telling others about him and how much he means to me?
Where are the subjects of the Kingdom? If the Kingdom of God is fading from memory and visibility in our contemporary world, the question must be “What has become of its citizens?” In 1978 Frank Sheed wrote that we were in a spiritual coma! Apparently forty-three years have passed with little change in our condition. Our malaise might best be captured in the word repeated ad nauseam in daily parlance: “Whatever”. Intended to convey a benevolent tolerance, it instead communicates an indifference to anything or anyone outside of one’s own experience.
In the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church, next Sunday is the feast of Christ the King. It’s a celebration of his kingship over the entire universe. An affirmation of a central truth of Christianity. But what do Americans know of kingdoms? Have you ever met or even seen a king (the flat faced one with a silly grin that promotes burgers doesn’t count)? Yet throughout the Gospels kings and kingdoms are a persistent theme.
My mother is now 94 years old. She moved into the memory care unit of an assisted living facility four months ago, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Visits and phone calls require careful concentration to avoid questions as simple as what she had for breakfast that morning. It’s like poking a fresh wound. “I just don’t remember, honey. It seems like that’s all I say anymore.”
That pretty much sums up our collective consciousness in regard to something called sin. Spiritual dementia. A global pandemic of spiritual dementia.
The Greatest Story Ever Told (continued from prior post)
Every day of our lives, we can now choose to live the life of Jesus or to live for ourselves. We can choose things that meet our desires for pleasure, power, or possessions – but bring us no closer to the purpose for which we were created. We can choose people to meet our needs and wants for attention, affection, or adulation; but they will inevitably fall short of our expectations, frequently disappoint us, and predictably hurt us time and again. Only a daily relationship with God himself can fill the void at the core of our being: to be loved and to love.
This 1949 classic by Gulton Oursler recounting the life of Christ was an instant bestseller and has been read by millions. Salvation history is literally His-story. I learned about it in the Baltimore Catechism under the tutelage of the Ursuline Sisters during my elementary school years in Cleveland, Ohio. But knowing about someone is quite different from knowing someone from personal encounters. From a lifetime of personal encounters, I share my understanding of His-story, i.e., my statement of faith. It is the greatest story ever told to me.
We were created to be in a relationship with unconditional love. Jesus came into this world to reveal to us that the unconditional, uninterrupted, unending love for which we were created – is God. One of his closest disciples passed this revelation on to us in one of his letters, inspired by the Holy Spirit (1 John 4: 16b). “God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him (JB). “ “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (RSV).” “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him. (NAB)” The translations of “live”, “abide”, and “remain” convey the essence of this love: we need it to have life (live), without interruption (abide), and to have it forever (remain). Just as all creation needs a certain environment in order to grow and be sustained (a combination of air, water, light, and nutrition), human beings need to be in the presence of unconditional love in order to grow, mature, and attain the fullness of the purpose for which we were created – perfect intimacy, unity, and harmony with unconditional, uninterrupted, unending love.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare
“What’s in a name?” quoth the hero in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. And verily what doth it mean to speak in the name of another? I am delighted thou wouldst ask.
Christians the world over dare to pray in God’s name. In the name of Jesus…; In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The words begin and end so many prayers. But are they so formulaic that the full meaning is lost on the lips of the speaker? What’s in a name, indeed?
The laborers are few but the harvest is plenty. We beg the Lord of the harvest to send us out, to send us out.
You send us out as lambs in the midst of wolves, to proclaim the kingdom of God to those who have ears to hear.
We offer You praise O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. For what You’ve hidden from the learned and wise, You’ve revealed to the merest children.
We must be ready, the time is short. Not one of us may stand idle. We must go out for the fields are ripe.
Have you heard the latest ripple effect of Covid-19? Cleveland Clinic is reporting a notable increase in cases of broken-heart syndrome – the colloquial name for stress cardiomyopathy. It’s a dysfunction or failure in the heart muscle attributed to psychological, social, or emotional stress. Dr. Ankur Kalra, the cardiologist who led the study that published these conclusions in the Journal of the American Medical Association told Cleveland.com in a phone interview that “This is going to be the crisis of our lifetime.” It provides new insight into the impact of the pandemic beyond the illness itself, because none of the patients in the study tested positive for the coronavirus. It’s as if the social isolation generated by prevention measures has itself become a plague.
