Well, I am quite thrilled that Victor has bestowed the prestigious Lobster Award on me. (More on the award in a second ...)
And while I am thankful that he has given me this highly prized crustacean, I am also now left with the challenge of weaving it into a post about today's gospel.
Here goes nothing ...
First, the award. Victor sums up his invention this way:
This magnificent and rarely presented Award is only given to those tireless and hard-working Bloggers who, despite the many vicissitudes which life may throw in their way, despite the magnitude of the task ahead in their daily grind that is this vale of tears, despite every obstacle, every hardship, and every discouragements and temptations to just click and move on to another Blog; they still find time to visit your personal offering and to regularly leave a message there in the Comments Box.
(Little does Victor know that I enjoy reading his posts, and leaving a comment on his page is really no work at all. But I will continue to feign sweat and tears each time I visit if it means I can call myself an Award Winning Blogger . Shhhh. Our secret.)
I usually focus on two things when I read that passage: (a) wonder at what it really looked like, and (b) pity for poor St. Peter who blurted out the only thing he could think of to help.
But Victor's award has forced me to think of a new angle.
Perhaps this event was Jesus taking time out from His "daily grind that is this vale of tears, full of every obstacle, every hardship, and every discouragement and temptation" to show three of his closest friends that he cares.
He gave them a glimpse of something really special. Something no one else got to see. A sneak peak at the bigger picture. A sign that would help them believe.
A token of appreciation, perhaps.
And so now it is my turn. I tried my hardest to turn my clothes dazzling white, but alas, I'm just a mere mortal. So instead, I will turn you blog red, and hand out this Lobster Award to those of you that take the time out of your busy days to let me know you are out there and reading:
Victor Mary Karinann Colleen Daily Grace Shirley Carol Jade Noreen Andie Kathryn Anne
I really do appreciate the camaraderie.
(And thank you to everyone else that reads this blog each week, knowing comments are not a requirement!)
God Bless.
P.S. A special thanks to Victor for not only coming up with this award, but for always trying to inspire the rest of us!
"At once the Spirit drove Him out into the desert, and He remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to Him."
I wonder what it was like in that desert. By Himself.
Which one of these hills was He in?
I wonder how hot it got. How dry it was.
How did He decide where to walk? Which hill to climb? Where to sleep? Did he entertain Himself with stories? Jokes? Did He talk to His father the entire time?
I wonder if he saw this tree.
Did He lean on it out of exhaustion? Did He sit under it for shade? Did He kneel under it to pray?
I wonder how many wild animals crossed His path?
Were they peaceful in His presence? Did they startle Him in the night? Were they His companions in a sea of nothingness?
I wonder how He handled the temptations.
Did He shrug them off as child's play? Did He work harder than He ever had to stay focused on the goal? Did He stare off that mountain, and instead of wishing He ruled over the land, prayed for its forgiveness?
I wonder if He came out stronger. Exhausted? More focused? Sadder?
I wonder if those forty days felt like forty years.
I've heard today's Gospel about Jesus healing the paralytic plenty of times.
And I've always focused on the fact that Jesus told this guy his sins were forgiven before he physically healed him. When I was younger, I was as baffled by that as the scribes were. I've learned much since then (cough cough), but I still focused on that line because it always reminded me how much more important our spiritual health is vs our physical one.
However, today I saw this reading in a different light.
Today I saw great friendship.
The four gentleman who carried the paralytic are pretty much an afterthought as the focus of this story shifts from the sick man, to Jesus, to the scribes.
They are nameless, but what they did is pretty remarkable!
First, the fact that they even associated with the paralytic says a lot. Paralytics were looked down upon, and their sickness was viewed as a symptom of sin and punishment.
Second, instead of rushing to try and hear Jesus before the crowd got too big, they went and fetched their friend. That probably took real discipline. In addition, while we don't know how far they were from the house Jesus was at, carrying the man to it couldn't have been a walk in the park.
Third, when they got to the house and realized there was no chance of walking in through the door, they did not give up.
Fourth, while Mark mentions that these four men lowered their friend through the roof, he glosses over the chore that must have been! Assuming this was a typical Jewish house with an upper room and flat roof, there were probably stairs or a ladder already attached to the house. I'm not sure how you carry a paralyzed man up a ladder - or steps - even with help. But I'm guessing it wasn't easy.
Fifth, while the typical house probably had a door to enter and exit the roof area, its hard to tell from Mark (or Luke) if they had to make the hole larger by digging (if mud and thatch) or removing tiles. And even if Jesus was preaching from an upper room, lowering the paralytic down from the roof was yet another physical feat.
I wonder what their reaction was like after their friend was healed. I imagine it was a mix of great awe that they witnessed a miracle and great happiness that their friend was healed.
Did they hang around to listen to Jesus? Did they become followers? Spread the news? Or just go back to their normal lives, thanking the Lord for that day?
We'll never know.
But I do know that I need to find friends like them!
I've been reading The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by one of my favorite authors, Fr. James Martin.
He spends part of the book explaining the Daily Examen - a technique developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help us see God in our daily lives.
St. Ignatius required the Jesuits to pray the Examen twice a day, but as Fr. Martin notes, even praying it once at the end of the day can have a very powerful effect on your spiritual outlook and the way you approach life.
There are many variations of the Examen - I wanted to share one of them with you here.
Step 1: Recognize you are in the presence of God. How often we forget that we are always in the presence of God as we get caught up in the minutia and craziness of our day to day lives!
Step 2: Review your day, moment by moment. Our days go by in a flash as we run from one task to another. The goal here is to take the time and review each day and reflect upon the events (and notice those things you hurried past, or completely missed). This step will help you with #3 and #4.
Step 3: Give thanks. Thank the Lord for all the graces and good things you received throughout the day - large and small. (The first time I did this I could not believe how many times I overlooked God's presence in my day, or how many little things I should have been thankful for but almost missed.)
Step 4: Realize where you failed. Where did you sin? Where did you miss an opportunity to do God's work? What drew you away from Him?
Step 5: Ask for forgiveness and resolve. Tell God you are sorry for those times you let Him down, and ask for His grace to do better tomorrow.
This can be done at whatever pace you feel comfortable (Fr. Martin says even 15 min of quiet time can be enough), but the key is to give it your full attention and to do it every day.
It is a beautiful, but powerful, way to grow closer to God.
I'm sometimes saddened that the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord gets lost in all the post-Christmas hangover.
Heck, even this post is three weeks late.
But as someone, somewhere once said, late is better than never. So here goes ...
As most of you probably know, there are three Epiphanies that we celebrate on that feast day, and each serves as a powerful moment in time when Christ's Divinity is revealed to mankind.
The visit of the Magi
The baptism in the Jordan
The miracle at Cana
As I spent time reflecting on the power of each of those this month, I kept asking myself one question ... which would I go back to see live, if I could?
After weeks of debating, I know my answer. But I'd love to hear yours.
Would you choose to watch the Magi lay their eyes on the Baby for the first time? To see the expression on their faces when their interpretation was proven correct? To know how long they stayed, what they said, and how many of them there actually were? Or maybe just to see what the whole scene looked like and what was going on around them?
Or would you choose to be there when John baptized our Savior? To see what it looked like when the Heavens opened up? To hear God's voice boom down to His Son? Or perhaps just to see how many others were on hand to witness the event and how they reacted?
What about the wedding at Cana? Would you elect to be there to see Christ's first public miracle? To see how hard his knowing Mother nudged Him? To watch the expression on the servant's face? Or maybe just to see Jesus having fun at a celebration with His friends?
Post your answer in the comments section, and I'll do the same next week. In the meantime, feel free to pass along this question. There are no "rules" to this meme ... just have everyone post their answers in the comments section here so we can read them all and have some fun reflecting on the Glory of our Lord.
A funny thing has happened to me as I've grown in my faith.
Sometimes I feel worse.
Let me explain...
When I was younger, I would show up to Mass each Sunday, put my token offering in the basket, and smile on the way back to my real life. If someone asked if I was practicing Catholic, I responded with an affirmative "why, yes I am! Just ask me on Sunday mornings!"
In retrospect, I was just going through the motions. At Mass and outside Mass.
But I was blissfully doing so. As far as I knew, I was acting just how God wanted me to. In my own ignorant mind, I was an excellent Catholic. Yup ... the Big Guy was surely smiling at me every day ... just pleased as could be.
Fast forward to today - and while I am certainly no model Catholic, I am light years ahead of where young Michael was.
Here is the irony though ...
The more I learn about our our religion and the closer I grow to God, the less blissful I sometimes feel.
Sure, there are times when I am the happiest person on Earth because I can feel God's love.
But there are other times when I sit there and ponder how much I have let Him down. How far I must be from His plan. How disappointed He must be in me every day.
And that is painful.
I didn't feel that way before my journey, of course. I didn't know any better.
Don't get me wrong, I would never go back. Just the opposite, in fact. I'm going to keep limping forward on this long but beautiful path.
But the paradox of it all really hit me this week.
Have any of you felt this?
God Bless.
P.S. In times like these, I like to remind myself how much God loves us no matter what. And this song by Jason Gray is perfect for doing just that. (Bonus points for being one of those catchy songs you can't help but tap your foot to as you sing along ...)
We just completed the Christmas season where we sang of a beautiful star, a Holy Babe wrapped in perfect linens, and a confident, smiling Mary and Joseph. There were angelic shepherds, and perfectly behaved, fragrant sheep and cows. Heck, even a little kid played a catchy little ditty on his drum in the background.
As I wrote earlier, it probably didn't happen like that.
But it just feels all warm and fuzzy when we add some creative touches to it, doesn't it?
Well, perhaps we are doing a disservice to the real story and to our religion.
Anne, who is always teaching me new things, posted an article written by Bishop Hying in which he wrote:
"We cannot romanticize the Christian narrative without decreasing its potent reality. God comes to us in all of the messiness and lunacy of the real world to save us as we are, not to redeem some idealized version of ourselves."
I've been thinking a lot about that over the past two weeks.
The power of the Catholic story shines through most brilliantly in the ugliness of this world, not the cleaned up version of it.
God sent His only Son to us in the remoteness of Bethlehem, not the grandeur of Jerusalem. In a crowded, smelly stable, not a lush palace. And in a world full of sin, not the perfection of Paradise.
Mary and Joseph didn't go from wedding bells to cigars and baby announcements. They struggled with the reality of being chosen. Walked miles and miles through harsh terrain while pregnant. Were chased after giving birth to their Son far away from the "comforts" of home.
And our Savior did not come here on a cloud and banish all His enemies from an Earthly throne. He was born among the animals, grew up in a lowly town, and was beaten and crucified for teaching love.
Bishop Hying is right. Our world is not perfect. It is ugly and full of sin. And our Salvation happened within those realities ... not in some fairy tale we cannot relate to.
Ironically, it is through that lens that our story becomes more powerful, not less so.
(Thanks again, Anne, for that thought provoking post.)
