Month: September 2020

JESUS & PAUL TEACH US TO GROW IN LOVE EVEN IN THE MIDST OF REJECTION

Rejection.  It is something we all must go through. It is a part of life and a cross we all must carry from time to time. Jesus had to endure it regularly until it finally reached the intensity of His crucifixion.

St. Paul also dealt with it on a regular basis. In his second letter to the Corinthians, he points out that it is clear to him that Christ is the one who was actually writing the letter. Paul was just a vessel. Of his letter, he said it was, “written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets, but on the human hearts.”  (2Cor 3:2-3).  Those words remind us of St. Paul also saying, “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20).  Christ  is writing, teaching, suffering and being rejected because He is united to St. Paul. Understanding that can cause our hearts to be stirred up for God when we read that through St. Paul God wrote, “WE have opened our hearts wide. It is not WE who have closed our hearts to you; it is you who have closed your hearts to US. I speak now as though you were my children; show US the same feelings that we have for you. Open your hearts wide.” (2Cor 6:11-13). After citing all the ways they ( God and Paul) had been rejected, they are pleading for the people to love them. Why?  Because they want what’s best for the Corinthians both here and in eternity.

We can learn much by how Jesus and Paul handled rejection.

FIRST LESSON

They were honest with their feelings. Paul wrote about the great sadness he felt. In His life Jesus wept, loved, showed fear and righteous anger. God gave us our feelings for a reason. A great deal of information can be gained by taking the time to recognize them.  We shouldn’t push them aside and attempt to ignore or bury them. The longer we delay, the more they can fester, thus making it harder to heal.  We shouldn’t be quick to act upon our feelings, but we should always be quick to pray about and discern them.  If we bury our feelings, we can never grow in knowing the true authentic self that can come about from discerning them and, as Paul teaches us, from learning about the heart of Jesus.  The more we know Jesus, the more we will always grow in knowing our true, authentic self.

SECOND LESSON

After they looked at their feelings, Jesus and Paul took the focus off self and placed it on the people that rejected them. Jesus focused on us. Paul focused on the Corinthians.  Continuing to focus on self can only bring negative consequences. Feelings such as anger and resentment can grow if we feed our sorrowful heart. By taking the focus off self and onto the other, we can grow in love and mercy. As we try to understand the heart of the one who has wounded us, our hearts begin to soften and thus, we keep the door open to God. This is only possible in prayer. In union with God, who is the only one who can see the heart, our hearts can soften.  “For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1Samuel 16:7).  Softening our hearts towards someone who has rejected us may seem too difficult to try, but with God, all things are possible.  The alternative is a closed heart that grows in negative feelings and, thus, closes itself off from hearing God in all areas of their lives.  Is anything really worth that? 

THIRD LESSON

The closer we are to someone, the greater the hurt if we are rejected, but we never lose by loving. God is love. Experiencing great love is experiencing a great union with the one who is love. We should never regret love and if we are rejected and put our focus on the perpetrator of the rejection and not on ourselves, the love can still grow. It is now a deeper love that can grow towards the perpetrator and towards all people in general because it has now taken on a great sacrifice of finding mercy in spite of the pain. We can certainly see this happened with Jesus. We can see it with Paul as well.  In spite of his many rejections, Paul is known as the Apostle of Love. 

Once we deal with the circumstances of our specific rejection, we can focus on three constant truths that we should, in fact, always keep in mind. 

LESSON ONE 

We know we are always loved. Jesus came knowing He would be put to death, but it was worth it to Him because it was the means to make us part of His family. He loved us and that means that no matter what rejection we may have to endure, we are a part of God’s loving family.

LESSON TWO

God never leaves us. Others can leave, but nothing can separate us from God’s love.  “Neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below—there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39). St. Paul knew that in all that happened, he was not alone. He would never be rejected by God. They were together as one. He knew God’s promise was solid.  “I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

LESSON THREE

The Holy Trinity loves us so much that They chose to live inside of us always! In that constant companionship we are always given what we need to accomplish God’s will. We know that we “can do all things through Christ who strengthens” us (Phil 4:13). To be able to follow our paths knowing God will accomplish all that is needed through us and that He will never leave us is a great comfort. It only becomes scary and overwhelming when we think we are on our own.  Paul knew this truth and we must know it as well.

Rejection is inevitable. It is what we do with it that can make a tremendous heartache a gift of greater love. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18). I hope that the next time you feel rejected, you will consider how Jesus and Paul together dealt with it and hold onto the truth that we are loved so much that God made us a part of His family, never leaves us and because of that constant union, that we can accomplish all things… including the rejection of our neighbors.

Prayerful Reflections

Spend some time reflecting on all the bolded segments and scripture passages.  With each prayerful reflection, talk to God.  Give Him your heart.  Then sit in silence and allow Him to give you His.   

EVERY MOMENT WE ARE ON A JOURNEY THAT HELPS US GROW IN FAITH, HOPE & LOVE

All of life is a journey. We go from here to there.  We start with nothing and end up with something.  

The journey can be a quick trip or a long one.  It can be something big like developing a cure, coming up with an invention, raising children or getting married.  It can be ordinary like making dinner, cleaning the dishes, creating something out of nothing, learning something new, helping a friend, etc.  The one thing all journeys have in common is that we can grow in faith, hope and love through them as we travel moment by moment and day by day to complete them.

GROWTH IN FAITH

Journeys can help us grow in faith because faith is the reason we say yes to the will of God.  Faith is the reason for our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus.   We understand that we say yes to the will of God, because we know in faith that God is our Father. Faith solidifies our gift of being His children.  How does it solidify it?  By the way we act towards Him.  In faith we look up to God just as children  look up to their parents. Just as children want to please their parents by saying yes to what the parents ask of them, we want to please our Father in Heaven and say yes to His will.    Children know the parents love them, want what’s best for them and would never hurt them.  We have that same trust in God, our Father.  When we are doing any task with this in mind, it helps us to grow in the virtue of faith. We are seeing it as the Father’s will for us. It’s not just doing the dishes.  It is a yes. It is pleasing the desires of the Father’s heart. It is glorifying Him.  Faith is why we should always pray to be in the will of God. It places us in the midst of the Father’s loving desires for us. In the yes we bring God glory, but is not just a yes for the particular task at hand.  It is a yes to having the faith that we are His children.

GROWTH IN HOPE 

Hope is always being experienced with every task. We cannot be assured, even if it is a task that we’ve done many times before, that it will be done the same way. We must remain in the dark about all we do because God is infinite and how things were done yesterday may not be how they are done today. We hope to finish the dishes by a certain time in a certain way. Then a multiple number of interruptions takes place. In the end, because our hope is in God, what we hope for comes to be, but not how we thought it would roll out.

GROWTH IN LOVE

Love is hopefully present in all we do for both God and neighbor. All we do glorifies God. We are the prayer. All we do is either for someone else directly or indirectly. Let’s take up the example of the dishes again. Even if you lived alone, cleaning the dishes is a sacrifice of love that can be offered up for others. It may not mean anything today, but maybe next week a friend stops by. How uncomfortable they may feel if there was a week of dishes piled up. So even if it seems it is only for you, going back to hope, it will one day bless someone else. Even while blessing them in the moment of their visit, we know as we offered it up as prayer at the time we were cleaning, we were making a difference.  As the Catechism says, prayer is expressed in both words and gestures (Catechism No. 2562).  When we are aware that we are united as one with God and His divinity, by our very lives, we are the prayer.

SUMMARY 

Prayer is foundational to our relationship with God.  The more we work on our relationship with Him through prayer, the closer we will be to Him and our prayer time and active time will seem to be a seamless transition.  It is the time in formal prayer that helps us see God more easily outside the time of prayer and growing in the theological virtues is no exception. Being mindful of these three theological virtues in all we do can help us to grow closer to God as they connect us directly to Him. Always being mindful that by faith we are pleasing the Father and are saying yes to being His child and also relying on the hope that what we are doing will be accomplished and matters are means to growing in both of these virtues.  Of course , the virtue of love is not left out.  God is love and we know by our faith that when we are aware that we are united to Him in everything that we do, we bring love to the world.  At the same time, it is this love that enflames our faith and hope. 

Whether we crochet or build skyscrapers, what we do at every moment always matters.  It would not be God’s will for us to do what pleases Him moment by moment and then not have it matter.  While some things may seem trivial to use as a means to grow in faith, hope and love, it is in being mindful of these little moments that we can have constant practice and, therefore, more easily put ourselves in the presence of God on a regular basis.  We pause for a moment to note that by faith we are currently doing our task because we are a child of the Father.  In that pause we are made aware of our hope for its success knowing hope never disappoints (Rom 5:5).  We become conscious of our love that stirs us up and ultimately ends up energizing our faith and hope even more.  We know that we are on some sort of journey, no matter how brief or how long, no matter what type of importance we have labeled it to have.  Whatever the journey, they all  keep our theological virtue muscles strong and make us conscious of God’s presence.

PRAYERFUL REFLECTIONS TO TALK TO GOD ABOUT 

Are you spending time each day in prayer so that your relationship can grow in and outside of your prayer time?

MEDITATIONS ON FAITH

It is through faith that you are all God’s children in union with Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26)

See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children – and so, in fact, we are. (1John 3:1)

My friends, what good is it for one of you to say that you have faith if your actions do not prove it? Can that faith save you? (James 2:14)

MEDITATIONS ON HOPE

I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. (Jer 29:11)

I depend on God alone; I put my hope in him. He alone protects and saves me; he is my defender, and I shall never be defeated. My salvation and honor depend on God; he is my strong protector; he is my shelter. (Ps 62:5-7)

We have this hope as an anchor for our lives. It is safe and sure, and goes to the curtain of the heavenly temple into the inner sanctuary. (Heb 6:19)

May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Rom15:13)

Because we have this hope, we are very bold. (2Cor 3:12)

MEDITATIONS ON LOVE

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1John 4:7-8)

This love I speak of means that we must live in obedience to God‘s commands. The command, as you have all heard from the beginning, is that you must all live in love. (2John 2:6)

My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action. (1John 3:18)

LOVE IS HOW PEOPLE WILL KNOW JESUS

“And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have loved one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.“ John 13:34-35

So often we get hung up on what we need to do for God. At times we may even feel guilty because we think others are doing more than us, but in truth we are basing it on the gifts they have, not the gifts we have. There are also times that people urge us to be like them and practice the gifts they use.  In their excitement, they want us to experience what they experience.  Their hearts are sincere, but their gifts aren’t necessarily our gifts.  An introvert, for example, may be made to feel like they are doing very little because they aren’t out preaching to all they meet. In truth their shyness prevents them as well as having no time because they are taking care of an elderly parent.  They aren’t seeing that preaching is not their gift, while loving the elderly parent is.  They discount the gift they have been given of loving the elderly and how they are using it.  God didn’t say people would know Him by any one gift. He said people would know Him by our love. Why? Because “God is love” (1John 4:9) and all our many different gifts are both a means to bring God’s love to others and of loving Him and our neighbor.  

God’s love is known because He loves through us. We are incapable of loving. At times we are made to feel we have to do more, but Jesus never lied and He said people would know Him by our love. How that happens is not up to us. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. Our gifts aren’t what gets us to Heaven. Using them as a means of giving God‘s love and by that loving Him and our neighbor is how we get there.  

We will be judged by our love.  It may be through directly preaching His word if that is how one is called to love, but it also may be through giving someone a drink of water, working in a nursing home, making a family dinner, painting a portrait, making someone laugh, planting a garden, repairing a car, etc.  The gift may be given to one or it may be the instrument that brings people together to form a  community.  Whether for one or many, they are always meant to be shared and so on some level, they always entail sacrifice.  Our efforts may seem successful or they may seem to be going nowhere.  That highlights the mercy of God.  He doesn’t even ask that we be successful in using our gifts. He just asked that we be faithful to our love for Him and neighbor so He is known.

The world needs the gifts you have because what you have is a means of giving God and His love to to others and, at the same time, it is a means of showing our love for God.  Love is the reason for everything.

POINTS TO PRAYERFULLY PONDER DURING THE WEEK

Meditate on John 13:34-35 as cited above.

Meditate on  1John 4:9 as cited above.

Meditate on Matt 25:31-40

Meditate on 1John 3:16-18

What are your gifts and how do you use them as a means of giving God’s love to others?

CONTEMPLATIVE IN ACTION

During the week try and stay in the present moment so you can better be in the presence of God.  Notice how He may be further guiding you along the way based on what you discovered in your prayer time. 

BECOMING AWARE OF THE EXPRESSION IF GOD’S LOVE -PART 2

Let’s continue to reflect on becoming aware of the expressions of God’s love that we started on the last post.

Third Way God Expresses His Love – We are Never Alone

There are times in our lives when we all feel lonely because we are alone. For some, that loneliness can make us feel unloved, but that is not true.  We must always find alone time to pray so we can experience God.  It is in the times of prayer that we slowly grow in our intimate relationship with God.  It is in building this relationship that eventually helps us to fully know that we are never alone.  Intercessory prayer can be a source of God’s love pouring out to others.  This type of love can bring us comfort knowing that others are praying for us as well.  In the Communion of Saints, we are never alone.  Resting in that reality can be of great comfort as it is an experience of God’s love.  

Still, even in praying and knowing we are not alone, active hours can be difficult at times.  Even in those times, we can pay attention to how God expresses His love to and through us. We can ask Him to give us a spark of hope that can come from us being more aware of how He loves through us. For example, we may be alone, but the simple acts of watering the flowers or feeding our pets can put us in the presence of God‘s love and how He expresses it to them through us. Those acts are expressions of caring and nurturing.  As we look upon the flowers and smile at their beauty that is dependent on us watering them and the pets whose health depends on us feeding them, we can experience God‘s love even when alone. It is being expressed through us. Grab it. Notice it. Does God care more about the flowers or our pets than us? No. Notice the care in the nurturing. It’s for them, but it’s also there for us if we take the time to notice it.  

Fourth Way God Expresses His Love – When We Receive It From Others

If we are all expressions of God’s love, at times we receive it not as it is coming through our hands, but by receiving it from others. 

Sometimes our pride makes it difficult to receive. It is far easier to give the cup of water than it is to be weak and vulnerable and in need of receiving it. In those moments we should let our guard down and receive it. At the same time, we should never be upset that someone loves differently than us. That can make us feel that love is missing when, in reality, it is not.

On the contrary , we should rejoice that we can experience God in a way that is different than how we express and, therefore, experience Him.  So often we try and control how someone loves instead of receiving it from a God who has an infinite number of ways to express it.  

To be loved in the same exact way we love is nice, but we can grow in a greater union with God when we are aware that His expressions of love are as vast as the number of His children. 

Of course, there are times when we easily receive God‘s love, but are in such a hurry that we don’t pause to take notice. The smile, the compliment we brush off, the directions given when we can’t find something, the grocery attendant who takes our cart for us or the person who takes away our dirty plate are all expressions of God’s love for us. 

We also take for granted the people that choose to use their gifts to help because we only see it as their job.  All people like doctors, store clerks, garbage collectors, truck drivers… They are all there as helpers and we would do well to consider that the help they give is an expression of God’s love for us.

Summing It All Up

We can all console God’s heart by becoming noticers of the expressions of God’s love. It seems so many hate these days. Who will receive God’s love that is being thrown on the ground by those who let hate consume them? God needs to be love. He needs to express it.  We all have free will. We all have the ability to say no to the love and to infect the world with hate. When we say yes, however, we inject it with love. 

Say yes to giving love and receiving it from others because it is God’s love that needs to be expressed and He longs for us to both give and receive it with gratitude.  We should all take the time to be noticers so we can fully embrace God‘s love. We can comfort His heart that is so deeply wounded when others shun it. Notice how He expresses it through others. Notice how He expresses it through you. Love Him back by noticing, by embracing it, by receiving it with an open heart and letting it flow through you with that giving heart. By doing this, we can console God’s heart that is so deeply wounded by the lack of love. We can grow in our relationship with Him and we can be the prayer of love knowing that love conquers all.   

“Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God” (Matt 5:8).  Hate and judgment block our ability to see God.  They come at such a high cost.  By choosing to always look for and acknowledge love, we choose to see God, to love Him and to console Him.  While others who do not choose love will see the world differently than us, we know we are far better off.  It is through the lens of love that we can have a pure heart and see God even now while we are still on Earth.   

Remember only God is love so do all you can to be the powerful prayer of love. When we say yes to it, we send a spark of love into the world and by that we can set the world on fire with the love of God.  He is longing for us to do this as He has so much love to give. Be the vessel that says yes to giving it and yes to receiving it.  Say yes to being the expression of God’s love!

Points to Prayerfully Reflect On and Talk to God About

What are some of the ways that you are an expression of God’s love when you are alone?  

Be mindful of the love you have received today.  How did God express His love to you through others?  Can what you have learned about God’s love and how He expresses it through others, help you with a present concern you are praying to God about?

“Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God” (Matt  5:8).  What are some ways you can be pure of heart and, therefore, better able to see God?  

So much of God’s love is rejected by others.  We see this reality in the Old Testament, New Testament and throughout history.  We see it happening today.  All of history is a drama of people rejecting and accepting God’s love. Talk to Jesus about this.