The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends, but let us not despair. God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to Him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to Him.
- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
(Spiritual communion: our bond with one another in God.)
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Nm 21:4-9; Psalm 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-21
Jn 8:21-30
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
“I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said,
“He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?”
He said to them, “You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins.”
So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.”
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.”
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
Reflection on the Scriptures
As the people in the gospel today whine to Jesus - basically because they aren't seeing him for who he is - their Savior - Jesus offers them a remedy and a revelation of who he is. When he's "lifted up" - in two senses: on the Cross, and in the Resurrection - then we will realize who he really is for us. He uses the name God gave Moses in the
desert, "Tell the people I AM sent you." Jesus is God with us, among us, and God's salvation for us.
This is a wonderful opportunity on our Lenten journey - if we feel a complaining spirit compromising the graces of this journey - to turn to Jesus again and look at him for who he is for us. Realizing our need for a Savior, and beholding him as our Savior, can be the grace we need at this point in our journey. It can be the time to be freed from the biting crabbiness that can settle in and make its troubling
presence felt in our heart. It can be a liberation from the darkness of judgments of others and the divisive spirit which is determined to take away our peace. It can fill us with more gratitude and simple joy to "re-discover" the "good news" of Jesus' love for us and his presence with us on this journey, warming our hearts to turn from ourselves to others in need of our compassion and mercy and faithful presence.
- by Andy Alexander, S.J.
The Existence of God
by Francois Fenelon
SECTION XI. Of the Earth
Who is it that hung and poised this motionless globe of the earth? Who laid its foundation? Nothing seems more vile and contemptible; for the meanest wretches tread it under foot; but yet it is in order to possess it that we part with the greatest treasures. If it were harder than it is, man could not open its bosom to cultivate it; and
if it were less hard it could not bear them, and they would sink everywhere as they do in sand, or in a bog. It is from the inexhaustible bosom of the earth we draw what is most precious. That shapeless, vile, and rude mass assumes the most various forms; and yields alone, by turns, all the goods we can desire. That dirty soil transforms itself into a thousand fine objects that charm the eye. In the compass of one year it turns into branches, twigs, buds, leaves,
blossoms, fruits, and seeds, in order, by those various shapes, to multiply its liberalities to mankind. Nothing exhausts the earth; the more we tear her bowels the more she is liberal. After so many ages, during which she has produced everything, she is not yet worn out. She feels no decay from old age, and her entrails still contain the same treasures. A thousand generations have passed away, and returned into her bosom. Everything grows old, she alone excepted:
for she grows young again every year in the spring. She is never wanting to men; but foolish men are wanting to themselves in neglecting to cultivate her. It is through their laziness and extravagance they suffer brambles and briars to grow instead of grapes and corn. They contend for a good they let perish. The conquerors leave uncultivated the ground for the possession of which they have sacrificed the lives of so many thousand men, and have spent their own in hurry and
trouble. Men have before them vast tracts of land uninhabited and uncultivated; and they turn mankind topsy-turvy for one nook of that neglected ground in dispute. The earth, if well cultivated, would feed a hundred times more men than now she does. Even the unevenness of ground which at first seems to be a defect turns either into ornament or profit. The mountains arose and the valleys descended to the place the Lord had appointed for them. Those different grounds have
their particular advantages, according to the divers aspects of the sun. In those deep valleys grow fresh and tender grass to feed cattle. Next to them opens a vast champaign covered with a rich harvest. Here, hills rise like an amphitheatre, and are crowned with vineyards and fruit trees. There high mountains carry aloft their frozen brows to the very clouds, and the torrents that run down from them become the springs of rivers. The rocks that show their craggy
tops bear up the earth of mountains just as the bones bear up the flesh in human bodies. That variety yields at once a ravishing prospect to the eye, and, at the same time, supplies the divers wants of man. There is no ground so barren but has some profitable property. Not only black and fertile soil but even clay and gravel recompense a man's toil. Drained morasses become fruitful; sand for the most part only covers the surface of the earth; and when, the husbandman has the
patience to dig deeper he finds a new ground that grows fertile as fast as it is turned and exposed to the rays of the sun.
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