Mark 10:45

Tag: Revelation

  • Seeing Joy

    Seeing Joy

    Saturday of the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

    Revelation 11:4-12; Luke 20:27-40

    While I’m not a fan of most internet videos I come across, some are genuinely moving. One of my favorites is about a young man who is given a pair of glasses by his friends. They look like sunglasses, but are designed to correct colorblindness. His reaction after putting them on is priceless; seeing the depth, variation, and vibrance of the colors that have surrounded him his entire life, the man is overwhelmed and weeps for joy.

    Today’s readings teach us that what that young man’s friends did for him, God does for us. He always has the perfect prescription for our spiritual vision.

    Sometimes we lack the “depth perception.” God speaks and we see only the surface meaning; its depth eludes us. Take the Sadducees in today’s gospel, for example. They believed that what God revealed to Moses was all He had to say; since Moses said nothing about resurrection or eternal life, God said nothing about it. This is why Jesus took them back to that first encounter between God and Moses, to those words, I am the God… of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exodus 3:6). By calling Him the God of the living, Jesus reveals the deeper meaning: To God and His children, there is no past, only present: I am, not I was. All are alive in Him.

    For the Sadducees, and everyone of that time, this would have been a quantum leap in understanding. Not so for us; indeed, the Communion of the Church on Heaven and Earth is a fundamental part of the faith. At every Mass, we take time to remember all three groups; we ask for healing for those on earth, mercy for those being purified, and the intercession of the saints who have entered heavenly glory.

    We may not suffer that particular depth perception problem, but we have enough of our own. For example, we all come across passages of Scripture or teachings of the Church that are hard to understand. (If that has never been true of you, then I challenge you to re-read the passage from Revelation we just heard.) The question is what we do when that happens. Do we stop asking questions, as the Sadducees and others did to Jesus?

    I propose that God wants just the opposite; He wants us to ask questions about things that challenge us, and to persevere in our search for answers. It might take a while and definitely takes patience and effort on our part, but He has guaranteed that answers will come. Christ himself said it: … everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds (Luke 11:10).

    Of course, he never guaranteed that we’ll like what we find, but that brings up another spiritual vision problem: shortsightedness. We can get so caught up in the details and problems of daily life that we lose sight of what we’re doing it all for. No wonder people despair or lose heart! But I think that’s why we have the reading from Revelation, to remind us that, although life can be full of bitter struggles and certainly ends in death, that’s not really the end: there is the glory of resurrection and the joy of eternal life. This is a lens through which God restores our ability to see the big picture; what matters to Him isn’t how we begin but how we end, and not who we conquer but who we trust in.

    The joy of the colorblind man, as he first sees the world in living color, is infectious; it’s easy to shed a tear of joy watching him. That’s because joy is infectious. And the good news is that joy is all around us, because the opportunities are all around us to see the living God as if for the first time. Where? In Scripture, for every word is a chance to see God in a new and deeper way. In daily life, for every moment, in joy or sorrow, He is there, strengthening us and reminding us of the peace and glory that awaits. In every person we meet, for each one is created in His image and is waiting to be discovered; and in every encounter with the Blessed Sacrament, for each is a chance to come closer and closer to the deep and abiding presence of God, who is Joy itself.

  • Alive Inside: Monday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time

    Alive Inside: Monday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time

    Revelation 14:1-3, 4b-5; Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Matthew 24:42a, 44; Luke 24:1-5

    Recently I saw a documentary called “Alive Inside.” It briefly follows the career of a social worker who dedicated himself to bringing music to people who suffer from brain disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The effects of the music are startling; people who spent months or years living an almost catatonic existence, isolated from the rest of the world and from their own memories, transform when they hear the music. Some weep, some laugh, some sing, some dance; all to one degree or another and at least for awhile have awakened within a sense of their own identity, reconnecting with long-forgotten memories and the emotions that go with them. As one doctor in the film says, when they listen to certain music, people who appear virtually dead to the world show that they are very much alive inside.

    Of course, no one is more alive than those who dwell in perfect union with God, and as Revelation reminds us, they hear the music of Heaven. They aren’t alone; John says he heard it, too. The reality is that the divine music is and has been all around us. The question is, do we hear it?

    We do if we detect a note of urgency in the Scriptures today, as we should in all the Scriptures given to us by the Church as the year closes. We certainly hear it in the Gospel Acclamation, for Christ says to us, Stay awake! For you do not know when the Son of Man will come (Matthew 24:42,44). He knows that it’s easy for us to “fall asleep” in the spiritual life. Our natural tendency is to allow ourselves to get comfortable; to be willing to go only so far but not farther; to pray this much but not more; to be satisfied with where we are and avoid whatever seems uncomfortably challenging.

    And we hear counterpoint to that comfort when our Lord speaks of the gift offered by the poor widow. Notice that what mattered to him was not the amount she gave but that she held nothing back; for love of God, she allowed the cost to herself to be the highest possible – to give from her own need. This is the kind of person of whom the psalmist sings, the one who truly longs to see the face of God, who wants for themselves and others what God wants for them, and who are willing to show that to Christ and the world by living like those in Revelation: Following the Lamb wherever he goes (Revelation 14:4b).

    If we listen to the Scriptures there is no doubt that we too will hear their music. The question is not if we hear it but whether we will allow it to transform us; to move us out of our self-imposed spiritual isolation; to remind of us our identity as Christians; to re-awaken the perhaps long-forgotten memory of who we were created to be and the love we were given to share; and to show our Lord that we, like all his saints, are not dead to the world but very much alive inside.