Lost and Found

03-27-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

The parable of the father and his sons is one of the most familiar of all of Jesus’ stories. The father in the parable is lavish in forgiveness and revels in the return of his young son, who was lost and now is found. The older son is also lost, lost in his refusal to forgive, lost in his failure to grasp his father’s generous spirit. The Israelites spent many years lost in the desert, seeking the land of milk and honey, yet often failing to seek the God who delivered and fed them. We are sometimes lost as well. We lose sight of the Lord and the Lord’s ways. God never loses sight of us, however. God waits, ready for us to come to our senses, ready to welcome us back with open arms.

Holy Ground

03-20-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Moses met God in a most astounding way in the bush that was burning but not consumed by fire. Moses clearly had a powerful encounter with the Lord. He even felt bold enough to ask God’s name, something unheard of among his people at the time—God’s name was unspeakable. Moses stood on holy ground. Do we not also stand on holy ground? As people who are created in God’s image and drawn to Christ through the waters of Baptism, we have been filled with God’s grace and goodness. The ground of our lives is holy. Lent is a time when we are called to open our minds and hearts to Christ, rely on God’s patient mercy, and to grow as God’s holy people.

A Glimpse of God

03-13-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Have you ever had a glimpse of God? Perhaps you perceived God’s presence in a quiet moment of prayer, a tender conversation with a loved one, or a difficult situation that was resolved unexpectedly.

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In The Desert

03-06-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, and then the devil tested him. Moses and the Israelites had been in the desert for forty years before being led to the land of milk and honey. There were times when they called out to God, sure that, as Saint Paul wrote to the Romans, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

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We are Known by Our Fruit

02-27-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

This week, Jesus tells us that we must examine our own inner selves, our attitudes and dispositions, virtues and faults, rather than judging others. What is in our hearts comes out in what and how we speak.

If our hearts are filled with kindness and compassion, those qualities will be evident in our speaking, just as beautiful, wholesome fruit comes only from healthy trees. And vice-versa. The Wisdom writer Sirach in the first reading agrees with this concept, that we will be judged by our words. Paul reminds us that the reward of discipleship is eternal life. Today’s psalm of thanksgiving and praise reminds us of God’s kindness and faithfulness, which we are to emulate in our thoughts, words, and deeds. We are known, each of us, by our own fruit.

Love as God Loves

02-20-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Our Gospel today continues Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, in which we heard Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. This week, Jesus gives us new “commandments,” telling us how to live and act in the world as his disciples, rooted in the radical love of God for humanity. It reminds us of his later speech about loving one another as he loves us, in other words with a God-like love, the kind we see in today’s psalm about God’s mercy. How else could we do as Jesus tells us by loving our enemies, which seems impossible, until we remember that God gave us the example of Jesus, who is like God but also like us? David understands this merciful love when he spares the life of his enemy in the first reading. Finally, Paul tells us that we will become like Jesus if we act as he did, as God does.

Feeling Blessed

02-13-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Congratulations! Welcome to the Kingdom!Rejoice and leap for joy! Sounds a little like Easter,doesn’t it? Well, in a very real way, it is. ThisSunday, the scriptures remind us that we areblessed and beloved, especially when we have difficultiesand don’t feel especially blessed. Jesusreminds us that God blesses us in our trials, so weshould trust in the saving power of God. We are“raised from the dead,” as it were, each time wearise from our hardships.

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Theophanes

02-06-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Today’s readings recount three theophanies, or particular manifestations of God’s presence. The prophet Isaiah is caught up in a dramatic scene of heavenly worship, with a royal throne, burning embers, and seraphim singing, “Holy, holy, holy.” Isaiah is overwhelmed. In the responsorial psalm, the assembly adds its own worship to that of the seraphim: “In the sight of the angels, I will sing your praises, Lord” (Psalm 138:1).

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To Be a Prophet

01-30-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Today’s readings show us what it is like to be a prophet. As Jeremiah recounts his call, God warns him that he will need strength and perseverance to withstand the hostility he will face from “Judah’s kings and princes” and “its priests and people” (Jeremiah 1:18b). God also assures him that they “will not prevail over you, for I am with you” (1:19). The psalm reflects both of these struggles as well as deliverance from them (“salvation”).

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God's Law

01-23-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Scripture has always held God’s law to be the path to human happiness. In today’s first reading, Ezra the priest reads the scroll of the law to the people returned from exile. They weep—then are joyful. Israel’s relationship with God had always been defined by how they kept and lived God’s law. The author of Psalm 96 likewise praises the law of God as the source of wisdom, joy and enlightenment, purity and justice.

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Revelation of God's Presence

01-16-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

Today’s first reading from Isaiah arises out of the ordeal of the people of Jerusalem and Judea as they anticipate the end of seventy years of exile in Babylon. Their sufferings and their oppression will end, and they are promised joy like that of a great wedding upon returning to their homeland.

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Baptismal Death & Resurrection

01-09-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, we also honor our own baptism as our initiation into the Christian life and community. In the Gospel, the baptism of Jesus, with his immersion and then emergence from the water, points to his later submission to God at his death, and his emergence from the grave at his resurrection.

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Journey Toward God

01-02-2022Weekly Reflection© J. S. Paluch Company

In our celebration of the Epiphany, two interwoven themes are present in the readings today. God is beginning something new, and God gathers all of humanity to participate. For Isaiah, God’s bright light, manifested in the people of Israel, attracts and summons people from many nations to Jerusalem. In the letter to the Ephesians, God’s grace makes the Gentiles co-heirs and co-partners in the gospel. Matthew tells the story of the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel through the birth of Jesus, and simultaneously leading foreigners to share in these same promises. With the birth of Jesus, God chose a particular people, in a particular time and place, to enter most directly into the human story. Today’s readings teach that God did this in order to gather all people, all cultures, into unity with God. Like the magi, we are drawn into a journey toward God, becoming co-partners in God’s work.