He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men ---- 'a man of sorrows', and acquainted with grief ---- and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows ---- yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities ---- upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way ---- and 'the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all'.♥
*The Song of the Suffering Servant
Contains a description in which it is possible, in a certain sense, identify the stages of Christ's Passion in their various details.
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
The two main elements ---- the joyful procession with palms and the sorrowful recounting of the Passion. Putting these two together reminds us of how quickly the situation changed for the Lord as he neared the culmination of his mission. We can also recall how quickly our situations change as we face the emotional ups and downs of life. One moment we can be filled with joy, and within short time, we can plunged into sorrow and suffering. The Lord has entered deeply into the full range of human experience, all the way to what we fear the most, death. As we follow in his footsteps this week, we discover his presence in every circumstances of our lives.♥
"Be who you truly are, a healthy, vibrant, beautiful you. Declare this truth to yourself and live it!"♥
Don't be a leaf if you can be the tree,
don't be a raindrop if you can be the sea
'Cause a leaf may fall but the tree remains
It may never rain at all but the sea remains
Better to be the tree and the sea, see?♥
~ Snoopy Musical ~
I think I've discovered the secret of life : you just hang around until you get used to it.♥
~ Sally Brown ~
"Remember the marvels of the Lord has done."
Gn 37:3-4, 12-13, 17-28
Jn 3:16
Mt 21:33-43, 45-46
The parable point toward the cross of Christ. On the cross, Jesus looks defeated, but in fact, he is victorious. In the end, Jesus wins. When we feel and experience that we are suffering and evil is winning, Jesus' ultimate victory is our consolation. We are the Body of Christ ; our suffering are his sufferings. When we join our sufferings with his, we are not defeated, but rather share in his victory.
A parable is always speaking about you, not about anything else. Every word in Scripture is speaking about you. This is the way to take it. Love takes everything to heart, but law blames everyone else. Love takes responsibility, law, hardly ever. But if I do not take responsibility, my name is just isn't in the hat! Then I will blame someone else for that too! How boring! A religion of love is far more interesting! This why the psalm urges us to to "remember the marvels the Lord has done."♥
"The Lord is kind and merciful."
Mi 7:14-15, 18-20
Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
From a vision of glory on the mountain of the Transfiguration with another glorious vision, the sublime parable of the prodigal son and the merciful father. We saw Jesus' face shining with glory. We can imagine the face of the father shining with love and mercy as he runs out to embrace his long lost son, and as he pleads with the older son to join the celebration : "You are with me always, and everything I have is yours. But we must celebrate and rejoice!" (What a picture of God the Father has been painted in this parable taught by his Son! Only Jesus, who is one with the Father, could have described him so intimately.)
At the beginning neither the son really knows the father. They do not know how merciful he is. The older son looks better than the younger one because he is hardworking and obedient. But eventually, we learn that he has been living, not like an obedient son at all, but rather like a slave. He is bitter, suspicious and judgmental. With contempt he even judges his father as uncaring and unfair. Interiorly, he is no better off than the younger son, who captures everyone's attention because he makes such a dramatic display of his rebelliousness.
Both sons represent each one of us when we are in sin. whether we are arrogant, demanding, and self-righteous, or whether we are rebellious, wasteful, and worldly, sin leads us away from the Father's house to a "distant land." We follow the illusion that "going away" or "refusing to enter the house" will make us happy. It never works! All sin leads to misery, in this life as well as in the next. Of course, repentance changes everything, because God is merciful. The mercy of God is not a theory or merely something that we learn about in school. It is what we experience personally when we realize how God views us in our sin condition. When we turn to him, even if we are "still a long way off." he runs out to us and embraces us.
This shed light on our journey. We cannot rejoice in the mercy of God unless we acknowledge our sins. If we are convinced that we are fine and that God owes us something, we are still like the older brother. We do not yet really know the Lord. "You want to know who I really am? So do I."
The parable and the whole season of Lent invite us to repent ---- that is, to come to our senses 'at last,' to return to the Father's house and discover his mercy. Mercy is the glory shining on his face.
O Holy Virgin Mary, Blessed Mother of God, lead me in the way of repentance. Teach me to forgive as I have been forgiven.♥
"Happy are they who hope in the Lord."
Jer 17:5-10
Lk 8:15
Lk 16:19-31
"More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy ; who can understand it?" . . . . "I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds." We cannot fully understand the territory of the heart, but the Lord understands it and he responds properly to what he finds.
We get a challenging instruction on the ways of the human heart from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It is not difficult to imagine the scene because the contrast between the rich and the poor is before us always ---- unless our eyes are closed. It is not a sin to be materially rich, nor does being materially poor guarantee salvation. It does not describe what was going on in the heart of Lazarus while he endured his degrading sufferings. We can conclude that he must have overcome the heart's natural temptation to grow bitter about the injustices committed against him because, after a lifetime of torment, he found consolation. He entered eternal life, symbolized by his resting in the bosom of Abraham ---- a very tender way of describing heaven.
We know more about the rich man. In this life he was entirely, grossly self-absorbed. Lazarus was right at his gate, in a condition of extreme need, and the rich man did not even notice him. While the rich man may have done many good things in his life, he did not do so the will of God in regard to his closest neighbor, Lazarus. He did not love his neighbor. God was not cruelly punishing the rich man. The man dried up his own soul by refusing to love. The rich man failed to learn the most fundamental purpose of life in this world : the universal call to love God and love our neighbor.
Reflecting on the current global financial crisis, we can see it differently in light of this parable. People are worried about what they will have to suffer in this life because their money is gone. The parable reminds us that having money is not the essential thing. Would the rich man in the parable not have been better off if he had been humbled? God in his mercy is humbling the world., so that we will open our eyes to the needs of one another and our hearts to love. God does not want anyone to end up in torment ; he wants everyone to "rest in the bosom of Abraham." When we die, we will undergo a "financial crisis." We will lose our money. The parable helps us to evaluate our life in this world in light of life in the next.
Since "the human heart is more tortuous than all else," in this Lent we continue to present our own tortuous human hearts to the Lord, so that he can show us our need for repentance and our call to enter ever more deeply in to the way of love , forgiving ---- forgiven where the first cut is the deepest.♥
May Mary, Our Loving Mother of God, will hold me in her heart as the Lord enlightens me and I face the poverty of my love.♥
The dream of the planet is the collective dream of billions of smaller, personal dreams, which together create a dream of a family, a dream of a community, a dream of a city, a dream of a country, and finally a dream of the whole humanity. The dream of the planet includes all of society's rules, its beliefs, its laws, its religions, its different cultures and ways to be, its governments, schools, social events, and holidays . . . the humans who live before us teach us how to dream the way society dreams.
Our life stories can evolve as we grow throughout the life span. The capacity to integrate the past, present, and future allows us to move into more coherent levels of self-knowledge. If we believe it’s going to rain, then we walk and act differently even in the midst of a drought.There can be peace in the unknown. It is the known, or what we perceive as the known, that causes conflict. Whoever said that : "Reality is only a concept." The key fits, that's real. Is there a missing piece? Who can tell . . . .♥
