He spoke the Word to them

With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it. (Mark 4:33)

Reflection:  Back then, Jesus used familiar farming imagery to get through to his followers about God's order and the future of our lives with God (the Kingdom):  scattered, sown, mustard seeds, grain, blades, bushes, branches, birds.

What parables does God use today to communicate the Word to you?  Your family.  Technology.  Nature. One of your hobbies?

It is not likely that God stopped speaking to us in parables.  For example, when I look around at the people in Church on Sunday, I used to sit in judgment about many things.  But one thing unites us:  we all walk through the door as sinners and share that one reason for being there:  to bring our weakness humbly before God, grateful for his strength and grace.  This is a parable too about the Kingdom.

On the last day, we all walk through the gate into the Lord's embrace.  We know not how.  We are all taken into His gaze and ordered as He designs.  We know not how.  Each day He speaks the Word to us as we are able to understand it.  Let us observe carefully so as to be prepared for the coming of the Lord.

Look upon him

They will look upon him whom they have pierced. (John 19:37)

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus 

Reflection:  I imagine if Jesus walked on the earth today he would not be looking so much at TV or a computer screen (which, alas, we are doing at this moment).  Rather he would want to look upon the faces of the poor and the suffering.  

The last line of today's Gospel from the Sacred Heart of Jesus invites us to pay attention to the people to whom we have done harm or neglected.  Many who gazed upon the tortured body of Jesus were moved to a change of heart.  We too desire to transform our actions from the routine and bland to the renewed and generous.  For example, one act of charity today would be to choose to linger your eyesight upon someone or something you normally ignore:  the poor, a news article, an enemy, your Bible.  What flows from that act of blessed attention?

Jesus chose to look upon people in need.  May the Sacred Heart move us to do the same

Note: Upon the twelfth anniversary of my Ordination, and as a response to recent prayer, I have decided to resume this good ol' blog highlighting a phrase and passage from Sunday's Gospel.  My hope is that the truth will offer you some portion of the freedom of the children of God (Rom 8:21).  Pat

This is my body

While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take it; this is my body." (Mark 14:22)

Reflection:  What Jesus does to bread, he does to each of us.  The Eucharist is an invitation for us to join in the four-fold donation of ourselves, in the way Jesus did.  Like Jesus we are to TAKE up our lives of faith (which we do at Baptism), and we BLESS life through our participation in the Sacraments.  Next, we are invited to BREAK ourselves of an ego-centered life by dying to self, humbly claiming our brokenness before God.  Finally, we are to GIVE our lives unto others.  Some do this by way of service, commitment, vocation, generosity, or a change of life to set the world on fire.

What Jesus did to the bread, He asks to be done unto us.

Take the initiative and donate your body back to the One who first gave it to you.  In what way have you lived out these four actions of the Christian life?