theROCK

The Authentic Jesus

Today’s Gospel is about the people who know Jesus the most, the people he grew up around, rejecting Him. He didn’t fit the image they had of Him from His youth, so they couldn’t accept Him as He really is—the Son of God, here to preach and teach them about God. They were offended by what he had to say.

I find this such an interesting Gospel for the weekend of the 4th of July. Is the above not true of our current political climate? Everyone is offended by Jesus, or at least the authentic Jesus found in the Scriptures. We all have these little false Jesus’ we’ve created in our minds that fit our political ideologies. And we get really offended and astonished when presented with Gospel passages or Church teachings where Jesus contradicts the idea we have of Him in our mind. Both sides of the political spectrum agree with some of Jesus’ 
teachings and reject others.

Which is actually very fitting because Jesus says himself, in the Gospels, that he did not come to fit into the existing paradigm, but to upend it, to be above it all, to flip it on its head and restore His own order—God’s order.

So today, on this 4th of July weekend, as we celebrate our amazing country with an eye to the upcoming presidential elections, let us all take a moment to reflect on which Jesus we are worshipping – the Republican Jesus, the Democratic Jesus, or the authentic Jesus of the Scriptures. And let us once again commit to daily reading of the Gospels so we might come to know more closely who Jesus authentically is from the source itself. Only then can we truly make this country as great as we desire it to be.

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States of America, pray for us.

More Than a Feeling

As a Catholic revert, it often breaks my heart to watch people take the Eucharist so lightly. About 4 years ago, when I still considered myself a non-denominational Christian, I attended an adoration night with my new Catholic friend. I had grown up Catholic, and I was even part of Life Teen in high school, so I was familiar with adoration. I never felt like I actually felt or experienced Jesus though, so, I concluded it couldn’t be true. At this point, I thought whatever denomination you were didn’t really matter, as long as you love Jesus and show that to others.

So, at this adoration night 4 years ago, I remember when the priest brought Jesus around. I thought to myself, “I’ll give this one more chance.” The priest brought the small host in the monstrance over. I looked at Jesus and he looked at me. I still didn’t feel or experience anything spectacular.

In the coming months, I dove head first into Catholic theology, Church history, and studied the Scriptures deeper than I ever had before. I couldn’t figure out what Jesus meant by, “this is my body, this is my blood.” Was he really serious? As I learned things I had never known before, I couldn’t deny the true Presence of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It was real. He was really, truly, present. For so many years, I had been wrong. All because I couldn’t “experience” Him there.

So often in my life, I have let my feelings guide my faith. I have learned that faith is far more than a feeling, although sometimes I do experience feelings. Faith also takes understanding, learning, and knowledge. Jesus does not ask us to blindly follow him. I realized encountering Jesus is a gift, not something to be strived after. I had a heart posture of, “Prove that you’re real,” instead of “Jesus, show me who you are and how much you love me.” Now I have a confidence and assurance that my Savior is present, whether or not I can feel him there.

The Joy of Easter

How is your Easter going? Are you still celebrating the joy of this season?

Sometime I think we, as a Catholic church, don’t put enough emphasis on the Easter season. The same is true of the Christmas season. We put so much emphasis on the preparation, the repentance, the waiting of the purple seasons. We fill our calendars to the brim with ways to engage Lent, to dive in and dig deep. And then the Day comes – Easter, Christmas – and it’s over and wrapped up like a wedding day. No more programing. No diving in or digging deep together. Just life as usual, as if nothing happened. As if nothing changed. As if we hadn’t changed.

That’s not the way it is supposed to be, right? Lent is not more important than Easter. But the way we engage the two would suggest that it is. We only “do” Lent for the purpose of better “doing” Easter. We practice repentance to allow our hearts and spirits to more fully embrace the fullness of Easter…that is all seven weeks of it. Easter is almost twice as long as Lent. So why do we treat it like it is a single day?

It is the fifth week of the Easter season, but I invite you, challenge you even, to look at how well you are celebrating – or not celebrating – the Resurrection. You have a few more
weeks to go. What is something you can do to reignite the joy of Easter and celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death? What were the practices you took up for Lent? How have you seen a change in yourself through those practices? How can you carry that transformation forward throughout the Easter season and beyond?