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Hi. It’s Me. And My Logs.

28/2/2025

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke
6.39-45

Jesus told his disciples a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like their teacher.

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.

“Out of the good treasure of the heart, the good person produces good, and out of evil treasure, the evil person produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

It can take me, easily, a good few minutes, of reading and re-reading a scripture passage to even begin figuring out who I am in the story or the main point being driven home.

But this one? This one’s pretty direct.

For me, it was a really quick, almost sheepish, “I’m very much picking up what you’re putting down there, Jesus” type of passage. Hi, it’s me. He’s talking to me. And my logs.

I’ve always found this line about finding the speck in another’s eye while ignoring the log in your own almost comical. Jesus didn’t hold back on this one. A speck. A log. It’s so painfully, almost comically accurate.

How often, in trying to control all the things around me, do I correct something just slightly off in someone else when, in fact, my tendency to control is way bigger than their slightly off tendencies?

How often do I silently respond to someone’s online post with an inner eye roll, followed by some version of a negative presumption when… my assumption itself is way worse than the thing I’m assuming of them?

How often am I focused on all the things I wish this or that person would change when I myself need those exact changes in my own heart?

The list goes on and on… and a quick glance at this Gospel says “Got it. Be a good person. Be nicer. Stop criticizing and critiquing so much.”

But as I read this passage over and over, something more than an almost-comically direct (and warranted) reprimand became clear to me. The layers of this Gospel unfolded a little more, as they always do when we spend a little time with any given passage.

His insistence on this is for our wholeness. It’s a pathway for us to be our most authentically, free selves.

I sometimes forget that Christ and what He’s proposing are actually for my whole healing. Always. He’s the creator and advocate of my most authentic and free self. Addressing the log in my own eye means criticizing others less… and also getting real about my own healing journey.

From where inside of myself do these judgments bubble up? Which part of me is so insistent on changing or controlling other people? He wants to heal whatever wound inside of me is sparking those reactions.

I often think of the saints as just people who had way more discipline than me to do what’s right. And, let’s be honest, that’s probably the case. But maybe the saints were also people whose deep-down, authentic healing, through Christ, led them to be truly themselves. Maybe their merciful words and loving charity flowed from the abundance of their authentically healed heart, not the memorization of a rule.

Am I allowing His words to guide me in the healing I need?

May we allow ourselves to be healed and may our thoughts, words, and actions flow from the authentically good treasure and abundance of our hearts.

Catherine Burnham

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When

27/2/2025

1 Comment

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 Corinthians
15.54-58

Brothers and sisters: When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

When perishable becomes imperishable.
When mortal becomes immortality.

When is a moment. A waterfall. A particle. A suddenness yet to come.
When is a continuum. A river. A wave. A sequence in each breath.

When is awaited.
   A consummation in standing before You,
       the mirror darkly shattered.
When is now.
   A consolation in walking with You,
       the light to come pouring through widening fissures.

Thomas Merton, from The Seven Story Mountain:

“God my God, God who I meet in darkness…
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life. That is why we are traveling, and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace; and, therefore, in that sense, we have arrived in our dwelling in the light. But, oh, how far I have to go to find You in whom I have already arrived.”

My Lord Jesus Christ,
My Victorious Jesus,
My Master Jesus,
My Shepherd Jesus,
   oh my sweet Jesus,

I cannot have it, but I long for it. I grow in a longing to enter an unmediated unity with You before I get to the final When, while I am in the now When. It must be that I can only feel this longing because of Your own longing for me to enter it now as well. On my own I can start nothing. You call and invite me into more. This more is only possible gradually through a series of Whens, where in each one of them I die interiorly to anything less than unity with Your Love. You give an invitation into a sequence of deaths before the suddenness of Death making space for light in the darkness. These fissures of Your light, shining through now, outline all the shards of darkened glass that I need to let fall to the ground.

Then, as I die each small death to the sin You let me see, its stinging stops. Its ability to blind me dissolves. Light shines through and good things grow. The fruit of victory over death is possible in this life. As this transformation is solidified into steadfastness – made evident as I join You in Your labour of Love – we make things together that last, things that are immovable. We shape an eternal When in the clay of the now When.

Come Holy Spirit, fire the clay.
Father, thank You for The Victory,
   and for each victory,
       through our Lord Jesus Christ,
           Amen.

Noreen Smith

1 Comment

Freedom to Serve

26/2/2025

2 Comments

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Psalm 92

R. Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night.

R. Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.

R. Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.

In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap, showing that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

R. Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Lately I feel my age creeping up on me. A creak in my bones. An ache in my muscles. I don’t have a foot in the grave by any stretch, but I feel the start of a shiver down my spine these days. And my mind brings up the old “freedom 55” commercials that filled the ad spots in early evening television when I was a kid. A promise that at the age of 55 I could be sipping cocktails poolside at some fabled resort, collecting dust.

But “freedom 55” isn’t exactly what it sounds like. It’s tied up in worldly views that there’s a point at which our contribution is less valuable. Better to make way for the young folks (who are less than 30 years out from being treated like the old dinosaurs themselves). If we call retirement “freedom,” will you look the other way when we act like the elderly have less to contribute to than the young?

Today’s psalm reminds me that even if I could retire at 55, the Kingdom view of my life is very different. No matter what age I am when I finally retire from my day job, there’s no version of life as a Christian where we also retire from our vocation and our service of the King. There’s no age at which I have less to contribute.

We’re lifelong servants – cradle to grave. That doesn’t mean that whatever ministry I picked up when I came of age is the one I would stay with my whole life, of course. In different seasons of life, I might find myself more or less available. When I first had my kids, there was no way I could stay in music ministry. My family was at full capacity and there was no time for rehearsals, let alone being separate from my breastfed baby for hours. But I was able to help start and coordinate a ministry for other young parents, which blessed myself and other young parents with much-needed community.

In this season, where our family’s health has been such a challenge, I’ve been able to find ministries that don’t require consistent in-person members – writing, editing, and giving reflections over Zoom. During the early pandemic, before everyone had figured out how to do online outreach, I was able to dedicate myself to prayer for those around me. When the world would want to write me off, the Lord always has a mission for me.

In every season of life, God makes a way for us to serve Him. There is an area of service no matter what your ability, challenges, or time constraints. And even when the world has decided it’s best for us to go out to pasture, there is a mission in that field too. No matter how many grey hairs I have or how my physical ability changes, I can still overflow with the Holy Spirit in service of others. The Lord will prune me and nourish me so that I will flourish in the Kingdom.

Stéphanie Potter

2 Comments

Testing for Truth

25/2/2025

3 Comments

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sirach
27.4-7

When a sieve is shaken, the refuse appears; so do one’s faults when one speaks. The kiln tests the potter’s vessels; so the test of the just person is in tribulation.

Its fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree; so a person’s speech discloses the cultivation of the mind. Do not praise someone before they speak, for this is the way people are tested.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Now, I don’t wish to be crude, but this reflection is going to put the “scat” in “eschatological.”

According to a reputable Bible translation site, the sieve Sirach refers to here is much like a sieve we would know – metal mesh for sifting material like grain. But the materials the ancient Hebrew people would have been sifting would have been their harvested grain, and the “refuse” here is the cow dung coming off the crops.

So, um, Sirach is literally talking about BS.

When you speak, your bubble soap shows, as it were.

It’s sort of comforting to think that BS was as much an issue in 180 BC as it is today. And it made me wonder what exactly differentiates BS from straight out lying. It seems the commonly accepted delineation is that when you lie, you are knowingly suppressing or concealing the truth. Meanwhile, when you BS, the truth is basically irrelevant – you’re just saying whatever is advantageous in that moment. If anything, you don’t know the truth, but you’re speaking as if you do; you also probably don’t intend to seek the truth in any meaningful way as soon as this act of BS has achieved your end.

So, it seems to me, the act of BSing isn’t so much the sin of lying, but the sin of cheapening or growing lazy in the radical pursuit of truth (the Truth) we’re all called to.

Jesus is unequivocal about His mission: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). This is why He was born. Doesn’t get much more important than that!

Our old pal Saint Augustine explains that those “who belong to the truth” are “listening with the inward ear.” That is, they have been given the grace to hear, believe, and obey God. Augustine reasons that though every person was created by truth and for truth, God isn’t going to give it to us without us asking for it. Clearly, having the truth spoken to them plainly, in their actual ears, wasn’t enough for some people.

“A man then is not of the truth, because he hears His voice, but hears His voice because he is of the truth. This grace is conferred upon him by the truth,” Augustine says.

So BSing might seem fairly innocuous (if annoying) when compared to more overt forms of deceit or cheating. But it’s a step in a very dangerous direction. For the more comfortable we get with the BSer’s “I dunno, sounded good in the moment” mindset, the less raw and urgent our hunger for the real truth gets. Then we forget to ask for the grace to hear God. And then we become one of those “not of the truth” anymore.

For all the flack that Pilate gets for his question “What is truth?” (John 18:38), at least he’s asking! Maybe he’s not so full of oxen dung as we thought.

Kate Mosher

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Hi. It’s Me. And My Logs.

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

When

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Freedom to Serve

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Testing for Truth

​A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

Archives

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, March 2nd, 2025:
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time