Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Pentecost 10

Pentecost 10 (John 6:24-35) I am the bread of life
Jesus is life.

Jesus is the source of life for all organisms on this planet. There would be no life on Earth without the source of life in Jesus Christ. We become more of whom our Heavenly Father created us to be as we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The life of Jesus is eternal.

As St. Athanasius asserted: there never was a time when the Son was not.
In the divine realm, our Heavenly Father has always and is always expressing His infinite love by eternally expressing that love in the Son. The Father and Son share that eternal love in the person of the Holy Spirit. The three persons of God are the three persons of love: the one who loves, the Beloved, and the Love that forms their essential being as one God.

Life is love.

Any mode of existence apart from steadfast holy unconditional love is a distortion of life and a disintegration of life.

When our species chose to separate from God in an effort to acquire supreme knowledge and unlimited power, we abandoned love as the central organizing principle of our existence. As we abandoned love so we abandoned life.

We exist in a world of cause and effect, of gravity and entropy, subject to the laws of matter, energy, time and space. We suffer physical death because we suffer spiritual death. Human beings die because our species chose to separate from the very source of life.

Jesus came to Earth to restore us as a species and as individuals to the source of life.

It is important to understand that sin is a consequence of separation. Death is not a punishment for sin. Death is a very real organic and spiritual reality. It is a terrible tragedy. Our Heavenly Father is so concerned about our species that He allowed His co-eternal Beloved Son to come to earth, become a particular human being and suffer a cruel death.

Jesus trapped death by accepting death. As the very source of life Jesus transformed death back into life by the power of infinite and eternal love.

People sought out Jesus to solve all manner of problems. Death was not one of them. The problems people identified are in fact the symptoms of the real problem confronting our species. That real problem is separation from God, from other people, from the truth of who God created us to be, and from the very source of life.
Jesus is the bread of life. He is the nourishment that strengthens the soul to enter into a new way of living. The way of living Jesus offers is eternal.

Every choice we make has an eternal consequence. In Jesus those choices and find transformation in the real presence of eternal love.

We can only overcome the consequences of separation- sin and death- as we allow the Holy Spirit to infuse the Divine Life of the co-eternal Beloved Son into our daily existence.

It is not enough to hold up the Ten Commandments and say: do this. A soul in separation has no desire to keep the Law. The desire comes only as the soul hears the Word of God, believes the Word of God and receives the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God.

The Bible teaches us about Jesus but the Bible is not Jesus. The sacraments infuse divine grace and divine life into our souls but the sacraments are not magic. The Bible and the sacraments are the instruments of reunification and transformation. The reality is Jesus.

That is why Jesus teaches that the work of God is the choice to place your faith and hope and love in the Personal Reality of God. The Personal Reality of God is Jesus Christ.

All souls hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Our Heavenly Father designed us to find that meaning and purpose in the co-eternal Son. Nothing less than the Son, nothing of the material universe, can meet that need and fulfill that desire.
We may enjoy a good meal. But we will grow hungry again.

We can delight in a friendship or a romance but we will thirst for something more or something different.

Even the legitimate pleasures of the material world are subject to the law of diminishing return.

Only Jesus can fully and eternally satisfy our hunger and thirst for meaning and purpose. Only Jesus can overcome death. Only Jesus can transform our distorted desires that result in sin.

Only Jesus can say: I am the bread, the source, of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger for meaning and purpose.; whoever believes in me will never thirst for life and for love.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 (John 6:1-21) “Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”

Wisdom begins with a question.

Almost any question will do. Honest questions are best. Holy Mother Mary asked an honest question of the archangel Gabriel when she said: how can this be?

Dishonest questions can work. The religious and political leaders of Jesus day frequently asked these kinds of questions. We call them today: “gothca!’ questions. These questions aren’t designed to seek knowledge, let alone understanding or wisdom. They proceed from pride. Jesus was superb in the way he used these prideful dishonest “gtocha!” questions to help people see beyond their rigid inflexible ideologies.

Jesus sometimes used leading questions. A leading question is an invitation to enter into a process. It is a process of discovery that leads to knowledge, understanding, wisdom. It is a process that takes place in the context of a personal relationship.
Jesus is the universal savior of humanity. His questions facilitate our heavenly Father’s Plan of salvation. This is no mere academic exercise. It is a dialog within the context of a personal relationship- a friendship. In that dialog God the Holy Spirit manifests the wisdom that leads to salvation.

The physical context for this question about food is a mountain. Jesus had gone outside the city and into the wilderness. There were no villages or farms. There were no inns or trading posts. The mountain was isolated. It was a great place for a mass meeting. It was an impossible place to spend any time. It lacked the basic necessities of life: food, water, shelter.

The religious context for the question about food is the Passover. On the Passover, the people remembered the great and terrifying events of the Exodus: the angel of Death, the meal eaten in haste, the hurried departure from the cities and abundance of Egypt into the stark desolation of the desert.

The Passover tells the story of God’s deliverance, of God’s salvation.

The spiritual context for the question about food is desperation. The people who followed Jesus into the wilderness were lost in desperation. Their need for healing at every level was profound and unmet. They lived in a society where the wealthy feasted and everyone else hoped for a few crumbs that fell from their table.

The people were lost in separation from God, other people and their true identity. They lived with fear, anxiety, anger and at times hate. What attracted them to Jesus was not just that he could heal. It was not just that his success rate was 100%. It was that Jesus healed everyone who came to him. And, he healed for free.

As a healer Jesus was unique in every imaginable way.

The people flocked to him. He healed them.

In this passage we see how the people acted impulsively by following Jesus into the wilderness. They did not think about the consequences of their actions. They reacted from a place of profound need and desperation. After all, no one else was willing to help them.

Jesus saw the problem and responded with compassion. He also used the moment to teach his disciples. He asked a very logical and practical question: Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”

Philip addressed the financial part of the question. We can’t afford to buy bread. We lack the money.

Andrew addressed the supply side of the question. He found a boy who had the presence of mind to bring a lunch of five barley loves and two fish. It was the lunch of the working poor. It reflected scarcity and seemed an object lesson to Andrew about the lack of resources available to them.

Lack of money. Lack of resources. A hungry, lost and anxious crowd. A desperate situation. Into that place of scarcity Jesus brought Divine abundance.

In an understated manner filled with humility and love, Jesus very gently took the boy’s lunch, offered it to His Heavenly Father, gave thanks to the Father for the abundance of creation and with those five barley loaves and two fish fed five thousand people. At the end of the meal there was more left over than at the start.
The scarcity in the world is not in resources. Our Heavenly Father created a world of abundance. The scarcity in the world is love. As the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father Jesus restores love to a species that has abandoned love and distorted love.

Jesus clearly performed a miracle that day. Everyone recognized the reality of the miracle. They attributed the miracle to power. They insisted Jesus use this power in the political realm of command control. They attempted to force Jesus to become the new king of Israel.

This is not the Plan of Salvation. Jesus performed miracles from the place of humility, thanksgiving and love. In humility Jesus’ constant prayer was: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done. In thanksgiving Jesus delighted in the abundance of the Creation. In love and indeed as love Jesus always sought the highest good for all people.

Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand from the place of steadfast, holy and unconditional love. Where everyone saw only scarcity he saw abundance and proclaimed abundance. He shared that abundance with everyone. He made no distinction based on class, ethnicity, gender, age or religious belief. As the unconditional love of God in human flesh Jesus fed everyone.

There are a billion people in the world starving to death. There are billions more who may have food today but are uncertain whether they will have food tomorrow. There are people in our community who live in fear with the reality of scarcity.
The problem of starvation, hunger and deprivation is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of love. The resources are abundant. The will to use those resources to fulfill the invitation our Heavenly Father offers to us in Jesus is what is missing.
The solution is to hear the question Jesus asks. Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”

The question is an invitation to ask other questions. Why are a billion people starving to death? Why are so many people in our own community living with fear, anxiety and confusion? What is wrong? What is the solution?

Moses and the prophets answer both questions. The problem is the choice our species made and continues to make to separate from God. The problem is rigid inflexible uncompromising ideology that not only fails to see the forest for the trees but can only see the cash value of the trees. The problem is the pride of individual self-will and exclusive self-interest.

The solution is Jesus. Jesus is the co-eternal Word of God. Jesus is the Beloved Son of the Father. Jesus is the forever friend who is encouraging us to enter into the abundance of reunification with God. Jesus is the solution who offers to transform each of us to be the abundance of God for our families, friends and neighbors.
The solution starts with a question. Bring your questions to Jesus. Allow Jesus to ask his questions of you.

A billion people are starving. Billions more are on the thin edge of hunger. Many in our own community cannot afford to feed themselves or their children. Jesus asks us as he asked his disciples so long ago: Where are we to buy bread for the people to eat?”

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Pentecost 8

Pentecost 8 (Mark 6:30-34; 53-56)
Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest awhile.

Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves.

Our Heavenly Father designed our species according to the pattern of the logos, the Word of God who is the beloved Son of God. We are each a unique aspect of the infinite and eternal love of the Son.

There is a meaning and a purpose to our lives. God the Father created us to be the forever friends of God the Son. We enter into that friendship in three fundamental ways: worship, service, personal transformation.

As the Father created all of us and each of us according to the pattern, plan and purpose of the Son, so He sends the Holy Spirit into the world and into our souls to help us become who He created us to be. The Holy Spirit is the Counselor who encourages us to read, mark learn and inwardly digest scripture. It is as we make the choice to follow the counsel of the Holy Spirit by reading, studying and memorizing scripture that the wisdom of God becomes real to us and present in our daily choices.

Jesus reveals two patterns of Divine Love in the gospel passage today. One is rest. The other is service.

As the love of God in human flesh, Jesus is the wisdom of God and the compassion of God. He is the pattern of this universe of matter, energy, time and space. As we study the life of Jesus, ponder his words and enter into His real presence in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, the Holy Spirit helps us to perceive, understand and apply the wisdom of Jesus and the compassion of Jesus.

From the very beginning, God created time to facilitate the purpose for our lives. Every seventh day is the Day of Real Presence. It is the particular time that sets aside the particular place where God promises to meet us, to refresh us, to infuse his love into our minds, hearts and wills.

The particularity of the time and place of real presence facilitates choice. The purpose of our lives is love. Love can only be real as we make a real choice to embrace that love.

Throughout history people have asked: where is God? He is right here. He is where he declared he would be in the realm of matter, energy, time and space. He is present in the reading of his word. He is present in the blessed sacrament of the altar.
God did not complete creation until he formed the seventh day. The seventh day holds all creation, especially time, in balance, harmony and joy. Sadly, most people most of the time throughout history have ignored this aspect of creation. We find the seventh day burdensome. Even those who attempt to honor the Sabbath have distorted it through legalism or minimalism.

Legalism provides a list of what you can and cannot do. The focus is on the list not the real presence of Divine Love. Minimalism has one eye on the altar and one eye on the clock.

Strangely enough, both legalism and minimalism ask the same question: what is the least I must do to get credit? How can I use this day to merit Divine favor and still do what is really important to me?

That question is formed by the old life- the life of separation. That question proceeds from the old way of living- the way of self will, pride and fear. That way is grounded in the distortion of scarcity. The great fear our species holds is that there is not enough for everyone so I must strive to get what I need and I want.
The seventh day exists as God’s promise that there is more than enough. There is in fact abundance. The new life of reunification with the Father through the Son by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit releases that abundance in wisdom, compassion and balance.

Jesus not only taught this balance he demonstrated the balance. Jesus not only demonstrated the balance he is the balance. The purpose of our lives is the threefold love Jesus gives us. That gift emerges in a personal relationship with Jesus.

Jesus holds the balance of work, rest, recreation and renewal. The invitation to come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile is an invitation to renewal. It is not just a cessation from activity. It is not a diversion. It is life.
The balance in life is demonstrated by Jesus as the balance between action and contemplation. Work and recreation are still action. Rest apart from contemplation is an inertia that can lead to stagnation.

To enter into the rest Jesus offers is to enter into the Divine Mystery of life itself. It is to set apart a time and a place to renew our minds, our hearts and our wills in the Real Presence of the Eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father through the eternal Holy Spirit.

Contemplation compliments action. Contemplation completes action. Contemplation creates action.

The action Jesus demonstrates is compassion in all of its practical forms. There is feeding the hungry. There is healing the sick. There is visiting the lonely. There are so many opportunities in this world to practice compassion and to show kindness. If we ask what is the minimum I must do to practice compassion we are stuck in legalism.

Compassion is not a law. It is a Way of life. It is a principle that guides choice.
The underlying power of compassion is contemplative engagement with the Divine. The highest form of this engagement is in liturgical worship. In the liturgy the Holy Spirit offers to help us perceive and enter into the very pattern of Heaven. If we ask what is the minimum time and attention we must offer in worship to practice contemplative engagement with the Divine we are stuck in a minimalism that leads to stagnation.

Jesus is the superabundance of God’s grace which is the very pattern of Creation.
Jesus invites us to enter into the rest of the eternal Sabbath manifesting in the realm of time through the timeless touch of the Divine Liturgy. The choice to enter into that rest produces a result. The result is an attitude and an action of compassion.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Pentecost 7

Pentecost 7 (Mark 6: 14-29) “King Herod heard of it.”

It isn’t easy being king. The perks are great: wealth, power, prestige, palaces. The demands are never ending. And the threat is constant.

The ruler was Herod Antipas, grandson of Herod the Great. Herod the Great was the king when Jesus was born. They were not Jews. They were Edomites- descendants of Jacob’s older brother Essau.

Herod ruled as an absolute monarch who had to please two main constituencies in order to stay in power: the Romans and the wealthy Galileans. A more troublesome constituency was the people over whom Herod ruled. The people were restive, contentious and almost impossible to satisfy.

Herod dealt with the Romans and the wealthy by discerning what they wanted in a king. The Romans wanted the king to maintain order. Herod maintained order through brutal suppression at the hands of the police, the military and the internal security apparatus. Herod discovered quickly that the Romans did not concern themselves with the means only the result.

Herod understood that the wealthy landowners and merchants of Galilee were essential allies to maintain his power. What they wanted was easy to figure out. They wanted the labor laws and the tax laws written in their favor. In exchange, they made substantial cash contributions to King Herod personally. They refused to pay taxes for roads, aqueducts, reservoirs or hospitals but they were more than willing to pay bribes to ensure the law favored their business interests.

Of course, this meant that ordinary working people were at a disadvantage. In order to keep taxes on the rich low Herod had to reduce services to the poor and raise taxes on them to pay the police, the military and the internal security agents.
Herod used two very old principles to deal with the people. The first is called: bait and switch. The second is called: divide and conquer. Herod was very effective in both. He knew the people were bitterly divided over the issue of religion and culture. He didn’t create the divisions. He did exploit the divisions. He played off the various factions against each other.

He told the Pharisees that the real problem in society was not the Romans- who after all were far away in Rome. Nor was the problem the unjust labor laws and tax system. The real problem was the Sadducees. They had perverted the true religion of Israel. They were the real problem. They held weird beliefs and strange customs.
Of course, when Herod spoke privately with the Sadducees he used the same tactic and blamed the Pharisees.

Herod was very clever at the politics of shame and blame to please the Romans and the wealthy and to divert the attention of ordinary people from the oppression of his rule. Jesus once commented on Herod’s intelligence by calling him “that fox.” Herod was clever but not wise.

As with many who are successful in ruling, King Herod had one fatal flaw: hubris, pride. He thought he had life, people, even God figured out and in the palm of his hand.

Then, God did something he hadn’t done in the previous 400 years. He sent a prophet, John the Baptizer.

It isn’t easy to be a prophet. Most prophets resisted God’s call. They knew that people would not listen to them. They knew they would meet opposition, threat, arrest, torture and death. They knew that a true prophet of God is accountable only to God. He must speak two words: repent and prepare.

Repent of your sin. Prepare to receive the Messiah.

A true prophet is not a fortune teller. A true prophet is a truth teller. His mind is not just formed by scripture it is saturated with scripture. A true prophet must be very careful to say and to do only what God directs. He cannot innovate. He cannot deviate.

John was the last of the prophets. He was the last of the prophets because he was the one appointed to declare the arrival of the Messiah. Since the coming of the Messiah there is no prophetic office. Anyone after John the Baptist who claims to be a prophet is deceived. They can be a teacher, a philosopher or a theologian. They cannot be a prophet.

It isn’t easy to be a true prophet of God. God’s word is alive in the mind, the heart and the will of the prophet. John burned with a passion for the word of God. He called people to repent of their sin. Most people were both impressed and entertained by John.

They knew the stories of the ancient prophets. They expected John’s unusual behavior, diet and preaching style. They delighted to hear John announce the coming of the Messiah and to denounce the rich and the powerful.

They were less enthusiastic about John when he moved from a generic call to repentance to a critique of specific sin. One sin in particular that John denounced angered King Herod. It was the sin of divorce.

Divorce is never God’s plan. Moses permitted divorce under certain extreme circumstances. God revealed through Moses that marriage is both a covenant and a sacrament. It is a covenant among three people: husband, wife and God. It is the outward and visible form of a union that represents God’s relationship with humanity.

God is very clear: wedding vows do not just form a contract between two individuals that civil law can annul. Wedding vows create a new reality in a threefold relationship among husband, wife and God. That threefold relationship holds the very image of God. God infuses his own life and love and holiness into that new reality.
King Herod ignored God’s plan for marriage. He had an affair with his brother’s wife, Herodias. They each eventually divorced their respective spouses and married each other. John declared that this action violated the covenant and sacrament of marriage.

Herod had John arrested. It is one thing to issue a general call to repentance. It is another to name a particular sin for someone to acknowledge and repent.

King Herod had just enough belief to admire John but not enough faith to hear the word of God John brought. Herodias understood how Herod relied on his personal contacts with Roman officials and Galilean businessmen. She understood King Herod’s fatal flaw was his pride and his weakness was his dependence on his ability to fulfill his promise to his supporters. She very cleverly arranged a scenario where Herod made a rash promise in the presence of some very rich and powerful men.
If Herod broke his promise to give Salome what she requested he not only embarrassed himself he called into question his reliability to fulfill his promises to other people. He was out maneuvered and he knew it. He reluctantly ordered John to be executed. He chose to have John beheaded, which was considered a merciful form of execution. Then he brooded in superstitious fear that God would punish him for killing a prophet.

When news of Jesus reached King Herod he irrationally concluded that Jesus was John the Baptist returned from the dead to haunt him and to harass him.

That was Herod’s most serious character flaw. Herod believed everything was always about him. He had the authority to rule and used that authority to impose his will on other people. He was clever and manipulative. But, he was lost.

He was lost in his own will to power. He had just enough knowledge of religion to induce fear but not enough to produce faith.

As the Bible says and the prophets warn: be sure your sin will find you out. Herod had the authority to alter civil law but he lacked the power to annul divine law.
Eventually, the family of Herod’s first wife sought revenge for Herod’s infidelity and betrayal. Herod could impose his will through the legal system to define marriage as a contract in civil law between two people that either person could terminate in court. He could use his position to manipulate the people and reward the rich. His end came because his former in laws, the rulers of Nabatea, had plotted against him to get revenge for the way he treated their daughter.

Revenge in the Middle East is a fine art. It takes time to plot an adequate revenge. They attacked Herod’s armies and plundered his lands. Suddenly, Rome took notice. Herod had failed to maintain order. Suddenly the rich took notice. The Nabateans were stealing their property. Herod lost his position. The Romans recalled him and reassigned him to a small province in Gaul, modern France.

God had given Herod an opportunity to acknowledge his sin and to repent of his sin. He chose a different path. He chose the path of pride. He chose the path of the will to power. He chose an outward form of religion and rejected the inward and spiritual reality of faith.

Jesus helps us to understand the distinction between religion and relationship. Jesus clarifies for us the perfection and holiness of the law and the inability of anyone to keep the law. The problem is not in a lack of understanding of the law. The problem is not in the lack of enforcement. The problem is separation.

The solution to separation is reunification. That solution is to make a real choice to enter into a real relationship with God in Jesus Christ. It is only after we accept God’ solution to the problem of separation that we can begin to deal with the particular sins in our lives that have resulted from separation.

God gave Herod three significant opportunities to repent and enter into salvation. The first was through the last of the prophets: John. The second was the personal invitation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Herod killed John and helped set the momentum for Pilate to kill Jesus. The third opportunity was in his exile. It was in the last years of his life as a minor bureaucrat in a remote province. There is no record of whether Herod repented and came to faith.

God gives all people multiple opportunities to accept Jesus as our personal lord and savior. God gives all people multiple opportunities to repent of a particular sin. Sometimes the invitation comes from hearing the reading of God’s word. Sometimes the invitation comes from another person. Many times the invitation comes from the ordinary events of life. The call to salvation is universal and it is personal. Everyone receives the call. How do you receive the call?

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Pentecost 6 July 10 2012

Pentecost 6 (Mark 6:1- 13) “A prophet is not without honor except in his own home….”

Familiarity breeds contempt.

The people who knew Jesus best knew him least. They remembered the child attending school at the synagogue. They remembered the teen who never married because of scandal in the family over his birth. They remembered the young adult working in the carpenter shop building tables and chairs, repairing homes and fences. They knew his extended family by name even as they questioned how exactly he was related to them.

One reference we miss is the statement that Jesus is the son of Mary. This is an insult in that time and that culture. A man is always the son of his father. To refer to a man as the son of his mother is to state unequivocally that his father is unknown- that he is illegitimate.

The people of Nazareth not only thought they knew everything about Jesus, they knew they knew everything. In that presumption of knowledge they missed the most important qualities of Jesus. They missed the fact he never sinned. They missed the way he honored his mother and made the worship of his heavenly Father his first priority. They missed his personal holiness, his kindness to others, his compassion for all people.

The people of Nazareth knew Jesus from rumor and presumption. They missed the reality of who Jesus is. They saw what they wanted to see and ignored everything else they did not want to see. Presumption is a barrier to faith.

Presumption refuses to accept the evidence of our own senses, our own reason, and the testimony of Moses and the Prophets in the scriptures.

It was all there for the people of Nazareth. They missed it. They just didn’t accidentally miss it. They willfully missed it. As with so many others of that generation they could not and would not believe God was visiting them in person.
Modern people sometimes complain that if God is real he fails to demonstrate his reality. They want evidence. They want proof. The people of Nazareth had evidence. They had proof. They had so much more. They had in their midst the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father. And still they missed it. And still they refused to believe.

Presumption is a sin that derives from pride. It is deeply rooted in our species. It is near the root of the original choice our species made to separate from God. The soul in separation is a soul that is willfully and spitefully lost. In that place of self will and pride, people simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious.

The Bible never seeks to prove the existence of God. Moses and the prophets report their personal experience of God. St. Paul teaches that the beauty and order in nature proclaims the reality of God. The beloved apostle John observes that Jesus is the very pattern of the universe, our species and each one of us.

Nevertheless, for many who knew Jesus personally none of this made any difference. They were lost in their own preconceived ideas about God. Those ideas came to them from their culture, religion, political ideology and most importantly from the demand of self will and pride.

There are currently three main witnesses to the reality of God: the spirit, the water and the blood.

The spirit is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Eternal Triune God. He is actively working in the world today. The Holy Spirit speaks to everyone and invites everyone to recognize the problem confronting our species and each of us individually. He invites everyone alive, all seven billion of us, to receive the solution to the problem. The solution is Jesus Christ, the eternal love of the eternal God in human flesh.

In Hebrew and other Middle Eastern languages the word for spirit is the word for breath. We live only as we breathe. The breath is the reality of life that reminds us of the immanence of God and the Real Presence of God. God the Holy Spirit is as close to us as our next breath. The Holy Spirit just doesn’t give life, He is life. He is the breath of life for organic beings and He is the real presence of eternal life for our souls.

The water is the basis of life on this planet. All life is water based. All life requires a simple molecule of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Water is the witness of the Logos: the rational active dynamic creative principle of the universe.
It is no accident that Jesus chose water and infused water with sacramental grace to accomplish what no law, religion or ideology could accomplish. Through the sacramental waters of baptism a lost and separated soul is reunited to the Infinite and Eternal Triune God. The water that makes organic life possible on earth makes eternal life possible in Heaven.

The third witness is blood. The Old Testament speaks of blood being life. Since blood is life it is sacred. In the sacrifices God commanded Moses no one was permitted to taste blood. The priest offered the blood of the sacrificial animal to God and only to God.

The blood that flows through our bodies carries oxygen, nourishment and healing to our cells. Blood also removes carbon dioxide, waste matter and disease from our cells. As with air and water, blood reveals the divine pattern of the logos. As breath testifies to the presence of the Holy Spirit and water to the sacrament of reunification, so blood witnesses to the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Life is in the blood. Jesus now invites us to partake of that life in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. He infuses his body and his blood into our souls to transform our minds, our hearts, our wills.

People still encounter the three fold witness of God. People still reject the three fold witness of God. As for the people of Nazareth so for the people of our time. The witness is there. Jesus is real. The invitation to reunification and transformation is universal.

Only human pride and presumption prevent us from receiving the gift and enjoying the gift.

We are formed in a culture that rejects God. We need to be aware of this. The witness of the Holy Spirit through the Bible and in the breath, the water and the blood can help us identify how and where we miss the Real Presence of Jesus in our daily lives.

Jesus offers us the gift of Himself. In Jesus we have eternal life here and now. Eternal life is abundant life. We can experience the wonders and delights of that new life as we surrender our preconceived ideas to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in word and sacrament.

Where are you not in truth? Where today and at this minute do you miss the blessing of faith because of an attachment to some rigid inflexible uncompromising world view? That is exactly where the Holy Spirit is meeting you and speaking to you.
Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth refused to question their assumptions about Jesus. In the pride of knowledge they simply rejected the evidence of the breath, the water and the blood. Jesus still reached out to them. He still healed some who wanted to be healed. He still reaches out to us. Jesus was amazed at their unbelief. They had a unique opportunity and privilege in the Plan of Salvation. They made a different choice.

What choice do we make? What choice do you make? Choose wisely. Choose love. Choose Jesus.