THE PLAN

THE PLAN

            Until the invention of cameras, the chronicles of events depended solely on the eyewitness accounts.  Each account of course, having its own perspective, thereby making the description of the whole event questionable.  And so it is with the Bible. The wonderful thing is that even if those who wrote the Bible were swayed by outside influences, the plan of God emerges whole and intact. 

            When the scriptures are read backward as it were, that is from Christ to Adam, the pattern is easier to see.  The chaotic development of the human race appears to be random, but here and there God intervenes to keep that development on the path toward Jesus Christ.  God really did appear as a burning bush, did part the waters for the escape from Egypt, did make it possible for women who were barren or too old to give birth, to give birth anyway!

            To us, the Birth of Christ, that is, the actual birth of Christ is very important but to the Gospel writers it was just the beginning and not vital to their mission of spreading the Good News.  Happily God intervened again to give us St. Luke who provided enough detail to see the pattern. 

Why did Jesus come? The only valid answer is, to show us God, to invite us to become part of the life of God.   To say Jesus died to open the gates of heaven is misleading.  The life of God is borderless.  It is not a place, there are no pearly gates, there is no great book of our sins, only God. We are invited into the life of God, not there, but here! Jesus died to show us the way, the way of love and absolute trust.

God does not intend for us to know him thoroughly only when our life on earth is over.  God came himself to earth to invite us into his life now!  Only a few people got it then and even less get it now. 

Every person who decries the empty pews in church has missed the point completely.  God is not bound by doors.  God is revealed in the people who make sandwiches for the homeless and go out at night to find and feed them.  God is revealed in the first responder who sacrifices his/her comfort and security to go to the aid of the stricken. God is revealed in the parents who sacrifice their own lives to protect their children. God is revealed in the people who are discriminated against because their creation by God is deemed an abomination. God is revealed in everyone who sees the Spirit of God in others.

We parrot that God is love, yet we do not behave as though that were true.  We decide that God is judging our neighbors. We have decided they are sinners and consequently have constructed our own version of God where love is tempered by our prejudices.  Our reason for being is not to attain heaven, but to live the life of God here on earth. That’s the plan.

Blessings

Carol Lemelin OPA

POWER OF THE SPIRIT

THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

“For those that have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged as they are brought together in love, to have all the richness of fully assured understanding, for the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”(Col 2: 1-3)

In this letter, Paul expresses his concern for the people of Laodicea who have embraced the Good News but to whom he has been unable to minister.  He expresses his wishes that they will persevere in faith and be given the gifts of the Spirit, which includes the richness of fully assured understanding.

I’m not sure any human has come to a full understanding of the Good News but that isn’t what Paul is saying.  He says fully assured understanding.  In other words, that they do not doubt the rightness of their decision to accept the message of Christ and to acknowledge that He is truly the expected Messiah.  This was a huge step for them, raised as they were in the Judaic tradition.

It raises a valid question for us.  Are we fully assured that the spirit of God is always with us?  If you need proof of the power of the Holy Spirit you have only to read the letters of St. Paul.  From his conception, God had his eye on Paul. God took his intellectual brilliance and super-confident personality and then added the constant presence of the Holy Spirit to teach Paul the mysteries of the Redemption and how to spread the Good News.  Go to the letter to the Philippians, Chapter 2, Verses 6-11.  How could he possibly have understood so well the mission of Christ without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit?  The fact that Paul was able to go from rigid adherence to the Jewish law to a full understanding of Christ may be the only demonstrable case of a leopard actually changing its spots. 

The Spirit, however, did not stop with Paul and the fledgling Church.  The Spirit is ever-present in the world.  Take a good look at the response of the country to the hurricane disasters.  God has commanded that we love another.  There is that love being played out on the rivers that used to be streets in Houston. People who were interviewed repeated over and over again that were no political, ethnic or religious distinctions during the rescue effort.  Let us pray that remains the case and this love for one another does not fade.

Most people have no idea that the inclination to put aside their own issues to help someone else comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world, but we do.

We are fully assured that is the case.  We are duty-bound to express that belief so that others may enjoy the full assurance that the love of God is alive and working in the hearts of all humans.  

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin OPA

DISAPPOINTMENT

DISAPPOINTMENT

You’ve seen the look on a kid’s face at Christmas when they open the gift they are sure is the action hero they wanted and find it is a clever little figure that teaches math.   Maybe you’ve even been that kid.  Either way, almost no one has failed to be bitterly disappointed at some time during his or her life.  Along with grief, this pain is something we all can relate to. The pain of disappointment can be crushing. The severity usually depends on how high our expectations were. Sometimes we want something so badly we convince ourselves it’s a done deal, making the pain more intense.

In the early years of the Church, the people believed that Jesus’ Second Coming would be in their lifetimes.  St. Paul, for one, spoke of Christ’s return often and advised his followers to be ready.  Jesus did say he would come back but never said exactly when.  “No one but the Father knows the day or the hour”. 

Like most of us, Paul had high expectations of what the future was going to be. Part of that was his need to see Jesus, whom he never met, so he could pour out his heart and present to Him the souls whom he had gathered in His name. But Paul was to be disappointed. As his life was coming to a close, he understood that the dream of the Second Coming was not to be realized in his lifetime.  He did not go into a tailspin and despair, however.  He kept on writing, he kept on praying, he kept on preaching, so great was his love of Christ and his faith that God was always with him. 

If only we could remember not to put our faith in expectation but to put our faith in the knowledge that God is with us more deeply than we can imagine. We build these dreams of the future, conveniently forgetting our past disappointments, and then blame God when things don’t work out.  That isn’t even rational.  The only sure thing is the presence of God. 

This is just one more thing Jesus shared with us.  The betrayal of Judas, especially with the gesture of a kiss, must have been deeply wounding.  When the Jewish leadership presented a united front against him and refused even to listen, his heart must have broken.  What did Jesus do in the face of such pain?  He, like Paul, kept on keepin’ on.  They did what the old song says,

♬ “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” ♬

Disappointments will always be with us, but we will be a lot happier if we temper our expectations, be prepared to accept what comes, and acknowledge He wants only what is best for us. 

May God bless you all as a new season begins.

Carol Lemelin OPA

IT'S NOT COMPLICATED

                                                                    

IT’S NOT COMPLICATED

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. ^b]All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mt 22:34-40)

You can imagine the consternation of the listeners. “Over 600 laws and 19 prophets whose words we have lived by for centuries?  This is what you are saying?  All of that can summed up in two sentences?” They began walking away immediately. They had lived with complicated religious beliefs all their lives. There was no way they were ready to boil it down to two sentences. 

Every thing we say or do has to only answer one of two questions: Does what I am doing disobey God’s call to love my neighbor?  Does what I am doing deny my love of God? Can it really be that easy?  Perhaps not easy, but certainly simple.

Think of the earth below a garden.  It is a mass of tangled roots, all twisting and growing around each other, so that if you tried to identify any one plant by their root alone, it would be nearly impossible.  That is what happens when people try to control one another.  This was the thing that made Jesus so angry. (Mt 23:15-32). The Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests made numerous laws and Jesus berated them for burdening the people with those laws, while they held themselves exempt.  They betrayed their offices and made a mockery of all that they were meant to be.  The initial purpose may have been good but the more people get involved, the more personal agendas pop up, the more complicated it gets, until finally, it makes no sense at all.  It is just a mass of conflicting opinions on how things should be.

The simplicity of God’s commands baffles the human mind. In the case of the Jews, apparently 10 commandments were not enough, so they made 600 more.  And yet, neither the first nor the second Commandment requires explanation.  We know what God wants from us.  We know, in our hearts, that all the good that is possible on earth comes from us because God gave us the means to achieve it. Still we tie ourselves in knots trying to control everything as though God were not with us at all. Worse, we attempt to control one another using God as a weapon, i.e. “Because you did that, God will punish you.”

We have no right to pass such judgment. We let ourselves become moral critics when we have no mandate for it.  To love one another means to recognize God in each other.  It means to try to understand.  It means to forgive, if not for their sake, then for your own.  It means to accept the differences between us and not assume that because we are different, one of us must be wrong, and use that as an excuse to shun one another.

It simply is not that complicated.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin, OPA