I made Jesus suffer for me
A decade back, I prayed myself through the Ignatian retreat that the Jesuit father took Mother Teresa through in 1959 (found in appendix B of Come Be my Light). Sometimes the wording he gave in his instructions stood out for me. One such time was his instruction to her that stated, “To spend a day in reparation for the sufferings I have made Jesus bear for me.”
I grew up hearing Jesus suffered for me on the cross. But I’ve never heard I made Jesus suffer for me. Wow, a paradigm shift.
Outliers
In the secular world, people are characterized as outliers in many ways. Not too long ago, a well-funded and orchestrated protest against the one-percenters of the ultra-high wealthy took place as Occupy Wallstreet. In the world of science and education, the outliers are those with the ultra-high IQ. In this Gospel which we recently heard in mass, Jesus is calling us to belong to a different group of outliers: those who truly love Him.
Praying with children
Like all faith traditions, the Catholic Church has been losing its children to the secular world for the past 60 years. How would the world be different today if children, and parents, learned simple ways to pray?
Ezra’s atonement
Recently our mass readings included the passage of Ezra praying for God’s pardon on behalf of his people. It made me think how often I’ve prayed in remorse for my own offenses against God, and those of others, but not ours. It might seem a trivial distinction but those trivial details are usually the most important…