News Category: Sunday Warm-up

Sunday Gospel Warm-Up

Being Fully Alive

Mar. 26, John 11:1-45,

There is one thing worse than dying and death. It is physically walking and breathing, yet, being soulfully dead. The story of Lazarus is of one being returned from the dead, but Jesus maintains he is just asleep.

In this way, we are like Lazarus, asleep and needing to be raised to full awareness of the life only Jesus (God) can offer. Jesus declares that He is the resurrection and the life. True life and living in its fullest sense is rooted in our relationship with Jesus. We are raised to fullness of life when Jesus is Lord in our life.

Have you had a life-raising moment, a moment of Grace, this Lent?

Sunday Gospel Warm-Up

Now I See

Mar. 19 John 9:1-41

We all are on this journey to understand and truly know our God as well as ourselves and others. Often metaphors or poetry is used to describe this journey or process.

John, in his Gospel, describes it as moving from darkness to the light or, in the case of today’s Gospel, from blindness to seeing. The blind man is healed of his physical blindness by Jesus, but more importantly he is freed of his soulful blindness to seeing Jesus as the source of life and the Son of God.

That’s our necessary journey as well. We are all blind in our unique way. We need the grace of Jesus to be healed of that blindness and to be able to stand in His light. Our prayer then always needs to be that of Bartimaeus, “Lord, I want to see”.

Sunday Gospel Warm-up

Remedy for Our Flaws

Mar. 12 John 4:5-42

We have so many flaws. Our thinking is flawed and often our actions are marred by selfishness and ignorance. This becomes obvious in our relationships with family, co-workers, and all whom we have contact. It is true for us as individuals and within every group we associate.

This Sunday, we are given a long Gospel from John about the woman at the well. The woman obviously has her flaws, married five times and living unmarried with a sixth man. She also belongs to what every good Jew would consider to be an errant or flawed faith – the Samaritans. It’s her encounter with Jesus that changes the course of her future. Isolated before, she begins to bring others to belief in Jesus. She recognizes in Jesus the wisdom and truth of God.

The way out of our flawed life is the same path she chose – make Jesus the goal, the source, and focus for our lives.

Sunday Gospel Warm-up

The Way of Jesus

Mar. 5 Mat 17:1-9

How do we find God in this world?

Every once in a while, each of us experience those special “mountain top” experiences and many of us would say those are our God moments. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus provides his disciples with one of those experiences, but then He leads them down the mountain and begins to show them a different path to God. It is His journey to Jerusalem and the cross. On the way, he encounters rejection, despisal, betrayal, torture, and finally death, all in the name of love.

In that sacrificial love, however, comes new life and blessing to us all. It’s in that kind of love, that we most perfectly find God. It’s in that kind of love, we find meaning, life, and joy.

Sunday Gospel Warm-up in Lent

All by the Grace of God

Feb. 26 Mat 4:1-11

The first Sunday of Lent we always hear the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Jesus is tempted with all kinds of power if only he would let go of his obedience to God. Of course, we know there is no chance of that. We also know these temptations of power come to us in all kinds of ways. In fact, probably on a daily if not hourly basis, we cave in to these temptations.

Lent is our time to become aware of our need for God’s Grace. It is our time to embrace our sinfulness and turn to God for forgiveness and the spiritual power to resist those temptations as Jesus did.

We enter into the genuine spirit of Lent by humbly acknowledging that only in God can we be truly happy and be in peace in this life and the next. So, we humbly pray, give alms, and fast all with the goal of making God our priority.