Tag: timelessness

• 1 Peter 1:3-9: A Living Hope

  
  

  1 Peter 1:3-9: A Living Hope

  Monday, April 29, 2024

  

  As we move through Eastertide, we look to Peter, Jesus’ companion who denied knowing him (John 18); and who later pledged to the resurrected Christ that he would feed and love his sheep (John 21). We are those sheep and today we listen to Peter’s words.

  What a God we have! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! 

  As we move through our days and nights, this is good news. In our typically linear way of thinking, the past, present and future are separate entities that we cannot manipulate; yet Peter tells us that Jesus has changed the natural order of time. Past, present and future fuse into an eternal timelessness, an infinite oneness, an unending union. And we are invited to participate in this union.

  The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole. I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime.

  As we look at our lives and our surrounding circumstances, these are joyful words. In our consumption and status driven world, the powerful hold sway over the poor, sickness opposes good health, and death overcomes life; yet Peter reminds us of the many miracles that erase the demarcation between wholeness and weakness.

  You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don’t see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking forward to: total salvation.

  

  As we anticipate the fulfillment of God’s promise, the serenity of Jesus’ Good News, and perfect union with and in the healing of the Spirit, we find Peter’s words reassuring. In the rush of our days, we pause to reflect on the healing power of Peter’s testimony. From one who once renounced the Living God, we hear the miracle of his conversion. And we turn from our anxieties and fears to the assurance of this Living Hope.

  Tomorrow, the first of Peter’s sermons following Pentecost.

  The verses cited above are from THE MESSAGE. To compare these words with those in other translations, use the scripture link and the drop-down menus to explore Peter’s message of A Living Hope to us.

   

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  Images from: https://www.christianity.com/jesus/life-of-jesus/disciples/what-led-peter-to-deny-jesus.html and http://www.jesuswalk.com/john/34_feed.htm

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  April 29, 2024

  eternity, faith, healing, promise, timelessness, union

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• 1 Corinthians 6: Waiting in God’s Time

  
  

  Friday, May 29, 2020

  1 Corinthians 6

  With Unity, Waiting in God’s Time

  Do you not know that your body is a temple for the Lord?            

  From the NAB footnotes: Paul’s vision becomes Trinitarian.  A temple: sacred by reason of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Not your own: but “for the Lord”, who acquires ownership by the act of redemption.  Glorify God in your body: the argument concludes with a positive imperative to supplement to avoid the negative “avoid immorality” with v. 18.  Far from being a terrain that is morally indifferent, the area of sexuality is one in which our relationship with God (and his Christ and his Spirit) is very intimately expressed: he is either highly glorified or deeply offended.

  We do not belong to ourselves.  We belong to God.  As individuals we are temples.  As a community we are a temple.  We are a temple meant as a dwelling place for the Spirit, for God, for Christ’s Mystical Body.

  From the Harper Collins Commentary:  Just as Jewish moral tradition of the Diaspora stressed that sexual immorality is the result of idolatry in order to underline the distinction between Israel and the nations, so too Paul insists that holiness and purity with regard to sexual morality are the distinctive marks of the Christian community. 

  In a relativistic society we can be distracted by the idea that God is present in all things that feel good.  This is not so.  God dwells in his temples, the ones he created in us and St. Paul reminds us of this.  In our most dear relationships we find God in the intimate gestures and words we share with another.  We see and feel and hear the God we express . . .  reflected in the other.  This is why God created us: To know him, to love him, to serve him in the here and now and in the forever . . . in God’s timelessness.  We so often forget this and so we might ask ourselves: Do we glorify the Lord in our intimate relationships or do we offend?  Do we build up or do we break down?  Do we bring unity or isolation?  How do we serve and wait on the Lord while also showing that we understand God’s goodness and timelessness?

  Tomorrow, learning to trust the Trinity . . .

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  Mays, James L., ed.  HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE COMMENTARY. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988. 1080. Print.

  Adapted from a reflection written on February 7, 2008.

  Image rom: http://eternalchurch.net/who-we-are

  39.533225 -76.430369

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  May 29, 2020

  God’s time, our body as a temple, timelessness, Trinity

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• 1 Thessalonians 5: Time Unknown

  
  

  Thursday, May 28, 2020

  1 Thessalonians 5

  Time Unknown

  The message that God’s time is God’s time and that God alone is enough is important for us to experience.  And it is here in this letter that Paul helps us to better understand God who heals and abides, God of Time Unknown.  A good study Bible with commentary and footnotes will be an effective tool for us to use.

  The reference in verse 5 to children of the light, which is who we are, refers to those who are called out of darkness to be light to the world, to be God’s expression of love to the world just as Christ is God’s light and message of love to the world.  Each of us is called to perfect intimate union of light and goodness with God . . . so that we might go forth to tell others this good news.

  Commentary and footnotes also make a connection for us with Romans 5:1-10 in which Paul urges us to recognize our indestructible personal union in Christ’s own life.  This sense of our union with God’s timelessness makes our mission to the world all the easier once we realize that as Christ’s disciples we must operate from God’s love rather than our fears.  (Senior 236)

  Toward the end of Thessalonians chapter 5, there is a beautiful exhortation to form community in Christ Jesus.  Paul is telling us that the suffering we undergo allows us to unite with Christ.  From the essay on page 324: “The superabundant love for which Paul has just prayed [3: 12-13] is to be shown practically by living out the norms of conduct that he has communicated to them.  Specific ‘imperatives’ of Christian life, principles for acting morally, stem from the ‘indicative’ of  one’s relationship to God through Christ by the sending of the holy Spirit.  Thus, moral conduct is the practical, personal expression of one’s Christian faith, love and hope.” [my underlining]

  In the life of the Spirit there is always the opportunity to make a new beginning.  There is always the hope for the impossible.  There is always the call to love most the ones who harm us.  This is the Way of Christ.  It is justice tempered with compassion, righteous action moderated with mercy; it is not leniency which forgives and forgets, but rather it is an active, humble and infinite love which transforms.  And we are called to behave in this manner in this life, otherwise how will we have the skill to behave this way in the next?

  Paul is telling us that the way we live each day, the way we interact with others in this world, the way we express our faith in God, our hope that Jesus returns, our love in the Spirit . . . all of this is also our expression of our relationship with the timeless Triune God.

  As we fuss and worry about our little timelines, our past and our future, Paul gives us the image of the Trinity with its timeless, infinite goodness.  And Paul tells us that we are one with this indestructible timelessness.

  This is something worth thinking about . . . and acting on.

  Tomorrow, waiting in God’s time . . .

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  Image from: http://www.trinitycranford.org/?page_id=8106

  Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.324-328. Print.   

  Adapted from a reflection written on July 23, 2007.

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  May 28, 2020

  children of light, faith, God’s time, hope, indestructibility, love, Romans 5:1-10, timelessness, Trinity

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