“Woman is the model and archetype of the whole human race. She reveals t all of us what it means to be human. Because to be human means to be open–to receive the Divine Gift, bear it forth, nurture it, and share it with the world. That’s the theology of a woman’s body” (Pope Saint John Paul II).
For a long while, I used the word “discernment” incorrectly. Does this resonate with you? I used to think it refers to the ability to make thoughtful decisions—to judge well or gain a better understanding of a situation. Now, however, I see that it points to something much deeper. Discernment in fact infuses every aspect of our relationship with God.
Discernment is not only our ability to hear God’s voice, but also to listen to Him. The Lord invites us to be obedient to His call so that we may answer Him and ultimately enter into an ever deeper love with Him. As early Church Father Origen tells us, “God doesn’t not want to impose the good, but wants free beings….No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even ourselves” (CCC 2847). Indeed, in order to discern God’s will for us, we must be able, have the liberty to, love Him. “We can only love in freedom, which is why the Lord created us free, free even to say no to Him” (Pope Francis, December 7, 2022). One may think, “I would never say no to God.” But is that so? Do we always accept our struggles as invitations to grow in friendship with God? And “between [our] trials,” so that we may grow and mature in our faith, do we surrender to the Holy Spirit who calls us to “discern” how to reorder ourselves to Him (CCC 2847)? Only if we are able to actually deny God can we whole-heartedly assent to His love for us, which is ever-present and always precedes our denial.
Discernment is greater than our ability to merely understand God. It is the awareness that in our relationship with Him, the Lord asks everything of us. How we listen and respond will ultimately determine the degree to which we discern well and love Him completely.
On the sixth Sunday of Lent, as we prepare for the days in the desert to end and we embark on the Triduum, leading to Easter, John tells us of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. He describes how the crowd goes out to meet Jesus, celebrating Him with palm branches and singing, “Hosanna!” John further reports how the disciples “did not understand this at first” (Jn 12:16). Despite their years with the Lord, they did not correlate what they were witnessing with what they learned in the Old Testament: “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zech 9:9).
In his commentary on the Godsplaining podcast, Father Joseph-Anthony Kress discusses this event and how relevant it is to us today. Father observes how relatable the disciples are to us. Even these men who knew Jesus, who understood Him and loved Him, didn’t fully understand that the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, while representing that of a king, would also lead to his great and brutal sacrifice.
Father reminds us that we are often like the disciples. God breaks into our lives, allows struggles, and reveals our weaknesses, and even though we trust in Him, we don’t understand how He is working. We witness and watch and pray, but just what is happening to us and why remain mysteries. Because we are faithful, however, because we believe in His great glory, we follow the Lord.
As we enter into this most holy time of the year, may we continue to watch and wait for God to reveal Himself to us. May we be ever obedient and attentive to His voice, to how He is moving in our hearts, so that not only may we unite our sufferings and perpetual deaths with Him, but also so that we might be resurrected with the glorified Lord at Easter.
The following is an exerpt from Father Joseph-Anthony Kress’s commentary:
“The concluding lines of this Gospel show that His disciples did not understand what was happening. They didn’t understand it at first. When we hear that, we think…they didn’t realize what he was doing, but once it all started, they got it, they got it. It says here they didn’t understand it until after He was glorified. ‘His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done this for him’ (Jn 12:16).
I can picture His disciples when He gets on that colt; people are waving their palm branches and singing, “Hosanna!” [but] they’re still baffled at what was happening. It’s not like they were able to lean into it and [understand]. You can still see them following Jesus in confusion. They didn’t fully understand everything until His glory. I feel a lot of comfort and encouragement [from this]. There are many times I continue to follow Jesus and I’m just confused. I can’t make sense of these things and yet, I still find myself following Jesus—maybe at times joining in with the crowds and crying out Hosanna and maybe sometimes falling short.
Even His disciples in these really key moments of His final approach into Jerusalem moving into the Passion narrative…had no idea what was happening. [Like them we] we might be afraid and confused…[and] there are times when we don’t understand and maybe we’re baffled. But we continue to follow Jesus and our faith just like His disciples did because we’re confident in the glory that awaits us. In that glory of the Lord, we too, will understand the things that happened. In His Providence we will be able to see with unveiled faces.”
On Sunday, March 17, 2024, on their Godsplaining podcast, Fathers Gregory Pine, O.P., Patrick Briscoe, O.P., and Joseph-Anthony Kress, O.P., discussed in Lectio format the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. The following is a transcript of Father Kress’s comments regarding the Gospel reading from John 12:20-33. (The full episode appears below.) Here Father inspiringly discusses how God not only reveals the Paschal Mystery to us in the life and Passion of Jesus, but how we are called to participate in this Mystery as well. By uniting ourselves with Christ’s suffering, we enter into an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus and the Father–one that is continually nourished and renewed by the outpouring and receiving of love that can only come from God.
The Lord’s gives Himself totally in His willingness to enter into this mystery—[the Paschal Mystery]. Our lives need to have elements of [this], if not totally imitate [this] full union of sacrifice with the Lord. Using the image of the seed falling to the ground in order to die to bring forth that new life, the Lord is [saying] destruction isn’t the final answer. It [death] doesn’t have the final word. Destruction and death aren’t terminal. There is going to be new life from this. It seems poetic and romanticized, but He says, “No, no. Look around you in nature. This has always been my plan. Always. New life comes from death. It doesn’t have the final word.”
I go back to the words, “Then a voice came from heaven” (Jn 12:28). “The crowd heard it and said it was thunder” (Jn 12:29), then others called it an angel. It was the voice of the Father, who said, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again” (Jn 12:28). I’ve done it. And I’ll do it again. That phrase, “I will glorify it again.” How is the Father’s name repeatedly glorified? It’s by each and every one of us uniting in our sufferings and our deaths in this life to the death of His son. He has glorified His name by revealing His Son to us and allowing His Son to redeem us. That did happen. He did that. He has glorified His name in His Son, Jesus Christ. And He will do it again and continues to be glorified with each and every one of us, uniting us—our lives, our sufferings—to the Cross of Jesus Christ. [God] ultimately unites our deaths to [Jesus’s] death in order to bring forth resurrection. So that promise, that is a promise from the voice of the Father that [He] will glorify again. It’s our repeated glorification of the Father in His name by our union with Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection into the Paschal Mysteries.
“The great adventure of life is this invitation: ‘Pick up your cross and follow me.’”
“Brothers and sisters: Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has had grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged” (2 Col 3:12-21).
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. We are called to look to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, each holy and perfected, as the example of how to lead our lives in community devoted to God. In addition to the Holy Family, today’s Second Reading presents instructions for how to live with others in right order. With Christ at the center of all we do, we are to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, and forgiving. We are to be thankful and lovingly correct one another. We are to honor the natural hierarchical order of the family. Rather than an arena of power struggles and contentiousness, this order, based on mutual respect and love, promotes encouragement, freedom, and the love of God.
At a time when the family is under attack; when chaos undermines the very foundation of male and female; and when the culture actively seeks to destroy life, taint childhood, and turn parents and children against one another, we are called to turn to the Holy Family for guidance and reassurance. Before Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children of Fatima, died, she declared that the final battle between Christ and Satan would be over marriage and family. “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan,” she wrote, “will be about marriage and the family.” She added, however, that “Our Lady has already crushed Satan’s head.”
As individuals as well as members of families and communities, let us look to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Regardless of what the culture tells us, let us remain faithful to their example of communal holiness, connected through faith and devotion to God and who he calls us to be.
Last week, during the final days of Advent, we read one of my favorite scripture passages, Luke 1:39-45: The Visitation. In a series of verses just preceding this one, Gabriel announces it is Mary who has been chosen by God to bear the Christ and that her cousin, Elizabeth, despite her “old age,” is also expecting a baby (John the Baptist). Filled with the Holy Spirit, Mary “set out…in haste” (Lk 1:39); she ran (because the Holy Spirit is a Being of action and movement) to her cousin, literally to share the Lord with her and assist during the last months of her pregnancy.
When Mary arrives, Elizabeth, also filled with the Holy Spirit, immediately acknowledges her as the Blessed Mother and rejoices that “the mother of my Lord should come to me.” This is a joy-filled encounter of mutual recognition and thanksgiving. What’s more, Elizabeth not only hails Mary as the Mother of God, she also praises and blesses her for being open to and trusting Him, for it is only through Mary’s faith and fiat that God’s will is accomplished. Elizabeth rightly proclaims that Mary is blessed in her spiritual motherhood. Just as important, though, her fullness of grace is realized because she first “believed that what was spoken to [her] by the Lord would be fulfilled.” It is Mary’s faith and openness to God that leads to the fulfillment of our salvation.
We have made our way through Advent, filled with quiet and patient waiting for Jesus’s coming. Now celebrating the Christmas Octave, may we reflect on the glory and hope of Christ’s birth and remember the encounter of these faithful cousins. Open to God’s love and willing to trust and believe in His goodness, may they inspire us to repeatedly order ourselves to Him so as to fully participate in His salvific love.
And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Si’don. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon. But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly (Matt 15:21-28).
Today’s reading is so rich, we can approach it from a myriad angles. This is a passage about how Jesus teaches us; about the perseverance of faith; about healing; about the Lord eventually spreading his Word to all peoples. In addition, because of some recent thoughts I bring to today’s reading, I am particularly focused on what this passage shows us about a mother’s love for and devotion to her child.
Today motherhood, indeed womanhood itself, is under attack. Childhood, for that matter, is prey to those who seek to destroy innocence as well. I cannot shake what I saw this week in the news. Health Secretary Rachel Levine praised an Alaska gender-affirming “care” clinic, seeking to replace the term “mother” with “egg producer,” “carrier,” “gestational parent,” or “birth parent,” and the word “men” with “XY individuals.” This facility also argues that the term “gender reveal party” be replaced with “embryogenesis parties” or “chromosome reveal parties” (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12413023/Bidens-trans-health-secretary-Dr-Rachel-Levine-praises-Alaska-gender-affirming-care-clinic-wants-word-mother-replaced-phrase-EGG-PRODUCER.html).
What does this insanity have to do with today’s Gospel? If we are to return to the reality of who we are in Christ, we must be able to clearly see the culture for what it is, filled with chaos and lies, and then reject it, pointing instead to what is good, true, virtuous. It is tempting to reject the culture as ridiculous and unworthy of attention given these absurd arguments. But we would be naive and irresponsible to do so. Among the many terrible consequences of such language, perhaps the worst is that it is designed to dehumanize that human person. “Egg producer,” “carrier,” etc. are not only terms meant to foster a gender neutral society devoid of male and female, they are also distinctly utilitarian terms. They reduce the human being, in this case the woman, to nothing more than a flesh factory useful for and defined by her parts. (Pretty ironic given that the proponents of this ideology seek to persecute those who praise women for their physical attributes.)
To return to the Gospel, what is scripture teaching us about such matters? Here is a woman–not a birthing person, not a carrier–who is risking everything to help her child. She has left the comfort of her home and her people. In her desperate attempt to attract Jesus, the apostles become irritated with her and desire to send her away. Jesus, too, shows uncharacteristic indifference to her, likening her to dogs–Gentiles not yet worthy of His conversion. But there is more at work here. Jesus shows us time and again that our first interpretation is probably not the whole or even correct one.
Indeed, Jesus is not willfully uncaring or apathetic here. He recognizes this woman’s need from the beginning. Rather than a sign of indifference, Jesus’s silence, nay His seeming rejection, is actually an expression of love–a means of teaching her and refining her faith. Knowing her devotion to her child, He is testing and provoking her, and she responds by persevering and meeting the Lord where he seeks to take her. The Canaanite woman represents the heart of a mother who is willing to be humbled before God for the sake of her child. This is only the second example of Jesus healing from a distance, and it is the mother’s faith and her relationship with God that inspires it. Jesus teaches us through her example.
This passage exhorts us to ask, What do we believe about the virtue of life and motherhood? Are we glib and relativistic about it? Are we lazy about today’s language, shrugging it off as simply nonsensical and unimportant? Or in our desire to develop our relationship with Jesus, are we willing to become humble, express our vulnerability to God, and risk everything in an attempt to open our hearts, grow in our faith, and petition for the needs of others?
In today’s Morning Offering, Father Kirby likens the Canaanite woman to us as we journey in our “discipleship.” He explains:
The Lord Jesus…wants to teach us, guide us, take us deeper and deeper into what it is to love. He wants to refine our faith to such an extent that we know that we just have to be with Him. If He listens to us and grants our requests, if He makes things easy or difficult, if He blesses us with health and wealth or poverty and illness, that we will be with Him. The call of Christian discipleship is to be with the Lord Jesus, to be in His presence, to be His friend. St. Teresa of Avila says it best: ‘We worship the God of consolations, not the consolations of God.’ The Lord Jesus seeks to refine our faith–to draw us deeper and deeper into what it means to believe in Him, to be with Him….(https://www.goodcatholic.com/podcasts/morning-offering-with-fr-kirby/).
May we continue to learn from scripture how to be in the world–a world full of struggle and pain and difficulty, but one that also inspires us to return to what is true. The Canaanite woman shows us what it is to humble ourselves before the God who knows our hearts and seeks to heal us in all things. Let us pray that we might have her courage and be examples of true womanhood and motherhood for the sake of our children and the salvation of our souls.
At a time when many are arguing about love, perhaps it’s worth considering this virtue in a slightly different way. We are told we need to “love ourselves”; we should be allowed to love whomever and whatever we want in whatever way we want. We are told authentic love is all that matters and that each of us gets to decide what that means. But the chaos in our culture and the fact that society seems indeed bereft of love suggest that somehow we’ve drifted off course.
It’s hardly surprising that the body politic is perpetually confused about love. As we attempt increasingly to remove God from American life, we have also relegated faith to a system of silly beliefs and mythical fallacies. Who needs faith when we have facts? Well, the reality that many are suffering from a misunderstanding and lack of both love and faith suggests that each is essential to the other. Only in their reintegration, in fact, will the individual and the polity begin to flourish as they are called to do.
In his autobiographical work, He Leadeth Me, Father Walter J. Ciszek, S.J. (1973) offers us valuable insight about the relationship between faith and love:
Faith…is the basis for love; it is in the insight of faith that we understand the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men. Love, Saint John writes repeatedly, is the one thing that fulfills all the commandments and the law. But prior to love, and bolstering it at the core, is faith; we must have faith before we can love, or we will surely end up loving the wrong thing–loving ourselves more than God, or loving creatures for themselves–and this is the meaning of sin. To increase our love, to love properly, we must strive always to increase our faith, and we do this by means of prayer and the sacraments (p. 192).
Without faith, Ciszek tells us, we will ultimately love in a disordered way; we will love wrongly. We know that as a society we are more anxious, sad, and depressed than ever. In this state we cannot love fully. No matter how hard we try, if we insist in fulfilling our desires and finding our loves in the material world alone, we will never truly love.
“A man of faith is always conscious of God,” Ciszek (1973) tells us, which is to say he is always aware of perfect goodness, perfect love (p. 192). May we contemplate the importance of faith in our own lives, and in so doing, reorder ourselves to love as Christ calls us to do.
Ciszek, W.J. (1973). He Leadeth Me. Image.
To Live Gladly 