Jesus is the Icon of the Gift itself and how the Gift is given. Mary is the Icon of how the Gift is received. In her great “Magnificat” (Luke 1:46-55), Mary is not afraid to first of all boast openly of her own beauty and greatness, because she knows it is all a gift. It is not a statement about her; it is a statement about God! She is the perfect yes to God, precisely
The Father: Empowered to Call God “Abba” Calling God “Abba, Father” is different from giving God a familiar name. Calling God “Abba” is entering into the same intimate, fearless, trusting, and empowering relationship with God that Jesus had. This relationship is called Spirit, and this Spirit is given to us by Jesus and enables us to cry out with him, “Abba, Father.” Calling God “Abba, Father” (see Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6) is a cry of
Jesus Is in the World, Not of It The Beatitudes offer us a self-portrait of Jesus. At first it might seem to be a most unappealing portrait—who wants to be poor, mourning, and persecuted? Who can be truly gentle, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, and always concerned about justice? Where is the realism here? Don’t we have to survive in this world and use the ways of the world to do so? Jesus shows
When we demand satisfaction of one another, when we demand any completion to history on our terms, when we demand that our anxiety or any dissatisfaction be taken away, saying, as it were, “Why weren’t you this for me? Why didn’t life do that for me?” we are refusing to say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We are refusing to hold out for the full picture that is always given in time by God. When we set
JUDGE NOT, THAT YOU BE NOT JUDGED. –MATTHEW 7:1 It is a sobering thought that the finest act of love you can perform is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing. When you serve people you help, support, comfort, alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness you transform and create. Think of some of the people you like and are drawn to you. Now attempt
In his “Second Century on Theology,” St Maximus the Confessor makes a startling claim, which was nevertheless understood as both a promise and an exhortation to be received by anyone who lives “in Christ.” “In those found worthy,” he declares, “the Logos of God is transfigured to the degree to which each has advanced in holiness, and he comes to them with his angels in the glory of the Father. For the more spiritual principles
All religions in their own way talk about “dying before you die”! They are all indeed saying that something has to die. We all know this, but often religions have chosen the wrong thing to kill, which has given us a very negative image. In almost all of history it was always the “other,” the heretic, the sinner, the foreigner that had to die. In most ancient cultures it was the virgin daughters and eldest
Of Time and Eternity: The Resurrection (Part II) In the passages in which it addresses the Resurrection, then, the New Testament witnesses not to the resuscitation of a corpse, and certainly nothing like a return to the life of this world. It addresses rather the entire passage of Jesus from earthly mode of existence to a spiritual and eternal mode of existence. The Jesus whom faith proclaims as the Lord of the universe is no
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