Scripture

Considering Holy Week

Steve · April 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment

This coming week, we are beckoned by liturgy, scripture and prayer to slow down and more fully consider the final days, hours, minutes and moments of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As Fr. Joe Tetlow, SJ has written, “These are terrible events, and we are keeping a death watch.” For in these intimate instances with Jesus, we are called to walk with him, listen to his words, witness his pain and suffering, and enter into his time and place.

We are called to ponder these moments of his passion and consider, as St. Ignatius of Loyola writes in his Spiritual Exercises, how Jesus chose to “hide his divinity” so that he could more fully experience his humanity. In his translation of the Exercises, Fr. David Fleming, SJ wrote: “At the time of the Passion, I should pay special attention to how the divinity hides itself so that Jesus seems so utterly human and helpless. (Fleming, Draw Me Into Your Friendship, 149; SE 196). So if Jesus seems weak and helpless on the cross, it’s because he chose to be. No one took his life; he gave it freely. (John 10:18) Consider that.

In a recent email exchange with Fr. Tetlow, he confirmed for me something I remembered him once saying at a workshop — that in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius uses the word consider (and its equivalents like ponder) almost as many timesas he uses contemplate. For example, Fr. Joe wrote, in the Contemplation for Love near the end of the Exercises, Ignatius suggests that the retreatant, “consider the gifts that God gives, how God remains in His gifts, and how God is actually sharing the divine being with us. These, Ignatius suggests, all be considered.”

This “considering” is not easy work. It’s easier for us to give a cursory glance or to listen with limited attention to the words we hear on Palm Sunday and during the Triduum. After all, we’ve heard them all before, many times. Noah Webster’s old 1828 dictionary does a good job of taking us beyond the modern notion of consider as merely “to think about.” It says, in part, “the literal sense is, to sit by or close, or to set the mind or the eye to; to view or examine with attention.” To consider is not a moment of casual interest. It’s a chance to pull up a chair and engage deeply with the subject at hand.

So this week, don’t take the easy way out. Don’t ignore what you would rather not see. Go deep. For what’s on display on the cross is much more than the pain; it’s the ultimate love of the Father. Stand at the foot of the cross and consider, as the following song by me and my composing partner Phil Cooper suggests, “all that it takes to give in to the way that He died. Then consider the nails.”

Celebrating 40 Years of Living Faith

Steve · April 2, 2025 · Leave a Comment

This past weekend, I helped lead a retreat celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the daily devotional Living Faith at the Marianist Retreat and Conference Center just outside St. Louis. I know that many of you are familiar with Living Faith and its impact. I am grateful for my long affiliation with Living Faith, having been a contributor for about 37 of those 40 years! I estimate I’ve written about 600 reflections over the years, and I can still remember the excitement of that day back in 1987 when my first reflection was accepted.

Speaking of remembering…I thought I would share with you a small part of one of my retreat presentations – about the importance and spiritual benefit of prayerfully remembering our lives of faith and the goodness of God over the course of our lives:

When we remember, we begin the process of gathering up the fragments of our lives (we re-member them) so we can tell our stories, along the way revealing patterns that we perhaps didn’t realize existed and leading us forward to the next stage of our lives. Sometimes we don’t know what we know about ourselves (we don’t remember what we don’t remember) until we begin to write them out or tell them to another person. This is so often what I do when I write Living Faith devotions.

This morning, I want to ask you to reflect on your lives of faith. To begin to re-member your lives of work and service to your families, to your Church and to the world. For you have all lived those lives and are still living them right now in various ways. I don’t know how you have all lived your lives but I can make some guesses. You have raised families and volunteered at your parishes and in your communities. Maybe you taught or cared for others in the field of medicine. Maybe you were a first responder or you worked at or ran a business. Whatever you did, however you spent your days, the lives you have been called to were not solitary lives but communal and engaged ones. You have preached the Gospel with your words and with your actions, amidst the noise of a busy world and in the silence of your own prayer. You have anchored yourselves in prayer and sacrament and church.

You have experienced the joy of the Gospel and, I hazard to guess, you have experienced moments of desolation and confusion about your faith and your calling. Perhaps you sensed a long time ago that you were called to a life that was grounded in prayer and devotion. Or perhaps you are just discovering (or rediscovering) that right now. But you also came to know that prayer and devotion wasn’t all to which you were called. You discovered the joy (and sometimes the pain) of pulling yourself away from quiet times of prayer and heading out into the world, of moving from contemplation to action…of being aware of God not just at mass or in your favorite prayer spot but also in your places of work and ministry. You are people of living faith. You are people of community and leaders in mission to bring Christ to the world.

From left, editorial assistant Ben Kupiszewski, assistant editor Kasey Nugent, writer Melanie Rigney, writer Deb Meister, me, and editorial director Pat Gohn.

We are not called to just sit in our lives of faith but, instead, we must have the courage to stand and walk in it. We are not called to be solo Christians, singular people of faith concerned only with keeping to silence and hours of prayer. We are called to be more than enlightened individuals. We are created to be light in our communities, to be in service to one another. We are called to be in communion with God, but we are also called to be in communion with others. This is what makes us church.

God calls us, instead, to lives of action and interaction, to lives that allow others to see an inmost calm at work in us and wonder where they might find such peace for themselves.

One of my all-time favorite movies is Field of Dreams. We all know the most famous line from that film, right? Right at the beginning, Ray is walking through the corn and he hears a voice say: “If you build it, he will come.” (see the clip by going to my blog)

One of my favorite pieces of dialogue comes right after that first scene, when Ray goes inside to have dinner with his wife, Annie, and his daughter, Karin. His wife asks him what the voice said and he replies:

If you build it, he will come.
She replies: If you build what, who will come?
He says: He didn’t say.
And she says, “I hate it when that happens.”

I have come to see this as a model of prayer. We put ourselves somewhere where we can be quiet enough to listen. Like that cornfield that Ray created as a place of encounter with Shoeless Joe Jackson, a bunch of long-dead ballplayers and, eventually, his own father. In the beginning, he is digging around in the dirt and he stops and listens because he THINKS he heard something.

What if God is asking us to build something? What if God is asking for your help to rebuild his Church? How do we answer the question: If we build what, who will come? What is God asking us to build? In our lives of prayer, just like in the movie, sometimes this voice is not very clear or overly instructive. But this, in fact, is the work of our lives, and we don’t do it alone. We get to do it together. This is what it means to be Church. This is what we live for. This is what God is building in us.

God is building the perfect us in us, the perfect church in us, if we will only let him.

Remembering Our Belovedness

Steve · March 19, 2025 · Leave a Comment

Lent is a solemn time. We are called to fast, pray, and give to others our time, talent and treasure. We are asked to walk beside Jesus as he makes his way toward the cross. It’s a time of remembering what’s often called our “salvation history,” the story of God’s plan to save humanity from sin and death, unfolding through key events and figures in the Bible, and culminating in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s a time of repentance and reconciliation with God and others. Serious stuff.

When I lead individuals through a nine-month experience of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola and we enter into what is called the “third week,” it always intersects with the season of lent. I remind them that this time is different. It’s time for their prayer to become more intimate and quieter and for the lights to become a bit dimmer. It’s time to light a candle to help focus our minds and hearts on the seriousness of our relationship with Christ and what that means for our souls.

But all that is not to say this is a time to be glum and mournful. As we fast and pray, Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6 to “wash our faces and comb our hair” so that our fasting isn’t obvious to everyone around us but only to God who sees the extra effort we’re making. Lent is, on one hand, a time to remember the “darker side” of the Christian story and reform ourselves because of it. But the core of that story, we need to remember, is more than Jesus’ painful death on the cross. We’re not asked to merely remember the pain. We’re called to see the love hanging there.

At the heart of the story is a relationship based on love and our belovedness by God. No other approach, no other “bottom line” is sufficient to tell the story of Jesus and the cross. At the far end of Lent, Easter awaits. To get there, the only path is love. Whatever we feel about ourselves and our lives, whatever burdens we carry, whatever weaknesses and sins weigh heavy, Lent is a time to remember God’s love for us.

Today I want to share with you singer-songwriter Sarah Kroger’s lovely song, “Belovedness,” a gentle and powerful reminder of this most important truth of our relationship with God. It contains these lines:

You’ve owned your fear and all your self-loathing.
You’ve owned the voices inside of your head.
You’ve owned the shame and reproach of your failure.
It’s time to own your belovedness.

You’ve owned your past and how it’s defined you.
You’ve owned everything everybody else says.
It’s time to hear what your Father has spoken.
It’s time to own your belovedness.

He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you.
I find you beautiful in every way.
My love for you is fierce and unending.
I’ll come to find you, whatever it takes,
My beloved.”

Stepping Out of the Boat and Into a Bolder Lent

Steve · February 20, 2025 · 2 Comments

Last week, I was reading and praying with the story of Jesus walking on the surface of the Sea of Galilee, as found in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 14:22-33). It’s a well-known, frequently illustrated story, and one that I have been reading and trying to imagine since I was a child. The rough, roiling waves and the darkness of the fourth watch of the night (somewhere between 3 and 6 a.m.) all came alive for me as I imagined myself sitting scared in the boat (likely seasick, too). I could see (finally!) Jesus walking across the waves towards us and then stretching out his hand and inviting Peter (and me) to come walk beside him. It’s dramatic stuff.

It’s a story that illustrates the power and divinity of Christ, of course. It follows another extraordinary story of the feeding of five thousand people with just five loaves of bread and two fish. Lest we begin to think this Jesus is just another wise rabbi or perhaps some kind of prophet, we are given stories to remind us (once again) that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. They are stories that call us into action ourselves, reminding us that lives of faith are not for the faint-hearted and lukewarm.

As 21^st-century, scientifically literate readers, we are faced with decisions to believe (or not believe) in what we know to be impossible. Water cannot just become wine. A few pieces of food cannot feed a multitude of hungry people. We are heavier than water and will sink if we step out of the boat.

And yet we find ourselves being beckoned to boldness of thought and action when we accept the call and mantle of Christ. The call to discipleship is the call to see more than meets the eye and strive for more than seems possible.

With lent approaching in less than two weeks (Ash Wednesday is March 5), I’m beginning to think about what it means to live more boldly. Lent seems a good time to begin to explore this possibility more fully, to dip my toes into the water of a life in Christ that will challenge and transform me even further.

I usually head into Lent with the best of intentions but not always the best and most challenging plans. So sometimes my meagre efforts fail a few weeks in, a little like Peter slipping beneath the waves when the water gets tough. In the midst of all of this contemplation, I am reminded that Lent is a time of both “fasting and feasting,” as the American motivational writer William Arthur Ward wrote in his now-famous prayer:

Lenten Litany of Fasting and Feasting

Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ within them.
Fast from emphasis on differences; feast on the unity of life.
Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.
Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives; feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility; feast on non-resistance.
Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self concern; feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal truth.
Fast from discouragement; feast on hope.
Fast from lethargy; feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from suspicion; feast on truth.
Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow; feast on the sunlight of sincerity.
Fast from idle gossip; feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that undergirds.
Fast from instant gratifications; feast on self denial.
Fast from worry; feast on divine order.
Trust in God.
And finally, fast from sin; feast on the abundance of God’s mercy.

Let’s begin here: Lord, give us the courage to step out of the boat, to go beyond the minimal trappings of lent “sacrifices” and find opportunities to be more for you and bolder in our walks of faith.

Bonus Track: Here’s a song I wrote many years ago with my friend Jim Russell and performed with my band, Nathanael’s Creed. It’s called “Step Out of the Boat.”

Are You Ready for Christmas?

Steve · December 21, 2024 · Leave a Comment

This is the question, it seems, that we hear most often this time of year, and it has many meanings and intents. When I was a kid back in the ‘60s, it meant: Are you excited for the presents you’ll be getting? I was always ready for that. (see photo below, circa 1975!)

Now, it mostly seems to mean: Have you done all your shopping, wrapped all the presents, sent your Christmas cards and planned your menus for the family gathering? Have you made your list and checked it twice, or maybe three times? We may be exhausted by the time Christmas day dawns, but we’ll be ready. But are we really?

All of this can leave us feeling a bit like Martha in the story in Luke’s gospel (Luke 10:38-42). Like Martha, we are running around like crazy getting ready for the coming of Jesus, making sure everything is just right, when all the time Jesus just wants us to sit with him and listen, as Martha’s sister, Mary, is doing. “Martha, Martha,” Jesus says, “you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

I love Christmas morning around the tree with the kids, their spouses, and the grandkids. I don’t want to lose that for a second. I know that the looks on their faces when they open their gifts only happen with my wife’s carefully prepared shopping lists and our treks together out to malls and stores. We’re going to grocery shop today so that we’ll be ready for breakfast on Christmas eve when they all arrive, eyes bright and shiny and full of expectation. So, yes, we’ll be ready for THAT Christmas.

But Sue and I are also trying hard to make time for quiet, for prayer, for reflection on what this ancient story means. We’ve made our annual advent retreat. We know we need to find some time each day to sit at the feet of Jesus and just listen, watch, and wait with urgent expectation for the next line of the story, the next stage of our lives, the next coming of Christ. And that’s the point, isn’t it? Jesus wasn’t born just once, in a stable in Bethlehem some 2,000 years. He is born again and anew in us each Christmas, each day, each moment of our lives, if we just sit still and wait.

So sometime between now and Christmas, give yourself the gift of time with Jesus. Sit in silence with Luke’s short Nativity narrative — the whole thing is just the first 20 verses of Luke’s second chapter. Put on some of your favorite carols or pick up a book of advent and Christmas meditations. Give yourself permission to do nothing for an hour or so. Choose the better part.

Note: If you click through to my website, you’ll see I’ve posted three Christmas songs I created with my collaborators and friends John Caravelli and Phil Cooper over the past few years. Hit play and enjoy.

Around the Fire:

After this Night:

Christmas to Me: