January 7, 2020

Jan. 7

January 7, 2020:  Tuesday after Epiphany

See 18 connections with today?
Legend below
Listen
  • Make room/ Casting Crowns:  lyrics+  (I would have included this on Christmas Day if I knew it then)
For 1st reading
For the gospel
You can be anywhere if your heart remains in God.  Recall when Paul meets Christians baptized by John, asks whether they've received the Holy Spirit, and hears they haven't even heard of the Spirit.  How many Christians even today identify the Spirit only with a dove, not what makes you remain in the Lord?  The spirit of the world is contrary to the Holy Spirit.  Jesus doesn't ask the Father to remove the disciples from the world, but to protect them from the spirit of the world, which can render you unconscious, leading you to where you can't distinguish good from evil.

 To remain in God, we must ask for the Holy Spirit.  Paul tells us how we can know whether we have the Spirit:  When we go towards the spirit of the world, we upset the Spirit and ignore him, we cast him aside, and our life goes another way.  The spirit of the world is forgetting:  sin doesn't turn you away from God if you realize it and ask forgiveness, but the spirit of the world makes you forget what sin is.  The Spirit leads you to God, and if you sin, protects you and helps you rise up, but the spirit of the world leads you to corruption, where good and evil are the same.  The spirit of the world leads you to the unconsciousness of not distinguishing sin.  John tells us how to know whether I'm on the road to worldliness or following the Spirit:  "Don't trust every spirit [every feeling, inspiration, idea], but test the spirits, to test whether they come from God [or from the world]."  When you feel something, you feel like doing something, or you come up with an idea or judgment, ask, is this from the Spirit, or the spirit of the world?  Ask once or twice a day, or when you feel something coming into your mind, where is it from?  From the Spirit, or the spirit of the world?  Will it make me good or throw me down the road of worldliness that's unconsciousness?

 Many Christians live without knowing what goes on in their hearts.  Paul and John say, "Test every spirit," so we'll know what happens in our hearts.  Many don't know how to examine what happens inside, so their hearts are like a road they don't know who's coming and going on.  Every day, ask, what's happened in my heart?  What did I want to do, to think?  What spirit moved in my me:  the Spirit who brings me to encounter the Lord, or the spirit of the world who moves me away in a slow slide?  Holy Spirit, help us remain in the Lord and discern what spirits move within us, so our hearts may be the meeting point between us and God.

Read

"Loaves and fish" (animate)
  • 1 Jn 4:7-10  Love one another, because love is of God.  God sent his Son so we might have life through him.  Love isn't that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
  • Ps 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8  "Lord, every nation on earth will adore you."  The mountains shall yield peace and the hills justice.  The king shall defend the afflicted and save the poor.
  • Mk 6:34-44  Jesus, moved with pity for the crowd, taught them, then multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed the crowd of >5000; twelve baskets remained.
Reflect
  • Creighton:  In the 1st reading, John uses 'love' nine times.  Love is of God, from him.  God is love.  If we love others, we're begotten by God and know God.  We've probably met people who treat others terribly, even kill, in God's name.  They don't know God for those without love don't know God.  Love is sacrifice.  God revealed it to us; he sent his only-begotten Son to give his life for us so we might know him and have life through him, that we might learn how to be like God and love others.  "Beloved, let us love one another."  In his commentary on Gal 6:10, St. Jerome tells a famous story about John:  After the death of the emperor who banished him, John returned to Ephesus.  No longer able to walk, his disciples carried him into the congregation and asked him to say something.  His homily was always, "Children, love one another."  Wearied, they asked, "Why do you always say this?" "Because it's the Lord's command, and if this only is done, it's enough."
    “This is how God's love is shown among us.”  The reason the writer exhorts us, is so we may come to love God.  Could we love him, unless he first loved us?  Let's not be slow to love.  We don't even love as he.  He loved the unrighteous but took away the unrighteousness.  He loved the sick but visited them to make them whole.  Love is God.  “God sent his only Son into the world, that we may live through him.”  As the Lord said, “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.”  Christ’s death for us proved his love for us.  That the Father sent his only Son to die for us proved his love for us.  “He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not freely give us all things?”  (Augustine, sermon on love)
      To comprehend that love is to understand what Augustine, in the same homily, meant by "love, and do what you will."  To love God and others is to will what's best for them; it's to sacrifice for them....  If we love, it's enough.  May the Lord pour wisdom and discernment into us so we learn how.
      • One Bread, One Body:  "Do I love?"  In 1 Jn, the Lord calls us His "beloved," called to love one another.  God is Love and those who abide in love abide in him.  So we must love him and others, even our enemies.  Naturally the devil, "the father of lies," would lie to us about love.  Almost everyone thinks of themselves as loving, but our self-seeking, broken relationships, separated families, divided Church, and culture of death testify that the love of many is growing cold.  Ironically, lukewarm commitment to the Lord results in love gone cold, and Christianity in much of the world is lukewarm.  Are you truly in love?  May we admit and repent of our lovelessness and grow into the love that we may now only pretend to have.  Allow Jesus to give you true love.
      • Passionist:  When we die, may people be able to say about us, "God's love was revealed to us:  God sent them into the world so we might have life."
      • DailyScripture.net:  "They ate and were satisfied":  Only God can satisfy our deepest longings.  In today's gospel, Jesus fed everyone till they were satisfied.  The miracle pointed to the manna in the wilderness and foreshadowed the Eucharist.  Jesus is the true bread of heaven.  The miracle shows God's generosity and kindness.  God gives abundantly so we may share with others.  God takes the little we have and multiplies it for others' good.
      Dress legend
      • Suspenders with 'LOVE' sticker:  Love one another; love is of God (1st reading)
      • 'Olympics' tie pin (in for repair):  Lord, every nation on earth will adore you (psalm)
      • 'Crown' tie bar:  The king... (psalm)
      • 'Scales' brooch:  ...shall govern your people with justice (psalm)
      • 'Peace sign' tie bar:  Peace shall flourish (psalm)
      • 'Alps' pin:  The mountains shall yield peace, the hills justice (psalm)
      • 'Celebrate teaching' pin:  Jesus began to teach them (gospel)
      • 'Money bag' tie pin:  “Are we to buy 200 days’ wages worth of food and give it to them?” (gospel)
      • '?' tie pin:   "How many loaves do you have?" (gospel)
        • 'Wheat' and 'fish' pins:  "Only five, and two fish" (gospel)
        • 'Chalkboard' pin with 9 multiplications, calculator, and ruler:  Jesus 'multiplied' the loaves and fish (gospel); may he 'rule' from sea to sea (psalm :-)
        • 'Heart' pin:  Jesus' heart was moved with pity... (gospel)
        • 'Sheep' tie bar:  ...for they were like sheep without a shepherd (gospel)
        • 'Star' tie pin:  Star guiding the magi (Epiphany gospel)
          • White shirt:  white for Epiphany/light and Christmas season
          • 'Lights' tie:  Jesus, Light of the World (Epiphanytide)
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