This week we are praying in a special way for the priests of the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio. Each week we will pray for 6 specific priests until we have prayed for all of the priests in the diocese. Please join us!

Learn more about our priest chalkboard here: https://nunsforpriests.org/our-priest-chalkboard/

#PriestChalkboard ...

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This week we are praying in a special way for the priests of the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio. Each week we will pray for 6 specific priests until we have prayed for all of the priests in the diocese. Please join us!

Learn more about our priest chalkboard here: https://nunsforpriests.org/our-priest-chalkboard/

#PriestChalkboard ...

WILL YOU LAY DOWN YOUR LIFE FOR ME?

Why is the title of this reflection, “Will you lay down your life for me?” The Sunday Gospel, taken from John Chapter 10, is not the Last Supper discourse where Peter, after assuring Our Lord he is ready to die for him, hears Jesus rebut him with a stinging question, “Will you lay down your life for me?” That was spoken shortly before Peter’s three fold denial. What a contrast between enthusiasm and enervating failure! How can this teach us about the Good Shepherd?

How often it is in our lives that God arranges, for our benefit, our hardest falls so quickly after our largest boasts or presumptions about our abilities. This should not surprise us. Now, look at something else we can miss when focused on our own failures to meet our expectations. God doesn’t hide that he’s going to lay down his life for us in the Passion. Notice when God said he would lay down his life for us. It was long before the Last Supper. This sermon about the Good Shepherd is only one example of the unending lesson of Christ’s life poured out from Bethlehem onward for our salvation. If we dared to ask him, “Will you lay down your life for me?” he would say, “I already have.” His answer relies not on enthusiasm nor emotion to remain committed to laying down his life. It is love. Love for the Father. Love for the flock. Love of the Good Shepherd. Love that can succeed even in the Passion’s most enervating failure.

It is not easy for any of us to lay down our lives, period. But, for Christ, and for Christ in His Priest, it is worth trying and even failing in the effort. The Good Shepherd will help us.

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This week we are praying in a special way for the priests of the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio. Each week we will pray for 6 specific priests until we have prayed for all of the priests in the diocese. Please join us!

Learn more about our priest chalkboard here: https://nunsforpriests.org/our-priest-chalkboard/

#priestchalkboard ...

The Humility of God

The Resurrection appearance accounts in the Gospels are fascinating, especially in their capturing the details of the humility of God as he meets his disciples right in their fears, disbeliefs, and incomprehension. Imagine (though this is beyond the human mind) that you are the Lord. You have just defeated death by rising from the dead. Were we to invent a God, now is when we would record something more flashy and dramatic. Perhaps the Sanhedrin falling en masse on their knees to declare Jesus as the Messiah. Or Caesar proclaiming Christ the new Emperor. Certainly we would have to write in a few showy miracles as he convinces with greater signs and wonders that he is truly risen from the dead.

But what does he do? He lets them touch him. Handle him. He asks if they have anything to eat. And they give God Incarnate and Resurrected some baked fish. And he eats it. He’s not into flash and dash. He wants no cowering subjects driven by fear. He wants our fellowship. Our friendship. Our trust. Our love. Thank him for his humility and magnanimity that we witness at every Mass.

Trust him enough to give him your little piece of baked fish and relish the Meal (the Eucharist, Himself) he desires to give you in return.

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