Month: April 2021

Loving your Work – The Good Shepherd Who Loves His Job

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Excerpt from Take Time For Him: Some More

by Angela M Jendro

Order your paperback or e-book from Amazon!

Order the kindle e-book (or paperback) to read the Christmas meditation, the meditation for Mary Mother of God, and to reflect on the meditations all year at your convenience.

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Read the Gospel of John 10:11-18

Meditation Reflection:

Upon meeting someone new, two questions commonly start the conversation: learning the person’s name followed by asking what they do.  Why?  Since our work occupies most of our day it reveals something of our values, our unique personality and talents, and it shapes us too over time. 

I’m a wife, mom, teacher, and writer.  This reflects my value for family and my love of learning and the development of persons.   I also have a knack for explaining things and a zany side that works well with kids.  My roles have also shaped me.  After teaching for so many years, I catch myself conversing in a Socratic way in every-day conversation.  Before sharing something, I ask if the person happens to know the answer.  As they talk, I ask more questions.  By the end, I might recommend a book or article to read.  At the grocery checkout or fast food restaurant, I can’t help but see teen employees as students (of course, sometimes they are!).  I catch myself gently guiding them as they navigate taking my order.  The mom in me is here to stay too.  I was at a Master’s class and noticed one of my classmates fighting a runny nose and cough.  As I took notes and listened to the lecture, I instinctively grabbed Kleenex out of my purse and passed it down.  Afterward as she thanked me, she laughed and said, “I should have known you’d have Kleenex with you.  You’re such a mom.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus identified Himself and His work as the Good Shepherd.  It reveals that He values the care of His flock with nurturing and protective love.  He lives with them, guides them, feeds them, and protects them at all costs.  Moreover, His sheep belong to Him.  The hired hand works transitionally – for the day and for income.  He may be providing for a family or saving for a pasture of sheep of his own, but the flock he watches temporarily is not his love nor his own.  In consequence he will not risk or sacrifice much for it. Christ on the other hand, knows each sheep by name and would sacrifice His own life to save even one. 

“I lay down my life, that I may take it again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own.” John 10:17-18

We are not just a number to Christ nor is He a distant king.  Rather, He dwells here in our midst, in our mess, in our lowliness – and He loves it. He cares for even the smallest details of our lives.

Pope Francis emphasizes this as well in his Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate:

“the Lord is ever mindful of you; he never forgets you. So it makes sense to ask him to shed light on the smallest details of your life, for he sees them all.” no. 153

 Before His Ascension into Heaven, Jesus entrusted His flock to Peter – not as a hired hand or a babysitter – but as a steward in Jesus’ name loving His flock with the love of Christ. 

“Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’  He said to him, ‘Feed My lambs.’  A second time He said to him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’  He said to him, ‘Tend My sheep.’”  John 21:15-16

At baptism each of us receives a calling from Christ, a flock to tend.  Although He works personally in hearts through grace, He also personally cares for His sheep through His Mystical Body the Church – you and me.  Jesus asks each of us to love Him by loving those He has entrusted to our care.  This includes your family, co-workers, and the particular ministry to which God has called you. 

“The important thing is that each believer discern his or her own path, that they bring out the very best of themselves, the most personal gifts that God has placed in their hearts…We are called to be witnesses, but there are many actual ways of bearing witness.” (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate no. 11)   “Each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel.” (no. 19)

To love with the heart of Christ, He shapes us in prayer. He pours His love into us, from which we receive the generosity and joy to serve.  He opens our eyes to see others with the love in which He sees them, and to see their needs as He does, down to the smallest detail.

Holiness is about loving our Good Shepherd and in turn loving the sheep whose care He shares with us.  Wherever God has placed us, we can witness Him to others through our sacrificial love.  After learning to trust Jesus’ little shepherd, they might take a leap of faith and trust the Good Shepherd Himself.

Consider:

  • Reflect on Christ’s love for you, down to the smallest detail of your life.  Take a moment to lay your worries and your hopes before Him and to rest in His care.
  • Pray for your little flocks.  Who has Christ placed in your life?  How might you serve them with love and joy? 
  • Meditate on the love of Mary, who cares for everyone who belongs to her Son and consecrated her whole life to His mission. 

Practical Application:

  • Pray Psalm 23 each day this week.
  • Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for an increase of Trust in Christ’s Merciful Love.
  • Read the Biography of Blessed Stanly Rother – an American priest who returned to his mission in Guatemala to die with his people so they wouldn’t die without him.

All Rights Reserved © 2020 Angela M Jendro

“You are Witnesses of These Things”

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Excerpt from Take Time For Him: Some More

by Angela M Jendro

Order your paperback or e-book from Amazon!

Order the kindle e-book (or paperback) to read the Christmas meditation, the meditation for Mary Mother of God, Easter, and to reflect on the meditations all year at your convenience.

3rd Sunday of Easter

Read the Gospel of Luke 24:35-48

Meditation Reflection:

Christ’s parting words summon every disciple to be a witness of their encounter with Him, repentance for sin, and God’s merciful love. 

In our frenzied culture many people vacillate from anxious stress to temporary escape through superficial pleasures.  In contrast, disciples of Christ rest in His Peace and rejoice in all circumstances (I Thessalonians 5:18).  When others wonder if anything can be true or lasting, Christians make decisions with confidence knowing that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that He has a plan for their lives.  Although choices may not be easy, Christ’s disciples can look to His teachings, His Church, and to the Holy Spirit to guide them, Who “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). 

Worried about the future or how to find meaning in life, many turn to psychics, gurus, ideologies, pop culture, or other general spiritualities.  In contrast, Christians encounter Jesus – who is alive and real, and therefore has the power to truly act in their lives on their behalf. They know that everything will be okay, because Jesus has conquered death and made them adopted children of the Father.  They experience the deepest kind of meaning in their lives because they believe that every act of love and kindness will reverberate into eternity.  Wealth, status, beauty, health, fame, and honor can all be taken away in a moment against one’s will.  Faith, hope, love, goodness, joy, and peace cannot – as so many martyrs and persecuted Christians have witnessed in the past and continue to do so today.

Our witness requires speaking about our faith at times.  We need to “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” as St. Peter instructed (I Peter 3:15).  This means immersing ourselves in Scriptures and prayer and making an effort to keep learning more about our faith.  In this way, we can then pass on our faith to our children and stand up for the truth in society.

Our encounter with Christ is also witnessed in our silence.  I once had the opportunity to attend a private Mass at the Vatican with Pope St. John Paul II in 2001 along with about 20 other people.  When we entered the chapel, he was already there kneeling before the Lord intense in prayer.  His silent conversation with Christ was so real it was palpable.  When Moses returned from Mount Sinai the people knew he had encountered God because “the skin of his face had become radiant while he spoke with the Lord” (Exodus 34:29 NAB).  People often say of new mothers or new couples in love, that they are “glowing”.  Love has a way of doing that. When we spend time with Christ in prayer, when we walk with him throughout the day, we too glow with His love.  Imaginary myths or wishful thinking cannot produce this kind of radiance.

Finally, Christ becomes visible to others through His work from within us.  If I came home and the house were a mess, I wouldn’t believe my husband if he said that he had hired a maid for us.  If, however, when I returned home all the dishes were done, the floors vacuumed, laundry washed, and surfaces dusted, I would believe his word without even having met the person – their work would be evidence of their existence.  In the same way, if we tell others of Christ’s redeeming grace but remain the same mess of sin and confusion, it may be hard for them to believe.  However, when we tell them of how Christ transformed us, and they see our anger replaced with love, envy replaced with gratitude and contentment, and selfishness replaced with loving relationship, His grace will be evident to them in a real way.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).  God is here.  He is real.  We struggle to see because we are blinded by things – pleasure, over-ambition, anxiety, fear, anger, greed, and other distractions.  The more we cooperate with Christ to remove these obstacles the more easily we will see God, and the more easily others will see Him in us. 

Consider:

  • Who do you know that seems to “glow” with love for Christ?  Who seems to radiate His peace?
  • When have you experienced the peace of Christ?
  • When have you found Jesus’ words to be true?
  • How might you become more pure in heart?  What obstacles blur your vision?  How might you grow your love for the Lord?

Practical Application:

  • Try to keep Christ present in your heart throughout the day.  Spend 10 minutes in prayer every morning, pause for a prayer midday, and close with 5 minutes of prayer in the evening. 
  • Learn more about the faith by joining a bible study, attending Faith Formation at your parish, or reading a book about the faith with a group of Christian friends.

All Rights Reserved © 2020 Angela M Jendro

The Trap of Self-Reliance

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Excerpt from Take Time For Him: Some More

by Angela M Jendro

Order your paperback or e-book from Amazon!

Order the kindle e-book (or paperback) to read the Christmas meditation, the meditation for Mary Mother of God, and to reflect on the meditations all year at your convenience.

2nd Sunday of Easter/Sunday of Divine Mercy

Read the Gospel of John 20:19-31

Meditation Reflection:

The Christian faith is neither a well-crafted myth nor a brilliant philosophy.  Rather, the Christian religion is based on eye-witness testimony of the resurrected Lord.

It began with the testimony of Mary Magdalene, who encountered the risen Christ in the morning when she went to His tomb and was subsequently sent by Him to tell the apostles.  They felt excited and a bit confused “for they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9 NAB).   In the evening, Jesus appeared to them as well except for Thomas who wasn’t there.  Upon seeing Him with their own eyes they believed and rejoiced. 

When they shared their Good News with Thomas he refused belief until he could see it for himself.  Thomas had been willing to die with Christ (John 11:7-8, 16) but he couldn’t envision rising with Him. In consequence, his faith – though fiercely loyal – remained limited to his own personal experience. One week later however, Jesus showed mercy toward Thomas’ obstinate self-reliance, appearing to him in the flesh and so enabling Thomas to believe. 

We too can fall into the trap of self-reliance in matters of faith – limiting our belief to personal experience and rejecting the witness of Jesus’ apostles and His Church.  Our present culture tends toward “cafeteria Christianity”, meaning we pick and choose what we like and leave what we don’t.  We view doctrine as a buffet of ideas that we can take or leave according to our personal preferences and reasoning. 

Imagine Thomas saying to the other ten, “you have your truth and I have my truth, one is not better than the other.”  Yet, one is that Jesus is risen and the other is that Jesus is dead!  How could Jesus’ Church endure with such conflicting beliefs?  The same remains true today.  Capitulating to the attitude of an individualistic faith undermines Christ’s work.

Jesus chose to share His Truth and grace through the apostles’ witness (and their successors – the pope and bishops).  Their interpretation of Scripture and the power of their miracles came from the Holy Spirit bestowed on them by the Lord. At the final moment of Jesus’ death, He breathed His last and surrendered His Spirit to the Father.  On the evening of His resurrection, He breathed upon the Apostles, and gave them His Spirit and His authority:

“‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” John 20:21-23

Christianity is an encounter with the incarnate God who dwells within the very souls of His baptized disciples and makes them one Body.  Jesus is not a restauranteur who offers the world’s greatest buffet.  He is the Son of God who desires all persons to be united as a family in the Lord.  He therefore established a visible Church endowed with His invisible presence to guide and govern its members to His eternal kingdom.

Today, one week after Easter, we celebrate the inexhaustible, generous, mercy of Christ which He lavishes on all who will accept it. As He did for Thomas on this same day, Christ reaches down into the darkest parts of our souls, to our most acute failures and sins, to apply the healing balm of His Merciful Love poured out on the Cross for our salvation. Our Lord is a crucified Lord.  When He appeared to the apostles “He showed them His hands and His side” (John 20:20).  He did not choose, as Satan tempted Him to be in the desert, a king without the Cross.  Similarly, true disciples are crucified disciples.  They have died to self, and self-reliance, and live by the Holy Spirit in communion with the Church.

There’s no sin too great for Jesus to forgive. He only requires a repentant heart which chooses to trust in His love.  There’s also no weakness of faith He can’t strengthen, no doubt He can’t heal, and no question of doctrine He can’t explain to you – if you let Him.  And remember, He has given us the fellowship of the Apostles through both the Scriptures and the living voice of authority in His Church.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). Today’s Gospel passage concludes with John offering the same witness to us that was offered to Thomas. Today is the day to surrender to Christ in prayer every doubt you harbor and every limitation you place on faith.  Then, receive His mercy in daily prayer, immersion in the Scriptures, the Eucharist at Mass, and trying to learn the Church’s reasons for her doctrines.  In consequence, you too will become an eye-witness of the resurrected Christ to others.

Consider:

  • When buying a product online or hiring someone for a house project, how much credence to you give to people’s reviews?  How much credence to you give to the testimony about Jesus from the Apostles, the saints and martyrs, the Christians you know who testify to the Lord’s work in their lives?
  • It’s hard to trust someone you can’t see.  Do you make Christ visible to others in your life?  How might you witness the reality of His truth and mercy even more?
  • Reflect on the choice presented today: whether to sand stubbornly in self-reliance or enter the communion of the Body of Christ – His Church – and lean on one another.
  • Jesus told St. Faustina that His greatest pain is distrust on the part of souls in His mercy.  In his book, The Name of God is Mercy, Pope Francis observed that we fail to believe in Christ’s mercy because we have no experience of mercy in our lives and therefore believe no one – not even Christ – will help us.
    • To what extent has this been your experience? 
    • What makes it difficult to trust Christ? 
    • How might you extend mercy to the people in your daily life so they might believe in Christ’s mercy?

Practical Application:

  • Every time you feel helpless, turn to Christ in prayer and throw yourself at His mercy. Repeat the words He asked St. Faustina to have written under His image: “Jesus, I Trust In You.”
  • Do one work of mercy each day.

All Rights Reserved © 2020 Angela M Jendro

I highly recommend both the Diary of St. Faustina and The Name of God is Mercy .

A beautiful exemplar of Christ’s merciful love is Mother Teresa. I also recommend her book A Call to Mercy: Hearts to Love, Hands to Serve