Author: DV Dan

The word “Christ” is not Jesus’ second name (like Jack Smith, Susan Dolenski, or Jesus Christ). Christ is a title, not a name. Literally, in Greek, it means: the anointed one. Jesus Christ equals Jesus, the anointed one. Part of the meaning of that, however, is that the anointed one is the one who is God-in-the-flesh, God-in-carnus. This means God-in-the-physical just as it also means that the-physical-contains-God. 

Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba the Greek, once told this parable: A man came up to Jesus and complained to him about the hiddenness of God. “Rabbi,” he said, “I am an old man. During my whole life, I have always kept the commandments. Every year of my adult life, I went to Jerusalem and offered the prescribed sacrifices.

“Every night of my life, I have not retired to my bed without first saying my prayers. But . . . I look at stars and sometimes the mountains—and wait, wait for God to come so that I might see him. I have waited for years and years, but in vain. Why, Why? Mine is a great grievance, Rabbi? Why doesn’t God show himself?

Jesus, in response, smiled gently and said, “Once upon a time, there was a marble throne at the eastern gate of a great city. On this throne sat 3,000 kings. All of them called upon God to appear so that they might see him, but all of them went to their graves with their wishes unfulfilled.”

“Then, when these kings had died, a pauper, barefooted and hungry, came and sat upon that throne. ‘God,’ he whispered, ‘the eyes of a human being cannot look directly at the sun, for they would be blinded. How then, Omnipotent, can they look directly at you?”

“Have pity, Lord, temper your strength, turn down your splendor so that I, who am poor and afflicted, may see you! “Then—listen, old man—God became a piece of bread, a cup of cool water, a warm tunic, a hut and, in the front of the hut, a woman giving suck to an infant.”

“Thank you, Lord,’ he whispered. ‘You humbled yourself for my sake. You became bread, water, a warm tunic and my wife and son in order that I might see you. And I did see you. I bow down and worship your beloved many-faced face!’”

In the words of Avery Dulles: “The Christ of the incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which to escape from the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather, it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of planet earth and find it shimmering with divinity.” [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “The Incarnation Means God is in the Ordinary,” December 2016] 

The words of Jesus in today’s reflection from John’s Gospel challenge us to “always” try to please God by doing His will in our lives. But life at times seems to get in the way.

God understands the human condition and gives us sacred permission to be human, even in the face of our most important human and spiritual commitments. Being able always to do what pleases God is less about achieving perfection and more about surrender, mercy, and consistent, loving fidelity amidst human weakness.

Our lives are a marathon, not a sprint. That’s why it is good sometimes to have lengthy banquets and sometimes to simply grab a hot dog and run. God and nature permit us to sometimes say, “Let’s get it over with,” and sometimes to rush things to not miss the beginning of the game.

The same holds true for a family meal together. You don’t necessarily go to dinner with your family each night with enthusiasm. You go because this is how families sustain their common life. There will be times when you do come with high energy and appreciate both the preciousness of the moment and the length of the dinner. But there will be other times when, despite a deeper awareness that being together in this way is important, you will be wanting to get this over with, or sneaking glances at your watch and calculating what time the game starts.

So, scripture advises, avoid Job’s friends. For spiritual advice in this area, avoid the spiritual novice, the over-pious, the anthropologically naïve, the couple on their honeymoon, the recent convert, and at least half of all liturgists and worship leaders. The true manual on marriage is never written by a couple on their honeymoon, and the true manual on prayer is never written by someone who believes that we should be on a high all the time. Find a spiritual mentor who challenges you enough to keep you from selfishness and laziness, even as she or he gives you divine permission to be tired sometimes. A woman or man at prayer is equally pleasing to God, enthusiastic or tired – perhaps even more when tired.

God is often experienced as a “quiet, gentle nudge” beneath the surface of our lives. Following this call—even when there is “affective resistance”—is a deeply life-giving decision. We please God by bringing our weak, messy selves before him to be loved, rather than trying to perfect ourselves first. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Divine Permission for Human Fatigue,” September 2023]

In today’s reflection, we look at two stories. The first comes from the Book of Daniel and the story of Susanna, who is unjustly accused. The second story comes from the Gospel of John with the woman caught in adultery. In the tradition of the Church, these two accounts are often told as two sides of the same coin—one representing perfect justice and the other perfect mercy.

In ancient Babylon, a beautiful and devout woman named Susanna is cornered in her private garden by two “elders”—judges who were supposed to be the moral backbone of the community. They give her a horrific choice: submit to them, or they will testify that they caught her with a young lover.

Susanna chooses death over sin. As she is led to execution, the young Daniel stops the crowd. He uses sharp, human wisdom to cross-examine the elders separately. When their stories about which tree they saw her under don’t match, their lie is exposed. Susanna is saved because she is innocent, and the corrupt elders are punished.

Centuries later, another group of religious leaders—the Scribes and Pharisees—drag a woman before Jesus. This time, there is no question of a false accusation as she is “caught in the very act” of adultery. The leaders aren’t interested in her; they are focused on using her as a trap to see whether Jesus will contradict the Law of Moses.

Jesus doesn’t look for a legal loophole or for a conflicting testimony. Instead of examining the woman’s case, he examines the accusers’ hearts. He stoops to write in the dust and says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” One by one, the elders walk away.

The two stories meet at the feet of the “Judges.” Daniel saves the woman by proving the world is wrong (the law was being misapplied on an innocent person). Jesus saves the woman by proving the world is hypocritical (the law was being used as a weapon by fellow sinners).

In the first story, God saves a saint from a lie. In the second, God saves a sinner from the truth. Together, they show a God who protects the righteous but also offers a way out to the fallen; the first receives God’s perfect justice, and the second receives God’s perfect mercy.

What is a meta-narrative, a bigger story, within which we need to understand our own story? And how is that the basis for hope in this earthly life?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was both a world-class scientist and a Christian mystic. He articulated a vision in which a Christian could bring together in one harmonious vision, the scientific theories regarding the origins of the universe, the unfolding of evolution through 15 million years, the purpose and role of Christ in history, and how cosmic and faith history will eventually culminate in the fullness of time, where, through Christ, God will bring all things into one in him. And on that day, goodness will forever triumph over evil, love will triumph over division, peace over chaos, empathy over selfishness, gentleness over cruelty, and forgiveness over vengeance. 

Except for the resurrection, we have no guarantees about anything. Lies, injustice, and violence may triumph in the end. Chaos, cruelty, and death may well be the last word. That’s certainly how it looked the day Jesus died.

However, the resurrection of Jesus is God’s last word on this. In the resurrection, God assures us that no matter how things look, no matter how much evil seems to have the upper hand, no matter how powerless innocence, goodness, and gentleness may look sometimes, no matter how many times our world crucifies Christ, no matter how many times we might blow up the world with an atomic bomb, no matter hopeless it all looks, the ending of our story has been written, and it is a happy ending, an ecstatic one. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “The Resurrection: The Ultimate Meta-Narrative,” April 2025]

What’s good, what’s of God, will always at some point be misunderstood, envied, hated, pursued, falsely accused, and eventually nailed to some cross. Every body of Christ inevitably suffers the same fate as Jesus: death through misunderstanding, ignorance, and jealousy. 

But there’s a flipside as well: Resurrection always eventually trumps crucifixion. What’s good eventually triumphs. Thus, while nothing that’s of God will avoid crucifixion, no body of Christ stays in the tomb for long. Resurrection invariably follows crucifixion. Every crucified body will rise again. Our hope takes its root in that.

On the morning of the resurrection, the women-followers of Jesus set out for the tomb of Jesus, carrying spices, expecting to anoint and embalm a dead body. Well-intentioned but misguided, what they find is not a dead body, but an empty tomb and an angel challenging them with these words: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Go instead into Galilee and you will find him there!”

Go instead into Galilee. Why Galilee? What’s Galilee? And how do we get there?In the gospels, Galilee is not simply a geographical location, a place on a map. It is first of all a place in the heart. Galilee refers to the dream and to the road of discipleship that the disciples once walked with Jesus and to that place and time when their hearts most burned with hope and enthusiasm.

They are told to go back to the place where it all began: “Go back to Galilee. He will meet you there!” And just as promised, Jesus appears to them. He doesn’t appear exactly as he was before. The Christ that appears to them after the resurrection is in a different modality,

And they do go back to Galilee, both to the geographical location and to that special place in their hearts where once burned the dream of discipleship. And just as promised, Jesus appears to them. He doesn’t appear exactly as he was before, or as frequently as they would like him to, but he does appear as more than a ghost and a memory. The Christ that appears to them after the resurrection is in a different modality, but he’s physical enough to eat fish in their presence, real enough to be touched as a human being, and powerful enough to change their lives forever.

Ultimately, the resurrection asks us to go back to Galilee, to return to the dream, hope, and discipleship that had once inflamed us but has now been lost through disillusionment. That is one of the essential messages of Easter: Whenever we are discouraged in our faith, whenever our hopes seem to be crucified, we need to go back to Galilee and Jerusalem, that is, back to the dream and the road of discipleship that we had embarked upon before things went wrong. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Where to Find Resurrection,” April 2015]

Our reflection verse today highlights the deep, intimate connection between Jesus and the Father, as well as the believer’s identity as a “sent” being. This phrase grounds Jesus’ authority in his origin, not just his actions. 

Ron Rolheiser notes that, like Jesus, our deepest identity comes from God. He emphasizes that by virtue of Baptism, we are sons and daughters of God, sent to bring his compassion to the world.

Because Jesus came from God and was sent, he knows the Father’s heart completely. This allowed Jesus to be in full solidarity with human suffering, taking on our condition and bringing the Divine face to it.

Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, Rolheiser writes that Christians are also “sent ones.” He emphasizes that our lives have purpose when they are aligned with this “sent” reality, which, for him, means carrying the spirit and mission of Jesus, even after his ascension.

As Christian’s, we must live within the divine energy (from which Jesus came), which is creative, loving, and a source of gratitude. Our lives are deeply rooted in God. Realizing that, like Jesus, we have a divine origin and a purposeful, “sent” mission in life.

Who exactly is this Joseph? He is that quiet figure named in the Christmas story as the husband of Mary and the stepfather of Jesus, and then basically is never mentioned again. The pious conception we have of him is that of an older man, a safe protector to Mary, a carpenter by trade, chaste, holy, humble, quiet, the perfect patron for manual laborers and anonymous virtue, humility incarnate.

Joseph and Mary were at this stage of their relationship, legally married but not yet living together when Mary became pregnant. Joseph, knowing that the child was not his, had a problem. If he wasn’t the father, who was? In order to save his own reputation, he could have demanded a public inquiry and, indeed, had Mary been accused of adultery, it might have meant her death. However, he decided to “divorce her quietly”, that is, to avoid a public inquiry which would leave her in an awkward and vulnerable situation.

Then, after receiving a revelation in a dream, he agrees to take her home as his wife and to name the child as his own, thus claiming that he is the father. By doing this, he spares Mary embarrassment, perhaps even saves her life, and he provides an accepted physical, social, and religious place for the child to be born and raised. But he does something else that is not as evident. He shows how a person can be a committed believer, deeply faithful to everything within his religious tradition, and yet at the same time be open to a mystery beyond both his human and religious understanding.

And this was exactly the problem for many Christians, including Matthew himself, at the time the Gospels were written. They were committed Jews who did not know how to integrate Christ into their religious framework. What does one do when God breaks into one’s life in new, previously unimaginable ways? How does one deal with an impossible conception? Joseph is the paradigm. As Raymond Brown puts it: “The hero of Matthew’s infancy story is Joseph, a very sensitive Jewish observer of the Law. In Joseph, the evangelist was portraying what he thought a Jew [a true pious believer] should be and probably what he himself was.”

In essence, Joseph teaches us how to live in loving fidelity to all that we cling to humanly and religiously, even as we are open to a mystery of God that takes us beyond all the categories of our religious practice and imagination. And isn’t that one of the real challenges of Christmas? [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Joseph and the Christmas Story,” December 2023]

To believe in the resurrection of Jesus is to be comforted, comforted at a level so deep that nothing in life is any longer ultimately a threat. In the resurrection, the hand of God soothes us, and the voice of God assures us, frightened children that we are, that all is good, and that all will remain good forever and ever.

Sociologist of religion, Peter Berger, outlining what he calls “rumours of angels in everyday life”, gives us the following reflection:

Consider the most ordinary, and probably the most fundamental of all – the ordinary gesture by which a mother reassures her anxious child. A child wakes up in the night, perhaps from a bad dream and finds himself surrounded by darkness, alone, beset by nameless threats. At such a moment the contours of trusted reality are blurred and invisible, in the terror of incipient chaos the child cries out for his mother. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, at this moment, the mother is being invoked as a high priestess of protective order. It is she (and, in many cases, she alone) who has the power to banish the chaos and to restore the benign shape of the world. And, of course, any good mother will do just that. She will take the child and cradle him in the timeless gesture of the Magna Mater who became our Madonna. She will turn on a lamp, perhaps, which will encircle the scene with a warm glow of reassuring light. She will speak or sing to the child and the content of this communication will invariably be the same – “Don’t be afraid – everything is in order, everything is all right.

The mother’s comforting reassurance, “Don’t be afraid, it is all right”, is, in fact, a profession of faith in God and the resurrection. When she says these words, she is making an act of faith just as surely, even if not as explicitly, as if she were saying: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty … and I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”

Do you want to understand the power of the resurrection? Meditate on Michelangelo’s Pieta: A woman holds a dead body in her arms, but everything about her and about the scene itself says loudly and clearly: “Don’t be afraid. It’s all right. Everything is all right!” [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “I Believe in the Resurrection,” March 1994]

The Sabbath is a symbol of resting and playing in God. It is also a symbol for praying to God.

Sabbath is not just stopping work; it is taking time for joy, celebration, family, and relationship-building. The Sabbath is made for humanity, meaning it serves human flourishing. Doing good works, such as caring for a sick loved one or connecting with the community, aligns with this purpose.

Ron Rolheiser argues that enjoying the fruits of creation—good food, leisure, and beauty—is a key part of Sabbath and acts as a form of thanksgiving. The third commandment teaches us that, ultimately, we have no purpose outside of enjoying creation and glorifying its maker. Everything else we do is in function of that. Regularly, we need to stop working and hurrying and re-appreciate that fact. It is when we forget that the unimportant things become too important and we become consumed by hurry and pressure.

What can all of this mean, today, concretely, in a culture of Sunday shopping, Sunday jobs, Sunday business as usual, and sporting events which dominate our Sundays? It doesn’t mean that we should feel riddled by a false guilt which says: “God has given you six days, now you can’t even give him one day or one hour back!” We don’t owe God anything. God made us freely, in love, and wants us to respond freely in gift. He doesn’t demand our love.

What the Sabbath does mean is that on one day a week, ideally Sunday, we must stop work, try to center our lives, try to slow things down, try to re-appreciate why we are here in the first place, and then worship and celebrate that with God and each other through prayer, food, and play.  Life is too short for the way we are living.[Exceprt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Slow The Rat Race, Take A Rest,” April 1988]

Our reflection verse today is one of many biblical promises of something new awaiting us. Some interpret this as the destruction of our current world, while others see it as a promise of its transformation. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that this verse emphasizes what is good and loving in life, which will be redeemed and transfigured.

Our future existence is the renewal of this earth, where God’s promise means taking the current reality and bringing it to perfection. Our actions of love, justice, and kindness in this life possess an eternal, irrevocable quality that carries over into this new creation.

The “new heavens and new earth” represents the ultimate hope where all suffering, iniquity, and limitations of the current, broken world are transformed, fulfilling the longing for a paradise where God dwells among us.

Kathy McGovern reflects on the story of Edie Littlefield Sundby and her walking the El Camino Real de las Californias, the old mission trail from Loreto, Mexico, to Sonoma, California, having only one lung left and surviving widespread metastasis of stage IV gall bladder cancer.

McGovern asks, “What is the point of it all, a dying woman forcing herself through often desolate and harsh landscapes in order to reach another mission, some of them decrepit and long abandoned?”

McGovern writes that we might see Sundby’s journey as an excruciating exercise in nostalgia. Yet, unseen in all of this is what God is doing in her tormented body. As she pushes herself on to every single mission site (some still in use, most in ruins), she is being healed. She lives today, twelve years after her diagnosis and six years after setting out on her journey.

Of this stunning pilgrimage, Sundby says: “If I was walking, I was alive.” Might that be what the Spirit is saying to us today as Church, as the People of God? We are all “under construction” in one way or another. God is doing something new. Keep walking, Church, keep walking, People of God. It just might be that God is healing us too.