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Immersed in Christ: March 9, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 9, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 9, 2020

Monday, Week Two of Lent The Responsorial (Psalm 79) gives a key to the readings: “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins .” In the Gospel Jesus is going to tell us, “Be compassionate, as your Father is compassionate.” The reading from Daniel 9: 4-10 reminds us how much we ourselves need the compassion Jesus instructs us to give to others. The Book of Daniel is an example of “apocalyptic” writing, which looks ahead to the “day of the Lord” and to the consummation of

Immersed in Christ: March 8, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 8, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 8, 2020

Sunday, Second Week of Lent The Event and the Glory that Motivate Discipleship Inventory How much do I think about the event of Christ’s death and resurrection? Do I consciously base my whole life on the difference that event has made? The Entrance Antiphon asks: “Remember your mercies, Lord, your tenderness from ages past.” Do I use my memory of God’s deeds in a way that gives me confidence God “will not let our enemies triumph over us”? Do I let the Liturgy of the Word remi

Immersed in Christ: March 7, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 7, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 7, 2020

Saturday, Week One of Lent The Responsorial (Psalm 119 ) asserts the blessing of discipleship: “Happy are they who follow the law of the Lord." Deuteronomy 26: 16-19: A principle of American jurisprudence is: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” For Christians, to seek knowledge of God’s law is a commitment. Moses told the People, “Today you are making this agreement with the Lord: he is to be your God and you are to walk in his ways,” observing all of God’s “statutes, comman

Immersed in Christ: March 6, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 6, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 6, 2020

Friday, Week One of Lent The Responsorial (Psalm 130) is both truth and trust: “If you, O Lord, laid bare our guilt, who could endure it?" Ezekiel 18: 21-28 basically tells us that God doesn’t keep books. Many of us grew up thinking God keeps all our sins recorded in a big ledger, along with all the good things we do to make up for them. At the “judgment,” when we die, God subtracts one from the other and we have to make up the difference in “Purgatory.” We took for granted t

Immersed in Christ: March 5, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 5, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 5, 2020

Thursday, First Week of Lent The Responsorial (Psalm 138) is a testimony “O Lord, on the day I called for help you answered me!” Esther chapter C (after chapter 4), verses 12, 14-16, 23-25 shows us what it means to live a lifestyle inexplicable to those who do not recognize the empowering presence of grace — the divine life of God — in us. Esther laid it out before God: “I am alone and have no help but you.” Do you know people who are alone? Who really have no one to help the

Immersed in Christ: March 4, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 4, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 4, 2020

Wednesday of Lent, Week One The Responsorial (Psalm 51) is an insight into God: “A broken, humbled heart, O God, you will not scorn.” Jonah 3: 1-10 is a story of conversion. That is what Lent is all about and what the Liturgy of the Word calls us to: metanoia. We translate the word as “repentance,” but it literally means more: a “change of mind,” a “complete makeover” of all that determines who we are as persons: our life-goal; means chosen to achieve it; priority given to th

Immersed in Christ: March 3, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 3, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 3, 2020

Tuesday, Week One of Lent The Responsorial (Psalm 34) assures us: “From all their afflictions, God will deliver the just.” Isaiah 55: 10-11 tells us how he does it: God saves us through his “word”: “It will not return to me void, but shall... achieve the end for which I sent it.” This is not just God’s creative word. He compares it to the “rain and snow” that “water the earth, making it fertile and fruitful.” That is what God’s word does for us. It makes us fertile in life-gi

Immersed in Christ: March 2, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 2, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 2, 2020

Monday, Week One of Lent The Responsorial (John 6:63 and Psalm 19) could be the motto for the discipleship to which the Liturgy of the Word calls us in every Mass: “Your words, Lord, are spirit and life.” Leviticus 19: 1-2,11-18 puts morality in context: “Be holy, for I, your God, am holy.” Christian morality is not “being good,” it is “being like.” And its goal is relationship: with God and others. Once the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” was revealed as “the favor of shari

Immersed in Christ: March 1, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Mar 1, 2020

Immersed in Christ: March 1, 2020

THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT (Year A) Entering Discipleship: the Recognition of Sin Inventory To what do I attribute the evils in our society? Do I blame them on bad politics? Bad business practices? Inadequate education? Unenlightened ministry in the Church? Disintegrating family life? What do I think is the root cause? Could the root of it all be sin? The Entrance Antiphon quotes God: “When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them

Immersed in Christ: February 29, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 29, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 29, 2020

Saturday After Ash Wednesday Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may be faithful in your sight (Psalm 86). Isaiah 58: 9-14 presents two levels of response to God, and two levels of promise. The first level is to keep the Commandments on the “second tablet” of the “two tablets of the covenant,” that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Custom assigns to the first tablet the Commandments that call us “to acknowledge God as the one Lord of all and to worship him alone for his infinit

Immersed in Christ: February 27, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 27, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 27, 2020

Thursday after Ash Wednesday Happy are they who hope in the Lord! (Psalm 1). Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 sets before us the basic “either-or” choice of human existence: life and wellbeing or death and misery. God’s gift; our choice. “Life or death, the blessing or the curse.” All we have to do is accept it. How do we know we have?. Three times the reading describes acceptance as listening. To choose life is to “obey” (from obaudire, to “listen to”). It is “heeding God’s voice.” Tho

Immersed in Christ: February 26, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 26, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 26, 2020

ASH WEDNESDAY* Lent is a time to change together Inventory Do you think things can be turned around in our society without a massive conversion? Do you believe it will really help the world situation significantly if you yourself begin living more authentically? Is this the point of Lent? Input The readings summon us as individuals to convert as a community. Joel 2: 12-18 is addressed to the whole People of Israel as a community; not just to individuals who see themselves act

Immersed in Christ: February 24, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 24, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 24, 2020

Monday, Week Seven of Ordinary Time The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart. (Responsorial: Psalm 19) According to a footnote in the Christian Community Bible, James 3:13-18 tells us four things about wisdom. 1. Wisdom is a gift of God: In every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind. 1 False wisdom: does not come down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.... But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,

Immersed in Christ: February 23, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 23, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 23, 2020

Sunday, Week Seven in Ordinary Time Accepting the New Commandment Inventory Today, is it possible to be fully human without being “fully divine”? What, for a Christian, does it mean to “be holy”? What does it mean to “be perfect”? Can we? Input The Entrance Antiphon (Psalm 13) focuses us on God’s love and faithfulness: “I will sing to the Lord for his goodness to me.” This is the focus we ask for in the Opening Prayer: “Father, keep before us the wisdom and love you have reve

Immersed in Christ: February 22, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 22, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 22, 2020

The Chair of St. Peter, Apostle The Responsorial (Psalm 23) “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want” lifts up our eyes to heaven. This feast brings them down to earth. We are celebrating the “Chair” or official function of St. Peter in the Church and of those elected to represent him in continuing it: the bishops of Rome. This confronts us with the central mystery of Christianity: the Word made flesh, God made human in Jesus Christ. This is also the central my

Immersed in Christ: February 21, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 21, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 21, 2020

Friday, Week Six of Ordinary Time Happy are those who do what the Lord commands. (Responsorial: Psalm 112) James 2:14-24, 26 is an argument for saying James wrote late enough to know people were misinterpreting Paul’s teaching about justification by “faith alone,” because he contradicts the exaggerated version of this that makes “works” unnecessary. “It was largely because of this apparent contradiction that Luther wished to exclude James from the canon [list of books in Scri

Immersed in Christ: February 20, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 20, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 20, 2020

Thursday, Week Six of Ordinary Time The Lord hears the cry of the poor. (Responsorial: Psalm 34) James 2:1-9 makes it sound like the Church is against the rich. That is not true. James says, “If you show favoritism”—to anybody, rich or poor—“you commit sin.” And his reason makes us think: “Your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ glorified must not allow of favoritism.” Where is he coming from? We are the glorified Jesus. At Baptism we were incorporated into his body on the cross.

Immersed in Christ: February 18, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 18, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 18, 2020

Father David's Reflection for Tuesday of Week Six (Ordinary Time) Happy the people you teach, O Lord. (Responsorial: Psalm 94) James 1:12-18: James makes three points: 1. God tempts no one. “Rather, it is the tug and lure of our own passion that tempts every one of us.” 2. If we “hold out to the end” against trials and temptations, we will “receive the crown of life the Lord has promised to those who love him.” 3. God “wills to bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth.”

Immersed in Christ: February 17, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 17, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 17, 2020

Monday, Week Six in Ordinary Time Be kind to me, Lord, and I shall live. (Responsorial: Psalm 119) Begin James 1:1-11: The author’s use of the title “servant” and his tone of authority suggest a church official. He might be the “brother [same word as cousin] of the Lord” who was the leader of the Jewish community in Jerusalem that Paul acknowledged as a “pillar” of the Church. In the West, the Roman tradition identified him with James, son of Alpheus, one of the Twelve, but “

Immersed in Christ: February 16, 2020

Father David M. Knight

Feb 16, 2020

Immersed in Christ: February 16, 2020

THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF YEAR A Hearing and Living the Word of Life Inventory Do you think the human race needs guidance in how to live? What about yourself? Where do you look for it? Where has it led you? Input The author of the Entrance Antiphon (Psalm 30) speaks in the singular, calling God “my rock of refuge, a stronghold to save me.” He asks God, “Lead and guide me.” This invites each of us to ask, ”Do I see God’s word as just guidance for the human race or the Church in gene

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