Question from Nathalie that raises an interesting topic …

… is it okay to pray for Jesus? I mean, I know we pray TO Jesus, but… I really would like to pray for him… because he and his message are often misunderstood, misused and abused – to serve self-centered ends. I guess he probably doesn’t NEED us to pray for him, but… I don’t know. I just want to pray for him.

Hi Nathalie, Good question! My first response is that yes, it’s okay to pray for Jesus. Prayer, after all, is talking and listening to God. When we pray for someone, we are in relationship with God and bringing the person and her/his needs before God. At their heart, “praying for” and “praying to” are actually more like “praying with” than anything. So with Jesus, we are deepening our relationship with him, consciously bringing the cares and concerns of Jesus to the forefront while we are with him. While Jesus is God and so does not “need” anything per se, prayers for Jesus are like what you wrote — that he and his message be understood and lived from the heart.

Another way to understand “praying for Jesus”, is more along the lines of how the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures spoke of “blessing God”. You’ll find this kind of language in many places, especially in psalms and canticles. One of my most favorite ones is the canticle of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel 3 (in a Catholic Bible). The three were tossed into a white-hot furnace as punishment for going against King Nebuchadnezzar’s decree to worship his gods, not the God of Israel. Instead of certain death, the three walked around singing and blessing God. Here’s part of their canticle:

Bless the Lord, all people on earth; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, O Israel; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you priests of the Lord; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, spirits and souls of the righteous; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you who are holy and humble in heart; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever. (NRSV translation)

How else might we understand “praying for Jesus”? What is your own experience of this?

Today’s gospel reading is John 13:16-20. I was struck by the following verse because I don’t think I’d ever read or heard it in the Jerusalem Bible translation:

After he had washed the feet of his disciples, Jesus said to them:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
no servant is greater than his master,
no messenger is greater than the man who sent him.
‘Now that you know this, happiness will be yours if you behave accordingly.

What struck me is the word “happiness”. In other translations the word is “blessed.” We will be blessed if we follow Jesus’ example and that means we must imitate the spirit of Jesus’ lifework (Jerome Biblical Commentary).

Now blessed I get — we follow Jesus, we will be blessed. But being “happy” is something different altogether. I wrote about happiness a while back but this verse from John casts the meaning in a new light.

Happiness doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is going as planned or that there is not struggle or tragedy or discomfort. Sometimes (many times) our happiness seems totally dependent on our circumstances and on our relationships. But here Jesus is telling us that our happiness resides in following Jesus, in imitating the spirit with which he went about his own life — humility, simplicity, zeal, kindness, love (even fierce love), faithfulness. The washing of feet is a beautiful example of the spirit of Jesus’ lifework. And to know that Jesus didn’t just do it as an educational moment, but that he genuinely felt happy about what he was doing. That’s something that I think we all want to cultivate in ourselves, a sense of happiness about not only what we are doing but who we are.

What strikes you about this passage on happiness?

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, a Catholic feast day that originated with Saint Faustina Kowalska. Saint Faustina was a Catholic nun belonging to the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. She experienced visions Jesus Christ including a message about spreading the word about God’s mercy to the whole world. When Pope John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina, he made Divine Mercy Sunday part of the church’s liturgical calendar.

The scripture readings today are beautiful and offer a kind of “action plan” for our Christian journey. Visit the blog From the Pews in the Back to read my guest post A Divine Action Plan, a short reflections on the readings for Divine Mercy Sunday.

Since today is a day to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, I want to explore a bit more what “mercy” means. It’s one of those words that is fairly ordinary and unassuming, yet loaded with meaning. It is simple yet it is life-changing.

Mercy.

My first research destination: Merriam-Webster dictionary

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French merci, from Medieval Latin merced-, merces, from Latin, price paid, wages, from merc-, merx merchandise

1 a: compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one’s power; also: lenient or compassionate treatment b: imprisonment rather than death imposed as penalty for first-degree murder

2 a: a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion b: a fortunate circumstance

3: compassionate treatment of those in distress

My next stop: Theological Dictionary (Rahner and Vorgrimler)

Mercy. Readiness to help those in need. The Old Testament expresses God’s mercy chiefly by the verbs meaning to “be motherly” and to “bend down”. Throughout the Old Testament, assurances of God’s mercy, graciousness, and fidelity to his covenant outbalance all references … to the wrath of God; these qualities dominate the New Testament conception of God….

Human mercy, according to Scripture, is not measured by any display of feeling but by concrete proofs.

Which brings me to my final research destination: The Works of Mercy

The Corporal Works of Mercy

• feed the hungry
• shelter the homeless
• clothe the naked
• visit the sick and imprisoned
• bury the dead
• give alms to the poor

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

• instruct
• advise
• console
• comfort
• forgive
• bear wrongs patiently

What does mercy mean to you? Which word or phrase above resonates with you, draws you, calls for some kind of response from you?

Lionel, a fellow Plurker, wrote this post on his blog Acid42 about the interplay of Noise and Silence … These Last Few Days… Leave Me Alone. It’s a thoughtful piece, and I encourage you to read it and offer your reflections on it.

No matter who we are or how we live, we have this dynamic of Noise and Silence in our lives. Some of us swing more to one end than to the other.

The Gospels are a great place to look to see how this dynamic plays out in the life of Jesus. Sometimes Jesus is in the midst of the crowds, other times alone in the wilderness. In both places — the Noise and the Silence — Jesus encounters God.

In the Noise … When Jesus goes to the Jordan River with John the Baptist and a crowd of people, John baptizes Jesus. The heavens open up and the voice of God resounds, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

In the Silence … Right after his baptism, Jesus is led by God into the wilderness where he fasted and prayed for 40 days. (Matthew 4:1-2)

One of the readings of the day (1 Kings 17:7-16) is the story of how the great prophet Elijah was cared for by a woman who was a widow and a mom. Though the story is told from the perspective of Elijah, in so many ways it is the story of a woman’s faithfulness to and trust in God.

The story goes that God sent Elijah (who was hiding out in the wilderness) to the city of Zarephath where God said a widow would provide for Elijah who was hungry and thirsty. The woman, who is never named, is happy to give Elijah some water but says she has barely enough food left for herself and her son, let alone Elijah. In fact, she says, “Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.” Elijah tells the woman not to fear and that God will not allow her flour nor her oil to run out.

Here’s where I would have loved to have known what the woman was thinking. Some guy appears out of nowhere and asks for her hospitality. She does what she can, but then he asks her for what she cannot give. Were she to give him the food he asked for, she and her son would go hungry and be that much closer to the death she was already anticipating. The stranger tells her not to worry, that God will provide. What must have been going on within this woman? What grace was working within her to give her the strength to believe in God’s word as proclaimed through the mouth of a stranger?

This story blows me away because the woman finds it within herself to believe in something, someone larger than herself and her immediate concerns. Maybe she figures the end is near anyway so why not give it a shot? Maybe she has prayed and prayed for God’s help and understand Elijah’s appearance to be a sign from God. Maybe she so values the gift of hospitality that she is willing to extend it to a stranger in need, even though she herself is in need. I really don’t know, but I can tell you that I am deeply moved by this woman’s courage and faith. It’s something that I will continue to pray with throughout the day.

What do you see in this story? In what ways are you called to give hospitality from out of your poverty?