The Four Rivers are the Tree of Life and the Heart

The woman at the well was the gospel yesterday. One further point that I have not developed much in this blog but which is very important in what I am saying is that there is a very strong connection between the living waters and the heart and that connection goes way back to the very beginning of the creation of man. Let’s look back at this original connection that occurs in the creation account:

“And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Genesis 2: 9-15).

The very first mention of the tree of life in the Bible is immediately followed by this passage about the singular river which breaks into four different rivers. Rivers work in the exact opposite manner: many rivers become one great or mighty river. Here in Genesis, however, one river becomes many rivers. This description of an unnatural river is the symbolic representation and clue about what the tree of life is. The tree of life is mentioned, and it is followed by its symbolic description so that we may better know what the tree of life is.

As I have said in previous posts, the Garden of Eden is not so much a place as the man and the woman; Eden means delight, and we are God’s garden of delight. He created us for Himself and to bear much fruit. He made us to be His children, His temple, and His bride. From Him comes our life and our fruit. This life was lost through sin, but Jesus comes to restore our relationship with God and so that we may have life and have it abundantly.

The two trees of the garden singled out are two abilities God has given us; the tree of life is the heart and its ability to love, trust and obey God. God then symbolizes the heart with the one river which flows into four rivers because our one heart is divided into four chambers which are connected to the four sections of “rivers” bringing differently equipped blood all around our bodies. Oxygenated blood is pumped out of our heart to our entire body and is taken back to our heart to be pumped to the lungs which oxygenate it and send it back to the heart afresh to be pumped out all over again. Four chambers are needed to accomplish this life-giving and life-sustaining task.

Earlier this winter my children and I were playing in our front yard and digging a tunnel in our six-foot high mountain of snow from the driveway. Toward the end when I was getting worn out, I lay back on the snow looking up at the two large, leafless Elm trees which dominate the front, and I noticed that, from the ground up, there is a resemblance between trees and the circulatory system. Physically, they look somewhat similar, in my opinion, and how fluid moves in both the circulatory system and a tree is also very similar. In the circulatory system, the life-giving oxygenated blood is transported throughout the body through its “rivers,” but it only provides that life and oxygen at the very end of the line in the capillary system; likewise, the “blood” within a tree is circulated with in by its “rivers,” but the exchange of life and oxygen only takes place at the very end of the line in the leaves. Leaves and the capillary system themselves look very much alike, and in them both take place the exchange of life.

So why is the heart called the tree of life? Well, looking at the human body and focusing on the circulatory system, we look much like trees, and the circulatory system and trees operate in a number of similar ways. We are like trees. Throughout the Old Testament, in fact, we are compared to trees many times, and even in the New Testament there are connections and symbolisms between humans and trees.

The tree of life is the four rivers of water, and those four rivers of water symbolize the heart. Here we have the connection between the heart and living/flowing waters. The most important reason why the heart is the tree of life is that the only way we have spiritual life is by loving, trusting and obeying God, and these good actions are matters of the heart. With a good heart doing what it was made to do, we will have abundant life. Just as the heart is the center of the circulatory system, so our heart is the center of our spiritual life and our relationship with God and others. In the end, we will be judged on how much we loved.

The exchange of life happens in the smallest parts of an organism: the exchange of life in a tree is in the leaves, the exchange of life in our bodies is in the capillary system, the exchange of life in our spiritual lives is in living our ordinary life well. Being faithful and trusting in the small and little ways of our ordinary life is where God meets us and forges us into saints. Relationships consist and are built up with a myriad of little events and ordinary occurrences that further cement and strengthen the connection and union of people; our relationship with God is no different. When we fulfill our deepest desires with the only One capable of doing so, our whole life changes and becomes His. To this person Jesus says, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’ ” (John 7: 37-38). Our thirst for happiness and meaning is fulfilled and quenched only in Jesus, and being thus quenched with the life of God, our heart itself becomes a life-giving font of water and joy. We become other Christs who spread the truth and life who is Jesus.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Genesis 2

I am skipping many important items, but in the interest of getting to the main point, I will pass over them for the time being.

Man is the Garden of Eden
Immediately after the man is created, God's breath is breathed into him, and he becomes a living being, it is then that the Garden of Eden is introduced. The word "Eden" simply means "delight." The word "east" also means "in front of." From many places in scripture, we know that God delights in man; also considering Genesis1:26, we know that God made man to be His spouse.
What all this means is that the man is the garden of eden, for he is God's garden of delight. God planted a garden in the front of His delight; hence, man is oriented in a frontal manner. Many trees (abilities) were planted in the front of man, together with two extremely important trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These two trees are the two primary ways we bear fruit as humans.

The Tree of Life
Immediately after introducing these two trees we have this obscure and seemingly nonsensical explanation of a river which splits into four rivers. The problem with this scenario is that rivers do the exact opposite; many rivers flow into one, not vice versa. This is no river, commonly understood. It symbolizes something else. It symbolizes the heart. The four chambers of the heart are physically represented by the four rivers. The tree of life is the heart.
What does it mean to eat of the tree of life? The very next verse tells us that God has done all this so that man could "till and keep" the garden. The word for till is also the word for work and for the work of worship; the word for keep may also be understood in the sense of keeping the commandments or obedience. Thus, the tree of life is for worshipping (in the full sense of the word which includes sacrifice) and obeying God. That is precisely what our hearts are for; we love God and we have the obedience of faith in Him by means of our trusting and loving hearts.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil will have to wait, at least until tomorrow.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.

Rivers of Living Water

In the prophet Isaiah there is a passage which talks about seeking water and God giving it. This is a metaphor for having God’s life in our hearts. Here is the passage: “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive; I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together; that men may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it” (Isaiah 41:17-20).

This seeking and granting of water is fulfilled in Jesus. “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, ‘If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ’ Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39). After Jesus has been crucified/glorified, blood and water flow out of His heart; we receive the same heart at baptism and Eucharist so that out of our heart flows rivers of living waters. God makes the desert a pool of water with trees; God makes our dead heart a heart that loves, trusts and obeys Him.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

More thoughts on the Tree of Life

Yesterday I talked about how chapter two is a close-up view of mankind, particularly as a home for God. There are two important trees in the midst or middle of the garden of man. The first one, which they should eat from, is the tree of life. This is a symbol of the heart of man, the place where he loves, trusts and obeys God. The heart is then symbolically physically represented by the four rivers of water in Eden.

There is a very interesting passage about the heart in the Gospel of John 7:38, "He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water'." No where does scripture mention this. It could be an indirect reference to Ezekiel 47; I am inclined to think that Jesus is referring back to Genesis 2. He who believes in God has a heart out of which flows living water, i.e. his faith gives life to those around him, and he bears the fruit of good works. Those who eat of the tree of life believe in God and so have the obedience of faith (see Romans) that trusts God especially when life is hard and does not seem to make sense.

A living faith is a believing heart that endures in time of trouble. The presentation of the tree of life implicitly signifies that a time of trial is at hand. The tree of life is needed when a battle with death is about to ensue. Immediately after the tree of life is presented in Gen. 2: 10-15, flowing with a perfect logic, God announces His singular command: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." God has arranged a test to see and know if the man will eat of the tree of life, if he will believe with his heart even when it does not seem to make sense.

Why does God test us? He has a problem. To put it mildly, He is so awesome and perfect and beautiful and powerful and alive and wise. Even among mortals, the extremely beautiful, wealthy and powerful have a similar problem: they do not always knows who is their true friend and who just wants what they have. God has this problem infinitely more. He also wants to preserve our freedom so that we are not just a bunch of robots who have to love Him. He wants us to freely choose to give Him our love. So He hides, and He gives those who want to draw near to Him tests to strengthen our trust in Him. Sometimes He gives incredibly difficult tests that supersede our intellect so that all we can use to pass the test is our loving trust of His command. He wants us to eat of the tree of life.

The question remains: so then what is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...? Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.

MY MAIN THEORY--THE HEART OF WHAT I AM SAYING

Immediately following the first mention of the tree of life in Genesis Two, God tells us about the four rivers. This is a symbolic geographical representation of our physical heart. After discussing the heart, the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is given for the first time. The very next thing God does is seek a suitable partner/helper; none of the beasts of the field or birds of the air would do. Then God takes one of the man's ribs, makes it into the woman, and presents her to the man as the sought-after helper for the man who responds "At last." The pattern I see here is: mention the tree of life followed by a presentation of the four rivers and worshipping and obeying; mention of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil followed by the presentation of the woman. There seems to be a connection between this second tree and the woman.

If man is God's Eden/delight, with a garden planted in the east/front of the man, the first tree in our fronts is the heart/tree of life. By worshipping, obeying, trusting, and loving God with our hearts, we bear good fruit in the good things we do. How else do humans bear fruit? What else could be a tree planted in our front in the middle that would be a source of production? What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is it possible to know? If we don't know yet after thousands of years, why would we find out now?

I think it is possible to know; not with an absolute, certitude and with a perfect logical syllogism, but there are many clues that point to what it is, and many realities make sense and fit together once it is understood. It is as I think Cardinal Newman said something such as: it is so based on 10,000 convergences; nothing directly spells it out, but almost everything points to the reality being thus.

So what do I think the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, and what does the woman have to do with it? I think it is an idiom referring to sexual knowledge, i.e. intercourse. Marital relations, it could be argued, is the greatest natural good of this world; it is so good and great that Paul says it is a great mystery referring to the relationship between Christ and His Church (Eph). The test God is giving the man and the woman is two seemingly contradictory commands: be fruitful and multiply and do not have marital relations. This does not seem to make sense: presto, we have our grand trial of faith and the bypassing of the intellect. All that is left is to see if they will eat of the tree of life and believe that what God has commanded them is good for them. Of course, they did not trust.

I will explain my thoughts on this much much more, but for now I want to draw your attention to Mary, the New Eve. I think she underwent the very same test. After explaining her test as I see it, I will call it a night and give you more to ponder soon.

Mary's Test
I'll try to make this brief. The first principle to understand is that when God makes us to be something, that is what we will be good at and that is what we will desire. Among other things, God made me to be a husband, a father and a teacher, and it is those things which I desire. God made her to be the mother of His Son and the mother of the Church; as such, she was created as the most exalted mother of all human history. Being created to be the most exalted mother means that she would have desired to be a mother more than any person who has ever or will ever exist.

The second principle of my understanding of Mary is that she consecrated herself as a perpetual virgin and arranged with Joseph that they would remain virgins perpetually in their marriage. The reason I think this together with the Chuch Fathers is that her response to the Angel Gabriel does not make sense unless this were the case. In the first chapter of Luke, Gabriel says to Mary that she will conceive and he uses five other future tenses when telling her what will happen in the future. He does not say or imply that this will happen right now.

Mary replies, "How shall this be, since I have no husband." She says this when she was already betrothed to Joseph; in many respects what they understood as betrothal, we would understand as marriage. In fact, if they wanted to end the betrothal, a certificate of divorce was required. It was perfectly normal to get pregnant during this time; that is why Mary does not get into any trouble being only betrothed and pregnant. The only significant difference between betrothal and marriage was that the bride had not permanently moved in with her husband yet. Even if she just had to wait until they were officially married, then she could conceive just fine and would expect to do so. It makes no sense for her to say she will not be able to conceive a son since she will not have a husband. She already has a husband! She has just made a life-long commitment never to have sexual relations.

This was the test then: she who longed to be a mother more than anyone ever to exist, knew that God was asking her to commit herself to Him as a perpetual virgin. In her heart she was told to be fruitful and multiply while at the same time not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the people of the Old Testament, not having children was tantamount to death. One was considered cursed if barren. There was little worse in this life than to not pass life on to ones offspring. In Mary's acceptance of virginity, she would have thought that she had given up her greatest desire (other than union with God):children. Her acceptance of virginity was her crucifixion.

The Annunciation is Mary's Reward, Not Her Test
As soon as Mary and Joseph agreed and permanently decided to never have relations, then the angel Gabriel payed his visit. In offering Mary to be the Mother of God, there was nothing more pleasing to her in all creation. Her hesitation was that she did not understand how it was going to happen because she knew God wanted her to remain a virgin. As soon as she knew that God would provide the Son, she said yes. Never in the history of man was there ever such a joyous and receptive yes as that amen at the Annunciation. Her greatest desire had just been granted.

Mary's test was sacrificing that which was most dear to her on this earth, and her reward was getting that very thing but multiplied infinitely. The first Eve tried to gain her life by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and received death and a son named Cain. The New Eve lost her life for love of God and gave up that which she held most dear and was given the very Son of God as a reward for passing the most difficult test in man's history.

Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.

God's Word Makes Our Heart Flow with Living Water

The first reading today in the Mass was a short one and came from Isaiah 55: 10-11. Here it is:

“Thus says the LORD: Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

Although this is such a short passage, the context surrounding this little one is packed with awesome passages that resonate very well with my theory. I’ll have to unpack these chapters more on another occasion; for now, I will begin to explore this passage and two short sentences right before this one.

The two other passages I want to highlight are 54:5 where it says, “For your Maker is your husband,” and 55:1 which states, “Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters.” I bring up these two because these two themes, the husband and water, are the two themes of today’s reading. Rain and snow come from heaven and water the earth making it fertile; in the same way God’s word comes from heaven and waters the earth, making it fruitful. Water makes the earth fruitful. God’s word makes the earth fruitful.

How is a woman made fruitful? It is her husband who pours out his “water” so that she can bear fruit. In that sense, the husband makes the wife fruitful through water. God is our husband, but He is not so in a sexual sense. God pours out His Word to us in order that it accomplishes what He desires—our fruitfulness. How are we fruitful? We are fruitful when our tree of life is alive. How is our tree of life alive? It is alive when we have a heart that loves, trusts and obeys God. When we love, trust and obey God, we bear good fruit for Him, and He is our Husband.

How do we receive God’s Word in an effective manner? We do so by opening wide our hearts to Him to do whatever He asks of us. The responsorial psalm today says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves” (Psalm 34:19). Those who are humble, those whose hearts turn from their sin and turn back to God, those who are grieved that they hurt God who loves them so much, those who want to share in the sufferings of Christ and be a self-sacrificing lover, these are the ones who have a heart open to God to receive His Word and bear much fruit. Yes, these are the ones; he is the one who believes in Jesus, and “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). When we open our hearts to God, He fills our hearts with His water so that out of our very own hearts, rivers of living water flow.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Out of Our Heart Flows Rivers of Living Waters

The readings for Mass today (yesterday, at this time of night) were wonderful. The first reading was Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8 and 10-11; here it is, and notice the marital analogy, the fruit language, and the mention of water:

“This word of the LORD came to me: 
Go, cry out this message for Jerusalem to hear! 

I remember the devotion of your youth, 
how you loved me as a bride, 
Following me in the desert,
 in a land unsown. 
Sacred to the LORD was Israel, 
the first fruits of his harvest;
 Should any presume to partake of them, 
evil would befall them, says the LORD. 

When I brought you into the garden land 
to eat its goodly fruits, 
You entered and defiled my land,
 you made my heritage loathsome. 
The priests asked not, 
“Where is the LORD?”
 Those who dealt with the law knew me not:
 the shepherds rebelled against me.
 The prophets prophesied by Baal,
 and went after useless idols.

 Be amazed at this, O heavens,
 and shudder with sheer horror, says the LORD. 
Two evils have my people done:
 they have forsaken me, the source of living waters; 
They have dug themselves cisterns,
 broken cisterns, that hold no water.”

At first, Jerusalem loved God as a bride loves her husband, and Israel was the first fruits of God’s harvest. God’s people went after other gods; they abandoned the true God who is the “source of living waters.” Our hearts should be turned toward the source of life and living waters and not be consumed with what is not God. Here, the heart, as the source of love, and water are connected.

The Responsorial Psalm was 36: 6-11, and again notice the emphasis on water and its connection with the heart:
R. (10a) With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
 O LORD, your mercy reaches to heaven;
 your faithfulness, to the clouds.
 Your justice is like the mountains of God;
 your judgments, like the mighty deep.
 R. With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
 How precious is your mercy, O God!
 The children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
 They have their fill of the prime gifts of your house; 
from your delightful stream you give them to drink. 
R. With you is the fountain of life, O Lord. 
For with you is the fountain of life, 
and in your light we see light.
 Keep up your mercy toward your friends,
 your just defense of the upright of heart.
 R. With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.



God is the fountain of life who is abounding in mercy and justice. The water language is overflowing: flowing, mighty deep, delightful stream, drink, and fountain of life. The upright of heart are they who receive this overflowing mercy from God. Here the heart motif and the water motif are joined together.

The Gospel is from Matthew 13: 10-17, and the main word in this passage is heart. Everything else is built around the word “heart” which stands in the middle and makes sense of the whole. Here is the passage:



The disciples approached Jesus and said, 
“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”
 He said to them in reply, 
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven 
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
 To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; 
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
 This is why I speak to them in parables, because 
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand. 
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

 You shall indeed hear but not understand, 
you shall indeed look but never see. 
Gross is the heart of this people, 
they will hardly hear with their ears,
 they have closed their eyes, 
lest they see with their eyes
 and hear with their ears 
and understand with their hearts and be converted 
and I heal them.

 “But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
 and your ears, because they hear. 
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
 longed to see what you see but did not see it, 
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” 


Why does Jesus speak in parables? Is it so everyone can understand more easily what He is saying? Jesus says that He speaks in so that some people will not understand Him. Why don’t they understand Him? It is because their heart is “gross.” Their heart is not sensitive as it should be; it ignores and doesn’t care about what is most important. They look and hear, but nothing is registering as significant or worthy of attention. They don’t care. They don’t want to see or hear. God is boring. The things of God don’t matter. They are there more out of curiosity or some ulterior motive but not because they really care. So the little they had is taken away: they understand nothing of Jesus’ message.

To see and understand and have Jesus heal us, our heart has to turn to Him and open up and want to see and understand what He is saying. If our heart loves, trusts and obeys Him, then we will able to perceive and understand the Gospel. Those who have faith, who have love, who do obey have what it takes. They have a responsive heart, and those with such a receptive heart will be given more faith, hope and love to better love, trust and obey. The good heart will become a very rich heart. Jesus is not speaking about material riches; rather, He is speaking about having abundant faith, hope and love. Those who turn away from God, who don’t need Him, who close their hearts to Him, are not able to receive the good gifts He desires to give us. The more we open up to Him, the more He is able to fill us with every good gift.

Tying the three readings together, when we are God’s bride and open ourselves to Him completely, He is able to fill us and make us rich in faith, hope and love. When our heart turns toward Him, we drink deeply from the fountain of life and goodness, we drink deeply of Him, and so we become fully alive. When our heart is in the right place, it is connected to God who is the “source of living waters.” When we are connected to the source, out of our heart flows rivers of living waters.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

God is a Spring of Living Water

I just ran across a great quote by Saint Louis de Montfort: "Pray with great confidence, with confidence based upon the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ. God is a spring of living water which flows unceasingly into the hearts of those who pray."

This ties in well with my thoughts on the heart as the tree of life and the four rivers flowing in the garden of Eden.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Lenten Plan Resurrects Our Tree of Life

Lent begins today. The first reading for Ash Wednesday comes from Joel and begins with verse 12. I have included part of the verse prior to 12:

“For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; who can endure it? ‘Yet even now,’ says the LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil” (Joel 2: 11-13).

It was common in the ancient world to rip one’s clothes when confronted with a great sorrow. God is not so much interested in how we look on the outside; He cares what is in our hearts. When our hearts are attached to sin and to the good things of this world, its receptacles are filled up and have no room for God. We need to free our hearts from all its attachments and pray as it says in today’s psalm: “A clean heart create for me, O God” (Psalm 51:10). God tells us that we need to rend our hearts; that is a powerful image; it is a painful route to take, but it brings us new life.

The key to our living the faith is turning our heart back to God. The repentant heart is the key. We express that repentance by our fasting, sorrow for our sin, and our almsgiving, and they are meant to be painful as we rend our hearts. We also rend our hearts by the confession of our sins and by our prayer and charitable deeds. These penitential activities help to turn our dead hearts of stone into hearts of flesh which seek to please God. They resurrect our dead, fruitless trees of life into fruitful, abundant, overflowing trees of life which bear good fruit each month and out of which flow rivers of living water.

There are three main parts to a plan for Lent, a program for our increased daily conversion of heart: 1) we need to cut out the ways we sin; 2) we should give us something good as a sacrifice to God; 3) we should increase something better we already do or start something new.

An example for a Lenten plan could look something like this: first, I am going to be committed to avoid that near occasion of sin which I am too comfortable with right now; second, I am going to give up alcohol; third, I am going to say a decade of the rosary each day and do the stations of the cross on Fridays. Another example: first, I am not going to gossip; second, I will give up coffee and chocolate; third, I will get to daily Mass and read the daily Mass readings for the next day the night before. Of course, the options are endless, but it is important to stop sinning, have a sacrifice of something good and put something better in its place. All these items help our hearts to draw closer to God and attach to the only worthy and life-giving attachment.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

"He is Like a Tree:" Reflections on Psalm 1

Tonight I want to examine Psalm One. This is the very first psalm, as you might have already guessed, and as such initiates the series of psalms known as the book of prayer. I think its pole position in this collection of 150 others is no small matter. Let’s see what this rather short psalm says.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

First, on the negative side, a man is blessed if he does not delight in what delights the wicked; the way of the wicked will quickly die and be wiped away like so much flimsy dust. Second, on the positive side, the blessed man will delight in and continually ponder what pleases God; as such, he will be known by God—he will be of one heart and mind with Him. Instead of being dead dust like the sinner, the righteous man will be a fruitful tree near flowing water that bears its fruit regularly.

Death results from what sinners do, how the wicked think, and how scoffers are proud of heart. To have life and bear fruit, one must be obedient, believe in God’s words and laws, and be humble of heart. The tree of life is the heart, so those who shun this tree by disobedience, pride and unbelief, produce only death. When one embraces the tree of life and eats from it by obedience, belief, and humility, abundant fruit are produced. The heart of flesh, the living tree of life, loves God and the things of God and spends all its energies on knowing God better. As the four rivers were used to symbolize the heart/tree of life in Genesis 2, so here the tree of life/heart is closely linked with living/flowing water and abundant fruit. The one who seeks God with his whole heart and inwardly cries out to Him night and day continues to grow and bear fruit, in fact, everything that he does brings success in the true sense of the word.

The message of this first entry into the Book of Prayer is to open your heart to God and give your entire self to Him by believing in Him, being so in love with Him that you meditate on Him continually, humbly listening to all that pleases Him, and faithfully obeying His commands and wishes. Therein lies life, life to the full. A heart that has God as its one, primary desire, is a fruitful tree, bearing much beautiful fruit. I think of Saint Therese of Liseux and her beautiful little way of drawing ever so close to the Beloved.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.

"Prayer is the inner bath of love"

Today is the feast day of Saint John Vianney. One thing he said was:
“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”

It is prayer that is the means or receptacle for receiving God’s grace, God’s very life. God pours Himself out like water, and since God is love, God pours out love. The “water” of God’s life is love, and we tap into this superabundance when we pray. Indeed, it is prayer that opens our hearts more to receive the awesome graces of the sacraments. When we pray, rivers of living water flow out from our hearts because prayer is the inner bath of love. Prayer cleanses us and re-invigorates us and fills us with God’s love.

From the deepest part of our hearts, God dwells and gives Himself to us. Since He respects our free will so much, He waits deep within our heart to give Himself more fully to us. As long as we are in the state of grace, He is there abiding with us. We do not become a flowing spring of God’s love and light until we give ourselves more completely to Him and open ourselves to Him—which means we must pray each day. With daily prayer we open the “faucet” of God’s splendid shower of love. It is that infusion of God’s love which gives us the strength to do all things for love of Him.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Dependence on God: Walking on Water

"Learn to depend on God alone and serve Him with a wholly pure and detached heart. Then you will be able to say 'I do not regret that I have given myself up to Love.'"

This was said by Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, otherwise known as Saint Edith Stein.

She also said, "It is this faith that unites us to him as the members are joined to the head and opens for us the stream of his life. And so faith in the Crucified--a living faith joined to loving surrender--is for us entrance into life and the beginning of future glory." This comes from page 123 of The Science of the Cross, The Collected Works of Edith Stein.

God wants us to be dependent upon Him. He wants us to lovingly cling to Him. This faithful clinging unites us to Him and fills us with life. Abundant life is the fruit of a faithful, loving, complete clinging to God."

One of my main points is that the four rivers coming from one source in Genesis 2:10 is the tree of life mentioned in Genesis 2:9, and both of them represent the heart. Since what we treasure is where our heart is, if we treasure God, our heart is with God. Our heart is the center of our being and is capable of holding all that we value. Treasuring God and what pleases Him opens our deepest self to Him, and since He is existence itself and life itself, our heart is what is capable of holding Life itself. As the receptacle of Life, the heart is the tree of life. As Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross said above, "It is this faith that unites us to him...and opens for us the streams of his life.

God desires such unbounded trust from us. In today's Gospel, Matthew 14: 22-33, Jesus tells Peter after he had the faith to step out of the boat in the storm and walk on the water toward Jesus, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" He chides Peter because Peter got frightened by the strong winds as he was walking across the water, and so he started to sink. Jesus desires us not only to step out of the boat and walk across the water, He also wants us to constantly keep our eyes fixed on Him and not be disturbed by anything, even a very strong wind and storm while we are walking on the sea! How much Jesus wants us to trust Him, and how little we do.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Guardian Angel: Protector of the Heart

In an earlier entry I talked about how the Garden of Eden actually refers to the man and the woman, for they are God’s garden of delight (which is what eden means). God gives us many gifts and abilities, but He gives us two in particular; He refers to these abilities as trees: one is the tree of life, and the other is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is the heart, and it is symbolized by the river that separates into four rivers.

The tree of life is the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God. The tree of life is the tree of life because when we love, trust and obey God, we have life. After the Fall, God sends an angel to protect the tree of life. I state that the angel is not given to keep us from the tree of life but to keep our hearts protected from disobedience and doubt. The woman was made from the man’s rib, and so she was made to encourage the man to stay faithful to God. She did the exact opposite of what she was made for, and the result is the “death” of humanity. Now we need a helper more than ever in our weakened state, and so God sends us each our own guardian angel. Genesis 3:24 which states, “at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life,” relates the giving of the guardian angel to protect our heart and keep us faithful.

That is how I understand that passage. Not long ago, I was reading Saint Josemaria Escriva’s book, The Forge, when I came upon entry 412:
“Custody of the heart. That priest used to pray: ‘Jesus, may my poor heart be an enclosed garden; may my poor heart be a paradise where you live; may my Guardian Angel watch over it with a sword of fire and use it to purify every affection before it comes into me. Jesus, with the divine seal of your Cross, seal my poor heart’.”

Many of the same elements of what I think about Genesis 3:24 are present in this paragraph. The founder of Opus Dei does not call the heart a tree here, but he does call it a garden and a paradise which is guarded by our Guardian Angel with a sword of fire. The center of our garden is our heart; the temple’s center was the holy of holies: the temple is a symbol of our body, and the holy of holies is a symbol of our heart. What are gardens for but to bear good fruit, and what are temples for but to worship God? We bear good fruit when our gardens and temples are protected from scavengers on the one side, and when it consists of good dirt which gets healthy amounts of water and sun on the other. We have to keep away from sin, be steeped in humility, drink deeply of God’s grace, and bask in the warmth of his divine love, seen most clearly in Mass and Eucharistic Adoration.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

The Rib Protects the Heart

Others have mentioned the significance of how woman was made from the rib of the man, and it is worth repeating. She is not taken from his head so as to rule over him, and she is not taken from his foot as being beneath him. She is taken from his side and near his heart indicating their equality and that she is to be loved as Christ loves His Church.

According to the biblical account, woman is also created after the man and is the final creature created. The endpoint of creation is mankind, and the very endpoint is woman. There are many jokes about the creation of Adam and Eve, and one goes something such as: after God made Adam, He looked at him and said, "I can do better than that." That is when he made the woman. In a certain way, woman seems to have a greater dignity than man. The greatest human of all time is in fact a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

There is more to understanding the woman's genesis from the rib of man. One of the primary roles of our ribs is to protect our vital organs, especially the heart. From my previous writings I have stated how the tree of life is the heart, i.e. the heart that worships, loves, believes and obeys God. It is in loving, praising, believing and obeying God that we have life and life to the full. The fruit of such a faithful heart is a full life in God, and that is why it is the tree of life: "out of his heart shall flow rivers of living waters." God made the man together with his tree of life so that he would be able to be in union with God and pass any trial of faith God sent him.

The test resides in the seemingly contradictory commands: be fruitful and multiply and don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only a pure faith in the goodness and beneficence of God will overcome the test. God gives the man the woman so that she can be an extra help to overcome the trial. She is given to encourage the man to stay strong in his faith, obedience and love of God. She, in a particular way, is a protector of his tree of life so that he can make his way to heaven.

At the same time, she is the other half of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She is both his best friend and part of the test he is to overcome. They are the best thing for one another to draw the other closer to God, and they are the very thing which may cause their downfall and separation from Him. It is quite likely that, because of their interdependence, where one of them goes, the other will follow.

The woman's role as protector of the tree of life is fulfilled and perfected by the New Eve, Our Lady. If we entrust our heart to her, she will always lead us closer to her divine Son. Of course the woman of Genesis failed to protect the man's heart in trusting and obeying God. She did the exact opposite and turned the man's heart to the wisdom of the serpent who encouraged them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The entire episode of this betrayal in the garden began with a kiss and ended with the conception of Cain. Jesus was likewise betrayed in a garden by one who was supposed to protect and encourage him, and that betrayal too began with a kiss from Judas and ended, from Jesus' perspective, with the conception of the Church on the Cross.

One last thought: why is the way to the tree of life guarded by a cherubim? The woman abrogated her role as protector and encourager of the tree of life in the fall, so God gave every person a new protector and defender of our tree of life to lead us to heaven: our guardian angel. I understand that passage not as God trying to keep us from eating of the tree of life, but as His giving us a new helper to bolster our faith in Him "Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. Give heed to him and hearken to his voice, do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him" Exodus 23:20-21. We don't have to ever worry of being led astray by our angel; he will always lead us closer to God.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright 2007.

Short Summary of Theory

Blessed Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! Giving our heart, our tree of life, into her protection, into the protection of our rib, our dear and powerful mother, we have complete confidence that she will keep our tree strong, and so we will have life; she will help us obey and trust her Son, and in so doing we will have life and have it abundantly. Rivers of living water will flow from our heart, and we will bear fruit twelve months of the year. She is the follower of Christ par excellence and the sure way to her Son.

A friend of mine regularly visits another blog; yesterday (was it only yesterday?), he alerted me to the fact that a discussion on that blog was addressing the question of whether or not the Fall had anything to do with sex. I had never been to that blog, but he told people about this site. Some of them commented about what I was saying on that site, so I responded over there. Today’s entry will be what I wrote over there; if you want to see the discussion going on there, go here. It is a rather long discussion, and the material relating to this blog begins toward the bottom.

Here is what I posted there tonight:
Fr. John Wauck wrote, "...Pullman is wrong to describe the Church as spending the last 2,000 years advocating a theological position that hasn’t even existed for 2,000 years, that flies in the face of the scriptural text, and that the Church not only never officially taught but also had to combat and condemn on a number of occasions?" From what I understand, Pullman is saying that Christianity has been saying since its inception that sex is bad; the Church surely condemns such a position. I am not sure if Father's comment was meant as a response to my blog and the theory I am defending there. Maybe not, but if it was, that is a misunderstanding of my theory. In fact, my theory doesn't even make sense if marital relations are not good; my theory makes most sense if marital relations are the highest good of the natural world.

The hinge of my theory is that the tree of life is the believing, trusting, obedient, loving heart and that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is marital relations. As far as I am aware, the Church has never condemned such a position. If it has, I need to disavow myself of my error; please let me know. As someone who desires above all to be a faithful son of the Church, I am "prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of the faithful" (Humani Generis #36). However, at this moment, it is my understanding that my theory has never been condemned; if it has, then there is no further discussion needed.

Marriage is a "great mystery" symbolizing the relationship between Christ and His Church. Nothing is more important, other than the Trinity itself, than the relationship between Christ and His Church, and therefore, there is nothing greater on this earth than marriage. God gives us free will, hides Himself, and tests us to see if we truly trust and love Him. In the Old Testament, there is no one tested as severely as Abraham, other than the man and the woman. His test? He was to kill his only son, the son through whom God promised to give Abraham descendants as many as the sand on the seashore.

He asked our first parents (Eve was only named after the Fall because she has just conceived Cain) to forgo the highest natural good, which is the symbol of the highest supernatural good, to obtain the highest supernatural good. Their trial of faith, which went beyond their intellect, was to tell them to be fruitful and multiply but not to have relations. Relations are good, and that is what the woman saw, but God had a higher gift planned. He wanted to give them more than the symbol (marriage), He wanted to give them the reality (mystical marriage). We are all called to holiness, but there is no holiness without deep prayer; the endpoint of prayer is mystical marriage, and the reason there is no marriage in heaven is because we are all married to God as members of His Body, the Church.

My main point is that God wants you and me as His spouse; He calls each and every one of us to the deep prayer of mystical union. That is true for priest, nun, husband, wife, and single from every occupation.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Repentance "Imprisons" Jesus In Our Heart

There is a connection in two passages from today’s and tomorrow’s Mass readings. In today’s entrance antiphon, it says: “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest; he will do what is in my heart and in my mind, says the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:35). This passage has a connection to the Gospel for Sunday’s Mass when Jesus begins His ministry and starts to preach: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:18).

The connection between these two passages is that they both have to do with the heart. The heart has a connection to my theory because the tree of life in the Garden of Eden is the heart. We have life when we are united with He Who Lives; we eat from the tree of life when we love, trust and obey God; when our heart turns back to God, when we repent, then we do what is in God’s heart to do. With a heart connected to God, our mind and heart conforms to God’s heart and mind.

The passage from 1 Samuel 2 proclaims the condemnation of the priest Eli and his family for not being faithful to God and for only being concerned with what was to their personal benefit: they did not care for God or others. God rejects them, and He says He will raise up for Himself a new, faithful priest who will do what God would have him do. Immediately following this prophecy, God calls Samuel and reveals Himself to the boy. Samuel is the new, faithful priest who will please the heart and mind of God.

Jesus begins His public preaching with the call to repent. Repentance means a turning back, and it signifies our hearts turning back to God. We have forsaken God and sought after ourselves like Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, and we need to turn our hearts back to God like Samuel. Our hearts are meant to be a holy home for Almighty God, and so our hearts first have to turn back in love to our Maker to receive His life and love.

Jesus says two closely related items: the first is “repent,” and the second is, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Insofar as we turn our hearts to God again, insofar as we open ourselves to Him once more, He comes to dwell in our hearts. Where He dwells, there is heaven. Thus, repentance is the doorway to the kingdom of heaven. Heaven will forever remain unattainable as long as repentance is missing. Repentance is the all-powerful act whereby even the gates of heaven cannot resist its abilities. The repentant heart is the home for Jesus, whom it makes its permanent prisoner, and Jesus said of this heart which turns in love to Him, “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38). Living waters flow out of the tree of life.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

"You Will be a Watered Garden"

On Friday there were some good scripture passages on which to comment. The first came from the responsorial psalm, Psalm 51: “For you are not pleased with sacrifices; should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it. My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.” God wants our hearts, and when we turn to Him, humble and seeking His help, He loves to come to our aid.

God is not pleased in animal sacrifices in themselves; the Israelites were worshipping fertility gods symbolized by bulls (calves) and goats, so God had them sacrifice their very gods. Killing and eating one’s gods does not make for happy gods. They had to sacrifice lambs because, insofar as they sinned, they were worshipping themselves. Thus, animal sacrifices were a good penitential act showing God that one wasn’t going to worship those false gods, but it didn’t mean that one couldn’t find some other false gods to worship. Animal sacrifice didn’t guarantee that one was loving and obeying the one true God. We show God we love Him when, humbly, we give Him our heart and our whole selves.

The second scripture passage was from Matthew 9:14-15: “The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast’.” Here, Jesus refers to Himself as the bridegroom. He is our husband. Part of my theory is that right from the beginning, God made us to be His spouse; when man and woman are made in the image and likeness of God in the very first chapter of Genesis, He is making us to be His bride. We were stolen by Satan in the garden, so God comes to earth to win back His wayward bride. The Catholic life is the life of a bride of Christ who receives His body and blood in the Eucharist to bear fruit for God.

Today, Saturday, also had some readings which resonate with my theory. The first reading is from Isaiah 58: 9-14: “Thus says the LORD: If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; ‘Repairer of the breach,’ they shall call you, ‘Restorer of ruined homesteads.’ If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the LORD’s holy day honorable; if you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice then you shall delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will nourish you with the heritage of Jacob, your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

This passage consists of two parallel parts. They are both structured saying, if you do this good deed, then something good will happen to you. The good that will happen in the first half is that God will give plenty, renew your strength, and you will be like a watered garden and an ever flowing spring of water. The second half says that you will delight in the Lord and be nourished. The two rewards seem to be arranged in a chiasm that looks like this:
A God will give you strength and plenty
B You will be a watered garden and an ever flowing spring
B’ You will delight in the Lord
A’ You will be nourished by the Lord

What is most significant is what is in the middle. The two parallel middle parts are 1) being an ever flowing spring of water and 2) taking delight in God. They are the same thing, if my theory is correct. I say that the tree of life in Genesis two and three is both the river broken into four sections and the heart, the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God. Remember that Eden means delight, so here we have a garden and Eden. When our heart loves, trusts and obeys God, it delights in Him; when it delights in God, our hearts become the four-sectioned river or spring which always produces water and good fruit and the fulfillment of what Jesus said: “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7: 38). When our hearts are turned toward God, then He gives us strength, nourishment and plenty.

The responsorial psalm is Psalm 86, and the refrain is from verse 11: “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.” In order for our hearts to be obedient to God, we need to know what pleases Him. We ask Him to teach us His ways so that we know how to please the One who loves us.

In the gospel, Jesus calls Levi, the tax collector, to follow Him and then goes to a great banquet at his house. The scribes and Pharisees were upset that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, but Jesus responded: “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners” (Luke 5:32). Of course, we are all sinners, but only those who realize they are a sinner, only those who are contrite and humble of heart as we saw in Psalm 51, only these please God. So, we have come full circle tonight.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Benedict XVI's Homily at World Youth Day 7.20.08

Today, the Holy Father celebrated Sunday Mass at World Youth Day. The first reading of the Mass was the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles when Jesus tells the apostles, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you” (Acts 1:8). This passage is the springboard for Pope Benedict XVI’s wonderful homily. In the second paragraph, he said:

“In these days I too have come, as the Successor of Saint Peter, to this magnificent land of Australia. I have come to confirm you, my young brothers and sisters, in your faith and to encourage you to open your hearts to the power of Christ’s Spirit and the richness of his gifts. I pray that this great assembly, which unites young people “from every nation under heaven” (cf. Acts 2:5), will be a new Upper Room. May the fire of God’s love descend to fill your hearts, unite you ever more fully to the Lord and his Church, and send you forth, a new generation of apostles, to bring the world to Christ!”

The Holy Spirit, the fire of God’s love, wants to come to fill our hearts and unite us to one another in His Church and unite us to Christ Himself. Our hearts are made for the Holy Spirit because our hearts are made for love, and the Holy Spirit is the mutual love of the Father and the Son.

The Holy Father continues:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”. These words of the Risen Lord have a special meaning for those young people who will be confirmed, sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, at today’s Mass. But they are also addressed to each of us – to all those who have received the Spirit’s gift of reconciliation and new life at Baptism, who have welcomed him into their hearts as their helper and guide at Confirmation, and who daily grow in his gifts of grace through the Holy Eucharist. At each Mass, in fact, the Holy Spirit descends anew, invoked by the solemn prayer of the Church, not only to transform our gifts of bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood, but also to transform our lives, to make us, in his power, “one body, one spirit in Christ”.

Notice that the pope again mentions the heart and the Spirit’s filling the hearts of those who welcome Him through the sacrament of Confirmation. At Mass, not only are the bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but each of us is made into another Christ, insofar as we give ourselves to Him to be made new.

In the next paragraph, the Holy Father explains the power of the Holy Spirit:
But what is this “power” of the Holy Spirit? It is the power of God’s life! It is the power of the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at the dawn of creation and who, in the fullness of time, raised Jesus from the dead. It is the power which points us, and our world, towards the coming of the Kingdom of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims that a new age has begun, in which the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all humanity (cf. Lk 4:21). He himself, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin May, came among us to bring us that Spirit. As the source of our new life in Christ, the Holy Spirit is also, in a very real way, the soul of the Church, the love which binds us to the Lord and one another, and the light which opens our eyes to see all around us the wonders of God’s grace.
The Spirit hovered over the waters in the beginning and raised Jesus from the dead. The Holy Spirit is poured out over all humanity and is the soul of the Church and the light of the world.

Two paragraphs later, he continues the connection of the Spirit with water:
The power of the Spirit never ceases to fill the Church with life! Through the grace of the Church’s sacraments, that power also flows deep within us, like an underground river which nourishes our spirit and draws us ever nearer to the source of our true life, which is Christ. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who died a martyr in Rome at the beginning of the second century, has left us a splendid description of the Spirit’s power dwelling within us. He spoke of the Spirit as a fountain of living water springing up within his heart and whispering: “Come, come to the Father” (cf. Ad Rom., 6:1-9).

The Holy Spirit is like an underground river drawing us always closer to the source of true life. And then he quotes the first Saint Ignatius who said that the Spirit is a fountain of living water flowing out of our hearts quietly, drawing us to the Father. Saint Ignatius was making a reference to John 7:38 when Jesus says, “Out of your heart shall flow rivers of living water.”

The Holy Father mentions heart three more times in the next paragraph:
Yet this power, the grace of the Spirit, is not something we can merit or achieve, but only receive as pure gift. God’s love can only unleash its power when it is allowed to change us from within. We have to let it break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires. That is why prayer is so important: daily prayer, private prayer in the quiet of our hearts and before the Blessed Sacrament, and liturgical prayer in the heart of the Church. Prayer is pure receptivity to God’s grace, love in action, communion with the Spirit who dwells within us, leading us, through Jesus, in the Church, to our heavenly Father. In the power of his Spirit, Jesus is always present in our hearts, quietly waiting for us to be still with him, to hear his voice, to abide in his love, and to receive “power from on high”, enabling us to be salt and light for our world.

For God’s love to transform us, we have to be open and receive His gift, and so we must pray. We pray in the heart of the Church through the liturgy, and we pray in the quiet of our hearts where Jesus is always present and waiting for us to spend time with Him.

After asking the young people what they are going to do and what difference they are going to make, the pope said:
Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith’s rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished – not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends, the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father and building a future of hope for all humanity.

The world needs this renewal! In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair. How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns (cf. Jer 2:13) in a desperate search for meaning – the ultimate meaning that only love can give? This is the great and liberating gift which the Gospel brings: it reveals our dignity as men and women created in the image and likeness of God. It reveals humanity’s sublime calling, which is to find fulfilment [sic] in love. It discloses the truth about man and the truth about life.

Again, the Holy Father uses the imagery of water with the empty cisterns. Those who have cut God our of their lives are empty deep inside; those filled with the Holy Spirit have streams of living water welling up within them. We are made for life and love, and only in them, in God, do we find fulfillment.

He continues:
The Church also needs this renewal! She needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity, so that she can always be young in the Spirit (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4)! In today’s second reading, the Apostle Paul reminds us that each and every Christian has received a gift meant for building up the Body of Christ. The Church especially needs the gifts of young people, all young people. She needs to grow in the power of the Spirit who even now gives joy to your youth and inspires you to serve the Lord with gladness. Open your hearts to that power! I address this plea in a special way to those of you whom the Lord is calling to the priesthood and the consecrated life. Do not be afraid to say “yes” to Jesus, to find your joy in doing his will, giving yourself completely to the pursuit of holiness, and using all your talents in the service of others!

Again he mentions the heart and giving oneself completely to Christ. In the next paragraph, he continues the analogy of water and refreshment:
In a few moments, we will celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation. The Holy Spirit will descend upon the confirmands; they will be “sealed” with the gift of the Spirit and sent forth to be Christ’s witnesses. What does it mean to receive the “seal” of the Holy Spirit? It means being indelibly marked, inalterably changed, a new creation. For those who have received this gift, nothing can ever be the same! Being “baptized” in the one Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 12:13) means being set on fire with the love of God. Being “given to drink” of the Spirit means being refreshed by the beauty of the Lord’s plan for us and for the world, and becoming in turn a source of spiritual refreshment for others. Being “sealed with the Spirit” means not being afraid to stand up for Christ, letting the truth of the Gospel permeate the way we see, think and act, as we work for the triumph of the civilization of love.

The Holy Father ended his homily with one last call for every heart to open its doors to Christ:
Through the loving intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, may this Twenty-third World Youth Day be experienced as a new Upper Room, from which all of us, burning with the fire and love of the Holy Spirit, go forth to proclaim the Risen Christ and to draw every heart to him! Amen.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Each of Us is the Woman at the Well

I have been meditating on John 4 the past several days. At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus is passing through Samaria on His way to Galilee when He stops to rest at the city’s well about noon. A woman comes there to get some water, and Jesus, being thirsty, asks her for a drink. She is stupefied by the fact that a Jewish man is talking with her, and He replies, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Wells in the Old Testament were the places that the patriarchs often met the woman they would marry, so there is a marital undertone throughout this passage by the well of Jacob. The Samaritans were some of the most hated people to the Jews since they were the unfaithful remnant of the ten northern tribes of Israel after they had been mostly wiped out by Assyria in 722 B.C. and partially repopulated with foreigners. Samaria, for the most part, was what was left of Israel while the Jews remained strong down south in Judea. The Jews and Samaritans simply didn’t talk to one another if they could help it.

So here was Jesus, a Jew, talking to a Samaritan and a woman at that. She could not believe it. Jesus tells her that if she knew that she was speaking to God, and if she knew the good gifts God wants to give, she would ask Him to give her living water. She asks Him how He is going to get the water, and He responds, “…whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Jesus doesn’t answer her question, but He further clarifies the water He is talking about: the living water that He gives becomes in the one who receives it a spring of water which leads to eternal life.

The conversation moves toward the woman’s husband; she currently has no husband. She has had five, and the one she is with now, she has not married. This has a double meaning since the Samaritans had had five rulers, or husbands, too. Both the woman and the Samaritans were looking for ultimate, lasting happiness in their husbands, but they had not found it. Now Jesus, True Husband of Souls, meets her at the place of meeting a spouse, and offers to give her His life which we call grace and which is symbolized by living water.

His disciples come back from going to buy food and are amazed that Jesus is talking to this woman. The woman left her water jar to go and tell other Samaritans that she had found the Christ. “Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat of which you do not know.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has any one brought him food?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work’ ” (John 4:31-34).

This is the passage I want to look at most closely. When Jesus says to His disciples, “I have food to eat of which you do not know,” He is making a linguistic reference back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Jesus has food to eat of which they do not know, and in a similar manner, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be eaten: in both instances, there is food and not knowing or not eating. Jesus refers to the tree of life when He says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.” The tree of life is the heart that loves, trusts and obeys God; in other words, it is to do the will of God and accomplish the task given by Him.

The Samaritan woman at the well, unfaithful and sinful, symbolizes every one of us. Even though we are unworthy, Jesus is thirsty and seeks us out. He thirsts for our love, and asks us for a drink; He asks us: “Will you marry me?” On our own, we have nothing to give Him, but we can ask Him, and He will pour out His life into our hearts, making them springs of living water. In the middle of each day as we go about our mundane tasks, Jesus asks us if we will satisfy His thirst. We do so when we give our entire self to Him in love and trust and do what He commands, even and especially in the little ways.

Jesus seeks to be our husband and to give us the gift of God, which is God’s very life. To receive this most awesome gift, we have to ask for it just as the Samaritan woman did. Jesus is eager to give His life to us if we ask Him for it; He does not force His life upon us. When we receive His life in our souls, it becomes a spring of living water and leads us to eternal life.

A while later, Jesus went back to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles and said the same thing that He had said to the woman at the well. “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, ‘If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’ ’ ” (John 7: 37-38). When we love, trust, and obey God, our heart becomes a tree of life which flows with living water and bears fruit ever month of the year.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
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