Mary van Balen

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary by a word.
Morning by morning he wakens--
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
Is 50, 4


Any one who has been been a teacher knows the power of her word. The problem is the teacher never knows which word is the one that speaks a powerful message or which student will be moved. Well planned lessons may not touch the students as deeply as an honest comment rising from the heart in response to a moment. Sometimes, when a teacher feels least successful, she has spoken a word that has changed a student's life. She may never know. Only years later, perhaps, when a student returns to thank her for something she said or did does the teacher realize the difference her work has made. Read More 

THE LAST SUPPER BY BOHDAN PIASECKI

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, "Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking.
Jn 13, 21-22



It is good to know that Jesus' spirit was troubled; not that I am glad it was, but that I am encouraged that it could be. Sometimes Jesus is presented as the all-knowing God who knew that when these torturous few days were over that all would be well...so no need to be troubled. It was all in the script.

I prefer Jesus to be more like the rest of us. He had to trust the One Who Sent Him, just like we do. Read More 

PHOTO: PAUL JASMER, OSB, Scillia bifolia
Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!
"Come," my heart says, "seek his face!"
Your face, Lord, do I seek.
Do not hide your face from me.
I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart, take courage;
wait for the Lord!
Ps 27, 7-9,; 13-14


This Psalm expresses what was in my heart as I drove down the highway towards my former home yesterday. I was heading down to pick out wall paint for my brother to use as we prepare the house for sale. I was overwhelmed with all the loose ends in my life: no job, no sure plans for the fall, a dissolution that takes time to work through, and my father had taken a turn for the worse, needing more hands to help day and night.

"Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!" Those words could have been my own as I had what I sometimes call a "Tevia moment" with God, calling out through my tears: "I am worn out. I have had it. Answer me! I have chosen to work for the poor, for your church, for my family. Now I need something to open up for me!"  Read More 

Painting by Ford Maddox Brown



Then he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, knelt down, and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cupfrom me; yet, not my will by yours be done.
Lk 2241-42


Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death -
even death on a cross.
Phil 2, 6-8

"Humble God" is an oxymoron, or so it would seem; but Jesus' coming to be with us was humble from his birth to his death. He was always and completely who he had chosen to be: God embracing human form in order to reveal inclusive Divine Love and Mercy. His willingness to walk among us is beyond human comprehension. His willingness to accept death on a cross is humility beyond imagining. Yet, he Most Holy Mystery moved among us and showed us how to live, remaining faithful to his mission of Love.  Read More 

PHOTO OF SR. DOROTHY STANG
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation…They [the Jews] were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?”
Jn 11, 45-48;56


Today’s gospel is filled with tension and confusion. As I read, I can feel the pace speeding up. Many who heard him believed in him; others ran to the religious authorities to report his activities. No on knew what to do and they wondered what Jesus would do next. Surely, some said, he would not show up at the festival; he must know that he was a hunted man. The Pharisees and priests were panicky, and as is often the case when people do not understand something in their midst, they were afraid. They were afraid of Jesus, afraid of his followers, and afraid of what might happen to their power if the Romans came to put down unrest.

Jesus was a holy man who preached a radical message of mercy and forgiveness for all. His very presence caused confusion and polarized the Jews. Some heard his message, found hope, and believed. Others were scandalized. How could God’s favor be for all? Some worried about their position of leadership and power. No one who heard Jesus could remain neutral.

The uproar caused by Truth and God’s Word was not limited to ancient history. The same happens in today’s world.  Read More 

The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered, …If I am not doing the works of my Father, and then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Jn 10, 31-33, 37-38

Jesus was telling the Jews to judge him by his works. If they could not accept his words and the language he used to explain his relationship to the Holy One, then he directed them to recognize God’s work in him. The Jews were unable to see what was in front of them in part because they could not suspend judgment that was a reaction to Jesus’ words long enough to consider his life and his actions.

How often do we react negatively when someone’s speech challenges what we have been taught and what we believe without considering the person standing in front of us?  Read More 

PHOTO: ANN RICKSON




Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old,
and have you seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly , I tell you,
before Abraham was, I am.
Jn 8, 58





Many scholars look to the Old Testament prophets for a background for John’s use of “I am” in passages like the one we read today. Deutero- Isaiah uses the same Hebrew form “ego eimi that John uses in this verse, and the form is used to express YHWH’s revelation of the Divine Self to the people.

When Jesus tells those who are questioning him about his claim to have seem Abraham, Jesus uses the same words as Dt-Isa to identify himself as the one who reveals the One who sent him. As Barrett says in “Essays,” Jesus is not instructing the Jews to “…Look at me because I am identical with the Father,” but “Look at me for I am the one by looking at whom you will see the Father, since I make him known” (As quoted in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Johannine Theology 83:4).

Jesus continues to reveal the face of God to us, pointing not to himself, but to the one who sent him and to the work of brining God’s kingdom.

We can live our lives in a way that points not to ourselves, but to God. Read More 

Rublev's Trinity Inviting us to join with the Trinity, the Family who is our God


I know that you are descendants of Abraham;
yet you look for an opportunity to kill me
because there is no place in you for my word.
I declare what I have seen in the Father's presence;
as for you, you should do what you hear from the Father.
Jn 8, 37-38




I have always had difficulty with atonement theories that answered the question, "Why did Jesus have to die?" with the explanation that God's justice demanded the death of God's son in our stead. God sent the Son to die. That does not harmonize with my faith and experience of God as one who loves completely, forgives all, and desires unity with us and creation.

For many Christians, the idea of Jesus' death as his bearing the punishment deserved by us (penal substitution or substitutionary atonement) is the only understanding of the cross that they have heard. It is not the only one. Read More 

They said to him, "Who are you?"
Jesus said to them,
"Why do I speak to you at all?"
Jn 8, 25

As I read the passage from John, these words stopped me dead. I have heard them before. I have muttered them myself. I smiled, not at Jesus' frustration with those who never seemed to "get it" no matter how many ways he tried to say it: I am the one sent by God; When you see me, you see the Father; You have greater than John here..."

I smiled at the common human experience of not being able to make oneself understood. We have all been there. Mutual lack of understanding is built into the parent/child relationship. You many not be a parent, but everyone was a child. We can identify with the exasperation of the Son of God. Divinity not withstanding, he just couldn't make those people understand.

Sometimes I think most of Jesus' disciples were particularly dense. Or, more kindly, I imagine their minds were not open to a reality as radical as the one Jesus was presenting to them. I should choose the kinder interpretation because many times, I am standing right with them.

How often have I failed to recognize God-With-Me or doubted the Presence of the Holy One working in the world? Overcome with uncertainty, with the current state of humanity, I don't get it. I don't remember that as Julian of Norwich so positively proclaimed: "All will be well," and that it will be well because the One Who Created All Things will not abandon what has been made.

One the other hand, I also know there are those who, like the Psalmist in today's reading, are destitute, suffering beyond anything I have known, and who feel alone:

My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.
Because of my loud groaning,
my bones cling to my skin.
I am like an owl of the wilderness,
like a little owl of the waste places.
I lie awake;
I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
Ps 102, 4-7 Read More 

"THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE" Jesus Mafa

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?” Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”
Jn 8, 3-5; 7-11

My feminine sensibilities require that I share my reaction to the early part of the story: The woman was caught in adultery and the Law instructed that she be stoned. Surely she did not commit adultery by herself, but the patriarchal structure of society is blatantly exposed by the omission of any male culpability. These types of stories make clear that fact that Scripture was written by men and from a male point of view.

Despite that history, the story is rich in meaning, revealing the human tendency to self-righteously pass judgment on others. Jesus would have none of it. Read More