Let God be who God is. This is often one of the hardest things to do. Rather than allowing the mystery of being created in the image and likeness of God unfold and take root in our lives, we change the dynamic. We want to be the creators who want to make God into the image and likeness we need God to be. We have a hard-enough time letting the people in our lives be who they are. We struggle even more so with God. It is almost as if we want God to be our imaginary friend who is not only with us whenever we need but becomes the Being we need God to be. Who is it that we want God to be today? A protector, disciplinarian, champion for justice, healer, advocate for our cause, grantor of prayers, guardian of my life, or the avenger? Our prayers tell an interesting story. When you pray, what does God look like?

The book of Acts unpacks the events immediately following Jesus’ ascension into heaven. The Apostles and other disciples were told to pray in Jerusalem and await another outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As the weeks ticked on, the Jewish Festival of Weeks approached. This festival took place 50 days after Passover and celebrated the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. The Festival of Weeks (or “Pentecost” in Greek) was a great pilgrimage feast, with Jews from all over the ancient world convening on Jerusalem for the celebration.

“God remains where love remains. When a believer realizes without doubt that God is love, it is a powerful moment. Being able to place our resurrection trust in this fundamental truth allows us to experience God’s presence in all of our experiences: the good and the bad, positive and negative, life enriching and destructive events we encounter. It is no wonder that St. Paul so accurately tells us that it is love that endures all things and lasts. How can God not endure or ever fade away? Because he is God, Jesus also guarded and protected his disciples as the endearing shepherd who always had their best interest at heart.

“Remain in my love,” and, “I call you friends,” are powerful words that are found in John’s Gospel. Most of us probably have them committed to memory or have at least heard them proclaimed dozens of times. They are words that can easily become trite and quickly glossed over without fully pondering and digesting their profound beauty. When we take the time to immerse ourselves in them, they can radically change our lives and our relationships. They can open up new doors of adventure and hold countless possibilities for meaning. The essence of love and friendship are things that can easily be taken for granted. They have always been there and are a significant part of our lives. Many would say that they could not live without love and friendship, and they put a great deal of care into preserving, deepening and sustaining them. Love and friendship share a mutual relationship with each other that deserves more reflection.

"Spiraling out of control," is a phrase that can easily describe the current display of human existence. In addition to the violence, unrest, uneasiness and turmoil that are common elements of our daily news, other essential pieces are misplaced or missing. Many lack an objective center around which to order and structure their lives or a clear set of definable goals or mores to act as guideposts and life directives. It appears that "feelings" have become a "new god" and traditional structures and ideals set aside. It is almost as if history only shows that we got this whole thing wrong and many are determined to finally set things right. The real truth, however, is that while wrongs and errors are certainly a part of our often-checkered past, it is hardly the case that all was wrong. It is not our task to rewrite the history of our lives, but to learn from mistakes that were made, and preserve the perennial wisdom at the root of our successes. Learning is an essential part of being human.

Any builder worth his or her salt knows the value and importance of a cornerstone. Properly laying and securing this primary unit determines how the rest of the project unfolds and its success. Cornerstones are necessary elements not only of buildings but of lives as well. Many human beings conduct the business of their lives paying little attention to a grounding reference or starting point. Hence, what unfolds is a tapestry of relativism, with few anchors or guideposts and many impulsive choices. Some consider love to be their cornerstone. While this may sound attractive and useful, the pursuit of love without a simultaneous pursuit of its source can be shallow and self-focused. Just because a person chooses to do no harm and love others does not mean that they are living in truth and properly anchored to the real cornerstone.

We often act out of ignorance. Armed with the best of intentions, we think we are seeing clearly and correctly, but we are not. We don’t always understand the full meaning of things and only perceive part of the truth. Hence, our judgments and actions can be impaired by myopic, incomplete or erroneous perceptions. The meaning of life, understanding of human experience, and negotiating life’s challenges can all become skewed without proper understanding and vision. The resurrection of Christ is the corrective to our incomplete and limited view of life. Looking at things with the eyes of faith brings a depth of clarity and understanding to how we see God, ourselves, others, and the world.

What a wonderful joy fills us today as we ponder the inexhaustible mercy of God. "Mercy is the heart of God," Pope Francis tells us. The image of a heart has been used to point to the very life source of a person as it is the organ that allows life to flow through our veins and sustain us. Mercy is the heart of God. Imagine this dynamic, powerful, compassionate, piercing, embracing, loving, propelling, penetrating, absorbing, and enveloping, transforming presence of God flowing into the very depth of our souls. It is God's mercy that allows blood to flow through our veins. It is God's mercy that forms every atom of our being and leads us to what is true. God's mercy reveals all superficiality and falsehood, and lays bare all distortions, empty promises, weakness, and sin.

The resurrection of Jesus gives our faith voice, purpose, and meaning. “Our faith would have been in vain if Christ had not risen from the dead,” says St. Paul.

But besides that, the Resurrection has other implications for our lives. Do you know that because Jesus is risen, we too have the power to rise? We have the power to break away from the graves that often plague our lives, such as financial graves, emotional graves, marital graves, the graves of hopelessness, meaninglessness, alcohol, drugs, the graves of sadness, grief, depression, and despair.

Many struggle with Jesus. Some who consider themselves faithful hail him in their churches but still struggle to figure out what to do with him on our streets. The message is somehow more palatable when it echoes pious renderings and sentiments and involves singing hosannas during worship. It becomes a bit trickier when it gets to the part about changing the way we conduct the business of our lives, becoming more sensitive to the disadvantaged, poor, and marginalized, and living as servants of our Loving Creator. Ultimately, it is a struggle between wanting to be God ourselves and letting God be God as God is. That’s why it’s so easy to become hypocritical. We, like those who hailed Christ as he arrived in Jerusalem and sent Christ to the cross to die, also talk out of both sides of our mouths. We entertain what suits us at the time and walk away from the rest.

Any good teacher or parent will tell you that once a lesson is really learned it doesn't need to be taught again. When we internalize things we have learned, they become a part of who we are and influence how we perceive and interact with our world. The same is true for the law God has written upon our hearts. Once humanity learns this lesson, we will simply know it to be true and act accordingly. Sometimes, it is hard to get people to learn the lessons they need to learn. They are often distracted, disinterested, conflicted, misdirected, or just too stubborn and unable or unwilling to see what is right before their eyes. Understanding that God is in a loving and committed relationship with those fashioned and formed in God's own image, seems like such a simple lesson to learn. But history and experience has proven that it is not.

Is there something to Lent that goes beyond our own spiritual house cleaning and spiritual refinement? Yes, there is! It has to do with listening and learning so that we can take up the task of the Gospel with greater clarity and fortitude. While the spiritual refocusing of Lent is necessary, the fruit of this Lenten conversion has much more to do with learning how we can be a better Church than it does about our eternal salvation. Salvation is a gift that flows out of God’s unconditional Mercy and cannot be merited. The spiritual maturity we can experience as a result of our Lenten disciplines serves to reduce the anxiety and apprehension we may experience as messengers of good, but very challenging, and unsettling, news.

Many prefer a “create as you go” approach to life where laws and protocols primarily exist to secure and protect liberties rather than dictate and outline proper and right behavior. There are no real benchmarks for acceptable ethical and moral behavior, with a “you can’t tell me what to do” attitude prevailing. Parents are even limited in what they can request of their children, and dealing with threatening behaviors, especially from adults, are a challenge as well. Acceptable and expected conduct seems to amount to safeguarding each other’s space rather than increasing awareness of necessary relationships that require a more refined and higher response.