Use the following meditation to help you reflect more deeply on the Scripture (you may want to read the passage again).

Hardness of heart is a terrifying sin. It seems to be a sin of strength, rather than weakness. Pharaoh had power over nations, yet his heart was hardened by pride and control. When the True God came to meet him through the prophet, Moses, he refused to listen. He can not risk losing his power over the Israelites. The Pharisees in today's gospel are the same. They have power thanks to their learning. They know the scriptures and enjoy influence among the people. Yet when the incarnate God is in their midst, they refuse to listen. They only think of ways to cling to their power.

This is not just a temptation for powerful people. It can strike us as well, especially if we have been living the spiritual life for a while. We, like the pharisees can get comfortable with the way things are. We have given at least some of our life to God. We are not bad people, (for the most part.) We pray occasionally. We tolerate people. Isn’t this enough? Not for God. He wants to come into our lives to heal us radically. He wants us to truly love our neighbor. Faced with this dramatic change, will our hearts be hardened? Will the stern gaze of God fall upon us? Or, will we, like the man with the withered hand, see that we are the ones that need healing? The pharisees thought they were strong. The man with the withered hand knew he was weak. They both needed God. May God give us the true strength of a heart that is vulnerable to Him.

These questions are to be used to talk to God; have a conversation with the Lord about these questions and what is going on in your heart as you pray today.
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Where has my heart grown hardened? Have I become complacent in my relationship with God?

​How can I be less like the pharisees?

What is my withered hand? What do I need to be healed of?

In this step, you listen. Stop talking, let God speak to your heart. You may repeat one of these short phrases to focus your mind on the Lord.
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"Heal me, Lord."

"Let my heart not become hardened."

"Lord, I need you."

In light of today's reading and your time spent in prayer with the Lord, what concrete action or actions will you take to let this encounter with the Lord bear fruit in you today?
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Examine the ways that your heart has become hardened and ask the Lord to remove that hardness of heart in order to bring you the healing you need and desire.

​“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Hmmmm….I kind of took that like, “Hey, we get there are rules, but we’re hungry human beings, where is the compassion for us to eat a little grain?”

How often are we slaves to our jobs or school or hobbies or our never ending ‘to do’ lists or our diet and workout programs? Do you sometimes feel like there are a lot of rules you need to follow but yet the ‘most important rules’ you do not follow as much as you would like or sometimes not at all? 

And those rules would be The Greatest Commandments - “Love the one and only God with all your body, mind, soul and strength,” especially on Sunday. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” whether you know them, like them or agree with them.

So, if it is possible - let’s try to not do things on Sunday that can be done on another day of the week. Especially if it takes us away from Mass or our families or from people who are in need. 

If we can only do things on Sunday, great, but try to keep it at a minimum. And of course, some people must work and provide for their families and their jobs require them to work on Sunday, I get it! Which is why we need to keep it in perspective and back to "Man is not made for the Sabbath."

But for those of us who do not have this constraint, let’s really try to make the Lord’s day what it is supposed to be about- and that is for us to worship, rest and thank Him all day long. Let’s spend time with our families and friends on this special day and share our love for one another.

We can all remember one of those summer barbecues from your family or your uncle’s or neighbor’s or somewhere you felt there was something special at that party and everyone knew it. Was it the people, was it the food, was it the energy, was it the … love?

I think it always is the love and when there is a lot of love, it spills over and creates more love almost like it is contagious and multiplying itself. Let’s try that: fill our Sunday (and every day) with the best love ever and share God’s love and the love we have for each other.

In what ways am I respecting the Sabbath? How am I not?

How can I spend more energy making the Sabbath about God and not me?

​How is God calling me to spill over love to others in my life?

"Jesus, I trust in you."

"Let me overflow with your love."

​"Help me be transformed."

Make an effort to organize your week schedule to free up this coming Sunday. Try to keep Sunday free so you can respect it as the Sabbath and let the focus be all on God!

I bet that if you were living in the time of Jesus you would have a lot of questions. Some of the things that Jesus did and said were different than the current way of doing things and might have seemed strange. For instance, in today's Gospel, we see that people are questioning why the disciples of Jesus do not fast. Fasting was a very common practice at this time, and it was deeply embedded into the lives of the people. It would seem strange to everyone that Jesus' disciples would not participate in the same fasting. But just like everything Jesus did and said-there is a deeper meaning, a deeper teaching. Jesus came to show us the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus coming changed everything, and it is clear that you can't keep on living as if He never came. Things about our lives need to change in light of the fact that Jesus entered our world to save us. Doing those things would be as ridiculous as pouring new wine into old wineskins. It just doesn't make sense to do that! There will be a time and place for fasting, but for right now, the disciples are walking side by side with Jesus. You don't fast at a wedding - you celebrate. Jesus is very clear that there will be time for fasting; its just not right now. All His examples lead us to recognize that Jesus is in their midst and because of that, things look a little different. 
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When we look at our own lives, we can see ourselves as the wineskins. Jesus is pouring new abundant wine into our hearts every day, and because of this, we need to change. We can't have this new wine poured into the old wineskins of our hearts. It just won't work. But Jesus gives us new wine and new wineskins. He can make all things new. Even when it seems ridiculous or strange, God can do all things. 

The Church has seasons of fasting and seasons of feasting. How do you practice each?

What do you want the Lord to make new?

​What in your life do you know you need to change because the Lord has come?

"He makes all things new."

"God can do all things."

"Jesus changed everything."

Fridays are typically days of fasting (feast days excluded). How do you fast on Fridays? Or how you can begin to fast?

Sundays are feast days, days of celebration. How can you feast on Sundays?

What an amazing set of readings we have for this Sunday in Ordinary Time. We are going to meditate on this passage from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, but I highly recommend going and reading all of the readings if you didn't already because they tie together beautifully. 

There is something uniquely painful about any time that we are left alone or forgotten. When we realize that, for one reason or another, someone for whom we care deeply does not care for us in a similar way, it is painful. At the core of who we are is a desire to be seen, a desire to be loved, and a desire to be cared for. 

The inverse of that, of course, is also true. Put in a positive way, when we are truly seen, known, and cared for, it is a powerful thing. When there is someone who sees us—the good, the bad, and everything in between—and loves us exactly as we are, that is powerful. We all desire to be loved like that and we all deserve to be loved like that. We are created for relationships of love, and whether that is lived out in our lives now and during the rest of them in friendships, religious community, marriage, family, or any other legitimate way that God brings us people who love us and know us, those relationships give us the experience of being seen and known. 

In today's reading from Isaiah, we hear of a moment when the Israelite people are being promised again that they will be seen, known, and loved. This book contains a lot of struggle, as the people deal with an exile from their promised land and the lack of fulfillment of God's promises to them for a kingdom of their own. They hear this good news from Isaiah and oh how good it must have sounded: He will come for you! I will not stop speaking out for you and fighting for you, God is saying, until you are back in relationship with me because I delight in you. 

This is a profound key to the spiritual life of the Christian: living in relationship with God is not first about our action but His. God takes the initiative to come after us, and we simply allow ourselves to be seen, to be loved, and to be delighted in. 

Flash forward to today's Gospel, of course, and we see this action on God's part happening. At a wedding, which symbolically reminds us of the promise of God in this reading and throughout the Old Testament that God will wed himself to his people, Jesus begins the public ministry by which he will bring all people back into an intimate, personal, and real relationship with the Father. We are his people, his bride, who will be able to be in a relationship of love and intimacy with God for all of eternity, beginning right here and now. 

For you and I today: how do we respond to God's initiative? He is looking at us and saying: I will not be silent in your life! I delight in you, I love you, and I desire for you to be my bride, my people, the ones who are close to me forever. Are we responding to that call, and letting God's action be fruitful in our lives? 

God has not stopped working in the world, and he will not. He is seeking you and I; let's allow ourselves to be found. 

How are you responding to God's initiative in your life? How can you do a better job of hearing him and then responding? 

In what ways are you seeing the fruitfulness of God's love in your life and the lives of those around you?

What is your relationship with God like today? What holds you back from truly being deeply in relationship with him each day?

"Thank you Jesus."

"You are good, Lord."

"Come, Holy Spirit."

It's not too late to make a resolution for the year or too early to begin thinking about Lent. In a journal or somewhere that you write things down, jot down some notes of the relationship you are feeling called to enter into with God this year. Maybe you feel like he's asking you to be closer to him, or maybe he wants to do something new. Then, take those words or ideas to prayer: how can the next few weeks or months be about truly encountering him and entering into that relationship you desire to have?