Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

5/3/20: 4th Sunday of Easter: The Shepherd Who Searches for You

On this 'Good Shepherd' Sunday we are invited to meditate on Jesus the Good Shepherd, and I am brought immediately to the parable that Jesus tells about the shepherd who has a hundred sheep and who is willing to leave the other ninety-nine if one gets lost. This says much about the heart of the Good Shepherd -- that he doesn't need to analyze the risks involved before going out to seek and save the lost one but does it without hesitation. What if we to see our own lives with God in this way -- not so much our seeking for Him, but His seeking for us! Then we would realize that living the Christian life is not about our struggle to find God but about allowing ourselves to be found by Him.

4/26/20: 3rd Sunday of Easter: With Downcast Eyes We Cannot Recognize God

Today we hear the magnificent Gospel passage about the encounter between Jesus and the disciples on the road to Emmaus. The passage begins by telling us that the disciples are leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus. This should get our attention because throughout most of Luke's gospel Jesus is going towards Jerusalem. That these disciples are going away from Jerusalem tell us what their spiritual and psychological reality is: Discouraged by what has happened to Jesus, they are moving away from the place where there is communion with God. But in his compassion Jesus does not allow them to by themselves but chooses to walk with them on their road of discouragement. But because their eyes are "downcast", they are unable to recognize that it is Jesus -- God in person -- who has come to walk with them. Only when he breaks the bread for them do they finally recognize him. May we lift our downcast eyes to see not only earthly things but also the heavenly reality: Jesus who comes to walk with his disciples in their sin and suffering and to lead us back to Jerusalem, back to communion with God!

4/19/20: 2nd Sunday of Easter: The Healing Power of Forgiveness (a.k.a. The Wisdom of Dolly Parton)

When Jesus appears in the locked Upper Room with the disciples, it is the first time that they are encountering him since they abandoned him and fled at the time of his passion. His first words to these so-called friends? "Peace be with you." This word of peace is a word of restoration of relationship -- a word of forgiveness. It restores joy to the disciples. On this Divine Mercy Sunday we reflect on the gift of God's forgiveness and the healing power that forgiveness has in our own lives.

4/12/20: Easter Sunday: The Life that Breaks Forth from Jesus

On this Easter Sunday we hear the Gospel of Mary and the disciples discovering the empty tomb. St. John tells us -- unlike the other Gospel writers -- that they discover the empty tomb "in the night". He is referring to the darkness of their faith at that moment. Death has a finality to it that fills us with dread. The repulsion and fear that we feel in the face of death was ritualized in the Jewish impurity laws. Touching a dead body was believed to render a person unclean for days -- so contagious was death that it was thought to infect life with its disorder. But Jesus does the opposite... By allowing death to touch him to the core, he was not rendered unclean. In fact, he is so clean that he is able to transform death so that it no longer carries with it the finality that it once had. In Jesus death no longer has the last word. This is what is shown to us in the Resurrection!

4/10/20: Good Friday: The Cup the Father Gave Us

The Passion of St. John begins and ends in a garden, a seemingly insignificant detail that helps us to understand what is happening here. Just like a serpent (Satan) intruded into the Garden of Eden, so Judas (under the influence of Satan) intrudes into the garden of the Lord's Passion. While the old Adam succumbs to Satan's influence in disobedience to the Father, the new Adam is victorious over Satan. Even though Jesus allows himself to be taken and to suffer, because he remains obedient to the Father, he is (despite appearances) victorious over sin and death.

4/9/20: Holy Thursday: Unless We Let Jesus Wash Us...

Whenever we read John's Gospel, we are reading multiple layers of meaning. There is the historical-literal level that gives an historical account of something that Jesus said or did. But underneath that level is a deeper level that has a profound, spiritual meaning. This can certainly be said of John 13: the account of the Last Supper. This perspective gives us the story of Jesus's washing the feet of the disciples. Peter doesn't want to let Jesus touch this soiled, smelly part of his body. Yet he acquiesces, as Jesus tells him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me." This leads us into the spiritual level... the washing is not just a service performed in charity and humility but also points to the washing in blood that Jesus is going to accomplish on the Cross. So Jesus washes their feet as a sign pointing to the service that He is offering them and that they must except: The cleansing of the soul by being washed in his blood -- accepting baptism and the forgiveness of sins.

4/5/20: Palm Sunday: The Lent We Wanted but Didn't Have

In today's magnificent Gospel of the Passion of Jesus from Matthew's Gospel, there's an emphasis on the human suffering of Jesus. He is presented to us as the Suffering Servant from Isaiah's Gospel (Isaiah 53) who atones for the sins of the world and redeems it through his suffering. One example of the human suffering of Jesus is the profound psychological suffering we see in the Agony of the Garden. Jesus is gripped by anxiety; yet, he is able to call upon his Abba ("Daddy"), and trustingly commit his life into his Father's hands. This image is a good one for us as this Lent draws to a close. We may not have had the Lent we wanted. But this Holy Week we have the opportunity to choose and live not the Lent we wanted but the Lent our Father, our "Daddy", has given us.

Bible Study: The Raising of Lazarus

While in the homily for Sunday we talked about the overall symbolism John is using in the dramatic miracle of the raising of Lazarus, today we look more closely at some details of the story which help to draw us into the mystery of why God allows pain and suffering in the first place and how the resuscitation of Lazarus is actually a symbol of Christ's resurrection... and our own!

3/29/20: 5th Sunday of Lent: Jesus, the Remedy for our Spiritual Death

The past three weeks we have heard three dramatic stories of encounters with Jesus from John's Gospel: the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus. In each, the person encountered has a desperate problem. In each, Jesus provides the remedy. Looking at these stories from a spiritual perspective, we see how our own problems -- our unquenchable thirst, our spiritual blindness, and the death that occurs in our souls because of sin -- have a remedy: Baptism and life in Christ. 

Bible Study: Annunciation #2 (Luke 1)

During this time of staying at home, why not dive a little deeper into the Scriptures? Today we focus on the Annunciation to Zachariah of the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1) and compare/contrast with the Annunciation to Mary of the birth of Jesus.