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‘Because you are lukewarm—neither hot or cold—I will spit you out of My mouth. You say, “I am rich and don’t need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.’ (Rev. 3: 16, 17) Compromised, the Samaritan ‘bride’ was willing to admit her sickness and turn toward her cure. Her apparent shamelessness masked a deep shame. Jesus gently uncovered this shame and she surrendered to Him. She needed and wanted His cover. And that was His very

This is the seventh and concluding post of my Holy Week Meditations for 2012. Please click here for the archive list of posts. Annette and I, as well as the staff here at Desert Stream Ministries, wish you a deeply blessed Easter. He is Risen! — Why was Mary Magdalene the first disciple Jesus entrusted with His resurrection? According to John’s Gospel, Peter and John raced to the empty tomb but could not comprehend Christ resurrected. Both John the Beloved and Peter the Rock

— Intimate Authority: Holy Week Meditations, 6 Mary Magdalene wept and lingered at the Cross. The Man who had become her life died. His death rocked the earth, split the temple, and broke her heart. The tears of repentance and gratitude with which she had washed His feet became a flood of grief. She watered His nail-split feet. Apart from Him, she could do nothing. She had nothing; His life was hers. She filled the void with tears. He had founded a new life in her. Now grief

— Intimate Authority: Holy Week Meditations, 3 Intimacy with Jesus made an ex-prostitute the bearer of the most important event in human history. God entrusted a woman, not one of the 12, with Christ’s resurrection. That’s why the Roman Catholic Church names Mary Magdalene the ‘Apostle of Apostles.’ Mary’s surrender to Christ was marked by weeping and lingering, two earmarks of loving another with all one’s heart. Such sustained intimacy gave Mary authority. Such reliance on

Merciful Discipline 6: Humbled, We Shine ‘When You disciplined us, we could barely whisper a prayer.’ (IS 26:16) ‘Christ’s abiding presence in the midst of our suffering is gradually transforming our darkness into light.’ Pope Benedict The sexual abuse crisis in the Church brings us to our knees. We do not kneel politely but painfully, a sprawl rather than a pose. On behalf of those felled by the weight of a priest’s perversion, we too stumble and fall. Behold the scandal we

— Intimate Authority: Holy Week Meditation, 2 Luke 7: 36-50 introduces us to Mary Magdalene. Mercy drew her out of fear and shame, and compelled her to offer herself to Him. Jesus embodied that Mercy for a prostitute. Imagine that: a kind, strong, handsome man who only wanted her good, nothing from her but her dignity. And a holy man who did not fear her and the entanglement of desires she lay at His feet. She wept and lingered there. His Mercy was magnetic, a good match for

— Perseverance and Mercy 40 Days of Mercy Devotional – Lent 2012 – Day 40 O great day, in which divine love will be confirmed in me. On that day, for the first time, I shall sing before heaven and earth the song of the Lord’s fathomless Mercy. This is my work and my mission, which the Lord has destined for me from the beginning of the world. (825) Come close to My wounds and draw from the Fountain of Life…Drink copiously from this Fountain of Life and you will not weary on y

Merciful Discipline 5: Hopeful, We Fight for the Dignity and Integrity of Our Priests The fine work and selfless dedication of the great majority of priests should not be obscured by the transgressions of some. – Pope Benedict I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do what is in My heart and mind, and his house will be firmly established. (1 Samuel 2:15) As a new Catholic, I have a fresh appreciation for the honorable, difficult office of the priest. I rely upo

— Abundance for a Lonely Son 40 Days of Mercy Devotional – Lent 2012 – Day 14 Jesus, Friend of a lonely heart, You are my haven, You are my peace. You are my salvation, You are my sovereignty in moments of struggle and amidst an ocean of doubt…You are everything to a lonely soul. (247) Who is weak and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin and I do not inwardly burn? St. Paul (2 Corinthians 11:29) Father, we too are weak. At times we are subject to desires that deride us, a

— Mercy, Not Sacrifice 40 Days of Mercy Devotional – Lent 2012 – Day 12 I am more generous towards sinners than to the just. It was for their sake that I came down from heaven; it was for their sake that My blood was spilled. Let them not fear to approach Me; they are most in need of My Mercy. (1275) It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

— Mercy and Gratitude 40 Days of Mercy Devotional – Lent 2012 – Day 11 O Jesus, the more I have known You, the more ardently I have desired You. (591) Thank You for Mercy, O God. Grant us courage to bypass the Pharisee (in our own hearts and in our churches) in order to worship You with gratitude. You have made Your Mercy known to us. We worship You, O God. Rescue those locked up in fear of the Pharisee. Make Your kind and all-powerful vision for their good evident to them. U

He made his case boldly–I am gay, I am good, I am normal. Rosie O’Donnell said it incredulously in a recent interview: ‘Can you believe in the 21st century we are still questioning whether homosexuality is normal?’ To be ‘normal’ is precisely what drives ‘gay marriage’. It is not because gays want monogamous bliss, or even particular rights; they want to cure the incurable—to demonstrate to themselves and to the culture around them that they are ‘normal’, just regular folks.

I wanted you to know that on Easter (April 2011) this past year I was confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. That significant decision began three years ago and involved two rounds of RCIA (the adult catechism course), wise counsel, and much prayer. I want to emphasize that my decision is a personal one. Desert Stream Ministries has not become Catholic; it remains ecumenical and will continue to serve a variety of churches, mostly evangelical, which seek to minister to broke

— Merciful Eyes ‘To see the image of God in every sister—all love of neighbor must flow from this motive.’ (861) How we see others must be anchored in how God sees them. ‘To love a person means to see him as God intends him to be,’ in the words of Dostoevsky. Above all else, God wants us to walk in the dignity of bearing His image and likeness. That means all men and women represent Him in their humanity; such a high call distinguishes us from the rest of creation. Sin may ha

— Patience and Mercy ‘The greatest power is hidden in patience. I see that patience always leads to victory, although not immediately; but that victory will become manifest after many years.’ (1514) During this fast, we are crying out for many ‘fruitless’ ones who have wandered far from their home in Christ. We beg God to manifest His Mercy to them. At the same time, we know that God is priming us to be merciful, an answer to our own prayers. He intends to fertilize and break

— Deep Wells of Mercy ‘He brought me into such close intimacy with Himself that my heart was espoused to His heart in a loving union; I could feel the faintest stir of His heart and He of mine. The fire of my created love was joined to the ardor of His eternal love.’ (1056) Why are the sexually broken so often the recipients of Jesus’ Mercy in the Gospels? To answer this, one must first consider the depth and power of human sexuality. God made each of us a deep well of desire

— Abundance for a Lonely Son ‘Jesus, Friend of a lonely heart, You are my haven, You are my peace. You are my salvation, You are my sovereignty in moments of struggle and amidst an ocean of doubt…You are everything to a lonely soul.’ (247) ‘The Parable of the Prodigal Son’ could just as well have been called ‘The Loneliness of His Older Brother.’ This story describes brilliantly two very different personalities with two very different responses to their generous father. The p

— ‘I am more generous towards sinners than to the just. It was for their sake that I came down from heaven; it was for their sake that My blood was spilled. Let them not fear to approach Me; they are most in need of My Mercy.’ (1275) Jesus sought out those with hearts hungry for the reign of His Kingdom. He describes that Kingdom in Luke 4:18 as good news for the poor, the imprisoned, the blind, and the oppressed. Missing from that Kingdom ‘call’ were dutiful members of the r

‘O Jesus, the more I have known You, the more ardently I have desired You.’ (591) This woman loved Jesus from a distance; she had witnessed His healings, listened to His teachings and been converted by His powerful love for the lost and the least. She was among them, ‘a sinful woman’, probably a prostitute. We can assume her shame and also her despair, until God revealed Himself to her. Before she met Jesus, the face of God for her was the Pharisee’s: exacting, decent, exclus