Blog

Bearing witness of Christ with the whole story of one’s life is costly. Especially when your story involves sharing shameful things. Throughout this year, I have shared with scores of people from my new church of how Jesus healed me from homosexuality. Most have never heard of such a thing; it challenges conservatives who think you cannot be healed, just obedient and miserable, and it shocks  liberals who believe nothing about homosexuality needs to be healed. On whatever poi

Does Luke 17:25 reduce His Kingdom, that swirl of holy creativity in which the blind receive sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the mute shout for joy, to the kingdom of self? Then I read that the Greek word for ‘within’ can be translated ‘among’. A light dawned: the ‘Kingdom is among us’ points to the whole Body of Christ in which each must bring his/her gift and offer it to others. In other words, the Kingdom is not mostly an interior gift that we contain and brood ov

A dear friend recently eulogized his mother with these words: ‘You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name.’ (PS 61:5) The Psalmist refers to God as the giver; my friend added to that his acknowledgement of the faith he inherited from his good, god-fearing mother. I contemplated the reference to fearing God. What does that mean? Uncomfortable with fear in our therapeutic age, certain that all shame is bad and that honoring anything greater than ourselves is a s

Before I could say a word, the worship team played John Wimber’s ‘Spirit Song’. I could not believe it: a song from the seventies written by the healing apostle that made a way for Living Waters to go to the nations, a song that still conveys the essence of Kingdom Mercy: ‘O let the Son of God enfold you, with His Spirit and His Love, let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul. O give Him all your tears of sadness, give Him all your years of pain, and you’ll enter into Lif

Prayer consisted of replaying old fears and hurts until I wondered how pure my devotion to Jesus actually was. Is silence merely ground for my self-concern? My ideas imprisoned me until I entered the kitchen and thought of Annette. How hard she had worked the day before! All our kids had been scattered on the holiday itself and so she worked tirelessly to ensure that they all could come later; she even skyped seminary-bound Katie into the mix. Then she baked and mashed and fr

— Merciful Trust ‘Trusting in Your Mercy, I walk through life like a little child, Offering You each day this heart Burning with love for Your greater glory.’ (2) St. Faustina possessed a simple trust in Jesus. Its clarity pierces hearts and moves mountains today. She saw in Christ Crucified God’s richest expression of Mercy: Water for cleansing sin, Blood to give us new life. And she trusted wholly in the power of that healing flood to save souls from hell and for heaven. In

— Mercy for a Broken Church ‘Observing myself and those who are close to me, I have come to understand how great an influence I have on other souls, not by heroic deeds, but by small actions like the movement of a hand, a look, and many other things too numerous to mention, which effect and reflect in the souls of others.’ (1475) We as the Church have been tainted and shamed by her sexual brokenness. St. Faustina is right: the holiness and hellishness of each member impact th

— Mercy for the Worldly Church ‘O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church, give us holy priests. You Yourself, maintain them in holiness. O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually set for the souls of priests. May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things.’ (1

— Mercy for Marriage ‘O Jesus, You do not give a reward for the successful performance of a work, but for the good will and the labor undertaken. Therefore, I am completely at peace, even if all my efforts and undertakings shall be thwarted or even come to naught.’ (952) In 2000, God called Desert Stream Ministries to fight for marriage in the USA. Reaching for the gold ring of ‘normal’, gay activists were seeking to redefine marriage by excluding the need for one man committ

— Boldness and Mercy ‘If the Lord demands something of a soul, He gives it the means to carry it out; through grace, He makes it capable. At the Lord’s command, the soul can undertake things beyond its expectation if God’s power and strength, which makes the soul courageous and valiant, are manifest within it.’ (1090) ‘Your assignment on earth is to beg Mercy for the whole world.’ (570) Jesus gave St. Faustina a bold calling: to immerse souls in the flood of God’s Mercy at Ca

— 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

— Mercy for Beloved Enemies ‘Be always merciful, as I am merciful. Love everyone out of love for Me, even your greatest enemies, so that My Mercy may be fully reflected in Your heart.’ (1695) St. Faustina recorded those words as she listened to God. She was distressed, as a fellow sister in her religious order was spreading lies about her. Housemates’ cool and suspicious response to Faustina alerted her to such gossip. She listened to God, sought His Mercy in order to forgive

— Misery and Mercy ‘The more miserable my soul, the more I feel the ocean of God’s mercy engulfing me and giving me greater strength and power.’ (255) St. Faustina was a weak woman with a mighty calling. She learned early on to entrust her afflictions to the God of Mercy. This is our key as well. Any being-healed one who seeks to restore others must acknowledge profound weakness in order to access the Mercy that is deeper still. We live first from the fount of Life: Christ Je

— Mercy’s Meal ‘Jesus, may Your pure and healthy blood circulate in my ailing organism, and may Your pure and healthy body transform my weak body, and may a healthy, vigorous life throb within me…’ (1089) I have the privilege of taking communion most mornings at a church down the street from me. This is my daily bread: the Word spoken, the Word broken and offered generously to hungry ones like me. At the center of this church is a huge cross, on which Christ hangs, His finish

— The Gaze from the Cross, Part 2 (Please also read Part 1, Part 3 and Part 4) ‘Remember My Passion; if you don’t believe My Words, at least believe My wounds!’ (379) We meditate on the Cross, or Passion, of Jesus because His Cross is His most exquisite and profound manifestation of Mercy for us. St. Faustina says it best: ‘The greater the suffering, the purer the love.’ (53) He endured a slow, agonizing death to give us everything He had: His water for washing away our sin (

— ‘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

— ‘The knowledge of my own misery allows me to know the immensity of Your mercy.’ (56) In order for Mercy to have its perfect way in us, we must recognize the depth of our sin. Mercy applies only to those who accept the terminal diagnosis of ‘miserable sinner.’ In that way, Mercy is not a sweet and accepting disposition that some people embody more than others; Mercy is the cure for a chronic disease—for the dehumanizing things that we perpetuate. Pope Benedict expresses it e

Day 3 of our 40 Days of Mercy Fast — ‘Rejoice, for you are closer to God in His mercy than a baby to its mother’s heart.’ (423) Our father is the perfect parent; He combines and surpasses the best virtues of both mother and father. Just as natural parents complement each other in creating children and loving them well, so does the Father’s Mercy involve two intertwining dimensions that bear fruit in us: one masculine, the other feminine. Understanding these two expressions of

We might receive foot-washing and communion and yet still not grasp the cross. Perhaps our need for that cross is not yet clear. We may still believe in our own capacity to follow Him, the self-inspired power of allegiance to Jesus. Peter the ‘Rock,’ full of bluster and unrefined zeal, helps us here. He believed himself to be among the most radical followers of Jesus. Pride came before his fall on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion. Until the midnight hour, Peter continued to be s