Lectio Divina for Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Theme: “Think” (Written in the first person)
1. Lectio
Gospel – Matthew 10:34
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.”
Jesus is not inviting me to become contentious. Rather, He is warning me that truth has consequences. The peace He offers is not the false peace that comes from avoiding difficult questions, but the peace that comes from fidelity to the Father, even when fidelity exposes wounds that others would rather leave covered.
So today’s question unsettles me:
Do I think I’m no longer banned from being a catechist simply because the bishop who removed me is no longer bishop?
Perhaps I am asking the wrong question.
The better question is: What does Christ desire of me today?
2. Meditatio
I think yesterday was quite an unexpected day at The Glenn.
I had just settled into my customary Sunday afternoon nap when a clap of thunder startled me awake. Soon rain poured from the sky, blessing us with more than two inches of desperately needed moisture. The fields drank deeply while I simply listened to the storm.
Yet even that surprise was overshadowed by what happened earlier that morning at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
The greatest miracle had already occurred—as it always does. Bread and wine became the Body and Blood of Christ. That miracle is infinitely astonishing, and yet, because it is expected, I can too easily take it for granted.
Then came the unexpected.
After Communion, our Deacon, who now serves as Director of Religious Education, announced that St. Mary’s was restoring the traditional CCD program. The parish would need catechists.
As Kim and I were leaving, he motioned me over.
“Didn’t you used to be a catechist here?”
“I was,” I replied, “until I was removed from that position by the bishop.”
He answered almost casually,
“I don’t think that would be the case now.”
That single sentence has echoed in my mind ever since.
Why wouldn’t it be the case now?
The circumstances that led to my removal have not changed. Seven years ago I publicly questioned the dedication of a religious education building to Bishop Matthiesen after learning that the monument had been erected in gratitude by a priest who had already abused children, been given a second chance by Bishop Matthiesen, and later abused minors again before finally being convicted and laicized.
The bishop who removed me acknowledged that granting that second chance had been, in his own words, a “serious mistake.” Yet the dedication remains.
Recently I asked Cardinal DiNardo whether it should be removed. His answer was thoughtful but painful: he believed removing it would cause too much division.
So I ask myself today: Has anything truly changed?
If I returned as a catechist simply because hierarchy changed, while the underlying issue remained untouched, would I merely be accepting a superficial peace?
Jesus tells me today, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace.”
Perhaps He is warning me not to confuse institutional quiet with Gospel peace.
Yet there is another temptation.
I can become so attached to yesterday’s wound that I refuse tomorrow’s invitation.
Christ never tells me to abandon truth. But neither does He ask me to define myself forever by the conflict that surrounded it.
Pope Leo XIV reminds me in Magnifica Humanitas that Christ entered history not simply to correct errors but to renew humanity itself. The Incarnate Word reveals what it means to become fully human through self-giving love. The Kingdom grows not merely by exposing what is wrong but by building what is right.
Perhaps the real question is not, “Do I have the right to return?”
Perhaps the question is,
“Can I teach Christ without allowing my unresolved hurt to become the center of my teaching?”
Like the soaked fields at The Glenn, perhaps my heart first needs to receive the rain before it can bear fruit again.
3. Oratio
Lord Jesus,
You know every thought before I think it.
You know my desire to defend the truth, and You also know how easily that desire can become tangled with my own wounded pride.
Grant me the wisdom to distinguish between the division caused by fidelity to the Gospel and the division caused by my own need to be vindicated.
If You are calling me again to teach Your faith, let it be because I love Your people more than I love winning an argument.
If You are calling me elsewhere, let me go there without resentment.
Through the intercession of Saint Henry, ruler who exercised authority with humility and sought first the Kingdom of God, obtain for me the grace to seek not honor, position, or recognition, but only faithful service.
May every decision I make begin not with what I think, but with what You desire.
Amen.
4. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)
Chesterton delighted in pointing out that the greatest obstacle to truth is often not ignorance but the curious certainty that we have already finished thinking.
The modern man imagines himself broad-minded because he refuses to reach conclusions. The Pharisee imagines himself righteous because he reached his conclusions years ago and refuses to revisit them. Both are imprisoned by their own thoughts.
Christ liberates both.
The Incarnation, as Pope Leo reminds us, reveals the perfect image of humanity because Jesus is utterly free—free enough to forgive, free enough to challenge, free enough to give Himself away entirely. His life demonstrates that truth and charity are never rivals. Truth without love hardens into ideology; love without truth dissolves into sentimentality. Only in Christ do they become one.
Perhaps I have spent seven years asking whether the Diocese should change before I could return.
Today Christ quietly asks whether I have changed.
That question does not diminish the seriousness of past failures or erase the need for justice. It asks something even more demanding: whether the Passion, Death, and Resurrection have renewed not only my opinions but my heart.
The Kingdom of God is built by men and women who have learned to think with the mind of Christ rather than merely defending the conclusions of their own minds.
Perhaps the greatest miracle is not that I finally find the right answer.
Perhaps it is that, through grace, I become the kind of person who can receive whatever answer Christ gives.