Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

Jan 08 2025

The Tender Voice of Jesus

Around the corner from my office is a statue by sculptor Ivan Mestrovic of the encounter between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. The Lord is looking straight at the woman. The woman is clinging to a large jar and looking down. It is midday. What did this woman expect when she woke up that day? Another dry and empty day as the pariah of the town? In Mosaic law, it is the husband who divorces the wife, so she has already been cast off five times. And her current live-in has not married her. Yet here is a bone weary male Jewish stranger, asking her for a drink. Asking her for a drink. Apparently from her bucket. No wonder she is looking down. This statue on the Notre Dame campus freezes time right there. But in the Gospel, we hear Jesus tenderly poke and prod and speak to her until she opens up and lifts her head. He holds out to her an abundance of the water of life, greater than she has ever imagined. And she takes it.

She drops her bucket (to which she clings so tightly in the statue) and runs to tell the news about the stranger. When she comes back, she doesn’t bring a bucket; she brings a whole village!

In art, we look at spaces, not just objects. What most impresses me about Mestrovic’s statue is the tenderness in the space between the two characters. Some of us are preachers, some are teachers. Whatever our ministry in life, when we seek to help people come to God, it is that tone of tenderness that crosses divides. More important than words, come into the space with gentleness. Living water will flow.

Consider/Discuss

Jesus also entrusts his thirst to us. We encounter him in order to be filled. Yet he has no bucket but ours. What is our role in fulfilling Jesus’ mission to the thirsty world in which we live?
Read through the Gospel again, this time imagining great tenderness in the voice of Jesus. How do you hear the passage differently?

Living and Praying with the Word

Like the woman at the well and the Israelites in the desert, Lord, sometimes we wonder if you—or anyone—cares. Yet you continue to tenderly poke and prod and speak to us. Help us to raise our eyes and see you looking at us with love. As we continue on through this Lent, bring us to repentance and to glory, but also deepen our tenderness in our mission to bring living water to those who thirst for you.

Jan 08 2025

The Divine Brilliance

I have been to the Holy Land once. I recall sitting on the bus with the sunshine of the morning sky flickering through the windows. As we bounced along, I realized how my early sandbox experiences of the warmth of the sun have deeply impacted my image of God.

As we drove north from Nazareth, I wondered how the radiance of the sunshine also impacted Jesus’ youngest images of his God as Father. Jesus rested by the Sea of Galilee that shimmers in the midday sun. Jesus climbed Mount Tabor that radiates with light. Jesus prayed on the Mount of Olives, where the clouds and the sky gleam with vibrant color. What stands out in my memory is the Holy Land’s brilliance. The Word became flesh in a place of luminous beauty.

In today’s readings, Abram and Paul and the apostles have glimpsed that radiance. Later in Genesis, Abram senses glory in the splendor of the stars in a deeply black sky, and believes. Paul himself has obviously experienced that magnificence, for he calls Timothy to grab hold of it. The apostles see it in the person of Jesus, transfigured in front of them. He is dazzling! He is radiant! He is bright! This is the deeper reality of the glory of the Son of God. Peter and James and John get a preview of that glory and they don’t really know what to do with it.

We may have also seen flickers of God’s glory. Yet more radiance surrounds us than meets the eye. What we may have glimpsed is as faint as the light of a candle compared to the brilliance of the sun. The dazzling One surrounds us and enfolds us at all times. The holy Light will transform us if we let it.

Consider/Discuss

In prayer, have you seen it? Have you ever felt your rib cage so swell up with holy warmth that you almost could burst? Have you seen that Radiance? Have you felt just on the edge of that “more?” Share your story with another believer whom you trust.
We see the grandeur of a sunset, dazzling sparkles in the snow, or the shimmer of light on the water. In our sacramental understanding of the created world, flashes of earthly beauty lead us to the grandeur of God. This week, take a few extra moments to absorb and delight in the radiant beauty that surrounds you.

Living and Praying with the Word

Shower your steadfast light upon us, O Lord. You have flashed, you have revealed, and you have bathed us with your glory. Yet we cannot begin to contain your luminous beauty. Cleanse us this Lent so that we are more fitting vessels for your grandeur. Stir the spark of our faith until it has been stirred into a living flame of love. Then help us to overflow with your joy so that others may behold you as well.

Jan 08 2025

Called to Be True

In the fourth century A.D., Christianity became legal and then mandatory. To “follow Jesus” grew to be a soft way of life. Anybody and everybody could (and then should) be a Christian. Within one lifetime, the faith that had required its followers to be willing to be torn apart by lions now became “good for business.” What happened as a result? Men and women, turned off to a tamed Christianity, flocked to the Egyptian desert. In the desert, they shed the “fat” of mainstream acceptance. They strove to be pure and obedient and true in their faith. Desert monasticism flourished.

Jesus also was led into the desert. The Judean desert is stark. No trees offer shade. The sun beats down mercilessly. Ninety-five degrees is a cool day in May. For forty days, Jesus’ hunger intensified. If he had any fat on his body, it shriveled up. Three times he was tempted to take the easier path. Three times he stayed true to his mission and to his God: I will love the Lord alone!

Adam and Eve didn’t think that they needed to do what God told them. When found out, they tried to evade the One who sought them in love, like a guilty toddler hiding behind the couch crying out, “Don’t look at me!” They squirmed away from right and wrong.

As you and I move into this season of Lent, what does it mean for us to be true to God? The world around us may tempt us to be soft: lies and posturing and deceit proliferate in our culture and even in our Church. Lent is the season to grow more holy, our time to go to the desert. This is our ascetic season. This is our opportunity to strip away the fat that weighs down our spiritual and moral life.

Consider/Discuss

King David is called to truth by the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 11—13). He cries out, “O God, create a pure heart in me. Give me a new and steadfast spirit!” What does it mean to you to be true? What tempts you to take a “softer” path?
As we come before God in prayer, is there some part within us that wants to hide behind the couch and not be seen?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, sometimes we squirm away from obedience. You call us to look you straight in the eye and remain steadfast in following you, no matter the cost. But sometimes it is more comfortable to go the softer way. When we are tempted to disregard what our conscience tells us is right, fill us with the strength to stand fast. As we enter into this Lenten season, strip away the fat that encases our spiritual and moral life. Give us the grace to follow you more purely.

Jan 08 2025

Be Holy as the Lord Is Holy

When I taught high school theology, on the first day of the semester, I had a student proudly walk into my sophomore morality class with a colorfully decorated binder. She showed off to me her cover picture of Moses holding two stone tablets. On the tablets was written, “The Ten Suggestions.” She grinned at me as only a teenager can, whimsically testing, as if to ask, “What do you, teacher, think about my cleverness in re-casting the Ten Commandments?” with a shrug of the shoulder of “Who do you think you are to tell me what I should do?” Having lived with teenagers at my house for the previous twenty years, I just nodded and smiled. It was going to be an interesting semester.

In the world in which we live, what are we to do with ethical laws and commandments? Are they just “suggestions”? Are there any absolutes? Is anything always wrong? Is anything always right? Is there anyone to Whom we are accountable? Is there really a test at the end of life, or is God such a “nice guy” that no one goes to hell? Who is in charge anyway?

My fifteen-year-old student presumed a world that was kind and benevolent. She may never have experienced killing and war and infidelity and betrayal. Her parents were probably good people. Her friends may have been, too. If that were the case, then why did we need the ten “ethical suggestions”? Our access to God comes through Jesus and does not rely on our perfection, right?

Right, but the flourishing of life certainly does. Forming the heart to love and be generous and prayerful and forgiving—this bears fruit, fruit that lasts, in relationships that are solid and enduring. A holy life is a life worth living.

Consider/Discuss

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out clear principles for holy living, commanding us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Similarly, the Levitical holiness code reveals how to be holy as God is holy. What does holiness look like in your life? Why does it matter to you?
Does someone you love dismiss ethical laws as though they were just “suggestions”? What life stories could you tell to respond to that person?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, sometimes, we throw up our hands at what is happening in our world. There are so many things that we cannot control. Help us to make an impact in the small world in which we live, by living lives of holiness and goodness and prayer. With your grace, please help us. And bless all those who do not believe in you or follow you, for you send blessings on the just and the unjust. We entrust all of that to you—it is not ours, but yours. Thank you for taking this world and carrying it for us.

Jan 08 2025

Not a Law-destroyer But a Law-fulfiller

In a world of kings and emperors and governors and rulers, how can someone get access to the “big man at the top?” He has many guards. He lives in a mighty palace. You have to know the right people even to get a glimpse of him. Ordinary folks just cannot get access to the “Boss.”

In the same way, the Israelites revered God, the Holy One, as unapproachable, mighty, pure, and majestic, the “biggest (boss) at the top.” They believed that you would die if you saw God. Their reverence was rich and deep. Even Moses, who was the greatest of prophets, only saw where God had passed by. Thus they wondered, how do we get access to the Divine?

How did they solve that “access” question? If you wanted to get to Jerusalem, you followed the road to Jerusalem. If you wanted to get to the God of purity, you followed the road that led you to become pure, for the Most Holy could not look upon sin. How do you become pure? By following the laws of purity. What we may not understand from our vantage point is that observing the law meant everything to the religious people of Jesus’ day—not for the sake of “the law” itself, but because they wanted to be able to approach God. They wanted to come to God with a clean heart. The law was their way to get access to the Most High God.

Jesus understood that theology. When Jesus said that he didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfill it, he understood their longing: they wanted access to God. That was admirable. Jesus honored that. Moving forward from the written law, he offered himself as the road to the Father: “I am the way.”

Consider/Discuss

St. Paul got into many arguments about the law. He also understood the theology that following the law granted access to the Father. After his conversion, he understood that Jesus was now the way to the Father. The law may not have passed away, but how often do we try to gain access to God’s favor through adherence to law? What does it mean to you for Jesus to be “the Way”?
Reverence for God seems to be on the wane in our culture. Purity is not reverenced much either. How does that cultural attitude affect your own spiritual and moral life? Where do you hold yourself accountable? Where do you feel that you can let yourself slack off?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you have promised us that you are the way of access to the Father. We live in that hope. Help us not to be presumptuous about purity, thinking that we can live any way we choose and you will blithely forgive us. Help us to be perfect as you are perfect, pure as you are pure. We cannot do this on our own. We come through you who are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Lead us to the One who is Unapproachable Radiance!