His vision is so different from ours

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

One final reflection on the beautiful passage I quoted to you last week from the Odes of Solomon.

His love for me brought low his greatness.

He made himself like me so that I might receive him.

He made himself like me so that I might be clothed in him.

I had no fear when I saw him,

for he is mercy to me.

He took my nature so that I might understand him,

my face so that I should not turn away from him.

He made himself like me. How can he make himself like me when I am so much not like him? This puzzles me because I try to make sense of it with my limited intelligence and with my limited ability to see things as He sees them.

I see in a dualistic way: I am different from Him.

He is good; I am not good.

He is sinless; I am sinful.

He is perfect; I am defective.

If I might dare make an assumption, Jesus sees in a unified way. And the unifying principle is His love, His compassion, His mercy, His forbearance, and His eternal will that I one day be united to Him and share totally in His glory. That is what He prayed for before He was betrayed and arrested and put to death:

Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

And so when the Christ chooses to become like me, all of this is part of that choice, and all of His unfathomable goodness and love is part of that decision.

And again: He does not see the way I see. He does not think the way I think. He does not judge the way I judge. And out of His love he risks becoming human even though it will turn out that human beings will seek to destroy His human nature.

But none of that matters. Still, He chooses to become like you and like me. And we will receive Him, we will be clothed with him, and we will have no fear in light of His limitless mercy.

And so finally, we can heed the encouragement given to us in the first reading from today’s Mass, from the Letter to the Hebrews, to persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. (Heb 12:2)

Pray today for an increase of faith and for the ability to see beyond dualistic appearances.

God bless you!

He is accessible

Monday, January 30, 2017

I continue to reflect on the beautiful passage I quoted to you last week from the Odes of Solomon.

His love for me brought low his greatness.

He made himself like me so that I might receive him.

He made himself like me so that I might be clothed in him.

I had no fear when I saw him,

for he is mercy to me.

He took my nature so that I might understand him,

my face so that I should not turn away from him.

He made himself like me. This eternal, omnipotent and ineffable God who is greater than anything our minds can conceive or imagine, this magnificent Creator God who fashioned us from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into us (and we can be reminded of that every time we breathe), this overwhelming source of Love and Compassion was not satisfied with simply creating us. He yearned from all eternity to united us to Himself in a way that we could finally manage to understand.

And we can only understand what we can see, touch, taste, feel and examine. And so, to become understandable to us, He surrendered his greatness for a time and became one of us. This profound act of self-emptying (kenosis) was sung in the earliest Christian communities and it has come down to us in the Letter to the Philippians:

Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in the likeness of men.

Notice the close relationship between this passage in Philippians 2:5-7 and the passage from the Odes of Solomon.

God made himself like me so that I could receive him.

No one is obligated or required to plumb the depths of theological inquiry or to master any formulas more complex than this simple statement. Like I said above, what we can see and touch, we can understand. And so Jesus is available to you and me; Jesus God is accessible to you and to me. And we are reminded by the sacred authors of the New Testament that during His time on earth He was as accessible as anyone you may know, as the ones you love, and as anyone you might be moved to serve. Consider, if you will, the opening lines of the first letter of John:

That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon and touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life--
the life that was made manifest,
and we saw it, and testify to it,
and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father
and was made manifest to us.

Remember that the next time you go to communion. In Eucharistic form you see Him, and you touch Him and you taste Him and you take Him to yourself, because that Eucharist is flesh and blood, and so knowing that He was only to spend a limited amount of linear time on earth, Jesus arranged a way that we could continue to have direct access to him in the most personal and intimate way.

Consider that, especially when you feel like you are far from him.

Blessed day to you!

He is mercy to me

Friday, January 27, 2017

“I had no fear when I saw him,

for he is mercy to me.”

This comes from a second century Jewish-Christian text known as The Odes of Solomon.

Think of that moment sometime in the future when you and I will actually be standing before Jesus Christ and seeing Him for the first time. I think my immediate reaction would be to repeat the words of Saint Peter when the Lord had told him to cast his nets into the sea and he hauled in so many fish that the nets were breaking: Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. (Luke 5:8) Standing before Jesus, I would be so aware of my unworthiness, of all the thoughts, words, and deeds that would fill me with shame and regret that I would truly be afraid; afraid that I would burn up and be extinguished when standing before the ultimate bearer of goodness and virtue and holiness, afraid that He might cast me far from His sight. I would want to hide behind all the good things I had done, all the times when I did, with His grace, speak, think and act in a way that followed His example and His teaching; I would want to hid behind those things and hope they would cover the darker parts of my being and the darker parts of my own history.

But no. The text I quoted above does away with all of that. He is mercy to me. We must reflect on that mercy every time we come to Him in prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. We need to pray those words so many times that they become a part of the fabric of our souls, so much so that when we ultimately meet Him we will see and understand that He Who is mercy stands there to meet and answer our own plaintive cry for mercy.

I admire the faith of the one who wrote those lines, one who could look upon Jesus and see the fullness of mercy; not accusation, not condemnation, not blame, not reproach, but rather overpowering mercy so great that our minds can hardly conceive it. The faith of one who understood that the eternal Christ became human so that He could meet us where we are, so that in Him could be united both divinity and humanity.

I close this reflection by quoting an expanded version of the text. And by the way, if you would like to discover some of ancient texts of our faith in a way that would enlarge and enlighten your understanding, I refer you to a book that I have mentioned in the past, and that I am re-reading these days: The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Olivier Clément.  Anyway, here is the expanded text:

His love for me brought low his greatness.

He made himself like me so that I might receive him.

He made himself like me so that I might be clothed in him.

I had no fear when I saw him,

for he is mercy to me.

He took my nature so that I might understand him,

my face so that I should not turn away from him.

The Odes of Solomon 7, quoted in Clément, p. 37.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend.

God's Economy

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Sts. Timothy and Titus,

from today’s Gospel:

The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you. (Matthew 4:24)

God is greater than any idea we can have of him, and so when we speak of the qualities of God we must realize that our words and our notions are woefully inadequate and can only faintly point to a reality which is greater than any reality and far beyond even the notion of reality.

Nonetheless, being people who think with words and ideas, that is all we have to use when we want to reflect on God. (It is far better to just sit in silence and awe and behold the incomprehensible, but many people are unable to do this in their own journey of spiritual development.)

Why do I write in such a way today? Because I am going to make a statement about God and I must do it with humility, knowing that God far surpasses anything that I might try to say. And with all that being said, this is my statement: Our God is a God of superabundance. God’s storehouse of goodness, and riches, and blessings, and grace far surpasses anything we can imagine or conceive of. And today, in this one sentence from the Holy Gospel, Jesus makes a statement which tries to translate for us the sense of abundance and superabundance that He experiences since He is God. And this one sentence is His translation: The measure with which you measure will be measure out to you, and still more will be given to you.

That, my friends, is God’s economy and it blows our own notions of economy right out of the water. I don’t know about you, but I do know that when I think of economy in a purely human sense, I think about scarcity, about greed and about injustice. God’s economy has nothing at all to do with that. One thing about the statement that Jesus makes is that it is meant to challenge us to participate in God’s economy.

If you give, you will receive far more than you give.

When you forgive, you will be forgiven far more than you forgave.

When you are compassionate, God’s compassion towards you will overflow upon you.

When you are self-sacrificing, well, God has already shown us the fullest meaning of self-sacrifice, and it was done for us.

When you give your life in service of God, you come to know God’s service of you in an unending wealth of experiences, insights, blessings, graces and satisfaction.

And what about the statement that follows the sentence I have quoted? from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This statement can sound unjust to us, and I know I have struggled with it for many years. But I have come to see it this way:

When you act out of scarcity, when you are stingy or miserly, when you do not practice compassion, when you are severe in your judgments and condemnations, when you live for yourself alone, well then, you cut yourself off from God’s economy and cannot receive due to your own fault.

I don’t know if this satisfies you, but it is the only understanding the Holy Spirit has allowed me to reach at this time in my own journey. If it makes sense to you, then take care what you hear. (this is the beginning of Mark 4:24).

God bless you abundantly!

The conversion of a fanatic

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul

Paul was what we would call today a religious fanatic, a fervent Pharisee who went about imprisoning and murdering those who believed in Jesus. The story of his past and of his conversion is recounted in two places in the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 9:1-22 and Acts 22:3-16.

It is important to realize that in his fanaticism, he fervently believed he was doing the right thing, and that is true of all fanatics of whatever stripe, and it is true today; in fact, there are even fanatical Christians. Consider, for example, those who have murdered abortionists, or who beat their children severely, or who subject homosexual teenagers to cruel and ineffective “conversion therapies.” (Consider also that the current American Vice-President believes this to be the right thing to do.)

One more example: this is true even of you and me: we have an innate ability to convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing, especially when all we have to rely on is our own “light.”

There are three things that I would like to point out concerning St. Paul’s story:

1) God had other plans for Paul than what Paul was planning to do on his way to Damascus and in order to get through to him, He flooded him with light. Sometimes God has plans for us that take us in another direction than we had planned to go, and sometimes He has to knock us off our “high horse” to get through to us as well.

2) Don’t ever think that you have been so sinful or so lost in error that God would have no use for you. Consider Paul and how God used him even though he considered himself “the worst of sinners.”

3) God sometimes even uses our greatest weaknesses for his own purposes. Again, consider Paul: once a fanatic, always a fanatic, and if you read Paul’s letters carefully, you can perhaps detect signs of Paul’s innate fanaticism, but now tempered by God’s grace. Nonetheless, Paul was a driven man, just as much as he was when he was persecuting the Lord’s people. God took that fierce drive of his and channeled it so that Paul became the greatest, and fiercest, preacher of his age.

God bless you!

Don't exclude anyone

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

From today’s Gospel (Mark 3:31-35)

“’Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”

There is a dualist tendency in religion to exclude. If you are over 60, think of all the terrible things we Catholic children were told about Protestants. I can actually remember praying for my Lutheran grandmother when I was about 12 years old from a prayer book. The prayer asked God to send her a terrible tragedy so that she would come to her senses and return to the True Faith! And we continue to exclude even in our own times. Certain groups, people who don’t believe like we do, people who don’t behave like we do, people who don’t believe in Jesus, people who don’t believe in God, Islamic peoples, etc., etc., etc., ad naus. And there are many texts in Scriptures that exhibit a dualist tendency as well. Consider the Jews and the Samaritans, for example, or even some statements in the letters of Paul that declare who is or isn’t fit for the Kingdom of God.

But there is also an evolution in the Scriptures, as well as an evolution in Jesus Christ Himself. Recall how at first he refused to heal the daughter of the Canaanite woman, but then, because of her persistence and her faith, changed His mind and redefined His mission which He had previously said was only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And here, near the very beginning of Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus extending the boundaries of His family to include the people who were listening to him. His only qualification: those who do the will of God. And we must be careful here not to assume that we know who it is who is doing God’s will. God often works through people who do not belong to our group, our faith, our orientation, our lifestyle, our practices, our notion of God. My goodness, God even works through atheists! I’m thinking of a composer who wrote many of the most beloved hymns of Christianity who declared himself to be an athieist, and yet he wrote more beautifully about the Christian faith than many believers could even attempt. Was he or wasn’t he doing will of God? Would Jesus include him as part of His family? Be careful how you answer. The best answer of all is not to answer, but simply to hold the mystery in your heart, just as it is so important for us to do with every single individual we encounter. Just as Jesus said never to judge, I would suggest that we must never make assumptions about anyone. As I said yesterday, we never know what burdens another individual is carrying, or what pain is part of that individual’s history.

As you read the Gospel’s keep this drive to inclusion in mind and you will see it occurring in stories and passages that you may never have seen in that light before.

God bless you!

Life in the womb

Monday, January 23, 2017

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

Interestingly enough, the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Mass is “For the sake of your name, O Lord, give me life,” and I imagined this antiphon being prayed by an unborn child in its mother’s womb.

I have always relied on three scriptural texts that I interpret as signs that life begins with conception. Here they are:

Psalm 71:6 

On you I have leaned from my birth;

from my mother’s womb, you have been my help.

Psalm 139:13

For it was you who formed my inmost being,

knit me together from my mother’s womb.

And the third, and most important, text comes from the Gospel of Luke, the story of the Visitation, when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, goes to visit Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, and Elizabeth greets her, crying out: The moment your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby leapt in my womb for joy. (Luke 1:44).

One last observation: no matter what, we must always heed the strong admonition pronounced by Jesus: do not judge. (Matthew 7:1) It is an “occupational hazard” for those who are passionate about this cause to jump to judgment, but that is something we must never do.  Here is a compassionate statement made by Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, Archbishop of Louisville:

“This is the 44^th year that I have prayed to be a protector, humble and yet bold—walking with a mother so in need as to consider not giving birth.”

Again a reminder that we never know the state of a person’s soul, nor do we know, understand or appreciate the burdens that another person may be carrying. In all things, we must be compassionate.

God bless you!

You don't have to deserve it.

Friday, January 20, 2017

In today’s Gospel, the Letter to the Hebrew speaks of the new covenant and quotes the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer 31:31-34):

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31-14, quoted in Heb 8:8-12)

At the Last Supper, the Lord will speak of this new covenant, calling it the New Covenant in my Blood as he establishes the Eucharist as an everlasting gift to us, a gift which renews itself every time the Mass is celebrated.

This Covenant is a gift of love to us, a work of grace. And it takes the usual formulas of merit and worthiness and turns them right up on their heads.

The work of grace is freely given, and is given without restriction, given to all. It is no longer a question of worthiness, or merit or anything of that sort. As one spiritual writer once said, “love isn’t something we have to deserve or earn or measure up to. God’s love for us isn’t something we have to deserve or earn or measure up to. It just is. It just is.”

Sometimes we feel so unworthy to receive this gift. One person once confided to me:  I don’t deserve to be treated like someone I’m not. I feel like is Love is trying to put me on a pedestal when I actually belong down in the dirt. I’m not good enough. I DON’T DESERVE IT.

But what this covenant ushers in is a whole new way of being. It’s not a question of worthiness. It’s not something that has to be deserved. There isn’t anything you have to do to make yourself worthy of it.

The old formula that resembles an accountants spread sheet sheet with “=” signs and +’s and –“s is overturned here. And yet still, some people try to approach their religion with the old formula and it makes them miserable. Are you one of those people? If so, get rid of that old thinking and accept God’s way of thinking.

The love God wishes to pour out on us is so powerful that it is changing us if we will allow it to. None of the past matters any more. Just the present. An eternal present in which not only are our sins forgiven, but they are not even remembered.

Rest in this reality and be especially aware of it this weekend when you go to receive the Eucharist.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend.

Intercession

Thursday, January 19, 2017

I was dozing in my recliner (an activity which takes place more and more often these days), and when my eyes opened I found myself gazing on icons that were hanging on my wall: one of Christ the Teacher, one of Saint Benedict and one of the great archangel Michael. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

All I could think of was the many, many people I needed to pray for, and I began running through a mental list and gathering them up and presenting them to the Lord and to the saints for prayer, and the more people I thought of, the more who came to mind, and it was an endless procession of needs and of wonderful, good people who were hurting terribly and suffering, sometimes without even knowing it. And I looked over my past life, the life I lived before I had come to know the Lord and realized that I was one of those people who were suffering without even being aware of it, and how so many people had held me up in prayer when I couldn’t pray for myself, and how good it is to be on the other side of that misery and to be able to continue the endless chain of prayer that continues throughout the ages.

And then I looked to today’s Gospel and read about how many people were pressing in on Jesus to touch Him because they were suffering so much, and how he arranged for a boat to be prepared in case he needed to escape the crowd. (Mark 3:7-12) And I was mindful of the crowd of people I was bringing to the Lord in my own prayer, and how Jesus needed to back off a bit so that He could reach out to the multitude without touching every single person with His hands. And then I thought of our situation today, where Jesus is not with us physically, but is seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us, and I looked to the first line of the first reading for today’s Mass (Hebrews 7:25): Jesus is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.

And I resolved to continue to bring people to God through Him, especially those who don’t know Him yet. I know it works; it happened to me.

God bless you this day!

PS: And I remembered that I was told in school that it was not proper to begin a sentence with the word “and.” Nonetheless, it is part of my style, I guess.

God always wins in the end

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Yesterday I wrote about St. Antony of Egypt and how he was besieged by demons during his time alone in the desert, and how the demons disguised themselves as gruesome beasts or alluring images. I suggested that we might view our own personal “demons” or temptations in the same way.

Shortly after I wrote and posted that reflection it was time for Noon Prayer here in the monastery. I opened to the first psalm of the day, psalm 7, and the first stanza sounded like it had come from St. Antony’s cave, or from the heart of anyone besieged by temptations and trouble. Here it is:

O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.

Save and rescue me from all my pursuers,

lest they tear me apart like a lion,

and drag me off with no one to rescue me.*

There are other passages in the psalms where the enemies of our souls are described as ravenous beasts. Psalm 22 is filled with such imagery. This is the psalm that scholars say Jesus prayed while he was hanging on the cross, and so the psalm represents His prayer during His agony. It can also be a metaphor for the lesser agonies that we suffer in our lives, and can remind us to unite our own sufferings to His.

Many bulls have surrounded me,

fierce bulls of Bashan close me in.

Against me they open wide their mouths,

like a lion,  rending and roaring. (Ps 22:13-14)

For dogs have surrounded me;

a band of the wicked besets me.

They tear holes in my hands and my feet. (Ps 22:17)

Rescue my soul from the sword,

my life from the grip of the dog.

Save my life from the jaws of the lion,

my poor soul from the horns of wild bulls. (Ps 22:21-22)

It is important to remember that while Jesus was suffering these torments, He was on His way to a destiny that involves his ultimate triumph over these beasts in the Resurrection. And it is also comforting to note that elsewhere in the psalms, cries of lament and misery are always answered by the saving help of the Lord. Ultimately, he does not leave us alone in our misery. His love always prevails over what besieges us. Thanks be to God!

God bless you!

*All the psalm verses quoted today are from the Revised Grail Psalm Translation, © 2010 Conception Abbey/The Grail.

Ugly and beautiful temptations

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Memorial of Saint Antony of Egypt

I was speaking with someone last night who is struggling against a particular temptation, and has been for quite a long time. “I feel,” he said, “as if something has sunk its claws deep into my back and is trying to pull me down off my feet and throw me into a pit.” Notice that he has visualized the temptation as some sort of monster seeking to destroy him.

Today is the memorial of Saint Antony of Egypt (251-356) who lived for 20 years in a cave in the desert and who then attracted followers and built a monastery and became their Abbot, and therefore we celebrate him as a great monastic saint.

While living in isolation, Antony was assailed by terrible psychological and spiritual ordeals. His biographer, Saint Athanasius, tells us that the demons would appear to him in various guises, some horrifying and hideous monsters and others which were very attractive and alluring. Antony withstood them all and attached himself to the life that God alone can give.

How do you view your own temptations? Are they monsters with claws and hooks, or are they perhaps disguised as attractive and alluring and yet just as dangerous and just at lethal? Always remember that they are illusions and they are lies and even if they offer us seemingly beautiful things, their aim is to cause our downfall and our ruin.

Are you perhaps struggling with some particular demon or temptation? If so, turn to Saint Antony and ask him to pray for you and may Christ, the source of life, send to you the same powerful help that He graced Antony with during his time of struggle. And never forget that God loves you in your struggles, whether you succeed or whether you fail, and that one of the many beautiful things about you that God loves is the fact that no matter what is assailing you, you are willing to struggle. In that willingness, you are particularly blessed.

God bless you!

New wine is continuously offered

Monday, January 16, 2017

From today’s Gospel (Monday of the 2^nd Week of Ordinary Time)

No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins. (Mark 2:22)

In our search for God, we often walk what is called the via negativa, or the negative way. “No, not this. No, not that. God is not this way. God is not that way.” In our search for God, we are continually called to cast off our old ideas about God because they are insufficient according to the reality and insight what we are being led to discover.

We have an innate tendency to cling to what we already know, and sometimes to make a religion out of it. But such religion quickly becomes toxic; rather than being based on a faith that helps us and heals us, it becomes a faith that hurts us. In fact, there was an interesting book written about 15 years ago with the name Toxic Faith, and the title was eventually changed into Faith that hurts, faith that heals. If you are making progress in the spiritual life, then you are discovering for yourself the difference between the two. Again, the via negativa becomes the road to liberation: “No! This notion is not doing me any good. No! This idea is keeping me bound rather than helping me progress in my faith.”

The via negativa  sometimes yields a positive result, if we are willing to heed its counsel: “God is bigger than what I had previously thought. God’s mercy is greater than the limitations I have placed upon it. God loves me more than what I have been able to accept in light of what I am grasping now.”

Think about where you were three or five years ago. Think about how much freer you have become. Consider what were the old wineskins and eventually burst as you were offered new wine. And, once you have done this, realize that God is still offering you new wine. Can you enlarge your capacity to receive so that this new wine may be poured into new wineskins?

If you are wondering how you might apply these suggestions in your current live, I would tentatively suggest the following: Look at the places where you find yourself stuck. Look at the ideas or the insights that contradict what you have previously believed to be true and check them against the reality of your own experience. Ask yourself (and pray) if the Holy Spirit may be leading you where you have not been willing to go before.

If read carefully, the Scriptures can be seen as stories of countless men and women who were opening to receiving the new wine. I can’t help thinking of the beautiful story of the wedding at Cana, when Jesus had turned the water into wine and the stewards had reacted this way: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine . . . But you have kept the good wine until now.” (John 2:10)

I close with the words of Saint Paul encouraging us to accept the new wine: acquire a fresh new spiritual way of thinking. (I apologize, but I cannot find the citation for this.)

God bless you!

The TOUCH is what matters

Friday, January 13, 2017

Well, I got the Gospel passages reversed. Yesterday I wrote about today’s Gospel, and so today I’m going to comment on yesterday’s passage about the healing of the leper (Mark 1:40-45). Mark’s Gospel is known for its economy of words, and here we have a perfect example, so simple and yet so intense that it glistens like a rare jewel:

The leper begs: “If you wish, you can make me clean.”

Jesus’ response: “I do will it. Be made clean.”

There is more detail than that, but the simplicity of the Question and Response makes it possible for us to memorize it easily and use it in our own prayer, especially on days when, for one reason or another, we are feeling unclean or isolated or lonely.

One vitally important detail: Jesus stretches out his hand and touches him. Now Jesus could have healed the leper with a simple word or even just a glance. The touch wasn’t necessary. But in this detail, Mark underscores in a beautiful way the absolute reality of the Incarnation: Our God became a human being. And very often, human beings heal one another through touch. There was certainly a miraculous dimension to this healing story, but in addition to that there was a profoundly human detail. And, of course, we realize that Jesus broke an important societal taboo by touching the leper; a taboo based in fear because leprosy was so contagious. In touching the leper, Jesus took his condition onto himself, and the time would come when Jesus would be called unclean, ungodly, blasphemer, and was subjected to lonliness (even His disciples ran from Him) isolation and dejection. What could possibly be more isolating than to hang naked on a cross in agony.

Through his Cross, Jesus also took our own condition onto himself, and all the sinfulness, senselessness and darkness of our own lives is absorbed, or taken up onto that cross and then brought through death to new life and resurrection.

And we must never forget that Jesus touches us. He touches us through the sacraments, most of which involve some element of human touch; He touches us through the ministry and kindness of others; He touches us “from the inside out” in the Eucharist; He touches us when, like the leper, we are overcome with our unworthiness and yet still urged on by our faith and our hope.

Jesus told the leper to keep quiet about it, but let’s be realistic here: how could he? And how can we keep quiet about it as well?

God bless you! Have a nice weekend.

It's your faith that matters

Thursday, January 12, 2017

From today’s Gospel: Four men brought a paralytic on a stretcher to Jesus, but they couldn’t get in the door because the crowd was so great. So they climbed up onto the roof and opened it up until they could lower the mat to the ground in front of Jesus.

Now comes the most encouraging and challenging part of the story: Seeing their faith, (Mark 2:5) Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic and healed his paralysis.

As you might know, there is much more to the story. Read it in Mark 2:1-12. I just want to emphasize that it was the faith of the four men that sufficed to bring healing and forgiveness to the paralyzed victim they brought to Jesus. The story says nothing about the paralytic’s worthiness or lack thereof, or even if he shared the depth of faith of the other four men.

And so, here in just a few words is a call to we who have faith, a call to intercede for those who cannot pray for themselves, a call to bring to Jesus those who, perhaps through no fault of their own, are paralyzed in any way. Once again we note that it is not a question of worthiness or even a question of faith. How many of us indeed have people in our lives whose faith is very weak or non-existent? Don’t let that be a source of discouragement in your own prayer.

Open the roof. Let the Lord gaze upon your own faith, as imperfect as it may be. Bring the helpless and the hopeless to the Lord in your prayer this very day. And may He, in His time and in His way, bring healing to those who cannot get to Him on their own.

God bless you!

Random passages

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I’m sorry I missed yesterday’s reflection. I was ill.

Now that the Christmas Season is over and Ordinary Time has resumed once again, we begin reading from different parts of the Bible during our Masses. For now, we are reading from the Letter to the Hebrews and from the Gospel of Mark. Today I offer you brief passages from each for your reflection and, hopefully, for you prayer.

From The letter to the Hebrews

Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, his is able to help those who are being tested. (2:18)

We do well to remember that our God chose to enter into our human condition and experience life as we know it---from birth to death, in poverty and in humbleness, in strength and in weakness, and most importantly for today’s consideration, in testing and temptation. We must keep that in mind when we are going through our own difficult and trying times, during our times of testing and our times of temptation, during times of bewilderment and frustration, during times of loss and times of desolation. Jesus helps us during those times by entering into those experiences himself and then by lifting us out of them. Turn to him. Don’t suffer alone. Don’t struggle alone. There is no need to do that. Turn to your Savior and hear him say to you, “I understand what you’re going through; I’ve been there; I passed through it all. Let me take you hand and help you pass through your trials as well.”

From The Gospel of Mark

Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever. They immediately told him about her. He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up. then the fever left her and she waited on them. (1:29-30)

This is one of my favorite passages. Don’t forget that Jesus had called Simon and Andrew and James and John and we are told that they left everything and followed him. And there are other places in the Gospels where the emphasis is on leaving family behind, on separating from family, and even on “hating” family—a troublesome verb which commentators go to great lengths to explain away.

What I like so much about this passage, however, is that here we see Jesus getting involved with the families of his disciples, and actually healing Simon’s mother-in-law. This is especially good news for those of us who have left our families for the sake of priesthood or religious life. It is a reminder that Jesus includes our families under the umbrella of our own devotion to him, that He takes care of them and that He brings healing and strength and grace and all other good things that He has to bestow.

When it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by demons. . . . He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons . . .  (1:32-34)

Not only do we need to remember to turn to Jesus during every single difficult moment of our lives, but we also need to remember to bring others to him for healing and deliverance. Whom do you feel inspired to bring before Him today.

God bless you!

The Trinity in Action: The Baptism of the Lord

Monday, January 09, 2017

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

And with this feast the liturgical season of Christmas comes to an end. Once again we note that the Church’s sense of time is not in synch with the movement of secular time. The secular Christmas season, or perhaps we should say, holiday season began shortly after Halloween and ended with the post-Christmas sales sometime during the Christmas Octave. The liturgical season of Christmas began on Christmas Eve and ends today. It is a shame that so many of our churches decorate for Christmas long before the season actually begins rather than observing the silent and beautiful austerity of Advent with its wreath and purple hues, putting up the trees and the green-red wreaths on the 24^th as well. One of the things I like about being in the monastery is that we do not see the signs of Christmas until the afternoon of the 24^th when, in a gentle flurry of activity, things are made ready for the opening of the Christmas celebration which begins with the first Vespers of Christmas around 5:30 pm on Christmas Eve.

And now on this last day of the season we hear the story of the Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan by St. John the Baptist. Last week I wrote about the notion of Trinity as relationship, and this feast clearly demonstrates that notion in the most explicit and graphic passage in all the gospels. I’ll quote the passage here for you in case you don’t have a Bible or a Missal handy:

After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:15-17)

And there we have it. The Father, the Son and the Spirit perceived by sight and by hearing. For me, this amounts to a picture of the Trinity in action and in relationship, and who is the witness? Well, John the Baptist and we who hear and read these words and let our imaginations behold the picture they represent. Notice, if you will, that love and approval and acceptance are part of the message that is heard.

In his powerful book, The Divine Dance, Fr. Richard Rohr uses an icon to demonstrate the important reality that we, too, are a part of the intermingling of relationships within the Trinity, and I refer you to that book if you feel you are ready to explore that theme more fully.

Here, however, in this scene from Matthew’s Gospel, I also see the reality of the fact that we are a part of the flowing of relationships within the Trinity. John the Baptist stands as a witness to the mystical vision, and I would like to suggest that John the Baptist is standing in our place and that we, too, are included within the dynamic life of the Trinity.

I thumbed through a hymnal, the most recent edition of Worship publishes by GIA Publications, Inc. (giamusic.com), and was delighted to see that two of the hymns in the Trinity section of that hymnal also speak of the dance of the Trinity—and so we can see that Fr. Rohr is using an image that has its precedents. In closing today, I am going to give you the first verses of the two hymns I found for your further reflection and meditation.

“The play of the Godhead, the Trinity’s dance, embraces the earth in a sacred romance, with God the Creator and Christ the true son, entwined with the Spirit, a web daily spun in spangles of mystery, the great Three in One.” Mary Louise Bringle

Come, join the dance of the Trinity, before all worlds begun, the interweaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit and Son. The universe of space and time did not arise by chance, but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.  Richard Leach

God bless you! 

The light will always remain

Friday, January 06, 2017

Continuing with John 1:

verses 4-5: Whatever has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (NRSV translation)

Everything that exists, lives in and through the Word, the second Person of the Trinity. In these verses John introduces us to light. Interesting enough, in Genesis 1:3 the first utterance of God was, “Let there be light.” The first act of creation was to create light and John immediately associates it with life. Later, in chapter 8, after delivering the adulteress from death through stoning and sends her off, he speaks to the Pharisees, saying I am the light of the world. whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

In John’s world view, light and life are opposed to darkness and death. Everyone was created through and in Jesus, so in some way that we may not fully understand, every single human being possesses this light in the depths of his/her being. This, to be sure, is an inclusive way of looking at things, but as far as I am concerned, it is a logical necessity:

creation through Christ à possessing light and life

No one can be excluded from this logic. “Ah,” you might say, “but what about those who have walked away from Jesus or refused to follow Him or who even deny that He is God, but rather walk a path of darkness and death throughout their entire lives? How about a convicted killer who is proud of the mass murder he inflicted and shows absolutely no remorse (such as we read about in the USA in today’s newspapers)? Has such a person killed off the light that was originally within?”

John gives an answer to that question in verse 4, in very simple terms: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. I maintain that no matter what, the spark of light still remains buried deep within. What happens to it or with it is in God’s hands. But the light is not extinguished.

Think personally for a moment. Perhaps there has been a time in your own life when you turned away from the light, or from your faith; perhaps there has been time when you were without faith; perhaps there has been a time when, for one reason or another, possibly addiction, you were walking in darkness and heading towards self-destruction. If so, what happened? Could it be that the light in you was never completely overcome but continued to shine even as a tiny spark, and eventually grew within you to the point where it helped you find the way out of the pit you had been buried in?

My conclusion is this: we must always allow for the existence of the light, created through the Christ, in every human being, no matter how evil, no matter how lost, no matter how faithless, no matter how seemingly helpless, no matter how ruthlessly resistant.

(That, by the way, is why I am personally opposed to capital punishment because it cuts short the work of the light. God will still make it right in the end somehow far beyond my own imagining, but God doesn’t give up. And consider this as well: the Church has never ever judged that a person be in hell, not Attila the Hun, not Stalin, not Hitler.)

Cling to these words when you are discouraged or ready to give up or ready to judge: the darkness did not overcome it.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend. The next posting will be on Monday.

God in relationship with everything

Thursday, January 05, 2017

My reflection on the first chapter of John’s Gospel continues . . .

John 1:2-3 

He [the Word] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

Keep in mind again that the Word exists before the beginning of creation itself. Jesus himself alludes to this in the High Priestly prayer He offers to the Father before He is taken away to be crucified: Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.  (NRSV translation; emphasis mine).

For us this is a mind-blowing revelation as it indicates how great is our ultimate destiny; for Jesus, however, it is a simply natural and basic understanding of who He is and who He has been back in that mystical realm I suggested you think about yesterday—that time which existed before the actual creation of the world, before the time that God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

And then, the “Big Bang!”? The work of creation beginning, and all of it was through Jesus and in Jesus and Jesus is in all things. ALL THINGS. Everything around you; everyone around you; the elements which make up all the “man-made” objects we are surrounded with in the world we live in. The trees and the roots and the birds and the worms and the wind and the clouds and the ferrets and the rattlesnakes, the little child whose smile brightened your day recently and the toothless little old lady in some country on the other side of the world. All of it; all of them; all of us, and most importantly for your consideration, all of you as well. Even the diseased or broken parts, even the parts that are breaking down through the process of aging. And—dare I say it—all of your history as well. The triumphs and the failures, the strengths and the weaknesses, the yearning for holiness and the downward pull of concupiscence.

Of course there are some, and there have been theological schools over the past two millennia, which would like to look at things dually; that is, who would like to separate out the good from the bad, the sacred from the profane, the holiness from the sinfulness, and cast into the darkness what “doesn’t belong.” But God doesn’t talk about “not belonging.” God includes. God embraces those who are most lost, God’s Son has a loving conversation with the woman who had several marriages, Jesus drives away the religious dualists who would demand that the adulteress be stoned to death; Jesus invites a crucified convicted killer into paradise the very day He is being put to death.

The older I get, the more simple it seems, and I know from my own experience that anyone who has done any serious spiritual work or any work of healing comes to grasp the wonderful reality that God includes everything, that God makes use of everything, (even the darkest times of our lives), and that God  loves everything. How can he not love what He has created? How can He not love what was created through and in His Son? Don’t forget: there is nothing in this world that was not created in Christ and through Christ.

Jesus is in everything and everything is in Jesus. Spend the next few days looking around your world with that new understanding, if it is something new to you. And if you need further proof, or something to shore up your understanding, go back once again and read the first two verses of the first chapter of John’s Gospel. It’s all there. How could we possibly have missed it all these years?

God bless you!

God as relationship?

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

I would like to write a few reflections on the first chapter of John’s Gospel, which has been my favorite chapter of the Bible right from the time when I was a young boy. I don’t know why: perhaps there was some mystical connection with my young soul, or perhaps it was because as an altar boy I knew that as soon as the priest read that chapter (called the “Last Gospel” back in those days), the Mass would soon be over. Anyway, please keep me in your prayers as I attempt to reflect on this most mystical of all Bible texts.

In the beginning

It has often been pointed out that the Gospel of John begins the same was as the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis: in the beginning. Actually, however, John’s chapter extends back before Genesis. Genesis begins with the act of creation (God created the heavens and the earth). John begins before the act of creation took place and emphasizes what Biblical scholar refer to as the “pre-existence” of the Word, or of the Christ, since the Word is actually a code reference to what we understand as “the Christ;” that is, the Word which existed from the beginning as opposed to Jesus Christ Who came into the world some 2 millennia ago.

(Is your imagination capable of thinking back that far? Try to: the time you spend will be time that you are thinking mystically and will help take you out of the daily stuff and concerns of your life; in fact, it can also be a mood elevator, just as centering prayer or meditation can be, because essentially, when you think on these things you are entering the mystical realm.)

Back to the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

The Word was God and the Word was separate from God and could be with him? How can this be? Here we have the very genesis of Trinitarian Theology: a not-too-subtle hint that God is relationship. It is too early to speak of the persons of the Trinity (although the Spirit is mentioned in Genesis as “hovering over the waters”). We will explore this notion of the Trinity as relationship in future reflections. If, however, you would like to explore it further, I recommend you read The Divine Dance, recently published by Fr. Richard Rohr, which is devoted to the notion of Trinity as relationship—a relationship that includes you and me as well.

Think on these things, will you? Don’t feel inadequate if you find it difficult to “wrap your mind around these matters.” You certainly will not be alone. But for today, I would simply like to leave you with the reality of the relationship between this Word-with-God-and-is-God.

Too much to ask? Perhaps. But realize that before any of us were created, there was a lot going on—even long before the heavens and the earth were created. I remember thinking about these things when I was a little child, long before I ever went to school. Perhaps it just is that children are more free to imagine the unimaginable. Perhaps that is why Jesus encourages us to “be like children” ourselves.

God bless you!

The Horror of Addiction

Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Happy and blessed New Year to everyone!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to become acutely aware of the sufferings of people who are in the grips of addiction of one form or another, so much so that it has filled my prayer with cries for help for those who seem incapable of helping themselves. I remember particularly how often it is in the Gospels that Jesus heals those who are not in His presence, or who are brought to Him by others whose faith is enough to bring about healing for the afflicted one. Can our faith be that great? Is it possible that when or if we see someone who is crushed by addiction and we pray for that person, that our prayer might be heard and some process of slow and gradual healing might be put in motion?

Most of the time, we might not get to see how our prayer may bear fruit, and also, more often than not, we are not the ones who will be instruments for that healing: God will not use us, especially if we are close to the victims; He will use others as part of the healing process.

There is so much uncertainty here, and what we are called upon to do is simply to trust that God may hear our prayer.

Here are some of the things I have noticed about addicts, and all of these are based on personal knowledge of individuals who will remain nameless. What is important to note is that I am speaking out of experience, and not out of any theories I have constructed in my mere intellect:

·         They are often in denial, not recognizing the fact that they are addicted to something.

·         They are so overwhelmingly self-centered, that they are oblivious to the pain their addiction is causing others.

·         In many cases, even when they know that they have a problem, they seem incapable of doing anything to help themselves, or to call for help, or to go to someone who may lead them to help. AA, NA, AlAnon or any other groups such as that are seemingly out of the reach.

·         In the most tragic cases, they actually do not want to get better or get free of the addiction; it has them in such grips that it is far more desirable to them than any perceived or imagined healing.

·         The situation is progressive: it always gets worse.

·         They tend to keep company with people who share the same addictions and who are as resistant to recovery as they are; because of this, their lives are filled with turmoil, betrayal, mistrust, even violence.

·         They have a very slippery hold on the truth, if all. Their lives are filled with dishonesty and rationalization.

·         They will say anything, do anything, use anyone, especially those closest to them, as a means of feeding their addiction or keeping themselves stuck in their addictive patterns.

What hope can we gain from our faith? I look especially to a verse from John 1 that we had read to us on Christmas daytime Mass:

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

No matter how bleak the situation may seem, pray. Remember always that it is God’s will that all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Remember always that we have been created so that we can one day become happy with God in heaven, as the old Baltimore Catechism once taught us.

And, most especially, pray for those whose lives are devoted to helping those suffering from addictions of any kind.

God bless you!