Who is worthy?

Monday, September 12, 2016

From the Gospel according to Luke (7:10-10)

Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; . . .

say the word and my servant shall be healed.

These words from the Gospel of Saint Luke provide the basis of the prayer we say at every single Mass right before receiving the Eucharist: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed. They were originally spoken by a Roman Centurion who was asking the Lord to heal his servant. Jesus marveled at his faith and healed the servant from afar. We can certainly imagine that some among the Jewish leaders were completely scandalized by this little scene. Jesus spoke to heal a Roman, the hated enemies and suppressors of Israel. This should indeed be a sign to us that Jesus’ love and compassion and healing power was to be extended to those who were not of the self-acknowledged “proper” members of His people. But what Jesus was demonstrating to them that “His people” included those they would consider as improper and, indeed, unworthy.

The Centurion acknowledges this: “I am not worthy.” But as a man of power and authority, he recognizes that power and authority that Jesus has---which is something that many of his own people refused to see and respect, let along to celebrate that fact that such a marvelous sign was being performed among them. As Saint John would say in the prologue to his Gospel: “To his own he came, yet his own did not accept him. Any who did accept him he empowered to become children of God.”

So the Centurion and his servant are embraced into the divine family above and beyond of those who should have been automatically included but whose hardness of heart refused to accept this gift.

So what does this mean for us? I’d like to point out the following:

·         We are not worthy. No one is worthy to receive the very Body and Blood of the Lord into his or her own body.

·         The fact that we are not worthy does not mean that the Lord refuses to give us this gift.

·         Those that we may feel or think are not worthy are also included in the family of God by virtue of their faith, not their worthiness or suitableness. Some of these the Church itself declares to be (temporarily) excluded from receiving the gift, and there are many within the Church these days who are disturbed by this contradiction, but we must remember that Jesus said to Peter, “what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (This statement is recorded twice in Matthew’s Gospel: 16:19 and 18:18). (I for one pray that the day will come when the Eucharist is open to all no matter what their circumstances, for all are unworthy and all need the gift that Christ died to give us.)

·         Having acknowledged our unworthiness, we then turn our attention to what we all need so desperately: Healing. And by placing this statement so close to the moment when we receive the Eucharist, the Church is underscoring the reality that the Eucharist is, first and foremost, about healing.

·         Sometimes we recite these words mindlessly, and fail to realize that we are about to receive what works healing within us. It would be a far better thing if we were to be truly mindful that we are, indeed, approaching the altar so that might be healed. As one Lutheran writer once said (and I forget his name): Sometimes we come to the service and our arms are not open enough to receive all the blessings the Lord is waiting to pour upon us. Approach the altar with arms wide open, with heart wide open, and awestruck that the Lord will do so much for someone who is so basically unworthy. This gets to the very heart of the Lord’s mercy and compassion: mercy and compassion that is meant for all who will believe.

God bless you! 

Perrenial Wisdom

Friday-Saturday, September 9-10

There is a core of wisdom teaching that is common to most of the world’s great religions. There is a name for these teachings: Perennial Wisdom. Much of this teaching deals with spirituality. Rami Shapiro says that the signs of a spiritual person are “compassion, selflessness, humility, equanimity, forgiveness, grounded and reasonable.” Perennial Wisdom, p. 196 This reminds me of Paul’s teaching about the fruit of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal 5:22).

Today I’d like to present to you a passage from the Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. Take from these teachings what resonates with you, and leave the rest behind. Here it is:

One who is incapable of hatred toward any being,

who is kind and compassionate, free from selfishness,

without pride, equable in pleasure and in pain, and forgiving.

Always contented, self-centered, self-controlled, resolute

with mind and reason dedicated to Me,

such a devote of Mine is My beloved.

One who does not harm the world,

and whom the world cannot harm,

who is not carried away by any impulse of joy, anger, or fear,

such a once is My beloved.

One who expects nothing,

who is pure, watchful, indifferent, unruffled,

and who renounces all initiative,

such a one is My beloved.

One who is beyond joy and hate,

who neither laments nor desires,

to whom good and evil fortunes are the same,

such a one is My beloved.

One to whom friend and foe are alike,

who welcomes equally honor and dishonor,

heat and cold, pleasure and pain, who is enamored of nothing,

who is indifferent to praise and censure,

who enjoys silence,

who is contented with every fate,

who has no fixed abode,

who is steadfast in mind and filled with devotion,

such a one is My beloved.

Bhagavad Gita 12:13-19, quoted in Perrenial Wisdom, p. 197.

Some of these lines need further explanation, and perhaps I will write about them in future reflections. But, as I said, take what makes sense to you, but be especially attentive to things that puzzle you. They may open the door to greater wisdom for you.

God bless you!

Deeper peace

Thursday, September 8, 2016

The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

From the collect for the Mass of the day:

Impart for your servants, we pray, o Lord,

the gift of heavenly grace,

that the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin

may bring deeper peace

to those for whom the birth of her Son

was the dawning of salvation.

Notice that this prayer doesn’t mention anything we should do to earn of merit this grace it speaks of. Grace itself is pure and total gift bestowed upon us, worthy or not, imperfect certainly, filled with sin and the memory of sins committed, beset by weaknesses and temptations. According to the prayer, the feast itself is the channel through which this grace flows to us, even if we are unaware of the significance of this day.

Notice also that the word “Nativity” is used for this feast. Nativity is a word we generally associate with the birth of Jesus Christ, so notice how the two events are linked together by the language the Church uses today.

The Orthodox Churches celebrate this feast as the beginning of the Liturgical Year, emphasizing the fact that, as the prayer says, the birth of Mary is actually the very beginning of the story of our salvation. Let it be a new beginning for us as well, for while we were still asleep, God began to put into operation His eternal plan for our salvation with this wonderful birth. And remember also that our tradition teaches us that Mary was born without the stain of Original Sin, that she might be the perfect vessel through which our Savior was to come into the world. Nothing less than perfection would do, and Mary is something that we cannot be, the perfect human being.

All is gift. Miraculous gift. What might that gift be for you today?

The prayer asks for deeper peace. The assumption is that we already possess within ourselves a certain measure of peace, peace that is ours by right of our faith in these heavenly realities and our faith in Mary’s Son Jesus Christ. Take a moment when you can to locate within yourself, or to identify the peace that you already have, even if you are going through a time of trial or suffering. And then realize that today the Church prays that we might be given deeper peace because of this feast.

What might be the deeper peace you are yearning for? If you can identify it, name it in your prayers today. Let the grace of this day, this day of overwhelming grace for the entire human race, touch your heart and soul in the places that are open to receiving a deeper measure of grace and love, hope and faith and peace.

God bless you! Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

When we have really made a mess of things

Psalm Study: Psalm 51  This reflection is a reprint of two reflections that were posted back in February, where I commented on the same passage from Psalm 51.

                Create in me a clean heart, O God.

                and renew in me a steadfast spirit. (51:12)

Sometimes when we look back over the past with the sensitivities and conscience of the present, we realize that we had done something perhaps years ago that now fills us with guilt and contrition. “If only I knew then what I know now!” we might cry. Times like that are times to turn to Psalm 51, which is David’s Psalm of repentance after the prophet Nathan had opened his eyes to see what sins he had committed: fornication, adultery and murder. (You can read the entire story in II Samuel, chapters 11 and 12.) And David’s psalm of repentance and contrition is asking not only for forgiveness of sin, but also a healing of the emotional, physical and social consequences of his sin. (And of our sins as well.)

Create in me a clean heart: This is asking for a lot. It’s not only a question of forgiveness or cleansing; it is begging for something completely new by an act of God’s creative power. We might pray, “Create in me a new clean heart.”

And God promises to do this. Ezekiel 36: 25-27:  I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.

Psalm 51 is a Psalm of David. Remember that David was chosen by God, a fearless warrior, a great and powerful king and a virtuous one at that. His prayer was sublime and eloquent. He was the composer of most of the 150 psalms we have; in fact, this particular psalm was his psalm of repentance when he realized what wrong he had done.

And the great and almighty are fallen. David reached the heights of human perfection, but was brought down low by temptation to the point where he was guilty of adultery and indirect murder. (See II Samuel 11 and 12.)

If such a thing could happen to David, what might happen to us. Every single day, it is God’s grace that keeps us from falling into decadence and depravity, and we must always remember that, especially when we are tempted to judge people who have fallen prey to what is the worst in human nature. “There but for the grace of God go I” must be our constant prayer.

Notice in these verses that the first one speaks of the “heart” while the second one speaks of the “spirit.” These two words are used interchangeably in the scriptures. “Heart” generally refers to what is particular to the body while “spirit” refers to the supernatural part of our being. What David prays for in this verse, and we as well, one commentator says, is a “total renovation of his entire mental and moral nature, which he recognizes as corrupt and depraved.” (See www.biblehub.com/commentaries for excellent information about any passage of Scripture).

Do we sometimes perceive our natures as corrupt and depraved? If not, we still must recognize that no matter how “well-off” we think we may be in the spiritual life, it is possible for us to fall as David had fallen. And at that time, we need not lose hope, for God’s love is greatest for those who are most in need of his mercy. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” We can pray no more honest prayer than that. It also helps to consider Saint Peter, who also fell in a horrible way, but yet was restored by his Lord who asked him, despite everything, “Do you love me?”

One final observation: David prays for a “steadfast” spirit. The Hebrew word used here means “firm, constant or steadfast.” What David is praying for is a spirit so fixed and unmovable that it will not easily be shaken in time of even the most powerful temptations. Something for us to pray for as well, is it not?

God bless you!

I can't, You can

Sunday, September 4, 2016

The Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Gospel passage today (Luke 14:25-33) is a difficult one to listen to or read because it contains the words of Jesus, the Stern Teacher. “If you cannot renounce all your own possessions, hate family, and take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” Thanks be to God.

As our preacher this morning (Father Mathias, O.S.B.) pointed out, this hardly sounds like Good News, and we aren’t left in a condition where we really mean it when we pray “Thanks be to God.” Or can we?

Since this also happens to be the very day when Mother Teresa is canonized, we have before us the example of someone who did live the Gospel message in all its exacting fullness, and so we are left feeling even more inadequate and unworthy. This is a good day to spend time repeating the Jesus Prayer and mean it: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

And yes we are unworthy, inadequate, resistant, perhaps even spiteful in the face of the reality that we fall so far short of the things that Jesus asks of us, no matter how much good we may do, no matter how many little (and sometimes petty) sacrifices we may sometimes grudgingly make. There is still so much more that can be done, so many habits of mind and tongue and body that we have not yet left behind, so much selfishness that seems to reside in our very genes and that trips us up and so often reminds us of just how petty we can be, and how addicted we are to things that don’t really matter, to things that  may keep us from God at times, and to things that we know lie outside of what little sense we can make of God’s great plans for us in His great love.

And that is as it should be: in and of ourselves, we are inadequate. If we rely on our own resources, we will always come up short, we will always fail, we will always be left feeling far from God and far from the Kingdom that He continually offers us . . . if only we could . . .

Ah! There’s the catch. “If only we could,” but the truth is that we can’t. This reminds me of one of my favorite brief prayers, one that I encourage you to use today and always. It is only 4 words, but it sums up much of the Christian anthropology: “I can’t, you can.”

God is the one who makes us into the image of His Son, in His own ways and in His own time, and as it says on so many coffee mugs, God isn’t finished with us yet. Thank God. We come away from today’s Gospel feeling crushed and defeated until we realize that we are meant not to live lives based on our own strength and our own heroic capacities, but rather on the grace of God and the love that He continually pours out upon us that makes up in all ways for what is lacking in us. That is the great joy, great peace, and great hope of Christian reality and we cannot exist without it—but we don’t have to.

And when he directs us to “take up our cross,” in addition to whatever trials and pains and sufferings we have loaded on our backs as we make our way through this world, we might also add the knowledge that without his grace we are hopeless, helpless and hapless.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta’s life was so filled with that grace that it overflowed from her to the lives of countless destitute and miserable men, women and children throughout the world and will still do even  more now that she is no longer limited by earthly limitations. St. Teresa, Mother, pray for us all, because we are so aware that even we who have so much are still so destitute in what is truly needed, and still sick and helpless in our own human conditions. Amen.

The Holy Spirit working out solutions to problems

Friday-Saturday, September 2-3, 2016

Events that have transpired around me here at the Abbey and College have reminded me of the wondrous weaving of the tapestry of life that is part of the Lord’s care for us in our lives. An example follows. Rather than giving you a factual account of something that has happened, I will attempt to sketch it out in very general terms that perhaps may be applied (in part) to your own life. And so here is the outline of something very wonderful that has recently happened around here. I would like to call this a “providential pattern.”

·         A need develops that begs for resolution.

·         God prepares a person to meet that need over the course of his/her lifetime without the person ever realizing what was about to take place.

·         At the very last minute which becomes the perfect moment, He arranges for the person and the need to intersect.

·         In the story of the person’s life, this intersection takes place at the perfect time. Even just a few months ago, the person could not have imagined that such an intersection would be feasible, possible, or even desirable. But suddenly, over the course of just a few days, the Holy Spirit inspires the person to consider the appropriateness and desirablilty of an opportunity to open a new chapter in his/her life.

·         Once the meeting of person and need has taken place, many other details crop up that help to support, encourage and facilitate the work that has to be done to meet the original need.

As I am writing this outline, it becomes apparent to me that this work of the Holy Spirit in one little corner of the world here in 2016 has happened again and again in my life and in the life of other people who have shared their stories with me over the years. But, most of all, it becomes apparent to me that this “sketch” of incidents is reflected in the life of Our Blessed Mother as described in the Angelus:

The Angel of God appeared unto Mary

and she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord,

be it done unto me according to your will.

And the Word became flesh

and dwelt among us.

This Sunday, we celebrate the canonization of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, our beloved Mother Teresa. Perhaps we might discern that the same providential pattern was played out in her life as well.

Think on these things, will you?

God bless you!

Leave it all behind, even if only for a minute

Thursday of the 22^nd Week in Ordinary Time

from the Gospel: Luke 5:1-11

                Verse 11: They left everything and followed Him.

We can’t do that, can we? Just up and leave everything: fishing nets, homes, family, friends, career, hobbies, interests, concerns, fears, hopes, preoccupations, obsessions, weaknesses of body, soul and spirit, habits, thoughts, emotions, medical conditions, mistakes, regrets, resentments, grudges, finances, knick knacks, furnishings, computers, cell phones, accomplishments and sources of pride, psychological conditions and impediments, toiletries, personal libraries . . . . .

But there are some things on that list that we could leave behind for a time, perhaps, especially if we work to empty ourselves out during a time of contemplative prayer.

I like to think of contemplative prayer or anything else it may be called: meditation, centering prayer, prayer of silence, prayer of presence, mindfulness and the like, I like to think of these things as a time of escape, a time of deliverance, a time of freedom, where we place ourselves in the presence of the Lord and hear His silent call deep within our hearts and souls: follow me.

During such times, we don’t need to think about what that might mean, to follow Him, because that is precisely what we seek to silence as we simply follow our breathing and perhaps recite a mantra or the Jesus Prayer, or a simple prayer word, or we gaze upon the light of a single candle and lose our attention there.

I once heard it described this way: you are swimming in the ocean and the waves grow intense and come crashing in on you from all directions, and you are in danger of being torn apart by the power of what assails you, so you dive deep down into the ocean, down beneath the waves where the waters are silent and peaceful, and then you swim out the other side of the turbulence and you are safe at last.

Can you close your eyes and do that, even if for only a minute, even if for only half a minute? During that time, God speaks to your soul in words that you cannot hear; the Spirit within you cries out to the Father and calls Him “Daddy” (Abba), and you don’t need to hear, all you need to do is taste the silence and the time of freedom.

Very often when we leave “all” behind and rest in the Lord, we find that we emerge with solutions and answers to the things that we need to tend to in our busy lives; often we find the words to speak that we couldn’t have spoken before; often we find ourselves looking at the world around us in a different way; often we find ourselves loving without any required conditions placed on the recipients of our love.

Can you do it now for just a few seconds (or longer if you are able)? When you emerge from it, my friends, your life has a richness that all the things you have chased after could never give you.

God bless you.