St. Theophilus of Antioch offers these words for reflection:

If you say, “Show me your God,” I will say to you, “Show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God.”  Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear.

It is like this.  Those who can see with the eyes of their bodies are aware of what is happening in this life on earth.  They get to know things that are different from each other.  They distinguish light and darkness, black and white, ugliness and beauty, elegance and inelegance, proportion and lack of proportion, excess and defect.  The same is true of the sounds we hear: high or low or pleasant.  So it is with the ears of our heart and the eyes of our mind in their capacity to hear or see God.

God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open.  All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun.  Because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine.  The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes.  In the same way, you have eyes in your mind that are shrouded in darkness because of your sins and evil deeds.

A person’s soul should be clean, like a mirror reflecting light.  If there is rust on the mirror his face cannot by seen in it.  In the same way, no one who has sin within him can see God.

But if you will you can be healed.  Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart.  Who is the doctor?  It is God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom.

Today there is a “genie in the bottle” approach to God.  If God exists then God needs to reveal himself to me; according to my will and my expectations.  So we rub our bottle and when God does not pop out like an obedient little genie we conclude there is no God.

We are getting it wrong.  God is not a genie waiting and hoping to appear according to our wills and in our image.  God is God.  Further, God owes nothing to us.

The key to seeing and knowing God is not to have God appear according to our will but rather to submit our wills to God.  This is the truth that St. Theophilus recognizes.  God wants to be known by us, God yearns for relationship with us but the lack in this equation is not on God’s part.  The lack is on our part.  Just because a blind person cannot see the sun that does not mean that the sun does not exist. 

We fool ourselves into thinking that we can hold on to our little sins and know God at the same time!  In this case we might have an “idea” of “a God” somewhere out there but we do not know God.

In the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy we hear Moses speaking to the people of Israel,

Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live and may enter in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.  Therefore, I teach you the statutes and decrees as the Lord, my God, has commanded me, that you may observe them in the land you are entering to occupy.  Observe them carefully, for thus will you give evidence of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations, who will hear of all these statutes and say, “This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.”  For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?

True knowledge of God is not a headtrip.  Knowledge of God does not consist in saying the right and accepted thing in a religious studies class on a university campus on a weekday (nothing against religious studies per se) and then acting as if God does not exist over the weekend.  We darken our own vision, we limit our own capacity to see and then we get offended when God does not appear to our liking!  How dare He!  Who does He think He is?! 

Knowledge of God is true knowledge which means that all of ones life, all of who one is, must be involved in the encounter with God.  To know God means we have to look inward and at ourselves and at our actions and be willing to bring it all before God – the good, the bad and the ugly.  The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes.

We are not good at this depth of knowledge in our day and age and frankly we are not encouraged in it.  (People who are not “conscience aware” are more easily controlled and manipulated.  They also make for great consumers!)  We are getting to a point where the blind are happily leading the blind – who are happily led – while all concerned are resentful of God because God will not play along.  Again, how dare He!  Who does He think He is?!

But God is God and we are not and I am convinced that we keep God continually amused.

God is nobody’s genie.  If we want to know God, which is another way of saying if we want to know true joy and fulfillment in life rather than frustration and despair, then we must play by God’s rules.  Not because God is some spoiled overgrown kid demanding his way or no way but because God is the source of all that is good, true and beautiful and God cannot deny himself.  When we come to know God we come to know and experience all of this.

“This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.”  For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?

The below article is taken from Zenit.org.  Check out the referenced email site at the end of the article. 

Families Urged to Adopt a “Media Policy”

Parents Encouraged to Use Reason in Setting Rules

ROME, MARCH 28, 2011 (Zenit.org).- An international university research group is encouraging families to establish their own media policy regarding the use of technology in their homes.

The Rome-based Family and Media Group, which was established in 2005, studies how the family is presented in the media and how the institutions that promote the family communicate their message and help present a better portrayal of the family in the public space. Last month, the organization launched their English-language Web site.

The project coordinator, Norberto González Gaitano, a professor of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, told ZENIT that one of the things the group emphasizes is the habits of media use by the family.

He said, “We are telling parents and families: You are the protagonist of your family life, and since the media is already there — yourselves, your children, your family lives are already in a media environment — so you have to have a ‘family media policy.'”

Gaitano explained that this means “applying practical reason to the use of media.”

He continued: “For example, no parent in their right mind would put a refrigerator in their child’s bedroom so that they could manage their own diet.

“Many parents nevertheless delegate the decision regarding their ‘media diet’ to their children. A television or a computer connected to the Internet is to be found in their room at their command.”

Research

Gaitano noted that there has been a lot of research on media effects, “but mainly pointing at the influence on children, especially regarding the amount of violence portrayed in media.”

“As far as I know,” he said, “no research considers the family as a whole; very few studies lay down the basis of what the family is all about.”

“Above all,” the professor noted, “most of the research leaves parents confused, discouraged or helpless.”

He affirmed, “If ever they come to know the results of most researches, they become satiated with data, about media consumption by children for example, and then are asking themselves, so what should we do?”

“You can, and should take advice from experts,” Gaitano said, “but you mustn’t delegate the decisions to the experts. Everybody can instruct your children; only you can educate them.”

He added, “We aim to be a think tank mainly for family associations and ultimately a help for families.”

On the Net: Family and Media: www.familyandmedia.eu/en.html

There is much to this Sunday’s gospel reading (John 4:5-42) but one component, I believe, is that in the passage we get to watch Jesus the Divine Physician at work. Certainly, this passage is given in order that we might come to know more deeply who Christ is for us but also in order that we, ourselves, might learn how to help bring his love and healing to our world. The passage is truly worthy of reflection for the disciple who wants to help in bringing God’s love to the lives of people.

The first lesson offered in this encounter is an awareness of the basic need for healing. The woman is broken and our Lord sees this. She has had five husbands and the man she now lives with is not her husband. This deep brokenness and pain that this woman carries is demonstrated in the fact that she comes to the well at noon – in the heat of the day – to draw water. The custom of the time was to get the day’s needed water in the morning when it is cool. In the morning was when the people of the town would have come to get water and also to see one another. But, when you are broken, hurt and ashamed you avoid others. The woman comes at noon.

The second lesson is that Jesus the Divine Physician approaches her in the commonality of their shared humanity. Jesus does not view himself as superior nor does he condescend toward her. The gospel very specifically says that Jesus is tired and thirsty and it is in this need that he begins his encounter with her by asking for a drink of water. This seemingly so-simple request speaks to an awareness on Jesus’ part of their common humanity. The simple request for a drink witnesses to the love and respect Jesus holds for this woman and it is a critical key in the opening of the woman’s heart to the possibility of healing and awareness that life, can indeed, be lived differently. The request and what underlies it is so striking that in fact, at first the woman is taken aback, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”

Then, step by step, Jesus meets the woman where she is at in her questions and he brings her to greater truth and fuller healing. But, it is extremely important to note that in their exchange the giving of truth is never divorced from the greater context of the tender healing of her heart. (This is the skill of a master physician and how so sadly, we disciples can often fall short in this regard.) Truth and healing care must be held together! Truth is given but it is done in the context of an awareness of the truly deep wounds and deep yearning of the woman’s heart. The surgeon must sometimes use the scalpel but always, always, always in the greater context of healing and care.

I must admit that I have not been too focused on this upcoming change.  My attention has been more devoted to my vocation and college campus ministry.  I have known that the change is coming but I have figured that I would cross that bridge when the time comes … well, I guess the time is here.

Why is the Church doing this and why now?  This is a fair question, I believe.  There is so much going on in our world.  In light of the struggles for justice and peace and natural disasters that are occurring why is the Catholic Church seemingly so focused on this “in-house” issue?  Couldn’t its immense energies be better directed elsewhere?  Well, first of all, the Church’s witness to the world remains the same and consistent even as we address and are being attentive to our own celebration of worship.  The truth is that the worship of the Church and its mission are inextricably linked.  As our worship is clarified and focused anew so will our mission in the world.  The two are not separate and any temptation to separate the two is both a grave error and a danger.

I have recently come across three different reflections on worship and liturgy that I have found helpful in my own process of considering why we as Church are doing this and why now.



Pope Benedict XVI

The first comes from an answer offered by Pope Benedict to a question regarding renewal in the Church and the importance of the liturgy as the heart of renewal (taken from “The Light of the World”).  The Holy Father offers these thoughts for consideration:

The Church becomes visible for people in many ways, in charitable activity or in missionary projects, but the place where the Church is actually experienced most of all as Church is the liturgy.  And that is also as it should be.  At the end of the day, the point of the Church is to turn us toward God and to enable God to enter into the world.  The liturgy is the act in which we believe that he enters our lives and that we touch him.  It is the act in which what is really essential takes place: We come into contact with God.  He comes to us – and we are illumined by him…

So liturgy is something that is given in advance?  Yes, it is not about our doing something, about our demonstrating our creativity, in other words, about displaying everything we can do.  Liturgy is precisely not a show, a piece of theater, a spectacle.  Rather, it gets its life from the Other.  This has to become evident, too.  This is why the fact that the ecclesial form has been given in advance is so important.  It can be reformed in matters of detail, but it cannot be reinvented every time by the community.  It is not a question, as I said, of self-production.  The point is to go out of and beyond ourselves, to give ourselves to him, and to let ourselves be touched by him. 

Pope Benedict is rightly highlighting the importance of the liturgical act and its true nature.  True worship is not theater nor is it entertainment and it is not of our creation and effort.  The true origin of worship of the Church is deeper; it originates not from us but from God.  God establishes the sabbath and at the last supper Jesus gives the instruction, “do this in memory of me”.  This being the case, our attentiveness to the act of worship and liturgy is of utmost importance because in liturgy we are brought into contact with God.



Bishop Vincenzo Paglia

 The second reflection I would like to share comes from Bishop Vincenzo Paglia and the words he offered in a homily for the second Sunday of Lent and the gospel passage of the Transfiguration.  Here, Bishop Paglia highlights how the liturgy, in fact, transforms us.

The Gospel of the Transfiguration describes what occurs during every Sunday’s Eucharistic Liturgy.  After six weekdays, Jesus gathers us and takes us aside, to a “high” place.  We need to go up a bit, but not in order to flee or evade, so that everything remains the same afterwards as before.  In the Liturgy we look upon a different way to live, to feel, to behave.  And while we behold heavenly things, we are drawn and transformed within.  Here we become what we behold…

It is the same for us and the Gospel.  If we accept it (the call of the Father to listen to Christ, the Son) we shall be drawn into a new adventure, greater and more beautiful than we could have imagined.

We need to go up a bit…  I find this simple phrase to be very compelling and also very telling of a deep truth within the human condition.  At the core of who we are is a deep yearning for something more than the narrow and limiting confines of our world and its assumptions.  We yearn because we are indeed made for this “more”.  We do, indeed, need to go up a bit.  St. Augustine likewise realized this truth of the human condition and therefore stated, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”  Liturgy answers this need to go up, this deep restlessness of the human heart, in the fact that in and through it we are brought into contact with God.

The final reflection is from a book by Philip Rieff entitled “Charisma: The Gift of Grace, and How it Has Been Taken Away from Us”.  I have just begun reading this book and am thoroughly enjoying it and finding it to be very thought provoking.  (I have also read Rieff’s “The Triumph of the Therapeutic”, which I highly recommend.)



Philip Rieff

I will not pretend to do justice to the depth of Rieff’s insight here in this post but I would like to to share two quotes that speak to the power and necessity of ritual in our world.

 First quote – In his unusual depth of intuition, Buber verged upon what I consider the correct interpretation of ritual as a defense against the destructive-ness of power, so far as power is a kind of demand that pulverizes, whether in sexual or religious acts, human personality and subordinates the self to another…

Second quote – Far from being an enlightening process, the destruction of ritual in Western culture is a major symptom of its demonic character, opening up the possibility of some persons feeding upon the destruction of others.  Here, indeed, sex and politics converge in anti-credal movement, a convulsive fury of systematic destruction at once sexual and technological.   

True and authentic ritual protects and just as it brings the worshipper into contact with God it also, by necessity, stands in witness against the powers of the world that deny God and his sovereignty and that feed upon the negation and destruction of others.  Liturgy and worship is a very courageous act and, it might be said, a very subversive act against all that would deny the truth of God and the truth of the human person.

Liturgy matters, as the above three reflections demonstrate.  What we say and what we do when we gather for worship on Sunday is important – for ourselves, for the Church and for our world. 
 

In a reflection on the Gospel scene of the transfiguration (Mt. 17:1-9), Bishop Vincenzo Paglia remarks that this passage reflects what occurs in every Eucharistic liturgy.  Like Jesus taking the three disciples up the mountain, Jesus also gathers us in the liturgy and takes us to a “high” place.  “We need to go up a bit, but not in order to flee or to evade, so that everything remains the same afterwards as before.  In the liturgy we look upon a different way to live, to feel, to behave.  And while we behold heavenly things, we are drawn and transformed within … (In the liturgy) an event out of the ordinary is presented, far removed from the usual scenarios” and narrow limits of our world. 

“We need to go up a bit…”  “In the liturgy we look upon a different way to live, to feel, to believe.”  In the transfiguration the glory of the Lord is revealed to his disciples but it must be noted that the three men originally taken up the mountain by our Lord are not the same when they come down.  The glory they witnesses in the Lord without is a glory that transforms them within. 

In a reflection on psalm 33, St. Augustine offers these words, “Let us love beauty, but let it be beauty that appeals to the eye of the heart.  Let us love beauty, but let it be worthwhile, praiseworthy loveliness.”  Praiseworthy beauty kindles our minds, enlarges our hearts, strengthens our wills and awakens true life and creativity within us. 

We do indeed need to “go up a bit.”  We need to be taken by our Lord to the high place where we can recognize that there is a different way to live, to feel and to behave.  It is easy to remain in this world, in the narrow limits, in the narrow thoughts – in worldly thoughts, worldly perceptions and worldly beauty – but this does not feed the soul and although it may entice for a moment it does not last.  In fact it leaves us both a little less and more empty. 

We need to go up a bit.  Let us love beauty, but let it be beauty that appeals to the eyes of the heart.  The three disciples taken by our Lord up the mountain are not the same when they come down.  In the glory of our Lord’s transfiguration they, themselves, were transformed.  Similarly, when we leave the liturgy (when the eyes of our hearts have been open), we are not the same as when we came in. 

It is a truth of the human condition – we need to go up a bit and we need to see and recognize that yes, there is a different way to live, to feel and to behave. 

“St. Patrick was born in Great Britain around the year 385.  As a young man he was captured and sold as a slave in Ireland where he had to tend sheep.  Having escaped from slavery, he chose to enter the priesthood, and later, as a bishop, he tirelessly preached the Gospel to the people of Ireland where he converted many to the faith and established the Church.  He died in 461.” (taken from Liturgy of the Hours)

Below is an excerpt taken from the Confessions of St. Patrick.  The words witness to a great depth of faith and offer much to reflect upon.   

I give unceasing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing.  Today I can offer him sacrifice with confidence, giving myself as a living victim to Christ, my Lord, who kept me safe through all my trials.  I can say now: Who am I, Lord, and what is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power?  You did all this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify your name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and in adversity.  You did it so that, whatever happened to me, I might accept good and evil equally, always giving thanks to God.  God showed me how to have faith in him forever, as one who is never to be doubted.  He answered my prayer in such a way that in the last days, ignorant though I am, I might be bold enough to take up so holy and so wonderful a task, and imitate in some degree those whom the Lord had so long ago foretold as heralds of his Gospel, bearing witness to all nations. 

How did I get this wisdom, that was not mine before?  I did not know the number of my days, or have knowledge of God.  How did so great and salutary a gift come to me, the gift of knowing and loving God, though at the cost of homeland and family?  I came to the Irish peoples to preach the Gospel and endure the taunts of unbelievers, put up with reproaches about my earthly pilgrimage, suffering many persecutions, even bondage, and losing my birthright of freedom for the benefit of others. 

If I am worthy, I am ready also to give up my life, without hesitation and most willingly, for his name.  I want to spend myself in that country, even in death, if the Lord should grant me this favor.  I am deeply in his debt, for he gave me the great grace that through me many peoples should be reborn in God, and then made perfect by confirmation and everywhere among them clergy ordained for a people gathered by the Lord from the ends of the earth.  As God had prophesied of old through the prophets: “The nations shall come to you from the ends of the earth, and say: ‘How false are the idols made by our fathers: they are useless.'”  In another prophecy he said: “I have set you as a light among the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”

It is among that people that I want to wait for the promise made by him, who assuredly never tells a lie.  He makes this promise in the Gospel: “They shall come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”  This is our faith: believers are to come from the whole world.

Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them.  Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  “This is how you are to pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” (Mt. 6:7-15)

During this first week of Lent we are given this instruction by our Lord on prayer – which has often been considered the first “work” of faith.  It is important to note that all the works of faith (which includes the specific disciplines associated with the lenten season: prayer, fasting and almsgiving) are not ways that we earn our salvation.  These are not exercises of our will by which we conquer heaven.  Rather, the works of faith are ways by which we open our hearts to the grace and mercy of God which is already present and has been poured forth in abundance by the sacrifice of Christ. 

It is interesting to note how our Lord connects prayer with forgiveness in this passage from Matthew’s gospel.  This passage on forgiveness or its lack also reflects on the openness or hardness of the human heart.  In the forgiveness we offer we open our own hearts to God’s forgiveness; in the forgiveness we refuse to offer we harden our hearts to God’s forgiveness.    

Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, in reflecting on this passage from Matthew’s gospel, offers these words:

“Today Jesus gives us his prayer, the Our Father. He first warns us that prayer is not just the multiplication of words, as if their quantity were what counted and not the heart with which they are pronounced. Instead he wants to show us the path of direct prayer, which immediately reaches God’s heart. He is the only one who could have taught this. He alone is the perfect Son who knows the Father deeply. Because of this, and because he loves his disciples with a limitless love, he teaches them the highest prayer, the prayer that God cannot help but hear. The character of this prayer can be understood from its first word, Abba (father). With this simple word – used by children everywhere when speaking to their own fathers – Jesus accomplishes a true revolution with respect to the Jewish tradition of never even speaking God’s holy name. He involves us in his own intimacy with the Father. It is not that he “lowers” God to us, but rather that we are raised up to the heavens, to the very heart of God, “who is in heaven” so that we can call him “father.” Even if the Father remains “in heaven” he is the One who embraces us. It is right to do the will of a Father like Him. It is right to ask for his kingdom to come soon, that is, the time when God’s holiness will finally be recognized.”

As we begin this season of Lent the Church wisely (in the readings chosen for this Sunday) calls us back to the “big picture” because it is in the context of the “big picture” that we are to live these next forty days in preparation for the celebration of Easter.  The “big picture” is this: we are created good, marked by sin, redeemed by Christ.

There is a misunderstanding regarding Christianity present in our world and this misunderstanding has roots both in those who are opposed to Christianity and religion in general and also in some Christians themselves who lack a full understanding of the faith.  The misunderstanding is that Christianity holds creation in contempt and sees it of having little or no worth.  This notion flies directly in the face of biblical evidence.  This Sunday’s first reading from the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7) reminds us that after God created all, after God made man and woman in his own image then God says, “It is good!”  Further, Christianity alone among all the world’s religions has the Creator of the world himself entering into creation in the person of the Son.  No other religion has this movement; the Creator stepping into creation.  We are created good…

But there is a nuance, creation is marked by sin.  Here the Christian faith is realistic and not naive in its understanding of the whole of the human condition and even each of our own unique experiences.  We see it throughout history and we know it in our own lived experiences – that there is something fundamentally off-kilter in the human condition.  “Brothers and sisters,” writes Paul, “through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12)  Sin and its effects are present in our world and our lives but (and this is an extremely important qualification) sin is neither the first nor the last word. 

We are made good by God, we are marked by sin, we are redeemed by Christ.  In this Sunday’s gospel (Mt. 4:1-11) Christ the God-man, “who, though he was in the form of God … emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…” (Phil. 2:6-7), is led by the Spirit into the desert where he is tempted by the evil one.  It is important to note that Christ overcomes each temptation which he is presented with not by calling on his own will to power (remember in Christ the Son “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…”) but rather, he overcomes each temptation by remaining and choosing to remain in relationship with the Father through the Holy Spirit in the very context of the weakness and need of his humanity.

Each of the devil’s temptations is at heart a temptation to doubt the love, presence and providence of the Father.  Christ will not give in to this, in fact he counters each temptation with a scripture passage that affirms both the love of the Father and his relationship with the Father.  Christ will not wound his relationship with the Father. 

We are redeemed in Christ.  In Christ we are, once again, brought into relationship with the Father and made sons and daughters of God and we are given the Holy Spirit that we might remain in relationship. 

As we begin this season of Lent (this time of preparation for Easter) we are given the big picture which should underlie and inform all that we are about these next forty days and in fact all our lives as Christians.   

This coming Wednesday (March 9th) the Church celebrates Ash Wednesday – the beginning of the season of Lent.  Lent is a time of spiritual preparation (often achieved through the disciplines of fasting, prayer and almsgiving) for the celebration of Easter. 

It is helpful to note that we enter into Lent as “church” – we do not do this alone.  Together we mark ourselves with the ashes of Ash Wednesday and together we begin this period of the forty days of Lent.  Although we each have our own specific sacrifices that we make for the season we walk this journey together and there is something quite beautiful and profound about this.

This sense of doing Lent “together” is very Catholic I believe and really at the heart of what it means to be christian and what it means to be church.  Through our baptisms into the Body of Christ we are not set adrift and left to our own devices but in fact knit together into a profoundly intertwined spiritual reality – connected with God and connected with one another.  As Church we are indeed connected and we support one another in ways that we will never be fully aware of I believe until we all stand in the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

As we approach Ash Wednesday it is good to remember that we do Lent together.

Pope Benedict in his book “St. Paul” offers these words on the reality of Church:

“And finally, one last nuance.  In his Letter to Timothy Paul describes the Church as the ‘household of God’ (1 Tim. 3:15), and this is a truly original definition because it refers to the Church as a community structure in which warm, family-type interpersonal relations are lived.  The Apostle helps us to understand ever more deeply the mystery of the Church in her different dimensions as an assembly of God in the world.  This is the greatness of the Church and the greatness of our call; we are a temple of God in the world, a place in which God truly dwells, and at the same time we are a community, a family of God who is love.  As a family and home of God, we must practice God’s love in the world and thus, with the power that comes from faith, be a place and a sign of his presence.”    

The Simpsons – in their tongue-in-cheek way – also help us to grasp a little of this reality…