Category Archives: love

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Love and Friendship (6th Sunday of Easter – B)

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in friendship, homily, life in Christ, love

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Rue_dyingEarlier this week I was channel surfing and came across a broadcast of the first of the “Hunger Games” movies.  I have to admit that when the books and movies initially came out I was skeptical and avoided them altogether but then one day, kind of on a whim, I joined some friends who had decided to see the movie.  I am now a fan.  At the heart of that first movie (which I saw again this last week) is a scene where a young girl is killed in these games that pits child fighting against child to the death.  The heroine, who was trying to protect this young girl is heartbroken.  But in her pain and grief she does a tender thing.  She gathers flowers and places them around the body of the young girl lying dead on the forest floor.

In the cold world depicted in this story where, I would say, the sense of God has been lost (a world that at best can only say, “May the odds continually be in your favor.” rather than, “God be with you.”) the heroine performs a corporal work of mercy.  She buries the dead and she does it in love and friendship.  Via video cameras the nation silently watches and in response, in an imprisoned part of the country, a fight against the injustice of the oppressors breaks out! All because the heroine performed this simple act of taking the time to acknowledge the humanity and the dignity of this young girl … a humanity and dignity that all the “powers that be” were trying their best to negate.

There is a power to love and friendship. You know, if you think of all the great stories – whether they are expressed in movies, plays, literature, opera, whatever medium – a common element that runs throughout them all is the exploration of love and friendship. The settings both geographical and in time may be worlds apart. The characters and plot may be very different but in any good story there is an underlying story and exploration of the dynamics of love and friendship in life. The reader or viewer might not know what it is like to fly a bomber in WWII or stare at the walls of Troy or fight off zombies but everyone knows what it is like to yearn to give love and receive love and to desire friendship and remain in friendship.

Part of the essence of love and friendship is that it does not have to be flashy in order to be true. I thought of this yesterday in our parish’s celebration of first communion. Christ gives us himself (his body and blood) in the form of bread and wine – two things so utterly common. God does not need flash, God does not need smoke and mirrors and God does not need the latest fad in order to accomplish his plan in our lives. We might believe we need these things but God does not. Think of moments of friendship or moments when you gave or received authentic love … I would wager that the memories that come to mind are anything but flashy, more than likely they are common even to the point of being unnoticed by others – laughing with a friend, holding a loved one’s hand, comforting a child…

In today’s gospel (Jn. 15:9-17), Jesus says, As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love … love one another as I love you … You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. 

What does Christ give us and what does Christ call us to? Love and friendship. We must not pass this over, because this is the heart of it all! What unites all the great stories? What speaks to the depth of universal human existence? What does Christ give us? What truly transforms our lives and our world? Love and friendship. And the gospel message is that it is both love and friendship with one another and, through Christ, love and friendship with God! Christ calls us his friends; we need to take this to heart. We can never be friends in a sense of peer to peer with Christ but, nonetheless, he calls us friends. We need to pray on this truth and therefore on the great power of friendship that our Lord himself alludes to in this passage.

We should never underestimate the power of love nor the power of friendship.

…love one another as I love you.

I no longer call you slaves … I have called you friends…

Teach us how to pray – Teach us how to love: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in authenticity, freedom, love, love of God, love of neighbor, prayer

≈ Leave a comment

In order to love one must be free.  Love can neither be forced nor contrived.  For love to be authentic it must be freely given and freely received.  This is love’s dynamic and yet, just as love depends on freedom love, itself, makes us freer.  In John’s first letter we are told that perfect love casts out all fear.  Love creates true freedom.  In this Sunday’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians we are reminded of this salvific fact.  Christ, out of love, took on our sinfulness, “obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross.” 

In Christ we have been set free but this is not a freedom to do whatever we please.  This is not authentic freedom rather; it is a misuse of freedom.  The freedom we gain from the love of Christ is the freedom to enter more deeply into honest relationship with God and with one another.  This freedom begins in the very knowledge that in Christ we are loved beyond measure – each and every one of us.   

The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were many but at the heart of these sins was the abuse of relationship, particularly the abuse of the visitor, the stranger.  This sin is brought out all the more in contrast to the passage directly preceding that about Sodom and Gomorrah (last Sunday’s readings).  In last Sunday’s passage Abraham welcomes the three visitors, he honors his relationship with them and he treats it as a sacred reality to be respected.  The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, on the other hand, do not.  Their sin is great and grave.   

It is easy to judge Sodom and Gomorrah and hold ourselves superior but I wonder if one of the factors of their sinfulness is a factor also present in our own day and time – a life lived in distraction.  John Garvey, in an article he wrote entitled, “A Tree Full of Monkeys: Why the Soul Needs Silence” makes a good observation: 

It takes effort to be clear about the moment we are in.  It requires taking time … We need, through practice, to be made aware of what is wrong about ordinary waking circumstances; it takes effort to do this … it matters, especially in a time when distraction and ideological reinforcement matter more to the culture than sober clarity does.  This inattention disrupts our lives at every level – religious, political, aesthetic … Prayer (silence) can begin to make us feel what is directly underfoot, can help us begin to understand where we really are, in the presence of the sacred… 

A life of distraction, a life of inattention inhibits freedom and therefore hinders growth in true love and honest relationship and (if left unchecked both in lives of individuals and of society) can be a contributing factor in the abuse of others – those who are indeed our brothers and our sisters.  For this we will each have to give an accounting before the judgment seat of God.  To love, one must be free.  A distracted life is not a free life. 
 
It is worthy to note that in this Sunday’s gospel (Lk. 11:1-13), after our Lord gives us the Our Father, he goes on to further explain prayer by use of three images specifically based in relationship and attentiveness – the attention of one friend to another in need, the willingness to trust in relationship with God and therefore to ask, to seek, to knock and the attentive love of a father to the needs of a child.  Let us not fool ourselves.  Love can easily and sadly be compromised on all levels and in many ways.  The mind can easily become a “tree full of monkeys”.  The soul needs silence and prayer not just for sanity but also to safeguard freedom, honest relationship and attentiveness to the needs of the other. 

The disciples’ request, “teach us to pray” is another way of asking, “teach us how to love.”

"Behold, I make all things new." Fifth Sunday of Easter (C)

27 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by in God's love, love, sad logic of sin and death, willing the good of the other

≈ 1 Comment

“Behold, I make all things new.”  Scene from The Passion of the Christ.

In this Sunday’s second reading from the Book of Revelation (Rev. 21:1-5a), John shares the vision of seeing a “new heaven” and a “new earth” with “the holy city, a new Jerusalem”.  As John writes, The former heaven and the former earth had passed away…  John then hears the One sitting on the throne proclaim, “Behold, I make all things new.”

In our gospel reading (Jn. 13:31-33a, 34-35), at the Last Supper after our Lord had just washed the feet of his disciples – showing by action what he is to now proclaim in word – Jesus says, I give you a new commandment: love one another. 

By holding these passages together – letting them inform one another – I think that we can say that the new heaven, the new earth and the new Jerusalem are intrinsically linked to the new commandment that is given to us.  God has chosen to “make all things new” precisely through the love revealed in Jesus Christ.  God does not choose force or fear or power or might to accomplish his purpose rather, God chooses loves because, as Scripture says, God is love. 

It is helpful to note that Jesus reveals this new commandment only after Judas had left.  Judas had made up his mind to betray the Lord.  Judas had chosen to remain captive to the sad logic of this world that chooses to only see things in terms of conflict, division, power and isolation.  Judas could not take in the truth of God’s way and of the very nature of God that our Lord reveals.  Judas was blind.  The sad logic of our world continues to remain blind and cynical to the ever newness and possibility of God’s love.  “Life is ever the same, look only to your own needs, nothing can ever be different.”  This is the sad logic of our world.  In the resurrection, the risen Lord breaks this sad logic just as surely as he breaks the chains of sin and death.

We must realize that this commandment of love is not of our origin nor our making.  On our own we cannot arrive at it.  On our own we cannot even dream of it or imagine it.  This new commandment of love comes from Christ and is in fact, Christ.  Christ present in our lives calls us to an ever new awareness and an ever new living of love.  I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  The truth of these words need to sink into the depths of our hearts: as Christ has loved us … as Christ has loved us … as Christ has loved us … we should love one another.

Fr. Robert Barron begins his series on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Lively Virtues by highlighting a profound spiritual truth.  The truth is this: we are not necessary.  We do not have to be.  The world and creation existed before we came on the scene and it will continue after we have exited the scene.  We are not necessary nor, in fact, is all of creation.  It is only when we wrestle and grapple with this profound and sobering truth that we come to recognize that the one necessary is God himself and everything else is contingent upon God.  The good news?  The new commandment?  God is love.  We are here, all of creation is here, only through the continual and generous outpouring of God’s love.  When we recognize this and are able to step away from the isolation of the self-absorbed ego then we can live in and even be a conduit of God’s own love.   

The more we love one another as Christ has loved us, the more we participate in the very newness of God’s love which overcomes death, sin and the sad logic of our world.  This is why the gospel can proclaim “blessed” those persecuted, mocked and derided for their faith in Christ because it is in the very face of the sad logic of this world that we are afforded the opportunity to love as Christ himself loves and that we ourselves can therefore participate in the very life of God who alone is necessary. 

St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as “willing the good of the other”.  There is a lot to this definition that can be fleshed out in a variety of ways but here I just want to highlight a couple of truths.  God in Christ has and continues to fully love us.  God, in Christ, wills our good.  God did not have to come to us when we were lost in sin and death but because God is love, God willed our good.  God came to us and took on the weight of sin and death.  Love is willing the good of the other. 

Here is the other truth.  When God wills it is accomplished.  We are not God, we are creatures.  We are not necessary.  When we love, when we will the good of the other, that does not necessarily mean it will come to be but this is okay because whenever we will the good of the other in whatever way or shape or form then we ourselves are participating in that very movement of the newness of God’s love.  I offer this because we all often hear one another say, “My spouse, my child, my friend, my sister, my brother is making really bad choices.  I love him or her but he or she does not change no matter how I try to help.”  “There is so much pain and hurt in the world.  I will try to do my part to help but what good does it really do?”  It is not on us to accomplish (that is God’s part).  “Behold, I make all things new.” proclaims the One sitting upon the throne.  It is only on us to will the good.  When we love, when we will the good of the other, no matter how small and insignificant it might seem, then we are participating in the ever newness of God’s love and we are moving beyond the sad logic of our world.

At the end of her life, when my mother’s body had pretty much given out on her, my mom could not do much but one thing she could do was watch the finches come to the bird feeder at her window.   When the feeder ran out she would remind me to fill it with new seed.  In her own little way, my mother was loving and willing the good of those little birds and God’s creation.  At the very end of her life, she was making the choice to participate in the ever newness of God’s love and not be bound by the sad logic of sin and death. 

The Lord said, I give you a new commandment: love one another.  

John heard the One sitting on the throne say, Behold, I make all things new.     

       

   

   

Peter accepts love: Third Sunday of Easter (C)

13 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by in Easter, grace, love, Peter, resurrection, sin

≈ Leave a comment

“The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection” by Eugene Burnand

Recently I was asked to list some good books written by Catholic authors.  The names that immediately came to my mind were Georges Bernanos, Flannery O’Connor, Shusaku Endo and Graham Greene.  Each of these authors wrote fiction and each one in his or her own way courageously delved into the psychology of sin, grace and faith.  These authors did not seek to present faith in simplistic black and white categories and neither did they need to explain away the struggles and doubts of life.  Rather, each author was able to present the reality of grace found within the very struggles, doubts and even times of darkness that can comprise moments in life that we all experience. 

In many ways, their writings mirror the very gospel passage that we are given this third Sunday of Easter (Jn. 21:1-19).  In this resurrection appearance we are told that Peter and six other disciples went fishing on a boat in the Sea of Tiberias.  Seven disciples in a boat – a concise symbol of the Church.  It was night.  Christ has not yet appeared to them.  They were relying on their own self-sufficiency and their own ability to catch the fish but (we are told), they caught nothing.  When we rely solely on ourselves then we remain in the darkness of night and we catch nothing, the work is futile. 

When it was already dawn … Jesus was seen standing on the shore, yet not recognized.  Whenever Christ comes to us the darkness already begins to flee.  It is helpful to note that Christ does not need to consult our calendars.  Christ comes to us when he so chooses and it is in that moment that the dawn begins to break. 

Probably with a bit of a smile and fully aware of his disciples’ exercise in futility the risen Lord slyly asks, Children … have you caught anything to eat?  No, they admit and then upon his instruction they cast their nets again and make a great haul of fish. 

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, is the first to realize it is the Lord.  John was the one who leaned his head on the breast of the Lord at the last supper, John was the one who stood by the cross of the Lord and did not run away.  John is the one whose heart is attuned and attentive to the beating heart of the risen Lord.  Yet, John did not hide within his realization, only to enjoy it for himself, rather he turned in respect to Peter – the “rock”, the one on whom the Lord said he would build his Church – and said, It is the Lord.

Peter, continually surprising – ancient, yet always surprising – in his eagerness and love for the Lord jumps out of the boat and into the water and swims to shore!  The Lord feeds his friends and then he has this wonderful exchange with Peter.  Three times, the Lord asks Peter; do you love me?  Three times Peter responds “yes” and the Lord instructs him to feed and tend his sheep. 

Why did the Lord give this command and why specifically did he entrust Peter with this task?  Peter had denied the Lord, Peter had run away and now the Lord is entrusting his very flock to this man?  What had changed?  What had changed is that now Peter had accepted love.  Where before he had relied on his own strength of faith – Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death. (Lk. 22:33) – now Peter, after his denial, can only hold on to the love of the Lord.  Peter’s heart, healed by the light of Easter, had come to truly understand and grasp the words of that beautiful Lenten hymn; What wondrous love is this?  Peter had accepted the love of the risen Lord and now Christ says to him; feed my sheep. 

The Gospel does not need to explain away the weakness of the human heart nor the struggles and doubts of life.  Rather, the Gospel proclaims the amazing truth that grace has entered into our very human and limited and sinful reality.  The Lord is risen!  He does not deny our humanity, rather he fulfills it through love and friendship! 

The Wedding Banquet and Les Miserables

19 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in face of God, Kingdom of God, love, mercy, wedding banquet

≈ 1 Comment

Jean Valjean and the Bishop (scene from Les Miserables)

There is a scene found in the beginning of the story Les Miserables (currently playing at theaters as an award-winning movie) that is quite striking.  Jean Valjean has been freed from his twenty year imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread yet he is still ostracized by society due to the identification papers he must carry on himself.  The papers testify that he is a former convict and therefore no one wants anything to do with him.  Embittered by this, not able to find work and left starving, Jean Valjean finds himself taken in one night by a Catholic bishop.  He is given a warm meal and a place to sleep.  Yet, in the middle of the night in an act of desperation and anger, Jean Valjean makes off with the bishop’s silverware.  He is caught by the local authorities and brought back, yet the bishop (at this point) does a truly remarkable thing.  Knowing full well what Jean Valjean has done, the bishop tells the officers that he freely gave him the silverware and he even tops this by giving him his last two candlesticks.  Jean Valjean is freed and by this act of charity is given a new life. 

In light of this Sunday’s gospel (Jn. 2:1-11) I would say that this bishop through his action of forgiveness and mercy not only gave Jean Valjean a new life but invited him into the wedding banquet.

The turning of water into wine is the first miracle of Jesus’ public ministry.  As Christians we rightly see this miracle and the context in which it occurs (the wedding banquet) as a foreshadowing of the coming Kingdom of God which Christ comes to inaugurate.  The wedding banquet is a celebration of great joy and union.  The Kingdom of God is the fulfillment of all humanity’s hope and yearning where heaven and earth are once more united.  At the wedding banquet water is turned into wine; in the Kingdom of God the daily and mundane is transformed into moments of rich encounter with the divine. 

The wedding banquet and its miracle is rich in typology and in symbols for Christians yet I would like to continue to hold this miracle story in dialogue with the action of the bishop from Victor Hugo’s book in order to bring out another dimension found within the gospel story.  As Christians, not only are we to rejoice in the banquet ourselves we are also meant to invite others within.  In truth, we cannot fully celebrate the banquet ourselves unless we see to the needs of others; unless we also invite others within through acts of mercy and love. 

Mary, as always, is the model in this for us.  Mary is a woman fully immersed in the culture of her time and she knows the importance of the wedding banquet.  She is concerned for the good of this young couple and she knows how poorly it might reflect on them if the wine runs out.  Possibly they were from poorer families who could not afford a lavish celebration.  It is Mary’s awareness of the need of this young couple and her concern for them that leads her to her son just as it is the bishop’s awareness of Jean Valjean’s need that leads him to mercy.  Confident in the mercy and love of her son, Mary does not even question or argue after making her request known rather she turns to the servers and simply says, Do whatever he tells you. 

The logic of the banquet (which is the logic of the Kingdom of God) is that mercy and love must be extended.  It is not enough to celebrate the banquet for ourselves; in fact that is a truly impoverished celebration.  To truly celebrate the banquet we must be willing to let go of ourselves – our needs and wants – and we must be willing to extend love and mercy to one another – to family, to friends and to strangers.  It is that simple.  This is the logic of the banquet and it is the logic of the Kingdom of God which overcomes all the false philosophies and sad divisions of our world.  As Christians, we are called to live the logic of the wedding banquet. 

At the end of the story when Jean Valjean is being led to eternal rest – a true father who gave of his life for his adopted daughter Cossette – he shares this wisdom, “To love another person is to see the very face of God.” 

To live a life in the logic of the banquet – helping to extend God’s love and mercy to all people – is to know God and to share already in joy of his Kingdom.     

The Baptism of the Lord: Scripture interprets Scripture

12 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Baptism of the Lord, humility, love, obedience

≈ 2 Comments

Baptism of the Lord, El Greco

Scripture interprets Scripture.  This is one of the principles of sound exegesis – passages of Scripture can be held together in dialogue to bring one to a deeper awareness of the Christian faith.  For this Sunday’s celebration of the Baptism of the Lord we are given Luke 3:15-16, 21-22.  In Luke’s presentation of the baptism of the Lord we find this written:

After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”

In the second chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians we read this:

Have this mind among yourselves, which was in 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 servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. 

These passages are important, I believe, because they can bring us into the mind of Christ and into a deeper awareness of how he accomplished his salvific mission.  In the Creed we profess the great mystery that Jesus is fully God and fully human – “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God … and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man”.  On the surface we can assume that Christ accomplishes his mission by the exercise of his unique power of being the Son of the Father, the second person of the Trinity.  Christ on his own, by his independent strength of will, accomplishes his task. 

I do not believe this is true and I point to the above passages quoted for a different interpretation.  In Philippians we are told that Christ emptied himself.  The Son of the Father lets go of his glory.  In the third chapter of Luke’s gospel we are told that heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ.  By holding these passages together we are brought to the awareness that Christ does not accomplish his salvific mission through the sole exercise of his glory of being the Son of the Father; rather, the Son empties himself thus both allowing the full humanity of Christ to cling to the will of the Father and allowing the Holy Spirit to fully work through him.

Christ is not a lone cowboy who rides into town one day and by his own power gets rid of the bad guys.  Rather, in Christ, we find humility, obedience, joy and love at work.  The Son emptying himself, the full humanity of Christ clinging to the will of the Father, the joy of the Father in his Son, and the love of Holy Spirit flowing between Father and Son and through the Son to bring forth miracles and accomplish the salvific event.

It is not “will to power” that accomplishes the salvific event but rather humility and the obedience of love.

Wherever the Son is, there also is the Father and the Holy Spirit.  In Christ, we find the whole Trinity at play. 

Through our baptisms we are brought into the very life of the Trinity and we also are brought into this very dynamic.  What we can accomplish in our lives as Christians and as Church is not accomplished by what we can do on our own (the sad and tired logic of our world) but rather by learning to live as Christ lived – emptying ourselves of glory, clinging to the will of the Father, and receiving the love of the Holy Spirit.

 “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”               

The "Perfect Storm" – the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy

17 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in build, evil, love, Sandy Hook Elementary school, shooting

≈ Leave a comment

I have been watching the news on the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conneticut from Italy.  (I am in Rome studying Italian for three weeks and praying and working with the Community of Sant’Egidio.)  I first heard of the shooting through Fr. Francesco who made mention of it during his reflection for the community’s evening prayer last Friday.  Since then my heart has been hurting for all the victims and their families, for the community of Newtown, for our nation and even for the disturbed young man who committed this horrible act. 

Not that long ago our nation watched as different weather patterns and environmental factors came together to produce what we now call “Superstorm Sandy”.  A storm that devastated New York and New Jersey.  Rising sea levels combined with shifting air currents and warmer temperatures to produce the superstorm we saw wreck so much damage and take so many lives.  I find it ironic that Hurricane Sandy and this elementary school share the same first name. 

In many ways this is how I view what tragically happened last Friday – the coming together of so many fronts of different activity that produced an explosion of senseless violence and destruction – a “perfect storm” if you will.  What are these “fronts”?  I would list a few.  The glorification of violence in our society throughout all forms of media, entertainment and interaction.  The tearing down of social structures that have historically served as safety nets of support in our society (i.e. family, church, neighborhoods, community).  The isolation of the individual that is growing in our society.  The pressures laid on all people but especially the poorest due to the economic crisis.  The overuse and over-prescribing of medications that can actually hinder the development of proper life coping skills.  (There is a legitimate value to medication which I do not deny but I believe it a fair and needed question to ask if medications are overused and to question this overuse.)  The de-valuing of life in our day and time – life in the womb, life in prison, the dignity of the stranger, the life of the elderly.  A dismissal of any sense of the common good over a myopic focus on the individual.  A breakdown of mental health services in our society.  A destructive competitive edge to relationships and living and suceeding in life which permeates, it sometimes seems, even the very air which we breath.  An easy access to guns and truly excessive fire-power that I cannot honestly believe the Founding Fathers could foresee. 

I cannot help but believe that all these factors came together in a perfect storm in the life of that troubled young man – a perfect storm that exploded in Newtown. 

In the classic movie “A Man for All Seasons” there is a scene where the son-in-law and family of Thomas More argue with the sainted Chancellor of the Realm.  The impetuous young man wants to do away with the laws of the country in order to counter the unjust actions of the king and his agents.  More challenges him on this by asking when all the laws of the country have been laid low like the trees of the forest cut down what will then protect them when the devil comes ravaging?

It is a profound question.  When all has been cut down what will protect us when the devil comes ravaging?

Within all of this there is also the profound mystery of evil.  Evil is real and we are naive to pretend it does not exist.  As Christians though, we answer evil.  We answer evil with the story of the cross and the empty tomb.  Death and sorrow do not have the last word.  As Christians, we tell the story and we get up again.  In the face of evil we do good because God is love and love is the true center of life. 

We get up.

It is time to get up and time to start building again.  It is time for all of us to let go of the false philosophies that have torn down what once sheltered and protected us and have now come together to create the very factors that make the perfect storm real.

Why a school?  I do not know if this question has been answered yet or will ever be answered.  I will put forward one thought.  In the context of a barren landscape where all has been cut down, where is the last place standing where life is protected and nurtured?  I would say a school.  Who are the living embodiments of life and our hopes for the future?  I would say children. 

We need to stand up.  We need to start building again.  Each one of us needs to fiercely search our souls and let go of any lies that tear down and divide and we need to start building.  We need to live lives that counter violence, that overcome isolation, that seek relationship and that acknowledge both the dignity of the individual and the value of the common good.

If not us, then who?    

It is for our children.                               

Of the End Times: Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

17 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by in end times, faith, homily, hope, love

≈ Leave a comment

One of my professors in seminary once remarked that the events of the last days as portrayed in the Scriptures should be read like the labor pangs of birth rather than cataclysmic destruction.  In fact, the birth analogy is more in keeping with the fuller sense of Scripture than the “cataclysmic, world destroyed in a ravaging ball of fire, Hollywood 2012 movie” interpretation.

The texts of Scripture do not confirm, … a sort of “theory of catastrophes,” according to which there must first be a complete destruction of the world after which God can finally turn everything to good.  No, God does not arrive at the end, when all is lost.  He does not disown his own creation.  In the book of Revelation we read, “You created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (4:11).
The “upheaval” expressed throughout the New Testament is that when the Son of Man comes, he comes not in the weariness of our habits nor does he insert himself passively into the natural course of things.  When Christ comes, he brings a radical change to the lives of men and women and it is always a change that brings the fullness of life.
Notice that in this Sunday’s gospel passage (Mk. 13:24-32) after our Lord speaks of the coming of the Son of Man with “great power” he goes on to state: Learn a lesson from the fig tree.  When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.  In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, at the gates.  Our Lord does enter into our lives and the life of our world with “great power” but the upheaval he brings is an invitation to turn away from sin and the works of sin and to turn toward the fullness of life.
As Christians we are to live in this world not bound by the deadening works of sin and pride but rather in the upheaval and pangs of birth of the establishment of the Kingdom of God.  Because every day and in every situation Christ is near, at the gates.  The Book of Revelation gives us an image of this hope toward which we yearn and work.  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:1-2).  The great “Day of the Lord” is not yet to happen it has already happened!  God has entered into creation and history in the person of Christ, eternity has entered into time, and now this upheaval comes to every generation and even each day.  We are caught up in the great work of God where all peoples and nations will be gathered together into the new Jerusalem! 
The “end of the world” must come every day.  Every day, we must put an end to both the small or big pieces of the world’s evil and malevolence, but not by God but by people.  Moreover, the days that pass, end inexorably. Nothing remains of them, but the good fruit or, unfortunately, the hardships that we create for others.  Scripture invites us to keep the future, toward which we are led, in front of our eyes: the end of the world is not a catastrophe, but will in fact establish the holy city that comes down from heaven.  It is a city that is a concrete reality, not an abstract one, gathering all the people around their Lord.  This is the goal (and, in a sense also, the end) of history.  But his holy city must begin in our daily life now so that it may grow and transform the lives of men and women into God’s likeness.  It does not have to do with an easy and automatic grafting, but the common toil that every believer must fulfill, remembering what the Lord says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
(Quotes taken from The Word of God Every Day by Vincenzo Paglia.)

"It is not good for man to be alone.": Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in creation, homily, love, marriage, sacrifice, union of man and woman

≈ Leave a comment

It is not good for man to be alone. 

These words spoken by God at the very dawn of creation bring forth a singular truth regarding the human condition.  Communion and relationship are at the very root of what it means to be human.  In one sense this should come as no surprise as we are made in the image and likeness of God who is a communion of persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  God is not a “far-away and high loneliness” but rather a living relationship of three Persons.  It can be said that God does not live alone and therefore man and woman are not meant to live alone.  We are meant for communion and communion, solidarity and support are the root of every human vocation.  By living communion (whether that be the communion of friendship, of discipleship, of the common good, of church, of witness) we are being brought to that ultimate communion which will be the union of the human family with God. 

This Sunday we are asked to reflect on a specific kind of communion which originates from marriage – the union of man and woman. 

I wish that I could say that I get into our surrounding mountains here in East Tennessee more often than I do.  We are indeed blessed here with the beauty of God’s creation.  But, even if I cannot get away for a hike too often, I am pretty consistent about taking my two dogs for a walk at least every other day if not every day.  For a few minutes I step out from the office, I step away from the computer and from the Internet and facebook, I let go of whatever project is occupying my thoughts and I am able to be with my dogs and enjoy the beauty of the day and creation.  When I do this I am always better for it.  Creation and its structure and laws has a way of putting things right, speaking to the truth and depth of who we are and refreshing the soul.

In today’s gospel (Mk. 10:2-16) when our Lord is asked if it is lawful for a husband to divorce his wife he turns to creation when he gives his answer.  

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’  So they are not longer two but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.  

This “turn to creation” on our Lord’s part is not an aside nor just a nice rhetorical device.  To truly understand marriage one must look to the laws of creation itself.  Marriage is not rooted in the laws of governments that come and go nor is it ultimately founded in the social values of any given time which, it must be acknowledged, are often biased toward the powerful and oppressive of the weak and poor.  Marriage even precedes the foundation of the Church herself, whose relation to marriage is that of steward and not creator.  Marriage, the union of man and woman, originates in creation itself.  It is even such a high display of love that it is presented as an image of God’s love for his people and Christ’s love as bridegroom for his bride, the Church.

That the two shall become one flesh testifies (probably more powerfully than anything else) to the reality that communion lies at the very foundation of human existence and human vocation.  This is a needed witness, if not the most important witness, to our day and age which is so dominated by a self-centered and self-seeking approach to human existence.  Marriage lived even in the struggles of human weakness yet open to God’s healing and sanctifying grace, witnesses to that fundamental law of creation that the two actually do become one flesh.  A law which can neither be faked nor manipulated because it is linked to truth itself.  Life is found through communion, through sacrifice and through love and not through a self-centered and isolated existence. 

This Sunday’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (2:9-11) reminds us that when we were lost and isolated in sin and death, God stepped out of his glory and took on suffering for us.  In order that, He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated all have one origin.  (Notice again the use of the imagery of creation and origin.)  Our origin is God, a communion of Persons, who spoke forth creation in love and who let go of his glory in love that we might have life. 

In the love and sacrifice of communion we are rooted and we are fulfilled.  It is written into the very laws of creation and into creation being sanctified by grace.     

 

          

The Expansiveness of Love: Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

29 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by in 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), fearless moral inventory, homily, humility, love, safeguarding ones own

≈ Leave a comment

Icon of Christ – the Divine Physician

It has been noted that the besetting sin of our day is not that we love too much but rather that we love too little.  It is my estimation that although often trumpeted,  proclaimed, and sung about in all sectors of society the love that is most often highlighted today is, in fact, impoverished and anemic.  When we scratch just under the surface we realize that what often passes for “love” is really, in fact, just safeguarding ones own interest – ones own viewpoint of the way things are, ones own prosperity, ones own desire and need, the success and comfort of ones own group, ones own ideology, ones own honor, family and kin. 

The truth is that there is nothing new under the sun; this temptation to safeguard ones own has been around for a very long time.  In fact, we find it in today’s gospel passage (Mk. 9:38-43, 44,47-48).  John himself is operating under this temptation when he says to Jesus; Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.  On the surface John might have convinced himself that the attempt to prevent this person and his actions was out of love for Jesus but in fact it was more about privilege and our Lord recognized this.  Do not prevent him.  There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.

In today’s gospel passage our Lord asks us to do two things.  The first is to in humility make what is often called a “fearless moral inventory”.  Our Lord asks us to look within and to honestly gauge what motivates us.  He does this by highlighting the temporal nature of the physical body.  If your hand … If your foot causes you to sin cut it off … If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.  Any reasonable person is going to realize that its not my hands or my feet or my eyes that cause my sin but rather something much deeper within – my own disordered desires which motivate and impel me. 

If, indeed, it is my body parts that should be cut off if it is proven that they are the root of my sin then even more so must my heart and what motivates me from within be laid open before the Divine Physician in order for that which corrupts to be cut out and removed by his grace.  Every time we come before the Lord in personal prayer, in sacramental celebration or in service to another we must let go of the subtle temptation to safeguard our own and, in humility, open our hearts to Christ. 

This is the first request our Lord makes of us in today’s gospel passage.  The second request both flows from and is dependent upon the first.  Christ asks us to spend ourselves in love.  Elsewhere in scripture, we are told that our love should be sincere.  The sincerity of love both for neighbor and God is dependent upon our willingness to look both fearlessly and humbly within and to let go and move beyond anything that inhibits and disorders love.  This includes the temptation to safeguard our own. 

When we view the lives of the saints one common characteristic we find is that these men and women spent themselves in love.  This is said over and over again in regards to the saints.  They learned the lesson of today’s gospel passage and each, in his or her own unique way, did not just avoid sin (which certainly is important) but also literally spent themselves in love.  They learned and trusted in the expansive love of Christ.  Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward. 

Christ calls us to spend our lives in love, to an expansiveness of heart, because here (and not in safeguarding our own) is where fulfillment and true joy are to be found.