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Advent: Return to the Beginning

05 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Advent, hope, Uncategorized, Year of Mercy

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advent wreath 3The week before the first Sunday of Advent I ventured into a local craft store in search of Advent candles.  After inquiry, a sales associate led me to the candles.  We passed one, then two, then three, four and five full aisles of Christmas decorations.  Arriving at the last row she pointed to a small stack of Advent candles on the bottom corner of a shelf.  Quite sad in comparison.  I cannot help but reflect on the symbolism.  As I write this reflection there has been yet another mass shooting in our country.  I do not make this jump from searching for Advent candles to a mass shooting in order to be flippant or sensational, I share it because I believe Advent offers needed lessons for our world today but honestly I fear these lessons may fall on deaf ears because they will require work, sacrifice and even risk on our part.

One of the virtues that Romano Guardini explores in his book Learning the Virtues that Lead You to God is the virtue of patience.  In the course of his reflection he offers these words:

Therefore patience, which always begins again, is a prerequisite if something is to be done.  In “The Imitation of Christ” we find the phrase “Semper incipe!” … At first sight, it is a paradox, for a beginning is a beginning and then we go on.  But that is true only in mechanical matters.  In actual life, beginning is an element that must operate constantly.  Nothing goes on if it does not at the same time begin. 

So he who wishes to advance must always begin again.  He must constantly immerse himself in the inner source of life and arise therefrom in new freedom, in initiative – the power of beginning – in order to make real what he has purposed: prudence, temperance, self-control, or whatever it may be that is to be accomplished.  

Patience with oneself – not carelessness or weakness, of course, but the sense of reality – is the foundation of all progress.  

The wisdom that Guardini offers here is a wisdom found at the heart of the season of Advent.  In Advent, we as Church, “begin again”.  We return to the beginning and we join with the saints of this season (Ss. John the Baptist, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Joseph and Mary) in awaiting the coming of the Messiah.

Advent calls us to honestly acknowledge the darkness and brokenness of our world and our lives not in order to shut down in despair but in order to open a window of hope.  If approached correctly and not rushed through, the season of Advent offers profound lessons to help us learn patience with ourselves and our world.  We recognize that there is something fundamentally broken within ourselves and the human condition that is just not possible for us to heal and fix.  It is too mysterious, too deep and too painful.  Further, we recognize how all of creation stands in need.  We come to learn that the ultimate answer cannot be found in us.  Yet, we also recognize that there is a deep yearning for wholeness within and, if we sit with it long enough, we recognize that this yearning itself has been planted within us by God.  It is part of our makeup, part of the essence of who we are and Scripture tells us that God is a God who does not disappoint.  God will answer our need.  God will answer the deepest need of our world with the coming of Christ in glory in the fullness of all history.  God has answered the hope of the ages with the incarnation of the Son!

“Semper incipe!” is a spiritual truth and we learn it from the Advent saints themselves.  Zechariah and Elizabeth began again when they were reminded that nothing is impossible for God.  Joseph began again when he was reminded that God will act as God so chooses and our job is to trust.  John the Baptist began again when he went into the wilderness to meet the Lord just as the people of Israel had encountered God during their forty years of wandering in the desert.  Mary began again in her profound “Yes” to God – the heart of Israel’s history and hope.

We live in a dark time.  There is much violence, isolation, pain and fear in our world today.  In such times patience is called for all the more.  We must overcome the temptation to rush to judgment, to rush to condemnation, to rush to separation, to rush to retribution.  Patience rightly lived is a needed antidote rather than a weakness.  If we are to move beyond the darkness of these times we can neither naively try to wish it away nor pretend the darkness does not exist, rather we need to be honest about the state of things and then get to work!  And as Guardini rightly notes, patience is the foundation of all true progress.  The saints of Advent were anything but naïve.  They knew the brokenness of their world and their own need and they clearly show the willingness to begin again.

This particular Advent, this season when we as Church return to the beginning, should be different.  This celebration of Advent which marks the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy ought to initiate a transformation in us as Church that will affect our world.  In this will Advent truly be authentic.  No longer can Advent just be my or our personal preparation for the celebration of Christmas, rather Advent must light hope and mercy for our world.  We need to live the anticipation of this Advent not for ourselves but truly for all of our sisters and brothers – especially those who are suffering and forgotten.

Our world is in a dark place.  There is work that needs to be done.  Before we rush to the work, we should return to the beginning and immerse ourselves in that inner source of life which is our faith in the work of God himself.  Patience is the foundation of all true progress.

I would suggest that in a particular way this Advent we stand with the saints of this season and we learn from them how to return to the beginning.  This lesson is too important; too critical to the times we now live in, to bypass.

When all is said and done we may very well recognize that human history was carried neither by the proud nor the arrogant nor the centers of our world’s powers but rather by the patient – the ones who learned how to continually return to the beginning in order to arise in new freedom and new awareness.

The Humble and Patient King

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Christ, Christ the King, Christian living, Feast of Christ the King, holiness, homily, humility, Uncategorized

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jesus before pilateAt one point in his commentary on this Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 93), St. Augustine shares this observation: Humble people are like rock.  Rock is something you look down on, but it is solid.  What about the proud?  They are like smoke; they may be rising high, but they vanish as they rise. 

In the gospel for today’s Feast of Christ the King (Jn. 18:33b-37) we are given the humble and patient God.  Pilate (representative of all the powers of the world but powers that really have no authority of Jesus) questions Christ – a seemingly defeated and isolated man, abandoned by his friends and followers and mocked by his own people.

Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and chief priests handed you over to me.  What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.  If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”  So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?”  Jesus answered, “You say I am a king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  

Today, we as Church, proclaim Christ is King yet, like Pilate, our understanding and idea of this title is often limited.  It is interesting to note on this Feast of Christ the King that our Lord, himself, never took on the title of “king”.  Even on this most final and bitter of stages; when the fallen pride of our human condition would eagerly grasp onto a title of assertion to throw back into the face of the powers of this world (how often we see this exalted on our movie screens in the myth of redemptive violence) our Lord chooses a different path.  “You say I am king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Our Lord rejects the title “king” and by so doing he forswears the fallen world and all it has to offer – self-indulgent pride, sad divisions and triumphalism and all forms of violence.  Our Lord chooses a different path – the path of humility.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  

Humility has more in common with truth than does pride and power.  In fact, humility is essential if there is to be any real understanding of truth.  If we would know the truth then any temptation to put ourselves and our way of thinking at the center of creation (and these temptations come in all shapes and sizes: blue and red state, enlightened secularist and righteous religious, male and female, rich and poor, all colors of skin and shades of culture) must be put aside.  Everyone (I repeat “everyone”), needs to accept the purifying light of humility because the only constant, the only necessary is God – all else is contingent upon God’s will.  We are not necessary.  The more we realize this then the more we open ourselves to those moments when we catch a glimmer that God is indeed the “rock”, the only solid basis of all creation.  We also catch a glimpse of the infinite patience of God who submitted Himself to our illusions and misguided hatred.  Gratitude grows in our hearts when we honestly acknowledge and reflect upon the humility and patience of God.

Ours is a different type of king.  All is grace.

Do you want joy and gratitude?  Then look to the one we proclaim “king” yet who never sought that title for himself.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Cultivate humility.  Humility leads us to truth and truth brings gratitude.

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: The Generosity is God’s (Fifteenth Sunday-A)

12 Saturday Jul 2014

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In today’s Gospel (Mt. 13:1-23), the disciples ask the Lord why he speaks to the people in parables.  It is a fair question and one that can help us get at the heart of what a parable is meant to be about and meant to do.  A parable is not a set of engineering manuals which yield precise directions and formulations once we figure out the proper “code”.  Rather, a parable is better viewed as an invitation to a grand feast.  It is an entrance into which we are called to enter and it is then in the context of this “feast” that life is found – we encounter others, relationships are born or nourished and all of a sudden there are new insights or possibilities gained that we could never have predicted.  A parable is a living reality that we are meant to enter into, move about and even sit within, which then brings us insight into how to live Christian discipleship more deeply and truly.  A parable does not need to explain itself and neither are we meant to pry and wring truths out of parables by our own effort.  Parables speak.  We are to listen. 
Through this Sunday’s parable of the sower and the seed our Lord is inviting us into the mystery of encounter with himself (which occurs according to our Lord’s own generosity) and the mystery of keeping our hearts open and cultivated because we know neither the time nor the hour. 
Our gospel parable might be fleshed out more by the use of another parable – a commercial put out a while back by Catholic Charities in the Philippines.  In the commercial a businessman enters into a crowded subway.  He is hurrying to work and is carrying his sack lunch for the day.  He notices a homeless man sitting on the ground in a corner of the station.  The man is dirty and obviously in need.  At first the businessman makes to walk past him but then he stops, walks over the homeless man and gives him his lunch.  
Now, a second scene – the next day – once more the businessman enters the station carrying his lunch.  Again, he sees the homeless man.  He tries to walk by but his conscience will not allow him.  He heads over and gives the man his lunch but things change and instead of seeing the face of the homeless man the businessman sees the face of Christ.
A third scene – this time from the viewpoint of the homeless man sitting in the station.  We see the businessman coming forward to give his lunch but now it is the businessman’s face that changes and in its place the homeless man sees the face of Christ. 
In both the commercial and the parable we are invited into the great feast of Christian giving and receiving and encountering Christ within that living dynamic. 
It has been pointed out that an aspect of the parable of the sower and the seed is the almost remarkable carelessness of the sower.  This is not a farmer who has to have perfect soil for his supply of seeds!  
Without saying it, Jesus is comparing the sower to himself.  His generosity in sowing seeds is entirely his, not ours.  The sower does not calculate nor measure his generosity … there is no part of the soil that he does not consider worthy of attention. (Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia)
At the heart of the mystery of encountering Christ and experiencing the Kingdom is a gratuitousness that can neither be programmed nor predicted on our part.  The generosity is God’s and not ours.  One factor of note though in this mystery is the condition of the inner terrain of our hearts and the need of being “good soil”.  This is important as the parable teaches us that the sower can sow at any time and in any circumstance – from a church pew on Sunday to a busy subway station during the week.  The generosity is God’s and not our own. 
The power of the Catholic Charities commercial is that it does not need to explain anything.  It just portrays a moment and it that moment the man’s heart was good soil.  He made a decision and in that decision the Kingdom was able to break through and each recognized the face of Christ in the other.
God’s generosity is sowing seeds is entirely his, not ours.

Pope Francis, the Community of Sant’Egidio and their mutual friend

14 Saturday Jun 2014

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This coming Sunday (May 15th), Pope Francis will visit with the Community of Sant’Egidio at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastavere in Rome and will then walk a block to the Chapel of Sant’Egidio where the community is headquartered.  The heart of this visit by the Bishop of Rome will be an encounter with the poor.  Pope Francis’ friendship with and care for the poor is well known and is shared by the Community of Sant’Egidio.  When Andrea Riccardi along with a group of his friends in 1968 (all young high school students) heeded the summons of the Second Vatican Council to pick up the Gospel and read they quickly discerned that to be a Christian meant to be friends with the poor.  This realization led them to the slums of Rome where they began the first “School of Peace” – a daycare for the children of poor families.  Since then the Community has continued to walk with the poor and forgotten around the world and continues to learn the lessons that only the poor can offer any disciple of Christ. 
In one sense it is no wonder that Pope Francis and the Community of Sant’Egidio are having this encounter because it is the poor who are bringing them together.  It is like a mutual friend saying, “Come, I really want you to meet someone!”  The poor are the mutual friend bringing the two together.  Truth be told, this is not the first encounter of Pope Francis with the community.  Pope Francis has been a friend to the community since his days in Argentina.  In his role as cardinal of Buenos Aires he was supportive and encouraging of the work of the community.  But, even more so, he has himself been a friend of the poor throughout his own priesthood and life of faith.  From his biography we learn that Cardinal Bergoglio was not adverse to the slums and, in fact, that he encountered his Lord and Savior in the faces of his poor friends, brothers and sisters.  Pope Francis also walks with the poor and has learned the lessons that they alone have to offer.  
Being brought together by their mutual friend the poor is the key, I believe, to this coming encounter between the Bishop of Rome and this particular community of disciples.  Many people are talking about the “Francis effect” – meaning how Pope Francis has caught the attention and imagination of the world.  A danger in such talk is to try to determine his “technique” or, maybe worse, create a narrative which proposes a technique which can then be learned and copied.  I do not think Pope Francis has a technique in this regard; I think he just has friends and he loves his friends and wants to be with them.  Pope Francis is authentic and authenticity always attracts. 
As a diocesan priest and a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio I have found that my own priesthood and life of faith has been strengthened and often reinvigorated by my friendship with the poor.  The key word is “friendship”.  The poor are not clients, they are not a once or twice a year encounter (usually around the holidays), they are not a service project rather they are friends and this has implications.  I want to be with my friends, I enjoy their company, I do not have to pretend I can solve their problems it is enough just to be together, I trust that they also have something to offer me.  One of the greatest gifts that the poor have to give is the desire to just be together.  “When are you coming back?” is a question often asked by my poor friends.  
Currently, I am in a time of transition in my priesthood.  I am returning to parish ministry after seven years in specialized ministry.  A year ago I was also reassigned to a different part of my diocese (an area from which I am now moving).  The gathering of Sant’Egidio that I had begun at a Newman Center in this new location was just beginning its service and friendship with the poor in a low-income residence when we had to cease for summer break.  I find that my own priesthood and discipleship is not as strong and resilient and is easily turned inward when I do not have a continuing and faithful relationship with the poor.  There is a lesson here, I believe, both for the priest and the parish and it is a lesson that I have heard both Pope Francis and the Community share.  We can easily turn inward and become self-absorbed and stagnant in the life of faith and we therefore need something that continually turn us away from self and toward others and this means more than just our own particular circle of friends.  The poor do this and it is not a technique, it is an encounter.  It is friendship. 
Once settled, I hope to begin a gathering of Sant’Egidio in my new assignment.  I will do this both for the parish and for my own discipleship.  As I look to my new assignment and as I look to this upcoming meeting of Pope Francis and the Community by their mutual friend I wonder how things in the parish might be different as we realize friendship with the poor.  As Pope Francis has often said, “A Church of the poor and for the poor.”  I do not have the full answer to this but I am willing to find out. 
(If you are interested, the meeting of Pope Francis with the Community of Sant’Egidio will be live streamed on Sunday, May 15th, beginning around 3 p.m. Rome time.  To watch, go to the community website at www.santegidio.org.)                  

Easter Homily, 2014 – "Christ is risen! Very truly, he is risen!

20 Sunday Apr 2014

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(Homily given at the Easter Gathering of the Community of Sant’Egidio in the U.S.)
We have arrived at Easter after having followed Jesus in the last days of life.  He welcomed us at the table with great friendship, he bent down before us to wash our feet and he taught us to do likewise one to another.  He gave himself in the bread broken and the wine poured out.  When anguish and sadness weighed heavy in his heart, he wanted us at his side in Gethsemane.  He has indeed given all of his very self for our salvation and we have accompanied him, even to the tomb.  A heavy stone sits in front of the tomb; our Lord is on the other side.  We ask, “Who will roll it away?”
So often, we place too much trust in our own abilities and strengths.  “How might we remove the stone?” we ask.  But now is not the time to trust in our strengths and in our abilities.  Now is the time to trust in God.  Tonight, as family, we are invited to trust in the weak power of love.  It was as a family and in love that the women went to the tomb.  They did not know how the stone would be moved.  They just loved.  They just went.  Love and faith teach us not to trust in our own strength but to trust in God.  Love and faith teach us that life needs God.  Faith and love is to believe that I need God to roll away the stone – the stone that covered the tomb of Jesus and all the stones that cover the tombs of our world and even our own lives.  We need to go to the sepulcher, to go there just as the women did – in faith and love.  Without going to the sepulcher we will not meet the angel nor hear the angel’s message.
“Do not be afraid!” says the angel, “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, he is risen!”  Whoever seeks Jesus must have no more fear!  Jesus’ tomb was opened – the stone was rolled back – now all the graves will be able to be opened, all the stones of our lives can be rolled back!  There is a force of life and love that emanates from the empty tomb and it is a force that continues to transform all of creation!  
Tonight, we are once again reminded that the darkness of pain and suffering in the world, the darkness of my sin and your sin, has been overcome by the light of the Lord.  The light of our Easter candle is the light of the resurrection!  It is the light that does not diminish just as it is being shared.  This is the light that has entered the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it!  It is the light of the resurrection but in a sense it is a weak light.  For a moment, let us reflect on the entrance of this light into our community.  We held up the Easter candle yet then, one by one, we began to pass that light one to another.  One by one we shared the light.  The light depends upon us; it waits for us to share it. 
One by one, the light grew, one by one the darkness of sin, violence and isolation dissipated.  One by one the risen Lord enters our hearts and breaks the darkness of sin and expels the darkness of fear. 
As for those first disciples, so for us – one by one the light illumines our hearts and one by one, we carry that light back to our cities and towns to help scatter the darkness.  We shine the light of the resurrection through community and family, through friendship with the poor, through prayer, especially as we have been invited this Easter, prayer for the sick and for peace.  
Let us go quickly for we have an appointment to keep – in Galilee!  Tonight, at this gathering, we might as well say in New York, in Boston, in Washington, South Bend, Manchester, Chicago, Minneapolis, Oxford, Seattle, Johnson City, Chattanooga, Rome.  Jesus is waiting for us!  One by one, he is inviting us to find and meet him in these places where life is lived every day.  Where the people are – especially with our friends the poor – the Lord awaits us.  “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”
This is a momentous time!  There is a decision to be made; we have an appointment that cannot be missed!  Tonight’s celebration marks a new beginning for our lives and the life of our community.  There are so many heavy stones and so much darkness – we all know this – but tonight we sing “Alleluia!” because Christ has risen!  Free from fear and free from darkness we sing, “Christ is risen!  Very truly he is risen!”  That is the song of the community and our song!  The sad logic of sin, death and violence is vanquished.  Let us live the joy of the Gospel!  
The risen one goes ahead of us to Galilee – to each of our towns and cities.  We must remember that we are never alone.  The risen one is already there, waiting for us, waiting to show us the way.  In the gospel we are told that the women left the tomb quickly and as they were running the Lord appeared to them.  Jesus comes to whoever runs toward him!  We need to move, we need to go, and we need to live for others and not for ourselves!  This is the love that can transform our lives and can change the life of our world – one by one.  
Chris is risen!  Let us rise with him and bring the good news to everyone!  Christ is risen!  Truly he is risen! 

Thoughts on the Sunday Readings: Fifth Sunday of Lent (A): Jesus as Saviour, not Superhero.

06 Sunday Apr 2014

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In this Sunday’s first reading (Ez. 37:12-14), God says, “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them…”  How does God open the grave and overcome death?  Does he snap his fingers?  Does he send a vast multitude of angels upon the earth?  We know that the answer is “no”.  God does neither of these two things.  Rather, the Word becomes flesh – fully human in all things but sin – and this Word died that we might have life.
There is much at work in today’s Gospel (Jn. 11:1-45) – Jesus is certainly suffering for the death of his friend Lazarus whom he loved very much, Jesus is certainly moved by the pain of loss expressed by Martha and Mary and their relatives.  But, I believe that Jesus is also, in the fullness of his humanity, wrestling with his approaching death and the Father’s will.  We all fear death.  This is a universal human reality.  Jesus, being fully human, would not have been exempt from this.  Right before this passage we are told that the Jews were looking to capture Jesus, this is why Jesus goes across the Jordan.  By going back into Judea at this time in order to perform such a public miracle of healing, Jesus was basically signing his own death certificate.  The religious authorities would not let this go unanswered.  This is why Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” 
He knew that death awaited him and he probably knew what type of death.  You know for the first few centuries of Christianity, Christians would not draw images of the crucifixion.  It was too recent and it was too brutal.  Crucifixion was in essence state sponsored terrorism.  It was Rome’s way of saying, “If you mess with us this is what will happen to you.  We will take you, beat you, strip you and hang you for all your family and nation to see until you die an agonizing death.”  This sheer brutality of violence was what awaited Jesus and he knew it.  Yet, he goes back into Judea but as a savior, not as a superhero. 
One of my favorite Lenten images is the painting “Christ in the Desert” by Ivan Kramskoy.  In the painting we have the “fully human” Christ.  He does not have a halo.  There is not a choir of angels around him.  He is not is some majestic pose.  Rather he sits alone in the hot desert.  There is a weariness and fatigue to his posture.  His shoulders are hunched and burdened.  In his expression it is easy to see that he is lost in his own thoughts.  The painting carries with it a sense of grave silence. 
I contrast this image with that of the superhero Iron Man.  In a movie poster I have seen this figure stands tall on his own two feet!  He is all metal and strength!  His eyes gleam forth in vision and leadership!  His weak humanity is completely covered over by a suit of iron.  This is the superhero who rights wrongs and triumphs over evil … or so we are told. 
But Iron Man is a myth and not a savior and Jesus is real and never pretended to be a superhero. 
In Scripture we are told that Christ is like us in all things except sin.  In fact, Paul in his letter to the Philippians tells us that Christ emptied himself and took the form of a servant.  He humbled himself even being obedient unto death.  (Philippians 2:5-11)
If Christ is like us in all things except sin then he is not a man covered in iron but rather a man living in flesh and blood like each one of us.  He knew limits and weariness.  He knew hunger and thirst.  He experienced disappointment, fear, anger and loneliness.  Pope Benedict XVI points out in his second volume of “Jesus of Nazareth” that Jesus knew the whole gamut of human reality even unto infinity precisely because he experienced the full human condition in all its fears, uncertainties and limits without reverting to sin.  The “except sin” of Christ does not shield Jesus from the fullness of the human condition; rather it leads him ever deeper into it.  We are the ones who shield ourselves precisely through our sins. 
Our sins, from the very beginning and even to today, remain a running away from the human condition. 
Why not a superhero?  Why not a man covered in iron to save us? 
Here a poem entitled, Letter to Genetically Engineered Super Humans by Fred Dings might instruct us:
You are the children of our fantasies of form,
our wish to carve a larger cave of light,
our dream to perfect the ladder of genes and climb
its rungs to the height of human possibility,
to a stellar efflorescence beyond all injury and disease,
with minds as bright as newborn suns
and bodies which leave our breathless mirrors stunned.
Forgive us if we failed to imagine your loneliness
in the midst of all that ordinary excellence,
if we failed to understand how much harder
it would be to build the bridge of love between such splendid selves,
to find the path of humility among the labyrinth of your abilities,
to be refreshed without forgetfulness,
and weave community without the thread of need.
Forgive us if you must re-invent our flaws
because we failed to guess the simple fact
that the best lives must be less than perfect. 
Throughout Lent we journey with the savior Christ – human like us in all things except sin.  He is not a superhero nor does he want to be.  In the fullness of the human condition, the much “less than perfect reality”, he turns again and again to God and he binds himself to the Father’s will even to the point of sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This is what makes him both savior and brother to us.  In his grace we are now invited to also bind ourselves to God not despite of but through our imperfect human condition and to be restored in relationship to God, to one another and to our very selves. 
Now, as always, we need a savior rather than a superhero.  God says, “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them…”  Jesus says to his disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.”     

Thoughts on the Sunday Readings: Third Sunday of Lent (A): Encountering Christ

22 Saturday Mar 2014

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The woman at the well did not know who she was talking to.  This is of specific importance in today’s gospel reading (Jn. 4:5-42).  To her this man was some strange Jew – particularly strange in the fact that he would talk to a Samaritan woman.  
A danger in the life of faith is that we turn faith and Jesus himself into an idea.  The problem with that is that in order to grasp an idea you have to have it all figured out.  Also, ideas are passive.  They wait for our acting upon them.  Jesus is not an idea, he is a person and faith is not an ideology, it is an encounter.  People can introduce themselves to us without our expectation.  It happens all the time.  Some person comes up to us on the street or in the store.  People are active.  They can necessitate an encounter.  This is what Jesus did at the well.  “Give me a drink,” he asks of the woman.   
You may have seen the painting of Jesus standing at the door and knocking.  An aspect of that painting is that there is no door handle on Jesus’ side of the door.  He stands waiting.  There is some truth to that depiction of Christ.  In faith there is an element where we have to open the door to Christ and let him into our lives.  But, in light of today’s gospel, this image falls far short.  Christ initiates!  Not only does he not stand meekly rapping on the door, he busts the door down!  “…whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst … You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’  For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.”  We should imagine a stranger approaching us in the supermarket and saying something similar in regards to our life.  How would we respond?  However we might respond, I doubt we would regard that stranger as a passive, shrinking violet.  
The Christ that we proclaim as Christians is a person – a person who once was dead and who now lives.  A person who can enter into our lives however and whenever he so chooses.  Frankly, keeping Christ as an idea can be a mechanism on our part that we deploy to keep Christ and the fullness of the demands of the gospel on our life at bay.  It is much easier to put off an “idea” as a nice thought for “sometime down the road” than it is to put off a person who is staring us in the face and whose presence necessitates a response.  Christ necessitates a response. 
In the fifth chapter of Luke’s gospel we find the call of Simon Peter.  It is interesting to note how Luke presents this call.  Jesus sees two boats on the shore and the fishermen washing their nets.  Luke then writes, “Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land.”   Then after teaching for a while, Jesus says to Simon, “Put out into the deep and lower your nets for a catch.”  In neither instance does Jesus ask permission.  He did not ask Peter’s permission to get into the boat, he just got in.  Then, he tells Peter (an accomplished fisherman) to lower the nets.  Jesus walked into the very midst of Peter’s life, even his livelihood, and totally redirects it.  An idea cannot do this, only a person can.
Keeping Christ as an idea might seem safe and comfortable but it limits and even deadens life.  It was only through her encounter with this man who is Jesus that the woman at the well found healing from the scars she bore and the pain that had hardened her heart.  Freed from that burden she, who had been the outcast of her village, became the messenger who helped to bring her fellow villagers to believe in Christ.  
Jesus is not an idea, he is a person and faith is not an ideology, it is a living encounter.  
The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming…”  Jesus responds, “I am he, the one speaking with you.”   

 

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Second Sunday of Lent (A): The Transfiguration and the Smallest Mustard Seed of History

15 Saturday Mar 2014

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While reflecting on the message of the parables in the first volume of his work on Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Emeritus Benedict writes this:
The time of Jesus, the time of the disciples, is the time of sowing and of the seed.  The “Kingdom of God” is present in seed form.  Observed from the outside, the seed is something minuscule.  It is easy to overlook.  The mustard seed – an image of the Kingdom of God – is the smallest of seeds yet it bears the whole tree within it.  The seed is the presence of what is to come in the future.  In the seed, that which is to come is already here in a hidden way.  It is the presence of a promise.  
Further on, Pope Emeritus Benedict will refer to the resurrection of Christ as “the smallest mustard seed of history” precisely because it was so improbable.  Living as Christian disciples nearly two thousand years after the fact, we can – on the surface – find this statement to be counterintuitive.  “What does he mean that the resurrection is the smallest mustard seed of history?”  We know and we claim the resurrection to be the defining point of all human history yet Pope Emeritus Benedict is getting at an extremely fine point here.  The resurrection of Christ is a seed and it is the smallest of seeds because at no other time in all of human history had the stone of the tomb been rolled away nor had any human person been resurrected to eternal life.  In this “seed” death is conquered and the tomb is emptied!  And the seed bears fruit!    
The seed of the resurrection “bears the whole tree within it” and “is the presence of what is to come in the future”.  The mystery of the Transfiguration (Mt. 17:1-9), which we reflect upon this second Sunday of Lent, is itself a foreshadowing and a glimpse of the fullness of what is to come! 
Throughout Scripture we find that God is a gardener and has the patience and deliberateness of a gardener.  In the account of creation itself we see that God plants all of creation and takes great delight in it.  A little further on in Genesis – from this Sunday’s first reading – (Gen. 12:1-4a) we find that God chooses a people and plants them in human history.  From the littlest seed of Abram’s faith, God will make a great nation …, from which all the communities of the earth shall find blessing.  Centuries later, our Lord (a son of this great nation promised to Abram) takes Peter, James and John up on a high mountain and is transfigured before them.  Moses and Elijah appearing beside him – Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets!  It could be said that God has so cultivated creation and human history that now this “seed” who bears all of the fullness of the Kingdom of God within himself and who is indeed the fullness of what is to come in the Kingdom is brought forth and is preparing to die that we might have life!  
Is it no wonder that those three disciples fall prostrate and are caught in fear at the enormity of the vision presented before their eyes?  In any icon of the Transfiguration you will see that Peter, James and John are cowering, even turning away and hiding their faces.  The vision terrifies in its magnificence, wonder and beauty!  God is at work and in the transfiguration we are afforded the slightest glimpse of this work!  …then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 
So … what are we disciples of Christ in 2014 to do?  I would say that the Gospel calls us to hold fast to this smallest mustard seed of history!  In many ways the truth of Christ still remains small and perhaps it always will this side of history.  Many people still scoff and deride Christ and his message, the violence of this world rages, fear and the constant message of “Save yourself!” abounds in our time.  Yet, as Christians we hold to something different and by this we set our lives and our hope.  I would also say that the Gospel calls us to train our sight by this smallest mustard seed of history.  Christ is bringing about the Kingdom; God is at work healing his creation.  The powers of the world desperately want to claim all our attention for fear that we notice what God is doing.  When we recognize God at work, the powers of the world lose any and all illusion of authority. 
Christians, turn toward the Transfiguration and away from the false illusions of our time!  Hold fast to Christ and train your sight to the healing work of the smallest mustard seed of history!  
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

Notes on Preaching, #4 "The Joy of the Gospel"

14 Friday Feb 2014

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Pope Francis, in his continuing reflection on the act of preaching in Evangelii Gaudium, puts forward the image of a “mother’s conversation.”  I find the image of the mother’s conversation to be striking by the sheer fact that it is a reality that probably 99.9% of humanity has experience with yet, because it is so common, it often goes unreflected upon.  The Holy Father, in just a few short paragraphs, explores the dynamics of this form of conversation and presents it as a worthwhile model for all preachers to learn from.
We said that the people of God, by the constant inner working of the Holy Spirit, is constantly evangelizing itself.  What are the implications of this principle for preachers?  It reminds us that the church is a mother and that she preaches in the same way that a mother speaks to her child, knowing that the child trusts that what she is teaching is for his or her benefit, for children know that they are loved. (EG, 139)  
There are two principles at play here which are of immense importance for preachers: 1. the love of a mother and 2. the awareness (sometimes awe, wonder and even concern) of life unfolding in the other. 
First, the love of a mother.  The love of a mother is unconditional, it cannot be faked and love ideally undergirds all the interacting and relationships of a family.  St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as willing the good of the other as other.  This is a good principle on which to base the preaching moment.  The homily should be seen as an act of love, a giving of self, just as a mother giving advice, offering comfort or even challenging a son or daughter is an act of love.  But the love is critical.  If the love is absent then the words ring empty and they produce no lasting fruit.  Just as a mother gives of her very self (even to the point of losing self) for her child then the preacher should see in the act of preaching a giving of self.  Just as a mother would not hold back any of herself for the sake of her child then why should a preacher?
Yet, there are different levels to giving self in love.  Not every moment of a mother’s love is giving physical birth to a child nor is every homily that a preacher gives the Easter homily.  Just as a mother’s love is found in the daily and often unnoticed tasks so can a preacher’s love be expressed convincingly in the weekday, simple homily.  What is key is the love being present (the love on the preacher’s part both for God’s word and God’s people).  A mother’s fundamental concern when conversing with her child is neither to win admiration for a cleverly concocted argument nor to impress by her intellect but to love, to will the good of her child.  The focus of the preacher should not be to win a reputation for his own erudition but to will the good of the community through the homiletic act.  I would say that a preacher has done his job when a community leaves church spending less time thinking about him and more time thinking about themselves in the light of Christ.   
Second, the awareness of life unfolding in the other.  We said that the people of God, by the constant inner working of the Holy Spirit, is constantly evangelizing itself … Moreover, a good mother can recognize everything that God is bringing about in her children, she listens to their concerns and learns from them. (EG, 139)  The mother is the first and primary witness of life moving and unfolding in her child.  I would think that it is an amazing and awe-filled thing to behold.  But just as she watches this life unfolding in the beloved she then learns and she adjusts because where the child is today is not where he or she was yesterday.  Here, I believe that Pope Francis is saying that the preacher needs to have the same attentiveness toward his community and the Spirit at work in the community that a mother has toward her child and the movement and growth of life in her child.  The spirit of love that reigns in a family guides both mother and child in their conversations; therein they teach and learn, experience correction and grow in appreciation of what is good. (EG, 139)  
The mother, herself, grows in this dynamic of growth in her child; the preacher, himself, grows in learning to recognize the Spirit at work in his community!  There is a great mystery at work here and I believe it relates to the scriptural image of the sower who sows the seed but then goes to bed and knows not how the seed takes root and grows.  The preacher/the community, the mother/the child – all together – are caught up in this great mystery of the Spirit at work and each must step back and be attentive to how the Spirit is moving and then (trying neither to obstruct nor control) allow the Spirit to work through her or him.
In these short paragraphs and by use of the image of the mother’s conversation, Pope Francis is putting forward the living context of the homily.  The context that allows for a living and effective homily is not a preacher isolated and removed writing down his own thoughts for the edification of the community.  The context that allows a homily to be living and effective is that of family, relationship, conversation and love where all seek to be attentive to the movement of the Spirit.                     

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A): The Law of Foundation

19 Sunday Jan 2014

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In the readings for this Sunday we can detect a dynamic of moving, of straining forward into discipleship and identity with Christ.  In the gospel (Jn. 1:29-34), John points him out; Behold, the lamb of God…  Seek Christ!  Move toward Christ!  Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:1-3) reminds his listeners that they are indeed, called to be holy.  For the Christian, holiness can only be found through living in relationship with Christ and his body – the Church.  Isaiah (Is. 49:3, 5-6) prophesies that the true servant of the Lord will not just be a light for the tribes of Jacob but a light to the nations.  

This very moving and straining forward is the Church’s law of foundation.  There is a wonderful analogy used by St. Augustine in reflecting on Christ as the foundation of the Church and of our very lives. 
 

Foundations, Augustine points out, are usually at the bottom supporting a structure but Christ, as the head, is above.  How, therefore, can we call Christ the foundation?  There are two kinds of weight, observes Augustine, and here he defines “weight” as that force within a thing that seems to make it strain to finds its proper place.  For example, hold a stone in your hand – you feel its “weight” because it is “seeking” its proper place.  Take your hand away and the stone falls to the ground.  The stone has reached the goal it was tending toward.  It has found its proper place – its foundation.  Now (and here is where the poetry of Augustine’s analogy comes in), some weights find their proper place by pushing down and others by pushing upward.

Imagine, writes Augustine, a container of oil falling into the ocean, underneath the water and then rupturing.  The oil is not content to remain under the water, at the bottom.  It seeks its proper place so there is the ‘uneasy movement’ while the oil strains toward its proper place – its foundation – above.  
God’s Church – though established here below – strains toward heaven precisely because our foundation is found there – Christ and the fullness of God’s Kingdom.  The law of foundation says that objects strain toward their particular foundation and proper place.  This is why the Church throughout history and indeed the very life of every Christian strains forward – toward a more just and right existence.  This occurs because we seek our foundation.  The Church lives in the crucible of history but the Church always strives beyond the merely historical of our world because we seek our proper foundation which is not of the world.  If the Church (if we) fail to point and strive toward the Kingdom, if we just become self-referential and enclosed within our institutions then we have forgotten our truth.  Yes, there is ‘uneasy movement’ as we strain forward – we have to strain through the weight of this world and our false selves – but we do so in order to reach our true foundation which is more than this world.  Our foundation is the Kingdom of God and Christ himself! 
John points him out, Behold the lamb of God!  We are indeed, called to be holy.  This very dynamic of straining toward holiness (often turbulent and uneasy), itself witnesses to the law and truth of our foundation – who is Christ himself.  
St. Josephine Bakhita – a woman who was severely mistreated as a slave and who bore the scars of horrendous whippings on her body – implicitly knew this law of her true foundation.  She put it this way, “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me – I am awaited by this love.  And so, my life is good.” 

P.S.  Technical issue – I am having trouble uploading photos onto my posts.  This has only happened recently.  If anyone has a suggestion on how to correct this please let me know.