Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Ash Wednesday Thoughts

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We should be humble in mind, putting aside all arrogance, pride and foolish anger. Rather, we should act in accordance with the Scriptures, as the Holy Spirit says: The wise person must not glory in his wisdom nor the strong one in his strength nor the rich one in his riches. Rather, let him who glories glory in the Lord by seeking him and doing what is right and just. Recall especially what the Lord Jesus said when he taught gentleness and forbearance. Be merciful, he said, so that you may have mercy shown to you. Forgive, so that you may be forgiven. As you treat others, so you will be treated. As you give, so you will receive. As you judge, so you will be judged. As you are kind to others, so you will be treated kindly. The measure of your giving will be the measure of your receiving.”

St. Clement of Rome

What am I going to do for Lent?

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Someone was asking that question at our supper table the other night. Lent begins  Ash Wednesday. The supper table is a good place to ask the question, because Lent is about renewing ourselves as we are and where we live. The supper table stands for life here and now.

The supper table is the place where we face those closest to us. Doing something for Lent has to mean doing something for them, first of all, the people across the table–or maybe those who have left our table. One of our scripture readings early on in Lent says: “Don’t turn your back on your own.”   Renewing our relationship with those closest  to us is one of the most important steps to renewing ourselves.

Besides the supper table, I guess we should also ask that question “What am I going to do for Lent?” in the place where I work, or where I go to school. Don’t turn your back on them either.

Lent is for renewing ourselves as we are, in real life and real time. It isn’t about changing us into different people or changing the world we live in or leaving for Mars.

The scriptures read on Ash Wednesday tell us to pray, to fast and give alms. What am I going to do for Lent? How about praying everyday? How about fasting from my own hard opinions of others? How about thinking about others and not just myself?

What am I going to do for Lent? I hope I can get closer to God, and that means for me to get closer to Jesus Christ. He says in this Sunday’s gospel that it’s possible to think we know him, but don’t know him. Where should I begin? Let me look in the scriptures, especially the scriptures we read during Lent.

Pope Benedict’s “Jesus of Nazareth” part 2 where he looks long and hard at the story of the Passion of Jesus is due out this week. I’m going to read it. Maybe that will help.

One thing we shouldn’t forget when we ask that question “What am I going to do for Lent?” is  another question: “What is God going to do for us during Lent?” It’s a time of God’s grace, more than we can hope for, beyond what we could possibly earn. The great sign of God’s limitless giving is the Passion of his Son, a wondrous gift.

 

Following Jesus, our Teacher

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Jesus Christ is the teacher of the ages. His Sermon on the Mount offers a lasting wisdom,  and so he speaks to us as well as to the people of his time. It’s up to us to listen to him and keep our eyes on him, even as others vie for our attention with their wisdom and their wishes. Like sheep, our eyes and our attention are on the next step we take; we have to listen for the Shepherd’s voice and turn to see where he is leading us;

Here’s a selection from St. Gregory of Nyssa in the Office of Readings for today:

 

“We shall be blessed with clear vision if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, for he, as Paul teaches, is our head, and there is in him no shadow of evil. Saint Paul himself and all who have reached the same heights of sanctity had their eyes fixed on Christ, and so have all who live and move and have their being in him.

As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has his eyes on Christ. The one who keeps his eyes upon the head and origin of the whole universe has them on virtue in all its perfection; he has them on truth, on justice, on immortality and on everything else that is good, for Christ is goodness itself.

The wise, then, turn their eyes toward the One who is their head, but the fool gropes in darkness. No one who puts his lamp under a bed instead of on a lamp-stand will receive any light from it. People are often considered blind and useless when they make the supreme Good their aim and give themselves up to the contemplation of God, but Paul made a boast of this and proclaimed himself a fool for Christ’s sake. The reason he said, We are fools for Christ’s sake was that his mind was free from all earthly preoccupations. It was as though he said, ‘We are blind to the life here below because our eyes are raised toward the One who is our head.’”

 

Loving Enemies

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Jesus is our Teacher in this Sunday’s gospel selection: Matthew 5,38-48.  He goes up a mountain, gathers disciples around him and teaches them.

His teaching about loving our enemies is hard to understand and hard to follow. Does he want us to like everyone we meet? Pretty hard to do that.  Does he want us to let people walk all over us? Is that what “turning the other cheek” and “going the other mile” mean?

In this, as in other things he taught, we look to Jesus’ own example for guidance, because he lived what he taught. He did not like some people’s narrowness and pride. He did not let others walk over him or stop him from fulfilling his mission. He spoke the truth and brought his blessings to others, even when powerful enemies tried to prevent him. His death on the cross witnesses his life of  fearless commitment.

Loving our enemies does not mean liking everyone or condoning their faults. It does not mean shrinking from our call to do good. It’s about ridding ourselves of  the pessimism that leads to condemning someone or some groups absolutely. It’s about a patience that’s like God’s patience. If we see no possible goodness or possible change in people, only intractable evil, then we don’t see as God sees.

This is a love we must grow into. We can’t reason our way into it, we need God’s grace to attain it. We grow to it through prayer, and so we need to rest in a loving God who loves us all this way.

We know we are growing in this kind of love when we see ourselves doing what St. Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. Some  say  his words are the earliest commentary on the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. Never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God. If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12,17-21

The prayer for today’s Mass asks for this kind of love:

Father,

keep before us the wisdom and love

you revealed in your Son.

Help us to be like him in word and in deed.

Desiring God

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Here’s a wonderful reflection from St. Augustine on desiring God, from today’s Office of Readings:

“The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.
“Suppose you are going to fill some holder or container, and you know you will be given a large amount. Then you set about stretching your sack or wineskin or whatever it is. Why? Because you know the quantity you will have to put in it and your eyes tell you there is not enough room. By stretching it, therefore, you increase the capacity of the sack, and this is how God deals with us. Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.
“So, my brethren, let us continue to desire, for we shall be filled. Take note of Saint Paul stretching as it were his ability to receive what is to come: Not that I have already obtained this, he said, or am made perfect. Brethren, I do not consider that I have already obtained it. We might ask him, “If you have not yet obtained it, what are you doing in this life?” This one thing I do, answers Paul, forgetting what lies behind, and stretching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the prize to which I am called in the life above. Not only did Paul say he stretched forward, but he also declared that he pressed on toward a chosen goal. He realised in fact that he was still short of receiving what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.”
I’m reading “The Education of Henry Adams”  now, by one of the great observers of our time. Adams was overwhelmed by the complexity of life brought about by the machine and rapid industrialization he experienced in the latter part of the 19th century. Though seen as progress, the changes caused a loss of a unified vision of life. There were too many things going on; too many facts to evaluate, too much happening to look ahead to the future. The world was entering a dizzying stage. 

We are still in that stage.

How does our time affect the way we desire God? In a more settled time, God had a recognized place. Not so now. Augustine speaks of desire as a container, a sack that we must enlarge to be filled. We might  use the image today of a shopping cart that’s filled to the brim with stuff, and there’s still more to come.

How can we make room for desiring God?

St. Procopius of Gaza

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Saint Procopious of Gaza. He’s the saint who offers a beautiful reflection on wisdom in the Office of Readings today. But from Gaza, that poor broken place of violence today? He wrote long ago when Gaza was a thriving Christian center, of course.  But still, as we see in broken places like Egypt and Iran, wisdom still builds a house, even in the midst of destruction. As we listen to his words, can we hope for renewal in Gaza and Egypt,  and also in our own land?

“Wisdom has built herself a house. God the Father’s Power, himself a person, has fashioned as his dwelling-place the whole world, in which he lives by his activity; and has fashioned humanity, created to resemble God’s own image and likeness and with a nature which is partly seen and partly hidden from our eyes.

“And she has set up seven pillars. For humanity, which was made in the image of Christ when the rest of creation was completed, Wisdom gave the seven gifts of the Spirit to enable us to believe in Christ and to keep his commandments. By means of these gifts, strength is stimulated by knowledge and knowledge is reflected in strength until the spiritual person is brought to completion, solidly founded on firm faith and on the supernatural graces in which he shares.

“Our nature is made more glorious by strength, by good counsel, and by prudence. Strength brings a desire to seek out all manifestations of the divine will through which all things were made. Good counsel distinguishes what is God’s will from what is not and leads us to ponder, to proclaim and to fulfil the will of God. Prudence, finally, leads us to turn towards the will of God and not to other things.”

God’s Wisdom is at work everywhere, even in Gaza.

 

Thou shalt not kill

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The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as a Teacher as well as a healer. He fulfills this role in a particular way in the 5th to the 8th chapters of the gospel, which describe him going up a mountain, sitting down and calling his followers to come around him, and then beginning to teach them. We know this lengthy part of the Matthew’s Gospel as the Sermon on the Mount.

His teachings begin with the promise that those who listen and follow what he has to say will be blessed. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, those who suffer persecution…” There are blessings, beatitudes, that we receive by following his teaching.

Now, the values he teaches not only make us better people, but they make the world better.  “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world,” Jesus says.  The world is better when we act his way,  he says; it’s filled with light and more alive.

Jesus says his teaching is not totally new. In his Sermon on the Mount he assures his followers that he’s following teachers and prophets before him.  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” (Mt 5, 17)

Yet, he says he understands the law better than the teachers before him understood it. He will also fulfill that law better than the prophets before him did.

The first law he comments on in the Sermon on the Mount is one we might not expect. “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,

You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.” That’s a basic commandment:  “Don’t kill people.” “You shall not kill.”  Life is God’s first gift. God gives life, God nourishes and sustains life, and it’s for God to take life away.

People through history have recognized the great value of life itself. It’s wrong to take the life of another human being by murder or violence. The reason it’s wrong is because murder and violence destroy what God has made and what God cares for and what God loves. Murder is a capital offense in our system of justice; the murderer has to be brought to justice.

We rejoiced this week when we saw violence avoided in Egypt;  thousands of lives could have been lost in that volatile situation. If that country evolves in a non-violent way–we pray it does– it will be a wonderful sign to the rest of the world that war and violence are not the only way to bring about change.

Yet Jesus did not stop with the command not to kill.  “I say to you, whoever is angry with a brother or sister will be liable to judgment.”  Murder and violence are not the only ways that take away life. Anger also does it.

What does Jesus mean when he condemns anger against others? He certainly does not mean that anger itself is wrong. He was angry at times, the gospels report. Anger is a neutral emotion which often provides the impetus to confront evil and to do something hard that has to be done.

The scenes from Egypt this week showed us angry crowds taking to the streets to overthrow an unjust government. Anger gave them the power to resist before the prospects of a harsh suppression.

Yet, when they succeeded, their anger turned to joy and celebration. They had won.

The anger Jesus condemns is an anger that continues and does not end. It’s an anger that doesn’t forgive, that lasts, poisoning the one who holds on to it and killing the one it’s directed at.

It’s an anger without patience or respect. It refuses to leave anything to God. We must beware of an anger like that.

A Lenten Journey with Jesus Christ and St. Paul of the Cross

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I’ve been working on this book for two years now and it’s finally finished, in time for Lent. Christus Publishing from Wellesley, MA, a new publishing firm, asked me to write the book and I see they have it on their internet site today for sale. We’ll put it on Crossplace.com  ,our Passionist site for selling books and media, as soon as we can.

It gave me an opportunity to look again at St. Paul of the Cross, the founder of the Passionists, his spirituality and the community he founded. He was a great teacher of prayer, a gift we need today more than ever. He saw prayer as a gift given to everyone, and his letters to all kinds of people witness that conviction.

I appreciated the opportunity to write a short biography of the saint; I don’t think I copied others exactly. He lived in an interesting time, when the Enlightenment was pushing ahead in Europe, changing the worldview of the church and society. We’re still feeling its affects.

I read most of his letters while writing the book and was impressed by their earthiness. He was an earthy mystic who took people as they were and didn’t mind their darkness. I revised many of the present English translations of his writings for the book, perhaps for the better.

A recent exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City featured the letters of Jane Austen. Letter-writing was the rage from the 18th century on and Paul of the Cross used this “new” communication to reach others. He would be using the new media today, I think.

I liked writing reflections for all the Lenten gospels for the book; the readings for Lent are indeed a treasure to be explored. Our catechesis and spirituality are becoming more biblically and liturgically based, and we need to see how a spirituality like that of  Paul of the Cross fits in to this new trend.

“From their place in heaven they guide us still.”

 

Sharing in Paul’s Conversion

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Today, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the liturgy invites us, not to look on Paul from a distance, but to share the mystery of his life. So I  can say:

“Victor, my grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness.” “God’s grace in me has not been without fruit; it is always at work in me.”

By looking on Paul simply as a distant historical figure or a Christian hero we diminish what we share with him.

Here’s how St. John Chrysostom sees him:

“Paul more than anyone else, shows us what we really are, and in what our nobility consists, and what we are capable of. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him. He summed up his attitude in the words: I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead. When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: Rejoice and be glad with me! And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution. These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.

“ He boasted of constant beatings, abuse and cursing as though he were taking trophies home on a triumphal procession, giving thanks to God for it all. The only thing he really wanted was always to please God.

“He knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.

“Paul set no store by the things that fill our visible world, any more than someone sets value on the withered grass of the field. As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats. Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.”

 

Planning, planning, planning

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Today it seems we’re forever planning for the future. One big reason is the changing times we live in. No one today can sit still and say “My life and my surroundings won’t change; they’ll be the same forever.” From the big world we live in to the small world of our everyday lives, things are continually changing.

We have to keep our eyes on the big picture, which is the plan of God.  Today’s Office of Readings offers a quotation from the Second Vatican Council’s decree “Lumen gentium” that, at first sight, may seem far from our present situation, but really sheds light on it.

God has a plan for this world, mysterious, wise and good, which is “to dignify men and women with a participation in his own divine life.” His plan will be achieved through Jesus Christ, the redeemer, who is “ the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.”

God’s plan calls for a church where those whom Christ saves will be gathered. The church “foreshadowed from the beginning of the world” will achieve a glorious fulfillment at the end of time when all men and women from the time of Adam, “‘from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect’, will be gathered together with the Father in the universal church.”

This isn’t a small church. Some are related to it who have not yet explicitly embraced Jesus Christ.  Here’s the way the Vatican Council describes them:

“In the first place there is that people to whom the covenants and promises were made and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers, this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts he makes nor of the calls he issues.

“But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator. In the first place among these there are the Moslems; they profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and along with us adore the one and merciful God, who will judge mankind on the last day.

“Nor is God himself far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is he who gives to all men life and breath and every other gift, and who as Saviour wills that all men be saved.

“Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does divine Providence deny the help necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God but who strive, aided by his grace, to live a good life.

Whatever goodness or truth is found amongst them, is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the gospel, and as given by him who enlightens all men that they may finally have life.”

We need to have this larger dimension in mind when we plan, especially if our planning involves the church. Too often we plan in a small, protective way.