Sixth Tuesday in ordinary time

From the Psalm for Mass today (93 [92]):

When I think, 'I have lost my foothold',
    your mercy, Lord, holds me up.
When cares increase in my heart,
    your consolation calms my soul.

.                 .                .

What could I possibly add to that?

Only this: Deo gratias.

Thursday after Epiphany

We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

 

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.

1 John 4:19-5:1-4 NASB

 

...

 

I included the whole passage because I find it puzzling. At first, I thought I would just reflect on the first verses. These, to me, have a clear application. And their application fits nicely with the things I am thinking about at the moment, to do with the Church and the kind of love that marks the Church as the body of Christ. See? Here it is: the love for brothers and sisters in Christ (at least) is what identifies us as Christians. The verses in 1 John don't offer any provisos that would allow us to choose which brothers and sisters to love--only those who love us, or think like we do; or only those who are able-bodied, or of sound mind. The only possible qualification is that we love the ones we see. But I am not sure that counts, exactly.

 

I like this, because I am writing about the Christian calling to love the poor and the weak. I would like to say that the measure of the Church's love and holiness is the way she receives those who suffer and are in need, those who the world says have nothing to offer. That's because the world doesn't understand that Christ offers himself to us in the broken and the desperate, that we might receive Him. We cannot see God, but God has made us in his image, and in Christ God has shown himself truly and fully. God came to us poor, and still comes to us poor: we are to receive him with love.

 

But what about this business about the commandments? I would have thought that we would be able to tell that we love the children of God pretty straightforwardly. Isn't it obvious that we can tell that we love by our demonstrations of that love? Apparently not. I suspect that there is a lot more to this passage than I yet realize, and it is worth a great deal of unpacking, so I will make just one observation (which is also related to the Church). Loving the children of God is not not about those actions that show love. It is about more than those actions. If I am grasping this accurately, keeping the commandments is also about integrity and holiness. Loving the children of God and living in sin are incommensurate, maybe even mutually exclusive. There is no 'private' sin, sin that only affects us. When one member suffers, the whole body suffers. That's a mystery; that is, we don't know how the sort of sin that seems just to be between ourselves and God affects the whole body. How does such sin impair our love for the children of God? (Maybe all sin has a horizontal dimension?)

 

However such seemingly private sin weakens the whole body, it is a sobering thought, and one that makes me more eager for the sacrament of reconciliation and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. For though it is hard and serious news, it is still, after all, good news: Christ came to save sinners.

 

Deo gratias.

St Martin of Tours

...that which holds all things together knows every word that is said.
                                                          Wisdom 1: 7

Before ever a word is on my tongue,
   you know it, O Lord, through and through...
Too wonderful for me, this knowledge,
   too high, beyond my reach.
                                                         Psalm 139: 4, 6

.        .        .

I spend a lot of time thinking about what to say. Maybe I really should spend more time praying. The one who holds all things together (which Colossians 1: 7 echoes) holds all my words already, and knows what I ought to say.

Enough said.

St Martin, pray for us.

Thursday of the thirty-first week in ordinary time

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

Romans 14:10 NASB

 

"In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Luke 15:10 NASB

 

. . .

 

Just one. One matters to God. If God is out looking for the lost, if Jesus spent his time with tax collectors and 'sinners', then what possible grounds can any of us have for passing judgment on one another? That person I regard contemptuously matters to God as much as my friends do, as much as I do.

 

It is not new--surely our equality before God is a theological commonplace--but it is sobering. Awhile back, I made a rule for myself. It's not really a rule of life; I tried all sorts of things and could never quite manage the timetable. Much as I would love to pray the office daily, in solidarity with my 'home' abbey in Kent, I can't. But while I was there I realized that a very simple rule would do: not to speak a harsh word to, or about, anyone, even in my heart. I suppose something like Romans 14: 10 might have been rattling around in the back of my mind as I thought about this rule.

 

I never thought it would be easy. But it has proved a lot more tricky than I thought. Because judging and regarding with contempt (both count as 'harsh'!) aren't always conscious. I just don't 'warm' to this person or that person; I am inattentive. Sometimes I suppose that's fair enough--it's human to like some people more than others. Sometimes, though, that coldness hides a deeper dislike. Maybe it's envy, maybe it's scorn, based on some less-than-conscious judgment about the character of the person, or arising from feelings of insecurity on my part.

 

So of course the whole 'no harsh words' has not been a perfect success. I have, not surprisingly, failed. Still, insofar as I have become more aware of my own inclination to judge or to dismiss others, the enterprise has been, and continues to be, worthwhile. And today's gospel reminded me why the rule is so important. It isn't because I want everyone to think I am nice. It's because there is joy in heaven over one who repents. There is no contempt for the sinner in heaven, only joy at her repentance.

 

I still have a long, long way to go.

 

Kyrie eleison.

Thirty-first Sunday in ordinary time

You can do all things and overlook [people's] sins so that they can repent.

Wisdom 11: 24

 

. . .

 

Somehow--maybe it was struggling to keep the two-year-old quiet--I didn't hear this in Mass this morning. Not that it wasn't read: it was read by the son of my two-year-old's godmother. But I missed it, and the priest didn't comment on it in his homily, which focused on the gospel. Fair enough, I suppose. There is a good deal to say about Zacchaeus. Still, the readings in the lectionary are ordered, and combinations occur for a reason. Sometimes that reason is pretty hard to discern, but today it is less puzzling.

 

At least it's less puzzling if you happen to be a Catholic who has strayed far into Reformed and Evangelical territory. Then the prevenience of grace leaps out of every page of the Bible--even the books of the Bible that only appear in the Catholic editions of the Bible. And here it is in the book of Wisdom. I always associate Wisdom with the key passages in chapters 7-9, about the role of wisdom in creation, including one of my favourites: omnia disponit suaviter, [widsom] arranges all things delightfully. So finding this other theme of the Bible, the grace of God that makes way for the sinner's return, there in Wisdom is, well, delightful.

 

And it is, of course, this path-breaking grace of God that drives Zacchaeus up the tree. The change has already begun. Can it be anything other than the Holy Spirit that draws Zacchaeus to Jesus? I don't think so, and I could quote some early church theologians to support that claim. Besides, Jesus does just what the verse in Wisdom says: he "overlooks" Zacchaeus' sins, so that he can repent. Religious leaders aren't supposed to hang out with infamous sinners, but Jesus doesn't seem too worried about that. He sees beyond the sin, sees the person who needs the space to repent. Jesus makes repentance possible.

 

Two things follow from this, for me. First, I am struck by the space-making work of Christ. I have noticed it elsewhere in the gospels (see Mark 5: 30-34, for example), but never connected it to Zacchaeus, to repentance. So also, I realize, Jesus is making space, always, for my repentance. Am I perceiving it? Do I enter into that space, or do I avoid it? (I'm not certain, but I am more determined to get to confession this Saturday!) Second, and this is something that has been tugging at me for a little while, Jesus makes space for pretty unpleasant people. Tax collectors are the bad guys in the first century, not the people the messiah is supposed to befriend. Who are the people around me that Jesus wants to befriend? I'm guessing they're not the people I would ordinarily find friend-like.

 

No wonder I haven't seen that space for repentance as space for me: I have just divided the people around me into people like me (friend-like) and people who need space for repentance. The fact that both (1) that Jesus makes space for me to repent and (2) Jesus makes space for "obvious" sinners--the "tax collectors" of our day--to repent means that I am not so different as I might like to think.

 

Luckily, there's plenty of that prevenient grace to go around.

 

Deo gratias.

 

 

Tuesday of the 29th week in ordinary time / Blessed John Paul II

You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
     but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
     Instead, here am I.

                                             Psalm 39 [40]: 7

.        .       .

'Instead, here am I.'

Just letting that sink in... I often find it quite easy to get caught up in the complicated and flashy things I think I ought to do as a Christian theologian. You know, books and articles I ought to write, and the spiritual and mental toughness I ought to develop in order to be the person who can write books and articles, and give lectures, and still remain as humble as St Benedict says I should be.

Yeah, right. There is something completely naked and vulnerable about that statement: 'here am I.' Just me, nothing fancy. No extravagant sacrifice, no spectacular holocaust, just the handmaid of the Lord. I always liked the spectacular holocaust: Elijah vs the prophets of Ba'al (I Kings 18) has always been one of my favorite Bible stories, since I was a child. It's like fireworks from heaven, and the good guy wins in a show of light and power. But that's not what it is about at all. It is about the open ear that the Psalmist identifies as the real sacrifice, the real offering to God. God requires of us nothing more and nothing less than our attention, wholly fixed on him.

The bit about Elijah's showdown with the prophets of Ba'al in I Kings 18 that my mother didn't relate to me when I was little, is the part where the prophets of Ba'al entreat their god, who doesn't seem to be listening. "So they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them" (18: 28). Not only do they harm themselves in their endeavor to get Ba'al to respond to them, but they do so in vain. There is no response. Elijah, on the other hand, calls on God to answer, "that this people [Israel] may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again' (18: 37). The return of God's people originates with God: God responds with fire to demonstrate that he has already rekindled the hearts of his people. It is not what the people do to get God's attention that is the heart of the drama, but what God does to get their attention, to get our attention.

When I present myself, fragile and fallen as I am, God does not ask for my blood. When I come before God having done the wrong thing, or the right thing for the wrong reasons, or having done nothing when I ought to have acted, God doesn't ask for my blood. God has already acted; it is only by the Spirit's encouragement that I return at all. When I say "here am I," it is because God has called me first, and even as I ask for forgiveness and the strength to walk in it, I do so because that grace has already been extended to me. That grace alone makes me the handmaid of the Lord, ready to do his will.

God does ask for my life, to be sure, but that is only so that he can give it back to me, in abundance. And then when I say the "I" in "here am I," it is no longer I who live and speak, but Christ who lives and speaks in me, giving my life as he gave his, to the Father for the sake of the world's salvation.

And that is an extravagant gift indeed.

Deo gratias.

Wednesday of the 27th week in ordinary time

Happy indeed is the one
     who follows not the counsel of the wicked;
nor lingers in the way of sinners
     nor sits in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord
     and who ponders his law day and night.

She is like a tree that is planted
     beside the flowing waters,
that yields its fruit in season
     and whose leaves shall never fade;
     and all that he does shall prosper.*

                                              Psalm 1

.          .          .

Nobody hangs out in the company of sinners, at least not 'sinners' as the psalmist imagines them. We can admit that we are all sinners, all fallen short of the glory of God. But the active, really-bad-stuff-doers are rarely our regular dinner companions. Maybe they should be.

But scorn? Is that really as bad as the real-bad-stuff (whatever you or I imagine that to be)? My mind stuck on that word this morning, probably partly because I had just read a blog post that included a bit of advice about gossip: don't do it. (Shock and dismay! Reading facebook updates and blog posts before the Holy Scripture! Provdential, I call it.) I thought about the numerous ways in which I am complicit with scorners, even when I am not actively scornful.

I know I am guilty of this. As deeply as I want to be gentle and encouraging, I know that I am easily amused by a derisive remark. I find contemptible all sorts of things and situations, whether or not I say so. And I am dismissive, too dismissive, of that which I regard as unworthy of my notice. I do not just sit in the company of scorners--I should be numbered among them.

And it really is as bad, just as bad, as the content we give to the (really reprehensible) sinners. I miss things I should see and hear, I avoid that which deserves my attention, just because it doesn't come in the package in which I expect to find it. All those things that are said to be 'trite but...' Never mind: I stopped listening at 'trite'.

Half of me still protests: you're not that bad; really this is not such a big deal; you're making something out of nothing. That may be so, but only because too often I make nothing out of something. Or, worse, I make nobody out of somebody--somebody who deserves my attention, not because she's pretty or intelligent, not because he's clever or spiritually astute.

I saw this on facebook this morning and smiled. Shared it. Seeing Jesus behind the hat, playing the accordion, raising money to go to Africa, selling the Big Issue--done. But there are a whole lot more places I ought to see Jesus, and don't: in the head teacher, the driver in front (or behind), the neighbor who shouted at me, the person who just said something I thought was obvious, obnoxious, silly, self-promoting.

Fortunately, Jesus lingered in the way of sinners, and did not shun the company of scorners (though they seem not to have sought his company much)--even this one.

Deo gratias.


*Yes, I played with the translation a bit: 'the man' became 'one'; the first 'he' became 'she', and I left the last 'he' on purpose.