Wednesday of the 31st week in ordinary time

The Lord is my light and my help;
  whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
  before whom should I shrink?

I am sure I shall see the Lord's goodness
  in the land of the living.
Hope in him; hold firm and take heart!
  Hope in the Lord!
                                      Ps 27 [26]

*          *         *

What if the darkness, the enemy, is not on the outside? I don't have enemies. Nobody wants to hurt me; I don't have anything to fear. Not really.

Probably this is the case for lots of us. I have been reading Henri Nouwen on spiritual formation, and have just finished a section on fear, and the sorts of things we fear. Loneliness, failure, and poverty seem to top the list. Mental illness, though, might figure in somewhere. Depression and dementia threaten us from the inside, as it were, robbing us not of possessions but of our very selves. About dementia, I know little. About depression, I know way more than I want to. I know how depression eats away at hope and cripples love.

Knowing that "I shall see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living" somehow fails to lift the darkness and gloom. As surely as I know it, and as firmly as I believe it, making the step from knowledge to hope is well nigh impossible. It is as though there is a black hole where joy and peace ought to reside, swallowing every tiny ray of light that comes near it. I can stand outside myself and see that the sun is shining, that I have everything I need, that I am loved by God and by my family. All these things ought to lift the darkness. But no: the blackness eats up all the comfort that this knowledge ought to provide.

The darkness comes from the inside and works its way out--in impatience and sullen silence, in not-caring and not-doing. I can see it seeping through the cracks, however much I would prefer to keep it to myself. I ask my soul, "why are you downcast?" and "why so disquieted within me?" I say, "Hope in God, for again I shall praise him!" I know it to be true, however little consolation it brings.

I dwell sometimes in darkness. That is just the way it is. Fortunately I have been up and down enough that at the bottom I can still just remember that it isn't always like this. For that, and for the psalms, which have been my truest companions since I was a teenager (somehow reminding me that darkness is not my only companion), I am grateful. Because of the psalms, the thought comes unbidden (or is that the Holy Spirit?): "the darkness is as light to thee."

So I wait, brooding, for the 'fiat lux' and for the dawn.

Deo gratias.

Thursday of the 23rd week in ordinary time

But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. (1 Corinthians 8:9-12 NASB)

 

For a long time I have wanted to add to the preferential option for the poor a similar divine concern for the broken-hearted. "The Lord is near to the broken hearted, and saves all those who are crushed in spirit," writes the psalmist. And likewise also the weary (Isaiah 40:31 and Matthew 11:28, for example), and children, and outcasts... So in Paul's letter to the Corinthians today, I was drawn to the emphasis on the weaker brothers and sisters in Christ. These are (like us) those for whom Christ died. Not only that, but these brothers and sisters are "the least" to which Christ refers and with whom he identifies: whatever we do them, we do to Christ himself.

Passages like this always call to my mind people with intellectual disabilities. This is in part because I have a daughter with Down Syndrome, and I realized long ago that I was no closer to God because I knew some theology that she doesn't. And it is in part because of the general disregard for people with such disabilities in contemporary culture. Last month, Richard Dawkins suggested that it is immoral to allow a baby with Down Syndrome to be born. (This infuriates and saddens me, but I won't dwell on it here.) What we do to those with intellectual disabilities--who might very well fall into the category of "lacking knowledge" in Paul's letter--we do to Christ himself.

The whole orientation of our Christian practice ought to favor the weak, the downtrodden, the poor, the refugee, the mentally disabled--those for who Christ died. I know I often forget that--I think about writing my books and get caught up in the stresses and strains of my daily life. I forget that in my daughter, in my children, in all those around me who most need Christ's care, strength, and protection, I have not just those for whom Christ died, but Christ himself.

Deo gratias.

 

Corpus Christi

Not exactly a reflection on the Mass reading today, but perhaps still of interest: thoughts on the sacrament and Christian life. It doesn't answer any questions about what Jesus means when he says he is the bread of heaven; hopefully you've heard a good homily about that!

Thursday of the tenth week in ordinary time

Elijah said to Ahab, 'Go back, eat and drink; for I hear the sound of rain.' While Ahab went back...Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel and bowed down to the earth, putting his face between his knees. 'Now go up', he told his servant, 'and look out to the sea.' He went up and looked. 'There is nothing at all' he said. 'Go back seven times' Elijah said. The seventh time, the servant said, 'Now there is a cloud, small as a man's hand, rising from the sea.'
                                                                                                  1 Kings 18: 41-44

.  .  .

I imagine I am not the first person to notice that Elijah says he hears the sound of rain long before the cloud appears over the horizon. Does he say he hears it because he's confident that it will come? Or does he have super-hearing? (I admit I am thinking of the bionic woman, which dates me.)

My question is really whether Elijah hears the sound of rain by faith. I can't think of another way to read it--though that may just be a failure of my imagination. The failure is easily explained: about to embark on a major transition (moving back to the US for a year), I yearn for some prophetic reasurrance that the promised 'rain' will come. The psalm set for today (at least the passage to be read in Mass) ends: 'The hills are girded with joy.' I want to know that the rain will come, that the hills (not that I expect to see many hills roundabout us in Indiana) will be 'girded with joy.'

There is a kind of blankness ahead, bare hills and sky color of diffuse light, as it is well before dawn. I suppose this is what the promise looks like: a clean white page of time, waiting for its 'potentate' to fill it with his brightness and colors. And so I must wait, too: go back and eat and drink, and wait for the rain to fall.

Easter Saturday

Give thanks to the Lord,
 for he is good,
for his love has no end.

The Lord's right hand
 has triumphed;
his right hand raised me up.
I shall not die,
 I shall live
and recount his deeds.
                           Psalm 117

.       .      .

Some days this is the heart's cry: God has triumphed, and the soul rejoices. The evidence of God's goodness is obvious and close at hand. Even the senses seem to attest to God's goodness, as the psalmist elsewhere exclaims, 'Taste and see that the Lord is good!'

And then there are those other days. On those days, the objective truth of God's goodness remains. It is, after all, Easter week. The triumph of the Lord is--or should be--obvious and close. But, though even the heart knows the truth of God's victory and the extent of God's goodness, the joy and gladness do not seem to follow.

On those latter days--I admit that today is one of those--I am grateful for liturgical seasons and appointed feast days. Holy days of obligation are a gift to me, and the psalms set for Mass and for the daily office make way for me to give thanks to the God of heaven, the One who raised Christ Jesus from the dead.

I am not blessed with a constant experience of the joy of my salvation. Would that I were, that the happy praise of the Lord were always on my lips and in my heart. But I am low some days, downright glum. But that doesn't change anything about who God is, or how right and just it is to praise the Lord 'always and everywhere.' Tomorrow, I will join the rest of the congregation in the alleluias and amens, and happily so: for the company of the faithful supports me (however little they may be aware of it) simply by offering that praise and inviting me to join in. By their presence, they testify to the truth I know, that the Lord has called us all out of darkness and into his marvellous light.

For that, I am glad--truly and deeply glad--indeed.

Deo gratias.

Good Friday

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

                          (Isaiah 53: 4)

...my kingship is not from this world.

                           (John 18.36)

Abba Hyperichus said, "The watchful monk works night and day to pray continually: but if his heart is broken and lets tears flow, that calls God down from heaven to have mercy."

*            *           *

That's what today is about: he has "carried our sorrows."  On the cross, Jesus takes on all the sorrows of the fallen creation, of fallen human creatures. And Mark's gospel records Jesus' call from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" So cries the broken heart for the God who alone can heal. But Jesus' broken heart calls God down from heaven to have mercy on us all. His heart is the one heart that can break for the whole world and so heal the whole world.

When we are broken hearted over our own sins, when we feel that grief, we participate in Jesus' grief on the cross: he took our sorrows, our grief, and now we only experience it properly as we participate in him. 

Tuesday of Holy Week

Though I thought that I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,

Yet my reward is with the Lord: my recompense is with my God…

I will make you a light to the nations,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

                                                                        Isaiah 49: 3-6

A hermit was asked by a brother, “How do I find God? With fasts or labour, or vigils, or works of mercy?” He replied, “ you will find him in all those, and lso in discretion. I tell you many have been very stern with their bodies,  but have gained nother by it because they did it without discretion. Even if our mouths stink from fasting, and we have learnt all the Scriptures, and memorized the whole psalter, we may still lack what God wants, humility and love.”

                                                                        (DF 111)

.                .               .

Isn’t it the measure of humility to think we have not achieved anything? Isaiah reflects on precisely this predicament: ‘I thought that I had toiled in vain’; that all was for nought. But it is in the acknowledgement that all he can do is work ‘uselessly’ that he finds the truth: recompence is with God. Because it is God’s will that God’s salvation reach the ends of the earth, God makes something of out otherwise useless toil. So, as the hermit says, all the fasting and prayer avail us nothing without the marks of true participation in the Spirit—humility and love. And what a good and timely word for this, the last week in Lent. We have fasted and abstained, we have spent time in Scripture and in prayer, we have done works of mercy. But what do we gain by it all? Nothing, so long as we expect the work to get us somewhere. The object of all the Lenten discipline we choose to bear is nothing more or less than the deepening of humility and the widening of our love.

Humility and love should point us towards the cross, where Christ’s humility is displayed in the utmost submission, and his love is extended even in his suffering: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ Humility and love: forgiving before the repentance, before the acknowledgement of sin. Jesus shows us pure forgiveness, which is the way of humility and love. And so I find myself coming around again to forgiveness, although it appears nowhere in the lectionary readings for today; it is nevertheless what the Lenten season is all about: humility and love.