Daily Virtue

Today’s reflection verse from Luke’s Gospel presents a story about the invitation from God to know him in faith and that we should sacrifice any human interest that gets in the way of replying to God’s call, no matter how lawful and noble it may be. The objections we tend to put forward, the duties we appeal to, are just excuses. Bishop Robert Barron writes that the father (God the Father) is giving a banquet for his son (God the Son), whose bride is the Church. Jesus is the marriage of divinity and humanity, and we, his followers, are invited to join in the joy of this union. The joyful intimacy of the Father and the Son is now offered to us to be shared. Listen to Isaiah to learn the details of this banquet: “On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.” Now, there is an edge to all of this. The king is doing the inviting, and it is a wedding banquet for his son. We can see how terribly important it is to respond to the invitation of the King of kings in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” We have heard the invitation of God to enter into intimacy with him, to make him the center of our lives, to be married to him in Christ, and often, we find the most pathetic excuses not to respond.

The resurrection of Jesus promises that things can always be new again. It’s never too late to start over. Nothing is irrevocable. No betrayal is final. No sin is unforgivable. Every form of death can be overcome. There isn’t any loss that can’t be redeemed. Every day is virgin. There is no such thing as old age. In the resurrection we are assured that there are no doors that are eternally closed, every time we close a door or one is closed on us, God opens another for us. The resurrection assures us that God never gives up on us, even if we give up on ourselves, that God writes straight with the crooked lines of our lives, that we can forever re-virginize, regain lost innocence, become post-sophisticated, and move beyond bitterness. In a scheme of things where Jesus breathes out forgiveness on those who betray him, and God raises dead bodies from the dead, we can begin to believe that in the end, all will be well and every manner of being will be well and everything, including our own lives, will eventually end sunny side up. However, the challenge of living this out is not just that of believing that Jesus rose physically from the grave, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, to believe that – no matter our age, mistakes, betrayals, wounds, and deaths – we can begin each day afresh, virgin, innocent again, a child, a moral infant, stunned at the newness of it all. No matter what we’ve done, our future is forever pregnant with wonderful new possibility. Resurrection is not just a question of one day, after death, rising from the dead, but it is also about daily rising from the many mini-graves within which we so often find ourselves. G.K. Chesterton wrote: “Learn to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again. Familiarity is the greatest of all illusions.” In essence, that captures one of the real challenges of believing in the resurrection. If the resurrection is to have power in our lives, we must give up the illusion of familiarity. We think we know, we think we understand, we think we have things figured-out, and we end up psyching-out life and each other, leaving them no room for newness, for surprise, for the unfamiliar, for the resurrection. Familiarity breeds contempt. Nothing robs us of joy more than that and nothing destroys our marriages, families, communities, and friendships more than a contemptuousness that is born of familiarity. The resurrection invites us to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again because, in the end, a startling, delightful surprise is hidden in all that is familiar. [Exceprt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s article, “Daily Resurrection”]

We have previously spoken of how difficult it is to be the love of God to ourselves and to others. But Fr. Ron Rolheiser notes that the first part of the commandment, our reflection verse today,  is the most difficult to keep. He goes on to write that we are forever worshipping strange gods. Idolatry, more so even than atheism, is what is natural to us. The idolatry that afflicts us has little to do with worshipping icons, misguided devotions, and other such things. It is subtler. It has to do with the false images of God to which we give obeisance. Allow me to name ten such false gods whom we habitually substitute for the real God, Yahweh, the Father of Jesus Christ.
– The arbitrary god of fear.
– The insecure, defensive, threatened god.
– The dumb, non-understanding god.
– The exotic god of special places.
– The ascetic god whose Christ does not proclaim feast.
– The emasculated god of unbalanced piety.
– The orthodox god of strict theological formulation.
– The unholy god our own image and likeness.
– The overly intense, wired, god of our own neuroses.
– The anti-erotic god, anti-enjoyment, god of our guilt.
Space does not allow for a commentary on each of these but allows me a few more general reflections. By and large, we still believe that God is petty, defensive, and threatened by us. We feel God likes us better when we are uncreative and docile and don’t steal his fire. It is no accident that many creative persons leave the church and that the church has so often been defensive about progress, evolution, and human creativity. The God we believe in is too threatened and defensive. We also habitually worship a god whom, unconsciously, we consider rather dumb and lacking in understanding the complexity of the human being. I once officiated at a funeral for a young man from a very religious family who, while away from the church and living rather dissolutely, was killed accidentally while drunk. One woman remarked: “He was a good soul underneath it all. I knew him. If I were opening the gates of heaven, I would certainly let him in despite his irresponsibility.” She was an understanding woman, but she was not giving God credit for the same thing. All of us tend to mirror that attitude. We do not give God credit for being as bright as we are.  We commit idolatry, too, when we make God more monastic than domestic and when we limit God’s presence to churches and holy places and do not notice God in our kitchens. When I cannot see the wounds of Christ in the pained face of the person across the table from myself, then my crucifix is more gold calf than icon. Finally, we break the first commandment when we make the worship of God more a question of proper orthodoxy and correct doctrine than letting the life of the Trinity and its love flow through us. God, I suspect, prefers a loving, gracious heretic to a person who is theologically correct but bitter and unloving. Whenever we conceive of God as somehow being defensive, anti-enjoyment, less compassionate and intelligent than ourselves, and preferring orthodoxy to compassion, we are breaking the first commandment. Such is idolatry.

It has been written by many great theologians and mystics that we come into the world already knowing, however dimly, perfect oneness, perfect truth, perfect goodness, and perfect beauty because they already lie inside us like an unerasable brand. Some gave this a mythical expression. They taught that the human soul comes from God and that the last thing that God does before putting a soul into the body is to kiss the soul. The soul then goes through life, always dimly remembering that kiss, a kiss of perfect love, and the soul measures all of life’s loves and kisses against that primordial perfect kiss. The ancient Greek Stoics taught something similar. They taught that souls preexisted inside God and that God, before putting a soul into a body, would blot out the memory of its preexistence. But the soul would then always be unconsciously drawn towards God because, having come from God, it would always dimly remember its real home, God, and ache to return there. On this All Souls Day, when we take time to remember those who have departed, as I do for my aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, friends, and most importantly, my sister, mother, and father, I pray that they are experiencing this very day the fulfillment of the longing that St. Augustine spoke about over 1700 years ago: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

My parents and the significant elders in my youth, while not perfect, walked their talk, at least essentially so. They raised my siblings and me to believe in God and in the church, and then, by the way they lived their lives and treated us, gave us reason enough to believe that the trust they asked of us, towards God and church, was well placed. They made God and the church credible. How did they do this? By never essentially betraying us, their children. Their love was neither perfect nor unconditional nor even adequate – nobody, save God, can do that, but neither did they betray us, or themselves, in so deep a way that it cast doubt upon the essential trust they asked of us. Today, I have faith in God and the church largely because of that. My elders didn’t betray me. But what if my life has been one of feeling betrayed? If I have been deeply betrayed as a child, why trust now? If the words of my parents or a significant elder were essentially dishonest, why should I not suspect this is the case with all authority, church or civil? If the religious talk and actions of my elders were more appearance than reality, why shouldn’t I think that all religious talk and action is simple appearance? Why should I not be suspicious of a dark confessional box when I will spend my life trying to get over what happened to me in some other dark place? And why shouldn’t I suspect that all authority, in the end, is self-serving, lying, and exploitative if that has been my primal experience? Why shouldn’t I believe that all human authority is dishonest and untrustworthy? It is essential to know that we come to the church with very different experiences, and we must be sensitive to each other. For some of us, it didn’t hurt to be a child, and the blind trust we gave our parents and the church was a good investment. For others, though, too much of what church and church authority stand for can only seem like a big lie. If our parents or elders were immature, neglectful, self-interested, or, worse yet, positively abusive, that is the way the church and its leaders will also appear to us. Understanding this can help gestate compassion on all sides. [Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s article, “Children Of Our God – And Of Our Elders”]

We are rarely at our best. Too often, what shows forth in our lives is not what’s best in us: love, generosity, and a big heart. More often than not, our lives radiate irritation, pettiness, and a small heart. Too frequently, we find ourselves consumed by petty irritations, conflicts, frustrations, and anger. Each of these might be small in itself, but cumulatively, they take the sunshine and delight out of our lives, like mosquitoes spoiling a picnic. Then, instead of feeling grateful, gracious, and magnanimous, we feel paranoid, fearful, and irritable, and we end up acting out of a cold, irritated, paranoid part of ourselves rather than out of our real selves. As Christians, we believe that what ultimately defines us and gives us our dignity is the image and likeness of God inside us. This is our deepest identity, our real self. Inside each of us, there is a piece of divinity, a god or goddess, a person who carries an inviolable dignity with a heart as big as God’s. Our great dignity, the Imago Dei inside each of us, is meant to be a center from which we can draw vision, grace, and strength to act in a way that, ironically, precisely helps us to swallow our pride. St. John tells us that at the last supper, Jesus got up from the table and began to wash the feet of his disciples, against their protests. That gesture, washing someone else’s feet, has classically been preached on as an act of humility. When Jesus washes his disciples’ feet in John’s Gospel and tells us he is setting an example for us to imitate, he is inviting us to have the strength to bend down in understanding and wash the feet of those whom, for all kinds of reasons, we would rather not have anything to do with. It is akin to having Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, strident conservatives and strident liberals, fundamentalists and atheists wash each others’ feet. Normally we don’t have the strength to do that, there is too much pride and desire for righteousness at stake. When we are in touch with the fact that we have “come from God and are going back to God,” then, and only then, can we swallow enough pride to be genuinely loving. [Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s article, “Finding the Strength to Reach Across Differences”]

Having lived in Japan for almost six years, we learned how a different culture views friendship. In Western culture, we tend to freely and easily imply that we have a relationship with someone when we have just met. You have probably experienced this at work or school. A person is introduced to you. You chat, depart, and go about your life. Before you know it, this acquaintance refers to you as “best of friends.” Our Japanese hosts found this behavior both humorous and challenging. Friendship, in their eyes, required a lengthier time together so that you truly got to know who this person was and that their words and actions were meaningful, consistent, and dependable because they matched how they lived their life. Friendship was viewed as a steadfast commitment to each other and was not something given away lightly. Friendship demanded a trust that only came from spending intimate time together. This is what Jesus is telling us today. We cannot simply view our relationship with him like some adoring fan of a popular public figure. If that is how we base our relationship with people, knowing only the public picture and nothing of who they are personally, how can we ever get to see the person in such a way that they, or we, would lay our lives down for each other? Christ wants us to know and trust him with our entire life. This takes a real commitment on our part to give ourselves totally to him, investing time in prayer, reading of scripture, and living our lives in every way possible to honor his commandment to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” Only in this way can we establish the intimate relationship he genuinely desires for each of us.

This passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians has always seemed to draw a “side eye” look from couples sitting in the pews and for what many see as a very good reason – the thought that wives are to be submissive to a “dominate” husband who is “head of his wife.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser wonders if the growing sensitivity to gender language and the Christian “discipleship of equals” has suddenly rendered invalid and irrelevant the teaching of Ephesians on the sacrament of matrimony?” He goes on to say that it shouldn’t. Why? Because it requires us to read this passage in the context of the overall letter and understand that this phrasing comes from the honest effort of the English translators to break up a long Greek sentence to make for easier reading. In their attempt to break the sentence into smaller units, the translators chose to repeat the verb from verse 21 of “be submissive” or “be subordinate,” causing many readers to be distracted from the fact that this clause is simply beginning to unfold the mandate of mutual subordination that governs the whole passage. Whatever we want to make of the author’s assumptions about the distinctive roles of the spouses in their relationship, the overriding message is that, in the body of Christ, the marital relationship is utterly transformed into the life of mutual subordination demanded of all baptized disciples. In the end, this passage from Ephesians on marriage simply spelled out the teaching of Jesus that his followers are to be characterized by service to one another and the laying down of life for one another. All disciples are called to seek the highest form of love, “agape love,” which is all about loving “other” simply as other – no strings attached. It is the bedrock of mutual love and is at the heart of the two great commandments that all disciples are bound to. While this saying is difficult, the difficulty has to do mainly with not understanding mutual subordination. And that mutual subordination takes its life from the subordination of each person to Christ. Whatever the role expectations of spouses in a particular culture, baptism into the Christian covenant transmutes them absolutely into this mutual unconditional love commitment.

Eternal life. Where is it? When is it? For a long time, I have thought about eternal life as a life after all my birthdays have run out. For most of my years, I have spoken about eternal life as the “afterlife” or “life after death.” But the older I become, the less interest my “afterlife” holds for me. Worrying not only about tomorrow, next year, and the next decade but even about the next life seems a false preoccupation. Wondering how things will be for me after I die seems, for the most part, a distraction. When my clear goal is the eternal life, that life must be reachable right now, where I am, because eternal life is life in and with God, and God is where I am here and now. The great mystery of the spiritual life—the life in God—is that we don’t have to wait for it as something that will happen later. Jesus says: “Dwell in me as I dwell in you.” It is this divine in-dwelling that is eternal life. It is the active presence of God at the center of my living—the movement of God’s Spirit within us—that gives us the eternal life. The Spirit of Jesus comes to dwell within us so that we can become living Christs [Christians] here and now.      – Henri Nouwen

The Gospel reading for this Sunday hinges on a single phrase: “Son of David.” For the Jews, this title was pregnant with Messianic significance: David’s heir, the one to usher in the everlasting kingdom, the fulfillment of all their longings, was the son of David promised in the Scriptures. But to the Jewish crowd, this was blasphemous, as only the Messiah could be referred to in this way. Imagine you were the blind beggar Bartimaeus, living in the shadows of life, deep in his darkness but with piercingly attuned ears to hear the stories of Jesus’ redemptive power. For him, this is a moment he has been seeking, and he will not be denied. So, he continues to call out, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus hears him and calls to the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus’ clear and simple reply was, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus immediately responds to this request by saying, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”  How does this story affect each of us today, especially those of us who have felt that our prayers often go unanswered? Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that our prayers aren’t always answered as swiftly and directly as we see in today’s reading, but they are always answered, as Jesus assures us, because God does not withhold the Holy Spirit from those who ask for it. If we pray for guidance and support, it will be given us. All of us, at different times in our lives, find ourselves alone, lost, confused, and tempted towards a road that will not lead to life. At such times we need to approach God with a prayer that is shamelessly honest, direct, and humble. Then, we need to wait, in patience and belief that God will place His answer to our prayers before us. We must remember that God responds in ways that align with His will for our lives, not our will. And that is often the rub – testing our ability to wait and to listen for “God’s still small voice” that can come from anyone or anywhere in His creative landscape.