Author: DVO

Fr. Ron Rolheiser, who has spent the better part of his adult life in academic endeavors, writes that today’s verse has long bothered him because Jesus is saying that the deep secrets of life and faith are hidden from the learned and the clever and revealed instead to children, to those of a less-complex mind. I don’t doubt the truth of this; I wonder why. Intelligence and learning are good things. Intelligence is the gift from God that sets us apart from animals, and access to learning is a precious right God gives us. Indeed, ignorance and lack of education are things every healthy society and every healthy individual strives to overcome. Scripture praises both wisdom and intelligence, and the health of any church is partly predicated on having a vigorous intellectual stream within it. Every time the church has let popular piety, however sincere, trump sound theology it has paid a high price. God did not give us intelligence to ask us not to use it. Naiveté is not a virtue and should never be confused with innocence. So why is being “intelligent and clever” something that can work against our understanding of the deeper secrets within life and faith? The fault is not with intelligence and learning, both good things in themselves, but they often have the unintended effect of undermining what’s childlike in us; that is, the very strength that they bring into our lives that can allow us to unconsciously claim superiority and have us believe that, given our intelligence, we have both the need and the right to isolate ourselves from others in ways that the natural neediness of children does not permit them to do. Children are not self-sufficient even though they fiercely want to be. They need others, and they know it. Consequently, they more naturally reach out and take someone’s hand. When we are the “learned and the clever,” we can more easily forget that we need others and consequently don’t as naturally reach for another’s hand as a child. It’s easier for us to isolate ourselves and more easily lose sight of the things to which God and life are inviting us. The very strength that intelligence and learning can bring into our lives is a superiority that never enters a room alone but always brings along a number of her children: arrogance, disdain, boredom, and cynicism. These are occupational hazards for the “learned and the clever,” and none help unlock life’s deep secrets. Faith doesn’t ask us not to stretch our minds. It not only doesn’t fear the hard questions, it invites us to ask them. And so it’s never wrong to become learned and sophisticated; it’s only bad if we remain there. The task is to become post-sophisticated, that is, to remain full of intelligence and learning even as we put on again the mindset of a child.

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, we have Jesus issuing a passionate call to repentance, using all the rhetorical hyperbole of the prophets, his truth and love are speaking to those on a self-destructive path. These verses are directly relevant to the lives of God’s people today. The lesson to be learned are quite simple: with great privilege comes great responsibility. Jesus has entrusted the Church with the fullness of Christian truth and grace. Christians of all confessions hold that salvation in Christ is ours for the taking and that Scripture is the living Word of God. Have we responded to these privileges with faith and zeal proportionate to their greatness? If we are honest with ourselves, we will surely find areas in our lives that are not fully surrendered to the lordship of Jesus. What triggers our response to honestly try and apply scripture lessons to our lives? Can we take the stories of Chorazin and Bethsaida as motivation to repent of whatever is hindering our pursuit of holiness? Or will we allow the drumbeat of procrastination to derail this opportunity once again? So much has been given, so it’s no surprise that much will be required.

In every person, there remains alive an essential need for stability, of an open door, of someone with whom to plan and share the story of life, a story to which one belongs. The family continues to be the school of humanity without equal, indispensable contribution to a just and solidaristic society. — Pope Francis, Vigil of Prayer

Nick Wagner of Team RCIA writes that these words from Pope Francis came to mind when he read Jesus’ warning to the apostles that he intends to set family members against each other. It has always been a difficult passage, but even more so after the pope’s insistence during the Extraordinary Synod on the Family that even the weakest and most dysfunctional families can be privileged encounters of God’s mercy and grace. Jesus is not dismissing the importance of the family. Instead, he prioritizes commitment to discipleship. Those who refuse to take up the Cross and who refuse to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the kingdom will not find peace. Pope Francis’s vision of the family has the same priority. No matter how broken, every family can be “an open door.” But it takes sacrifice, and we can begin “by saying ‘Can I? May I?’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ and never allowing the sun to set on a quarrel or misunderstanding, without having the humility to ask forgiveness”. What is common to both exhortations is the call to radical discipleship. Pope Francis challenges families to see beyond their woundedness to a mission of reconciliation. Jesus warns that without sacrificial love at its core, a family isn’t really a family in the first place. Most of us have broken relationships in our families. We don’t need to go to faraway lands to proclaim the Gospel. We can start with a phone call to the family member we haven’t talked to in years. Jesus and Pope Francis call us to this radical discipleship, a call to take up the Cross and follow.

We wake up into life with the incurable sense that we’re special, that we’re the center of the universe. Our own being is what’s most massively real to us. As Descartes famously said, the only thing that we know for sure is real is our own selves; I think, therefore, I am. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that Christianity and Judaism take as dogma that we’re born, every one of us, in the image and likeness of God. This brings with it a sense of the preciousness, dignity, and uniqueness, of our lives. But with that too comes pride and grandiosity. Simply put, we can’t have Godliness inside us and not feel ourselves as special. Grandiosity is the source of human strife, but equally the source of human greatness. Grandiosity, pride, shame, frustration, and daydreams of greatness, can indeed be our downfall and turn us into awful persons, selfish, jealous, spiteful, and murderous. But they can also be the source of greatness, of nobility of soul, of generosity, of selflessness, of generativity, of true prayer, and can turn us into selfless martyrs of faith, hope, and charity. Our godliness is very mixed blessing; but it is, no doubt, our greatest blessing. Bishop Robert Barron notes that Thomas Aquinas said creation is the presence of God always at work at the very roots of our being. Creation is not a once-and-for-all act of the essentially transcendent God but rather the ever-present and ever-new gift of being poured out from the divine source. What Aquinas implies is that the creature is a relationship to the energy of God, which is continually drawing it from nonbeing to being, making it new. Once the soul has been transfigured, the only path that seems appealing is the one walked by Christ—that is to say, the path of radical self-offering, self-surrender. Fired by the God-consciousness, in touch with the divine source within us, drinking from the well of eternal life, we are inspired simply to pour ourselves out in love. The Father promises eternal life for everyone who believes in the Son. This is our inheritance, that every human being is a subject of inestimable value because they have been created by God and destined by Him for eternal life.

“God has not put us into this life primarily to see if we can keep our attention focused on him all the time. God intended for us to immerse ourselves in the things of this world without, of course, forgetting that these things are, at the end of the day, passing and that we’re destined for a life beyond this world. We’re not on this earth to be always thinking of the eternal, though we’re not on earth either to forget about the eternal. However, because the unexamined life is less than human, we also need to have moments where we try to make God the center of our conscious awareness. We need regular moments of explicit prayer, of meditation, of contemplation, of worship, of Sabbath, of explicit acknowledgement of God and of explicit gratitude to God. We do need moments when we make ourselves consciously aware that there is a next life, an eternal one, beyond this present one.” Excerpt from “Divine Understanding” by Fr. Ron Rolheiser

I came across an article many years ago from Fr. John Eaton writing in CUSA – An Apostolate of Persons with Chronic Illness and Disability. He notes that every Friday throughout the year, the Church begins Morning Prayer with Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.” He goes on to ask in his opening comments, “Have you ever noticed that any announcement posted on a bulletin board becomes invisible after two or three weeks. The same can be true of our prayers. This text is used so frequently that it is easy for those praying to close their minds to the meaning behind the words. Besides the prayer for the forgiveness we all need, the psalm begs for three things that I personally need: 1) a clean heart (that is, a heart that is not divided by conflicting interests), 2) a steadfast spirit (a spirit that cannot be weakened by external pressure or internal weakness), and 3) a willing spirit (a spirit that is ready to hear and obey). One of the books from Fr. Rolheiser is “Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity” where he writes that many people are good Christians, but not all become great Christians. Many priests are good priests, but not every one of them is a great priest. The difference? In order to become great, we must give ourselves—without reservation—to Jesus Christ. We can’t hold anything back from Him. In short, we need a clean heart along with a spirit that is both steadfast and willing.”

What has been given you to carry? Where do the needs and pains of others conscript your freedom? When is freedom mitigated by circumstance? What are the situations that you are born into or meet in life to which you must respond, perhaps even at the cost of your life?  What may you not walk away from? Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that these are important questions, and not easy to answer. Each of us comes into this world with a God-given vocation. In essence, that’s easy enough to pinpoint. Simply put, we are all asked to love God and love each other. That’s the same for everyone. However, beyond that bald essence, it’s no longer the same for everyone because we are all born into and meet different circumstances in life. We are born into different families, different countries, different times in history, different cultures, different situations of poverty or affluence, different faiths, different kinds of intelligence, different natural aptitudes, and different physical bodies that vary greatly in terms of health, strength, and physical attractiveness. Philosophers call this your “existential” situation. In that, in that particularity, like snowflakes, no two persons are ever the same. And that uniqueness will color and perhaps fundamentally define your vocation and help dictate what will be given you to carry. My parents, first-generation immigrant farmers who, during many years of marriage and child-rearing, were unable to fully support our family from the farm alone. We needed some added income. As well, our outback rural community had only an elementary school and any education beyond the eighth grade required leaving home to attend a boarding school, something my parents could not afford. Because of that, five of my older siblings had to end their education after elementary school, not because they wanted to but rather because our financial need and the absence of a local high school necessitated that they leave school and take jobs to help support the family. For all of them, particularly for a couple of them, this was a hard sacrifice. Everything in them hungered for more freedom and choice; but, given their circumstances, this was what they were given to carry. And that sacrifice, that giving over of themselves for something beyond themselves, very much defined their vocation and their very persons. A large part of their vocation was to sacrifice many of their own dreams and ambitions for the sake of the family. Among other factors, my own opportunity for an education was largely predicated on their sacrifice. Their sacrifice is mirrored in the lives of millions of men and women all over the world. This is what has been given them to carry – and their sacrifice helps constitute the heart of their vocation.

Theologians note that religious history through the centuries seems to affirm that God seemingly takes his time in the face of our impatience. Our scriptures are often a record of frustrated desire, non-fulfillment, and human impatience. It’s more the exception when God intervenes directly and decisively to resolve a particular human tension. We are always longing for a messiah to take away our pain and to avenge oppression, but mostly, those prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. Fr. Rolheiser writes that humans are forever impatient, but God refuses to be hurried. Why is God seemingly so slow to act? Why is God so patient, so plodding in his plan, when we’re suffering so profoundly? Why is God so excruciatingly slow to act in the face of human impatience? There’s a line in Jewish apocalyptic literature that, metaphorically, helps answer this question: every tear brings the messiah closer! There is, it would seem, an intrinsic connection between frustration and the possibility of a messiah being born. It appears that messiahs can only be born after a long period of human yearning. Why? Because real love and life can come to birth only when a long-suffering patience has created the correct space, the virginal womb, within which the sublime can be born. When a green log is placed in a fire, it doesn’t start to burn immediately. It first needs to be dried out. Thus, it lies in the fire and sizzles for a long time, its greenness and dampness slowly drying out. Only when it reaches kindling temperature can it ignite and burst into flame. Speaking metaphorically, before a log can burst into flame, it must pass through a certain advent, a certain drying out, a period of frustration and yearning. So are the dynamics of how real love is born in our lives. We can ignite love only when we—selfish, green, damp logs—have sizzled sufficiently. And the fire that makes us sizzle is unfulfilled desire. God is never in a hurry, and for good reason. Messiahs can only be born inside a particular kind of womb, one within which there’s enough patience and willingness to wait to let things happen on God’s terms, not ours. Ideally, every unfulfilled longing should lead us into a deeper and more sincere prayer. And all of our pained impatience for a consummation that seems forever to elude us should make us feverish enough to burst into love’s flame.

“If the Lord himself was right here, right now, asking you to help him spread the good news, would you sign up?” That is the reality of the reading today. But the problem is that most people’s “yes” is based on the premise that Jesus was actually standing in front of them. As a young man pointed out when he was asked a similar question, “Since that is not going to happen, why should I listen to you or these words?” It seems as if we have a problem identifying with the truth that Christ is truly present with us today through his Word and in the gift of Himself in Holy Communion. If we can acknowledge that Jesus is present in these truths, how do we then move beyond the excuse that these words of Jesus are only meant for those called to the priesthood or religious life? Here is why Jesus’ words today are meant for anyone who calls themselves Christian. If we say that we are followers of Jesus Christ, we are charged with the responsibility of trying to live our lives in concert with his teachings. What does that mean? For some of us, the call will be to religious life, but for most, it will be serving others through our chosen vocations that may help others or in our volunteer work. If we can see the beauty of this call by the master, we can change the world. By making a concerted effort to help others in need through simple acts of kindness, we can learn how sharing the love of Christ brings unsurpassed joy to our lives and theirs. We can also learn what this call means for the gifts and talents we have been given to give away to others. Everyone could answer the call of the master if we only focused on lifting our voice in daily intercessory prayer for the needs of the Church and the least, the lost and the forgotten, learning to care for others’ needs more than our own. There are so many ways to serve and so many excuses we can use

As we know, we have four Gospels, each with its own take on the passion and death of Jesus. Fr. Rolheiser writes that for Luke, what happened in the death of Jesus is the most apparent revelation ever of the incredible scope of God’s understanding, forgiveness, and healing. For him, Jesus’ death washes everything clean through an understanding, forgiveness, and healing that belies every notion suggesting anything to the contrary. In his account of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, he tells us that immediately after one of his disciples struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear, Jesus touched the man’s ear and healed him. God’s healing, Luke intimates, reaches into all situations, even situations of bitterness, betrayal, and violence. God’s grace will ultimately heal even what’s wounded in hatred. Then, after Peter denied him three times and Jesus was led away after his interrogation by the Sanhedrin, Luke tells us that Jesus turned and looked straight at Peter in a look that made Peter weep bitterly. Everything in this text and everything that comes after it suggests that the look from Jesus was a look of such understanding and empathy as Peter had never before seen, causing him to weep in relief, knowing that everything was alright and that he was okay. Finally, in Luke’s narrative, we arrive at the place where Jesus is crucified, and as they are crucifying him, he utters the famous words: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Those words, which Christians forever afterward have taken as the ultimate criterion as to how we should treat our enemies and those who do us ill, encapsulate the profound revelation contained in Jesus’ death. Unlike the narratives of Mark and Matthew, Jesus does not die expressing abandonment but instead dies expressing complete trust: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Luke wants us to see in these words a template for how we can face our own deaths, given our weaknesses. What’s the lesson? At the end of the day, when each of us faces our own death, this will be our biggest regret, that we’re not saints. But, as Jesus shows in his death, we can die (even in weakness) knowing we are dying in safe hands.