Author: DVO

Today’s Gospel verse brings the birth of John the Baptist into focus. Bishop Robert Barron writes that it’s fair to say that you cannot really understand Jesus without understanding John, which is precisely why all four evangelists tell the story of the Baptist as a kind of overture to the story of Jesus. “What, then, will this child be?” Every parent has probably repeated this verse at some point in the life of their child. Our hopes and aspirations come to the forefront of our minds as we wonder what might become of a son or daughter who is coming into this world. We might hope that our child will feel deeply loved, will have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, or that they will walk in the way of faith. I know these are things that we hoped for our children. But what were the hopes of Zechariah and Elizabeth? Today we read that Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah, is about to give birth to a son. But they had been blessed to know that they would have a son, what his name would be, and what his life would be dedicated to. Of course, when Zechariah heard this from the angel Gabriel he was in disbelief. Wouldn’t you be just as doubtful? I mean, my wife and I were just happy that our children came out healthy with ten fingers and ten toes. But our lesson today is, like Zechariah, who was in disbelief of what Gabriel was telling him, we can also be confronted with teachings we do not like, or have our hearts tugged by the spirit to step out in faith, or for deeper conversion on something God wants us to do. We need to remember this lesson from Zechariah’s encounter and know that God accomplishes His will in any way he chooses. As his children, ours is to be obedient to his call, to quiet our hearts, and then to ask him to help us understand more fully the reality he wants us to enter into. Like Zechariah, we have been promised that when we step out in faith, the Lord will bless our trust and obedience.   

Fr. Rolheiser tells the story of a woman who was happily married and running a very successful business with her husband, who was a recovering alcoholic. The husband unfortunately began to drink, and within two years, they had lost everything, including each other. She moved to a new city and took a new job, but the pain of what she had lost lingered, and she found herself constantly depressed and joyless as she sought to sink new roots, meet new people, and begin over again in mid-life. Her frustration culminated one evening when having worked late, she was driving home and stopped at a red light when she was hit from behind by a drunken driver. (The irony wasn’t lost on her.) Her car was severely damaged, and she, suffering from whiplash and a series of cuts and bruises, was taken to hospital by ambulance. Once she was released, a policeman took her home to her townhouse, where she noticed that the front door was wide open. Getting out of the car, she realized that her townhome had been ransacked and vandalized. That was the last straw. All of her pent-up frustration, anger, loss, and grief finally burst; she lost control, began to scream hysterically, and ran across the lawn shouting curses at God and life in general, with the policeman chasing her, saying, “Where is God in all of this? Why is God letting this happen? Why is God asleep?” Suddenly, just as she heard her own curses as an answer, everything became calm. She ceased running and stopped shouting because she felt a flood of calm and peace inside herself, which she had never experienced in her life before. No magic lights went on, no divine voices, and she made no claims of “miracle” afterward, but, for one second, she realized that no matter the storm, the loss, or death itself, God was still in charge of this universe. One second of realization was all it took. Calm returned, and she has essentially remained calm since then. In our Gospel reading from Mark, Jesus is in a boat with the disciples when a gale comes up, and the waves break into the boat so that it is almost swamped. But he was in the stern fast asleep. The disciples woke him and said, “Master, do you not care? We are going down!” Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet now! Be calm!” And the wind dropped, and all was calm again. The parallel between these two stories is clear. In essence, both stories tell us that God is still in charge of this universe, every counter-indication notwithstanding. What calms the storm in life is not that all of our problems suddenly disappear but that, within them, we realize that, because God is still in charge, all will be well – whiplash, bruises, ransacked houses, alcoholic spouses, lost houses, lost jobs, loneliness, and the shadow of death itself notwithstanding. All will be well because, even asleep with his head on a cushion, God is still lord.

The tension we experience between our desire to grow up and our perennial procrastination and infinite stalling in doing that reflects a tension that lies at the heart of Jesus’ message today, a tension between God’s promises as being already here and God’s promises as still coming. Everything Jesus promised is already here, and everything Jesus promised is still coming. We’re already living the new, resurrected life, even as we’re still waiting for it. Biblical scholars and theologians tell us that everything Jesus came to bring us – the Reign of God, the Kingdom of God, the New Age, the Final Age, the reign of justice on this earth, new life, the resurrection, eternal life, heaven – is already here, except that it’s also still coming. It’s here now, but not fully; a present reality, but in tension. And it’s still coming, in its fullness; still to arrive, in ecstasy. It’s already here, and it’s still yet to be realized. The followers of Jesus prefer to push everything off into the future, and the story comes to no good end. The reign of God announced by Jesus is not accepted. The ‘today’ offered by God is denied. And that, that alone, is why ‘already’ becomes ‘not yet.’ It is not only in Nazareth that the ‘today’ of the Gospel was not accepted. In the church’s history, we see that it has again and again been denied or rendered toothless. The reason was the same as in Nazareth: apparently, it goes against the human grain for God to become concrete in our lives. Then, people’s desires and favorite notions are in danger, as are their ideas about time. It can’t be today because that would mean our lives must change. Therefore, it can lie, hygienically and snugly packed, at rest, inconsequential. We’re like the guests in the Gospel parable invited to the wedding banquet. We, too, want to go to the feast and intend to go to the feast, but first, we need to attend to our marriages, our businesses, and our ambitions. We can get serious later. There’s time. We fully intend to take Jesus seriously; we just want a little more time before we do that. After converting to Christianity at age twenty-five, St. Augustine struggled for another nine years to bring his sexuality into harmony with his faith. During those nine years, he prayed this way: Lord, make me a chaste Christian, but not yet! To his credit, unlike many of us, he eventually stopped pushing things into the indefinite future.

It is said that the “eyes are the window to the soul.” I mention this as Jesus speaks today of good and bad eyes and their correlation to light and darkness. We can trap ourselves in the darkness of the bad eye by our actions. The characteristics of the bad eye are: It cannot see the beauty of grace; It cannot see the brightness of generosity; It cannot see unexpected blessings to others as a precious treasure. It is an eye that is blind to what is truly beautiful, bright, precious, and God-like. It is a worldly eye. It sees money and material reward as more to be desired than a beautiful display of free, gracious, God-like generosity. So, the “eye test” is relatively straightforward, and you already know its results. If your eye sees heavenly treasure as infinitely more precious than earthly material treasure, your eye is good, and you are filled with the light and love of the Lord. Therefore, we do not seek to lay up our treasures on earth but in heaven. Our hearts are centered on Christ and not the world. Let me also suggest that you do one other “eye test” from Fr. Ron Rolheiser. Take a good look in the mirror. What do you see? For most of us, what is revealed is a lifeless face that’s not really ours and dull eyes hidden beneath a lying glass. Somewhere, the fire in our eyes has gone out; our eyes and faces are devoid of wonder and innocence. How do we correct this? We need to take a good, long look at ourselves in a mirror and study our eyes, long and hard, and let what we see shock us enough to move us toward the road of wonder or renewed innocence. Here’s the suggestion: Go to the mirror and stare into your eyes long enough until you see the boy or girl who once inhabited that space again. In that, wonder will be born, a sparkle will return, and with it, a freshness that can make you young again. When your eye sees things this way, you are full of light.

The Our Father or Lord’s Prayer is, without any doubt, the most commented-on passage in all of Holy Scripture. Though important, the words of Jesus’ prayer are only some of the essential things. His presence with us is the beginning of prayer; our presence with him is the goal of prayer. The early Christians, taught by the precepts of salvation and following the divine commandment, centered their prayer on this sublime and simple form of words given to them by Jesus. St. John Paul II, writing in “Go in Peace,” says, “Prayer is not simply one occupation among many, but is at the center of our life in Christ. It turns our attention away from ourselves and directs it to the Lord. Prayer fills the mind with truth and gives hope to the heart. Without a deep experience of prayer, growth in the moral life will be shallow. Prayer is the bond that most effectively unites us all. It is through prayer that believers meet one another at a level where inequalities, misunderstandings, bitterness, and hostility are overcome, namely, before God. Prayer is the authentic expression of a right relationship with God and with others.” The Our Father is a prayer that fills us with hope and consolation. Jesus fully realized how helpful this prayer would be to us. We are grateful to him for giving it to us, to the apostles for passing it on to us, and, in the case of most Christians, to our mothers for teaching it to us in our infancy. St Augustine says that the Lord’s Prayer is so perfect that it sums up everything man needs to ask God for in a few words. Let us, therefore, humbly petition the Lord with this prayer as we begin each day.

Unfortunately, today’s reflection verse accurately describes what I used to resemble during my yearly fasting during Lent. I thought giving up food caused the dour countenance, probably due to low sugar levels or some other “I’m not eating” related malady. I eventually learned that fasting is much more than giving up chocolate or certain foods. Fasting allows us to consciously let go of attitudes and behaviors that keep us from loving God, loving our neighbor, and loving our own dignity. I needed something in my preparation that focused on this idea of fasting. Fasting can help us “de-centralize the self,” which is crucial in making space for God. There are three aspects of de-centralizing ourselves: The first is through prayer, which de-centralizes the mind; the second is through almsgiving, which de-centralizes our heart; and the third is through fasting, which de-centralizes our body. The noted spiritual writer Richard Rohr says, “Fasting is the opportunity to surrender to the divine flow that leads us to a peaceful inner opening that keeps the conduit of living water flowing. It is a quiet willingness to trust that you are a beloved son or daughter of God.” This allows us to draw our strength from what God has deposited within our soul. The generating motor is inside us now instead of a lure or a threat from outside. We do things going forward because they are true, not because we have to or because we are afraid of punishment.

We sometimes fail to see what Jesus is saying within the context of his overall message. Jesus, tells us to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It is important to remember that he prefaces that statement with examples of loving others. What is this love that calls us to love our enemies? Could this be the perfection he is asking us to embrace, the perfection of love? Aileen O’Donoghue writes that her “enemies” are rarely true enemies; they’re just usually people who either are difficult to get along with or who annoy me. And yet, when I hear this passage, I think, Really? Jesus wants me to love that jerk? Yes, he does. It’s hard at first to even consider it. However, if someone is critical and irritable to others on the outside, chances are that he or she is also critical and irritable to themselves on the inside. Even braggarts, who seem self-satisfied and egotistical, are probably much more insecure than they will ever let on. Why else would they need to point out their apparent superiority? Thinking about this, and recognizing that happy, well-adjusted people are rarely difficult, has become my way, when I’m being difficult, of finding the compassion necessary to start transforming irritation to love and prayer–for others and for myself. Fr. James McKarns closes our reflection by noting that love implies that we respect others and even nurture a string positive attraction to them. How is this balanced with the abhorrent and repulse nature of those who kill innocent people, like Osama bin Laden. He tells us that what helped him apply Jesus teaching was the second part about praying for those who persecute us. We are not expected to totally excuse all offensive acts or invite our offenders to lunch, but if we sincerely pray for someone, then we are offering Christian love. George Watson, a famous post-Civil War evangelist, said, “When the heart is made pure, it is then in condition to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the abiding Comforter, whose presence floods the soul with unmixed love.” The perfection we are asked to pursue is all about perfecting the indwelling love of the spirit. This should be our daily effort; to empty ourselves so we can be filled with his love, to then go and share it with others. 

I recall a time when I was traveling with some business associates and stopped to give a panhandler the few dollars I had in my wallet. As we walked away, one of the associates looked at me and said, “That was a stupid thing to do. Don’t you know that you’re just feeding their drug or alcohol addiction?” I replied, “How do you know that?” His quick response was, “Everyone knows that.” I remember leaving that incident thinking that I had done something wrong. Thomas Merton said that it is hard to see what to do in these situations “because we are too distracted by our own problems and are still too caught up in our own neuroses, ambitions, woundedness and false values to be of much help to the poor.” Jesus had a heart for the least, the lost and the forgotten. In imitation of him, we should focus our lives on living a life “full of gratitude, celebration, deep friendship, and contemplative prayer.” When these elements are in our lives, graciousness automatically spills over so that when the less fortunate cry out, we know what to do.

The Kingdom of God, as Jesus assures us, is about mustard seeds, about small, seemingly unimportant things, but which, in the long run, are the big things. Not much in our world today helps us to believe that. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that almost everything urges us to think big and to be careless about small things. We are given The impression that what is private in our lives is minor and unimportant. Likewise, what is played out on the smaller stage of life – in the more domestic areas of family, marriage, and our exchanges with our neighbors and colleagues – is also deemed to be of little consequence. The big stage is what is important. What mark have you left in the world? What have you achieved on the bigger stage? What has been your involvement in the great causes? Nobody cares about your little life! Private morality, private grudges, the little insults that we hand out, our many angers and resentments, the small infidelities within our sexual lives, the many little acts of selfishness, and, conversely, the small acts of sacrifice and selflessness that we do and the little compliments that we hand out, these are not valued much in our culture. As a song suggests: “Our little lives don’t count at all!” I remember a young man, very dedicated to social causes, once asking me: “Do you really think that God gives a damn whether you say your morning prayers, or whether you hold some small grudge, or whether or not you are always polite to your colleagues, or whether or not you are always chaste sexually? That’s petty, small, private stuff that deflects attention from the bigger moral issues.” Well, I believe that God does care and cares a great deal because, in the end, we care, and small things, as these stories illustrate, affect a great deal. Small acts of cruelty or kindness leave their effect long after the impact of events of seemingly much more significant importance has passed away. There is, I believe, a profound lesson in this. Who won the Nobel Prize for literature two years ago? Who won the Academy Awards last year? Who won the Super Bowl three years ago? Who won the World Cup 10 years ago? It’s funny how quickly we tend to forget these things. It is also curious what we do not forget. We tend to forget soon who won such or such an award, or who starred in such and such a movie or play. But we remember, and remember vividly, with all the healing and grace it brought, who was nice to us all those years ago on the playground at school. We remember who encouraged us when we felt insecure. Conversely, we also remember, and remember vividly, with all the scars it brought, who laughed at us on the playground, made fun of our clothes, or who called us stupid. Falls come, winters come, springs come, summers come and go, and sometimes, the only thing we can remember from a given year is some tiny mustard seed of cruelty or kindness.

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus speaks to the importance of truth in our conversations as He lays down the criterion that his disciples must apply in this connection. It is based on re-establishing mutual trust, nobility and sincerity. Servant of God Dorothy Day writes that when she became a Catholic, it never occurred to her to question how much freedom she had or how much authority the Church had to limit that freedom. “I had reached the point where I want to obey. I was like the child in the New Yorker cartoon (I was nearly 30 years old) who said, ‘do I have to do what I want to do today?’ I was tired of following the devices and desires of my own heart, of doing what I wanted to do, what my desires told me I want to do, which always seem to lead me astray. Obedient to my conscience, I became a Catholic, was conditionally baptized and said, ‘I do believe,’ to the great and solemn and beautiful truths proposed to me. For the next five years no big problems came up of obedience. The church held up a tremendous ideal for the follower of Christ, and no matter how many times one failed, fell flat on one’s face, one might say, the church, holy mother Church, was there with her Sacraments of Penance and holy Eucharist to reassure and forgive and sustain and nourish one.”