Author: DVO

The words of Isaiah, which Christ read out on this occasion, describe what lies in His heart and should lie in each person’s heart – an awareness and love of the poor. We need to give to people experiencing poverty, not because they need it, though they do, but because we need to do that to be healthy. That’s an axiom grounded in scripture where, time and again, we are taught that giving to the poor is something we must do for our health. Fr. Rolheiser writes that this truth is expressed in many religions and cultures. For example, several indigenous North American people practiced something they called potlatch. This was a festival, sometimes attached to a birth or wedding celebration, at which a wealthy person gave away gifts to the community. Its primary purpose was to ensure a certain distribution of wealth but also to ensure that wealthy individuals stayed healthy by being solicitous in terms of not accumulating too much wealth. It was believed that too much excess left a person unhealthy. This has been a perennial belief in most cultures. In Christianity, we have enshrined this in the challenge to be charitable to the poor, and we have classically seen our giving to the poor as a virtue, rightly so. For the most part, we are generous and charitable people. We give away some of our surpluses, and despite warnings from professionals who work with street people that this isn’t helpful, our hearts are still moved by those begging on our streets. We continue to slip them money (even as we don’t believe their claim that they need money for food or bus fare). For the most part, our hearts are still in the right place. We need to give to the poor because they need it, admittedly, but we need to do it because we cannot be healthy unless we do this. And we need to see our giving not so much as charity but as obligation, justice, and something we owe. St. Vincent de Paul is reputed to have challenged his followers with words to this effect: It is more blessed to give than to receive- and it is also easier!

In today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus asks, “What does it profit you if you gain the whole world but suffer the loss of your own soul?” Man’s goal does not consist of accumulating worldly goods; these are only a means to an end. Man’s last end, his ultimate goal, is God himself; he possesses God in advance, as it were, here on earth through grace and possesses him fully and forever in heaven. St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that “the least good of grace is superior to the natural good of the entire universe.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser asks, “What does it mean to lose your soul in this world?” Philosophy speaks of the soul as immaterial and spiritual. This double principle is inside every living being: the principle of life and energy inside us and the principle of integration. Essentially, the soul is the fire inside us, giving us life and energy and the glue that holds us together. We can have our vitality and energy go dead or become unglued and fall apart; in either case, we lose our souls. We lose our souls in opposite ways; thus, the minding of the soul is a refined alchemy that has to know when to heat things up and cool things down. What’s healthy for my soul depends a lot upon what I’m struggling with: Am I losing my soul because I’m losing vitality, energy, hope, and graciousness in my life? Am I becoming a person who’s painful to be around? Or, conversely, am I full of life and energy but so full of it that I am falling apart, losing my sense of self? Does my soul need more fire, something to rekindle its energy? Does my soul have too much fire and need some cooling down and glue? After we die, we can go to heaven or hell. That’s one way of speaking about losing or saving our souls. But Christian theology also teaches that heaven and hell start here in this life. We can lose our souls by not having enough fire or losing them by not having enough glue.

We live in a time of pain and division. Hatred, anger, and bitterness are growing daily in the world and church. It is harder to live at peace with each other, to be calm, and to not alienate someone just by breathing the same air. There is so much wound and division around. Women’s issues, poverty and social justice, abortion, sexual morality, questions of leadership and authority, issues of war and peace, and styles of living and ministry are touching deep wounds and setting people bitterly against each other. That is on top of traditional tension creators: personality conflicts, jealousy, greed, and sin, which habitually divide. The above comments are taken from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s article on how we are “Closed to Love and Open to Hate.” This is never more evident in the issue of social justice. Daily, I witness the verbal anger and tension around immigrants at our borders within the walls of our work establishments, homes, and even churches. How do we avoid joining our voices to these divisive issues? The pathways offered are not ones in which love is practiced or compromise a part of either side’s argument. Since nothing else is possible, save for the bitterness this creates, which, if we are walking in the light and the love of the Lord must be rejected, the answer lies in maintaining a fidelity that accepts suffering. Fr. Rolheiser says to be “faithful today means to live in pain, tension, frustration, and seeming compromise, often hated by both sides. Our call today is to reconcile by feeling the pain of all sides and letting our pain and helplessness be a buffer that heals the blood that helps wash the wound. As a simple start, we can test how open-minded we are on these issues by seeing how much pain we are in. Not to be in pain is not to be open-minded. It is a time of pain for the church when we will all feel some hatred and when, above all, we must keep our peace of mind, our inner calm of spirit, and our outer charity. Most of all, it is time to resist bitterness and that hardness of spirit which dampens the Holy Spirit.”

Gratitude and thankfulness should be the bedrock of our daily lives. Fr. Rolheiser writes that to be a saint is to be motivated by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less. Scripture, everywhere and always, makes this point. For example, the sin of Adam and Eve was, first and foremost, a failure in receptivity and gratitude. God gives them life, each other, and the garden and asks them only to receive it properly, in gratitude, receive and give thanks. Only after doing this do we go on to “break and share.” Before all else, we first give thanks. To receive in gratitude and be properly grateful is the primary of all religious attitudes. Proper gratitude is the ultimate virtue. It defines sanctity. Saints, holy persons, are grateful people who see and receive everything as a gift. The converse is also true. Anyone who takes life and love for granted should never be confused with a saint. The failure to be appropriately grateful, to take as owed what’s offered as a gift, lies at the root of many of our deepest resentments towards others and their resentments towards us. Invariably, when we are angry at someone, especially at those closest to us, it is precisely because we are not being appreciated (that is, thanked) properly. Conversely, I suspect more than a few people harbor resentment towards us because we consciously or unconsciously think it is their job to take care of us. Like Adam and Eve, we take, as if it is ours by right, what can only be received gratefully as a gift. This goes against the very contours of love. It is the original sin.

Jesus is always telling us to wake up, stay awake, be vigilant, and be more alert to a deeper reality. What is meant by that, and how exactly are we “asleep?” Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that we all know how difficult it is for us to be in the present moment and not be asleep to the real riches in our lives. Daily life’s distractions and worries tend to consume us so much that we habitually take for granted what’s most precious to us: our health, the miracle of our senses, the love and friendships that surround us, and the gift of life itself. We go through our daily lives not only with a lack of reflectiveness and gratitude but with a habitual touch of resentment as well, a chronic, grey depression. We are very much asleep, both to God and to our own lives. How do we wake up? An awareness of our mortality does wake us up, as does a stroke, a heart attack, or cancer; but that heightened awareness is easier to sustain for a short season of our lives than it is for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years. Nobody can sustain that kind of awareness all the time. None of us can live seventy or eighty years as if each day was our last day. Or can we? Spiritual wisdom offers a nuanced answer: We can and can’t! On the one hand, everyday life’s distractions, cares, and pressures will invariably have their way with us, and we will, in effect, fall asleep to what’s deeper and more important inside of life. None of us live each day of our lives as if it were their last day. Our heartaches, headaches, distractions, and busyness invariably lull us to sleep. That’s forgivable; it’s what it means to be human. So we should ensure that we have regular spiritual rituals and spiritual alarm clocks to jolt us back awake so that it doesn’t take a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, or death to wake us up. For this reason, we need to begin each day with prayer, as this is how we maintain alertness to God’s actions. 

Fr. Rolheiser writes about a friend who likes to tease the Jesuits about their motto: “For the greater glory of God.” He notes that “God doesn’t need you to enhance his glory.” Fr. Rolheiser notes that his friend is partly he’s right, but he also notes that the Jesuits are right too. “God doesn’t need our praises, but we need to give praise, otherwise, our lives degenerate into bitterness and violence.” Why? Well, it might surprise some in what I have witnessed in many parish communities. In our daily experience, we sit around talking with each other and, invariably, unless we’re praising someone, we’re verbally “killing” someone. Gossip, slander, harsh judgment, and vicious comments are often both the tone and substance of our conversations and they’re the very antithesis of a doxology, of offering praise to God. Nothing sounds less like a doxology (“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”) than many of our everyday conversations. Fr. Rolheiser goes on to say, “The main reason our faith asks us to constantly render glory to God is that the more we praise the less we slander, gossip, or pass judgment. Offering praise to God, and others, is what saves us from bitterness and violence. When St. Paul begins his Epistles, he usually does so in a rapture of praise: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whose great mercy we all drink!” Only by praising something beyond ourselves do we save ourselves from bitterness.

You might wonder why Mark has spent so much time on this chilling episode of John the Baptist’s death as it is the only sustained narrative in his Gospel that is not directly about Jesus. Perhaps it is to highlight the passion of John as a foreshadowing of the passion of Christ. Herod’s actions show the snowball effect of unchecked sin, a common biblical theme. From adultery, Herod progressed to debauchery and, ultimately, via his rash oaths, to murder. Like Pilate later in the Gospel, Herod holds no malice toward his victim, yet cowardice and excessive concern for his reputation lead him to bloodshed. Each player in the drama is complicit in the evil: his scheming wife, her lascivious daughter, the ruthlessly efficient executioner, and even Herod’s dissipated guests, who raise no protest against the death of the innocent. Similarly, all the players in the passion of Jesus, and by extension, all of sinful humanity, are complicit in the death of the Son of God. Jesus, like John, will meet his end because he confronts people with the challenging but salutary truth about God’s claim on our lives and the call to repentance that is the doorway to salvation. The success of the apostles’ first mission, which immediately follows John’s death, is a symbolic anticipation of the countless multitudes who will enter the kingdom as a fruit of Christ’s death and of the witness of Christian martyrs, who testify to the gospel at the cost of their lives. 

The spiritual life of the Christian is based on the practice of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, for as Severian of Gabala stated: “Faith encourages us to do good, charity to bear pain and effort, and hope to resist patiently.” Faith must be reflected in one’s conduct, for “faith apart from works is dead.” As St. John Chrysostom taught, “Belief and faith are proved by works, not by simply saying that one believes, but by real actions, which are kept up, and by a heart burning with love.” For God’s sake, the service of others is proof of this love. A person who practices this virtue always rises to the occasion and does not try to dodge sacrifice or effort. Hope is a virtue that St. Thomas said “enables one to endure adversity.” St. Paul, in this letter to the Thessalonians, encourages us to rejoice in hope and to be patient in tribulation, for hope fills the soul with joy and gives it the strength to bear every difficulty for the love of God.

Have you noticed in the gospels that Jesus, it seems, doesn’t want people to know his true identity as the Christ, the Messiah? Why? Fr. Rolheiser writes that Peter has the right answer but the wrong conception of that answer. He has a false notion of what it means to be the Messiah. When Peter says: “You are the Christ,” his Messiah is one who has come to bring about earthly glory and worldly triumph. In Peter’s view, he will be someone so powerful, strong, attractive, and invulnerable that everyone will have to fall at his feet. Hence Jesus’ sharp reply: “Don’t tell anyone about that!” Jesus is not a Superman, a Superstar, or a miracle worker who will prove his power through spectacular deeds. Who is he? Jesus is the Messiah, a dying and rising Messiah who, in his own life and body, will demonstrate that evil is not overcome by miracles but by forgiveness, generosity, and nobility of soul and that these are attained not through crushing an enemy but through loving them more fully. And the route to this is paradoxical: The glory of the Messiah is not demonstrated by overpowering us with spectacular deeds. Instead, it is shown in Jesus letting himself be transformed through accepting with proper love and graciousness the unavoidable passivity, humiliation, diminishment, and dying that eventually found him. That’s the dying part. But when one dies like that or accepts any humiliation or diminishment in this way, there’s always a subsequent rising to real glory, that is, to the glory of a heart so stretched and enlarged that it is now able to transform evil into good, hatred into love, bitterness into forgiveness, humiliation into glory. That’s the proper work of a Messiah. So, how do you imagine the Messiah? How do you imagine triumph? Imagine Glory? If Jesus looked you square in the eye and asked, as he asked Peter: “How do you understand me?” Would he laud you for your answer or say, “Don’t tell anyone about that!”

More than twenty-five hundred years ago, Moses gave us the Ten Commandments. The centuries since, the Enlightenment notwithstanding, have yet to give us a single reason to doubt the validity and importance of any of those precepts. However, we struggle to live them out. Fr. Rolheiser offers these ten thoughts on befriending each other as a way to live out the commandments.
Befriend humanity: To be human is to be fallible, wounded, scarred, sinful, and living in a far-from-perfect history, body, family, and church. This is called the human condition. Make friends with it. Don’t live in a sulk.
Befriend what’s best in you: As long as we look out at the world through our wounds, we will always fill with self-pity, bitterness, and jealousy. If we look out through the prism of what’s best in us, our jealousy can turn to appreciation, and we can again be astonished at others’ goodness. We need to be better friends with what’s best in us.
Befriend those who love you: There are only two potential tragedies in life: To go through life and never love and to go through life and not express love and affection to those who love us. Thank those who love you for loving you. Never take their love for granted or as owed. Give out a lot more compliments. Say thank you constantly.
Befriend chastity: So much of our pain and restlessness comes from our lack of chastity, and much of our subsequent rationalization and bitterness come from not admitting this. We have sophisticated ourselves into unhappiness. Make a searing, honest confession soon.
Befriend your own body: Don’t be afraid of your own body, of its goodness, its sexuality, its pleasures, its tiredness, its limits. Befriend it. Don’t punish it, don’t spoil it, don’t denigrate it. It’s a church, a temple. Give it enough rest, enough exercise, enough discipline, and enough respect.
Befriend the other gender: The mothers and the fathers, the wives and the husbands are fighting. Small wonder the children are suffering. Never trivialize the issues of gender. Make friends with what seems most threatening to you in the other gender.
Befriend your father: Father hunger is one of the deepest hungers in the Western world today. Reconcile with your father, other fathers, and God the Father. Forgive him for his inadequacy. Acknowledge your hunger.
Befriend your mortality: Death comes to us all. Make friends with aging, wrinkles, grey hair, and a body that is no longer young. Accept, let go, grieve, and move on. Bless the young. Share your wisdom with them. Give away what’s left of your life.
Befriend humor: In our laughter, we taste transcendence. Humor takes us above the tragic. Laughter gives us wings to fly. Thomas More cracked a joke to the man who was about to behead him. That’s a quality of sanctity that we too often neglect.
Befriend your God: The gospel is not so much good advice as it is “good news,” it tells us how much God loves us and what God has already done for us. Peace comes to us when we can enjoy that favor. Befriend the God who tells us 365 times in scripture not to be afraid. Walk in that confidence.