Daily Virtue

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to the perfection of the Father. But in our humanness, we are incapable of that type of perfection, of having no flaws. Is that the perfection the Lord calling us to? Hebrew culture taught perfection as compassion. If we take into account the Hebrew understanding, we move from the idea of having no flaws to a perfection defined by the compassion we show others. Who are the “others” in life? Fr. Ron Rolheiser provides some insight when he says there will be just one question asked at the pearly gates, “Where are the others? You know, the widows, orphans, and strangers. I mean, you did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners, right? This must be the compassion we live out. It requires a lens of life that is focused outwardly. Bishop Robert Barron says it is evidenced by “willing the good of the other, for the other.” It’s moving away from any self-reference and only giving away the love of God precisely and only for the good of the other – no strings attached. That is the perfection we should strive to attain each day. And that, I would propose, is living in a world that could be defined as “heaven on earth.”

The Gospel verse today comes from Mark’s recounting of the Transfiguration of Christ. Mark describes the Transfiguration as a literal metamorphosis, a “going beyond the form that he had.” Bishop Robert Barron uses Paul’s language to speak of the Transfiguration as “the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.” In and through his humble humanity, his divinity shines forth. The proximity of his divinity in no way compromises the integrity of his humanity but instead makes it shine in greater beauty. This is the New Testament version of the burning bush. The Jesus who is both divine and human is the Jesus who is evangelically compelling. If Jesus is only divine, he doesn’t touch us; if he is only human, he can’t save us. Jesus’ splendor consists of the coming together of his two natures.

How do we live out the reflection verse from Mark’s Gospel message? To be a disciple of Jesus means to stand up and be counted. What if all of our accumulated possessions were sent away, but we were left behind? Would we lose our grounding? Our identity? Our meaning and purpose? Jesus asks us to examine our attachments. He reminds us that the real objective of this life is to possess eternal life through his salvific grace and our acceptance of that gift. We live out that gift by embracing his great commandment: Love of God and neighbor. When we keep our eyes fixed on our relationship with God, we find the strength and the mercy that helps us get through any daily cross that needs to be carried. It begins by centering life on the center of life, Christ.

What are you saying to the world about who Jesus is in your life by your daily behavior? Unlike the other disciples, Peter seems to know who Jesus is because he has spent the most time with him. There is a truth in this understanding that we can apply to our relationship with the Lord. The more time we spend developing an understanding and using Jesus’ teachings in our life, the more we begin to light the fire of desire to know him more intimately and see him as Peter did. But we must also recognize that we can be susceptible to human ways of thinking, much like Peter did. After acknowledging Jesus as Christ, we read that Peter falls into an all too familiar pattern of human thinking when he misreads the mission of Jesus. Only when we learn to empty ourselves of our will and our ways of thinking can we begin to know and understand what it means to do God’s will. That is how we learn to walk the path of holiness, the path of compassion, and become the light and love of Christ to the world.

The Old Testament described God as “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.” Paul now modifies this definition by saying, “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is the personal God, recognized through his relationship with Jesus, his Son, the Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant. With a more profound knowledge of God, Paul prays that Christians might obtain a fuller and livelier hope because God and hope are inseparable. St. Pius X expands on this, “Hope is a supernatural virtue, infused by God into our soul, by which we desire and expect eternal life, promised by God to his servants, and the means necessary to obtain it.” This same power is at work in every Christian through God’s gift of hope. Hope’s foundation is God’s love and power, manifested in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through all things and in all things, God is always with us.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is an impossibility for human beings if we understand perfection, in this Greek sense, meaning “without flaws.” But in Hebrew, perfection means compassion. Luke’s Gospel reflects this by saying, “Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate.” Jesus says, “If you love me, you’ll keep my word; if you don’t keep my word, don’t pretend that you are loving me.” There isn’t a single thing you can do to make God love you more, and there isn’t a single thing you can do to make God love you less. There will be only one set of questions asked in getting to heaven: “Did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners?”

One of the first stories of humanity in scripture is one of resentfulness and depression. Cain was envious of Abel and felt slighted by God. Envy is one of the classic seven deadly sins. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that envy shows itself as bitterness, hypercriticalness, and incapacity to praise someone else or feel the same empathy for the fortunate as for the unfortunate. This can be a substantial spiritual challenge, for in heaven, scripture tells us that we will “offer unending praise” to God. For many, then, one of the significant spiritual tasks is to come to grips with the bitterness that comes from envy to move from criticism to praise, from anger to mellowness, and from the desire to possess to the desire to admire. Fr. Rolheiser notes the most important thing is learning how to forgive ourselves, our parents, our culture, our church, our teachers, our mentors, those who have wounded us, life itself, and God for the state of things and the state of our lives. To fail at this is to die in bitterness, having never known the true happiness God had always desired for us.

Throughout the Old Testament, we read stories about how self-absorption, hatred, and jealousy have destroyed the peace and unity of God’s people. The wisdom books like Sirach were the balance the faithful needed for the often-difficult challenges the Old Testament placed in people’s lives. God, who sees everything, is neither the cause nor the occasion of sin. We have the power to choose our behavior and are responsible for the good and the evil we do. In the Gospel reading today, Jesus presents the teachings of the Old Testament but now through the lens of love – the love that his mission on earth was all about. Keeping God’s law in particular situations can be extremely difficult, but it is never impossible. As with so many other things, the key lies in our relationship with God. Knowing his love, and experiencing it in our hearts, can help us put away the selfishness that is at the root of sin and division. Let us pray that God’s love might soften our hearts and melt away any self-centeredness or divisive thoughts that may direct our actions.

Bishop Robert Barron notes that many modern theologians and scripture commentators downplay this story’s miraculous nature as a “spiritual symbol” or “a miracle of charity.” He says, “I think it’s hard to deny that the first Christians were intensely interested in the miracles of Jesus and that they didn’t see them as mere literary symbols. They saw them for what they really were, actions of God, breaking into our world.” This miracle shows how Christ rewards people who persevere in following him. The crowd had been hanging on his words, forgetful of everything else. We should be like them, attentive and ready to do what he commands, without any vain concern about the future, for that would amount to distrusting divine providence.

What type of wisdom was Eve seeking? Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes about a young girl he met, just 18 years old, who was suffering from cancer and weighing less than 100 pounds because of the treatments. The long-range prognosis was iffy, at best, and her body and spirit didn’t belie that, though friends and family did. She was surrounded on every side by attention, affection, concern, and the sense that everyone cared. She was very ill, but she was loved. I got to know her a little that day and somewhat more in the months and years that followed. Her family and others prayed hard for her, storming heaven for a cure. Those prayers, along with the medical treatments, did their work. Her new health is more than physical. It’s too a thing of soul, a color, a depth, a wisdom. Asked publicly by her friends if, given a choice, would she give the illness back to have the life she could have had without it, she replied: “No, I wouldn’t give it back. Through it, I learned about love.” The wisdom gained by her was that ordinary life is best seen against a bigger horizon, that life is deeper and more joy-filled when it isn’t taken for granted, and that love is more important even than health and life itself. This is a wisdom we should pray fills our hearts and souls.