Spiritual Life: June 2013 Archives

The Church gives us on this 12th Sunday of through the Year the gospel of Luke (9:18-24) focusses our personal reflection on the cross, redemptive suffering, self-abnegation. We can't get away from answering the question: "But who do you say that I am?" AND we have to respond to the Lord's declaration: "Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it."

Francis the Pope tells us: "those who serve the truth serve Christ." In his TheoDrama (Vol. 1), Han Urs von Balthsar tells us to do the truth. Does anyone really believe that you do the truth? Now, what does this look like? Preach with your life the Paschal Mystery, that is, Jesus Christ Present: here and now.

Perhaps a reflection from Saint Cyril of Alexandria might help us understand: "When the disciple Peter had professed his faith, Jesus charged them, it says, and commanded them to tell it to no one. 'For the Son of Man', he says, 'is about to suffer many things, and be rejected, and killed, and on the third day he shall rise again.' Wasn't it the duty of disciples to proclaim him everywhere? This was the very business of those appointed by him to the apostleship. But, as the Scripture says, 'There is a time for everything.' There were things yet unfulfilled which must also be included in their preaching about him. They must also proclaim the cross, the passion, and the death in the flesh. They must preach the resurrection of the dead, that great and truly glorious sign by which testimony is borne him that the Emmanuel is truly God and by nature the Son of God the Father...He commanded them, therefore, to guard the mystery by a reasonable silence until the whole plan of the dispensation should arrive at a suitable conclusion."

We all have to face the contours of our existence. Not to do so seems to side-step the gift of freedom and to minimize our desires for happiness. Not knowing where we are going is OK. It is not the how, but the what of our lives that matters. For the Christian, the only reasonable way to engage one's desires, one's moral life, freedom, faith, other people is to trust in someone who is greater; the One who comes before all else that IS. The famed Thomas Merton begins to expand what our existence consists in. Give some thought to Merton's guidance.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton

Thoughts In Solitude

Today's Gospel ought to shock all of us into another orbit. One of Jesus' most difficult teachings and expectations is made known. How have we heard the point "treat others as we would want to be treated"?  Probably many times. But treating others is the least we can do. Jesus opens the horizon a bit more by saying that we have to love our enemies; we are to show mercy to others. Mercy is not a one time event; it is a perpetual way of living; it is a way of living without conditions. Catholics can't say this is the first time for hearing this Gospel. Love of enemies is what sets true believers from those who really don't (or can't). Do we really think that we can live by the words of the Living God without the Living God alive in us?

I think it is reasonable to follow what the Pope has indicated in thinking of the connection of the love for our enemies impoverishing us, because it makes us poor like Jesus who was made flesh and has shown us the true face of God. Jesus' lowering of himself is one those pivotal points in salvation of history that we can't avoid keeping in mind on a daily basis. A new insight into what mystery of our salvation is --is revealed anew.

Of course, we need to ask what love is. One working definition is that love is having concern for another's destiny.

In this morning's Mass in Rome, Pope Francis said:

In daily life most of occasionally remember the passing of a loved with a visit to the cemetery, saying a prayer for the peaceful repose of the soul, perhaps having a Mass offered for the loved. These are normal Catholic practices in remembering the dead. But when you are a pope similar things happen, but just like with loved ones, there comes a point that we just don't actively remember anymore. Do we actively remember the dead? In my family, I think I am the only one to keep the memory of loved ones known, and try to beg God for mercy on the dead. This is a sad stage in our the evolving of our society. Today happens to be anniversary of death that I am recalling, four people from widely different backgrounds and vocations: