To pack or not to pack

It was about January of February of this year that Mary and I began to pack in earnest for our Camino that would not start until June!  We spent hours and hours deciding what we would need and what we could do without as we planned what we would take with us on the Camino.  On the one hand, we would be gone for five weeks or so in a foreign country.  We would need lots of stuff.  What if we forgot something we really needed?  On the other hand, whatever we took, we’d be carrying on our backs for five weeks!  How much could we carry for so long?

We consulted books and blogs.  We talked with people who had done the Camino.  We bought lightweight this and lightweight that.  Who knew it was so expensive to pack lightly?   We meticulously weighed everything, adding this and subtracting to get that perfect balance.  But of course, it wasn’t perfect.  Up to the very day before we left, I was picking up a few last things.  Even then, we probably took too much and still didn’t have a few things that we could have used.

This morning, we hear how Jesus sends his disciples off on a mission that could also last for weeks and weeks. (Lk 9:1-6)  But Jesus knows his disciples well.  He knows that if they are left to their own devices, the disciples might never get started on the mission at all.  They'd have to store up some provisions, get some extra clothes, arrange for accommodations in the different villages and towns, and who knows when they'd feel ready to go.

Yet they already have everything they need, for God has not abandoned them.  He has sent them his Son, who empowers them and through whom they have received every spiritual blessing in the heavens.  Jesus insists to them that this is sufficient by commanding that they bring nothing on the trip – no money, no food, no extra clothes, and no plans for accommodations.  They respond to his faith in them with faith of their own...and they succeed beyond their wildest imaginings.

Every day, Jesus shows this same amazing faith in each one of us.  Every day, we are called to proclaim the good news of Jesus' coming.  Every day, we are called to cast out demons of doubt and anxiety with the confidence of salvation through Jesus.  Every day, we are called to anoint the sick with the love and compassion of Jesus.  Every day, we are called to cure the world's anger and injustice with the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus.  This is not a mission that will last weeks and weeks, it is mission that lasts for the rest of our lives.

So what is Jesus to think of me who takes months and months and months to pack for a mission of a few weeks?  How many years would it take to prepare for this life-long mission? 

Let’s see…I have to do some research.  I need to make a list of what I would need to be ready to proclaim God’s great love.  Maybe I’ll take a course of two to gain some more knowledge and confidence.  Of course, I’ll need time to store up some resources so I can afford to be as generous as I’d like.  I’ll probably never feel that I’ve packed enough, that I am ready enough.  But Jesus has empowered us and he insists his power is enough.  We need no more.  We are to begin the mission today and continue day after day after day.    

Although Jesus calls each of us to share his work, he does not call us to pack.  Jesus has already packed for us – and he has not forgotten a thing!

Hacking My Way to Hell

There was a time when I was a pretty fair golfer.  Certainly, I was no threat to be club champion, but when I struck the ball well – which was more times than not – I knew that the direction and distance of the ball would be close to what I had intended and my score would be good.  I played often, and the more I played, the better I became.  This was in a long-ago time that Mary and I refer to “B.K.” – before kids.

A.K. – after kids – who had time for golf?  Now, I seldom golf and when I do, it’s not pretty.  I am just a hacker.  I rarely strike the ball very well and even when I do, the ball seems to have a will of its own.  Things only work for me in those rare times when the shape of the course coincides with the flight of my ball.

Unfortunately, this reminds me of my life of discipleship.  Like you and like all human beings, God blessed me with a will of my own, a free will.  I can decide whatever I want!  My problem is that I’ve used this will to live in a conditional world, a world of ifs.  Perhaps I don’t consciously will this, just as I don’t consciously will my golf ball to the bottom of nearest pond, but it’s the world I choose.  For me, it is a world of simple logic.  If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.  If you respect me, I’ll respect you.  If you love me, I’ll love you.

And if the course of my life is filled with people who share my values and my interests, people who are like me and who like me, I can seem to be a pretty good disciple of Jesus.  I love people since they generally love me.  I help people since they generally help me.

But more often, the course of life is not so congenial.  Then, the flip side of “if” rears its ugly head.  If you threaten me, I’ll threaten you.  If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you.  If you reject and hate me, I’ll reject and hate you.  At those times, it becomes apparent that I’m a mere hacker as Jesus’ disciple.

Just as the only time I look like a good golfer is when the golf course conforms to my ball’s will, the only time I look like a good disciple is when the course of my life conforms to my desires and my will.  And just as it is a ludicrously hopeless venture to find a golf course that always conforms to the flight of my ball, so I am constantly frustrated trying to make the world constantly conform to my will.

Jesus has the answer.  Do not reject him like the Pharisees rejected John as a demoniac, like they rejected Jesus as a glutton and drunkard, damned by his associations with the tax collectors and sinners.  (Lk 7:33-34).  Rather than reject Jesus because he doesn’t fit into my will, I must form my will to that of Jesus and the will of the one who sent him; the one who created the heavens and the earth; the one who breaks the chains of if by loving me and you and all creation without condition and beyond all measure

Accept Jesus without condition and I may still be a hacker at golf, but he will make me, as he will make you, an ace disciple, and the kingdom of heaven is ours.

Blessings and Woes

We have a plaque on our kitchen wall inscribed with the Beatitudes.  I am pretty sure that many of you, somewhere in your house, have a similar plaque or painting or picture.  But my plaque, almost certainly just like yours, sounds different from what we hear in today's gospel (Lk 6:20-26).  Of course, my plaque has the familiar Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel, and today we heard Luke’s quite different version.  Luke reminds us not only of the characteristics that open us to the message of Jesus, but, as he does throughout his gospel, Luke makes sure we are also aware of those attitudes and situations which close us off to Jesus and shut us out of the kingdom.

Now wait a minute.  Woe to you who are rich, who have food, who are happy, whom people respect and love?  I want all those things.  Wouldn’t this be a short list of the things that we would want for our children?  I want my kids to have money, to have plenty of food, to be happy, to be respected and loved.  Why is this wishing them woe?

Paul gives me a clue in this morning’s reading from Colossians:  “Seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” (Col 3:1-2)

When I simply think of what is on earth, I am stuck in a world of finite resources, limited time, and conditional love and respect.  I have to work hard, make efficient and effective use of my time, and even then hope for a little luck, if I am to gain my rightful share of resources, of respect, and of love.  And even if I am lucky enough to get it for myself, I cannot guarantee the same for my children.  And in my focus on worldly success, in my anxiety for my children’s own success, I lose sight of what is above.  I lose sight of God.  Woe is me.

Everything changes when I seek what is above. 

Seeing that God loves me so much that, while I was a sinner, he gave his only Son to die for me, I need not seek love and respect.  I am already loved unconditionally.

And knowing that I am loved unconditionally – and therefore loved eternally, for time is not a condition which can end God’s unconditional love – I need not seek the happiness that comes from short-lived earthly pleasures.  I am filled with lasting joy, a light which shines through the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

And trusting in the eternal, unconditional and infinite love of God, I need not scrabble for food which does not satisfy, for wealth that does not last.  I need not strike out against those that do me harm, for they cannot take from me what God has given.  I know the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he is my rod and my staff, I fear no evil.

Seek what is above, and blessed indeed you will be.

One-on-one time with Jesus

Jesus and the Church fathers often tell us that prayer should be ubiquitous in our lives.  We can pray anytime and anywhere.  We can offer all that we do to Jesus and make our every action a prayer.  While this is certainly true and spiritually salutary, Jesus shows us that, at times, we should also set ourselves apart from our daily activity and busy-ness to be present to God in a more dedicated way.

Our passage this morning concludes a section of Luke’s gospel (Lk 4:38-44) where Jesus has been quite busy in the town of Capernaum, the home town of Peter and James and John.  After spending the morning preaching and curing a demoniac in the synagogue, Jesus arrives at Simon’s house, presumably expecting a restful Sabbath meal.  Instead, he is called upon to heal Simon’s mother-in-law.  As the sun sets and the Sabbath ends, people flock to Simon’s house, bringing the sick to Jesus, who heals them all.

The next morning, Jesus leaves for a “deserted place.”  We often see Jesus doing this, most notably after his baptism, where he spent forty days in the desert.  Just a few verses later in Luke, we again hear him mention that Jesus “would withdraw to deserted places to pray.” (Lk 5:16).

These one-on-one times of prayer were very important for Jesus.  They gave him the wisdom, courage, and strength to understand his Father’s will and to follow it no matter where it led.  For example, while he may have thought that his productive time in Capernaum and the pleading of the people to stay with them were signs that he should continue his ministry there, his prayer time directed him another way – he was to proclaim the kingdom throughout Judea.

Just so, while we certainly benefit by integrating prayer into our daily activities and from gathering together in prayer at Mass and other group liturgies, setting apart time from others for one-on-one prayer with God allows us to listen more deeply and discern more clearly what God may have in mind for us.  By simply being still and resting in the Lord, we can also find renewed strength to serve others in his name.

I always had a difficult time finding that “alone time with God.”  My life was always busy and it seemed the only time I wasn’t doing anything was when I was asleep.  Where was I going to find any time for dedicated prayer?  The only way I could be sure of doing anything was to put it on the calendar.  If I just assumed I would do something whenever I had time, it never got done – I never had the time!

About twenty years ago, a group of people were inspired to start a perpetual eucharistic adoration chapel at St. Mary’s in Ridgefield, my home parish at the time.  This devotion was never part of my life before – oh, maybe a holy hour or two during Lent sometimes, but that was it.  To make that holy hour by myself – no benediction, no incense, no special occasion at all – seemed almost silly.

But I signed up for an hour.  It was not silly at all.  It was – and still is today – the best hour of my week.  Like Jesus in this morning’s gospel, I go off early in the morning – 4:00 am on Friday has always been my hour – and I find the dark and the quiet help still me and make me more aware of God’s presence to me.  Oftentimes in the spring and summer, as I leave the chapel, the birds are just waking and their chirping seems a celebration of the new day that is dawning.  I rejoice with them.  

For much of my time at St. Mary’s, I basically lived just behind the church and across the street from the chapel.  It could not have been more convenient.  Today, I have a ten-minute drive to St. Marguerite’s in Brookfield, where there is a perpetual adoration chapel.  At times, the thought enters my mind that I could do the same thing at home.  Why drive to the chapel?  But I know that’s just the devil talking to me, for I remember that before I committed to adoration, I also could have simply gotten up early and spend an hour with Jesus at home.  Yet I never did.  Other things always got in the way. 

Perhaps they do for you also.  If so, please consider joining me and commit to just one hour each week in adoration.  Perhaps you, too, will find it becomes the best hour of your week.

More Humility

Today, we hear both in Sirach (3:17-18) and from Jesus (Lk 17:7-14) that humility is a good thing – even a necessary thing to live a holy life – yet who wants to be humble?  As a young boy, I had major issues with humility.  I was, and Mary would say that I still am, intensely competitive.  I had to win.  I had to be right.

My mom always cringed when my cousin, Jimmy, and I got together and pulled out a board game.  She claimed both of us were really ugly losers.  I don’t know about Jimmy, but she was probably right about me.  Today, Mary says the only time she hears me shout in anger is when I’m watching the Yankees or Notre Dame on TV and things aren’t going too well.

Incredibly enough, as a six or seven-year old, though I didn’t tell anyone the results, I kept track of my win-loss record in games I played with other people – including games of Old Maid I played with my elderly grandmother.  I was undefeated against Grandma – but it probably would have taken some of the glory out it if I had known that she was letting me win every game.

I hated the expression, “you can’t win them all.”  I had to grudgingly admit that it was true – except for Old Maid with Grandma – but you could still try to win every game, every encounter, and everything, for wasn’t all of life a game of sorts?  Wasn’t it virtuous to strive to be the fastest, the smartest, the rightest and the best?

I associated being humble with being a loser.   Losing was more than a disappointment, it was, like the man asked to step lower in today’s story, embarrassing and humiliating.  What fun is that? 

And as parents, don’t we want to teach our children to stand up for their rights?  Who wants to see people take advantage of our children, to see others step all over them?  That’s not right, is it?  And isn’t that what humility will get them, the short end of the stick?

Upon reflection, humility was not my problem; it was simply my idea of humility that caused me grief.  More importantly, my concept of being “exalted” – having people think I was a winner, someone of great esteem – was way too limited, just as it was for the hosts at the dinner where Jesus finds himself.

Note that in the seating strategy at the feast, the game is for a fixed amount of honor.  There is only one seat of honor, and if you get it, someone else doesn’t.  And if someone else gets it, you don’t.  When my thinking is along those lines, I gain immense pleasure from “winning the game.”  Jesus doesn’t give us the details, but you can imagine the smirk on the face of the guest in the lower seat as he is invited higher.  Or imagine the self-satisfied look on the face of the newly-arrived honored guest as he bumps someone down the table.  That pleasure I sense when I achieve honor or esteem relative to those around me has a name.  It is pride.  And one consequence of pride is the destruction of relationships.  After all, how can I show the love that Jesus demands if I am in desperate competition for the seat of honor?

And here is where Christian humility becomes so necessary.  For Christian humility is grounded not in the fixed, finite honor available from the people around us, but is based on the infinite love of God, the one who created me, the one who loves me despite all my failings, despite being so far beyond my understanding, even despite my efforts to ignore Him and the gift he offers me.

Humility is recognizing that God has showered this love on each and every one of his creatures, as only one with infinite and unconditional love can do.  It matters not if I am winning or losing, or if I am right or wrong, or if people honor or despise me.  God continues to love me in the same way, as he continues to love you, and as he continues to love every human who has ever lived, who lives, and who will ever live.

Only when I get this can I understand the paradox that Jesus teaches – if I am humble, I cannot be humiliated.  If I am humble, I am pleased, not indignant, with the success of others, knowing that God desires good for all of his creatures, and the other’s good in no way detracts from the good that I have received, namely the infinite and unconditional love of God.  If I am humble, I can eagerly and generously share with others the love which God gives me, knowing that I have already been paid in kind, and will be continue to be loved more than I can imagine, even beyond the end of time itself.

Only with humility can our relationship with God, can our relationships with each other, be complete.  Only in humility can we be truly exalted.  

Needy people

We are needy people.  There is nothing wrong with this.  It simply recognizes that we cannot survive without needing something from outside ourselves.  We need nutrition.  We need air to breath.  We need shelter from an environment that is not always congenial to our survival.  If these primal, physiological needs are not met, we cannot survive.  This is true of us, as it is true of all living things here on earth.   

But as humans, we need more.  Unlike plants and animals, we can never be completely satisfied; we can never truly thrive, simply by having our basic physiological needs fulfilled.  We need love.  We need to know that we are loved.  Without this knowledge, we live desperate lives, never truly at peace no matter how well we can feed ourselves and shelter ourselves from the elements.

St. Augustine, whose feast we celebrate today, understood this deeply.  He spent many years restlessly searching for love, and only found it when he recognized the love that God had for him.  He describes this revelation in the opening of his autobiography, “Confessions” – “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

St. John describes this love eloquently in today’s passage from his first letter (1 Jn 4:7-16).  This is a love so great that God gave us his Son as an offering for our sins.  This is a love so great that God gives us his Spirit that we might know that he dwells in us, empowering us to love as he loves us.  This love is pure gift, as it is the very essence of God.  God is love.  There is nothing we need do but accept it.

Yet, we forget that it was a gift.  Our pride kicks in, telling us that we have worked so hard and so well that we have earned this love; we deserve this love.  From there, it is a simple step to believe that we are somehow more deserving, somehow more good, somehow more holy, somehow more loved and more exalted, just somehow more than other people who are obviously somewhat less. 

And when we fall into this trap – the snare of the devil – when we start believing that the titles we bestow on ourselves make us more exalted than others, we have refused God’s great gift of love.  We become like the pagans or the Pharisees and scribes who Jesus is castigating in our passage this morning (Mt 23).  We love only those who love us; we hate those who hate us; we may even kill those who threaten us in any way.  We reject the universal brotherhood and sisterhood that Jesus calls each of us to live in.  We choose hell – living with eternal anxiety and dissatisfaction – when God offers us salvation – living with the unconditional love, eternal peace and absolute joy that Jesus won for us by humbling becoming one of us and that God continues to give us this day through his Holy Spirit.

Reject pride and humbly accept this amazing gift.  Love unconditionally and universally as God loves all of his creation.  See in each and every person one whom Jesus was born for and one whom Jesus died for, as he was born and died for me, as he was born and died for you. 

Only in this humility, can we recognize and realize the exaltation that God desires for every one of us.  Only by resting in him are our deepest needs fulfilled.   

The Narrow Gate

To understand the curious question that is asked of Jesus in today's reading, we must step back just a few verses.  Just before the passage we heard this morning, Jesus had been describing the kingdom of God with the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast.  Both parables suggest that the kingdom will grow to enormous proportions from very small beginnings. 

This must have sounded odd to the disciple who asks Jesus if only a few people would be saved. (Lk 13:23) Presumably, he thought of the kingdom more narrowly, possibly restricted just to the Chosen People or, even more limited, just to those who ate and drank with Jesus himself.  To our questioner's anticipated delight, this exclusive group was one to which he happened to belong.

In a way, this jibes with our own experience and expectations.  We lock the doors at night once we are safely inside.  We close the membership to our clubs once we are safely admitted.  It wouldn't make any sense to do otherwise.  We build gated communities to assure that only those who belong can enter.  Similarly, we create boundaries or limits on God's mercy only when we are certain that we fall within those limits.

But this very complacency, this sense that we are right to belong, to be insiders, keeps us outside the very door we feel we have already entered.  Jesus tells us that the true way into the kingdom is a hard one, though it is open to everyone.  The Greek word we translate as "strive" in "Strive to enter through the narrow gate" is the root word of our English word "agony."  Apparently, this striving is not easy – it is an agonizing struggle.

In ancient walled cities, the narrow gate was a gate only one person wide.  It was easily defended as only one person could pass through at a time.  This makes it an apt analogy for our entry to paradise, for our narrow gate is, in fact, one person wide, - Jesus.  But where is the struggle, the striving?  Being with Jesus can actually be pleasant.  For example, consider our celebration this morning at Eucharist.  The singing, the praying, the camaraderie are all pleasant things.  We pray for the troubles of the world, but they generally don't intrude on our Mass.  And we even get graces and the real presence of Jesus!  What’s so hard or difficult about that?

But Jesus wants more as Luke reminds us at the very beginning of today’s reading.  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, to the cross.  And if we are to struggle to enter paradise through Jesus, we must not only eat and drink in his presence, we must also carry his cross with him.

And Jesus' cross is one of constant, universal love: love of family, love of friends, love of neighbors, and most importantly, love of enemies.  For without loving our enemies, our love becomes simply what the pagans do.  Christian love is much more.  And the cross we bear is that this Christian love is not always – in fact, is not usually – requited love.  It may even provoke division and animosity.   However, as fellow cross bearers with Christ, we are measured by how we love, not by how we are loved.

How can we show this love every day, to everyone?  That is where we struggle and strive.  Many times, it seems unfair to love others unconditionally.   Take our nation’s struggle with the issue of undocumented immigrants.  How do we balance our right to private property with Jesus’ command to share with those who have less?  How do we balance our love for others with our need to provide for ourselves?  How do we know when enough is enough?  For Jesus, there is no balance, just more love – eternal, unconditional love, the same love that God shows us in the gift of his only Son.  This world offers no guarantees.  All of our property and all of our money cannot guarantee our happiness, no matter how jealously we guard it.  All of our love will not guarantee that others will love us in the same way.

Yet in uncertainly, we keep struggling, we keep praying, we keep proclaiming and sharing God's love as best we can.  For if we stop struggling, if we stop loving, one of two things must be true.  Either we have ignored Jesus completely or we are certain of that which we cannot be certain – that we have done enough.  In either case, Jesus tells us, we will have placed ourselves outside the door, outside the kingdom, despite God's constant invitation for us to enter.

Struggle and strive, give thanks for our occasional successes, ask forgiveness for our frequent failures, and pray for the strength to keep striving.  Only by doing so can we hope to be counted among those from the north and the south, those from the east and the west, those that take their place at the feast in the kingdom of God.