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I do not know where you are from... (Luke 13:25)

8/23/2016

In Luke 13:22-30, Jesus responds to those who ask him about being saved. His response is: “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where [you] are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ (Luke 13:27). Jesus ends by saying: "For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” (Luke 13:30).

To me, this Gospel speaks to the roots of Christian Contemplative understanding of the True Self and false self. The True Self is our identity in God ("Where we are from") and our false self is the identity we adopt and create as part of the experience of living and surviving in the world.

I believe that one of Thomas Merton's greatest contributions to modern Christian Spirituality has been the understanding he developed around the True Self/false self. In New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton describes the false self as "an illusory person... the (person) I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him... My false and private self is one who wants to exist outside the reach of God's will and God's love... And such a self cannot help but be an illusion." (p 34)

Merton further writes: "We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves... For most of the people in the world, there is no greater subjective reality than this false self of theirs, which cannot exist. A life devoted to the cult of this shadow is what is called a life of sin. All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered. Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real." (pp. 34 - 35)

Merton proceeds to then unveil the True Self: "The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. But whatever is in God is really identical to Him, for His infinite simplicity admits no division and no distinction. Therefore I cannot hope to find myself anywhere except in Him... Therefore, there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my True Self I will find Him." (pp 35 - 36)

In a fashion similar to the Gospel, Merton states how hard this is: "But although this looks simple, it is in reality, immensely difficult. In fact, if I am left to myself it will be utterly impossible... This is something that no man can ever do alone... The only One Who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, Alone." (p. 36)

Tying it all together Merton writes: "God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself... if I am true to the thought of Him I was meant to embody, I shall be full of His actuality and find Him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere. I shall be lost in Him: that is, I shall find myself. I shall be 'saved.' ... We must be saved from immersion in the sea of lies and passions which is called 'the world.' And we must be saved above all from that abyss of confusion and absurdity which is our own worldly self... The free son (or daughter) of God must be saved from the conformist slave of fantasy, passion and convention. The creative and mysterious inner self must be delivered from the wasteful, hedonistic and destructive ego that seeks only to cover itself with disguises.... To be 'saved' is to return to one's inviolate and eternal reality and to live in God" (pp. 37-38)

Merton then leaves us with his guidance: "'Finding God' means much more than just abandoning all things that are not God, and emptying oneself of images and desires... No natural exercise can bring you into vital contact with Him. Unless He utters Himself in you, speaks His own name in the center of your soul, you will no more know Him than a stone knows the ground upon which it rests in it inertia. Our discovery of God is, in a way God's discovery of us... We only know Him in so far as we are known by Him, and our contemplation of Him is a participation in His contemplation of Himself. We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us.... God Himself, bearing in Himself the secret of who I am, begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my other and True Self... ('I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.')" (pp. 39 - 41)

Now I'm going to try to make some further sense out of this as I relate it to Luke's Gospel.

As I've come to understand it, the primarily focus of our ego and the forces that create the false self (Keating does a good job at going into more depth on this in the Human Condition) are for the purpose of our survival and happiness as individuals. The problems we face lie in the fact that we've learned to focus on living out of our false selves in an exaggerated manner. By doing so, we lose awareness of our True Self, the place of our underlying genuineness, of our connectedness to God and with others. Living out of the false self becomes a self-perpetuating and endless cycle; the more exaggerated our false self becomes, the more we focus on our on ourselves and soon it seems that our very survival is dependent on increasing the importance and satisfaction of our false self needs. As Merton observes: "Thus I use up my life in the desire for pleasures and the thirst for experiences, for power, honor, knowledge and love to clothe this false self and construct its nothingness into something objectively real." Operating out of our false self leads to selfishness and we take actions at the expense of others which serves to further alienate us from our True Selves by creating our shadow, those things that we begin to deny and hide about ourselves. As Merton writes: "A life devoted to the cult of this shadow is what is called a life of sin."

Merton makes it clear that finding the True Self is "something that no (one) can ever do alone." He hints at the process by saying that "Our discovery of God is, in a way, God's discovery of us."

So do we just wait passively and hope for God to acts? I don't believe so and feel that Merton's own insight guide us to what's required: "the secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God." It's been my understanding and experience that the best way to foster God's discovery of us is to open ourselves to share in God's love and mercy, first and foremost for ourselves. I experience this as being open to genuine self-compassion and self-acceptance of the totality of who I am and what I've done including those parts of myself I'd rather keep hidden. This is an extremely difficult, ongoing process and that's why few undertake it (Luke's Gospel refers to it as "entering through the narrow gate"). I've found that this is only possible by opening to God's assistance and, in doing so, opening up to the discovery of God's compassion. I'm finding that as I strive to accept my selfishness and my shadow, that my false self diminishes as I begin to recognize it for what it is. When I no longer need to hide from or justify my false self and can accept my own shadow, then I'm "saved" from living out of illusion and become free to live out of my True Self and in so doing encounter God in me. This feels to me like a life-long process which I also find Merton commenting on in his Journal:

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself. - Journal Entry October 2,1958

Tying together my Contemplative understanding of Merton's insights on false self / True Self allow me to read this Gospel as:

Strive to live the difficult process of facing and letting go of your false self. Many take the easy route of clinging to the worldly illusions of the false self which can only lead to misery. Start by facing and accepting your false self with God's love and mercy and gradually its needs will diminish and you will be saved as you genuinely encounter God in your True Self. Your True Self is from God and so can know Him. Your false self is something separately created and despite the actions it takes, cannot genuinely know God. The false self's search to know God will ultimately end up in frustration... It is easiest for those who are not so successful or invested in this world to find their True Selves for their false selves are easier to let go of.

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The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39)

7/10/2016

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In Matthew's version of the Greatest Commandment, he emphasizes the similarity of loving Neighbor as Self to loving God with your whole self (all you heart, your soul and your mind). As I've commented on previously, there are three persons involved in these two commandments; God, Neighbor and Self. It's been my experience that to fully love God or to fully love Neighbor, requires, first, that I fully love Self; you can't give what you don't have!

This year I've embraced Non Violent Living which I believe is the epitome of this commandment. As I reflect on my daily struggles to do this, I've recognized that to love myself in the fullest way and therefore be able to love God and Neighbor, I must first recognize and embrace my own dignity! Through my Christian Contemplative Spirituality and practice I've come to know that God dwells in me (and in everyone / everything else). The very fact that God is the deepest part of my soul grants to me a dignity that I can never lose. I am, of course, fully human and so subject to the Human Condition, as such, I operate from motivations that I'm largely unconscious of. It's when I'm drawn to blindly operate from these largely hidden motivations, that I can "sin" (i.e. to operate in a way that belies my fundamental dignity) or as St Paul writes: "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate." Romans 7:15.

Being conscious that nothing I do can diminish the fundamental dignity inherent to God's presence in me, allows me to be present to my "sin" and the motivations of my shadow self. This frees me from projection (he/she caused me to act or feel this way), any victim mentality (I act this way because), or denial or repression (that was nothing) to justify my actions. Trusting in my inherent dignity allows me to be genuinely present and learn from my shadow self and the inner pain or difficulty I experience that causes me to act badly. For me, presence to such pain and difficulty is only possible with the graces of the Indwelling God. This dependence on God serves to both fortify my loving relationship with God and to increase my own humility. This process allows me to experience the gradual acceptance and transformation of my own shadow self.

Once I embrace my own dignity, am present to enough of my shadow and have been able to work through the transformation process with God, I begin to know that the same dignity and unconscious motivation toward acting badly exists in others. As I develop more compassion for myself and humble reliance upon God in this process, I develop more compassion and patience for others as well. Now when I look at others, I begin to see them like myself at an even deeper level; I'm able to embrace their dignity inherent in God dwelling within them as well as their own unique struggle with the Human Condition. I can begin to genuinely love them more deeply.

So to me, living a Non Violent life starts with recognizing and trusting in my own inherent dignity. This allows me to be consciously present to my own struggles with the Human Condition and shadow self and my own dependence upon God to assist in the transformation process. In this way I diminish my need to blame another and, instead, can be present to an awareness of the inherent dignity we share through God. Living a Non Violent life permits me to assist God in the transformation process of love that's at the heart of this Greatest Commandment.

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Jesus and the Gospels Are Genuinely Radical!

1/1/2016

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Much hatred and violence have been perpetuated throughout time in the name of God by those who are termed religious radicals. The news is full of reports of the acts of radical Muslims and radical Christians.

To me, the way these terms are used is incomprehensible; they totally miss the mark on what radical actually means with respect to genuine religions aimed at God. It's as if the hatred and evil underlying the attitudes and acts perpetrated by these people had anything to do with genuine faith!

According to the dictionary, radical as an adjective means "going to the root or origin" , " thoroughgoing or extreme, especially as regards change from accepted or traditional forms", " favoring drastic political, economic, or social reforms" and as a noun it means a person who: " holds or follows strong convictions or extreme principles; extremist." or "who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods".

By these definitions, Jesus and the Gospels are truly radical!.The radicalism expressed is uncompromising as seen in countless Gospel passages, a few of which I've included below:

Matthew 18:21-22: 21 Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

Mark 10:21 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

And the injunctions from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:

Teaching About Anger. 21 “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment

Teaching About Oaths. 33 “Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’ 34 But I say to you, do not swear at all;not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;... 37 Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’

Teaching About Retaliation. 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.

Love of Enemies. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?

If that weren't enough the radical nature doesn't stop there, it continues in radical simplicity of what are termed the Greatest Commandments found in all the synoptic Gospels (Matthew 22:36-40,Mark 12:28-31,Luke 10:25-28):

Matthew 22:36-40: 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

So as I have come to understand it, the true radicalism of Jesus and the Gospels is that of living in Love with God and others in it's various forms; Forgiveness, Compassion, Honesty, etc... For this is the radical nature with which God shows love to his creation: "for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust."

This kind of radicalism is "the root or origin", "the thoroughgoing or extreme", "the favoring drastic reforms" of the Christian faith! I would maintain that someone following this form of radicalism is a person who " holds or follows strong convictions or extreme principles; extremist." or "who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods".

The radicalism of Jesus and the Gospel is much more difficult for the individual human person than the radicalism of violence we see associated with the extremist making the news today. Perhaps that's why we see so little of it and that's why the Gospels term this the narrow gate. (Matthew 7:13-14)

As I start this New Year, I find myself looking for ways to embrace the true radicalism of Jesus and the Gospel that will work for me. This is a true challenge if I solely rely on the power of my own humanity (I sense a new Blog post coming up shortly). In doing so, although I find acts and attitudes of those marked as "religious radicals" reprehensible, I must still find a way to have compassion and forgiveness for the individuals that carry them out. That is not only difficult but truly radical!

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No one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father... (John 6:65)

8/24/2015

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It's the custom in the Centering Prayer groups I facilitate to choose a portion of the upcoming Sunday Gospel reading to Lectio Divina. This week's Sunday reading was John 6:60-69. As the group shared their reflections and inspirations on this Gospel a few folks mentioned how troubled they were by the exclusivity expressed in the portion of the reading highlighted in the title of this Blog entry. To many, it's as if only some of God's creation are pre-destined by for "salvation".

I personally don't understand God as being this exclusive. I believe that God desires a personal, deep relationship with all of His creation and it is through the depth of that relationship that we're spiritually nourished. As I see it, the purpose of our lives is to provide us with opportunities to grow into that deeper relationship. If there is any exclusivity, it's our resisting the deepening relationship with God; excluding Him from our lives.

At the end of our time together that evening I privately shared how this particular passage spoke to me with someone who seemed particularly troubled. That's what I'd like to do below in an expanded form.

For me, it's helpful, to start with a larger context for this reading. Jesus (John 6:1-15) had just performed the miracle of feeding the 5,000 men with 5 barley loaves and 2 fishes.

Further in the Gospel (John 6:26-35) Jesus begins to provide some clarity:

26 ... “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27 Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.... 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one He sent.” ... 32 So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

Then the shocking message begins to be revealed in John 6:47-59:

47 Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; 50 this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” ... 53 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

As his audience hears this they react as I imagine anyone who is thinking about a purely physical existence would:

60 Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” 61 Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? ... 63 It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ... 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.”...65 And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” 66 As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. 67 Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

I've highlighted the words that help me make sense of this. Jesus differentiate between our physical and material needs (the flesh) and our deeper, internal needs (the spirit). I don't see Jesus saying that the physical and material needs are unnecessary (many of his miracles are about taking care of people's physical needs such as the feeding of the 5,000 that beings this chapter of John) just that our attachment to satisfying them is overly exaggerated!.

To me, Jesus is saying that spending all our time and energy taking care of physical and material needs is insufficient, we need to feed our interior, spiritual selves which supports our authentic life at a deeper and more satisfying level and which allows us to share in this authentic life with others thus sustaining them and us.

We can, and must, have physical nourishment to exist physically and have to take care of our material needs. However, we all know that we eat and after a while we'll eat again when we're hungry. When we get something new materially (perhaps a new car or a bigger, nicer house) we're satisfied with it and then that satisfaction wears off and we begin to pursue something else. This is an endless pattern we follow until our physical bodies age and wel eventually die.

When we feed our spirit (our inner self), we are nourishing the part of us that gives us deeper existence and satisfaction. This satisfaction is something that deepens and, overtime, satisfies us in a richer way. Unlike our physical existence, which is temporary, our spiritual existence continues into eternity. So nourishing and developing this self has lasting value. It sustains us as it also sustains those in the world ("the life of the the world.")

Furthermore, I understand this spiritual food to be beyond Jesus' words or even just his actions, it's his very life. For me, the life of Jesus' (his being and how he lived) is the "bread that comes down from heaven" . "Eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood" is his complete offer of the entirety of his being to us. We are called to take him in completely and in so doing be transformed into Christ fully alive in us. (As described in Symeon the New Theologian's writing in my last Blog entry.) This is our awakening to Christ living through us, with us and in us in our daily lives and actions. This intimate union with Christ is so that we become his flesh and blood in the world and realize his spirit into eternity.

As his listeners in the Gospel (and perhaps us as well) say : "This saying is hard, who can accept it." and "as a result many of his disciples returned to their former way of life". Jesus asks "Does this shock you?". He provides the necessary clarity which leads to the point that is perhaps most often misunderstood: "For this reason I have told you, no one can come to me unless granted by my Father."

Jesus is helping us recognize the truth that we cannot live the "shocking" demands of a deeply Spiritual life by ourselves. To do so requires God's grace and intimate relationship. It's easy to have an external faith based on receiving God's outward, physical assistance and consolations ("you are looking for me ... because you ate the loaves and were filled") ; this, however, requires little transformation from us.

But, to live our live the radical example of the life Jesus lived, requires us to develop an intimate relationship with God and the help of his grace. Through the consent and surrender of our will we open ourselves to be able to embrace the life Jesus exemplified. It's through the power of God's grace that allows us to commit and follow through.

As Jesus shows through this Gospel, there's no backing down from this striking truth, and most of us are not ready, willing or able yet to surrender and accept it. For many of us, radical consent and surrender requires some event or life circumstance that completely challenges our own belief and reliance in ourselves and in our ordinary physical and material experience of reality. This "dying" to what we have taken as certain, necessary and comfortable, helps us to know the words of Simon Peter in this Gospel: "to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

It's at the point of crisis in our lives when we are most open to a genuine relationship to God and his graces. Those moments are when our real spiritual life begins and when we begin to receive genuine spiritual nourishment. These moments of opening to God graces occur at different points in people's lives. We only embrace these opportunities we're ready for them, until then we "return to our former way of life" once we get past the issue at hand. However, I believe God is patiently waiting for us, inviting us and ready to deepen His relationship with us and share his graces whenever we're truly ready.

The Contemplative teaching and my own experiences of True Self / false Self are very helpful to me for exploring and informing my understanding of this particular Gospel passage further.

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Grant us, almighty God, that we may be ... transformed into what we consume

7/14/2015

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Since becoming an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, I have developed a more profound connection with the Eucharist. In preparing for conducting a Communion Service at a retirement community almost a year ago, I was struck by the Prayer after Communion for the 27th Sunday or Ordinary time:

Grant us, almighty God, that we may be refreshed and nourished by the Sacrament which we have received, so as to be transformed into what we consume. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

As I reflected upon and looked further into this prayer I found that it echoed the spirit of two well-known quotes by St. Augustine regarding the Eucharist:

"Behold what you are, become what you receive."

"You, however, are the Body of Christ and His members. If, therefore, you are the Body of Christ and His members, your mystery is presented at the table of the Lord, you receive your mystery. To that which you are, you answer: `Amen'; and by answering, you subscribe to it. For you hear: `The Body of Christ!' and you answer: `Amen!' Be a member of Christ's Body, so that your `Amen' may be the truth."

Reflecting on these quotes it became more apparent to me that my personal expression of Amen (I Believe or So Be It) as I am about to receive the Eucharist is my personal acknowledgement that the same Christ that is in the Bread I am receiving is also in me. When I distribute the Eucharist, I am acknowledging the Christ in the host is also in those approaching to receive it. In the celebration of Communion and indeed the celebration of entire mass, as everyone joins together in community we join together as the Body of Christ.

My intent to keep the Amen I profess during the Eucharist authentic now helps me to keep focused on revealing the Christ in myself and seeing the Christ in others even after I exit the Church and return to everyday life. By doing so, I do my part living as Body of Christ. I rarely succeed as well as I'd like to at this, but by trying to be true to my understanding I have a deeper awareness and the inspiration to continue trying.

It is interesting to read Symeon the New Theologian's (949-1022) a Byzantine Christian monk and mystic revered to this day by Eastern Christians, mystical insight on awakening into Christ's Body:

We awaken in Christ's body,
As Christ awakens our bodies
There I look down and my poor hand is Christ,
He enters my foot and is infinitely me.
I move my hand and wonderfully
My hand becomes Christ,
Becomes all of Him.
I move my foot and at once
He appears in a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous to you?
--Then open your heart to Him.
And let yourself receive the one
Who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
We wake up inside Christ's body
Where all our body all over,
Every most hidden part of it,
Is realized in joy as Him,
And He makes us utterly real.
And everything that is hurt, everything
That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
Maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged
Is in Him transformed.
And in Him, recognized as whole, as lovely,
And radiant in His light,
We awaken as the beloved
In every last part of our body.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16)

3/3/2015

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Lent is the time that we Christians focus on our relationship with God and in particular on the meaning of the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of this Lenten season I'm drawn to the work of the early Franciscan theologian, Bl. John Dun Scotus (c.1265-1308). Dun Scotus' insight is that the human incarnation of Christ in the person of Jesus is the work of God's plan from the beginning of time. This is formally known as the Doctrine of the Absolute Primacy of Christ in the Universe. According to Dun Scotus, sin was not the motivation for Divine intervention, instead it was God's plan of perfect love. In this way God is always and consistently acting out of supreme love and not merely re-acting to fallen human nature or using Jesus as the only worthy sacrifice of atonement to Himself. Dun Scotus' doctrine has become a foundation of Franciscan Spirituality.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM has summarized Dun Scotus' understanding as: "Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God" or even more succinctly as "God does not love us because we are that good, God loves us because God is good."

Dun Scotus' doctrine appears to support Jesus' announcement of the in-breaking Kingdom of God (as something happening now, not just later, after we die.) If we see Jesus as being sent because of God's love for us, then the life of humility and love he lived was intended as the example for how humans are to live according to God's will. Ultimately, this means that the purpose of Jesus' life is not something to be in awe of, thankful for or worshiped at a distance but is how God intends us to live our lives.

So,the salvation Jesus offers us is, by his example and teaching, the proper way of living. His teachings on the greatest Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount among others and his deep compassion which prompted countless miracles provide us the pattern.for our lives. He is a living witness to the total love and humility of God.

Jesus faithfully lived and taught in solidarity with all of humanity fully sharing in joy and in sorrow and impacting all of those around him. God's love was shown in Jesus' solidarity with humanity that continued even in the face of chaos and the worst of human brutality and personal suffering; the experience of Jesus' passion and death. By Jesus' resurrection, God shows that His faithful love will ultimately transform humanity and allow it to rise above the worst of it's nature.

During Lent I will continue to reflect on God's redeeming love and the example of salvation that was Jesus' life, passion, death and resurrection. My own challenge of salvation, for Lent and beyond, is whether I can follow Jesus' example by allowing Christ to work in me and through me. Is my relationship with / love of God important enough and deep enough that I can genuinely be open to live like Jesus?

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Pray without Ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

1/28/2015

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Recently I was asked to come up with a list of questions and facilitate the discussion on prayer with our Sunday Adult Enrichment community at my parish. I would like to share these questions and how the responses of our group lead us to realize how to follow St. Paul's advise to his community in Thessalonica. Here is a summary of our discussion as I relate it to my experiences:

1) What is Prayer to you?
Though many people initially relate to prayer as a conversation with God, at it's very root, prayer is a relationship with God. As humans we see how it is possible that we engage with people at various different levels and in different ways, our experience of relating with God is the same.

At times we I engage in relationships at superficial levels out of a sense of routine obligation - like a simple discussion with my wife of things we need to do today. There are other times when I'm very intimately engaged and find myself lost in another - like taking a walk in the woods or on the beach at sunset with my wife or simply watching a good movie together. This is the experience of being with one another deeply. Then there are the times somewhere in between. There is not difference in the way we relate to God.

Just like in human relationships, it is the disposition of my heart which takes me to those moments of greater intimacy, when my heart is not fully there, then I am simply present at only a surface level distracted with other thoughts or wishing I was elsewhere. However, the difference in Prayer is that though I open to it with the love in and intention of my heart, God responds with the ever-present grace that makes prayer possible.

2) What comes out of Prayer for you?
A gradual comfort and openness to God is something folks experience deeply in prayer. A deep sense of peace and communion occurs when we take time to stop our activity and become present to our relationship with God.

For me, the more time I spend in prayer the more I an aware of God's presence and the more time that awareness carries over into times of my life when I'm not conscious of being in prayer. It opens me up to be present to the moment and becoming more often aware of God's presence there.

3) Are there times that are easier or harder to pray and what makes it so?
People find prayer most difficult in those times when they need prayer most; when preoccupied with the events of life or when dealing with difficult people and situations. When in the midst of these difficulties, I notice my lack of praying make me more caught up and distracted. When I consciously set aside time for prayer without feeling like I'm missing out on anything, I am apt to open more deeply to it an experience it more fully. When I can pray for those difficult people in my life, I find that God gives me the grace of understanding them and the compassion needed to be loving and caring for them in the situation we're in.

4) How do you share in prayer with others?
The Liturgy is a great way to share prayer as is praying in small groups. Saying grace before meals as a simple communal reminder sets the tone for engaging in a meal together. Praying together as a family for each other and for the needs of others deeply enriches the prayer life of those involved.

I find that praying both intentions for others in their difficulties and in thanksgiving for their joys allows me to bring God into the lives of those I both care about and even for those I barely know. I find this practice done on a daily basis increases my capacity to be connected with them through God. Sharing intentions publicly or in common unites me with others as a community of caring bring both the other in God into our midst.

5) St Paul (in 1 Thessalonians 5) implores his community to "Pray without ceasing", how can we go about doing that?
Prayer can become a style of living in continual participation with God. When we are open and present to the moments of life, as best we can, with the intent to be with God, the Holy Spirit guides our actions. We become prayer in our activity, or more precisely, we become Christ seeking to find Christ in others and in everything around us and our actions reflect that.

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We All Travel Our Road To Emmaus

12/27/2014

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It seems fitting that my first Blog entry should be about the Road of Emmaus and that the first companion with whom I have shared and formed my thoughts is Deacon Art Miller, a dear friend in whom I have found inspiration, support and mentorship. His deep faith in Christ and love of Family,Friends and Community makes this a fitting passage to start. I hope this and subsequent entries will provide insights for your journey.

Our Spiritual Journey is part of our journey through life itself which is experienced as a mixed bag of disappointments and unrealized expectations, sorrow, doubt, fear, friendship, surprise, joy, love and moments of profound awakening. This seems to have always been true even for those who were closest to the living Jesus, who knew and experienced him personally. It would be surprising if it were any different for us today, this is simply the experience of being human.

Though each of us is ultimately responsible for our individual Spiritual Journey, just like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), we all need to share that Journey. The Spiritual Journey requires the companionship of others as well as guidance along the way. In this reading, it was the risen Jesus who provided that guidance to the confused disciples. Their searching together fulfilled the Gospel promise that when two or three are gathered in His name, Christ is also in (their) midst.(Matthew 18:20). The reading ends by emphasizing the significance of community. It was in the disciple's invitation to risen Jesus and his sharing and breaking of bread, the most fundamental of communal activities, that Jesus was finally recognized. In my own life, I often find that fundamental community expressions of loving and sharing most often cause me to experience God's love and being open enough to recognize Christ in others.

An important point made in this passage is the necessity of opening our heart in Spiritual matters. We often rely on our cognitive abilities to get us through life and so find it natural to try to apply our thinking skills to make sense of God's ways. On the Road to Emmaus the two disciples are "conversing and debating" in order to make sense of all they experienced in Jesus life, death and afterwards. After joining them and allowing them to speak their minds, Jesus criticizes the disciples by saying "How slow of heart to believe". Even though Jesus shared in their discussions by interpreting the Word of God (Scripture) to them as they walked, he doesn't appear to be trying to impart knowledge as much as to touch and open their hearts. Once they recognized the risen Jesus, the disciples said to each other "Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened scriptures to us?" A careful reading of the Greatest Commandment in all the synoptic gospels (Matthew 22:36-40,Mark 12:28-31,Luke 10:25-28) also illustrates the importance of the heart when it comes to our relationship to God: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your (1) heart, with all your (2) being, with all your (3) strength, and with all your (4) mind". It strikes me as important that Jesus instructed us that loving God starts from the heart, then all other facets of ourselves and lastly with our mind. This is a significant reminder for me to put my heart first and my mind last when it comes to the ways of God. I am rarely able to deeply understand or make sense of Spiritual things in any other way.

Another point in this Gospel reading is how remarkable and natural the human tendency is to equate Spiritual reality with material/worldly expectations. As the disciples stated in the Gospel reading: "But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel." These disciples were looking to equate a human salvation (from Roman oppression) to a Spiritual one (the ushering in of the Kingdom of God). How many times do we ask God to satisfy our human or material desires, which may be important in many circumstances, but without an awareness of our Spiritual needs. If we solely focus our attention on worldly concerns, our awareness closes down to Spiritual realities.

I find it notable that in this account, and many other accounts of Jesus after the resurrection, that he was not immediately recognizable. At times on our Spiritual Journey we are transformed by dying to our false selves (a part of our humanness is put aside) and a part of our True Self originally born in Christ is resurrected. This is our personal death and resurrection experience of which St Paul also writes in Galatians 2:19-20 "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." Each time we experience this process of transformation that is awakening to our True Selves, we are less recognizable in comparison to our previous selves.

Finally, after their encounter with Christ the disciples forget their worldly concerns and immediately head back to Jerusalem to share the news with others. When we truly experience God, our worldly concerns become much less important; we find ourselves compelled to share our joy with others.

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I do not know where you are from... (Luke 13:25)

The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39)

Jesus and the Gospels Are Genuinely Radical!

No one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father... (John 6:65)

Grant us, almighty God, that we may be ... transformed into what we consume

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16)

Pray without Ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

We All Travel Our Road To Emmaus

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