Category: Deacon Art Miller

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

7/14/2015

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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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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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)

We All Travel Our Road To Emmaus

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