Friends

Special thanks to Bloody Papist and Historical Christian for linking a minor friar. I've returned the favor.

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam

Before I began to receive the splendid Jesuit education I have been going through these past nine semesters, all I knew about the Society I learned from the Exorcist.

Over the years I've come to appreciate their particular style, even though it's a little different from ours. The selection from John de Brebeuf's spiritual diaries from today's Office of Readings really brings out what I love about the Jesuits:

I bind myself in this way so that for the rest of my life I will have neither permission nor freedom to refuse opportunities of dying and shedding my blood for you, unless at a particular juncture I should consider it more suitable for your glory to act otherwise at that time.

Isn't that something? He aspires to the grace of martyrdom (and we celebrate just that today) but he puts a caveat in his prayer, knowing that what he really desires is the greater glory of God. John knows that he will always have to discern how to adjust his spiritual ambition to circumstances. He doesn't know whether or not the greater glory of God will demand something else, but he wants to be open to it.

Tired

Sometimes in the late afternoon, when I get tired and lose focus and can't get anything done, I watch the news channels for a little bit. Now they try to distract you with pretty faces and colorful graphics, but the truth is that all they reveal is a weary, aimless, violent world. It's a world that has no goal, that isn't going anywhere, that can only wait for the next sensational event.

It's only sensation, not meaning. And in a world like that it's no wonder that children shoot each other, that people consider killing people who kill people an adequate way to show that killing is wrong, or that the aborting of unwanted children is a personal right.

It all reminds me of one of my favorite lecture quotes I've ever heard:

God is dead, Marx is dead, and I don't feel so well myself.

I don't remember who said it, but it's brilliant. Nobody has really thought out the dire consequences of having dispensed with God (and this is what Nietzsche was trying to point out in his famous phrase). The brightest secular and dialectical materialist dreams have come to nothing.

For the bright and exciting dreams of Marx we now have North Korea. Even the great American democratic experiment has turned into an imperialist oligarchy in which the democratic illusion is enforced by those who control the rhetoric and the content of the so-called free press.

If the Old Testament can teach us anything, it is that the Israelites had to turn back to God many times. So at least we can be encouraged by the knowledge that repentance is possible. Pray for the conversion of the western world!

Eucharist

Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, and part of his letter to the Romans caught me in the Office of Readings, as he pleads for his right to be martyred:

Let me be food for wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God's wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ's pure bread.

All drama aside, here's someone who really understood the eucharist. In it we celebrate who we really are, and become what we receive: the Body of Christ. And what is the Body of Christ but a body that gives itself for others.

So in our celebration of the Eucharist we both celebrate that God has enabled us to be people who give themselves up for others, and are strengthened for continued transformation into the self-sacrificing Body of Christ we receive.

Going Away Sad

This weekend I give my first Sunday homily. Here are the readings, and here's what I came up with:

Thank you again for the welcome into your parish that everyone has so graciously offered me in these past few weeks. Your hospitality gives glory to God.

Both today and last Sunday we hear Gospels about receiving the Kingdom of God, and who may receive it.

Recall the ending of last week’s Gospel: Jesus embraces the little children, blesses them, and tells his astonished disciples that the Kingdom of God belongs to those who accept it like a child. Today we have a harder lesson: an eager and devout man goes away from Jesus disappointed, unable to follow the Lord into the Kingdom because he is weighed down by his many possessions.

Behold the great reversal we are witnessing! The kingdom of God belongs to the little children who are nobodies in this world, and it is denied to the man whose many possessions were tangible evidence of God’s blessing!

For us, may not be rich, or have many possessions by the standards of our society, but we are rich in the overwhelming number of activities we engage in, with the many commitments we have to fulfill on a daily basis. And these too can make it hard for us to follow the Lord into his Kingdom. And habits are even harder to let go of than material possessions. And our minds are always running too; multi-tasking by thinking about three or four jobs at once – and this can make it hard for us to hear the Word of God, spoken by the Father in Silence.

But here’s the good news in today’s Gospel. The Lord says, “there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and the for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age… and eternal life in the age to come.” Now don’t be distracted by the examples that Jesus uses! Not many of us will perhaps be called upon to give up lands or houses or family members for the sake of the Kingdom. The things we will be called upon to let go of will be smaller and less glamorous, and in that sense more difficult.

The point is that what we receive from God is totally out of proportion with the effort we put into our spiritual and religious lives. For every little step we take toward God, He takes a hundred steps toward us! In Paul’s letter to the Romans he speaks about how the sacrifice of Christ reverses the original sin of our first parents. But he also says that “the gift is not like the trespass.” What God gives us in Christ not only forgives the sin of the world but goes so much further. So we ought to be encouraged in going to God like the man in the Gospel and asking what more we can do. What we will receive in return will be outrageously and unfairly to our benefit.

If we are brave enough, like this man, to ask God what more we can do for him, we might be asked to let go of some of our busy-ness of our lives. Or maybe we’ll be asked to give up some of the racket of our radios and televisions and cell phones to make more room for prayer and contemplation.

Even worse, if we seek what more we can do for the Lord, we might be nudged by the Holy Spirit to let go of a pet peeve, or a precious grudge, or even a prejudice that we hold dear. The great 13^th century Franciscan theologian, St. Bonaventure, said that the hardest thing for someone to let go of is “the money-bag of his own opinions.” Making even slight modifications in our patterns of thinking can be the hardest kind of asceticism there is!

If we go to Jesus with a quiet heart and an open mind, we can be assured that we will hear something from the Spirit of God. It might be a call to change our thinking, reform our lives, or a deepening of the devotion or prayer we already enjoy. And when the Lord lets us know what more we can do, one of two things can happen. We might immediately find the willingness to answer the call we receive. Like the apostles who immediately dropped their nets and followed Jesus, we may be able to follow the call we receive without hesitation or reservation. If this happens, well, thanks be to God! Our willingness and devotion to the will of God gives glory to Jesus Christ, and what else is our Christian life about?

On the other hand, things may not work out so well. When God invites us to deepen our life of prayer or discipleship we often hesitate. We may not feel able to fulfill God’s will completely or right away, or we might not even have the graced willingness to try at all. When this happens we are truly like the man in the Gospel whose face fell at Jesus’ words and who went away sad.

But we shouldn’t go away sad, for there is good news in this too! Pay careful attention to the interaction between Jesus and the man. As soon as Jesus sees the good will of the man, as soon as Jesus sees his long devotion to the commandments and his desire to do more for God, Jesus, “looking at him, loved him.” That the man was unable to respond to Jesus’ invitation doesn’t change this. Jesus loved him just for asking, Jesus loved him for simply expressing the deepest desire of his heart, of what more he could do for God.

So let’s seek this week what more we can do for God. And let’s pray for the willingness to respond to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit that we receive. But let’s also remember the good news that even with our discipleship weighed down by the many things we have to worry about every day, and even with our prayer life made poor by our racing and distracted minds, Jesus gazes upon us with love just for wanting to serve Him, just for asking what more we can do for God.

Further Unicorn Reflections

Now I know this is silly stuff, but I had to post this one. In the post before last I was writing about the unicorns, as a symbol, of course, of junk from the so-called New Age movement that creeps into our Catholic Christian religion.

Today I noticed evidence that Jesus himself was against the unicorns. I was, just for practice, saying my prayers in Latin when I noticed verse 22 (21 in some numberings) of psalm 22:

Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen! (RSV)

In Latin, however, the verse reads:

Salva me ex ore leonis, et a cornibus unicornium humilitatem meam.

Now the Douay Old Testament, trying to be faithful to Jerome's Latin if not artful English, renders the verse thusly:

Save me from the lion's mouth; and my lowness from the horns of the unicorns.

Both Matthew and Mark portray Jesus praying this psalm from the Cross. Therefore we can conclude that Jesus was emphatically against the unicorns.

The

When we read the Scriptures in our liturgies, we always conclude by proclaiming what we've read as "The Word of the Lord."

It's never, "a word of the Lord," but always, "The Word of the Lord."

With God there is only one utterance: perfect, complete, and eternal.

It is all one thing: the Word God spoke to bring the creation into being, the promises to Noah, Abraham, and David, the Word in the mouth of the prophets, and the Word Who becomes flesh in the human life of Jesus of Nazareth.