Snippets

When I’m at a loss for words, I turn to others’ words. The following is a selection of snippets from a rather diverse group of authors, which I had saved for future reference. Mostly they are about love and prayer and spiritual life. But first, for those not acquainted with the strange inner world of a writer, this brief statement on the ease of it all: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead” (Gene Fowler).

“Duty without love makes one morose.

Responsibility without love makes one callous.

Righteousness without love makes one hard.

Truth without love makes one hypercritical.

Upbringing without love makes one inconsistent.

Cleverness without love makes one cunning.

Friendliness without love makes one deceitful.

Order without love makes one petty.

Expertise without love makes one a know-it-all.

Power without love makes one arrogant.

Property without love makes one stingy.

Faith without love makes one fanatical.”

(Lao-tzu)

“Once Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdythev, while visiting a city, went to a synagogue. Arriving at the gate he refused to enter. When his disciples inquired what was wrong with the synagogue, they received the reply: ‘The synagogue is full of words of Torah and prayer.’ This seemed the highest praise to his disciples, and even more reason to enter the synagogue. When they questioned him further, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak explained: ‘Words uttered without fear, uttered without love, do not rise to heaven. I sense that the synagogue is full of Torah and full of prayer.”

(Abraham Heschel)

“I am, indeed, far from agreeing with those who think all religious fear is barbarous and degrading and demand that it should be banished from the spiritual life. Perfect love, we know, casts out fear. But so do several other things—ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out our fear.”

(C.S. Lewis)

“I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door; I talk on, in the same posture of praying; eyes lifted up; knees bowed down; as though I prayed to God; and, if God, or his Angels should ask me, when I thought last of God in that prayer, I cannot tell: Sometimes I find that I had forgot what I was about, but when I began to forget, I cannot tell.”

(John Donne)

“[Rabbi Menahem Mendel] comments on the following text from the Talmud: ‘When Nebuchadnezzer, the mighty king of Babylonia, wanted to sing praises to God, an angel came and slapped him in the face.’ Menahem Mendel asks: ‘Why did the king deserve to be slapped, if his intention was to sing God’s praises?’ He responds in God’s voice: ‘You want to sing praises while you are wearing a crown? Let me hear how you praise Me after having been slapped in the face!’ The paradox of a transcendent deity is that even as God is hidden from the world, God is present everywhere in it. Not just in light, but in darkness. Not just in the raptures of joy, but in the heart of pain. It is too easy to have faith when life is good. Meaningful faith occurs when we disregard ourselves, when we believe in God despite our own hardship and suffering… Like the tiny dots that constitute Georges Seurat’s famous painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, those experiences in our lives that up close seem so uncomfortable, anarchic, and disorienting are, from a distance, actually essential components of a beautiful and harmonious creation. That which appears as darkness to us may very well be the beacon of our redemption.”

(Niles Elliot Goldstein)

“Long periods of well-being and comfort are in general dangerous to all. After such prolonged periods, weak souls become incapable of weathering any kind of trial. They are afraid of it. Yet it is a fact that difficult trials and sufferings can facilitate the growth of the soul. I know there is a widespread feeling that if we highly value suffering this is masochism. On the contrary, it is a significant bravery when we respect suffering and understand the value of the burdens it places on our soul.”

(Alexandr Solzhenitsyn)

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

(Soren Kierkegaard)

“St Therese of Lisieux…would take her moments of pain or annoyance or sadness and offer them to God, believing that they became united with God’s love, united, that is, with something infinitely powerful which works always for the betterment of man… She knew…what Dostoevsky knew: there’s a kind of web around the world, an electric web in which we’re all united in suffering and in love. When you give to it what you have, you add to the communion of love all around the world.”

(Peggy Noonan)

“At some thoughts one stands perplexed—especially at the sight of men’s sin—and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it… Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is hard to acquire; it is dearly bought; it is won by slow, long labor. We must love not only occasionally, or for a moment, but for ever…

(Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Orthodoxy is not Enough

There has been a crisis for many years in the Church concerning orthodoxy of doctrine. I suppose we can say there always has been such a crisis, even dating to New Testament times. But ever since the negative reaction of many theologians and hierarchs to Humanae Vitae in the ‘60s—as they were flexing their post-Vatican II “free to be me” muscles—it seems that everyone thinks that the articles of faith and morals are a series of possibilities that one might choose to embrace, or not, in living their Catholic faith.

Part of the reaction to this reaction has been the insistence on truth and tradition by the beleaguered faithful who are trying to maintain fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church in the midst of the chaotic fallout of “liberated” Catholicism. I don’t need to go into the litany of disasters that are the rotten fruit of a Council hijacked for a particular agenda by certain ecclesiastical authorities on various levels. But the resulting “siege mentality” of the true believers is not without problems of its own. Something of the Spirit of Jesus risks being lost when one feels he can do nothing else but fend off attacks or fight errors.

This is not the place (and I’m lacking the time and intellectual wherewithal) to try to analyze this whole situation. But generally speaking, a position on either polar extreme of a given argument or issue is going to be inadequate and perhaps even rather distorted (though one cannot “move toward the middle” when absolute moral norms or intrinsic evils are concerned). While it is essential and indispensable to embrace and promote the Tradition of the Church and her teachings, it isn’t quite enough merely to fly the flag of orthodoxy if one doesn’t actually live the life to which these teachings call us. This is basically my point here.

We ought to realize that the Pharisees of Jesus’ time were the “true believers” of God’s people. They knew the Law and the traditions of Judaism and upheld them. Yet for such men Jesus reserved his sharpest rebukes. Why? Two reasons, as far as I can see. The first is clearly explained in what Jesus said about them: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach but do not practice” (Mt. 23:2-3). (This passage is the basis of the common saying to their children of some parents whose example does not quite line up with their own rules: “Do what I say; don’t do what I do!”)

Jesus is saying that orthodoxy of belief and doctrine is not enough. It has to be put into practice. It’s bad enough if someone preaches the truth but is lax in his practice; it’s worse if he is also scandalously wicked, as is sometimes the case: “You outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Mt. 23:28).

The other reason is the arrogance that sometimes is an unhappy result of someone’s possession of the truth. Rather than live the truth and simply invite others to embrace it, some people use it as a kind of weapon against others who are not similarly enlightened. I get the impression that some people are glad that there are enemies of the Faith, for then there is someone to fight, to criticize, and to demolish by incisive argumentation. They go in for the satisfying intellectual kill. Their truculent spirits might actually become bored or depressed if everyone suddenly embraced the traditions of the True Faith. One can only conclude that the truth ought to be balanced by a bit more love and prayerful consideration as to the most effective means of winning souls for Jesus, who Himself chose sacrificial self-offering as the best way to draw all to Himself (see John 12:32-33).

The “possession of truth” tends also to create an “us vs. them” mentality. Now of course it is unavoidable to recognize that people of other faiths are not “us” in the sense that they do not share our beliefs. But their being “them” does not necessarily entail their being our enemies. (Even if they are, Jesus said, “Love your enemies”!) It seems that some champions of orthodoxy almost revel in the fact that we are we and they are they, and that on Judgment Day they’re going to get what’s coming to them. Regrettably, there are prayers in the Byzantine Offices that condemn those who are “them” and not “us” while we pray only for ourselves. We should pray for the enlightenment and conversion and salvation of our enemies, of the “others,” rather than for their destruction, for this is the will of God.

I’m not suggesting—ever!—that we relativize the truth for the sake of being more “inclusive,” only that we do not use the truth of our faith as a hammer for the heads of others, but rather see it as a gift from God that we are meant to share with others and to live fully ourselves. Orthodoxy is not enough. It’s not enough to believe and uphold the right teachings. If the truth really finds a home within us, we will “speak the truth with love,” we will be transformed by it into faithful images of Christ, and we will begin to love as He loves. Let us work and pray and give of ourselves—and give the good example, so that truth may not lose its attractive power because of our failure to live it—so that what Christ has revealed as the way to salvation will be freely embraced by all. Let us hope and pray for the day when the Apostle’s words will be fulfilled: “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11).

Going up to Jerusalem

On the fifth Sunday of Lent we honor St Mary of Egypt, since she was such a dramatic example of a conversion from a life of deep sinfulness to one of profound holiness. Lent is all about repentance and conversion for the sake of a fruitful experience of the Paschal Mystery as well as for ongoing growth in holiness. So we read the gospel prescribed in her honor (Lk. 7:36-50) as well as the gospel prescribed for the Sunday (Mk. 10:32-45). I think that both of them taken together will help us to prepare better for Pascha.

First of all, let us look at the contrast in the two gospel readings between the approach to Jesus of the sinful woman and of the two “sons of thunder,” the apostles James and John. The woman stood behind him at his feet, weeping so much in her sorrow over her sins that her tears fell upon his feet; she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and anointed them with fragrant oil. The apostles, on the other hand, stood before Jesus and asked to be granted the highest places in his Kingdom! Evidently they were not reflecting at that time upon their own unworthiness even to be in his presence. Jesus gently rebuked his disciples but granted his approval, forgiveness, and salvation to the repentant harlot.

Jesus also rebuked the Pharisee who had invited him to dinner, for he did not so much as offer the customary courtesies, while the woman that the Pharisee viewed with contempt gained the Lord’s favor by her humble veneration of Him. The key here, explained Jesus, is love. There are two complementary ways in which He presented this. One is that if you are forgiven much you will love much, and if you are forgiven little you will love little. The other is that if you love much you will be forgiven much, and if you love little you will be forgiven little.

Simon the Pharisee probably considered himself righteous according to the law. That’s why he felt justified in scorning the sinful woman, who was unrighteous according to the law, for he felt superior to her. Thinking himself to be righteous, he would have thought that he needed little or no forgiveness, so his love was small. He was self-sufficient—in his own eyes, anyway. And with his love being as small as it was, he disqualified himself from receiving the forgiveness that he really needed—if only his love were great enough to recognize it!

Now the woman loved much. Perhaps that’s what got her into a life of sin in the first place: she loved too much, but loved wrongly, unchastely. The fire in her heart had only to be properly re-directed. We see this also in the case of St Mary of Egypt. At first her lustful passion was insatiable, but when she turned to God, all her love was directed toward Him, and her passion became zeal for holiness and undying devotion to the Lord, even in the midst of severe hardships. Anyway, the sinful woman in the gospel was somehow stricken with the awareness of her sin, and she boldly went to Him—entering uninvited into the house of a stranger where Jesus happened to be—and threw herself at his mercy. Jesus forgave her sins and so her love increased even more, knowing what a heavy burden He had lifted from her. The Lord did not make light of her sins—He emphasized that they were many—but his mercy was greater still, and, to the astonishment of all the dinner guests, He forgave her sins then and there, declaring that her faith had saved her.

Here we see how faith and love are inseparably bound. Jesus said she was forgiven because she loved much, and then said it was her faith that saved her. You can’t really believe in Jesus without loving Him, and it seems obvious that you won’t love Him if you don’t believe in Him.

This faith and this love are what must enable us to go with Jesus to his Passion and to stand by his Cross. Jesus solemnly announces in the gospel: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be… condemned to death… and they will mock him and spit upon him and scourge him and kill him…” The Church proclaims this gospel on this Sunday because next Sunday is Palm Sunday, the arrival at Jerusalem. This is not a journey that the timid or the wavering can make. We need to be unshakable in our faith in Christ and love for Him. Jesus said to his own disciples at the Last Supper: “You will all fall away.” So they would fail when their faith and love were put to the test. Judas betrayed Him, Peter denied Him, and all the rest abandoned Jesus when He was arrested in the garden.

How shall we strengthen our faith and love, so that we can in spirit go with Jesus to Jerusalem, ritually re-live the mystery of his suffering and death, and receive the grace that He wishes to grant to those who lovingly and gratefully honor his complete self-sacrifice for our salvation? The Church offers us the usual and indispensable means: prayer, the sacraments, meditation on the word of God. But Jesus gives us an additional one in the gospel, one that is also indispensable if all the others are going to bear fruit: we have to learn how to serve, to acquire the heart and mind of a servant of the Lord.

James and John manifested just the opposite spirit in their request to Jesus. (These two are the same ones that Jesus earlier rebuked when they would call fire from heaven down upon their enemies—Jesus told them they did not realize what manner of spirit was in them.) They asked not to serve but to reign! They wanted the glory, but they hadn’t learned their lessons concerning the conditions by which glory is granted. That’s why Jesus told them: “You do not know what you are asking.” Then when Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup He had to drink, they responded—having no idea what this cup entailed—that they were able to do so. So they still didn’t get it. Then the rest of the disciples got all indignant—probably not only at the selfish ambition of the two, but also because those two thought of it first! They probably all wanted the highest places, because several times in the gospels it is mentioned that all the disciples argued with each other about who was the greatest.

None of them understood really what it meant to serve. So Jesus, after three years of teaching and example, had to sit them all down again and explain it. Whoever would be great among you, He said, must be a servant. Must be. It’s an indispensable condition. He didn’t say, if you want to be great in the eyes of God, it’s probably a good idea to be a servant as well. Jesus gave Himself as an example: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for the many.”

Let us return to the repentant harlot. She had it right. She fell at Jesus’ feet, humbled herself and wept over her sins, because she loved Him and believed that He had the power to forgive and save her. She was ready to serve Him for the rest of her life and probably did. She “got it,” unlike the apostles, who at this point were more like the Pharisee than the repentant woman. Only someone who is convinced of his own righteousness can ask for the glory without first taking the lowest place, without first serving. We serve, however, not merely as a necessary, though irksome, means to a glorious end, but because we recognize that that’s what we are, servants of the Lord, and in the very serving is our glory, our blessing, our forgiveness and salvation.

Behold, we are on our way to Jerusalem—not to make a pilgrimage to the holy places where Jesus once walked, but to mystically re-live with Him, now, his Passion: offering Him our faith and love, and recognizing the love with which He loved us in giving his life so that our sins might be forgiven. We have been forgiven much; let us love much. And as we love the more, we will be forgiven the more.

Let us, at last, learn what it means to serve. The coming two weeks will be rather arduous here in the monastery, with the long services, the fasting, the interior strain of entering with Christ into his anguish and pain—and you must also share this to the extent your state of life and the will of God requires. Let us acquire the heart of a servant, and not resist or resent the demands that will be placed upon us. Let us accept whatever difficulty or hardship these days will bring, offer the necessary sacrifices, be patient, forgiving, charitable, take it upon ourselves to go above and beyond what is strictly required, carry the burden of others—in short, let us be humble servants. We are sinners and we deserve nothing from God or man, but let us approach the Lord with faith, love, and humility, asking not for the glory but rather for the opportunity to serve, to be like Him, to give our lives for the sake of others: one day, one sacrifice at a time.

Then the Lord will look upon us not as upon the self-righteous Pharisee, and not even as upon his self-seeking disciples, but as upon the one who wept and kissed his feet, the one whom He blessed, and to whom He said, “Your sins are forgiven,” and “Go in peace; your faith has saved you.”

Blessing God for His Blessings (Part 2)

We’ll go on here with some selections from my ancient paper on the beginning of the Letter to the Ephesians. I hope you didn’t find the last one too dry. I had tried, even in that heady intellectual atmosphere, not to lose my faith or devotion, and to secretly plant these in my academic productions.

“‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses…’ (v. 7). When presented with terms like ‘redemption,’ ‘blood,’ ‘forgiveness,’ and ‘trespasses,’ it is good to be aware that Paul is here relying on his Jewish background to express what it means to be saved by God through Christ. Paul has utilized the terminology connected with major events of Jewish salvation history and has applied them to Christ. Redemption (primarily the exodus event, associated with the blood of the paschal lamb) and forgiveness of trespasses (the purpose of the Day of Atonement, also associated with the blood of sacrificial animals) are transposed into a Christological key. ‘It was natural, therefore, that in his conversion experience Paul should realize that everything that he had striven for and expected within his religion of Judaism—in the present instance, redemption and forgiveness—had been achieved for him in Christ’ (Lionel Swain, Ephesians). Through the blood, i.e., the death, of Christ, the fulfilled promises of God cascade down from heaven upon the elect, who are ‘holy and blameless’ because they have received redemption and forgiveness.

“This brings us to the difficulty of Paul’s ‘realized eschatology.’ The verbs that describe God’s activity on our behalf are in the past tense, and those that describe the condition of the beneficiaries are in the present, e.g., God ‘has blessed,’ ‘chose,’ ‘destined’; we ‘have’ redemption. Has the ‘day of the Lord’ already come? Years earlier, Paul had to assure the Church of Thessalonica that such was not the case (2Thess 2:1-3). By the time Ephesians was written, Paul had apparently modified his view on the imminence of the parousia [the second coming of Christ], for his emphasis is on the unfolding mystery of Christ and our life in Him. In Ephesians 1:14, Paul adds a corrective to show that his eschatology is not entirely ‘realized.’ There he speaks of the Holy Spirit as ‘the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.’ In this letter Paul is trying to express the ‘already-but-not-yet’ condition of the Christian, a common paradox met with in the life of faith. The work of redemption has been accomplished, yet we have not received full and ultimate possession of it. We live now in grace and in reconciliation with God, but his plan is not entirely fulfilled as regards our ultimate destiny.

“God ‘has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will’ (vv. 8b-9a). All the salvific work of God would remain, in effect, useless to us if he had not ‘made known’ to us what He was accomplishing in Christ. God has revealed the ‘mystery’ (in this context: the secret, that which was hidden) of his will. This mystery was revealed to us ‘in all wisdom and insight.’ Perhaps Paul was drawing on Old Testament wisdom traditions here. God created everything in wisdom (e.g., Ps. 104:24; Prv. 8:22-31) and He saves the righteous in wisdom (Wis. 9:18). Therefore He reveals his will in wisdom, and through faith Christians are enabled to accept and understand the mystery of his will, sharing in God’s own wisdom.

“The ‘mystery of his will’ is conceived of as ‘a plan for the fullness of time’ (v. 10a). This short phrase will need some explanation. The Greek word oikonomia is notoriously difficult to translate, and the phrase eis oikonomian tou pleromatos ton kairon has been variously rendered: ‘as a plan for the fullness of times’; ‘to act upon when the times had run their course’; ‘administer the days of fulfillment.’ Because the vocabulary in this section of Ephesians includes words like ‘chose,’ ‘destined,’ ‘purpose,’ and ‘will,’ it seems that the translation ‘plan’ for oikonomia is to be preferred. It more accurately expresses the sense of the message that Paul is setting forth. The other translations refer to Christ, who is the one who executes the plan. All that Paul writes about in 1:13-14 (and also in later chapters) is the unfolding of that plan which he says (in 3:9) was ‘hidden for all ages in God.’

“The phrase ‘fullness of time’ does not mean merely a particular time in history, because kairos does not denote the simple passing of time (as does chronos). Kairos signifies a ‘time,’ a moment, an era, which is pregnant with divine presence, a kind of divine ‘now’ wherein God reveals Himself and exercises his saving power. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus begins his public ministry saying, ‘The time [kairos] is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand’ (1:15). This verse captures well the proper connotation of kairos.

“The goal of the secret plan of God is universal and exceedingly grand: to ‘bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth’ (v. 10b). This verse is the key to understanding much of what follows in the epistle, e.g., the union of Jew and Gentile (chapters 1-2) and Paul’s vision of ‘one body, and one spirit… one hope… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father…’ (chapter 4).

“This verse has also been translated, ‘to sum up all things in Christ’ and ‘to unite all things in him.’ The Greek verb anakephalaiosasthai [say that five times, quickly!] is a difficult one to translate properly in this context, and all of the above renderings contribute to an understanding of the passage. Christ is not only the Head of the ‘new creation,’ with all things subject to Him; He is also the unifying Principle of all creation, at every level. In Him all things (especially all persons) find the meaning and fulfillment of their raison d’etre. All this will be definitively realized at the parousia, but even now the dominion of Christ has begun through his headship of the Church, his body (1:22-23).

“All of God’s blessings in Christ are ordered to the goal of the ‘creation’ of a new people of God in a harmonious and transformed universe, all serving Christ as Head. This divine plan is the matrix of the Incarnation and Redemption; for this we were chosen by God. The ‘we’ (v. 12) who ‘first hoped in Christ’ are the Jews who believed in Him, and the ‘you’ (v. 13) who have ‘heard the word of truth… have believed [and] were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit’ are the Gentiles. These were very concrete groups that Paul was concerned about, but they can be considered representatively as the whole of humanity. The two groups are different, to be sure, but both the ‘we’ and the ‘you’ have been destined in Christ for the praise of the Father’s glory. It is noteworthy that Paul employs the expression ‘for the praise of his glroy’ (eis epainon [tes] doxes autou) following both the ‘we’ of the Jews and the ‘you’ of the Gentiles, signifying the common share in the universal vocation to believe, love, and praise God through Jesus Christ.”

That’s about the gist of it. I hope you’ll now be able to reflect on these verses with a little more understanding as well as a greater appreciation of the abundant blessings of God lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessing God for His Blessings (Part 1)

That’s the title of a paper I wrote 19 years ago for a Scripture class in the seminary. It’s a study of the first few verses of the first chapter of St Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. I tend to scrounge around for old articles and reflections when my little brain dries up (which happens fairly often these days), so I’m going back even to seminary days now! I also happen to have re-read Ephesians recently, which I think is one of Paul’s richer works, so I may have a few more reflections to offer in the near future. For now I think I’ll just assemble here some excerpts from my dazzling study, for your intellectual stimulation and spiritual edification.

“The language and style of this text have certain affinities with Hebrew literature, especially some Qumran texts, with long compound sentences and a certain hymnographical or liturgical character. In the Greek, Ephesians 1:3-10 (some say all the way to v. 14) is generally understood to be a single sentence. It is akin to a Hebrew berakah (blessing or thanksgiving), commonly used in liturgy and prayer” [Gee, I must have been pretty smart back then!].

“God is blessed, i.e., praised and thanked, precisely because He Himself blesses: ‘Blessed be God… who has blessed us…’ In this opening verse we find a distinctive New Testament designation of God. God is ‘the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’; this expression is often found in the initial greeting of Paul’s epistles. But it is unusual to find a greeting (v. 2) and an extended blessing (vv. 3-14) followed by a thanksgiving (vv. 15-16) and a prayer (vv. 17-23), all at the beginning of a letter. It should be made clear that the blessing in vv. 3-14 is not simply a berakah in prayer-form, but also an enumeration of the various elements comprising God’s blessing as well as some explanation of their meaning and import.

“God has ‘blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (v. 3b). It may be helpful at the outset to unpack the expression ‘spiritual blessing.’ The spiritual blessing is not merely the opposite of a ‘material’ blessing. It refers primarily to the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit and the fruits of incorporation into Christ which the Spirit has accomplished and is still accomplishing in Christians. This spiritual blessing was bestowed at baptism, when the initiates were ‘sealed with the promised Holy Spirit’ (v. 13). It is a dynamic gift, essentially the gift of ongoing salvation which Paul presents in many of its aspects as his blessing proceeds. ‘Every’ spiritual blessing is really the ‘full’ spiritual blessing granted by God in Christ. Having received the grace of Christ, we have received every conceivable blessing.

“‘In the heavenly places’ means the realm of the unseen, spiritual realities. This should not be too readily identified with the traditional Christian concept of heaven, because the same word (epouraniois) is used by Paul in the same epistle to designate the dwelling place of the ‘spiritual hosts of wickedness’ (6:12). But the blessings do come, of course, from God, who is ‘far above’ (1:21) all principalities and powers in the spiritual realm.

“To say that God chose us is to emphasize his sovereign initiative in our salvation. Paul frequently stresses this point. Ephesians 2:1-10 clearly spells out the truth that our election and salvation are primarily a matter of God’s initiative, mercy, and grace, and that it is through no personal worthiness or works, but rather a grace-directed response of faith—which is, however, expressed in good works (v. 10)—that we can be saved.

“In Ephesians there is a development in Paul’s thought which pushes back our election from the choice of Abraham (as in Galatians and Romans) all the way to the very beginning, before the creation of the world (1:9-10). If God chose us before all human history, yet chose us ‘in him’ (i.e., in Christ), then we have here the doctrine of the cosmic and eternal Christ, which is more explicitly stated in Colossians 1:16—‘in him were created all things in heaven and on earth.’ Reflection on the mystery of redemption, part of the secret and eternal plan of God, has enabled Paul to see Christ at the heart of that plan from its inception.

“That the elect are chosen before the world began is important for Paul’s vision of the one Church comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. In Romans and Galatians, Paul painstakingly explains how Gentiles can still be children of Abraham through faith. But here election does not depend upon the call of Abraham (who is not even mentioned in Ephesians) but only upon the universally benevolent choice of God, although the Jews are accorded a certain priority (1:12-13).

“God ‘destined us to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.’ We are ‘destined’ because God willed us to be sons in the Son. According to his will, we are his children. But the word here translated ‘purpose’ (eudokia) admits other translations, e.g., ‘good pleasure,’ which is more correct etymologically. (It could also be translated: what God ‘thought good,’ or what ‘seemed good’ to Him.) ‘Purpose’ seems to emphasize predestination, while ‘good pleasure’ emphasizes God’s benevolence and loving initiative. The two are not, of course, mutually exclusive. The same word appears again in verse nine in the context of the mysterious plan concerning Christ’s universal headship.

“The Christian vocation is one of praise and thanksgiving in joyful acknowledgement of God’s free and superabundant gifts. One who believes in God through Jesus Christ is struck with wonder at the goodness of God and is drawn freely and spontaneously to ‘praise the glory of his grace.’ This grace is not only that of election, but also of redemption and forgiveness, as Paul presently explains. God did not merely ‘grant’ this grace as a sort of condescending concession. ‘Granted’ is a weak and inadequate translation of ekharitosen, which carries the meaning of gracious and free giving, of visiting with favor. In fact, it is formed from the same stem as the word for ‘grace’ in the same verse.

“As holds true for all of God’s activity on our behalf, grace comes through Christ, here called ‘the Beloved.’ This is based on a more tender and expressive designation in Colossians 1:13, ‘the Son of his love’ (tou huiou tes agapes autou), which is usually translated (rather unfortunately, I think) ‘his beloved Son.’ We are to stand in love before God, who destined us to divine adoption in love, and who accomplishes all things through ‘the Son of his love.’”

Well, those selections deal only with the first half of the paper, so I think I’ll go on with this in the next post. Stay tuned…

Earthly Heaven and Heavenly Earth

A friend of mine recently sent me a copy of a book entitled Heaven, by Randy Alcorn. She had read it and had some questions, so I took at look at it myself, being also quite interested in the life of the world to come. I’ll say at first that the author is quite sincere, enthusiastic about our ultimate fulfillment, and is also rather clever at amassing biblical texts to support his theses. Yet on the whole I find it rather far-fetched, and I’ll give here some examples from the book itself.

It seems that the main reason he wrote it is to dispel boring stereotypes of Heaven, such that people become wholly uninterested in it or even positively wish they didn’t have to go a place they think is characterized by endless church services, wearing wings, or everlasting cloud-sitting or harp-playing. This is a laudable goal. He wants to show how exciting and fulfilling it really is, but he does it by presenting it simply as a much better version of Earth and our present life. It reminds me of a glorified backyard barbecue with all one’s friends and family, with Jesus ever-present as a kind of divine Master of Ceremonies, walking about and making sure everyone is having a good time. (I may not have read closely enough, but I don’t recall him saying there will be beer in Heaven. That old song may be true: “In Heaven there is no beer; that’s why we drink it here…” That would be a bit of a disappointment for me, but it’s a small price to pay for all the rest of the endless bliss.)

He could have made his point in about half of the 500 pages of the book. But he really wanted to drive it home that Heaven is none other than the New Earth spoken of in Scripture. Heaven is New Earth, Earth, Earth, he insists. (This only applies to the post-resurrection Heaven, when we will have glorified bodies. The “present heaven,” where righteous souls go when they die, is kind of a spiritual layover on our way to our final destination.) Now it may very well be that our everlasting home will be in a transfigured Earth and universe, and the Fathers generally agree that we are not complete until our souls and bodies are reunited after the Resurrection of the Dead. Thus there will be some continuity with our earthly lives. But it still seems like this author’s Heaven has just a bit too much continuity with the present Earth.

In Heaven we will do all the things we liked to do in this life: eat, drink, go to parties, play sports (but no sexual activity, I noticed). Aside from the no sex thing, it seems to come perilously close to the Muslim heaven—which is essentially a place of sensual delights, i.e., of things that please the senses. Heaven is kind of an “upgraded” version of Earth (the author actually used that word). He is quite critical of a too-spiritual vision of Heaven, in which we would spend all our time contemplating God. He does say that Heaven in primarily about God and not simply enjoying ourselves in various pleasant pastimes, but he devotes only about 1% of his book to that idea.

He pushes the continuity of this life to the next to some rather absurd extremes. The citizens of Heaven (really, citizens, with a government in which some will rule over others) will engage themselves in such creative activities as designing clothing and jewelry, manufacturing sports equipment, etc. Some will even keep their same professions in Heaven that they had on earth (although dentists, policemen, and insurance salesmen will have to get new jobs, for they won’t be needed there—I’m not making this up!). We will, however, engage in various forms of business and commerce, though just for the fun of it. And there will be lots of books and movies for our intellectual stimulation and sheer entertainment.

Then there are the animals, which may in fact be talking animals, but we’re not sure. Jesus even died for animals as well as for us (“indirectly,” and not in the same way, but still…). So we can still have picnics at the beach, go jogging with Fido happily following, etc. By the way, the author was faced with a dilemma as to how to please both meat-eaters and animal lovers, for there should be no killing in Heaven. He suggests that God will create some sort of incredibly tasty meat substitute that will satisfy the desires of burger-mongers but will eliminate the need to kill animals—really!

His literalism is a bit overdone, too, as we will live in a city 1400 miles long, wide, and high, with streets of real gold and walls of real jewels. I hope he doesn’t think God is made of real jasper and carnelian, because that’s how St John described his vision of the One seated on the throne! (Rev. 4:2-3). Evidently we will be free to come and go and roam about the universe. When Jesus says He will give the victors the “morning star” (Rev 2:28), Alcorn says this could very well mean the planet Venus!

I get the impression that the author is rather attached to this world and is not prepared to leave any of it behind (except the sin and suffering). But we don’t really know for sure what Heaven is like. Anyone is free to take his best guess, based on what Scripture and Tradition have hinted at. But there’s a deeper difficulty here, I think. Any Christian denomination (or non-denomination) in which any sort of mystical tradition is virtually absent is bound to have nothing to go on but earthly (time and space bound) experience and the symbolic imagery of the Bible. But the saints—who have had profound experiences of communion with God, who have experienced his blinding glory, tasted just a bit of his infinite depths, and realized that nothing on Earth (even in “upgraded” form) can even begin to hold our attention in that Presence—assure us that Heaven is far more than earthly fun magnified eternally. They know that simply entering into a direct and complete union with God is enough to keep us wholly enraptured for all eternity, even if we don’t get to play sports or watch videos. After all, if God is infinite and inexhaustible, we can be entering more deeply into his mystery and his love and all his endless depths for all eternity and still not come to the “end” of Him! I’m sure we will also enjoy relationships with other people in Heaven, but it will all be in God and directed toward God. For now, let us not attempt to shore up our flagging desires for eternity by merely promising a lot of stimulating recreational activities.

Now, with that said, I would not mind if I did get the opportunity to walk on the beach, smoke a big cigar (I probably would like them there, and no one would find them offensive), eat a heavenly veggie-steak, and go out on the town with my buddies (come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind the Muslim heaven too much, either!). But I still think that God has something greater in store for us, something that takes us to a level beyond what we have enjoyed in this life. If the heavens, the earth, and Jerusalem are really going to be new, that doesn’t merely mean better. It may very well mean that they will quite fully transcend anything we’ve experienced or can experience here in this tragically beautiful world. But have no worries; whatever it’s going to be like, it’s worth whatever it takes to get there—and you’re gonna love it!

Moonless Gethsemane

A moonless Gethsemane,

the heart’s steady sorrow.

Night falls heavily

upon the broken chalice.

 

Yet hope survives, though wounded,

rising from the ground.

A spark, a whisper, something

from the Other Side.

 

Piercing the cold expanse

of black and empty space,

a point of naked starlight falls

upon the desperate watcher’s eye.

Yea, the light shines on in darkness,

there and there alone.

 

Noonday sun is darkened

by cruciform eclipse.

No longer light, only fire

that leaps from Heart to heart.

 

My arms, outstretched to Heaven,

receive a shower of blood:

babies, children, maidens,

elders, martyrs all.

 

His blood be upon us

and upon our children;

upon every hand nailed by pain,

every heart with anguish pierced.

 

Yea, the light shines on in darkness,

there and there alone.

 

Jesus falls the thousandth time

and gets up on my trembling knees.

“He who says he abides in Him

must walk the way He walked.”

 

I learned about the King of Glory,

heard tell of majesty supreme.

Seems, though, I know but one Lord:

He who taught me how to weep.

 

His smile is found in children’s songs,

in work and rest and spring flowers,

in all the walks of joyful life,

in blessings and amens.

 

But his deep and passionate flame

burns in every moonless Gethsemane,

and with love his heart re-opens

on every cross of pain.

 

For his light shines on in darkness,

there and there alone.