Taking Up Your Cross

[This is a homily I gave in 2006 on the third Sunday of Lent, known in the Byzantine tradition as the “Sunday of the Holy Cross.”]

The Church places before us today the mystery of the Cross at the middle of Lent.  In case we’re getting weary, the Cross is a sign that we’re approaching the fulfillment of these holy days, the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, so that we may be encouraged.  We can come and bring all of our struggles and failures and sins and lay them before the Cross, and receive forgiveness and healing and strength to go on.  But in case we’re slacking off, we receive the message that it’s high time we take up our cross and follow Jesus.  The liturgy constantly brings to mind the mystery of the Cross because it is the essence of Christianity.  There’s no Christianity without the Cross.

Some like to call themselves “Easter people.”  That’s kind of a modern way of saying they reject the Cross.  There are “Catholic” theologians today—surprisingly, even to me who read about this stuff—who explicitly say that say that the Cross is not about the expiation for our sins.  That’s an idea that we have to put to rest, they say.  Well if it isn’t about expiation for sin, then we have to put our salvation to rest as well.  In any case, we can’t be Easter people if we aren’t first Good Friday people.  It seems that in practice, Easter people like to celebrate instead of doing penance, laugh instead of weep, to say “God loves me as I am,” instead of repenting and confessing their sins, and use the Cross as a religious decoration rather than carrying it behind the Lord.

I saw on the internet a group of people who call themselves Catholic—there are actually several sects in this country, but I don’t even elevate them to the status of schismatic—who are made up of ex-priests and people like that, but have very little resemblance to the Catholic Church.  Well, I saw a picture of this group, they form their own church and they make sure they say they’re inclusive about marital status and gender issues and these are no obstacles to ordination in their church.  And so, this picture was of them performing an ordination of a woman.  They were all standing around a table with their arms out, dressed in suits and dresses, and there was a cross on the wall, of course without a corpus.  That would have been in poor taste.  But I was thinking to myself: in this blasphemous rite that they were performing, what did the cross mean to them, the big cross on the wall?  Did they know that they were blaspheming the mystery of the Cross at that very moment, making a mockery of Jesus’ sacrifice?  They think it’s cute to ordain lesbians to their phony priesthood, but they will have to stand under the judgment of that same Cross when they die.

So let us return to the point here, of the Cross being at the heart of Christianity.  The depth of our Christianity, of our relationship to Christ, is the depth of our acceptance of and embracing the Cross.  We get glimpses of the resurrection through the sacraments, through the beauty of nature and through the love of God and the people that we experience.  But this life is not Heaven.  It is still the via dolorosa. We live our lives in the shadow of the Cross, even while the resurrection dawns on the far horizon.

A friend of mine once told me that she felt that she was a kind of inferior Christian because her friends were having all kinds of interesting charismatic experiences, being slain the Spirit and all that kind of stuff, and she didn’t have those experiences.  So I had to remind her that those things are not the essence of Christianity.  They’re just like icing on the cake.  But the danger is that for some of these people, there’s no cake under the icing!  They go from one emotional experience to another without achieving any depth in their spiritual life, in their relationship to God.  If you equate your relationship to God with fun experiences, then you’re going to miss out on the reality of that relationship, the depth and the mystery and the power of it.

But Christianity is not about emotional experiences.  It’s about Christ and about Him crucified and risen.  It’s about allowing Jesus into the wreckage of our lives and giving Him full permission to cleanse and transform and heal them and to make all things new.  It’s about being faithful to Him in good times and bad, about being willing to be corrected for our faults, being willing to take up our cross and suffer whatever it takes to overcome sin and to live for righteousness.  It’s about saying yes to Him who gave up his life for us.  It’s about seeking Him with our whole heart, about preferring nothing to his holy will.  It’s about losing our lives so that they may be saved for life in the heavenly kingdom.  It’s about standing up for the truth that He has revealed, even in the face of ridicule and opposition.  It’s about loving, forgiving, sacrificing ourselves for Jesus’ sake and for the salvation of souls.  That, in part, is what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus.

To embrace the Cross doesn’t mean we’re expected to find it easy.  Even the saints in their most candid moments admit that to suffer generously is beyond our ability without a special grace.  It wasn’t easy for Jesus either, and He had to suffer what no man could suffer.  He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as we perhaps do at times, but we must also say the other things that He said from the Cross, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they do.” “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

I have to share with you something about a way how not to bear the cross.  I’ll give myself as a prime example.  A couple of days ago was one of those days which are fairly frequent, where everything just seems to go wrong, one thing after another, and I had gone down to make a photocopy of this icon for Laura, who’s writing an icon.  Actually it was a rather nice day, at least in the morning, and of course as soon as I walked out the door and got half way down the road, it immediately started pouring.  I wasn’t dressed for that, but I did have a jacket on.  So I stuffed the icon under the coat and ran through the rain to try to get this thing done.  I got down there and it turned out that I couldn’t make a copy anyway because the photocopier didn’t go light enough to make a decent copy of it.  So that was useless.  I ran back up the hill and got soaked a second time going up there.  But I wanted to try to protect the icon so it wouldn’t get ruined from the water.  So what happened was, I got back in my cell and set the icon down, but I didn’t realize how much water a hood can absorb.  So as I checked the icon, I laid it down to see if it was OK or had any water on it; I bent down and all this water poured off my hood all over the icon!  I just got so bugged with that I tore off my hood and threw it on the floor to get rid of that ridiculous thing.  Well, I forgot that I was wearing my cross over my hood and so I ended up throwing my cross on the floor, too.  It was like the Lord was telling me: OK, you’re not just throwing off an annoyance, you’re throwing off the Cross.

So that was a little bit of a lesson.  I also remembered that my scripture reading from the morning was the famous text from First Thessalonians where Paul says, “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances.”  So I had to go in my examination of conscience at night and say, “Lord, I didn’t rejoice always, I didn’t pray constantly, I didn’t give thanks in all circumstances.”  And so, that was my day.

But we have to realize that life is full of stuff like that.  Full to the brim of trials and irritating, frustrating things.  We just have to accept that.  Whether it’s something as small as having your alarm clock jar you out of a deep sleep in the early morning, or much worse things.  Failures of vehicles and computers and appliances, health problems and family problems and money problems and work problems and all manner of disappointments and setbacks and injuries or whatever.  It’s constantly going to happen.  There’s no escape from any of that.  That’s the nature of life in this fallen world.

But we have a choice.  We can decide either to rage and complain and finally end up in despair—or we can accept it.  We can see the Cross in it.  We can embrace it and make an offering of it.  We can turn it into something positive, something beneficial for ourselves, for our own spiritual growth and for the good of others.  Make it a prayer.  Make it an intercession.  Make it an offering of some sort of suffering or setback to God.  Unite it to the Cross, because that’s the only way that any of this stuff is going to be redeemed, is going to be given any meaning or value in our life: we have to consciously place it under the Cross, unite it to the Cross.  We’re usually pretty good at understanding all that in theory, but in practice we still rail against it.  But we have to get our theory and our practice together.  We have to get what we learn in prayer and Scripture reading and worship and put all that into daily life, into the problems of daily life, because they’re always going to be there.  So we have to have a way to manage that, to be able to live in peace and even in joy, at least in hope of better things to come.  But the Cross is the way for us and the Lord gives it for that.

There’s a kind of ambivalence about the Cross, because we flee the Cross in a sense.  We associate the Cross with sufferings and trials and all unpleasant things of life, but at the same time it’s our salvation and something we long for and need, our only way to Paradise.  So that mystery, that paradox of the Cross, we have to embrace.  Not liking the pain of suffering, yet embracing the mystery which transforms that suffering into life everlasting and into sanctification and holiness and prayer for the good of the whole world.  The Cross is the way to paradise, the way out of the misery of this world—contrary to what other people think, that the cross is the misery of the world.  It’s just the opposite.  We have to unite the misery to the Cross, lift it up, transform it.  Jesus will make all things new.

Christ crucified is God’s answer to our questions about life and love and sin and salvation and sorrow and death and God and man.  The Father has spoken his final word in the life and death and resurrection of his Son. So hear the word of the Lord and embrace the Cross, your only hope of salvation.  When we stand before God in judgment, our destiny is sealed.  There’s no second chance at that time.  Our lives will either be an eternal success or an eternal failure.  There’s nothing in between after the Day of Judgment.  God holds out to us the way of salvation and calls out to us through the parched mouth of his dying Son, “I thirst!” I thirst for your salvation.  Come to Me.  Come to Me while there is yet time.  Do not be afraid of the Cross.  It is your only hope, the only key to the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem.

Enough then of complaining.  Enough running from suffering.  Stand in the full dignity of the image in which you were created.  Stand as mature men and women of God and follow your Savior along the narrow and rough path to the kingdom of glory.

The Letter to the Hebrews today calls us to approach the throne of grace with confidence, to receive mercy and grace and help in time of need.  The Cross is the throne of grace and the King of the Jews was nailed to it so that grace could flow in endless streams from his hands and feet and from that Divine Heart torn open to reveal the source of everlasting love.

Today is not just another day of Lent.  It is a day of judgment, a day of salvation, a day of decision.  Are we going to be Christians or are we not?  Are we going to take up our cross and follow Jesus or are we not?  Are we going to give our lives for Jesus’ sake and for the Gospel or are we not?  Jesus will give you strength for the journey.  He will give you Bread from Heaven and the New Wine of the Kingdom: real food, real drink, as He said.  Christ abiding in us and we in Him.  And He will raise us up on the last day.

Hearing God (anew)

[Here’s one from 2006, a good Lenten theme.]

“I will hear what the Lord God has to say,” wrote the Psalmist. Hearing the voice of the Lord seems to be one of the main concerns and desires of those who seek Him in earnest. I think we would all love to hear what the Lord God has to say to us (unless we have a particularly guilty conscience, but even then…), yet if your experience is like most, trying to discover precisely what the Lord is saying can end up as a frustrating, confusing, or generally discouraging endeavor, simply because of the lack of clarity and certainty.

Well, don’t get your hopes up too high; I’m not going to provide some foolproof answer or secret for discerning the voice of the Lord. But I will share a couple points that may at least help you clear out some obstacles that may hinder your search.

John Tauler, OP (+1361) has something to say about hearing the voice of the Lord. He says we don’t hear it because we have made ourselves deaf. Listen: “It is very important to understand what makes men deaf. From the time that the first man opened his ears to the voice of the Enemy, he became deaf, and all of us after him, so that we cannot hear or understand the sweet voice of the Eternal Word. Yet we know that the Eternal Word is still so unutterably near to us inwardly, in the very principle of our being, that not our humanity itself, our own nature, our own thoughts, nor anything that can be named or said or understood, is so near or planted so deep within us as the Eternal Word. It is ever speaking in us; but we do not hear it because of the deep deafness that has come upon us… What is this deeply hurtful whispering of the Enemy? It is every disordered image or suggestion that starts up in your mind, whether belonging to your creaturely desires and wishes, or this world and everything that belongs to it; whether it be wealth, reputation, even friends or relations, or your own nature, or whatever lays hold of your imagination. Through all these things he has his access to your soul…” (Second Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity).

This is worth sustained reflection. As soon as we open our ears to evil, we become deaf to God. This doesn’t mean only externally listening to something bad; it means “listening,” that is, paying attention, to all that enters our consciousness that is not of God, all that we allow to inhabit our thoughts and emotions and desires. All these things create an interior clamor, a sub-conscious cacophony that drowns out anything the Spirit of God might wish to say. For the Lord does not wish to compete with other voices; his is not merely one among many. He is the Word from all eternity, through whom all things were made. He does not need to out-shout the deceitful hawkers of happiness that so many flock to hear. He simply is, and his very being is Word and Truth. We must explicitly seek Him, casting out all the noisy inner idols and anything that disturbs the serenity of truth and love. Close yourself to the seductive and insistent voice of the enemy, and you will be ready to open yourself to the voice of the Word.

Marko Rupnik, SJ, offers another helpful point: “Discernment is prayer, the constant asceticism of renouncing my own will and thoughts… Such an attitude is possible only if one is enraptured in a wave of love, because to accomplish this a radical humility is necessary. Humility…best guarantees the process of discernment. However, as we well know, humility is like freedom: it is only found in love and is a constant dimension of love, and outside of love it does not exist, in the same way that love without humility is no longer love… The exercise of discernment leads us to this foundational experience of God’s love, which can them become a constant, prayerful attitude of discernment, of acquiring the humility that is above all docility, that is, the attitude of ‘letting speak’” (Discernment: Acquiring the Heart of God).

So, in order to “let God speak,” and to be able to hear, we must not only clear out the evil or cluttersome thoughts and intrusions, we have to have a disposition of humble love. God is not going to speak to someone who is angrily shouting at Him, or who is telling Him how He should run the world, or who is whining about trifles. God speaks to those who say, “Speak, Lord, your servant listens,” or “Let it be done to me according to your word.” He speaks to those who, like Mary of Bethany, sit at his feet and listen to his word, who listen because they love, and because they know He has the words of eternal life. He speaks to those who come without self-interest, without curiosity to know the future or the answers to life’s inscrutable mysteries, but who come saying only, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.”

Let this be enough for starters. I may have more to say in the future, but for now I still have to listen for what the Lord God may be saying about how to listen to what He is saying! Even the two points above can help us go a long way toward developing a listening heart. But are we willing to sacrifice our familiar inner idols in order to hear the living God? Are we willing to close our inner lives to every voice that is not of God? Every time we entertain the voice of the enemy, we become a little more deaf to God, yet we blame Him for not speaking more clearly.

If we are trying to tune in a radio station and are just a little off, there will be other stations interfering, or there will be static, and we will not hear our station clearly. Tune in to God, precisely—tune out interfering voices. Then begin to enjoy the music of Heaven!

The Aftermath (Part 2)

If you really loved the one who died, however, don’t expect to “get over” your loss anytime soon.  No one can replace the one you lost, and you can’t just put on a happy face after a little while and tell yourself that everything is fine now.  It isn’t.  It may take a long time, and there will always be little reminders, memories, and other experiences to renew your sense of loss and your tears.  There’s no simple solution to human sorrow.  Each of us has to live through it as best we can, trying to keep the balance between a healthy sense of grief and the courage and hope to go on living the rest of our life.

You still can grow through the experience, you can learn valuable lessons and benefit from all the ways your loved ones have enriched your life.  Then go on living—while keeping them in “eternal memory.”  Life is not meant to be easy; it is meant to be good.  Sometimes it is only through experiences that push us to the limits of pain and endurance that we can feel the supportive hand of God, stand in awe before the Cross of Jesus, and begin to sense the dawn of a New Day breaking over the weathered graveyards of this sorrowful world.  If we struggle with the will of God in times of grief or suffering, let us be patient.  Though our vision is now veiled, we will at length recognize with crystal clarity the utter goodness of God—and we will know why things really couldn’t have been any other way—when our mortal slumber is gently awakened by the divine command: “I say to you, arise.”

Once we have accepted the hard fact of death and of the pain of our own bereavement, the healing can begin, hope can surface, and life can once again become joyful—perhaps with an awareness of a new and more spiritual relationship with the one who has departed.  In his Letter of Consolation to the Bereaved, the Greek Archbishop Augoustinos Kantiotes writes: “Death does not break the connection between those living on earth with those who have passed on to the other world.  Preserve those bonds.  Commemorate those who have gone to the world of eternity.”

Our whole life on earth is a journey toward death, and our death begins our eternal journey into the inexhaustible riches of the life and love of the All-holy Trinity.  If we make the necessary and sustained efforts to stay on the “narrow path” that leads to eternal happiness, we have nothing to fear, for the Lord has created and redeemed us so that we can live with Him in joy forever.  We must encourage our loved ones now to share the blessed vision of the Gospel, so that when death strikes we will not only grieve but will go on with hope that we are all moving in the same direction, all sharing the same glorious destiny, and that we will all be united forever in holy joy.

Laura has gone home; she has completed her earthly journey.  None of us is very far behind, so let us pray for the grace and mercy of the Lord, who has created and redeemed us so that we may have everlasting life.  “The Lord will protect your journeying and your homecoming, henceforth and forever” (Ps 121:8).

I would like to conclude this chapter with a few excerpts from an article included in an anthology of the works of Thomas Howard.  He speaks in a straightforward yet eloquent manner of the struggles of suffering, death, and grief, and he leaves us with a profound hope in what the goodness of God is working behind the scenes.

“Someone finds he has cancer; the medical treadmill begins, with its implacable log of defeat; hope is marshaled, begins the march, is rebuffed at every juncture, flags, rouses, flags again, and is finally quietly mustered out… everyone is dragged into the maelstrom that marks the place where our experience eddies into the sea of the divine will. The whole question of prayer gapes open…  And meanwhile, the surgery goes on its horrific way, and the radiation burns on, week after grim week; and suffering sets in, and the doctors hedge and dodge into the labyrinthine linoleum-and-stainless-steel bureaucracy of the hospital world, and our hearts sicken, and we try to avert our eyes from the black flag that is fluttering wildly on the horizon, mocking us.

“And the questions come stealing over us: ‘Where is now their God?’ ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ ‘He trusted in God that he would deliver him…’ and so on… We look for some light.  We look for some help… But only dead silence.  Blank.  Nothing…

“For [those whose loved ones died despite their prayers] there was no walking and leaping and praising God.  No embracing and ecstatic tears of reunion.  Only the silence of shrouds and sepulchers, and then the turning back, not just to the flat routines of daily life, but to the miserable duel with the tedious voices pressing in upon their exhausted imaginations with, ‘Right! Now where are you?  Tell us about your faith now!  What’d you do wrong?’…

“But there is more.  Turning again to the disclosure of God in Scripture, we seem to see that, in his economy, there is no slippage.  Nothing simply disappears.  No sparrow falls without his knowing (and, one might think, caring) about it.  No hair on anybody’s head is without its number.  Oh, you say, that’s only a metaphor; it’s not literal.  A metaphor of what, then? we might ask.  Is the implication there that God doesn’t keep tabs on things?

“And so we begin to think about all our prayers and vigils and fastings and abstinences, and the offices and sacraments of the Church that have gone up to the throne on behalf of the sufferer.  They have, apparently, been lost in the blue.  They have vanished, as no sparrow, no hair, has ever done.  Hey, what about that?  And we know that this is false.  It is nonsense.  All right then—we prayed, with much faith or with little; we searched ourselves; we fasted; we anointed and laid on hands; we kept vigil.  And nothing happened.

“Did it not?  What angle of vision are we speaking from?  Is it not true that again and again in the biblical picture of things, the story has to be allowed to finish?  Was it not the case with Lazarus’ household at Bethany, and with the two en route to Emmaus?  And is it not the case with the Whole Story, actually—that it must be allowed to finish, and that this is precisely what the faithful have been watching for since the beginning of time? … And is not that Finish called glorious?  Does it not entail what amounts to a redoing of all that has gone wrong, and a remaking of all that is ruined, and a finding of all that has been lost in the shuffle, and an unfolding of it all in a blaze of joy and splendor?

“A finding of all that is lost?  All sparrows, and all petitions and tears and vigils and fastings?  Yes, all petitions and tears and vigils and fastings.  ‘But where are they?  The thing is over and done with.  He is dead.  They had no effect.’

“Hadn’t they?  How do you know what is piling up in that great treasury kept by the Divine Love to be opened in that Day?  How do you know that this death and your prayers and tears and fasts will not together be suddenly and breathtakingly displayed, before all the faithful, and before angels and archangels, and before kings and widows and prophets, as gems in that display?  Oh no, don’t speak of things being lost.  Say rather that they are hidden—received and accepted and taken up into the secrets of the divine mysteries, to be transformed and multiplied, like everything else we offer to him—loaves and fishes, or mites, or bread and wine—and given back to you and to the one for whom you kept vigil, in the presence of the whole host of men and angels, in a hilarity of glory as unimaginable to you in your vigil as golden wings are to the worm in the chrysalis” (“On Brazen Heavens,” from The Night is Far Spent).

Laura’s story has not yet come to its full finish, nor has yours or mine.  But when the Whole Story is finished, we will see clearly and rejoice eternally in the loving designs God has had for us from the very beginning.  “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1Cor. 2:9).

The Aftermath (Part 1)

[I had occasion recently to send an excerpt from Prepare for the Kingdom—the book I co-wrote with my friend Laura Grossman, who died about six years ago from cancer—to someone who was grieving the loss of a loved one.  I thought it might be good to post the short chapter on grieving, in case you or someone you know might be able to benefit from it.  Lent is a time, in the Byzantine tradition, when many prayers and services are offered for the deceased, so this might be appropriate now.]

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord… they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” (Rev 14:13). Having fought the good fight and run the race to the end, Laura’s journey to death is over, but through death her entry into life has just begun.  Her allotted time, in a proximate sense, to “prepare for the Kingdom” and to enter therein was four years to the day.  After being away for many years, she arrived at the monastery on June 29, 2003, and she was buried on June 29, 2007.  This was the time the Lord had given for her repentance unto salvation, and she responded to his gracious gift.  Not everyone receives that much time to reflect and repent.

Once she left this world, though, it was time for us to begin our journey of acceptance and grieving.  Death is utterly final; there is no turning back, no second chance.  This is the hard thing to grasp.  She was there and now she is gone; all that’s left is a corpse, her body but not her soul.  It comes as a shock even when we know very well what death means in practical terms.  I think we are never adequately prepared to experience the death of a loved one.  Having done what we can, we must simply rely on the grace of God for strength, peace, and wisdom.

It takes a long time to “process” the reality of death.  For months afterward I was still saying to myself: “I don’t get it.”  Of course I understood what had happened, but the memories and the pictures of Laura while she was alive seemed strangely, almost horribly disconnected from the image of her lying in the casket at her funeral.  How could it be the same person?  In fact, it isn’t, really, for all that was in the casket was her lifeless body.  Her essential, immortal self is still alive, yet the whole person, body and soul, whom we knew and loved, will no longer be seen in this world, and in that sense the loss is complete.  Our memory holds our loved one’s body and soul together, and that is what we know to be real in our own experience.  But the stern reality of death separates them and forces us to adapt to a new and unwelcome truth: the person we knew, as we knew her, is gone for good, and nothing in Heaven or on Earth can alter that fact.  Yet God will ultimately reunite body and soul, and in the meantime faith connects us to the soul of the departed, as we begin our patient waiting for the final reunion.

People should be allowed fully to grieve the death of their loved ones, for the pain is real and profoundly human. They should not, however, “grieve as those who have no hope” (1Thess 4:13), but rather embrace the promises of God.  Yet it is wrong to insist that someone immediately rejoice simply because their loved one has gone to God.  Laura once told me that she was never really allowed to grieve the death of her father (when she was a young woman).  She was in a charismatic community and all they wanted to do was praise the Lord, so she  simply went along with it. But it did her harm in the long run, because the grieving process is necessary, even for people of faith.  It should not be excessive or prolonged, but it must be experienced, felt, so that eventually one can continue peacefully with one’s life, trusting in the mercy and love of the Lord.  There’s a kind of inner balance between sorrow over the loss and confidence in God’s power to save and grant eternal joy.  The approach to death should not be one-sided.

In many churches today it seems that there is little understanding of the human need to grieve.  Funeral services are like parties, with jokes and silly stories about the deceased, so as to keep the spirit light and not to have people crying all over the place.  Well, I say, let them cry!  It is good for them.  They can laugh and tell stories at subsequent get-togethers with family and friends, and this also is good for them.  But when the soul of the deceased is being ritually commended to the mercy of God, one should be sober and not try to escape the heart-rending encounter with this profound mystery.  Laura insisted that she have a funeral in the Byzantine rite, so as to prevent any sort of superficial celebration.  She wanted it to be a “teaching moment” on the brevity of life and the length of eternity, on the vanity of earthly riches and pleasures, the need for repentance, and the inescapable fact of death and judgment—which is precisely the content of the texts in the Byzantine funeral service.  I had given her a small Ukrainian hand-cross, which she often held to comfort herself, and a little prayer rope for praying the Jesus Prayer.  She asked to be buried with both of these, to express her love for the Byzantine tradition.

After your loved ones die, you may regret that you did not love them enough, or did not express it adequately.  You may wish you hadn’t said or done certain things, or that you had said the things you wish you could now say.  Well, say them anyway; you will be heard.  But it is much better to do so when they are still alive, so this is a lesson to learn in dealing now with other family members or friends.  If they were to die today, would you be fully reconciled with them?  Would they die knowing that you loved them?

If your loved one has suffered much in the process of dying, you may find yourself re-living in your mind the sufferings endured, perhaps wishing you did, or could have done, more to help.  This is normal—but not very helpful.  It takes a while to somehow grasp that it is all over now, the sufferings of your dear ones are finished and forgotten, for they have entered upon eternal life and God has made all things new.  We don’t see that newness; all we see is a coffin bearing the body of our beloved, as it is lowered into the earth.  We walk wearily away, with the awareness of many “never agains” swirling through our burdened minds and aching hearts like dead leaves in an autumn wind.  The Byzantine funeral service drives this fact home, as it gives voice to the newly-departed: “Never again will I walk with you or speak to you… I am going to the Lord God, my Judge, to stand in judgment and to give an account of all my deeds.  In the meantime I ask you to pray for me, that the Savior be merciful to me when He judges me.  Thus we separate…”

You will need to be patient with people who do not share your grief, for it is a uniquely personal and intimate thing, based on your unique relationship with the one who has died.  It may seem strange to you how everyone seems oblivious to the fact that the world has been laid open to its core and its foundations shaken.  They are not aware; indeed they cannot be.  It is only your world that is thus shaken.  Keep it between you and God and your deceased loved one, and perhaps a confidant or two.  People mostly aren’t willfully insensitive; they can only see things from their own perspective, as you see them from yours.  (For your part, you will not feel the same intensity of grief that they do when one of their loved ones dies.)  But rest assured that God knows your heart and feels everything that you do, and He is with you always.

To be continued…

St Ephrem’s Prayer (Revisited)

[From the archives, March 2007; a classic topic for Lent]

There is a simple prayer by St Ephrem that is the characteristic prayer of Lent in the Byzantine tradition. It is prayed at all the Offices, even the Little Hours, on weekdays of Lent. It sets the theme or program for Lenten observances.

The prayer goes like this: “O Lord and Master of my life, dispel from me the spirit of discouragement and slothfulness, of ambition and vain talk (make a prostration here). But rather, grant to me the spirit of purity and lowliness, of patience and brotherly love (another prostration). O Lord and King, make me aware of my own faults and not to judge my brother, for You are blessed both now and forever. Amen” (one more prostration). Then: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and have pity on me” (12 times, each with a deep bow). Finally, say the whole prayer again, with just one prostration at the end.

Doing this several times a day will get you into the spirit of Lent, all right! Let’s take a quick look at the prayer itself. First we ask about the negative things, that is, what we wish to be “dispelled” from our souls. Discouragement is the first, and rightly so, since it is regarded by the saints as one of the chief enemies of spiritual life and growth. It crushes joy, obliterates hope, weakens zeal, sees everything from the most bleak and gray perspective possible—in short, it make you look and feel about as unlike a Christian as one could. That does not at all reflect the Good News that is the Gospel! Next is slothfulness. This is a real anti-virtue for Lent, because Lent is about spiritual vigilance and diligent effort. (If you haven’t started your Lenten spiritual program yet, you are probably afflicted with sloth!) Perhaps slothfulness can be seen as a fruit of discouragement, for if one is discouraged, one reduces or ceases altogether his efforts to do good, and thus ends up in that spiritual torpor called sloth.

Ambition is something that also is incompatible with Lent, for Lent is about humility and prayer and detachment from worldly pleasures and honors. As members of the Body of Christ, each of us has his own function, and no one should be ambitious for anything more than to do the will of God perfectly in our state in life. Last among the negatives, let’s talk about vain talk—now there’s one that many need to have dispelled from their lives! Ours is a garrulous society, unable to cease from its vain and mindless chatter. Cell phones stuck to every ear, constant noise and useless gabbing everywhere! You wouldn’t believe (or maybe you would) how often in the confessional I hear people accuse themselves of gossip. To curb one’s unnecessary (and especially harmful) speech and to enter into silence for the sake of prayer, examination of conscience, spiritual reading, and generally getting to know God and yourself better is one of the best things you can do for Lent (and for the rest of the year as well!).

Now for the virtues we pray for. First, the “spirit of purity.” If that blessed spirit were to take up residence in every human heart, the world would change overnight! We are constantly inundated with words and images, with seductions that create inordinate desires and wayward lusts, so much so that one might wonder if it is really possible to remain pure in the midst of it. The usual response is simply to lower one’s standards, but that approach will find no sympathy on Judgment Day, nor will it add any strength or nobility to one’s soul. We simply must pray, pray, pray, and guard the eyes, thoughts and hearts, redirecting our energies and attention to all that is good, true, beautiful, noble, and spiritually elevating. And God will have mercy.

If we attain the next virtue, lowliness or humility, we’ll have a better chance at preserving the first one. For if we recognize our lowly condition, our vulnerabilities, weaknesses and defects, we will be more likely to turn frequently to the only One who can deliver and heal us, who can lift up our souls to higher things. To be lowly is to walk the way of the One who said: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” For pride, as C.S. Lewis clearly demonstrates in Mere Christianity, is the foulest of vices, and can corrupt an otherwise virtuous life. Humility is the only antidote.

Patience is something that you may have been praying for even before you heard the Prayer of St Ephrem. This is another virtue that practically everyone needs and practically no one has. Patience with ourselves, patience with others, even patience with God, whose providential plans for us we may think are unfolding all too slowly. God is not in a hurry about anything, though it may seem that He urgently demands certain things. That is because we have been so dull of hearing that we don’t even have a clue what He wants until the last minute! But the more we are in union with Him, the more at peace we will be, and hence the more patient. And the more patient, the more understanding and forgiving. It’s worth the prayer and the effort.

Last in this series is brotherly (or sisterly, or motherly or fatherly) love—which is simply Christian love expressed to all who come our way, those with whom we live and work or even see on the street. Love is the queen of all virtues and the one, as St Paul says, that binds them all together in perfect harmony (see Col. 3). If we have not love, as he says in another place, we are nothing. But if we have love, all the other virtues will much easier be acquired and practiced.

Finally, we pray to be able to recognize our own faults and not to judge others’ faults. This alone would be a great achievement if we could integrate this awareness and practice into our daily lives. It would make it easier to acquire the spirit of lowliness and help dispel the spirit of ambition and vain talk. Thus our mouths and hearts will be free to bless our Lord and King forever.

So try it out. Pray the Prayer of St Ephrem and reflect on its meaning. It’s a whole program in itself, but hey, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Even in the short run it will help you to prepare to offer acceptable worship, in reverence and awe, as you celebrate the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Giving It Up for Lent

Lent is just about upon us.  We all have things we’re going to give up for Lent.  This year it looks like I have to give up blogging.  But wait, hold back your tears and don’t despair just yet!  I’ll try to work something out.

With the extended time I need to spend in prayer, the responsibilities of community life, and the priestly ministry, I barely have time to do my laundry, let alone write blog posts.  The days are just too full.  I get up at 2:00 or 2:30 in the morning as it is, so I can’t push that back any farther without becoming a zombie.  So at least for now the blog has got to be set aside.

But there are actually three possible solutions for you, at least in the short run.  First, there are well over 1300 posts in the archives. Now don’t try to tell me you’ve read them all!  Even if you have, be honest, you have forgotten much of what you read (just as I have forgotten much of what I wrote!).   So you can go there for a while.  (Click on the “All Father Joseph’s Posts” link on the blogroll to your right for an alphabetical list of them.)  Second, I’ll try to make that part of it a little easier (at the suggestion of a friend) by simply posting some of the oldies but goodies once a week. I will also feel free to post the occasional book review (and maybe some excerpts from my own books) or any other striking insight that I simply must share with you! Finally, you can go over to my other blog, Two Pillars, where I am now serializing a short book I’ve just written on devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  There will be a weekly post there for the next six months or so.

So stop crying. There’s enough there to keep you busy for a while, as I try to discover what is possible and what is not in my life and vocation.  Whatever happens, I’m striving to know and do the Lord’s will, and to be faithful to my devotion to Our Lady.  Seeking thus the Kingdom of Heaven, I’m sure that all things will work for the good, and for the maximum spiritual fruitfulness, for me and for the souls entrusted to my prayer, sacrifice, and ministry.  Thanks for being with me all this time, and don’t go away yet!  We’ll see what the future has in store, for God is the One who makes all things new!

Light of Revelation and Pierced Soul

[This is a homily for the Feast of the Presentation (or Meeting) of Our Lord in the Temple I gave in 2005. The feast was on February 2, but since we're still in the post-festal period, I can get away with it---and help keep you from entirely forgetting the feast once the day has passed!]

There are several ironies in the text of the Gospel for this feast. First of all, it says that the time came for Mary’s purification. In the Latin Church they used to call this feast Purification of Mary; at least that was one of the names of the feast. That in itself is quite an irony, that the all-pure and undefiled one comes for purification!  It’s something like Christ having to be baptized along with a bunch of sinners.

Another irony is that the ever-blessed and completely sinless one had to make a sin offering in the temple. That’s what the doves are about. As we heard in the readings for Vespers, in one offering, one of the doves is offered—or a lamb if you can afford it—for a holocaust and the other dove for a sin-offering. So the Mother of God, the all-pure, is purified, and the sinless one makes a sin-offering.

Well, we know from the Old Testament that this impurity that has to be taken care of is a ritual impurity. It has simply to do with the flow of blood that happens when you give birth to a child. So Mary’s having to be purified is not a matter of moral or spiritual purification, it’s simply a legal ritual purification, which she underwent in obedience to the law, just as Christ submitted to the various rules and regulations of the law that He didn’t really have to.

Another irony here is that they bring Jesus to present Him to God. The one who was in intimate and ontological communion with the Father and the Spirit for all eternity now is offered to God!  And “every male that opens the womb is called holy to the Lord,” set apart for the Lord. Again, that’s like the understatement of the millennium, that this one should be called holy to the Lord, the all-Holy Son of God Himself!

So they come into the temple to perform these rituals and they meet Simeon. Now I think we could probably call him “St. Simeon the Old Theologian” because first of all, at least tradition has it that he was an old man. I’m sure he wasn’t three hundred and some years old like some of the pious legends say, but he was most likely an old man. Also it says that he was righteous and devout, and the traditional definition in the Eastern Church is that a theologian is one who prays, one who is in union with God.

He had seen the one that he was waiting for. The Holy Spirit told him that he would not die until he saw the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one of the Lord. That was a great thing, because everyone was waiting for the Messiah, but no one knew exactly when He was going to come. Now Simeon was told, He’s going to come in your lifetime. That was a great joy and hope for him, and he obviously rejoiced when that happened. Then he began his famous hymn, “Lord now you may let your servant go in peace.”

He says, You can let me go, obviously because the prophecy has been fulfilled. So he says, “My eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the presence of all people.” That’s significant. “A light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.”  This is actually quite extraordinary at this time; this is long before St. Paul started preaching about the mystery of God that has been finally revealed, that the Gentiles, all people, are eligible for salvation through Christ. This was one of the great themes of St. Paul’s gospel. But now, when St. Paul was probably not even born, Simeon the old theologian included the Gentiles in the saving work of God, saying “You have come for salvation for all peoples.”  This is the first intimation in the gospel that the Messiah of Israel is the Savior of the world, of all peoples, the Gentiles too.

“His father and mother marveled at what was being said.” Now maybe we marvel that Mary marveled at this, because we would think that, being who she is and having had all these other revelations herself, she would have sort of taken it all in stride. But if, as it says at the end of the gospel, that Jesus Himself, the Son of God, had to grow in wisdom and grace before God, then certainly someone who is a mere mortal also had to grow in wisdom and grace and understanding.

The things that happened in her life and her experience with her little Son were a progressive revelation to her. So little by little, as all these events came about, the birth of Jesus with the shepherds and the Magi, Mary was pondering these things in her heart and reflecting upon these mysteries. And now, hearing this prophecy, she marvels at what was being said about Him. Perhaps she was marveling that other people knew who her little baby was. I mean, the Kid was only forty days old! He didn’t have time to be introduced to the whole world yet. They walk into the temple and everyone knows who He is!  Anna is singing his praises and Simeon is blessing Him and making prophecies about Him. And so they marveled.

But Simeon has to be the true prophet, and the true prophet does not just prophesy sweet and wonderful things like: He is the light of revelation, salvation and glory. It can never end there, because the true prophet is always going to give the hard saying. The true prophet is always going to cut to the quick of whatever the situation is that he’s prophesying about. So he says to Mary his mother, “Behold this child is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel,” and so far that’s not so bad, but, “a sign that is to be contradicted,” that is, literally, spoken against, “and a sword will pierce through your own soul.” So here then is the prophecy of suffering that is going to come, the prophecy of contradiction.

As St. Paul says, anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus can expect to be persecuted. And Jesus Himself said, the world hates Me because I testify against it that its works are evil. So if you speak the truth, someone’s going to hate you. If you speak the truth, someone’s going to persecute you and attack you and try to make your life miserable. It’s always been that way and it will probably always be that way, because there is sin in the world and sinners will fight the truth because they can’t stand to face it. They will fight the light because they are used to living in darkness, and that’s where they want to stay. Well, tough. If we’re going to stand for Christ, we speak the truth and take whatever comes from it. He said, “No servant is greater than his master. They persecuted me and they’ll persecute you too.”

This all brings us to the Cross. The sword piercing Mary’s soul is the prophecy of her suffering at the foot of the Cross.  The Cross is the place where the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed, because the Cross is the place of judgment and of mercy. It’s the place of mercy for those who come to the Cross with faith and repentance. But it’s a place of judgment for those who come to the Cross with arrogance or pride, and who stand there without repenting. It’s like those who mocked and ridiculed Christ as He was suffering: they were at the Cross all right, but the Cross was judgment for them. But for those who stood at the Cross with love for Jesus—St John and Our Lady and the others—the Cross was mercy and salvation.

We see that Mary was present at the two offerings of Christ here. At the offering of Him in the Temple as a Child she was present, and at the offering of Christ to his Father on the Cross as a sacrifice for our salvation she was also present. That’s like the bookends of her life with Christ, which was a continual offering of Him to the Father. So she offers Him in the Temple. And she had to offer Him again, let go of Him, for his ministry to the world. She couldn’t keep Him at home. She had to let Him go out and be a sign of contradiction and take the flak from the Pharisees and everybody else who refused to believe in the truth and embrace the light. And finally, she had to make the ultimate offering of Him on the Cross, giving Him back to the Father as the sacrificed Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. That marked her whole life, that offering of her Son to God.

Now we have a purification to undergo, too, and we don’t have the advantage of being all-pure and saying, well, this is just a legal ritual purification that we have to go through. No, we really have to be purified because we really have sins and faults and bad habits and impurities that have to be purged out of us. Our purification is basically through prayer, fasting, confession and Communion.

We’re actually very fortunate. It’s very easy for us to receive forgiveness of sins. We don’t have to kill a bird in sacrifice to get forgiveness of sins. All we have to do is go to confession and receive absolution and then we have forgiveness. We don’t have to make sin-offerings in the Temple. But the most foundational and probably the most effective means of purification is suffering.

The Coptic monk Matthew the Poor says, “Suffering is more powerful than worship,” and that’s a really strong statement, because you can come to church and say “Glory be to You, O Lord” and all the rest, and still come away unmoved. But if you suffer, and through that suffering allow yourself to be drawn into that sacrifice of Christ, that changes you and affects you on a very deep level, which you will not soon forget—like you can forget whatever you said or did in the church as soon as you walk out.

We have to accept the sword piercing the soul. Are we greater than the Mother of God, that we think that we don’t have to go through suffering for our communion with God?  If she, the sinless undefiled one, had to do that, then we deserve to be punished for our sins and to suffer, as a matter of justice. But as Matthew the Poor also said, since Christ has suffered for us, our suffering doesn’t have the character of punishment anymore. It has the character of sacrifice, of offering, of purification, of a gift of love received from God and given back to God.

So on this feast of Jesus being presented to God in the Temple, let us present ourselves, or allow ourselves to be presented in the hands of Mary to Christ. And being presented, we make a present of ourselves; we make a gift of ourselves to God. And finally, we come to the Temple here to receive the Eucharist, which is, as Simeon says, our salvation, our light, and the glory that God wishes to communicate to us. Christ is present in the Eucharist as the light of revelation and is the glory of his people, a glory now that is veiled in the sacramental signs, but a glory which is real and will be manifested fully at the last day.

If we are faithful, if we accept suffering, and if we accept God’s will in all things, then that dwelling of God in the temple of our own bodies will be manifest, and it will be the glory of his people Israel and our salvation and our light. Once we embrace all that wholeheartedly, making the gift of ourselves to God and thanking Him for all of his gifts to us, then we will, sooner or later, be able to depart in peace unto everlasting life.

Babies!

Now that I live in South City I can do things like join in the Walk for Life West Coast, the smaller but no less enthusiastic pro-life event that is a counterpart to the great annual March for Life in Washington, DC.  So I did that this year; first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.  The crowd that marched through “the belly of the beast,” the middle of San Francisco, was 50,000 strong, making a statement that the fight for the right to life is undaunted by recent electoral setbacks.  The voices that cry out for justice for the unborn will not be silenced.

I was encouraged and edified by the testimonies and inspirational exhortations of the several speakers. I was also rather unexpectedly moved by the singing of the national anthem at the beginning of the event. I found myself grieving over the increasing destruction of our country by Obama and those in league with him and with the devil, and I begged the Lord to have mercy on this once-great nation, and I also begged Our Lady of America to intercede for us.  There are still many good people left, but we are more and more oppressed by political agendas that intend to destroy the moral foundations of America and turn this country into something never envisioned by our founding fathers—still less by God, who richly blessed this country for the sake of serving Him and helping others throughout the world, while being a witness to his righteousness and truth.  All that is out the window now.  The only things Obama is interested in are abortion, gay marriage, and increasingly robbing us of our national sovereignty and religious freedom (among other freedoms).  But as one of the speakers insisted, the truth will always overcome lies—just and Christ conquered death by his resurrection—and those who fight for the rights of the unborn will not cease fighting until every child has a right to live.  The harder people work to restore the right to life—and to help pregnant women with effective counsel and concrete material resources—more and more babies will be saved, even if the laws don’t change for quite some time.

The atmosphere was festive and joyful, and countless banners and signs were carried, proudly displaying the pro-life message in various ways.  What was notable about this rally was that there were more young people than older people, which means the future belongs to those who stand up for life. The movement isn’t dying; it is growing. I had to smile when a few teenagers walked by chanting: “Babies! Babies!” You could feel the power of goodness, the energy of life, the spirit of prayer. Rosaries were prayed along the walk, hymns were sung, people talked and renewed acquaintances, as we did once again what liberal unbelievers stood on the sidewalks shaking their heads over: 50,000 people were praising God and a upholding a most unpopular message in a city where it is more unpopular than most: downtown San Francisco, of all places!  (Though one of the locals—I hope she wasn’t drunk—said, with apparent wonder and delight: “Saints are walking the streets of San Francisco!)

Of course, there were some counter-demonstrations, few and small, and hardly anyone paid them any attention.  There was only one place where some of them lined up with signs and angry, obscene shouting, but the walkers just sang “Ave Maria” a little louder and kept on going.  I didn’t read all the signs, but there was one that said something about “Christian Fascists” and a few others that read: “Abortion on demand, and without apology.”  That was pretty scary, for their sake.  It’s just like saying: “Mortal sin, and without repentance,” which is precisely how you get to end up in Hell for all eternity.  So I put them all on the mop-up list, in hopes that some will respond to God’s offer of the grace of final repentance before they exit this world.  The spirit between the two groups was so radically different: the pro-lifers were joyful, prayerful, peaceful, as they stood up for what is dear and precious in this life.  The pro-aborts were angry, hateful, bitter, obscene, as they promoted death and the debauched lifestyle of the godless.  To which group would you prefer to belong?

As the march came to a close, the group I was with gathered for prayer on a sidewalk in front of the Diva International Salon (!).  By this time the streets were re-filling with the usual crowds, some of whom gave us bewildered looks, some of whom obviously couldn’t care less who we were. So in a sense life would go on there as it had before. Yet something had changed, a blessing was given, grace was being offered, for God had been glorified in those few hours in a place where his name is seldom spoken with devotion.

As we prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet, something was impressed upon me as I looked up to the bit of clear blue sky that could be seen between the sky-scraping icons of money and power in the heart of The City.  It was the Lord upon his Cross, but with rays of grace and mercy streaming from his holy wounds.  It became very clear to me that the Lord loves all these lost souls and intensely desires to save them.  He really, really wants to!  But He will not force them.  They seem to be oblivious of Him and of his call to repentance and salvation. A symbol (and an actual instrument) of this is the almost ubiquitous presence of electronic devices and phones into which nearly everyone was plugged into or mindlessly staring at. We noticed it on the subway trip as well.  Almost all of them sat there mesmerized, glued to their screens.  It seems to me that it must be really hard to hear the voice of God when all kinds of loud noises are being pumped into your ears and endless images imprinted on your brain all throughout the day. The devil must be gloating over this advance in technology by which he can seal off minds from God, distracting them endlessly from the One Thing Necessary.

So it was a day of blessing and a day of hope, but also a day in which it was made all the more clear that the battle for souls is still raging fiercely. As we stand up for the life of the unborn, we ought also to pray and sacrifice for the eternal life of those who have sold their souls to a lifestyle that ends up in eternal death.  But that Cross is still there; those wounds are still shining; that divine love and mercy are still being offered; the Mother of God and all the Saints and Angels are still interceding. Let us continue to work, and work harder, to protect the little ones and to save the souls of the wicked ones.  For the Lord wants his house to be full.

The Testimony of God

The First Epistle of the Blessed Apostle John (in today’s pedestrian parlance, the First Letter of John) is a profound reflection on the mystery of God.  There’s only one point I want to mention here, though, something that was read at Holy Mass a week or two ago.  It’s a very solemn pronouncement.  Actually, the whole of the word of God is a solemn pronouncement, but I think we get desensitized to the grandeur and depth of it, since we read and hear it so often.  Anyway, this is about as clear and black-and-white a testimony as you’ll ever hear from the Holy Spirit.  St John prepares us for it by saying: “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.”  So we know something big is coming.  “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life” (1Jn. 5:9-12).

Now it may seem to you that this is nothing more than Christianity 101.  But think of it.  God gave us eternal life.  If He gave it to us, it means we didn’t have it before He gave it to us—which means if He didn’t give it to us we would have the only alternative: eternal death, i.e., Hell.  God gave us this eternal life by giving us his Son, his eternal Divine Word made flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He gave Him first through Mary so that by assuming our flesh He could heal our wounded nature, uniting the divine nature to it in his own Person.  Further, having assumed human nature, Jesus allowed Himself to be sacrificed on the Cross to expiate our sins and to make us eligible to receive eternal life.

So the gift of eternal life is inseparable from the giving of the Son to the world.  That is why “he who has the Son has life,” and, the inescapable alternative: “he who has not the Son of God has not life.”  Therefore the testimony of God is crucially important to us.  It is a matter of eternal life and eternal death.  We have to pay close attention to what the Son has said and done, not only as He walked the earth, but throughout history until the present day, for his Spirit still speaks through the Church.

What He has done in this world is reveal the Father to us.  He has called us to faith and repentance, and to a life of obedience to the will of God, so that we might enter the Kingdom of Heaven forever.  But He didn’t leave us detailed instructions concerning every time and every place and every question or crisis that would arise for however many thousands of years would pass between his first coming and his second. (You can’t use the Bible for this; some tried to, and that is why there are tens of thousands of denominations which came into existence over disagreements on what the Bible means. Once you split off from the Rock, you keep splitting and splitting and splitting, until it becomes impossible to recover the whole truth; history has borne this out.)

What Jesus did do was establish his Church for that very reason.  The Church would be his presence and his voice throughout the ages.  As the world grew and developed, the Church would apply the word of God as the Spirit would lead her, to meet every need that would arise, and to gradually manifest the hidden depths of the inexhaustible divine revelation.

The Catholic Church has ever been growing from its mustard-seed form in Jesus’ time to the large and mature tree that now is able to shelter all in its branches.  Over time the Church’s theological reflection has deepened, and fresh fruit-bearing shoots have sprung up from that Single Grain which fell to the earth and died (see Jn. 12:24).  Our understanding of, for example, the mysteries of the Sacraments, of the Mother of God, and of the Communion of Saints has become more profound and fruitful, enriching the souls of the children of the Church.  All this is because God gave us eternal life, and this life in is his Son—and the Church, which has the Son, has life.

It is God’s will that we find life in Him through the Church.  The Church is the minister of the sacraments, without which we cannot be saved.  We are not saved merely as individuals who are following our individual way to God by believing in Christ.  St John subtly makes this point in this same Epistle.  When he testifies about the Word of Life, whom he has seen and touched, and the whole mystery of eternal life, he says this, which must seem quite strange to those who seek salvation outside of the Church: “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have communion with us; and our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1:3).  Notice he did not say that he proclaims the Gospel so that the individual reader of his epistle might have his own communion with God, as if one could have this in an isolated or self-designed fashion, a do-it-yourself spirituality, according to one’s own interpretation of the Bible or of Christianity.  No, he says, it is so that your communion may be with us, and our communion is with the Father and the Son.  The Gospel is proclaimed so that we might enter into communion with the Church Jesus established, and it is through the Church that we have communion with God.  You can’t legitimately make up your own brand of me-‘n’-Jesus religion.  Jesus calls us to communion with the Most Holy Trinity through his Church, through which his saving grace is granted to us.

So hear the testimony of God.  The gift of eternal life is in his Son.  And this life is given to us through the Church, the one headed by the successor of St Peter, for this is the testimony of the Son of God: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven…” (Mt. 16:18-19).  From and in and through the Church we receive the Son and eternal life.  This is the testimony of God.

Effective Love

The First Great Commandment is that we are to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength.  But what does it mean to love God?  Is it to feel loving toward Him or to be ravished by the outpourings of his divine mercy and goodness?  Is it to find satisfaction and joy in the contemplation of God’s perfections and mysteries?  Is love for God at the basis of our gratitude for his gifts?

There is truth in all the above, but an essential element is missing.  For it may often be the case that we are not always (or ever) aflame with loving emotion or gushing with sweet pious sentiments toward the Lord. It may be, for example, that knowing we have to render an account of our lives to One who will pronounce the verdict on our eternal destiny, and who also happens to dwell in blindingly brilliant divine majesty that makes even the highest angels shield their faces, might make us just a bit hesitant to snuggle up to Him, at least on an emotional level. Yet I think we do feel a mysterious attraction to God, such that He is never far from our consciousness and our longing for happiness, and, as St Augustine famously said, our hearts are restless until they rest in God.  We are called to love Him, and our lives are ultimately meaningless if we don’t.

The following considerations are taken from the book, Spiritual Combat Revisited, by Fr Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory. Philosophically seen, “if we are moved positively by something, then we are said to love it; if we experience it as repellent, then we are said to hate it.”  So love has something to do with appropriating the object of our desires, and hate is about rejecting what interferes with obtaining what we desire.  At this level, to love is first knowing or being aware that the object of our desire exists, and then beginning a movement toward it.  Or it can be said that one finds a certain object attractive, moves toward it with the purpose of experiencing or possessing it, in order finally to rest in joy in the attainment of the desired object.

Now this may seem rather stiff and formal when talking about God, yet it helps us understand something about the approach to, and relationship with, the One who calls us to love Him wholeheartedly.  “In a mysterious and profound way we are moved to love God.  We hardly know what the words mean, and there are any number of ways that this love first impresses itself upon us.  But love, once awakened in us, leads to the desire for God, and the desire for God will not be satisfied until we are united with him.”

Up to this point, though, it seems like nothing more is required of us than to believe God exists, to experience his attracting power, to move willingly toward Him and then be united with Him in joy.  But the Lord puts the brakes on our rapture with a little reality check.  He never says in the Bible that we have to gush with loving feelings for Him or whisper sweet nothings into his ear.  Jesus says this: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments… He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me… Do you love me? … Feed my sheep” (Jn. 14:15, 21; 21:17).  He won’t ask us on Judgment Day how we felt about Him, but whether or not we did the Father’s will (see Mt. 7:21; 25:31-46).

Fr Robinson, offering an analogy, remarks: “We look with some suspicion on a man who says he loves his wife but makes no effort to help her or who is consistently unfaithful…”  Love involves a genuine and unrelenting effort to serve and to please the beloved.  St Francis de Sales says that the two principal means of loving God are affective love and effective love.  Affective love means being drawn to God and being pleased with Him and all his goodness (if there is an emotional component, it will be found here).  Effective love leads us simply to do his will.  This is both practical and indispensable. “To develop effective love,” says Fr Robinson, “we have to learn how to operate in the real world in a way more conformable to the will of God… If we are going to be united with God, then we must first of all subject ourselves to the law of Christ in action as well as in intention.”

In order to do this we need to renounce our own will in favor of God’s, which means, in part, not “determining for ourselves the moral standards and the goals by which we are to live.”  Effective love of God therefore “means a determined effort to live a Christian life by Christian standards in every circumstance of our lives.”  There are many “alternative lifestyles” offered by the world, which do not express the truth of the Gospel of Christ. But if we really do love God, we will follow his commandments, for these are designed to enable us to live the good, beautiful, true, and fruitful life that keeps us on the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Finally, we have to willingly accept God’s providence, and to try to actually will what God wills for us, to choose to do all for the glory of God, and to act in such a way as to do the things He has told us are pleasing to Him, recognizing that God is infinitely worthy of any and all labors and sacrifices we can offer, even that of our very lives.

So let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we love God merely because we feel or say that we do, and, on the other hand, let us not be discouraged if there’s not much emotional content to our love for Him. What He is looking for is our fidelity, our hearing his word and keeping it. If we believe in Him, recognize his infinite goodness, move toward Him by means of our wills for the sake of uniting with Him who is our ultimate and eternal joy and fulfillment; if we accept his providence (and his paternal discipline) and seek to please and glorify Him, not sparing ourselves in his service, but renouncing ourselves for his sake, striving to keep ourselves pure and charitable in thought, word, and deed; and if we live our lives in faithful obedience to his commandments—then behold, we love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength!

This is what God asks of us. This is what pleases Him. This is effective love.