Author: Daniel Scofield, MTS

Scott Hahn, founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, writes that in the early Church, as today, Easter was the normal time for the baptism of adult converts. The sacrament was often called “illumination” or “enlightenment” because of the light that came with God’s saving grace. St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, speaks of the glory that leads to greater glories still: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,” he writes, as he looks to the divinization of the believers. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that God put us into this world with huge hearts, hearts as deep as the Grand Canyon. As St. Augustine describes it, the human heart is not fulfilled by anything less than infinity itself. There’s nothing small about the human heart. The early Church Fathers taught that each of us has two hearts, two souls: there is a small, petty heart, a pusilla anima, which is the heart within which we are chronically irritated and angry, the heart within which we feel the unfairness of life, the heart within which we sense others as a threat, the heart within which we feel envy and bitterness, and the heart within which greed, lust, and selfishness breakthrough. But the Church Fathers taught that inside of each of us there was also another heart, a magna anima, a huge, deep, big, generous, and noble heart. This is the heart we operate out of when we are at our best. This is the heart within which we feel empathy and compassion. This is the heart within which we are enflamed with noble ideals. Inside each of us, sadly often buried under suffocating wounds that keep if far from the surface, lies the heart of a saint, bursting to get out. St. Paul’s words today to the Ephesians speak to their “hope” in “his inheritance among the holy ones,” the saints who have been adopted into God’s family and now rule with him. It’s the good news we must spread today within the hugeness of our hearts, where we inchoately feel God’s presence in faith and hope and proclaim to others in charity, forgiveness, and through our lived life that God has infinite love for every one of us.

From Baptism onwards, every Christian is called by Christ to perform a mission. In the gospel reading from Luke, we see Jesus sending the disciples into every town and place where he is to come. He sends them on the Church’s apostolate, an apostolate that is one yet has different forms and methods, an apostolate that must all the time be adapting itself to the needs of the moment; he sends them on an apostolate where they are to show themselves his cooperators, doing their full share continually in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord their labor cannot be lost. St John Chrysostom comments that the Lord’s direction in sending the disciples outward “suffices to give us encouragement, to give us confidence and to ensure that we are not afraid of our assailants.” The apostles’ and disciples’ boldness stemmed from their firm conviction that they were on a God-given mission: they acted, as Peter, the apostle, confidently explained to the Sanhedrin, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, “for there is no other name under heaven … by which we must be saved.” St. John Henry Newman writes, “Everyone has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random. God sees every one of us. God creates every soul for a purpose. God needs every one of us. God has an end for each of us; we are all equal in God’s sight. As Christ has his work, we too have ours; as he rejoiced to do his work, we must rejoice in ours also.” It is far easier to stay in our comfortable world, within the confines of the known, the safe bastions of our churches. We conjure up all kinds of reasons for not heading the call, much like Moses and the prophets of old. We say to God, “Not me, for I am unable to do this,” instead of saying, “Take me, God, for you are with me always.”

In Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, he explains that we have been predestined to be adopted sons in the Son through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Through receiving “the Spirit of adoption of sons,” a completely new life is bestowed upon the Christian, fundamentally changing his existence.  As a consequence of this filiation, the Christian is now able to address the Father as Abba, the same term of intimacy by which the Son addresses his Father.  Thus, through adoption, the Christian is drawn into the Son’s own relationship with the Father. The adoption of the Christian takes place through his incorporation into the Church through baptism. The Catechism states that “we can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life, by adopting us as his children, in his only Son.” The Eucharist plays a pivotal role in this adoption process, as it is through the Eucharistic that humankind participates in the life of Christ and, therefore, in his life as Son. It is through the spiritual worship of the Eucharist that man enters into union with the Son.  He encounters the Logos, made flesh, who has already spoken to man through the Liturgy of the Word. This Logos draws man to himself, in his total sacrifice on the Cross, made present in the Eucharistic Prayer, and into his self-surrender to the Father, in the Holy Spirit.  Thus, in participating in the Eucharist Prayer, and especially in receiving Communion, man receives and enters into the very life of the Son in his filial relationship with the Father. The Son assumed our nature so that we might share in his nature; this is a sign of God’s unfathomable love for us.

Few expressions so succinctly summarize what is asked of us as Christians, as does the expression: “to live in the Spirit.” We are living in the spirit when, in our lives, there is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” The Holy Spirit, as classically defined in theology, is “the love between the God and Christ, the Father and the Son.” Fr. Rolheiser writes that it is in meditating on this concept that we come to some understanding of what it means to live in the Spirit. Imagine a man and a woman who are deeply, passionately, and completely in love. What will characterize their relationship? Constant giving and receiving, resulting in an ever-deeper relationship and an ever-intensifying gratitude – which will leave them both, daily, feeling ever more mellow, joyful, peaceful, mild, patient, chaste, and wanting to reach out and share with others what is so quickening in their own lives. Moreover, their love for each other will create an ambiance, a climate, and an atmosphere of charity, joy, peace, patience, mildness, and chastity. The movement of giving and receiving in gratitude between them will create a warm heart where others will spontaneously come to seek warmth in a world that offers too little peace, patience, joy, and the like. Such a relationship can be a modest indicator of what happens in the Trinity, of how the Father and the Son generate the Spirit, and what results from this generation. 

(1) The Father constantly creates and gives life.
(2) The Son receives life from the Father and gives it back in gratitude.
(3) This then (as is true in all relationships wherein the gift is received lovingly) makes it possible for the Father to give even more to the Son.
(4) As this flow of life, this giving and receiving, goes on, gratitude intensifies, and an energy, a spirit, the Holy Spirit, is created.
(5) This Spirit, since it is generated by gratitude, naturally is a Spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, mildness, faith, and chastity. It is then also true that a spirit is naturally incompatible with idolatry, adultery, violence, gossip, factionalism, jealousy, rage, and infidelity.

When we meditate on how the Holy Spirit is generated, we are under less illusion as to what it means to live in the Spirit.

Today, we turn our hearts to reflect on the responsorial psalm on this day when we celebrate the memorial of Saint Teresa of Avila. As Christians, we can espouse this lovely prayer more eagerly than someone reading it in the context of just the Old Testament. It is a prayer about the Word of God as heard in his Law. After speaking his word through Moses and the prophets, God has spoken definitively through Jesus Christ. Christ himself is the Word of God made flesh, and his person, his works, his teaching, and his death and resurrection are the eternal Word of God addressed to all, which brings light and salvation. The Psalms give us a voice to ask God for mercy, to soften our hearts, to wash us clean, and to provide us with a new start. There are also times when we feel bitterly disappointed with God himself and need some way to express this. The Psalms give us this voice: “Why are you so silent? Why are you so far from me?” even as they make us aware that God is not afraid of our anger and bitterness but, like a loving parent, only wants us to come and talk about it. Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

Luke’s Gospel today sheds light on our human complexity. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus begins his preaching with the word Metanoia, a word that implies infinitely more than what’s connoted in its English translation, Repent. Metanoia is an invitation to put on a higher mind, to be more noble of heart, and to leave paranoia, pettiness, and self-gratification behind. Fr. Ron Rolheiser recounts what the Czechoslovakian novelist Ivan Klima wrote a series of autobiographical essays entitled My First Loves about this moral tension he carried around, choosing to remain celibate and not for religious reasons, wondering why he was living this way. If he wondered if he died, would God look at him with disappointment, or would he congratulate him for going on without consolation? For him, it was not a question of what’s sinful or not but rather a question of carrying his solitude and tension in a way that makes for nobility of soul. At first glance, that can seem self-serving; trying to be special can also make for a very judgmental pride. However, true nobility of the soul isn’t something sought for its own sake but something sought for the good of others. One does not try to be good to set oneself apart from others. Instead, one tries to be good to create a beacon of stability, respect, hospitality, and purity for others. When I was a seminarian studying moral theology, one day in class we were examining various questions within sexual morality. At one point, the question arose as to sinfulness or non-sinfulness of masturbation. Is this an intrinsic disorder? Seriously sinful or not anything serious? What’s to be said morally about this question? After weighing the various opinions of students, the professor said this: I don’t think the important question is whether this is a sin or not. There’s a better way of framing this. Here’s where I land on this question: I disagree with those who say it’s a serious sin, but also disagree with those who see no moral issue here whatsoever. The issue here is not so much whether this is a sin or not; rather it’s a question of what level, compensatory or heroic, we want to carry this tension. In the face of this issue, I need to ask myself, at what level do I want to carry my solitude? How noble of soul can I be? How much can I accept to carry this tension to make for a more chaste community inside the body of Christ? Moral theology and spirituality cease being a command and become an invitation to a greater nobility of soul for the sake of the world. Can I be more big-hearted? Can I be less petty? Can I carry more tension without giving in to compensation? Can I be more forgiving? Saints don’t think so much in terms of what’s sinful and what isn’t. Rather, they ask, what is the more loving thing to do here? What’s more noble of the soul, and what’s more petty?  What serves the world better?

This story from Jesus today, taken from the Gospel of Mark, can help us understand Jesus’ teaching that the rich find it difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven while little children enter it quite naturally. We tend to misunderstand both why the rich find it hard to enter the kingdom and why little children enter it more easily. Children have no choice but to know their dependence. They’re not self-sufficient and know that they cannot provide for themselves. If someone doesn’t feed them, they go hungry. They need to say, and to say it often: “Help me!” It’s generally the opposite for adults, especially if we’re strong, talented, and blessed with sufficient wealth. We easily nurse the illusion of self-sufficiency. In our strength, we more naturally forget that we need others and are not self-reliant. It’s not riches that block us from entering the kingdom. Rather, it’s the danger that, by having them, we will more easily also have the illusion that we’re self-sufficient. We aren’t. The moral danger in being rich is instead the illusion of self-sufficiency that seems to forever accompany riches. Little children don’t suffer this illusion, but the strong do. As Thomas Aquinas points out in how he defines God (as Esse Subsistens – Self-sufficient Being), only God does not need anyone or anything else, but the rest of us do, and that’s the danger of being wealthy, money-wise or otherwise. How do we minimize that danger? Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that riches aren’t bad in themselves. God is rich. But God is prodigiously generous with that richness. God’s generosity, as we learn from the parables of Jesus, is so excessive that it’s scandalous. It upsets our measured sense of fairness. Generosity is Godlike, and hoarding is antithetical to heaven. From the time we learn to tie our own shoelaces until the various diminishments of life begin to strip away the illusion of self-sufficiency, riches of all kinds constitute a danger. We must never unlearn the words: “Help me!” [Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s article, “Our Struggle with Riches”]

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we see the exchange of Jesus and a woman who says to the Lord, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” But in his reply to the woman, Jesus provides an insight into his relationship with his mother, Mary, and the example she gives to all believers when he responds, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that here, as in other places, we must be careful to understand what Jesus is telling us about his mother. We see places in the gospels where he seemingly does not speak highly of her when, in fact, the reverse is true. For example, he is approached and told: “Your mother is here, trying to see you,” and he answers, “Who is my mother?” Then, pointing to the people sitting around him, he says, “Those who hear the word of God and keep it are mother and brother and sister to me.” Is Jesus distancing himself from his mother here? No. He’s pointing out the fundamental link between them: among all the people in the gospels, Mary is the pre-eminent example of the one who hears and keeps the word of God. Looking at how Mary gave birth to Christ, we see that it’s not something that’s done in an instant. Faith, like biology, also relies on a process that has distinct, organic moments. What are these moments? What is the process by which we give birth to faith in the world? First, like Mary, we need to get pregnant by the Holy Spirit. We need to let the word take such root in us that it begins to become part of our actual flesh. Then, like any woman who’s pregnant, we have to lovingly gestate, nurture, and protect what is growing inside us until it’s sufficiently strong so that it can live on its own, outside us. Eventually, of course, we must give birth. What we have nurtured and grown inside of us must, when it is ready, be given birth outside. This will always be excruciatingly painful. There is no painless way to give birth. And in this, Mary wants imitation, not admiration: Our task too is to give birth to Christ. Mary is the paradigm for doing that. From her we get the pattern: Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant; gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life; submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside; then spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood; and finally, during and after all of this, do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go.

In the first episode of the “Catholicism” series, then Fr. Robert Barron, in a deliberate way, shakes out of us our tendency to ‘domesticate’ the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. Instead, he reminds us that Jesus was a deeply disconcerting, subversive figure. The gospel writers were clear that Jesus came as a warrior king who came to set his people free. Unlike other spiritual leaders, who do not point to themselves, Jesus of Nazareth keeps speaking and acting as if he is God. Either Jesus is who he says he is (in which case we are obliged to give our whole lives to him), or he is a madman (in which case we should be against him). What does not remain, as C.S. Lewis saw so clearly, is the bland middle position that, though he isn’t divine, he is a good, kind, and wise ethical teacher. If he isn’t who he says he is, then he isn’t admirable at all. The Buddha could claim that he had found a way that he wanted to share with his followers, but Jesus said, “I am the way.” Mohammed could say that, through him, the final divine truth had been communicated to the world, but Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Confucius could maintain that he had discovered a new and uplifting form of life, but Jesus said, “I am the life.” No other founder forces that choice. Christ compels a choice: you either believe he is God’s ‘Anointed One’ or you do not. As Jesus says, you’re either with him or you’re against him. There’s no room for a middle ground. This is crazy stuff when you take the time to consider the radicality of the person of Christ and the incredulous truth that God became man and dwelt among us. We are either with Jesus or we are against him.  

Normand Gouin of the Paulist Center writes about persistent prayer as an “Act of Crazy Compassion and Reckless Love.” He notes that at every Mass, we pray for the growing list of concerns and needs in our world, such as the devasting effects of climate change, the war in Ukraine, the ongoing battle with the Coronavirus, racism, injustice in all its forms, and the pervasive divisiveness in our land. Yet with all that is going on, in what often seems like a futile exercise, we are often left wondering why does it seem like things are getting worse, why do these prayers seem to go either unanswered or to have no effect? We continue searching but have not found? Why does the door we keep knocking at never seem to open? I have struggled with these questions, and I bet you have as well. I don’t believe Jesus ever intended when he said: ask, search, and knock to be a blank check on God’s account as if prayer was a transaction between us and God. Jesus’ instruction to ask, search, and knock is perfectly reflected in the prayer he taught the disciples, the prayer we know as The Lord’s Prayer. We are to be persistent in aligning our lives to the mercy and compassion of God, bearing witness to the presence of God in our life and relationships, opening ourselves to the gift and sufficiency of this day, freely receiving and giving forgiveness. To be persistent in prayer means to not give up when the sands of life are shifting under our feet, when our life comes unhinged, when we are overwhelmed, when we come to the limits of our ability, or when it looks like this day is as good as it gets and all there will ever be. However, beyond being persistent, I believe it is also important to note that prayer is not simply a private act. When we pray for specific concerns, needs, or situations, are we not in effect also expressing our desire for the healing and restoration of the entire Body of Christ? Fr. Ron Rolheiser describes prayer not so much as the words one speaks or imparts but as an attitude we embody that, when adopted, can affect the entire Body. Rolheiser states, “Central to our faith as Christians is the belief that we are all part of one mystical body, the Body of Christ. This is not a metaphor. This body is a living organism. If this is true, and it is, then there is no such thing as a truly private action. Our prayers are health-giving enzymes affecting the whole body, particularly the persons and events to which we direct them.” May our practice of prayer, through trust and persistence, be like a sneaky hidden antibiotic – needed precisely when it seems most useless.