Daily Virtue Scripture Readings

1) Be grateful…never look a gift universe in the mouth! Resist pessimism and false guilt. To be a saint is to be warmed by gratitude, nothing less. The highest compliment you can give a gift-giver is to thoroughly enjoy the gift. You owe it to your Creator to appreciate things, to be as happy as you can. Life is meant to be more than a test. Add this to your daily prayer: Give us today our daily bread, and help us to enjoy it without guilt.

2) Don’t be naive about God… God will settle for not less than everything! God doesn’t want part of your life; God wants it all. Distrust all talk about the consolation of religion. Faith puts a rope around you and takes you to where you’d rather not go. Accept that virtue will give you a constant reminder of what you’ve missed out on. Take this Daniel Berrigan counsel to the bank: “Before you get serious about Jesus, consider carefully how good you’re going to look on wood!”

3) Walk forward when possible…or at least try to get one foot in front of the next! See what you see, it’s enough to walk by. Expect long periods of confusion. Let ordinary life be enough for you. It doesn’t have to be interesting all the time. Take consolation in the fact that Jesus cried, saints sinned, Peter betrayed. Be as morally stubborn as a mule; the only thing that shatters dreams is compromise. Start over often. Nobody is old in God’s eyes; nothing is too late in terms of conversion. Know that there are two kinds of darkness you can enter: the fearful darkness of paranoia, which brings sadness, and the fetal darkness of conversion, which brings life.

4) Pray…that God will hang on to you! Distrust popularity polls. Trust prayer. Prayer grounds you in something deeper. Be willing to die a little to be with God since God died to be with you. Let your heart become the place where the tears of God and the tears of God’s children merge into the tears of hope.

5) Love…if a life is large enough for love, it’s large enough! Create a space for love in your life. Consciously cultivate it. Know that nothing can be loved too much. Things can only be loved in the wrong way. Say to those you love: “You, at least, shall not die!” Know there are only two potential tragedies in life: Not to love and not to tell those you love that you love them.

6) Accept what you are…and fear not, you are inadequate! Accept the human condition. Only God is whole. If you’re weak, alone, without confidence, and without answers, say so; then listen. Accept the torture of a life of inadequate self-expression. There are many kinds of martyrdom. Recognize your own brand. If you die for a good reason, it’s something you can live with!

7) Don’t mummify…let go, so as not to be pushed! Accept daily deaths. Don’t seize life as a possession. Possessiveness kills enjoyment, kills relationships, and eventually kills you. Let go gracefully. Name your deaths, claim your births, mourn your losses, let the old ascend, and receive the spirit for the life you’re actually living. Banish restless daydreams; they torture you. Keep in mind that it’s difficult to distinguish a moment of dying from a moment of birth.

8) Refuse to take things seriously…call yourself a fool regularly! God’s laughter fills the emptiness of our tombs. Keep in mind that it’s easy to be heavy, hard to be light. Laughter is a direct insult to the realism, dignity, and austerity of hell. Don’t confuse sneering with laughter. Laugh with people, not at them. Laugh and give yourself over to silliness; craziness helps too, as does a good night’s sleep.

9) Stay within the family … you’re on a group outing! Don’t journey alone. Resist the temptation to be spiritual, but not religious. Be “born again”, regularly into community. Accept that there are strings attached. The journey includes family, church, country, and the whole human race. Don’t be seduced by the lure of absolute freedom. Freedom and meaning lie in obedience to the community: community humbles, deflates the ego, puts you into purgatory, and eventually into heaven.

10) Don’t be afraid to go soft…redemption lies in tears! All of Jesus’ teachings can be put into one word: Surrender.  If you will not have a softening of the heart you will eventually have a softening of the brain. Hardness pulls downward. Softness rises.  A bird can soar because a bird is soft. A stone sinks because it’s hard. Fragility is force. Sensitivity defines soul. Tenderness defines love. Tears are salt water, the water of our origins.

– Fr. Ron Rolheiser, “Guidelines for the Long Haul,” April 2013. 

What you say and do matters. It affects other people. The longer you walk life’s path as a professed Christian, the more you should be overwhelmed by the radical nature of Jesus’s openness, inclusivity, and hospitality. Every time one thinks they have made their circle of life wide enough, inclusive enough, and caring enough, Jesus says, “No, make it wider.”  “Whoever is not against us is for us.”  What a fantastic declaration.  Whoever doesn’t oppose the beautiful and salvific works of God, mercy, love, kindness, justice, liberation, peacemaking, healing, and nurturing is on Jesus’s side, and our job is to welcome, host, include, and love them. How mind-blowing is that?” Yet, do we understand what an opportunity this is? What if we cleared paths for each other? Removed obstacles for each other? Helped each other towards success?” This might get to the heart of what Jesus is saying.  Life is not a competition; we’re in this together, and this thing is called life. We’re on the path together. How much better off would we be if we could be path clearers, stumbling block removers? Jesus isn’t condemning us; he’s reminding us of truths we intuitively know. The way of the cross is hard. It can hurt. There is a place called hell that we create for ourselves and others when we cling to our sins and stumbling blocks instead of allowing Jesus, in his mercy, to remove them. “It has been said that we might do well to see sin, like addiction, as a destructive disease instead of something for which we’re culpable or punishable and that ‘makes God unhappy.’ If sin indeed makes God ‘unhappy,’ it is because God loves us, desires nothing more than our happiness, and wills the healing of the disease of sin” [Fr. Richard Rohr]. What would it be like to cut away the disease for our own sakes and for the sakes of our fellow travelers?  What would it be like if the children of God helped each other to succeed?  Imagine the charismatic Christian removing stumbling blocks for the liturgical one. The liberal clearing paths for the conservative.  The insider befriending the outsider.  What would happen if we expanded the circle, lengthened the table, and decided to feast together?  We’d become The Company of the Blessedly Wounded. We wouldn’t look as shiny and unassailable as we did before.  But we would be path clearers. We’d be stumbling block removers.  We’d be healers.  Best of all, no little one would ever lose their way again because of us.

Our world and ourselves are sinking into some unhealthy forms of tribalism where we are concerned primarily with taking care of our own. We see this everywhere today. We tend to think that this lives only in circles of extremism, but it is being advocated with an ever-intensifying moral fervor in virtually every place in the world.  It sounds like this:  America first! England first! My country first! My state first! My church first! My family first! Me first! More and more, we are making ourselves the priority and defining ourselves in ways that are not just against the Gospel but are also making us meaner in spirit and more miserly of heart. If the Gospels are clear on anything, they are clear that all persons in this world are equal in the sight of God, that all persons in this world are our brothers and sisters, and that we are asked to share the goods of this world fairly with everyone, especially the poor, and, most importantly, that we are not to put ourselves first, but are always to consider the needs of others before our own. The very definition of being big-hearted is predicated on precisely rising above self-interest and being willing to sacrifice our own interests for the good of others and the good of the larger community. The same is true for being big-minded. We are big-minded exactly to the extent that we are sensitive to the wider picture and can integrate into our thinking the needs, wounds, and ideologies of everyone, not just those of their own kind. That’s what it means to understand rather than simply be intelligent. When we are petty, we cannot understand beyond our own needs, our own wounds, and our own ideologies. There can be no peace, no world community, no real brother and sisterhood, and no real church community as long as we do not define ourselves as, first, citizens of the world and only second, as members of our own tribe. Admittedly, we need to take care of our own families, countries, and selves. Justice asks that we also treat ourselves fairly. But, ultimately, the tension here is a false one, that is, the needs of others and our own needs are not in competition. Only by being good citizens of the world are we good citizens in our own countries. Jesus tells us that, in the end, the first will be last.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Us First!” June 2016.

Some years ago, at a workshop, a woman came up to me during the break and articulated this in these words: “God loves me unconditionally. I know that’s true, but I how can I make myself believe it? I simply can’t!” She could have been speaking for half of the human race. We know we are loved by God, we can say the words, but how do we make ourselves believe that? Why? Why is that so difficult to believe? For many reasons, though mostly because we rarely, if ever, experience unconditional love. Mostly, we experience love with conditions, even from those closest to us: Our parents love us better when we do not mess up. Our teachers love us better when we behave and perform well. Our churches love us better when we do not sin. Friends love us better when we are successful and not needy. The world loves us better when we are attractive. Our spouses love us better when we do not disappoint them. Mostly, in this world, we have to measure up in some way to be loved. Beyond even this, all of us have been cursed and shamed in our enthusiasm by the countless times someone, either through words or through a hateful or judgmental glace, in effect said to us: Who do you think you are? We wither under that and become the walking wounded, unable to believe that we are loved and loveable. So, even when we know that God loves us, how can we make ourselves believe it? There are no easy answers. For a wounded soul, like for a wounded body, there are no magic wands for quick easy healings. The image that we must connect to is our true self-image, the deep truth that we are unconditionally loved by God. In great mythical literature, we see that, usually, before the great wedding where the young prince and the young princess are to be married so as to live happily ever after, there first has to be an execution: the wicked older brothers and the wicked stepsisters have to be killed off. Why? Because they would eventually come and spoil the wedding. Who are those wicked older brothers and wicked stepsisters? They are the inner voices from our past that can, at any given moment, ruin our wedding or our self-image by dragging in our past humiliations. To actually believe that we are unconditionally loved, we first have to kill a few of the false images we hold onto in life.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Our Struggle in Faith – Between Knowing It Is True and Believing it!,” March 2009.

We all have a gut feeling that our actions, good and bad, have consequences that come back to either bless or haunt us. It’s an innate aspect of our humanity. “The air you breathe into the universe is the air that it will breathe back, and if your energy is right, it will renew itself even as you give it away” Mary Jo Leddy. Jesus, for instance, puts it this way: Jesus says: “The measure you measure out is the measure you will be given.” Put another way, “The air you breathe out is the air you will re-inhale.” If that’s true, and it is, it explains a lot of things. Why are we inhaling so much bitter air? Perhaps it has to do with the air we’re breathing out. What are we breathing out? Of course, we would like to think that we’re breathing out the air of gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, honesty, blessing, self-effacement, joy, and delight. We’d also like to believe that we are breathing out the air of concern for the poor, the suffering, the unattractive, the bothersome. And, we’d like to believe too that we’re big-hearted people, breathing out understanding and reconciliation. It would be so lovely if it were so. We are blind to what’s really going on inside us and are unconsciously breathing out the air of arrogance, self-interest, pettiness, jealousy, competition, fear, paranoia, dishonesty, interest in others only when it’s convenient, and are emitting signals that others are a threat to us as we seek attention and popularity, and jostle with them for sexual, financial, and professional position. The real air we’re breathing out is fraught with self-interest, jealousy, competitiveness, pettiness, fear, and less-than-full honesty. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, we’re saying to each other: “I’m brighter and more successful than you.” “I’m better looking than you.” “I’ve had more life experience than you.” “I’m sophisticated beyond your naivete.” “I hate you for your good looks and good luck, none of which you deserve.” “I really don’t like you, but I’ll be nice to you until I find a way to free myself of this relationship that circumstance has dictated.” We would never admit that we feel these things, but too often, that’s the air we’re breathing out. The measure we’re measuring out is the measure that we’re receiving. So our solution is to be the big of heart, who breathes out what’s large and honest and full of blessing. The world will return a hundredfold in kind, honesty and blessing that swells the heart even more. But the converse is the miserly of a heart and dishonesty of spirit, that the world will give back too in kind: pettiness and lies that shrink the heart still further. That’s the deep mystery at the center of the universe: The air we breathe out into the world is the air we will re-inhale.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “The Law of Karma,” February 2004.

We can learn a lesson from how Jesus dealt with those who betrayed him. Peter was an honest man with a childlike sincerity and a deep faith, and he, more than most others, grasped the deeper meaning of who Jesus was and what his teaching meant. Indeed, it was he who in response to Jesus’ question (Who do you say I am?) replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the Living God.” Yet minutes after that confession Jesus had to correct Peter’s false conception of what that meant and then rebuke him for trying to deflect him from his very mission. More seriously, it was Peter who, within hours of an arrogant boast that though all others would betray Jesus, he alone would remain faithful, betrayed Jesus three times, and this in Jesus’ most needy hour. What does Jesus do with Peter? He doesn’t ask for an explanation, doesn’t ask for an apology, doesn’t tell Peter that it is okay, doesn’t offer excuses for Peter, and doesn’t even tell Peter that he loves him. Instead, he asks Peter: “Do you love me?” Peter answers yes – and everything moves forward from there. Everything can move forward following a confession of love, not least an honest confession of love in the wake of a betrayal. What love asks of us when we are weak is an honest, non-rationalized, admission of our weakness along with a statement from the heart: “I love you!” Things can move forward from there. The past and our betrayal are not expunged nor excused, but in love, we can live beyond them. To expunge, excuse, or rationalize is to not live in the truth; it is unfair to the one betrayed since he or she bears the consequences and scars. Only love can move us beyond weakness and betrayal. We don’t move forward in a relationship by telling either God or someone we have hurt: “You have to understand! In that situation, what else was I to do too? I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was just too weak to resist!” That’s neither helpful nor called for. Things move forward when we, without excuses, admit weakness and apologize for betrayal. Like Peter, when asked three times by Jesus: “Do you love me?” from our hearts, we need to say: “You know everything, you know that I love you.”[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection, “Moving Beyond Mistakes and Weaknesses,” September 2020.

When Jesus talks about gaining the whole world and suffering the loss of your own soul, he isn’t first of all referring to having a bad moral life, dying in sin, and going to hell. That’s the more radical warning in his message. We can lose our soul in other ways, even while we are good, dedicated, moral people. The man whose story I just shared is indeed a very good, dedicated, moral, and kind man. But he is, by his own humble admission, struggling to be a soulful person, to be more inside the richness of his own life because when you live under constant pressure and are perennially forced to hurry, it isn’t easy to get up in the morning and say: “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it.” We are more likely to say: “Lord, just get me through this day!” As well, when Jesus tells us that it’s difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he isn’t just referring to material riches, money, and affluence, though these are contained in the warning. The problem can also be a rich agenda, a job, or a passion that so consumes us that we rarely take the time (or even think of taking the time) to enjoy the beauty of a sunset or the fact that we are healthy and have the privilege of having a rich agenda. During all my years in ministry, I have always been blessed with a rich agenda, important work, work that I love. But, when I’m honest, I need to admit that during these years, I have been too hurried and over-pressured to watch many sunsets. Today I am in solitude because at this moment it is enough to be, in an ordinary human mode, with one’s hunger and sleep, one’s cold and warmth, rising and going to bed. Putting on blankets and taking them off, making coffee, and then drinking it. Defrosting the refrigerator, reading, meditating, working, praying. I live as my ancestors lived on this earth until eventually I die. Amen. There is no need to make an assertion about my life, especially so about it as mine…I must learn to live so as to forget program and artifice. And to check out the sunset from my balcony! When we are rich, busy, pressured, and preoccupied, it’s hard to taste one’s own coffee. Just slow down and breathe – take time to soak in the divinity surrounding us all.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s refection, “Being Rich, But In A Hurry,” September 2024.

Have you ever had to wait in line to get into a building, have your bags checked, or hope that the car lane that was closed in front of you would open back up? We all have had an experience like this, and what I find interesting is its relation to our reflection verse, which is the nature of generosity and how we use it versus how God uses it. Suppose after waiting for a substantial period of time, and just as you are getting closer to the opening that will allow you to finally proceed, someone comes along and opens another lane, but for people who have just arrived. You still got your turn, but something inside of you feels slighted and a little angry as you internally say to yourself: “That wasn’t fair! I’ve been waiting for forty minutes, and they got through this mess at the same time as I did!” You had been patiently waiting, but those who arrived later didn’t have to wait at all. While you intellectually know that you hadn’t been treated unfairly, you still were bothered that someone had been more fortunate than you had been. Fr. Ron Rolheiser, writing about a similar experience, noted that these types of encounters in life teach us something beyond the fact that our hearts aren’t always huge and generous. He went on to say, “It helped me understand something about Jesus’ parable concerning the workers who came at the 11th hour and received the same wages as those who’d worked all day and what is meant by the challenge that is given to those who grumbled about the unfairness of this. ‘Are you envious because I’m generous? Are we jealous because God is generous? Does it bother us when others are given unmerited gifts and forgiveness?’ You bet! Ultimately, that sense of injustice, of envy that someone else caught a break is a huge stumbling block to our happiness. Why? Because something in us reacts negatively when it seems that life is not making others pay the same dues as we are paying. The desire for strict justice blocks our capacity for forgiveness and thereby prevents us from entering heaven, where God, like the Father of the Prodigal Son, embraces and forgives without demanding a pound of flesh for a pound of sin. We know we need God’s mercy, but if grace is true for us, it has to be true for everyone; if forgiveness is given to us, it must be given to everybody; and if God does not avenge our misdeeds, God must not avenge the misdeeds of others either. Such is the logic of grace, and such is the love of the God to whom we must attune ourselves. Happiness is not about vengeance, but about forgiveness; not about vindication, but about unmerited embrace; and not about capital punishment, but about living beyond even murder.” God leaves us free. So whenever someone gets something we don’t think they deserve, we must accept that we’re still a long way from understanding and accepting the kingdom of God.

In the Gospels, we see Jesus perform several healings. He heals lame people, deaf people, mute people, people with leprosy, and two women who for different reasons are unable to become pregnant. What’s important to see in these various miracles is that, almost always, there’s more at issue than mere physical healing. Jesus is healing people in a deeper way, that is, he is healing the lame so that they can walk in freedom and in service of God. He is healing the deaf so that they can hear the Good News. He is healing the mute so that they can open their mouths in praise. He is healing those who are hemorrhaging internally so that they can bring new life to birth. We see this most clearly at those times when Jesus heals people who are blind.  He’s giving them more than just physical sight; he’s opening their eyes so that they can see more deeply. But that’s only an image. How might it be unpackaged? How can the grace and teachings of Jesus help us to see in a deeper way? G.K. Chesterton once affirmed that familiarity is the greatest of all illusions and that the secret to life is to learn to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again. We open our eyes to depth when we open ourselves to wonder. By shifting our eyes from seeing through paranoia and self-protection to seeing through metanoia and nurture. By shifting our eyes from seeing through jealousy to seeing through admiration. By shifting our eyes from seeing through bitterness to seeing through eyes purified and softened by grief. By shifting our eyes from seeing through relevance to seeing through contemplation. By shifting our eyes from seeing through anger to seeing through forgiveness. By shifting our eyes from seeing through longing and hunger to seeing through gratitude. Longing and hunger distort our vision. Gratitude restores it. It enables insight. The most grateful person you know has the best eyesight of all the people you know.[1]

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[1] Excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s reflection “Seeing in a Deeper Way,” March 2015.

The movie Noah is best interpreted, I think, as a modern cinematic midrash on the Biblical tale.  The midrashim—extremely popular in ancient Israel—were imaginative elaborations of the often-spare Scriptural narratives.  They typically explored the psychological motivations of the major players in the stories and added creative plot lines, new characters, etc.  In the midrashic manner, Darren Aronofsky’s film presents any number of extra-Biblical elements, including a conversation between Noah and his grandfather Methuselah, an army of angry men eager to force their way onto the ark, a kind of incense that lulls the animals to sleep on the ship, and most famously (or infamously), a race of fallen angels who have become incarnate as stone monsters.  These latter characters are not really as fantastic or arbitrary as they might seem at first blush.  Genesis tells us that the Noah story unfolds during the time of the Nephilim, a term that literally means “the fallen” and that is usually rendered as “giants.”  Moreover, in the extra-Biblical book of Enoch, the Nephilimare called “the watchers,” a usage reflected in the great hymn “Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones.”  In Aronofsky’s “Noah,” the stone giants are referred to by the same name.
What is most important is that this contemporary midrash successfully articulates the characteristically Biblical logic of the story of Noah.  First, it speaks unambiguously of God:  every major character refers to “the Creator.”  Secondly, this Creator God is not presented as a distant force, nor is he blandly identified with Nature.  Rather, he is personal, active, provident, and intimately involved in the affairs of the world that he has made.  Thirdly, human beings are portrayed as fallen with their sin producing much of the suffering in the world.  Genesis itself remains pretty down on the way human beings operate—read the stories of Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel for the details.  And “Noah’s” portrayal of the rape of nature caused by industrialization is nowhere near as vivid as Tolkien’s portrayal of the same theme in “The Lord of the Rings.”  Fourthly, the hero of the film consistently eschews his own comfort and personal inclination and seeks to know and follow the will of God.  At the emotional climax of the movie, Noah moves to kill his own granddaughters, convinced that it is God’s will that the human race be obliterated, but he relents when it becomes clear to him that God, in fact, wills for humanity to be renewed.  What is significant is that Noah remains utterly focused throughout, not on his own freedom, but on the desire and purpose of God.  God, creation, providence, sin, obedience, salvation.
There is a minor scene in the film that depicts some members of Noah’s family administering sleep-inducing smoke to the animals.  They look, for all the world, like priests swinging thuribles of incense around a cathedral.  I’m quite sure that this was far from the mind of the filmmakers, but it suggested to me the strong patristic theme that Noah’s Ark is symbolic of the Church.  During a time of moral and spiritual chaos, when the primal watery chaos out of which God created the world returned with a vengeance, the Creator sent a rescue operation, a great boat on which a microcosm of God’s good order would be preserved.  For the Church Fathers, this is precisely the purpose and meaning of the Church:  to be a safe haven where, in the midst of a sinful world, God’s word is proclaimed, where God is properly worshipped, and where a rightly ordered humanity lives in justice and non-violence.  Just as Noah’s Ark carried the seeds of a new creation, so the Church is meant to let out the life that it preserves for the renewal of the world.[1]

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[1] Bishop Robert Barron review of the film “Noah,” April 2024.