Daily Virtue Scripture Readings

Today’s first reading from Isaiah speaks about a shoot sprouting from the stump of Jesse, new buds blossoming from dead wood. The stump is another way of speaking about the house of David, which had been cut down by the Babylonians, who forced the people of Israel to live as migrants and exiles in a foreign land. Isaiah gives testimony to the radical nature of biblical faith: to dare to believe in God’s power to regenerate life, even and especially in places where the world sees only death. The Second Coming of Christ that history is waiting for is not the same as the baby Jesus or even the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus was one man, and Christ is not his last name. The Christ includes the whole sweep of creation and history joined with him and you, too. Fr. Richard Rohr writes that we very rightly believe in “Jesus Christ,” and both words are essential. The celebration of Christmas is not a sentimental waiting for a baby to be born, but much more an asking for history to be born! We do the Gospel no favor when we make Jesus, the Eternal Christ, into a perpetual baby, a baby able to ask little or no adult response from us. God wants friends, partners, and images if we are to believe the biblical texts. He wants adult religion and a mature, free response from us. God loves us as adult partners, with mutual give and take, and you eventually become the God that you love. I understand where such devotions to the Infant child Jesus come from, but these do not come close to the power of the biblical proclamation that invites us into adult cooperation, free participation, and the love of free and mature persons in God. The Christ we are asking for and waiting for includes your own full birth and the further birth of history and creation. Now you can say, “Come, Christ Jesus,” with a whole new understanding and a deliberate passion!

The American Declaration of Independence says we have an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. God created us to be happy and joyful in this world and the next, and Jesus echoes the same thought several times in the Gospel of John. Fr. Richard Rohr writes that the only difference between the two is that any happiness that is demanded from life never becomes happiness because it is too narcissistically and self-consciously pursued. The “joy that the world cannot give” always comes as a gift to those who wait for it, expect it, and make room for it inside themselves. The first construct of happiness revolves around self-assertion and the second around self-surrender. The first is taking; the second is receiving. Those are two entirely different human dynamics. You do not catch a butterfly by chasing it: you sit still, and it alights on your shoulder. Then it chooses you. That is true happiness. When we set out to seek our private happiness, we often create an idol that is sure to topple. Any attempts to protect any complete and private happiness amid so much public suffering must be based on an illusion about the nature of our world. We can only do that if we block ourselves from a certain degree of reality and refuse solidarity with “the other side” of everything, even the other side of ourselves. Both sides of life are good and necessary teachers; failure and mistakes teach us much more than our successes. Failure and success were often called “the two hands of God.” It takes struggle with both our darkness and our light to form us into full children of God, but of course, we especially resist “the left hand of God,” which is usually some form of suffering or loss of control. As in our Gospel reading today, it was the same suffering of the centurion’s servant that brought the centurion out of his comfortable house and that invited Jesus into that house! Suffering and solidarity with the suffering of others have an immense capacity to “make room” inside of us. It is probably our primary spiritual teacher.

People are forever predicting the end of the world. In Christian circles, this is generally connected with speculation around the promise Jesus made at his ascension, namely, that he would be coming back, and soon, to bring history to its culmination and establish God’s eternal kingdom. Fr. Rolheiser writes that there have been speculations about the world’s end ever since. The early Christians took Jesus’ advice and believed it was useless and counterproductive to speculate about the end of the world and what signs would accompany it. Instead, they believed, the lesson was to live in vigilance, on high alert, ready, so that the end, whenever it would come, would not catch them asleep, unprepared, carousing, and drunk. However, as the years moved on and Jesus did not return, their understanding began to evolve so that by the time John’s Gospel was written, probably about seventy years after Jesus’ death, they had started to understand things differently: They now understood Jesus’ promise that some of his contemporaries would not taste death until they had seen the kingdom of God as being fulfilled in the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was, in fact, already back, and the world had not ended. And so they began to believe that the world’s end was not necessarily imminent. Now, that invitation to stay awake and live in vigilance was related more to not knowing the hour of one’s own death. More deeply, the invitation to live in vigilance began to be understood as code for God’s invitation to enter into the fullness of life right now and not be lulled asleep by the pressures of ordinary life, wherein we are consumed with eating and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage. All of these ordinary things, while good in themselves, can lull us to sleep by keeping us from being truly attentive and grateful within our own lives. The end of the world shouldn’t concern us, nor should we worry excessively about when we will die. What we should worry about is in what state our dying will find us.

On the Saturday weekend in which we celebrate the start of the Advent season, Jesus is always telling us to wake up, to stay awake, to be vigilant, to be more alert to a deeper reality. What’s meant by that? How are we asleep to depth? How are we to wake up and stay awake? Fr. Rolheiser asks, “How are we asleep?” All of us know how difficult it is for us to be inside the present moment, to not be asleep to the real riches inside our own lives. The distractions and worries of daily life tend to so consume us that we habitually take for granted what’s most precious to us: our health, the miracle of our senses, the love and friendships that surround us, and the gift of life itself. We go through our daily lives not only with a lack of reflectiveness and lack of gratitude but with a habitual touch of resentment as well, a chronic, grey depression. We are very much asleep, both to God and to our own lives. How do we wake up? An awareness of our mortality does wake us up, as does a stroke, a heart attack, or cancer, but that heightened awareness is easier to sustain for a short season of our lives than it is for twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years. Nobody can sustain that kind of awareness all the time. None of us can live seventy or eighty years as if each day was his or her last day. Or can we? Spiritual wisdom offers a nuanced answer here: We can and we can’t!  On the one hand, the distractions, cares, and pressures of everyday life will invariably have their way with us and we will, in effect, fall asleep to what’s deeper and more important inside of life. It’s for this reason we need to begin each day with prayer. None of us live each day of our lives as if it were our last day. Our heartaches, headaches, distractions, and busyness invariably lull us to sleep. That’s forgivable; it’s what it means to be human. So we should ensure that we have regular spiritual rituals, and spiritual alarm clocks, to jolt us back awake – so that it doesn’t take a heart attack, a stroke, cancer, or death to wake us up.

Fr. Rolheiser writes that he is old enough to have known another time when things were different when many of life’s pleasures weren’t available, and people made due, celebrating what there was to celebrate and not over-expecting. Back then, few expected or demanded the whole pie. Heaven was seen as something for later. There is today too little talk, in our churches and in the world, about the “vale of tears” and the incompleteness of our present lives. Spiritualities of the resurrection and psychologies of self-actualization, whatever their other strengths, no longer give us permission to be in pain, to be unwhole, ill, unattractive, aged, unfulfilled, or even just alone on a Friday night. Unless every pleasure that we yearn for can be tasted, we cannot be happy. Because of this, we over-expect. We stand before life and love in a greedy posture and with unrealistic expectations, demanding the resolution of all our eros and tension. However, life in this world can never give us that. We are pilgrims on earth, exiles journeying towards home. The world is passing away. We have God’s word for it. And we need God’s word for it! Too much in our experience today militates against the fact that here in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished Somehow, we have come to believe that a final solution for the burning tensions within us lies within our present grasp. I am not sure who or what gives us this idea. In a culture (and, at times, in a church) that tells us that no happiness is possible unless every ache and restlessness inside of us is fulfilled, how hard it is to be happy.  Yet we must remember the Creator did not just make us for life after death; He also intended some life after birth! We are meant to rest joyfully in God’s great gifts – life, love, youth, health, friendship, and sexuality – even as they are limitedly given in this life. Those who live this philosophy in life, I am sure, are much more restful on Friday nights!

St. Andrew, whom the church celebrates today, is the disciple best known for bringing people to Jesus. He was born in the village of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee during the early first century. He was an ordinary man, a fisherman by trade. He is identified as one of the two who heard John speak and followed the Lord. He was the first disciple of Jesus, but right from the beginning of his discipleship, he was challenged by the older sibling-younger sibling dynamic. He spent his entire discipleship serving in the shadow of his younger brother, Simon Peter. Andrews was quite comfortable serving in the background as a thoughtful and humble leader. He truly lived the saying Charity begins at home.  Immediately he found Jesus, Andrew understood that he had a task at hand. Jesus was worth knowing! This finding was to be shared with others. Like Andrew, we have a special mission to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He went far and wide, preaching the faith of the Lord Jesus. In Ministry, we may face similar challenges as he did, but we must learn from him. And we can be like this shadow-servant: faithful, obedient, humble, discerning, responsive, trusted, willing, and courageous. Then only shall we also be worthy to receive the crown of glory. St. Andrew, pray for us! (Excerpt from Dr. Pamela Mandela’s article on St. Andrew)

The twentieth century was the bloodiest on record—and the one with the most martyrs – and much of this carnage can be traced to immigration issues. People initially came to North and South America from Europe for various reasons. Some were fleeing religious persecution; some were seeking a way out of poverty and starvation; some were coming to work to send money back to support their families; some were doctors or clergy coming to minister to others; and, yes, some too were criminals bent on crime. Reading the daily news, it would seem that not much has changed, except the shoe is now on the other foot. We, original invaders, are now the indigenous tribes, concerned and protective of what we consider as rightfully ours, fearful of the outsiders, and mostly naïve as to why they’re coming. This isn’t just the case in North America. Most of Europe is experiencing the same pressures, except in their case, they’ve had a longer time to forget how their ancestors once came from elsewhere and mostly displaced the indigenous peoples who were already there. Admittedly, this isn’t easy to resolve, politically or morally. No country can open its borders indiscriminately to everyone who wants to enter. Yet, our scriptures, Jewish and Christian, are unequivocal in affirming that the earth belongs to everyone and all people have the same right to God’s good creation. That moral imperative can seem unfair and impractical, but how do we justify the fact that we displaced others to build our lives here but now find it unfair that others are doing the same thing to us? The remedy cannot be found in persecuting or trying in one way or another to drive them away. As people of faith, we must persevere in love and embrace the cultures in ways that we wish the previous ones had welcomed us. In the end, love is the only thing that counts.

Claire King writes that there must be days when God looks down upon us with tenderness and amusement. We, too, must have encountered that same look as someone’s child or grandchild. Do you recall when you loved so fiercely that you spent hours or days working on something you could give to the one you loved? And you felt such pride in the work and joy in the giving? Whether it landed a prime space on the refrigerator door, tucked away in a jewelry box, or displayed in a scrapbook, you created it with your hands and tenacious ingenuity. There are things we have to have. It starts when we are children, wanting that toy every kid in the world is getting for Christmas. Then, that pair of jeans or cool shirt every kid is wearing. As we age, our needs become more high-end: the newest electronic device, the latest car, the biggest house, and the most fabulous vacation. Everyone has it or is getting it. Jay Cormier writes that Jesus warns us about wanting and collecting “stuff.” Whatever happened to all of that stuff, anyway? It was replaced by other stuff. We are obsessed with building bigger and more beautiful temples, forgetting that the holiness of God is found in the quiet within. We are so busy creating the perfect lifestyle that we miss out on living lives of meaning and purpose. God calls us to seek more precious and lasting gifts than this world can offer—treasures like compassion, reconciliation, justice, and peace. What is required first, however, is to give up the attitudes and avarice that make possessing the things of God difficult, if not impossible. Do not become obsessed, Jesus says, with the “stones” that will one day collapse and become dust, but seek the lasting things of the soul, the things of God, the real treasures of this life. “All that you see here, the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” Heavenly Father, help us remember that time is an illusion; only love remains.    

Poverty is what can make us grateful for everything we have. One new blouse does not get lost among all the other hangers in the cupboard. One new book becomes a treasure, not just one more kind of recreation. No new toys, no new clothes, no new furniture makes us treasure what little of each of them we do have. Perhaps it is true that only poverty can give us a sense of what it is to be grateful for what you have and even more thankful for what you get for nothing. In our reflection reading today, Jesus, surrounded by his disciples, watches people putting offerings into the treasury. This was a place in the women’s courtyard, where there were collection boxes for the offerings of the faithful. Just then, something happens whose significance Jesus wants his disciples to notice: a poor widow puts in two coins of very little value. He describes this as the greatest offering of all, praising the giving of alms for this purpose, particularly by people who give part of what they need. This tiny offering moves our Lord because, in her case, it implies a big sacrifice. This goes to the heart of Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving as the practice of charity in the spirit of uprightness or justice. This focus is on caring for others in genuinely compassionate and just ways and doing so with grace and generosity. It’s all about loving our neighbors from the heart — in practical, generous ways — because of the love and grace God has shown us so that his righteousness and peace may fill the earth. The poor widow demonstrated true generosity, which is the essence of almsgiving. She taught us that we can move God’s heart if we give him all we can, which will always amount to very little, even if we offer our very lives.

On this Sunday when we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, my mind is drawn to the words he speaks to the disciples on the impact our lives should have as exemplified by Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa). Inspired by the work of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, a young woman once asked Blessed Mother Teresa if she could join the order. “Stay where you are,” she replied. “Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right where you are: in your home and your family, your workplace, and your school. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved.” What is our commitment to works of mercy? Ministering to our fellow human beings means ministering to the Lord Jesus himself, whose image we can see in the faces of the poor. Today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus speaking to his disciples about their actions as his followers. Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) says we must commit to works of mercy in our lives. “To help us deserve heaven, Christ set a condition: that at the moment of our death, you and I, whoever we might have been and wherever we have lived, Christians and non-Christians alike, every human being who has been created by the loving hand of God in his own image shall stand in his presence and be judged according to what we have been for the poor, what we have done for them. Christ said, ‘I was hungry, and you gave me food.’ He was hungry not only for bread but for the understanding love of being loved, of being known, of being someone to someone. He was naked not only of clothing but of human dignity and of respect through the injustice that is done to the poor, who are looked down upon simply because they are poor. He was dispossessed not only of a house made of bricks but because of the dispossession of those who are locked up, of those who are unwanted and unloved, of those who walk through the world with no one to care for them. Do we go out to meet those? Do we know them? Do we try to find them?”