Daily Virtue Post

Christ knows he is surrounded by a crowd that will be awed by the miracle and will tell the story all over the countryside. But he does not act artificially, merely to create an effect. Quite simply, he is touched by that woman’s suffering and cannot but console her. He goes up to her and says, “Do not weep.” It is like he is saying: “I don’t want to see you crying; I have come on earth to bring joy and peace.” Only then comes the miracle, the sign of the power of Christ, who is God. Sr. Melannie Svoboda says we usually think of a miracle as something extraordinary, something spectacular. In the Gospel reading, we see Jesus raise to life the son of the widow of Nain. Yes, raising the young man was miraculous. But just as extraordinary was this: Jesus being moved to compassion by the suffering of a stranger in a nowhere little town. Fidelity, kindness, devotion, and compassion are all expressions of love. And isn’t love the greatest miracle of all?

In her work “The Flowing Light of the Godhead,” Mechthild of Magdeburg, a medieval mystic, writes: “Lord, you’re full, and you fill us with your kindness, too. You’re great, and we’re small. Tell us, how are we to become like you then? Lord, I see you’ve given us many blessings and that we must pass these on to others. Although we have a small vessel, you still fill it up. A person can pour the contents of a full, small container into an empty, larger container over and over until the large container becomes full from the contents of the small container. The large container is the satisfaction God gets from our kind actions. Sadly, we are so tiny that a single petite word from God or the Bible fills us so completely that we can’t take it in for the moment anymore. We should then pour the gift back again into the large container that is God. How can we do this? Through our holy desires, we must pour our small container of God’s love over those we know so that they may work on becoming perfect in God’s kindness and remain that way. Our Lord God wants us to love Him just as He has loved us and loves us still and always will. If we want to be like Him, we will love just as He does.”

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry” is a famous line from Erich Segal’s 1970 novel, “Love Story.”  Bishop Robert Morneau writes that this statement is not only lousy psychology but also denies what love is all about. “The cousins of love are mercy and forgiveness. Every relationship will have its hurts and bruises. These must be tended to as much as a knife wound. If not, an infection will set in, threatening our spiritual and community life. A humble spirit and contrite heart allow us to live authentically with God and others.” In the Book of Daniel, at the point where Daniel’s three friends refuse to bow down to the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar and are thrown into the fiery furnace, the three friends, commonly known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – the names they were given in Babylon which in the original Hebrew were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, we have Azariah (Abednego) praying loudly to the Lord: “But with contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received.” Bishop Morneau makes a crucial point: “As we come before the Lord in personal or communal prayer, our disposition and our moral behavior play a significant part in the effectiveness of our dialogue with the Lord. Humility grounds us in the truth of things; contrition opens our hearts to receive the mercy of God. The Gospel parable about the servant who received God’s forgiveness but refused to forgive in return is deeply disturbing. Of course, we are that servant being offered God’s forgiveness. Hopefully, we are not that servant in withholding forgiveness from those who have hurt us in any way.” Jesus teaches that forgiveness of others must be “from the heart,” for that is what God looks at in every request we make of Him. That is the depth and breadth of his desire for intimacy and truth.

Kathy Hendricks in Give Us This Day writes that her home was her stronghold, sheltering her throughout her childhood and adolescence. “My parents built the house before World War II, and it was a strong and sturdy structure. This proved true in withstanding the elements of nature and the way our family weathered storms of grief and loss. My years at our home formed a foundation that has steadied me for decades. Perhaps this is why I am so fond of Jesus’ image of the house built on rock. I get it down to my core. The parable is not difficult to unravel. When we truly hear what Jesus teaches, we act accordingly. In doing so, we aren’t thrown off base by faith-straining experiences and events. However, what may not be so clear is how to remain true to this foundation. There is no disputing the profound impact of a nurturing family. The bedrock of faith, however, isn’t dependent on a street address or idyllic childhood. It continues to be formed, layer by layer, in various ways. Spiritual practice is one. Routines of prayer, reflection, and meditation expand the interior space in which love, mercy, compassion, and wisdom can grow. Immersion is another. We cannot, nor should we try to, escape the realities of the world with all of its societal and cultural sinkholes. The beauty of the Eucharist, the richness of our shared story, and the companionship of our Church family provide solid ground upon which to merge word and deed into an authentic act of faith.”

Today’s Gospel reveals an essential fact about Mary as she deals with the greatest of all sorrows: her son’s horrific torture and ultimate death. As Jesus was dying, Mary stood under the Cross. What is she doing standing under the Cross? At first glance, it appears she is doing nothing. She does not speak, does not try to stop the crucifixion, does not protest its unfairness, or plead Jesus’ innocence. She is mute – seemingly passive, not doing anything at all. But, as Fr. Ron Rolheiser suggests, at a deeper level, she is doing two important things. First, in the Gospels, “standing” is a position of strength. Mary stood under the Cross. She was silent, but she was strong and fearless there. She was not one of those who fled. Second, she refused to give back what she was receiving. Mary seems to say, “I can’t stop the crucifixion, but I can stop some of this hatred.” “I can’t stop this crucifixion, but I will not give back this bitterness.” “I can’t stop this crucifixion, but I will not add a single drop to this negative, destructive energy swirling around me.” “I can’t stop this crucifixion, but I can give the opposite of this crucifixion: gentleness, understanding, forgiveness, peace, and light.” Why does any of this matter? In the Gospels, Mary is the first person to hear and keep the Word of God. Thus, she is the first true disciple. She knows what a true disciple should be and should do. She provides an example of discipleship that we can imitate. Today’s celebration invites us to follow her example in two areas of our lives. First, when pain, sorrow, suffering, and grief come, Mary inspires us to stand in strength and courage and to take heart. Second, Mary encourages us to refuse to give back darkness when darkness comes. When confronted by negativity and blackness, Mary inspires us to transform negativity and blackness rather than retransmit them.

What does God look like? German priest and theologian Karl Rahner wrote that to ask a question like this is tantamount to looking at the most beautiful day in June, seeing all the trees and flowers in full blossom, and asking a friend, “Where is summer?” To see certain things is to see summer. To see certain things is to see God. Rahner used to ask people when they asked him this question about God:

• Have you ever kept silent, despite the urge to defend yourself, when you were unfairly treated?
• Have you ever forgiven another, although you gained nothing by it, and your forgiveness was accepted as quite natural?
• Have you ever made a sacrifice without receiving any thanks or acknowledgment or feeling any inward satisfaction?
• Have you ever decided to do a thing simply for the sake of conscience, knowing that you must bear sole responsibility for your decision without being able to explain it to anyone?
• Have you ever tried to act purely for the love of God when no warmth sustained you when your act seemed a leap in the dark, simply nonsensical?
• Have you ever been good to someone without expecting a trace of gratitude and without the comfortable feeling of having been “unselfish”?

Rahner asserts that if you have had such experiences, you have experienced God, perhaps without realizing it. A little girl, drawing a picture, was asked by her mother: “What are you drawing?” She replied: “A picture of God!” “But we don’t know what God looks like,” her mother objected. “Well,” replied the child, “when I am finished with this, then you will know what God looks like!” If we do what Rahner suggests, we will also draw a picture of God.¹

¹ Adapted from Ron Rolheiser, “What Does God Look Like,” September 1994.

In his article, “Turning Our Eyes Toward Heaven,” Fr. Rolheiser writes that it’s not easy for the faithful to be centered, rooted, secure in who we are, and able to give our very best to the world each day. Why? The honest answer can be found in our prayer life or lack thereof. How can we manage the daily churning of the sea that so much of life appears to be when the ship of life we travel in does not have an anchor? Unless we are anchored in something beyond the here and now, there is a good chance that we will drown in the present moment. Jesus models the kind of prayer we need to cope with a world that goes mad at times and with a heart prone to drink in that madness. The gospels describe Jesus praying in different ways, but sometimes they simply say: “He turned his eyes towards heaven!” The phrase hasn’t been lost on artists. Virtually every painting of someone being martyred has this motif: the martyr has his or her eyes lifted up towards heaven, in contrast to the eyes of the executioners and onlookers, which are cast downwards in hatred, envy, and groupthink or in the blank stare of mindlessness. What made Jesus different was a prayer praxis that sought union with the Father. Each of us must find our own way of doing this if we are to cope with the forces that threaten to drown us. Only in seeking to be one with His will can we ever hope to be grounded, be ourselves, have a clear direction in life, be free of compulsions, and live out more of our dignity, goodness, and creativity. Without prayer, we haven’t a prayer. – Gil Bailie

In our more reflective moments, we sense the importance of prayer, yet we struggle to pray. Sustained, deep prayer doesn’t come easy for us. Why? Fr. Rolheiser writes that we struggle to make time for prayer. Prayer doesn’t accomplish anything practical for us, and it’s a waste of time in tending to the pressures and tasks of daily life, so we hesitate to go there. Coupled with this, we find it hard to trust that prayer works and brings about something real. Beyond that, we struggle to concentrate when we try to pray. Once we settle in to pray, we soon feel overwhelmed by daydreams, unfinished conversations, half-forgotten melodies, heartaches, agendas, and the impending tasks that face us as soon as we get up from our place of prayer. Finally, we struggle to pray because we really don’t know how to pray. We might be familiar with various forms of prayer, from devotional prayers to different kinds of meditation, but we generally lack the confidence to believe that our particular way of praying, with all its distractions and missteps, is prayer in the deep sense. One of the places we can turn to for help is the Gospel of Luke. More so than any of the other Gospels, his is the Gospel of prayer. In Luke’s Gospel, there are more descriptions of Jesus in prayer than in all the other Gospels combined. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus prays a lot. Ultimately, we also want Jesus’ depth and graciousness in our lives. Like Jesus’ disciples, we also know that we can only attain this through prayer, through accessing a power that lies inside the deepest depth of our souls and beyond our souls. We know too that the route to that depth lies in journeying inward, in silence, through both the pain and the quiet, the chaos and the peace, that come to us when we still ourselves to pray: “Lord teach me.”

In one of his dialogues with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was once asked: “What are you trying to do?” His answer was something to this effect: I’m trying to write a Christology that is large enough to include the full Christ because Christ isn’t just a divine savior sent to save people; Christ is also a structure within the physical universe, a path of salvation for the Earth itself: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, for in him all things were created in heaven and on Earth; everything visible and everything invisible … all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together ” (Col 1:15-18). Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that physical creation itself was somehow created through Christ, that Christ holds it together, and that Christ gives it an eternal future. The mystery of Christ is not just about saving us, the people on this planet, but also about saving the planet itself. Incorporating this into our understanding has enormous consequences for understanding our planet, Earth, and other religions. If all things were created through Christ and for Christ, then our planet, Earth, and all physical creation have value in themselves and not just in relation to us. Unless we understand the mystery of Christ as deeper and wider than what we can see visibly and historically, this quandary will invariably lead us to either abandon Jesus’ teaching about being normative or lead us into an exclusivity that goes against God’s universal will for salvation. All things have to do with Christ, whether we realize it or not, and all authentic worship leads to the Father, whether we can see this or not.

Fr. Ron Rolheiser, in his piercingly awakening article, “When Sinners Rationalize,” speaks to how we rationalize sin due to our failure to be honest with ourselves and an inability to admit our weaknesses. He says that much within and around us invites us to rationalize, make excuses, and demand that standards be changed or re-integrated because we cannot live up to them. Less and less, even in prayer and confession, do we find searing honesty and contrition. This propensity to rationalize and not admit weakness and sin is the most deadly temptation facing each of us. Failure to admit weaknesses and acknowledge our sin as sin is infinitely more damaging than weakness and sin themselves. Failure in self-honesty is the start of the sin against the Holy Spirit. The only sin that can never be forgiven is the sin of lying to oneself until one becomes so warped that one believes one’s own lie. Falsehood becomes truth. The reason this sin cannot be forgiven is not that God does not want to forgive it but rather that the person no longer sees the need for forgiveness. Living in darkness is seen by them as living in light; sin is seen as grace; perversion is seen as virtue. The person living in this state feels a certain disdain for what is genuinely virtuous, innocent, and happy. They would not accept forgiveness were it offered. This sin always begins with rationalization, with the failure to admit sinning. Much within our world and ourselves feeds this temptation to rationalize, take ourselves off the hook, and make ourselves look good by denying our weakness and sin. The rest of us must live and die in searing contrition, sinners asking God and others to forgive us for a life of weakness. In such honesty lies redemption. Anything less honest produces the seeds and, if allowed to grow, leads one to believe that sin isn’t sin.