I did it my way

I’ve told this story before.  The story of sitting on the riverbank of the Mississippi at the White House in Saint Louis, Missouri.   How that the sun was shinning, the birds singing, the river flowing it’s long easy strides.   That I was sitting there meditating on being thankful and how awestruck we should be at the generosity of God.   There I was having this beautiful moment of relaxation with the beauty of nature when the thought occurred to me:  This moment would be perfect if a deer would just walk out of the woods right now.  God had created a moment in which I could encounter Him on a greater level, a moment in which the temporal could touch the infinite… a perfect moment.   There I was trying to be God.

Our first reading shows us that times haven’t changed much in that regards.  Just like I on the riverbank that Mark Twain made famous sought to perfect a moment that was already perfect, the world tries to tell us what makes us happy.   Frank Sinatra once sang a song called “I did it my way.”  In that song he lauds that his life is coming to an end, and that he always did it his way.  Later in his life he was known to complain about the song.   His daughter said he described it as like having something on his shoe, something unpleasant that you just couldn’t get off.  It was too ego centric, too self serving.  It reminds me of that saying the kids have, “I’ll do me, and let you do you.”   You be your own truth, and I’ll be my own truth, and we’ll be both be happy.  Yet, very few of us are happy.

The Saints show us a different way.  In their emulation of Christ they instead put others first.   They put their egos aside and serve God and man instead.   They let their own wants and needs go to the way side.  They aren’t concerned with honor, or glory, or riches or fame.   Recognition at the end of the day is not their concern.   Mother Teresa was once told by someone that they wouldn’t do what we she did for a million dollars.  She replied, “I wouldn’t do it for a million dollars either!”   She realized that the true reward is not in the comforts of this life, but in the joy of communion with Christ.  Not just in Heaven, not just in the Sacraments, but also in each other.  In the faces of those distressing disguises that Christ is wont to wear: the poor, the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the sinner.

Christ on the cross shows us the fulfillment of life.   The Disciples were confounded when He said that it was near impossible for a rich and wealthy person to enter the kingdom of Heaven.  The Jews in first century Palestine, like many of the people today, had a sort of prosperity Gospel understanding of how things worked.   The more God loved you?  The more you had.  The less favor with God?  The poorer and sicker they were.  Jesus turned that on it’s head.  The first, the most honored, wealthy and powerful King of all times and places?  Died destitute on the cross.  The first was last in the eyes of the world, but the last in the eyes of the world? Is first and foremost in Heaven.    That’s true happiness… right there on the crucifix.   A man with no wealth, no power, no honor, no pleasure…. But living out the will of the Father.   Dying in the place of all of us as the greatest act of love in the history of everything!   

That’s our challenge as well.  To die to self that we might serve others.   Not to make God an afterthought… not to get everything else in order first, and then.. After work, health, retirement, vacation, school, kids and all the other things we add in there, to find a moment for God… Rather to put God in their first.. And then place the rest around Him and in His arms… That is lasting joy.

His servant and yours,

Brian

“He must increase, I must decrease.”

A reflection on the readings for daily Mass for Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time:  Ezekiel 28:1-10; Deuteronomy 32; The Holy Gospel according to Matthew 19:23-30

Ever touch an electric fence?

A Reflection on the readings for Daily Mass, June 30, 2016.

Amos 7:10-17
Psalm 19:8-11
The Holy Gospel According to Matthew 9:1-8

When I was younger my grandfather kept telling me not to go down around his garden.   He had this electric fence that he had put in.  He told us not to grab hold of it or it would 'bite' us.   The funny thing was we kind of enjoyed it.  The thrill of doing something dangerous, something we shouldn't be doing... and even better, holding on to someone else who didn't know we were going to touch the fence.  For years I goofed around with that and even found myself as an electrician not being super careful around low voltage.  People warned me that it could be dangerous, the books warned me, my mind warned me, but I didn't care.  I kind of liked it, it made my arthritis pain go away.   Then one day I was wiring a light in a school in Kingsport, Tennessee when my arm brushed the aluminum ceiling grid. It wasn't a hundred and twenty volts, but rather two seventy seven.   I found a new level of pain, one I did not enjoy.. one that left me aching.. one that made me hear clearly in my head the sixty hertz cycle of the transformer.   I thought I was screaming, I was trying to throw it away... but I couldn't move.. I couldn't speak... I was paralyzed.  Eventually it let me go, but I had learned my lesson the hard way.

Amos has been warning Israel of the consequences of their actions.  In the first reading he tells them this is what is going to happen if you keep on the path you are on.  Like me and my little dalliance with electricity eventually it's going to catch you.  As a man whose dad was electrocuted when I was only five years old, you'd think I'd have had more respect for it.   I wanted it though, I enjoyed it.   Just like the society of that time, and even our society today, they are doing things that feel good.   They want them.  They don't realize how dangerous it is.  How much it hurts! Sin and it's glamour tends to draw us in, to paralyze us, to addict us.   We find ourselves falling into the same trap that St. Paul speaks about when he says: "Those things I want to do, I do not.. those things I know not to do, that I do."  It traps us in a cycle where we find ourselves coming back to the Sacrament of Reconciliation time and again for the same sin, the same old temptation.. almost unable to help ourselves.

Just as an animal becomes a stronger beast of burden and more beautiful to behold the more often and better it is fed, so too confession - the more often it is used and the more carefully it is made as to both lesser and greater sins - conveys the soul increasingly forward and is so pleasing to God that it leads the soul to God's very heart.
--Revelations of St. Bridget

That's the key isn't it?  We are unable to help ourselves.  It's only through Christ that we can be cured.  The Gospel reminds us today that when we are paralyzed and unable to move, that's when those around us must pick us up and carry us to Christ.  When we are trapped in sin and unable to get out, that's when we need the Sacraments the most.   We as Catholics have to help those who need God: society, our friends, our neighbors, our kids.    It starts though with a different person: our self.  All of us have some sort of pet sin, something that we haven't let go of.   It's that pesky beam in our own eye that keeps us from being able to see clearly enough to help someone else with a speck or a splinter.  We like touching that electric fence too much to stop.. even though we know it's going to hurt, even though we have tried time and again.  What we've got to do is sit at the feet of Jesus... and let Him say to us, "Your sins are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more."  Then to trust in that... we have to pick up our mat and walk.  

"In failing to confess, Lord, I would only hide You from myself, not myself from You."--Saint Augustine

Are you ready for that?  As a Catholic that's what Reconciliation (Confession/Penance) is all about.  It's about allowing the Church to carry us in on our mats, to place us at the feet of Jesus and when He sees the faith of the body of Christ he says "Go forth, your sins are forgiven."   That's the greatest miracle of all time.  That God has given us a way to not only move away from the electric fence, but to live knowing that any permanent damage isn't done.   If you need someone to carry you on your mat, call me.  I'll drive you.  I'll wait in line with you and hold the door for you when you walk in.  Then I'll get in line too, because I keep falling back on my mat as well.

His servant and yours,
Brian
"He must increase, I must decrease."

Wash me and I shall be white as snow

It's two days before Christmas and the story continues with more about John the Baptist and his birth.  The Old Testament reading has some interesting imagery in it though.  It talks of sending a messenger before him, to prepare the way.  Then it says the Lord will come suddenly into the temple.  This particular book, Malachi, was probably written during the exile, several hundred years after Elijah had been taken up in the Chariot of Fire.  It talks about Elijah's return.  Later in the New Testament, hundreds of years later, we see them say that John came in the Spirit of Elijah to fulfill this prophecy. 

What I find interesting though is the two images of God we find here, the images of one who is coming to prepare us.  The first image is that of a refiner.  It talks about refining Gold and silver.  Refining of course means to take an ore with impurities, apply a great amount of heat, then to scoop off the dross from the top.  Dross means the worthless, impure parts.  You keep repeating this until you're left with pure silver.  How do you know though? How does one know when silver or gold is refined?  Someone once said, "When you can see your reflection in it."  That speaks volumes in revelation to who God is.  We will be what he wants us to be, when he sees Him in us.  Wow.

Then we see this other image.... the image of a fuller and fuller's soap. A fuller is one who works with cloth.   He spends his day stomping the cloth in his vat, stretching it out on frames, beating it with feet or a club, continuing to do this until it is clean and shapely, in many cases even bleached white.  He keeps working the fabric, until it is the shape and size it should be.  If it's not perfect?   He goes through the whole process again.  Stretching.  Beating.  Cleaning.  Purifying.   Until it is exactly what it should be.  Perfect.

In the Gospel we see the people, the very ones who were friends of the family, the ones who probably worked and lived around Zechariah... being scared of what John represented.  All of these miracles around his birth.  His father unable to speak, but then miraculously being able to talk after naming his son in agreement with his wife and God's plan.  They were scared.  They've been waiting for the Messiah, but they aren't quite ready.   They are filled with fear.  They take all of these matters into their hearts though, and acknowledge that God is at work and has his hand on John.

I think that is our lesson for tomorrow.  That as we approach Christmas we should be asking, are we ready?  Do we realize how much of a miracle Christmas is?  How much of a miracle the Eucharist is?  Are we living a Sacramental life?  Are we opening our hearts to let Christ be born in them?  It is time for us to be serious about our walk with Christ.  God is not asking you to wait till you're clean..  He's not asking you to get your life straight first..  He is asking you to invite him in.  The Church is preparing the way.  It has shown you what you need to do.  Now it's time for you to open the doors of your heart and suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek.   You and I are the temple of the Lord.  Let Him come in.

It doesn't stop there though.  The Lord loves you right now, just the way you are.  He loves you too much to leave you that way.  Let Him then transform you.   Let him refine you.  Purify you.  Mold you. Shape you.  How do we do this?  A Sacramental life.  Receive him in the Eucharist.   Confess him in Reconciliation.  Seek His grace.  You and I cannot do this alone.  With God though, all things are possible.   Christmas is in two days.  You don't have to wait two days to have Christ born in your heart.... start today... .then ... every day continue to grow in Christ. Until we can live our lives in a way that reflects the heart of the Psalmist when he wrote:

Indeed you love truth in the heart;
then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.
O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
that the bones you have crushed may thrill.
From my sins turn away your face
and blot out all my guilt.

A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervor sustain me,
that I may teach transgressors your ways
and sinners may return to you.

O rescue me, God, my helper,
and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.

O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise.

His servant and yours,
Brian