Perfectly Imperfect

People do change.   Their base personality and faculties define who they are, not their behavior.  Behavior is something we do, not who we are.  The man I was in my twenties is not the man I am now, nor am I the man I hope to be ten  years from now.   What is important is not who we were, but who are now and who we are becoming.   That's what being a disciple is about.  Changing from the fallen person we have become into the person we were created as and to be, with Christ giving us the premier example of how to do that.

The twelve themselves were imperfect men.  They argued.  They fell short at times in understanding what Jesus was saying.   They had petty rivalries and jealousies.   At the foot of the cross we don't see those who jump up to say they would die with Him, save for John.  Impetuous Peter denied Him three times and went on to be the first of all the Apostles.  The thing is they were all changed, they all experienced a radical about face in their lives by encountering Christ.  All but John were martyred for their faith.  John was tortured as well and they tried to kill him, but when they failed they exiled him to a remote island to lessen his influence.  All were imperfect, but all were created for a purpose.

You see their character never changed.  You and I were created to be the person that we are.  God gave us a personality, intellectual abilities, a mind to think to with, a heart to feel with, and a memory to help us learn.  All of this he handed us with free will.  God does not ask you to become a mirror image of someone else, but rather to live the walk of Christ as you are able, in the way you are able to do it.  That doesn't mean we all don't do the same action.. but that we do it to the best of our ability as who we are.  For some that means being in the choir.  For others a Lector.   For still others helping with kids in the back.  For one a mother or father, for another a single lay man or woman on a missionary journey.   For some it means going across the world to experience new thrills... and for another staying right where they were born for their entire lives to serve those in that community.   God has a purpose for each and every one of us, and designed us unique with that purpose in mind.

We like James, John and Peter are quick when asked to drink of that cup to resound with an emphatic "Yes Lord!"   Do we truly count the cost of that? When your cup is drained to the dregs and all that is left is one drop of drink along with the dust and grime of daily life in some muddled mess that a seer might try to read for a glimpse of the future, are you ready to give that away?  Society teaches us to be selfish and to hold back that last part for ourselves... and while it's important to get away in prayer and to live our primary vocations as good parents, family, priests and servants; we are asked again by Christ are you ready to pour your life out like a libation?   To pour out every drop until you give your very life for another?  Not just the ones who are dear to you.. but the ones who challenge you?   The stranger?  The angry man at the office that gets on your nerves?  The one who breaths like Darth Vader while you're trying to listen to someone speak?  To the woman who talks bad about you?   To the widow? The orphan?   The homeless man on the street who smells of alcohol?   The refugee whose faith has been portrayed as one of a killer?  The guy who chews potato chips so loudly it sounds as if fire crackers are going off in your skull? Will you pour it out to them?   Christ did on the cross.  That is what He is asking you right now, when he says "Can you drink the cup that I shall drink?"

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease." 

A reflection the daily Mass readings for the Feast of Saint James: July 25th, 2016.   Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 126; The Holy Gospel According to Matthew 20:20-28

The Material World

There is this notion going around (and has been for many hundreds of years).  The church has been combating it from a very early time.  The Gnostics have long held (since the 1st and 2nd centuries) that all of creation was evil.  That notion is that the material world, that is all of creation, is 'bad' and the only good thing is the spiritual. What though would that notion say about Jesus Christ himself, who though fully God was also fully man?  Or about God himself who created matter?   This notion that our world is not worth the time we spend here and all that matters is Heaven to come has indeed infected the popular Christian music of our time.  A small example:

All I know is I'm not home yet

This is not where I belong

Take this world and give me Jesus

This is not where I belong

On one hand the lyrics are poignant and meaningful.  Being in Heaven with Christ is the goal of our existence.  The danger comes though when we spend all of our time thinking of things to come, without trying to see the beauty and gift of what Jesus has already given us.   It's kind of like getting a shirt that you kind of wanted for Christmas.  Then every time someone asks you about the shirt you're wearing, you start instead talking about the one you are going to get later.. the good one.. the one you got on is just a necessary thing to get you through.

We often forget the simple truth that when God looked back on creation, he said it was very good.  Not just mankind, but all of it.. the trees, the earth, the animals, the plants, in the water and on the earth.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.  Genesis 1:31 RSV-CE 

I think that is why this new encyclical, Laudato Si' is so pertinent and necessary for our times.  We have wrongly treated the word dominion as a right to complete domination.   As if we have the right to rape, pillage and destroy what God created and deemed very good simply because we are in charge of it.  How much like the renters of the vineyard we seem to have become who started treating it like it was their own.

“Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The very stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on any one, it will crush him.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. But when they tried to arrest him, they feared the multitudes, because they held him to be a prophet."

Matthew 21:33-41

How very fickle we humans are indeed.  We did the very thing Jesus speaks about.  God created for us a vineyard, filled with so many beautiful and wonderful things.  He gave it to us to take care of and instead of enhancing it's beauty and productivity, we often just destroy parts of it in search of greed and wealth.  Then the son himself came, and we did just like Jesus spoke of... we killed him and claimed the world as our own.  Yes, we have much to learn.  I am thankful for God's mercy because we as a species definitely do not deserve it.  May God forgive us for all we have done, and may the Pope's encyclical reach all to all people of the world and remind them that we have a duty to creation and we need to start living it.