Truth. What is truth?

We often judge people based on our own vision of them.   I had a neighbor once who was a cranky old man.   Everyone warned me to not only stay away from him, but to keep my kids away from him too.   One day I walked over and asked how he was doing.   He was having some issues with his house and couldn't go up under it to check on it.   I ended up crawling under his trailer for a few minutes to find that his heat tape had been unplugged.   I plugged it back up, problem solved.   Over the next few years I got to know him pretty well.  Yes, he was cranky.  Yes, he was pretty inappropriate at times.   He had a huge heart though.   I had judged him wrongly by listening to others talk about him, and even in my own way expected certain things out of him.  My vision is limited.

God on the other hand looks inside the person.   He glimpses the inmost emotions of our hearts.   In today's Gospel Jesus declares that Nathanael  is a man with no duplicity!  Nathanael tells it like it is.   In fact, he is just a little bit rude in what he has to say today.  As the kids would say: "savage."   When he hears that Philip thinks Jesus is the Messiah he responds "from Nazareth? pfft."   The one thing Jesus knows about Nathanael is that he is who he is, whether you are there or not.  Honest.  Maybe to a fault.   The thing is though, Nathanael is then astounded that Jesus knew something very simple about him.  Jesus reminds him that greater things are to come.

du·plic·i·tyd(y)o͞oˈplisədē/noun1.
deceitfulness; double-dealing.

synonyms:

deceitfulness, deceit, deception, double-dealing, underhandedness, dishonesty, fraud,fraudulence, sharp practice, chicanery, trickery, subterfuge, skulduggery, treachery;More

2.
archaicdoubleness.

You see, this man who is astounded that Jesus saw him in the mundane, would go on to realize that it is in the mundane that we can see Jesus.   We judge people so much that we fail to see Him in them.   We are so busy looking for those big mountain top moments, that we fail to encounter Him in the silence and in the other.  So many think that if I could just become a missionary, or if I were a monk or a nun, then I could be Holy!   You are Holy now!   Yes, there is something amazing about being on a retreat or in Adoration for hours on end... but that same Jesus can be present to you in your every day life.   That is truth!

It's not enough to only encounter Him at Mass, though this is our most important prayer.   Worship should be a priority in our lives.   However we should be attempting to encounter Him where we are, when we are.   There is this saying: "if slaughter houses had glass walls, the world would becoming vegetarian."   I don't know that it is true.   What I do know is that if all walls were transparent we'd see that every person out there has some sin in their lives.   Sin that we tend to hide behind walls, in closets, or under the guise of perfection.   It's we, the sinners, who He came to encounter.  He comes to encounter us daily.  Not just once a day, not just once a week, not just here or there.. but He wants to encounter us every second.   Until our live becomes living prayer, a perfect communion with the Father, one that is only possible when we begin to let Him show us the world, through His eyes.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

A reflection on the readings for the Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle: August 24, 2016.  Revelation 21:9b-14; Psalm 145; The Holy Gospel according to Saint John 1:45-51

In season or out of season?

This morning at Mass the Gospel reminds us that even Jesus sometimes is in a bad mood.  As he walked in the morning hours, hungry and irritable, he came upon that poor fig tree.   It hadn't produced any figs.  Granted it wasn't the 'season' for figs, but that didn't stop Jesus from cursing the tree. This tree was acting like every other tree in the world.. just doing what all the other ones were doing.  Deacon Bill calls this story a parable in action.   Just like the stories that Jesus often tells to teach us spiritual messages, this action of his and it's results is in and of itself a lesson to be learned. All too often we want to wait till the time is ready by our standards, we want to be in control.   "I'll have kids when we can afford it."  "You know I'll get cleaned up when things get easier."  "I'll stop smoking after this audit is complete."  "I just need a few more drinks to get me through this month."  Jesus shows us a simple truth, God expects us to be ready "in season and out of season."   He wants us always producing fruit, regardless of what is going on around us... regardless of if we feel like it.  He wants us to be different.. not following the flow of things of the world, but of the things of Heaven.

There is a tree in my front yard that reminds me of this parable.   A few years ago a friend of mine lost her son to a drug overdose.  I noticed that afternoon that the tree was only getting leaves on half of it's branches.  Today it stands much the same with half of it looking pathetic, and half of it healthy and green.  The bark on the side that does not bloom is riddled with holes and falling off, and on the other side strong and firm.  It was as if that tree lost part of itself.  I wrote a poem about that, how that losing someone can be like that... like losing half of your self.. losing your way.  That tree is still plugging away trying, even if it doesn't feel like it.. even if seems like the world is against it, some disease eating away at it trying to sap it's strength.. it still struggles to find breath, digging in it's roots until it finds the nourishment it has to keep going.

CCC 1832 The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: "charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity."

You and I are called to be like that.   Regardless of the pain and suffering we might endure.   Even if the entire world turns against us, father against son, mother against daughter, friend against friend; we are called to continue to produce fruit.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We are to bloom where we are planted and to produce those fruits.   Peter reminds us in the first reading that the greatest of all these fruits is love, because love produces all of the others.  He challenges us to let our love for another be intense.   Another translation says let your love be fervent.  That is hot, burning and glowing!  Visible.  Apparent.  On the surface not just under it.

My wife and I have been married for ten years today.  For all of those years she has stood by my side, even when pain and illness made it impossible for me to stand as well.  She watched and cared for me as I had my back surgery and through the long, tedious recovery.  When I had my knee operated on, through many kidney stones, and days in which the pain was so horrible that I did not even move from the couch.  All through this she showed a fervent love, a love that bloomed and produced fruit regardless of how I treated her back.  There have been times when it wasn't smooth sailing.  Every couple argues at some point, every couple disagrees.  The thing is I don't remember those times as much.   When I think back I remember that kindness, the laughter, the smiles, the patience, and the trust.

1642 Christ is the source of this grace. "Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony." Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens, to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ," and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb: How can I ever express the happiness of a marriage joined by the Church, strengthened by an offering, sealed by a blessing, announced by angels, and ratified by the Father? . . . How wonderful the bond between two believers, now one in hope, one in desire, one in discipline, one in the same service! They are both children of one Father and servants of the same Master, undivided in spirit and flesh, truly two in one flesh. Where the flesh is one, one also is the spirit.

I think that's why Jesus reminds us today that sometimes we've got to turn over the tables that get in the way.  Every relationship has rocky moments.  For some, that means walking away.  I've heard hundreds of people say "we just fell out of love."  That does happen.   It happens when you let the tables get in the way, when you let the money changes fill up your temple, when you let the roots starve your growth until you produce none of the fruit.  Love isn't just a sappy feeling that makes you have butterflies in the stomach.  It's a choice. An action.  It's deciding each and every day to stand by someone, even when they aren't pleasant.  It is being willing to fight for the beauty that is the person you are and the vocation you are called to.  You are the temple of God.  You and your spouse are one, joined together by a Sacrament that transcends this visible world.  Are you willing to fight for it?  To dig in your roots and continue to bloom even when it seems like the bark is falling off and the ground is filled with rocks?  Are you ready to look into your heart and life and ask where are these money changes and tables that stand in the way of my relationship with God and my spouse?  That's what it takes to produce fruit.  I haven't always been the perfect husband, and there are many days that I am not a pleasant man to be around... but I do know this.. I want to turn over those tables, to drive out those things which inhibit me from producing fruit, and to grow day by day into the man and husband that God is calling me to be.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

And now you're so surprised to see me

In tomorrow’s reading we see the parable of the fig tree.  This sort of tree is a source of fruit, a source of nourishment for the world.  In the desert lands in which Jesus taught and journeyed it would have been seen as sustenance, life. The owner of the vineyard, the farmer, came along after three years of time and saw that the fig was still not bearing fruit.  He then turns to the vinedresser and says, “For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?”(Luke 13:7)  The vinedresser in turn begs for another year.  He wants to spend more time cultivating.  More time giving the tree a chance to produce fruit.  Then, though, he will have to cut it down.

I find it extremely telling that the Owner speaks of three years of time.  Jesus himself had only three years of preaching to convince the Jewish people that he was the Messiah that they had been seeking.  Here the owner must indeed represent the Father.  It’s almost as if Jesus is giving us a glimpse of a conversation that was to come, one after his crucifixion.  God the Father has tired of the people who he has been sending messages to.  He tried to send them through Abraham.  He tried to send it through the prophets.  Then the judges.  Then during the time of the Kings.  Then he sent his only Son.  As in the Parable a few days ago, the tenants did not bother to give over that fruit they were supposed to be growing.  They abused the servants, and then killed the Son.  

 In the Eucharist he gives us everything we need to produce that sumptuous and elegant fruit that the Father seeks in our lives.  God is calling out to us in love, asking us to love in return.  To love God and our fellow man.   

I think this parable is much the same.  The owner of the vineyard has returned to collect that fruit.  Yet, here he finds the barren tree.  This person has borne no fruit though he has heard the word of God preached for a fullness of time.  Three is considered a perfect number.  Complete.  This person has heard the word long enough!  Yet he still rejects the message.  Then steps in the vinedresser.  He stands between  God and man, he intercedes on our behalf.   This man must be Jesus himself.  Though he has been toiling in the vineyard for three years, there are still these trees that bear no fruit.  Even though they have rejected him, even though they have sent him to a bloody, and thankless death, he still begs for them.

Jesus declared to his disciples that he was the vine, the thing from which sustenance flows.  That God is the gardener, the husbandman, the owner of the vineyard.  Jesus wants to give them more time.. he wants to nourish them… he wants to water the seeds that he has planted.  We as Catholics acknowledge that  “Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.” (CCC 480)  He is the one who steps in to cultivate the dirt of our soul, to create a truly beautiful soil ready for growth, rich with virtue and grace.

How then can we apply this to our lives?   To our own situations?   We are the fig tree.  We are either producing fruit or not.  God has sent his message into our hearts.  He has given us all the tools we need to learn more. That’s the Son still calling out to us.  Through the Church, through the Scriptures, through nature itself, he continually digs around our roots and places nourishment there for us to consume.  In the Eucharist he gives us everything we need to produce that sumptuous and elegant fruit that the Father seeks in our lives.  God is calling out to us in love, asking us to love in return.  To love God and our fellow man.   He has sent his Holy Spirit into the world, into our hearts, to help us even further.. to fertilize our hearts.. to take away that dry weary land, that heart of stone, and give us a heart of flesh that will reach out to bring about God’s kingdom.

The Catechism says that “the fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.” (CCC 1829) God is giving us just a bit more time, Christ is seeking to open our hearts to love.   We don’t have forever though.. it is appointed unto man once to die, and after the judgement. (Hebrews 9:27)  We don’t know when that will be.  The Parable says that the vinedresser asked for another year… another span of time, just another season.  Then comes the judgement though.. then if there is no fruit, it will be cut down.  The truth of the matter is this:  all of us have that one thing in common.  We are all going to die one day.  God has given us the fullness of time, he has given us every opportunity to produce fruit.. and how often we fail.  The son wanted us to have another chance, so much was his love for us that he came down as a man himself, and died in our place.  He has made the downpayment.. it’s up to us to do something about it.  We are planted in God’s vineyard through baptism, the Church.  The Church, the body of Christ, is continually tilling around us, feeding us with every spiritual food available through the Holy Spirit, the liturgy, the Scriptures, and the Sacraments.  Our roots are being nourished, but it’s up to us to drink.

The Samaritan woman at the well represents us.  We are going to the well.  If we only knew the gift of God, if we only knew who stands before us, if we only took a drink of the water he offers… our fruit would blossom so much that the whole world would see it!  Are you drinking of that well?  Or like the rich young man are you letting some attachment stand in your way?  It’s time for us to get in line behind Christ, to point our face toward the cross and say, “Here I am lord, speak your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10)

Once again, I must reiterate, Christ is coming to us daily.  He is seeking to pick that fruit.  He comes in the face of the stranger, the refugee, the orphan.  The homeless man down the street.  The angry fellow in traffic.  The tired, overworked nurse who just wants to complain on her lunch break.  The young couple in the pew who struggles with their child. That neighbor who just wants a little conversation, a little human interaction at the end of a long day. All of these people are looking for some fruit.  They just want to experience a little love.  Are you offering that fruit? Are you responding with joy, peace, and mercy? Are you running toward them with the open arms of the Father, with love?  Oh imagine the world in which we did such things, Church!  That line from Augustine quoted in the Catechism is so beautiful isn’t it? “There is the goal(love); that is why we run:  we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.”  Are you running toward Christ in the least of these? There, there in the arms of the dying, the poor, the outcasts.. that’s where you’ll find the love of Christ reflected, that’s where you will find rest.

The Samaritan woman at the well represents us.  We are going to the well.  If we only knew the gift of God, if we only knew who stands before us, if we only took a drink of the water he offers… our fruit would blossom so much that the whole world would see it!

When God came down on the burning bush before Moses, the bush was not consumed.  It was rather transformed into something amazing, something beautiful, something that reflected the glory of God to the world.  It became a symbol, a beacon.  The place became so Holy because of the presence of the Holy Spirit that God said to Moses, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”  Think about that symbolism for a minute.   As you walk up that Aisle today toward the Eucharist.. not only are you on Holy Ground.. but you are about to become Holy Ground. You are about to receive God himself into your body.  You are about to be filled with that same glorious power that Moses saw radiating from the burning bush.  It does not destroy you.. it transforms you.. Are you allowing it do just that?  Are you allowing God’s light to shine into the world in such a way that people want to remove their baggage, their spiritual shoes, and walk in the presence of God?  Are you offering them that fruit?  Only you can offer the unique fruit that you are designed to give.  No one else can give it the same way, the same kind, the same you.  Are you ready to be a fig tree in God’s garden?  Are you ready to be Holy Ground?  

His servant and yours,

Brian

“He must increase, I must decrease.”

The Bears Win!

Today's readings are quite intense.  Since we are less than a day away from Advent it would be expected that the intensity grows, and so it does!  We see all these strong apocalyptic images of great beasts rising up and devouring, and then falling away to the next beast.  What are these images about?  Apocalyptic literature is always kind of scary and many people spend the majority of their lives trying to find out who these people are, not just in the past but some try to interpret them as in the present.  The point of the literature, though it can be prophetic and often was, is to point to righteousness and faith being the key to redemption.  They almost always end with the judgement seat of God and the end of time.

The lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) represent strength and characteristics of kingdoms to come and go.   Just as you and I would be scared if a bear walked into our living room, let alone a bear with three large tusks; so too was the imagery intended to convey a message.  That message is that these kingdoms that are coming and going are very powerful, savage and cruel.  They all fall though.  This scene in Daniel ends with the coronation of the Son of Man coming on the clouds.  Jesus is in charge.  These kingdoms, despite their power and guile, will all fall away.. the only Kingdom that reigns forever is that of the Messiah, of the Christ.  This is the promise of the Davidic throne, this is the promise to us through Christ, the only begotten Son of God. 

Then we see this interesting parable that talks about figs, and signs of the times.  Just like in the apocalyptic literature we see symbols of what is going on in the world politically at the time, we see Jesus teaching us to keep our eyes and ears open.  He talks about the fact that we see the buds of the fig trees ready to burst forth and that shows us that summer is almost here, so too should we keep our minds open for the coming of Christ.  He also taught us though, that only the Father will know that day.  So what does he mean?  He means to be vigilant.  To be ready.

I was trying to learn more about figs earlier today, to see how this parable could apply to my life.  I grew up helping to tend bee hives occasionally.   I had heard quite a bit about bees and how they pollinate the food we eat, helping things to grow and reproduce.  I did not know that wasps also for some plants do the same thing.  Figs have a special kind of wasp that not only pollinates the fruit but also lays it's eggs there.  The queen crawls into the fig, lays her eggs, in the process pollinates the inside of the fruit, and then she dies.  She is consumed by the fig. 

That's a strange relationship.  The thing is, if you ask me about wasps I truly think of them as a terror.  Compared to bears, lions, eagles... a wasp is much scarier to me.  I don't know why.  Their little faces make me think of pure evil.  That to me is the lesson I take from this whole situation.  I think of the wasp as evil, as those things inside of me that get in the way of me letting God have complete control.  Just like the fig I often think these things are for my good.  I let them crawl around inside, not really asking what to do with them.  The fig teaches us a lesson though.  When we have those things inside we need to dissolve them.  We need to let the Jesus inside of us consume those things, drive them out... leaving nothing but the fruit inside. 

I think that's our lesson.  As the liturgical year ends, our minds begin to think of the end of time.  We don't know when that will come.  We don't know exactly what that will look like, or what it means for us to transition from life to eternity.  What we do know is that we need to be ready.  We need to let the Holy Spirit scatter the darkness in our hearts until nothing is left but the sweetness of His fruits.  As my dear friend Kenn often says, "Get ready, be ready, stay ready."  Don't wait till tomorrow, don't simply watch for signs of things to come.. but be ready regardless of what is happening.  Don't let your lamp go empty, keep the fuel handy at all times.

His servant and yours,
Brian