I wish you were more like....

One of the worst mistakes we can do in a serious relationship is to compare the one we love with the past.  "I wish you were more like your (brother/father/mother/sister/cousin)...."    "When we were dating you would..."   "All you ever want to do is sleep, when I first met you we always..."  It's even worse if you compare a spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend to someone you used to be in a relationship with!  It demeans.  It tears down.  It hurts.  It's a failure to encounter that person in the here and the now and a grave mistake indeed.

C.S. Lewis in his journal titled "A Grief Observed" wrote of an encounter with a person from his past.   After his wife's death he had become somewhat of a social recluse and an old friend called on him.   He was excited at the prospect of seeing him after all these years.   After a few hours with the fellow he found that his memory of him was not quite the person he really was.  In fact, after seeing some of the ticks and quirks of the persons personality he realized that he did indeed remember that person after all... but his memory tended to leave out details.. to tailor itself to Lewis's own likes and dislikes.   It was an astounding moment when he realized that his wife was more now than any memory that he could have of her.   He was failing to encounter her in the now, and instead remembering her in the past.   Even though she had died, she was still with him in ways that were even more complete and astounding.

“All reality is iconoclastic[..]The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness.... And this, not an image or memory, is what we are to love still, after she is dead.” - C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed 

I think that when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb she was doing much the same by living in the past.  That's part of grief after all.   The Resurrection that Jesus had spoken of so often was simply a thing she had relegated to the future.   Even the vision of the angels speaking to her from inside the tomb did not bring her out of her funk.  The Master himself stood behind her and he failed to recognize him.  She was looking for an image of the man, one she had in her mind... but the real Jesus was right there before her eyes.   It took her hearing her name called by God himself to recognize him.   It took an encounter with God, with Christ in His resurrected form to jar her out of herself, out of her own thoughts.. and into the present.

CCC 2158 God calls each one by name. Everyone's name is sacred. The name is the icon of the person. It demands respect as a sign of the dignity of the one who bears it.

We as fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances must encounter Christ in the present.   To take time to look for him and listen for his voice to speak to us from the mouths of others.  As a parent I know just how difficult this can be.   To look for the image not only in the stranger but in those you live with every day.   This is the only way we can meet them exactly where they are and as who they are in order to journey with them through this life.   It takes stopping to listen for Christ to speak our name through the mouth of those created in His image.  Are we taking time to do this?

P.S.   Father Don Ahles' homily this morning touched on something that we should take note of, especially in light of what I wrote above.   Pope Francis has taken the memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene and turned it into a Feast.  That means that everywhere around the world it must be celebrated by Catholics.    He wants us to sit up and take notice of who Mary Magdalene really is, not who history has attempted to portray her as.  A grave error has been done to her image in that she has been confused with other women in the bible.  She was a wealthy woman who traveled with Jesus and helped support his ministry.  The Eastern Church calls her the Apostle to the Apostles.  She was not the prostitute but rather the woman who was delivered from seven spirits.  She then was sent to tell the Apostles themselves the good news.  We should take note of that too and realize that sometimes our image of her is clouded too and we need to encounter who she truly was that we may encounter who Christ is and what His message is to us.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

A reflections on the Mass readings for the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene: July 22, 2016.   Song of Songs 3:1-4; Psalm 63; The Holy Gospel According to Saint John 20:1-2, 11-18

Speak Life

There are so many times that I have been given the opportunity to be an evangelist for Christ and allowed my fallen human nature to get in the way.   I was at a Cracker Barrel with some friends.   I went up to the register to pay on the way out.   A young man behind the counter commented on my necklace.  He said he had been meaning to get something to wear.   He said he just didn't know which to get because he was, and I quote here, "A Catholic and a Christian."   It was a moment to evangelize, a moment to teach and tell him that all Catholic's are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholics.   I didn't though... I just talked about the different kinds of crucifixes and crosses and encouraged him to get one.   Something inside of me kept me from going further and encountering this person on a deeper level.

Jeremiah reminds us that God encounters us on so deep a personal level that He Himself forms us in our mother's womb.   We are reminded time and again in the Sacred Scriptures that we are created in the image of God.  Like a loving artisan, God works directly and intimately with our very being.  Making us into one race, not many.   Each person created unique with a distinct personality and specific gifts.  He knows us before even our parents are aware of our existence.    How much more personal a relationship with God can we have than to be created by Him, not as some identical automaton among the many.. but as an individual, a singular diamond... a treasured possession.

We are made in the image of the God who speaks and creates.   He speaks life.   He speaks love.   He, the Father, spoke one single Word.   That Word was revealed to us in the incarnation as the "Word became flesh and dwelt among us."   Jesus is the Word of God.   In every action Jesus provides a perfect example of evangelization.     He never proselytizes, even the son of God never seeks to force conversion... He instead encounters the person.   He gets to the heart of the matter for those who are seeking to come closer, those who are trying in earnest to find God.  He never tells them to just continue sinning or misses an opportunity to reach out to a fallen child of God, but rather touches them in a way that leaves them hopeful or challenged.  That is the image of a God who never leaves a person behind unchanged.

In the Gospel parable we see the Word of God being planted like a seed.   The myriad temptations of this world seek to harden the soil of our hearts.   To create an environment internally that inhibits the growth of that seed.   The devil and evil spirits prowl about seeking to devour, to destroy any hope of that seed forming.  They want to pluck the seed out before it has a chance to change us.   Pleasure, honor, power, and wealth all seek to grow up in our hearts as false idols to choke out and destroy any image of God within us.   We must be co-workers with the Lord, laboring to prepare the soil of our hearts to not only receive the Word, but to nourish it and let it grow within us as a fertile and rich environment for Life.    That is what has been planted in us, the Word of eternal life, Life itself.

Then, we also must become planters of the Word.   Going out into the world to speak Life.   In a world hurting with racial divides, abortion on demand, rampant drug use, hatred towards the police sworn to protect us, and a million excuses that desire to create in us an environment where we justify sin... In a realm where men and women fleeing persecution by regimes of hate are turned away by 'Christian' nations.... In a society where speaking about Christ is in and of itself taboo, casual sex is on the rise, the family and marriage are being relegated to things of the past, and selfishness is even lauded in the music.... We are challenged to speak Life.. to speak Love... to speak hope.  To the poor, the broken, to the hurting... we are to be an image of the Word... one who never is complacent towards sin, but always encounters on a personal level.. and leaves every person they encounter changed in some small way.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

A Reflection on the readings for Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time: July 20th, 2016.  Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10;  Psalm 71; The Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew 13:1-9

She died in her sleep...

My daughter knows that if she asks me for something to eat I will give it to her.  It did not matter if it was two in the morning or the afternoon, if she was hungry I fed her.   I explained to my wife that one of my father's relatives had a daughter who asked for another piece of cake very late in the night and her mother refused to let her have it.   She sent her to bed without that piece of cake.  That daughter died in her sleep.  To this day I will feed a child, regardless of what time it is, if they tell me they are hungry. 

Think of the boldness of those of us who proclaim that God is our Father.   In the prayer that Jesus taught us we say simply, "Give us this day our daily bread."   Recently when meditating on this I pictured myself as a child with my hands out, simply asking God for a piece of bread.  The image in my mind reminded me of the stance we take when going up to receive communion in hand. We place our hands forward as a throne, like children, like beggars.  In asking simply God rewards greatly, giving us not just bread, but the body soul and divinity of Christ.  He gives us more than we ask for, far better than we deserve.

As Christians we are called to live out our lives in the image of Him who we have been created in.  That is, we are to emulate God in our actions, in our thoughts, and our words.  That's a challenging thing when you think of the image of God as Father, as the one who is being asked for sustenance, peace, and tranquility.  He provides freely, generously, and more powerfully than we ourselves even expect.  Forgiving our sins, meeting both our physical and spiritual needs, while also helping us to move forward and grow into the person we are created to be.  We can find the source of that image in Christ himself. 

That's our challenge then isn't it?  To be childlike in our faith in that we trust God to reach out to us and give us what we need, but also to be the image of the invisible God to those who are hurting, frustrated, and lacking in their lives.  We ourselves receive Christ in the Eucharist, then we must go out into the world and share it with those who have not.  By giving food and drink to the widow, the orphan, the refugee... the moment they ask, and even more than they ask for.   Also, in giving spiritually to all in need.  This is what it means to love.  To treat people as a whole, not as a part.  To interact with them more than on a superficial level, but on a level that unites us as one body.. That's what happens when we encounter Christ at the Mass... are we allowing that to happen when we encounter Christ in His most distressing disguises? 

His servant and yours, 

Brian 

"He must increase, I must decrease." 

A Reflection on the Daily Mass Readings for Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary time: July 13, 2016.   Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16; Psalm 94; A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew 11:25-27

Misericordia

A friend of mine lost a family member just recently.  Her mother had just passed a way a few weeks ago.  Today I attended the funeral.  It is always interesting to listen to a Mass in another language, to see the differences of culture and temperaments.  There is something somber and grounding about seeing a funeral from that perspective.  I am far from fluent but I catch some words and phrases here and there.  I kept hearing that word today, misericordia, mercy.  Then my heart broke as I watched this man's daughter break down at the casket.   I had no problem understanding her.  She pokes in long, drawn out words... slow enough for my feeble mind to grasp them... I think even if you didn't know any Spanish the torment in her voice would have told you plainly that she was calling out to God and asking why.

I began to cry as I pulled out my rosary and began to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for a man I had never met.  They probably thought the gringo quite silly in the back, with tears running down his face.  As I began to read the readings for tomorrow's daily Mass, it struck me that this is what it means to be like Jesus. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.  How lost one must feel to lose a parent.   I have both of mine still so I cannot understand even if I empathize.   A loved one dying is one of the hardest things to bear.

On days like this I think back to my great grandmother Viola's funeral.  I was very young then.  I remember sobbing and being wracked with sadness. I did not know how to process the fact that I could no longer stop by and sit on her porch listening to her stories.   It truly is a moment when you feel lost.  How much more so a parent?  A brother?  A sister?   An article caught my eye this morning about refugees from Syria again.   Christian refugees had just been turned away from California.  These men and women have left everything to try to find safety.. to flee from persecution and death.  Some have even been killed as people have been thrown overboard from boats to drown on the journey, because of one radical ideology or another.  Children have been found dead on the seashore.  Yet, I see people who claim to be children of God declaring that we must send them "back where they came from." 

How are we not moved with pity?  How do our hearts not go out to them?  Did we learn nothing from our past?   We are humanity.  They are part of us.  There are bad people in every nation, every tongue, every skin color.  There are good people in every nation, every tongue, every skin color.  Who are we to claim to be Christian and yet begin to deny love?  Jesus demands of his Apostles today, "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  Every single item you own, every dollar in your bank account, every breath you have... was given to you freely.   God has blessed us so abundantly in this country.  Yet, we charge people to share in our blessings.  "You need to be a citizen."  "You need to speak English!"   "You need to drink beer and eat meat!"  How dare we put a quantifier on who we love when God has chosen to love us without prejudice? 

Our goal as Catholics is to allow Christ to transform us through the Sacraments into images of himself.  To restore us to the communion we had with God in the garden of Eden.  That means we are to be more like God and less like the world.  The old testament reading for tomorrow says:

He will be gracious to you when you cry out,
as soon as he hears he will answer you.
The Lord will give you the  bread you need
and the water for which you thirst.

Is that the kind of person you are?  Is that the kind of nation you are helping form?  Every day someone out there cries out to you to be fed.  Whether it be a refugee from another country, a co-worker, or a member of your own family.   Saint Agustine said,  "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."     Are you helping people find rest?  Both in this life and the next?  Are you helping them find shelter from the storms of life, both physical and spiritual?  Are you reaching out to everyone and not just those who are close to home?  Christmas is coming soon.  Christ's Mass.  Without either of those, it's just another party.   As we approach Christ's Mass through Advent ask yourself, are you helping prepare the world for the coming of the Savior?  Or are you only trying to prepare yourself? 

His servant and yours,
Brian