THE FEAST OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

John 6:51-58

Dear Friends, Today, we celebrate the great gift of Jesus, his flesh and blood in the Eucharist. In this boundless wonder of divine love, we embrace the mystery of the Crucified and Risen Christ. Likewise, we are invited to enter more deeply into the reward of Christian community. Through our encounter with the Eucharistic Christ, we are encouraged to open our hearts in service and love to all our brothers and sisters. At God’s table there is no accent that is not welcome. Shades of skin add to the beauty of the experience. There is space and welcome for everyone at this sacred breaking of the bread. Our Eucharistic Banquet is all about making us rush out to our world as servants and as healers and as celebrants of love.

Jesus is telling us if we share his flesh and his blood we need to be different. We need to be witnesses to love. We need to be our sister’s and brother’s keeper.

When I became pastor with this view of the Eucharist, I soon came to see First Communion celebrations as deeply flawed with a lot more party and a lot less Jesus.

My response was to require the parents to participate in twelve faith assemblies. These are evening sessions included a basic presentation of salvation history from Abraham to Jesus. They were much more than simple Bible classes because the emphasis was on seeing the Word of God intersecting their personal lived experience. There was much sharing of their stories and time for reflection and prayer.

The parents learned a fundamental lesson. To live by the bread that comes forth from the mouth of God requires a willingness to listen, to grow, to change and to be transformed by the Word

The end result was that the parents acquired a sense of personal power to be teachers of the faith for their children with a grasp of Jesus’ fundamental call to conversion into God’s love.

Parents were invited to a deeper appreciation of Jesus and his gift to us in the Eucharist. In his teachings, his healing ministry and his surrender to the Father’s will, Jesus opened a vision of a God both personal and involved with all people. In this journey, parents began to see the Eucharist as a great expression of God’s love in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. This challenged parents to go beyond the superficial in their child’s First Communion.

Parents were encouraged to see the Eucharist as a real treasure of our faith. In this ritual, we go beyond the symbol of bread and wine. This is the real presence of our saving Lord Jesus Christ coming to nurture and love us. His real presence is a call for us to be caring, loving and giving to our brothers and sisters.

The goal was not just to help the parents prepare their children to understand what happens on that beautiful day of their First Communion. It was to convince the parents that this is the task of many years. Part of that task was their family participation in the Liturgy on a regular basis. The Liturgy is truly an on-going adult school of religious education where the daily experience is connected to the saving act of Jesus here and now.

Unless the parents grasp the importance of the basic experience of regular participation in the Liturgy, First Communion celebrations have the real possibility of becoming distorted and inconsequential.

The real goal is faithful participation in the Church’s worship and praise. Regular Mass attendance brings us into the encounter with the great act of love that is the fundamental story of the Bible. That love literally takes the form of flesh and blood to nourish and guide us on the troubled journey that is our life. That is why the Church teaches us that the Liturgy is the source and summit of our faith. Liturgy helps us take the information about our faith and lets it transform our heart drawing us into an encounter with our loving God.

On this feast of Corpus Christi, I would like to invite us to go beyond the mantra about Liturgy as the “source and summit” of our faith. I want to invite you to ponder and pray over a fuller expression of the teaching of Vatican II on our participation in the Eucharist.

“The celebration of the Eucharist, as an action of Christ and the people of God…is the center of the whole Christian life, for the universal church, the local church and for each and everyone of the faithful….the Liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all its power flows….All who are made children of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of the church, to take part in the sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s supper.” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963, #2, 10, 41) Each Mass should be like a First Communion where there is a lot less party and a whole lot more Jesus.

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THE FALSE SELF AND THE TRUE SELF-9

Prayer: Pathway to Personal Renewal 

This is the ninth of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

The Carmelite tradition states clearly that we are called to union with God as the goal of our full human development. This is another way of saying that our goal is the victory of the True Self. This is the pilgrimage to the innocence of Paradise. We achieve this transformation by a process of purification that begins with our effort to live an authentic and prayerful life. It concludes by the action of God in the state of contemplation. Our Christian life leads us through prayer to the experience of God that purifies and transforms us.

St. Teresa of Avila had a high regard for vocal prayer. For her, the key point was that we need to pay attention to whom we are praying along with the message of the words of the prayer. The common practice of mental prayer in her day was called meditation. It involved using the mind and the imagination to stir the heart. It led her to one of her more famous sayings, “For mental prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else than intimate sharing between friends. It means taking the time to be alone with Him whom we know loves us.” (L 8.5)

The thinking and imagining of meditation are meant to stir the heart to know Christ better and to seek God’s will. This develops our personal transformation. Teresa told us the goal of prayer is “not to think much but to love much.” (IC.4.1.7)

Teresa always saw prayer’s importance as drawing us into a deeper loving relationship with Christ. Meditation for Teresa was a necessary endeavor. With growth and dedication, the hope is that God will call us into the gift of contemplation. In the meanwhile, we need to make the steady practice to pray as we can each day.

Effects of Prayer

When we pray regularly with deep personal commitment, things happen within us. The purification and transformation are witnessed in a new consciousness. We begin to trust with a new sense of spiritual security. Faith leads us to be open to God leading the way, guiding us through the darkness. Our relationships are enriched with a new sense of compassion. Likewise, we become more accepting and gentler with ourselves and with others. Failures become less traumatic and even seem like an opening to let God take over. Our faults are accepted. We do not need to be in endless pursuit of looking good. We begin to see our search for personal worthiness as truly laughable without God’s mercy

As our prayer becomes more authentic, there is a movement to our true center where God is. This means moving beyond the superficial self, the self-engrossed in the advertising world of never-ending new products to fill the void of a misdirected heart. This is the self-propped up by a lifetime pattern of self-absorption. This is the False Self. Prayer opens the passage to the True Self. While this journey inward in prayer offers innumerable blessings, it is always limited and deficient. It gradually allows us to see how distant we are from our real destiny: union with God.

With this new focus on God in prayer, there are even more deep-seated changes within us. We begin to see the need for more honesty and authenticity in all our relationships to persons, things and ideas. We find it easier to cast out the log in our eye and to be more accepting of others in all their faults. The either/or situations begin to fade away. The both/and view of life blossoms as a real possibility for us. Finally, we gradually begin to experience life as rooted in an overwhelming sense of God’s gracious presence. Prayer, indeed, opens the road for our return to Paradise. This is the experience of moving from the False Self to the True Self.

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TRINITY SUNDAY

John 3:16-18 

Dear Friends, There is no place in the teachings of Jesus where we will find a description of the Trinity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It took the Church centuries of reflection, almost continual conflict and deep prayer to articulate the reality of Trinity as we have in our Creed today.

Jesus was the revelation of God. His was a message of love and mercy. As a Church we learned we cannot think our way into God. The only passage into the Divine Mystery is a way of love guided by faith that is open and searching obedience to love. Jesus taught us the way of love. It is love for God, for our neighbor and for our world.

Through Jesus, we have learned that our call to fidelity is mirrored in God’s fidelity to humankind. All through the painful and conflict-driven history of the human venture, God has responded well beyond our understanding in love and mercy. Our resistance and rebellion to the call of love has always received a Divine response of patience, compassion and merciful love. This is the only possible response from a Trinitarian God who is love.

We have an exquisite picture of what a true response to God’s love would look like. Aristides, a learned Greek philosopher, described the Christians in the second century this way: “They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the person that has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy as though he were a brother. They do not consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God.”

Today’s Gospel passage has often been called a gospel in miniature. It describes in just a few lines the unlimited love of God. In Jesus, we have the continual unveiling of this love of the Father. Jesus is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving, keeps on calling and keeps on loving!

Today’s Gospel tells us why God has saved us. It is all about love. God has chosen to lay out the magnitude and power of this love through the saving acts of his Son and through the continuing action of the Spirit. This love knows no boundaries, has no conditions and needs no invitation. It simply engulfs all reality. As St. Therese, the Little Flower, declared, “Everything is grace!”

Today’s Gospel sets this divine love before us very clearly. God takes the initiative: “God so loved the world.” (Jn 3:16)

In loving the world, God shows us that all are invited into the mutual love that is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus fleshes out this totally inclusive love in the stories of the Good Samaritan, the publican, Magdalene, the father of the troubled sons and so many other expressions of acceptance and mercy.

Likewise, today’s Gospel tells us the purpose of God’s mission: “God did not send the Son…to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him and enjoy eternal life.” (Jn 3:16-18)

This divine love portrayed in John’s Gospel is beyond our understanding, hopelessly out our reach for us to merit, and outside the limits of our capacity to respond in kind. God has loved us first and with a generosity we will never be able to match. In the end, all we can do is to attempt to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and embrace the merciful love.

Jesus invites us into the mystery of love and life that is the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The choice is ours. We can accept or reject.

The great joy of today’s feast of the Holy Trinity, like every proclamation of the Gospel, is that God never gives up on us. Jesus is constantly calling us to accept Him as the way, the life and the truth. Slowly, life tends to teach us that Jesus really does have a better plan both for here and hereafter. Our calling is rooted in this God of love and we are destined to be one with God, Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

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THE FALSE SELF AND THE TRUE SELF-8

This is the eighth of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

Teresa repeats over and over again: humility is the truth. Our essential reality is that God is the Creator and we are the creature. This essential virtue helps us to recognize and accept the actual person we are before God. Humility lets us integrate this certain truth.

Humility is not about a loss of self-esteem. This is a dishonest and damaging application of humility. Such a state is disturbing and conflicted. Teresa, on the contrary, says, “Humility does not disturb or disquiet however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm…this humility expands the soul and enables it to serve God more.” (W. 10.2)

To know and embrace the humble truth about ourselves is the source of our freedom. As we break away from the bondage of the False Self, we slowly begin to see more clearly who God is. This is the essential source of our humility. With the ascendance of the True Self, we also see the truth about ourselves. Humility opens us up to the necessary personal conversion that leads to constant growth in self-knowledge. It lets us grasp the wonder of God calling us into the Mystery of Love, even given the power of the False Self. Through the gift of humility, God allows us to see the unrelenting divine embrace of mercy and love even in the midst of our many faults and failures.

Teresa has numerous statements on humility. The following one, however, seems to best capture her basic message on the topic of this virtue.

“Once I was pondering why our Lord was so fond of this virtue of humility and this thought came to me… It is because God is supreme Truth; and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is a very deep truth that of ourselves we have nothing good but only misery and nothingness. Whoever does not understand this walks in falsehood.” (IC 6.10.7)

Merton has a practical application of the insight of Teresa. He says we seldom see the truth that would lead to the solution of our personal, social and political problems. We need to recognize that we all are more or less wrong in one way or another, we share mixed motives, self-deception, pride, self-righteousness, and a tendency to aggression not to mention hypocrisy.

The Big Lie of “Honor”
A good example of living the lie for Teresa was the dominating role of “honor” in her time. For Teresa, this was a lie that infiltrated all of society, and even religious life. It is not that much different in our day. Countless petty grievances rooted in a false sense of respect, privilege, prestige and control prohibit the path to forgiveness and reconciliation. Walking in the truth of humility frees us from this crippling false consciousness that is a singular obstacle to love of God and love of neighbor.

The Humble Father of the Two Sons
Recently, I was reflecting on the parable of the Two Sons. I began to realize that it was a powerful example of true humility in the person of the father.

The whole scene of the returning Prodigal Son is a litany of violations of the expected behavior for the father. It was totally uncouth to leave the house, and even worst, to run. The embrace was completely out of character for an older man in this culture. The fattened calf in these circumstances was simply unheard of. Every accepted ritual for an offended father was shattered resulting in a total loss of dignity. All the broken cultural norms gave further force to the father’s overwhelming cry: I love you! I forgive you! I accept you in great joy! You are back and nothing else matters. On with the party!

The same routine, in a more subtle way, was carried out in the case of the second son.

The father left the house once again in violation of the demands of his dignity. He gave no credence to the despicable description of him as a horrible and unconcerned father. The hostility and anger were met with his hand reaching out in mercy and understanding. The self-pity was countered with a declaration that all that he had was intended for his son. The withdrawal was challenged with the invitation to join the celebration.

The father had before him the clear biblical choice of life or death. On the one hand, he had the societal requirement of what was fitting behavior for a deeply offended father. He had the choice of protecting the respect and privilege appropriate to his role as a severely insulted father. It was his right to apply the painful consequences of this outrageous neglect of parental privilege. All of this was propped up by the expectations of his culture and societal rituals of parental respect. It was a non-negotiable fact that his honor must be protected. On the other hand, if he chose this set of values, it was death to his two sons.

His choice of life, driven by his humility, set him free from the crippling demands of respect and privilege demanded by society’s rigid norms. This is a clear and forceful example of a choice of the True Self over the False Self. Now, his humble presence to the two sons offered them life and freedom. It was a rich expression of God’s Truth.

Reconciling Power of Humility
All of us suffer from the biased perceptions that protect our claims of privilege, prestige and control. This is the false consciousness that strangles and blinds the possibility of reconciling love and forgiveness. Teresa has this to say about this death-dealing mentality.

“You should run a thousand miles from such expressions as: “I was right.” “They had no reason for doing this to me.” “The one who did this to me was wrong.” God deliver us from this poor way of reason. Does it seem right that our good Jesus suffered so many insults and was made to undergo so much injustice? I don’t know why the nun who doesn’t want to carry the cross, except the one that seems to her reasonable, is in the monastery.” (W 13.1-2)

To reconcile, we need to forget ourselves in humility. This frees us from the possessiveness of our works and reputation that are a blockage to serving God and living in harmony with our brothers and sisters. Here, again, we have an example of the power of the True Self in action.

The Story of God’s Mercy
Humility helps us appreciate two fundamental truths about our human condition. We are created in the image of God and union with God is our true destiny. Right at the beginning of The Interior Castle Teresa says: “We realize that the soul of a good person is nothing else but a paradise where the Lord says He finds His delight.” (IC 1.1) The other truth is a basic challenge to our true destiny. Without the mercy of God, we are caught in a helpless impasse. These two truths are at the heart of the struggle between the True Self and the False Self.

Our task is to accept this two-fold truth of our broken situation. We are helpless sinners but loved and forgiven in Christ Jesus our Savior. This is the reality rooted in the True Self. This the reality that humility opens to us as we are gradually set free from the immobilizing captivity of sin rooted in the False Self.

Hopefully, we will accept the truth of who God is and who we are. Then, we can share the truth of humility with Teresa and say: “The story of my life is the story of God’s mercy.”

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PENTECOST

John 20:19-23 

Dear Friends, The feast of Pentecost is the celebration of breaking through the barriers of time and space and opening the whole world to the re-creating wonders of love. In his Passion and Death Jesus confronted evil. This was the climatic encounter of all history. Love won out!

All of a sudden, Jesus is in their midst. His message is not vengeance. Amazingly, He does not even point the finger at their cowardly collapse. His trusted disciples were too awe-struck to feel the shame. It was a “wow” moment to the thousandth degree. Jesus had risen as he said! Alleluia!

His message was direct, clear, and simple: “Peace be with you.” (Jn 20:19). His peace conveyed the treasure of forgiveness. These two gifts of peace and forgiveness are in the context of His commissioning and gifting the disciples. “‘As the Father has sent me, I send you.’ As He said this, He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (Jn20:21-23)

That message of victory is handed over to the disciples along with the gift of the Hoy Spirit. This frightened and despairing group, fresh off their abandonment in the crisis of the Garden, now receive the peace and forgiveness of Jesus along with the ultimate gift of the Holy Spirit. The fear and confusion will now slowly grow into an unstoppable conviction of joy and fiery enthusiasm. Nothing was going to overcome their certitude in the Spirit. Nothing was going to close down their message of the Crucified and Risen Christ. Against all odds, the gift of the Holy Spirit was going to win out through these frightened, confused and disillusioned band of brothers and their sister disciples.

Receiving the Holy Spirit is a symbol of a new creation. Just as God breathed life into Adam in the Garden, so too, Jesus breathed new life into the disciples that makes them holy and leads them to conquer evil.

Luke, in today’s second reading from Acts, gives another biblical connection. The many foreigners with such a variety of languages hear in unity. This is the Spirit manifesting elimination of the division and isolation caused by the Tower of Bable.

After the reception of the Holy Spirit, the disciples’ story is very different. Fear gives way to courage and commitment. A new conviction leads them to confront power with patience and perseverance. The two-edged sword of Jesus’ gospel message cuts through the yoke of terror and cowardice. The gospel is proclaimed in spite of conflict and misunderstanding. Cultural barriers and native parochial narrowness open up to a vision of a universal community that continues to grow to this very day.

Gifted with the Holy Spirit, they join the Risen Christ in witnessing to the victory of love over evil and death. The seeds of the new creation were sown in the hearts of these very weak and pedestrian followers of Christ. They began an ever-expanding community of faith that has survived and prospered over these two thousand years.

Today, on this feast of Pentecost, we are invited again to receive the gifts of the Spirit. To do so, we need to turn away from sin which is the refusal to love. As with the first disciples, the Spirit beckons us to continually expand the horizons of our love.

The Spirit empowers and invites us to pray. The Spirit offers a peace that transcends our endless search for security in the things of the world. The Spirit allows us to break loose from the captivity of the cultural bondage to racism, sexism, a blindness to the destruction of creation, and most of all, a failure to simply love one another. Pentecost is the feast of liberation from our fears, anxieties and divisions.

The Spirit calls us to be the hands and feet and, most of all, the heart of Christ within the world of our responsibilities and relationships. We are called to be true witnesses to Jesus´ gospel message. Less we forget, a witness is one whose life’s actions speak so loudly that people cannot hear what you say.

The peace of Christ comes at a price. The patience and gentleness along with the joy and kindness and the other fruits of the Spirit are ever so precious gifts. They are possible only in a heart that is seeking reconciliation. This new life in the Spirit brings peace and forgiveness into a world ravaged by sin and death. This is the call for us on this Pentecost: transform our lives by the gift of Christ’s peace and His call to forgiveness. Slowly, we must understand that, for the Spirit, there is no limit on forgiveness and the target of inclusiveness is ever expanding and dynamic. The numerous descriptions of “those people” in our hearts have to give way a new definition of “us”. In this struggle to move out of our comfortable world, we must be open to the Spirit to find the only way that leads to the prized gift of Christ’s peace.

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THE FALSE SELF AND THE TRUE SELF-7

This is the seventh of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

When Jesus began his public ministry, the universal longing for the Messiah was the dominant reality. The question of what kind of Messiah soon became a defining element in Jesus’ life and ministry.

Jesus knew that the intensity and depth of the universal conflict of good and evil would demand that he become a suffering Messiah. As early as Mk3:6 the leaders of all sides began to plot for his death. This has become the life-giving mystery of the Christian message. When Jesus proclaimed, “the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.” (Mk.1:15) few were ready to accept the Crucified Messiah as the centerpiece of that Good News of God’s love.

There was a second major obstacle to Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom. The people were anticipating a complete transformation by the sudden burst of God’s saving activity. Jesus had a different plan. He insisted that his followers be part of this divine transformation by taking up their cross and following him. This had startling implications in Jesus’ day as it does in our day. It calls for deep seated changes in how we see reality.

Transformation of Consciousness

As we continue pondering the True Self/False Self dynamic to enter more deeply into the gospel, we have seen the vital importance of self-knowledge. An important part of self-knowledge is to surface and change the values that create on our worldview. This clearly is part of the ongoing conversion process. This is called the transformation of consciousness. This is an activity of raising up and challenging false values within our mindset. Most often, these are values that we inherit and embrace with minimal awareness. They are part of our culture and ambiance. They mostly fall under the umbrella of what we call conventional wisdom.

Most of Jesus’ teaching was to challenge this conventional wisdom. His teachings and his life and death put the emphasis on God rather than self. This is at the heart of the True Self/False Self dynamic.

In this inherited worldview of conventional wisdom, mostly contrary to the gospel, we are engulfed in hidden prejudices and distortions. We are bombarded by values incompatible with the gospel. We are presented with false idols, sometimes obscure, but often clearly evident in their call to self-indulgence. We are told the right patterns of consumption will guarantee our control of reality, give us the assurance of youth, allow us to determine the future not to mention advancing our ability to deny death and to secure true and lasting happiness with the right credit card, the correct medicines and wise investments.

Something as simple as watching a sporting event or a weekly TV program offers an onslaught of consumer initiatives secretly enticing us away from the message of Jesus. We are in a very challenging situation where we have seemingly countless encounters with the consumer, indulgent and materialistic message. This is in contrast to the hour or so on Sunday, if we still attend church. For most of us, this is the only organized time we open our life to the gospel story and values.

The hidden power behind the conventional wisdom results in a false consciousness. This distorted view of reality accepts the gross neglect of the poor and marginalized, blinds us to the dehumanization of excessive consumption, trivializes a need for openness in community reducing it, often, to fear and exclusion of “the other”, draws us into an indifference toward the ongoing devastation of God’s creation for economic gain, and supports a widespread denial of death that genuinely distorts the reality of our creaturehood.

These are just a few of the many factors that nurture a worldview in constant conflict with the message of Jesus. It truly models the eternal battle of the True Self and the False Self.

The only place we will find freedom from the incessant offensive of false values is to return to the gospel. We are in constant need to renew and enhance our acceptance of Jesus’ call, “Repent and believe the Gospel!”

All of Jesus’ teaching calls for his disciples to share in his saving activity to bring about the long-awaited Kingdom of God. All his teaching leads to a personal transformation and participation in the basic battle between good and evil. The lessons of the gospel reversal where “the first shall be last…” (Mk 9:35). “to save your life you must lose your life” (Mk 8:35), “whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant” (Mk 10:43) demand deep personal change and commitment far removed from the conventional wisdom of our day or any day. Likewise, the message of ever-expanding inclusion in “the least of my brothers or sisters…” (Mt 25:40), and the Good Samaritan (LK 10:29-37) demand active involvement in the Kingdom’s coming.

Jesus was clear. The battle of the True Self and False Self, of the weeds and the wheat will continue to the end (Mt 13:24-30). The disciple’s task is to let one’s life be a witness to bring love, light, truth and healing to a world caught in the darkness, isolation, division and destruction of hatred and selfishness.

The coming of the Kingdom continues in the faithful commitment of all followers of Christ and people of good will. Wherever there is love, there is the continuing conquest of hate, division, prejudice and all that dehumanizes. Wherever there is love, no matter how small and hidden, it is like the seed that is the smallest of seeds that blossoms into the tree for all the birds of the sky. (Mt 13:31-32).

The life lived in fidelity to the Gospel will bring God’s love to a broken world. (Jn 15). This fidelity to the Christian mission is sharing in the saving love of God. This is the ultimate reality of overcoming evil by the ever-expanding presence of love in the human heart. This

love demands service and responsible action. This love has no meaning without concern for the poor and needy. The Christian community will always be expanding the boundaries to include the forsaken and forgotten. There will be action but this action must be rooted in love to bring about God’s victory over evil. This happens as the True Self reigns within us individually and with ever-growing influence in our world. All this will not happen without deep personal prayer.

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THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSIÓN

Mt 28:16-20 

Dear Friends, In today’s feast of the Ascension, it is difficult for us to understand the enormity of the Apostles shock. We need a truly profound faith to grow into an honest awareness of the depth of the Apostles’ upheaval and turbulence at Jesus’s departure.

First of all, they are on their own. They had little organization and less clarity on their mission. No matter the beauty of Jesus’s comforting final words, their mentor, teacher, guide and support for three intense years was gone.

Try to imagine how alarming and distressful was the message of universality. The early Church would struggle with it for decades.

A significant part of Matthew’s Gospel was on the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law not the withdrawal from it. After a lifetime of experience and centuries of tradition, the concept of being “The Chosen People” was simply part of their Jewish DNA. Now, in a flash, they are missioned to turn everything around and upside down and inside out and preach the gospel to the heathen Gentiles.

Jesus made it clear, over and over again, his mission was to the family of Abraham. Now, in this final encounter, the mission is to “make disciples of all nations.” (Mt 28:19) It was going to take some time for the first disciples and the early Church to grasp the depth of Jesus’ call to universal inclusion. The consequent confusion is portrayed clearly in The Acts of the Apostles. To tell the truth, we have more than enough trouble accepting the stranger in our own parishes today.

Secondly, we read in the Gospel text: “when they saw him, they worshipped, but they doubted.” (Mt 28:17) While Matthew is much gentler than Mark, he too, portrays the original twelve as a flawed group of human beings. This text is an example of that. Right from the beginning, the Church was struggling with the clear limits of the human condition no matter how exalted the divine commission to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The affliction of human weakness is every bit as present in the Church and its members today.

Doubt and confusion have been part of the reality of the Church down through history. There has been little time in the history of the Church that some group has not been in the process of breaking away. Infidelity and conflict have been present from the earliest times of The Act of the Apostles to the crisis of the Latin Mass today. The abuse of youth in the sex scandal in our time is just part of a long history of sin and unfaithfulness. In the Church’s long journey of sin and grace, Jesus has kept his promise to be with us in the Church until the end.

A final observation is more comforting. In Mt 1:23 we read: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child and they shall name him Emmanuel which means “God is with us.” Now again we are given this divine assurance of Jesus: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the ages.” (Mt 28:20)

While there has always been large numbers of problems, there always has been a more than substantial group of witnesses in the Church calling us in word and deed into the Gospel message.

Today, we also face our daily reality and have the call of Christ to live and preach the Gospel. There is no greater challenge in life if we truly respond with generosity. The obstacles are enormous. Seemingly countless of our children and friends and relatives have abandoned the Church. The young people of today seem much more inclined to find their spiritual way outside of organized religion. Our culture gets more materialistic by the hour and less inclined to take spirituality seriously. Along with these, and many other negative factors, we have the seemingly endless onslaught of the sexual abuse in the Church.

In it all, we need to cling to the promise of Emmanuel, God is with us.

The meaning of this beautiful feast of the Ascension is further captured in the words of today’s Preface of the Mass:

Christ, the mediator between God and men and women,

Judge of the world and Lord of all

Has passed beyond our sight

Not to abandon us but to be our hope.

Christ is the beginning, the head of the Church;

Where he is gone, we hope to follow.

Our hope is rooted in the reality that Jesus is with us all of the time. Our fate is not hopelessness and confusion. It is a simple commitment to live with faith and trust in a God who has a better plan. We pray in the opening prayer of the Mass of the Ascension, “May we follow him into the new creation, for his Ascension is our glory and our hope.”

We will celebrate the other great gift of the Pascal Mystery, the Holy Spirit, in next week’s feast of Pentecost!

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THE FALSE SELF AND THE TRUE SELF-6

This is the sixth of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

In our day, we are gifted with many different and effective programs that deal with various pathological addictions. The heart of all these movements of freedom from addiction is self-knowledge.

In the long spiritual tradition of the Church, we have shared the same basic insight. At the heart of the True Self/False Self dynamic is the critical and life-giving issue of self-knowledge.

Self-Knowledge: Key to the Spiritual Journey

While the issues of pathological addictions seem far removed from the spiritual journey of most who are not burdened in this way, the basic pattern is the same for all of us. Self-knowledge demands a relentless quest for a deeper and more extensive awareness of our personal reality. The demands and benefits of self-knowledge will never be exhausted in this lifetime. Learning what truly is going on within ourselves is a task that is never completed. One way of getting insight into the search for self-knowledge is seeing the conflict in our lives as a struggle between the False Self and the True Self, between sin and grace

The False Self involves layer after layer of self-deception, delusions and a sense of self-grandiosity that places us at the center of our consciousness. We tend to become blinded to our faults and failures and, more importantly, to the presence of God at the true center of our being. We emphasize the shortcomings of others. Jesus put it ever so clearly when he compared our blindness to a log in our eye in contrast to our stress on the splinter in our neighbor’s eye. (Mt 7:3) Self-righteousness dominates our worldview. As we become aware of the false values flowing from our fragmented heart, we find ourselves facing a fork in the road.

We have a choice of life or death. We choose death when we double down on the clamoring of the False Self for more attention. We choose life when we open ourselves to the mercy of God which draws us toward the True Self. At the heart of this decision is the perennial challenge of knowing ourselves.

Teresa of Avila was unyielding in declaring the importance of self-knowledge as our guide for the path to God in the center of our being. In one of her many statements on self-knowledge she said:

“Well now, it is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering ourselves, reflecting on our misery and what we owe God and begging Him often for mercy.” (IC 2.1.11)

Many of the gospel mandates are an expression of this practice of leaving the False Self of our self-centeredness and moving on to the True Self which is seeking God at our center. In Mark we read: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all.” (Mk 9:35) Matthew tells us: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39) Again, John says: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24) Finally, Matthew adds: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mt 16:24)

Conclusion

Teresa of Avila offers a wonderful vision of the connection between the True Self/False Self dynamic and self-knowledge. For her, self-knowledge always is a critical component in one’s search for God. It is a movement from the False Self to the True Self.

In the First Dwelling Places of her classic, The Interior Castle, the individual has the first glimpse of a life beyond the crippling confines of the False Self.

In the Second Dwelling Places the life-giving forces of the True Self make an initial thrust in one’ consciousness. This leads to the beginning of a prayer life and an opening conversion. Likewise, growth in self-awareness lets one see the first stages of evil in one’s life. Even in these minimal phases, the acceptance of one’s sinfulness is a real breakthrough.

These early steps away from the blinding control of the False Self sow the seeds of freedom in the True Self’s rise to consciousness. This is the path to greater self-knowledge.

This self-knowledge, with the shocking realization of one’s sinfulness, leads to a rich experience in prayer and spiritual progress in the Third Dwelling Places. Here there is the introduction into a baffling paradox: real spiritual progress flows from deeper self-knowledge of one’s sinfulness. This, in fact, is a new insight to the truly deceptive bondage of the False Self. We are on the road to learning that we are truly sinners, but loved and forgiven sinners called to journey to freedom and joy in our new ability to live out our True Self in the footsteps of Jesus. This program continues in the contemplative shift that calls us into the remaining Dwelling Places of The Interior Castle.

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THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

John 14:15-21 

Dear Friends, As we draw close to this Easter Season, it is good to reflect on The Acts of the Apostles. Only in the Easter season do we have the first reading from The Acts. Every other Sunday the first reading is from the Hebrew Scriptures.

The Acts is a book about the birth and growth of the Church. It also is a revelation of what happens to people when they understand and our committed to the Pascal Mystery, the Death and Resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus could have made many promises to the first disciples. He could have them fulfill their early dreams of success, power, privilege and wealth. He could have told them of easy triumph and great admiration among an ever-expanding body of believers. None of these scenarios fit Jesus’s agenda.

His message was to follow Him on the Road to Jerusalem and take up your cross. This was conflict and confusion. This was rejection and death. The Acts follows this script rather clearly.

On the other hand, Jesus did promise the Paraclete to guide them in the way of the truth and the way of love just how Jesus was so faithful in embracing his Passion, Death and Resurrection.

The Acts of the Apostles has two main characters, Peter and Paul. There are a few idyllic moments at the beginning where all are resting in harmony and peace. They are short lived. Quickly there is a shift to the reality so expressive of the human condition in the parable of the weeds and the wheat.

A couple holds back on giving all the proceeds of a sale of property to the common purse. They die on the spot. The Greek widows quickly find themselves the victims of prejudice in the not all perfect new Christian community. Both Peter and Paul find themselves questioned about their orthodoxy by the Jerusalem home office. In the opinion of many, their openness to foreigners is dangerous to the faith.

This issue of accepting Gentile believers led to the major split in the early community. The volatile choice that confronts the new community in a very powerful way is this: Is the new reality of Jesus’ message simply and exclusively a fulfillment of the Mosaic Law or is it a completely new reality. This was a challenge to a cultural transformation that became painful, divisive, and violent. However, in the end, it became totally liberating. Peter and Paul were challenged at every level by the explosiveness of this fundamental and formative issue that gave birth to the Church. At the same time, they were persecuted by the Jewish leaders.

The results were frequent jail time, assassination attempts, constant conflict and truth squads who were destructive and brutal. Paul had to often escape in secrecy to save his life. More than once, he was beaten to the point of death. He was lucky in this. Stephen and many other early Christians were not so lucky. They were martyred.

As the story in Acts progressed, it became clearer that the Paraclete that Jesus promised and delivered had a powerful role. Just as Jesus had become the way and the life and the truth for the first disciples, the Holy Spirit became the way, life and truth for the developing reality of the early Church. The Spirit was guiding them through the tumult and persecution.

Yet in the midst of it all this conflict and confusion, decisions were made. The Gospel was proclaimed. The Church eventually embraced new cultures and new peoples. The journey was neither smooth nor straightforward. When both Peter and Paul died after decades of preaching the Gospel, there were at most several thousand faithful Christians. Any Papal Mass on the road these days will have at least twenty to thirty times that many people in attendance.

Yet the seeds were sown in the lives and witness of Peter and Paul. They were true believers who walked their difficult journey with a sense of joy and wonder in the Risen Christ. They took to heart Christ’s words in today’s Gospel from John, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you…whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me, will be loved by my Father and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (Jn 14:18,21)

For Peter and Paul, the concluding act of Christ, the Death and Resurrection, was a consuming reality that filled their hearts with a fire of love that drove them to preach Christ in the midst of chaos, confusion and discord. This preaching became a source of peace and direction. It spread a sense of hope and faithfulness that grounded a new Church in truth and love.

We need to take to heart today’s Gospel passage and the message of this Easter season. If we do, it will lead us to discover the peace and strength that comes from the Risen Christ. The circumstances of our Church today share much of the same chaos and turmoil. We have the scandal of sex abuse, the division the Christian denominations, the curse of clericalism and the fear of a more powerful and meaningful role for women and the beat goes on.

But we are not orphans. We need to turn to the Risen Christ and pray for the gift of the Spirit and the power to love one another. This will open the way in our search for His direction and guidance. There is no doubt, we will find the way in loving one another!

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THE FALSE SELF AND THE TRUE SELF-5

This is the fifth of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

Part Two

The Two Blind Men

Mark bookends his story of The Road to Jerusalem with the healing of two blind men. In the first healing, there are two stages to the restoration of sight. At first he says, “I see people looking like trees and walking.” (Mk 8:24) Then, Jesus laid his hands on him a second time, and he saw clearly.

In this miracle, Mark is showing us that we always will get Jesus’ message in stages. The first blind man is an example for the poor befuddled Apostles and us.

The second blind man has a message for us also. The primary issue of the whole section is to join Jesus, on his terms, on the road to Jerusalem. The Apostles were confused and bewildered in the whole process.

The second blind man becomes a model of a true disciple for us. The story of his cloak revealed a wholehearted commitment to follow Jesus. When Jesus called him, he casts away the cloak. This is critical because the cloak was the primary source of his income. In the common practice of the day, the beggar would place the cloak in front of him to receive the alms. Likewise, the cloak was his only protection from the cold desert nights.

Mark describes it as follows: “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus…Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.” (Mk10:50 -52)

Conclusion

Vast areas of our mind and heart are out of tune with values of the gospel. Most often, we are just not aware of the chasm in our heart. This is because of the influence and control of the False Self, our heritage from Original Sin. We are deluded. We just do not see how far we are from true allegiance to Jesus and his gospel call.

Periodically, we are awakened to see that we are called to a deeper level of generous response and sacrifice. It might be the witness of a person whose life invites us further into the gospel. At times, it is a movie or book. Sometimes spiritual reading or a homily touches the depth of our heart. More often than not, it is a crisis in our life. Always, there is the Word of God in the Scriptures or in the profound and challenging experiences in our life. All of these encounters highlight the perennial battle within us of the False Self and the True Self, of sin and grace, of good and evil. It is a battle to the end. Too often, it is a battle we do everything possible to avoid.

In her classic, The Interior Castle, Teresa of Avila offers a wonderful insight into these matters. She describes the person’s situation in the Third Dwelling Places. The person has made some noteworthy progress.

However, Teresa points out a real danger to further progress. The individual at this point of development has a deep sense of having arrived. They are ready to settle down and bask in their spiritual achievements. In fact, they are just beginning. Spiritual pride is a monster at all levels but especially in this early stage of the journey.

This is the implication of Merton’s False Self/True Self struggle. We need to always see ourselves at the beginning of the pilgrimage to God. We are sinners in need of God’s mercy, always and everywhere.

True humility will let us see the magnificence of God’s mercy and our constant need to be seeking it. Deep personal prayer energizes this scared quest.

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THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

John 14:1-12 

Dear Friends, In my early days as a Carmelite seminarian, I had a retreat that I remember quite vividly these seventy -one years later. I do not remember anything of the preacher’s message. What I do remember is that he told us he slept in a coffin each night. He wanted to grow in awareness that he was going to die. At the time, I thought it was really weird. Now that I am several decades closer to my death, I think the nightly coffin routine is way beyond weird.

In the Easter Season, there is a magnificent message about our personal death. It is not all that bad. In fact, it is a wonderous gift! The Preface for the Mass of the Resurrection for burials lays out a very comforting description in this way:

In him who rose from dead our hope of the resurrection dawned.

The sadness of death gives way to the bright promise of immortality.

Lord, for your faithful people life is changed not ended.

When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death

We gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.

Today’s Gospel is often used in funeral masses. In the context of this powerful ritual, most people get it. We are going to a better life. The problem is most of us only get it when we can no longer evade the reality of death. The death of a loved one simply engulfs us in the great and painful mystery that is death. There is only a token nod to the overwhelming gift of the resurrection. This is usually expressed in the phrases” the end of suffering” and “he/she is now is in a better place”.

Our culture is very evasive in facing death for what it is: a very big and defining part of life. The message of the Easter season surely does not call us into the bizarre and morbid activity of sleeping in a coffin. It does, however, invite us to face death as a crucial part of our life.

Jesus wants us to know that life is a gift for today. I need to embrace it in joy and wonder all the more enthusiastically because I have no guarantee of tomorrow. God calls us to live this day in love and service. Accepting death as a truly big part of our life is not an invitation to live in worry and anxiety. It is a call to be realistic.

Thomas’ concern in today’s Gospel relates to our confusion about balancing these two drastically different elements of death. It is both a horrendous loss leading to unavoidable personal torment and it is a glorious victory transcending any joy or expression of happiness in this life.

Jesus responds to Thomas by telling him that He is the way. All we need to do is walk with Jesus and He will bring s to our true home.

Jesus tells us again to not let our hearts be troubled We simply need to have faith in Jesus.

There is no avoiding the good and the bad, the harmonious and conflictual, sickness and health, and all the elements of our human condition that are all held in the loving hands of the gracious God revealed in Jesus. Jesus is the way and the life and the truth (Jn 14:6) Jesus tells us. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” (Jn 14:1-2)

Today we are all one day closer to God’s loving call that changes our death into life everlasting. This is the message of the Easter Alleluia! We are fools to not accept this reality and let it define how we live. The Resurrection is real. It means death has lost its sting. Our job is to celebrate with a life filled with hope and joy, love and service.

If we keep our eyes on Jesus, we will be drawn into the most real and honest response to the ever-present dilemma of death. Jesus tells us he is the way, the surest way to God. Jesus is the fullest and richest expression of God. All of his teachings and patterns of life, all of his miracles and service, and most of all, the great revelation of love in the Passion, Death and Resurrection – they all invite us to walk in love with Jesus. The astonishing song of the Alleluia we proclaim this Easter Season directs our heart to Jesus. For indeed, there is no surer way that leads to the truth and fullness of life that is God.

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THE PEOPLE´S EXPERIENCE OF GOD-3

III 

Lectio Divina and Deep Personal Prayer 

As we grow in understanding Lectio Divina, there is a truly beautiful unveiling of the approach to God’s Word and prayer. The practice of deep personal prayer draws one into oneself where the light of God’s Word opens the passage to true self-knowledge. This, in turn, draws us back to the world in a way that moves away from selfishness to service and loving presence to all.

Faithfulness to prayer engenders an ever-repeating cycle. We turn inwards to seek God and we turn outwards to share in the divine love for our brothers and sisters. True prayer will always lead us to the task of healing and reconciling through the gospel message of justice, peace and love. This leads us to the great prayer of our day:” Let us hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth!”

This way of deep personal prayer calls us to the Word of God. It calls us to true self-knowledge. It calls us to a true transformation of consciousness that removes the prejudices and false values of a culture far removed from gospel values. It calls us to a continual search seeking to grow in love with Jesus which provokes us to the inevitable task of loving our neighbor and being responsible for our historical reality.

A commitment to deep personal prayer demands many things. First and foremost, it is a commitment to pray regularly with an openness to personal transformation. It calls us to seek an understanding and fidelity to God’s Word. It asks that we develop a spirituality leading to self-knowledge and dependence on God. Likewise, it guides us to be open to our historical reality and the demands of justice, peace and loving care of God’s creation.

All these elements of prayer lead to the growth of a personal spirituality rooted in a hunger for God and knowledge of God’s Word. This is where Lectio Divina and deep personal prayer connect. This new life in the spirit creates a desire to do God’s will. All of this movement inward is the gift of the faithful practice of deep personal prayer.

How we handle this glorious journey to the center is a step-by-step process that demands a unified effort and much self-sacrifice. A clear understanding of Lectio Divina and its supportive role to deep personal prayer will be a great help along the way.

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FOURT SUNDAY OF EASTER

John 10:1-10 

Dear Friends in Christ. This is the Fourth Sunday of our Easter Season. Our message today focuses on Jesus as the gate. In the time of the Gospel, the shepherd had many duties. They all built up a meaningful relationship with the sheep.

The image of the gate was especially expressive of the role of the shepherd. As the sheep entered the gate there was a guarantee of security from the many sources of violence and even death that waited in the darkness of the night.

During the night the shepherd literally slept in the gate, the entrance to the sheepfold. Any coming or going had to go through the protective presence of the shepherd.

In the morning, the shepherd led the sheep out of the gate to the fertile fields that offered satisfying food and drink.

The gate was truly s symbol of life that was offered in abundance. During the Easter Season we are called to ponder and pray about the great Mystery of the Crucified and Risen Christ. This is the true source of our life in abundance.

Only when we bring our life experiences to the Easter message can we begin to get a glimpse of how Jesus came into the world to bring us life and to bring life In abundance.

The message of the full life is repeated over and over in the Gospel of John. It is most appropriate for the Easter Season. In the loving encounter with Jesus, we recall the great victory of life over death, of good over evil. Because of the Easter event we not only have life in abundance, we have the highest quality of life, eternal life.

John uses the “I AM” statements in the fourth Gospel to invite us into the mystery of God. The Evangelist is revealing, in the person of Jesus, the source of eternal life to sinners. In the resurrection, Jesus is the “gate” that opens to eternal life. He is the life-source in the “vine,” the “life” and the “resurrection.” He is the “gate” and the “way” for sinners searching in the darkness and unpredictability of life. He is the “shepherd” guiding us in our confusion and bewilderment. He is the “bread” that nourishes along the way.

In this season of Easter, we are invited to enter in the “gate” of life in the face of our daily hassles and insecurities. We are the people of the Alleluia. The victory has been won. We attain the victory through “gate” that is Jesus, the Risen Lord. He will lead us to embrace life and live it to the full with the Alleluia ringing in our hearts.

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THE FALSE SELF AND THE TRUE SELF-4

This is the fourth of eleven reflections on Thomas Merton’s teaching on the True Self/False Self dynamic. This conflictual but enlightening relationship permeates Merton’s huge quantity of writing on the spiritual life. The basic point of the conflict is the individual’s pull toward and away from God, one’ true and ultimate destiny. Merton’s exposure of the consequences of original sin is ruthless in its intensity. This is the task of the False Self. At the same time, the pull of the True Self, the ever-present call of God’s personal and passionate love, is even more powerful. The human heart is the battlefield of this seemingly endless confrontation.

Part One

On the spiritual journey, most people have experiences of numerous conversions. These spiritual experiences vary in degrees of intensity and depth. One of the components of this conversion process is a surprisingly new awareness of how blind one had been to the demands of the gospel message.

I think many can relate to my lifetime encounters to the seemingly endless gospel call to inclusiveness. Growing up, I felt it was a sacrilege for girls to play sports. Likewise, the “colored people” had their own truly God-given neighborhood. Homosexuals and lesbians, for all practical purposes, just did not exist.

It has been a tumultuous trip for me moving away from the sexism, racism and homophobic attitudes that supported the dominance my false self. No doubt, I still have a long way to go in these major deceptions in our society.

In each of these deep prejudices, there were periods of conversion that included an eventual eye-opening reflection. It exposed the depth of the deviation from the gospel message that reigned in my heart. This is a clear example of Merton’s teaching on the passage to enlightenment and conversion as we move partially away from the False Self to the True Self. It is a long, difficult trek. Yet, there are many small, and even great, victories along the way. As we stay faithful to the struggle to walk with Jesus, God’s grace never forsakes us. The process in this life is always limited and unfinished and calling for more. Nevertheless, we are moving in the right direction as long as we do not succumb to apathy and neglect.

The Road to Jerusalem

In the Gospel of Mark, we have a truly challenging example of this struggle of the darkness and the light in the False Self/True Self dynamic. All through his Gospel, Mark offers a particularly harsh portrayal of the Apostles. They are presented as a group that just do not get the message.

This approach in Mark is part of his insightful lesson on the complexity and the depth that authentic faithfulness to Jesus actually demands.

In the section of the Gospel (Mk 8:22-10:52) that is often referred to as “The Road to Jerusalem”, Jesus has three predictions of the Passion, Death and Resurrection. In each of these three segments there is a common structure.

• Jesus makes the prediction. The Apostles do not understand and do not accept the frightful possibility.

• In fact, they move in the opposite direction of Jesus’ statement. His message proclaims a Suffering Messiah. This was totally contrary to the Apostles hopes and ambitions. Their expectant future envisioned power, prestige and wealth.

• Finally, Jesus presents a short, clear teaching on the demands of conversion to the gospel message.

This selection of Mark’s text begins and ends with the healing of a blind man. In the three Gospel segments, the blindness of the Apostles is shown in Peter telling Jesus that he did not have to suffer (Mk 8:32), the apostles arguing who was the greatest (Mk 9:34), and finally, James and John asking for the privilege of sitting at his right and left in the coming days of glory (10:35).

These are all examples of the power and influence of the False Self. These were good men who considered themselves deeply committed to Jesus. In their mind, they had left all to follow Jesus. Each day they listened to his teachings. They witnessed his healings. They shared the multiplied loaves and fish. They saw Jesus walking on the water. They experienced the overwhelming enthusiasm of the crowds. It is hard for us to overstate the intensity and immediacy of their experience of Jesus. Yet, they had a vision in harsh conflict with that of Jesus. This was never clearer than in the total abandonment in the Garden on that first Good Friday.

Mark was making it clear to us as readers of his Gospel that true faithfulness to Jesus is genuinely demanding. It calls for many experiences of further enlightenment even after we make an initial pledge to follow Jesus. There always is more. The blinding power of the False Self is acute and dominant. The demands of the True Self insist that we take Jesus’ teaching to heart. Here are some selections from this part of Mark’s Gospel.

• “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mk 8:34)

• If anyone wishes to be the first he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” (Mk 9:35)

• “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant…For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as ransom for many.” (Mk 10:43-45)

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THE PEOPLE´S EXPERIENCE OF GOD-2

Study and Prayer 

Our approach to the Bible requires two distinct methods. One is to study the Bible to absorb the story and to grow in familiarity with the word of God. This should be done with a reverent spirit. However, it is an exercise of the intellect. We must develop a familiarity with the overall story. This should include a broad sense of the general themes, major events and the basic timeline from Abraham to Jesus. Pope Francis called for this bible study in his classic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel. He says, “The study of the sacred Scriptures must be a door opened to every believer. It is essential that the revealed word radically enrich our catechesis and all efforts to pass on the faith…Let us receive the sublime treasure of the revealed word.” (#175)

The second method is the prayerful reading of the Scriptures. This task goes beyond the mind to the depth of the spirit within us, a truly different tactic. The prayerful reading of the Bible seeks primarily to listen to what God has to say to us in the midst of our lives. This demands an openness and emptiness that echoes Samuel as we approach the Holy Word: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10)

We need to always be aware that the text is more than fact. It is a symbol, a window, and a reflection that lets us see the past as a mirror of today’s experience. This prayerful reading of the word of God needs to lead us into our present historical reality in a way that it discloses the mystery of God’s saving presence here and now.

Our search has three goals:

  1. We want to acquire a personal understanding of God’s word.
  2. We want to let God’s will for our life situation to become clear and practical.
  3. We want to live the call to walk with Jesus.

These goals prepare us to face the challenge of the brokenness and confusion of our daily experience. In this prayerful reading of the Bible, we need to receive the message as if it is addressed to us personally at this specific time in history because it is.

In this time of prayerful reading of the scriptures, it is important to set aside any sense of study or preparation to share our understanding with others. We prayerfully read the Bible for one purpose. We want to grow in faith and simply be in the presence of the living God.

I

Lectio Divina: A Reading Leading to Prayer

Among the many gifts of Vatican II was a new emphasis on the Bible. It brought the Word of God to the center of all Christian spirituality. This revival has led to a growing practice of prayer that has had a long tradition in the Church. This is called lectio divina. Literally, this means divine reading. Another description would be the prayerful reading of the Bible.

Lectio Divina is all about the transforming encounter with God’s special means of revelation, the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. This prayerful reading seeks to listen to what God has to say to us. Reflection and prayer will lead us to know and embrace God’s will.

When approaching the Mystery unveiled in the Scriptures, Samuel’s great insight is the key: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10).

There are four steps to this prayerful reading of the Bible. We can describe them as the four “Rs” of Reading, Reflecting, Responding and Resting.

  1. A slow meditative reading of a selected text of the Scriptures.
  2. A reflection on the text that connects it with our life experience.
  3. A response in prayer to this reflective activity.
  4. Finally, a quiet resting in the Mystery of this encounter.

II

Seeking God Through A Mediator

There is a fascinating story about the Jewish people in the Exodus and their fear in approaching God. Moses had been experiencing a series of encounters with God on Mt. Sinai. These experiences had been marked by some natural signs such as storms, thunder and lightning. God spoke from a cloud. The people had become terrified. They had heard God’s Word telling them to keep their distance from the mountain lest they see the face of God and die. So, they said to Moses: “You speak to us and we will listen, but let not God speak to us, or we shall die.” (Ex 20: 18-19) They clearly wanted a mediator, a secondary approach to their experience of God.

In our day, many people use the Church as such a mediator to God. They are faithful members meeting their religious obligations. They have the sacraments and the teachings of the Church. Their approach to God is secondary by the faithful membership in the Church.

For others, their approach to God is rooted in an emergency. They go to God when their plan for happiness has run into a crisis. They see God as a remedy of the last resort.

There are many variations to these two themes such as the gospel of prosperity and those seeking deep religious feelings as the product of their worship. However, in all these different religious pursuits, the emphasis is on the individual and less so on God.

True religion places God as the center. True spirituality clarifies the goal and directs the person in a genuinely authentic and immediate search for God. Religion has its comfortable rituals and practices. Spirituality brings transparency and the immediacy with a clear focus in seeking union with God. Spirituality has the distinct and demanding goal of deep personal prayer.

In today’s religious practice, many people are moving beyond the security blanket of active Church membership as their search for God. This has taken many different avenues. Some have become more involved in their religious responsibilities. Others have withdrawn altogether. Most have had mixed results with many running into painful spiritual dead-ends. There is one common factor. They are all looking for a deeper spiritual experience.

In the US, the largest religious denomination is Roman Catholic. The second largest group is former Roman Catholics. In El Salvador, which is typical of many traditionally Catholic Latin American countries, the Evangelicals outnumber the Roman Catholics.

In the midst of this religious turmoil, there is a growing hunger for a more authentic experience of God. There is a yearning to move beyond the does and don’ts of religion to a spirituality that taps into the deepest longings of the human heart. Deep personal prayer is an avenue that is authentic, demanding and life-giving in this quest for a meaningful spirituality that offers this experience of God.

Lectio Divina, the prayerful reading of God’s Word, offers a method of truly spiritual encounters with the call of God’s will. It also opens up to a powerful and rich spirituality. This is why there is an intimate connection between Lectio Divina and deep personal prayer.

This journey, or better expressed as pilgrimage to God, leads to a personal purification, a personal enlightenment and a personal transformation. This happens through a growing awareness, a growing self-knowledge and an increasing understanding of God’s Word. These moments of spiritual growth gift the person with a generous acceptance of God’s will. A central part of this transition is the transformation of consciousness. A meaningful encounter with God’s Word exposes the depth of false values that blind us to the presence of God within ourselves, within our neighbor and within our historical reality.

This process of growing in the awareness of God’s presence leads to deeper awareness of God. In our present situation, we have a series of veils that blind us to God. These veils are the deceptive illusions and false values imposed by our culture and other sources of deception. Removing the veils obstructing us from God is a critical task of any true spirituality.

This pilgrimage to God with the help of Lectio Divina may seem overwhelming. However, like any other journey, it is simple enough if we realize it only is possible when we take one step at a time. We now face the real challenge. Taking that first step!

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