Stay Awake
Matthew’s Gospel passage on the thirty second Sunday is about the ten virgins, both wise and foolish. The following week’s message is about the men gifted with a sum of money that challenges their responsibility. These Gospel selections move us to consider the consequences of time coming to an end and our responsibility for our life and history. The message is simple and clear. Stay awake and be accountable. What we do with our time is consequential. We will be called to answer for it. There is definitely a limit to this time. “Afterwards the other virgins came and said, ‘Lord, Lord open the door for us.” But He said in reply “Amen I say to you, I do not know you!’ Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Mt 25:12-13)Time has limits for us. We need to be prepared by being responsible. A mature and realistic acceptance of death is an essential part of living life to the fullest. Each year’s selections from the three Gospels have laid out a clear path and plan of how we can be responsible by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
After the feast of Christ the King, we begin the journey again with another Gospel. The first three Sundays of Advent offer an alternative approach to the mystery of time. They lay out a plan of time that begins with the coming of Jesus. The message is Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
In this end-time of closing one year and beginning the next, we are confronted with a paradox. Time is going away and coming anew! Of course, this liturgical arrangement is to help us understand that each day of our lives holds this mystery of time: coming and going. Each day is a gift filled with the opportunity of new life and new love. At the same time, each day is moving relentlessly toward its own end, one day closer to our death.
In the funeral Mass of the Resurrection we have further insight into this paradox of time. The Preface of the Mass proclaims, “In Him, who rose from the dead, our hope of the resurrection dawned. The sadness gives way to the bright promise of immortality. Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended.”
In this paradox of time, ending and beginning, we are called to face up to death as a dominant aspect of our reality. As we face the utter reality of our death, we are called to live by values that embrace the limits of our mortality and guarantee our immortality with God. All the values of the gospel are rooted in this vision of life moving to be one with God. Jesus is calling us to share in the victory over death. How we live will determine if we will accept that call. Liturgy offers a view of death that is centered on the hospitality of God rather than a fear-drenched view of death centered on ourselves.
This message of the mystery of time invites us to live today to its fullness, to live today filled with joy and hope. We are called to be attentive and responsible, to be loving and confident. When we walk with Jesus, we are ready for the reality of today with Covid 19 and whatever else life brings.
It is true wisdom, not a morose and woeful mentality, which accepts that today brings us one day closer to our death. This is the truly Christian approach to life. In accepting our mortality, today is all the more beautiful and gifted and urgent. We believe Christ has won the victory so we can say with Paul, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, where is your sting?” (I Cor 15:55)
My oldest brother was the only one in our family who had the pious custom of visiting the graves of our loved ones. My mother had no interest in going to the cemetery. My brother, after many requests, finally convinced her to join him and his family. As she read the inscription on the tombstone of her husband, she was quite stunned to see her name and date of birth, waiting only for the date of death! Her response was typical of her joy in life: “I’ll be arriving soon enough. In the meantime, I have some living to do.” Then she danced a little “Irish Jig” on the gravesite!
Praying Our Way into Life
The Gospel stories and parables are an invitation to view our reality in a new light, a fresh vantage point. And so it is, too, as we encounter the person of Jesus. It is an opportunity to cast aside our distorted worldview and enter into the real world. This is what Teresa means by praying our way into life. This is how we get real.
In the Carmelite tradition, where Teresa was both a beneficiary and a major contributor, personal transformation and union with God are central. They express the destiny of every human being. A noteworthy part of this transformation is the elimination of the false consciousness that clouds and deceives all human experience. One important element of this transformation is a gospel-rooted view of death. God’s grace particularly, in Jesus, is calling us out of this darkness into a new light. For Teresa, this is the journey from the unreal to the real.
Prayer, through a transformation of consciousness, leads to both a clearer and more accurate understanding and acceptance of death. This insight brings about a way of life that focuses on the final goal: to be one with God. With thls mindset, we are freed from the captivity of fear and dread. Slowly, we see death for what it is: a passage to life.
Prayer slowly but surely creates a new heart in the image of Jesus Christ. It is a gradual passage from self-absorption to self-giving. This move, from self to God as the center, changes how we view death. There is a movement away from denial and rejection. Getting real is the key that slowly lets us see death kindlier, as a step on the way to become one with God.
As Teresa grew in wisdom, the goal of life as union with God became clearer and a source of energy and direction. This clarity about her destination helped her to see life in a different way. It also helped her to see death as simply a step in the process of seeking to be united with God. This understanding of life and of death were all part of her spiritual maturity.
To get real means that we are not moving out of life in our spirituality but moving into life. We are freeing our mind and heart of illusions and deceptions that twist reality to make ourselves the center. Getting real is simply facing the truth: God is the creator, and we need to accept the consequences of that. We are the creature. This is truly our reality. Prayer is the bridge from our self-centeredness to centering on God.
Teresa’s message focuses all our energy on this call to be one with God. If it fits, keep it. If it does not, get rid of it. Prayer is the measure by which to judge the authenticity of the human experience. Prayer is our response to God’s self-disclosure. It draws us into the life of God, who dwells in our deepest center. What pulls us into the life of God, we lock into. What does not, we discard.
The journey to the center, away from our mediocrity toward true faithfulness, is a growth in awareness that lets us grasp the disparity of the false self and the true self.
After the feast of Christ the King, we begin the journey again with another Gospel. The first three Sundays of Advent offer an alternative approach to the mystery of time. They lay out a plan of time that begins with the coming of Jesus. The message is Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Time: Coming and Going
Here we are taught that we are invited into a new reality, a new time. Jesus lets us know that time is pregnant with new possibilities. Time is a gift filled with hope and an invitation into new life. Time holds the gift for which our heart has been yearning. Time is not a threat but a gift. It is not a slipping away but a new coming, wrapped in the love of a gracious and saving God. Time unfolds as an invitation to our true destiny, which is the passage through death to life eternal.In this end-time of closing one year and beginning the next, we are confronted with a paradox. Time is going away and coming anew! Of course, this liturgical arrangement is to help us understand that each day of our lives holds this mystery of time: coming and going. Each day is a gift filled with the opportunity of new life and new love. At the same time, each day is moving relentlessly toward its own end, one day closer to our death.
In the funeral Mass of the Resurrection we have further insight into this paradox of time. The Preface of the Mass proclaims, “In Him, who rose from the dead, our hope of the resurrection dawned. The sadness gives way to the bright promise of immortality. Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended.”
In this paradox of time, ending and beginning, we are called to face up to death as a dominant aspect of our reality. As we face the utter reality of our death, we are called to live by values that embrace the limits of our mortality and guarantee our immortality with God. All the values of the gospel are rooted in this vision of life moving to be one with God. Jesus is calling us to share in the victory over death. How we live will determine if we will accept that call. Liturgy offers a view of death that is centered on the hospitality of God rather than a fear-drenched view of death centered on ourselves.
This message of the mystery of time invites us to live today to its fullness, to live today filled with joy and hope. We are called to be attentive and responsible, to be loving and confident. When we walk with Jesus, we are ready for the reality of today with Covid 19 and whatever else life brings.
It is true wisdom, not a morose and woeful mentality, which accepts that today brings us one day closer to our death. This is the truly Christian approach to life. In accepting our mortality, today is all the more beautiful and gifted and urgent. We believe Christ has won the victory so we can say with Paul, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, where is your sting?” (I Cor 15:55)
My oldest brother was the only one in our family who had the pious custom of visiting the graves of our loved ones. My mother had no interest in going to the cemetery. My brother, after many requests, finally convinced her to join him and his family. As she read the inscription on the tombstone of her husband, she was quite stunned to see her name and date of birth, waiting only for the date of death! Her response was typical of her joy in life: “I’ll be arriving soon enough. In the meantime, I have some living to do.” Then she danced a little “Irish Jig” on the gravesite!
Praying Our Way into Life
The Message of Teresa
The Gospel stories and parables are an invitation to view our reality in a new light, a fresh vantage point. And so it is, too, as we encounter the person of Jesus. It is an opportunity to cast aside our distorted worldview and enter into the real world. This is what Teresa means by praying our way into life. This is how we get real.In the Carmelite tradition, where Teresa was both a beneficiary and a major contributor, personal transformation and union with God are central. They express the destiny of every human being. A noteworthy part of this transformation is the elimination of the false consciousness that clouds and deceives all human experience. One important element of this transformation is a gospel-rooted view of death. God’s grace particularly, in Jesus, is calling us out of this darkness into a new light. For Teresa, this is the journey from the unreal to the real.
Prayer, through a transformation of consciousness, leads to both a clearer and more accurate understanding and acceptance of death. This insight brings about a way of life that focuses on the final goal: to be one with God. With thls mindset, we are freed from the captivity of fear and dread. Slowly, we see death for what it is: a passage to life.
Prayer slowly but surely creates a new heart in the image of Jesus Christ. It is a gradual passage from self-absorption to self-giving. This move, from self to God as the center, changes how we view death. There is a movement away from denial and rejection. Getting real is the key that slowly lets us see death kindlier, as a step on the way to become one with God.
As Teresa grew in wisdom, the goal of life as union with God became clearer and a source of energy and direction. This clarity about her destination helped her to see life in a different way. It also helped her to see death as simply a step in the process of seeking to be united with God. This understanding of life and of death were all part of her spiritual maturity.
To get real means that we are not moving out of life in our spirituality but moving into life. We are freeing our mind and heart of illusions and deceptions that twist reality to make ourselves the center. Getting real is simply facing the truth: God is the creator, and we need to accept the consequences of that. We are the creature. This is truly our reality. Prayer is the bridge from our self-centeredness to centering on God.
Teresa’s message focuses all our energy on this call to be one with God. If it fits, keep it. If it does not, get rid of it. Prayer is the measure by which to judge the authenticity of the human experience. Prayer is our response to God’s self-disclosure. It draws us into the life of God, who dwells in our deepest center. What pulls us into the life of God, we lock into. What does not, we discard.
The journey to the center, away from our mediocrity toward true faithfulness, is a growth in awareness that lets us grasp the disparity of the false self and the true self.
