ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-7

Part Two

I

As the disciples began to follow Jesus, they were far from the finished product. In fact, they saw in Jesus the answer to their ambitious dreams of power and prestige. It was a long, painful journey for them that gradually freed them from the blindness of their self-centered ways. Jesus was constantly calling them to a place they found unsettling. Jesus was relentless in disrupting their complacency.
The movement away from a worldview centered on them in the spotlight and God offstage as an emergency support was aptly called “the road to Jerusalem.”

When we truly encounter the Word of God in the Bible, we will have the same challenging experience. This is always the case when we address a self-knowledge rooted in selfishness. This is our universal inheritance from our original parents.

A steady dosage of God’s Word will produce a frontal attack on all superficiality and bogus values that prop up a false self. This fundamental internal distortion energizes an unyielding pursuit for comfort and control. The Word of God is indeed the two-edged sword. It opens up that part of our life that we would rather keep hidden. Everything about the Bible is geared to transform our self-knowledge. It helps us abandon selfishness and to build up a life of self-giving love and healing presence. This is a journey to the true self that places God at the center.

If the Bible is only a source of comfort for us, we are losing the real treasure. The true Word of God, revealed in Jesus, is about our personal transformation through our death to selfishness and our rebirth to love and service. Growing in true knowledge of ourselves is an essential element of this new life.

It is our commitment to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

When we enter a serious encounter with God’s Word in the Bible, we always bring extensive personal baggage. There are countless pitfalls in the sacred task of prayerful reading of the Bible. These three essential steps will be most helpful.

…..Listen to what God has to say to me;

…..Seek to learn God’s will;

…..Always be committed to walk with Jesus.

Exposing the hidden agenda of the disciples was a constant part of Jesus’ teaching. It is also part of our search for true discipleship. We are all caught in a cultural and economic captivity that pulls us constantly away from gospel values.

A prayerful reading of the Word of God clearly surfaces our internal conflict and turmoil. Deep personal change is set before us as a non-negotiable summons. This gospel call to conversion centers on self-knowledge. It is a process of seeing ourselves in a new way, the way that the light of Christ opens before us.

True faithfulness will slowly but steadily unveil a deeply entrenched selfishness and deceit. With gentle divine guidance, we will see things in a new way. We will be uprooted and set loose. The choices before us will slowly erupt with an enticing clarity. This will be the first step on a long journey.

It will eventually become evident that God’s plans never seem to be finished. Along the way, our self-knowledge will be slowly transformed as we embrace a new freedom.

Teresa of Avila never tired of talking about the importance of self-knowledge. She knew well that growing in honest self-knowledge transported us into a humble and totally life-giving presence to God. The key is humility, the ability to accept ourselves as creatures utterly dependent on an all-powerful, all-loving and all-merciful Creator God. This is the true passage from the dominance of the ego, and its destructive false self, to the true self.

“Oh, but if it is in the room of self-knowledge! How necessary this room is – see that you understand me – even for those who the Lord has brought to the very dwelling places where He abides. For never, however the soul may be, is anything else fitting for it…Humility, like the bee making honey, is always at work. Without it, everything goes wrong.” (IC.1.8)

John 13:31-35

Dear Friends, The Church gives us thirteen weeks to prepare for and then celebrate, ponder and pray over the reality of the Pascal Mystery, Christ’s Death and Resurrection. This event taps into the most basic human realities, life and death, sin and grace. Our tendency, after the beauty of Holy Week, is to float over this Easter Season and miss the profound message.

In today’s second reading from Revelation (21:1-5) we read this, “Behold God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.” (Rev21:3-4)

This is just one more way of expressing the beauty and the marvel of God’s love in the Pascal Mystery. God has spoken and the last word is not pain and suffering, but healing. The last word is not the injustice, poverty and war that so engulfs our life and world but reconciliation, peace and justice. The last word is not hate and division that surrounds us but love. The Lord has conquered death and called us to eternal life, a glorious state that begins when we love one another.

Today’s Gospel opens with these words of Jesus: “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” (John 13:31) This glory means the hidden God is revealed. Jesus goes on to state that this glory, this revelation of God, will happen when we love one another as he has loved us. This is his command. We are to love one another.

A perfect example of this new love is to wash the feet of one another which is, in effect, unlimited service and availability to one another. Jesus wants us to simply relate to our brothers and sisters in a spirit of self-sacrifice. In this way, we make Jesus present to the world even in his apparent absence.

Jesus is telling us the great witness of the Church should be the witness of love. The first step toward this witnessing love is be open and humble in the midst of Jesus’ love for us. The definition of a witness is one whose life speaks so loudly and clearly that we cannot hear what he or she is saying. In our day we have been blessed with the witness of Pope Francis.

This call to love and witness is an invitation to contemplate the Pascal Mystey of the Death and Resurrection. There is no greater expression of God’s love than the Crucified and Risen Christ. The Cross tells us that God is love, self-sacrificing love. The depth and breadth of this truth demands reflection, prayer and lived experience of love on our part. This is the only way to enter into the wonder of God’s call to love one another.

This lesson of love that leads to eternal life engulfs the entire Easter message. This is what the passage from the Book of Revelation and Jesus’ command to love one another as he loved us is telling us. We find it so hard to believe when we face the reality of our daily life and our world or just simply read our morning news source. This is why we have to move slowly and steadily into this great event of our faith, this great final expression of God’s love, this final word of life and love and healing. This is what we mean when we proclaim that Christ is risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!

Last week, we were invited in the Scriptures to embrace the greatest of the gifts of Christ’s victory, eternal life. Today, we are called to realize with new insight and wisdom this profound truth. A life committed to love is eternal life for us right now. When we love as Jesus did, we are living the Pascal Mystery of the Death and Resurrection. When we love as Jesus did, we break loose of the bonds of sin and death. When we love as Jesus did we express the seed of life that is Christ within us. We begin our eternity now when we walk in the way of love with Jesus. “As I have loved you, so should you love one another. (John 13:34)

The Bible is a privileged source of self-knowledge. It is God’s gift bringing light and wisdom to humankind to combat the sinful heritage of Adam and Eve. It is an invitation to move out of our broken condition of self-centeredness. It is a call to accept the simple overwhelming truth that our true destiny is to be one in love with God as the source and center of all reality.

Jesus is our special invitation into this journey. “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe, who is the refulgence of his glory, and the very imprint of his being.” (Heb 1:1-3)

In the Gospel of Mark, we have an outstanding example of the Word of God as an invitation to self-knowledge. This selection begins with the healing of a blind man. (Mk 8:22) and ends with healing of a blind man. (Mk 10 52) In between, Jesus announces his forthcoming Passion, Death and Resurrection three times.

Each declaration is followed by an event that shows that the disciples just do not understand. They are caught in a false self-knowledge. Jesus then offers a teaching of enlightenment that calls them out of their false consciousness. The first incident takes place in Mk 8:31-38. In this case, Peter denies the need for the passion and death. Jesus declares emphatically, “Get behind me Satan!

You are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.” (Mk 8:33) Jesus then proceeds with his teaching against the false consciousness of the disciples and us. True discipleship demands that we take up the cross and have true self-denial.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever dies to his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” (Mk 8:35) This is a straightforward attack by Jesus of the false self-knowledge of the disciples’ desire for worldly success, power, prestige and wealth.

In chapter nine the pattern is repeated. Jesus’ second declaration of the Passion Death and Resurrection is followed by this announcement. “But they did not understand the statement and were afraid to question him.” (Mk 9:30)

Jesus’ teaching here begins with a question: “What were you arguing about on the way?” (Mk 9:33) With deep embarrassment, they admit their heated conversation was about who among them was the greatest. Jesus then pronounces, “If anyone wishes to be first, he should be last of all and the servant of all.” (Mk 9:35) Here again, we have Jesus attacking the disciples’ ambition rooted in worldly values.

Finally, in the third foretelling of the Passion, Death and Resurrection, the pattern repeats itself. James and John step forward expressing their ambitious resolve to be recognized as leaders. Jesus responds: “Whoever wishes to great among you will be the slave of all.” (Mk 10:34) The climax is in the healing of the second blind man. Here we have a true manifestation of discipleship. The text says, “He threw away his cloak…and he followed him on the way.” (Mk 10:50-52) His cloak symbolized all his possessions.

This freed him in total generosity to follow Jesus on “the road to Jerusalem!” In these passages from the Gospel of Mark we have a sparkling and clear presentation of how Jesus is attacking the distorted consciousness of his followers. At the same time, he is inviting them to see in his journey to Jerusalem, the true self-knowledge that leads to life and freedom. This repetitive pattern fills the Bible with the call to conversion away from self-centeredness to placing God at the center.

Jn 10:27-30

Dear Friends. The Easter triumph of love gives us hope no matter where life leads us in its twisting journey. The Easter Season calls us to become an Alleluia People, people immersed in the hope flowing from the Risen Christ. For us, personally and as a faith community, Easter is an encounter with the triumph of love over all that is evil. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the decisive sign that nothing can overcome the love of God.

Today’ gospel displays this hope is in the role of Jesus as our Shepherd. This pastoral theme is in each of the Church’s cycles on the fourth Sunday of Easter. The image of the Shepherd draws us deeper into the Easter mystery.

The Easter message is one we grow into. We do not get it all at once. It is an incremental, step-by-step process. Our life experience is critical to making this great event of the resurrection meaningful for each of us. The Easter Season is a personal invitation to take that next step. We can only move forward from where we are. This is why today’s image of the Shepherd is so beautiful. Jesus is with us to protect and to guide us. In Jesus our Shepherd, we have the assurance of the deepest truth and the most authentic love. This is the call to be people of the Alleluia.

Jesus tells us, “My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me…no one can take them out of the Father’s hands.” (Jn 10:27-28) Jesus has our back no matter what the circumstances!

Jesus, as the Shepherd, offers us both security and guidance. This relationship is to one who shelters us and directs us. It touches a deep hunger in our heart. True self-knowledge of our brokenness leads us to long for deliverance. We want to cast off the ambiguity and confusion of our reality. We yearn for safety and clarity. Jesus, as our Shepherd, addresses that ache in our hearts. Jesus the Shepherd invites to know him by walking in his path. His voice sets us free from the crippling ambivalence and fear. He directs us with a caring presence in the midst of the daily wolves of violence, division, ignorance and injustice that are a constant threat to us.

Jesus, as our Shepherd, nurtures our sense of hope in this Easter Season. Jesus has shown us that there is no earthly power, no matter how dominant or seemingly invincible, that can overcome God’s love. This is the Easter message. This love becomes personal for us in the Shepherd. This love generates the Easter reality. It is our passage into eternal life when we are following our Shepherd. “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (Jn 10: 27)

Today’s gospel compels us to receive the protection and accept the direction of our Shepherd. It gives us hope leading to life eternal beginning now when we follow the Shepherd in our daily life.

We need to ask ourselves, are we open to this gift? Do we hear the voice of Jesus in our daily experience and responsibilities? Do we really accept, embrace and celebrate the wonder of the Alleluia which is our invitation into the great event of love that is the Risen Christ? When our yes to the Good Shepherd is true and honest we are on the way to becoming an Alleluia People.

When we pray regularly we develop the habit of deep personal prayer. This sets us on the road to serious personal change. This personal transformation, however, comes at a price. God always wants more. This is the why we come up with so many reasons we cannot pray. At the top of the list is time in one way or another: need to work, need to relax, need to be present to loved ones, need to…. And also watch TV, football, shopping, politics etc. There are other reasons like being just too tired, sick and other heavy responsibilities. It all comes down to a question of determining what is important for us.

Since God is so insistent, regular prayer will always bring us to the challenge of changing our lives. Prayer points out what God wants in a way that confronts our blind spots. The nature of deep personal prayer is to draw us out of comfortable deceptions. The journey to the center and its encounter with our loving God in prayer is not the easy way. The issue of time and the other excuses hindering our prayer are rooted in a fear of moving away from our comfort zone, a personal space rooted in the selfishness inherited from or original parents. True self-knowledge is the necessary and demanding path rescuing us from these hidden and disruptive undercurrents within us. In the normal flow of events, blindness is the norm when it comes to self-awareness. Prayer is the path to enlightenment.

Merton’s definition of prayer is yearning to be aware of the presence of God, knowledge of God’s Word and personal understanding of God’s will and the capacity to hear and obey. It is that last phrase “to hear and obey” that invites us out of our self-satisfaction in a movement from our head to our heart to our life. Authentic prayer is always necessary in the quest for honest pursuit of God. Self-knowledge is a decisive component in this development.

Here are a few examples of this inward transformation. Many families are caught in the trap of a destructively addicted member. Everyone suffers. AL ANON offers relief but it comes at a price of self-knowledge. One needs to lose the illusion of control, a mindset that assumes one can alter the addictive person’s behavior. It also challenges the pattern of denial or being a victim.

The simple acceptance that one cannot change another person comes slowly and with personal sacrifice. The change in attitude, however, is life-giving. This is the sort of thing that God is always surfacing in our prayer: movement from death to life, from illusion to reality. It is an invitation to accept the gospel values and go beyond the superficial allegiance.

In the early 80’s, already a priest for twenty years, I was confronted about my blatant prejudice against homosexuals. I fought it. I rejected it. I became angry but I prayed and eventually began a journey to acceptance and repentance.

What is common in both of these issues, one personal and the other social or cultural, is that often in prayer a matter is brought to our awareness but we resist it. However, it is now in play in our consciousness and if we pray regularly we have to work hard to avoid it. The change evolving from our “hearing and obeying” sometimes is a matter of days or often months or even years.

God is patient but never stops calling us out of the darkness to the light. This always involves in a growth in self-knowledge. The “hear and obey” of Merton’s definition of prayer is the encounter of our total being with God’s word and will. This openness and acceptance of God’s call leads to personal transformation.

The message of the gospel is sown in our heart. These seeds of new life are always looking for the opportunity to blossom. This is the goal of prayer: to slowly but surely to create a new heart in the image of Jesus Christ. It is a gradual passage from self-absorption to self- giving that enriches self-knowledge.

III

Any serious commitment to deep personal prayer begins a movement involving personal change. This consistent prayer, this openness to God’s call, assaults our inherited disorder. It exposes fragile and damaged nature.

This prayer, when consistent and faithful, attacks the limiting boundaries of our self-knowledge. We are slowly challenged with a steady stream of new insights about ourselves. Compassion and gentleness, flowing from regular prayer, begin to replace a harsh and judgmental attitude. We gradually pull away from the hunger to “look good”. Now it is easier to accept our faults and limits.

Prayer generates a sense of trust that begins to identify and diminish our hidden fears. With regular prayer, we begin to see the true importance of forgiving. Even more, we start to open new horizons to expand our call to love our neighbor. There are many other healing factors, all directed to our original brokenness, all expanding our self-awareness.

This new self-knowledge is an influential part of prayer that brings us back to the road toward original innocence leading to God.

SEARCH FOR THE GIFT OF CONTEMPLATION

Prayer plays a vital role on the Christian journey. This is especially true as we come face to face with the demands of gospel integrity. However, in the end, prayer only identifies and clarifies God’s presence in our life. Life is where we encounter God. Life is the greatest grace. Prayer enlightens, enables and draws us into this true mystery and goal of our existence, to be one with God.

One of the primary tasks of prayer is to enlighten us through the Word of God. This process slowly lets us see that our grasp of Jesus’ message in the Gospels is quite shallow. A few personal examples will help make this concrete.

As a young teenager I thought it was an outrageous sacrilege for girls to play sports. Likewise, I believed that the African Americans were perfectly happy in their neighborhood. There was absolutely no understanding of the intensity of the overcrowding, the poor and decrepit housing stock, the underfunding of the segregated schools, and the lack of medical services and a multitude of other expressions of racial injustice.

Faithfulness to prayer slowly expanded my awareness of my captivity to a culture that was intensely sexist and racist. That journey continues full speed into the present. This is one of numerous ways prayer enhances our self-knowledge by attacking our false consciousness.

Most often when people pray they have a plan. They want God to respond to their strategy for happiness. But God also has a plan. God wants us to respond to that plan. Here is the conflict: the two plans, God’s and ours. This is a significant problem with prayer. Growth in self-knowledge is a major factor in resolving this apparent discord.

For most people, a good part of their spiritual journey involves this transition from one’s personal plan for happiness to God’s plan for our happiness. We are clear with what we want and what we think we need. Most often it is dominated by the deceitful values of the false self. However, through the experience of life’s many trials, we gradually see the need to ease off of our agenda and let go. Little by little we come to see and embrace the need to let God! Our growth in a more righteous self-knowledge is a major contributor to this positive experience.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church there are several definitions of prayer. One from St. John Damascene states: Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.”

Our “good things” often conflict with God’s “good things”. A significant part of the Christian life is learning to discern the difference and importance of our self- perceived “good things” and the “good things” of God. More often than not, our “good things” are rooted in the false values of our materialistic and consumer driven culture rather than the values of the gospel. As we begin to break loose of the restraints of the false self, the light of gospel shines more brightly in our heart.

This is always a shift towards a more genuine self-knowledge. In the early stages of Christian growth, we are praying for the “good things” we feel are necessary for us. Authentic prayer demands that we change rather than God change. We grasp this very slowly, if at all. The irony often is that, in the very troubles and burdens that we want God to remove; we eventually will find the hidden blessing of life on the way to the “good things” of God’s Kingdom.

The growth in Christian maturity demands that we change our ideas of God and continue to deepen our self-knowledge. In maturing prayer, we move from asking God for our “good things”, the blessings that we think we need to bring peace and order into our own created kingdom.

On the contrary, when we repent and seek Jesus’ Kingdom, our heart moves to seek what God desires. We gently become aware that God is the Creator and we are the creature. God’s better plan calls us to change, to grow in self-knowledge. That change is personal conversion, a gradual and life-long process transitioning from ourselves as the center to God as the center. The eyes of our heart slowly begin to see the beauty of God’s “good things”.

III

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who was one of the great spiritual teachers in the 20th Century North America, spoke eloquently about a deep personal prayer. Merton defined it this way: “Prayer then means yearning for the simple presence of God, for a personal understanding of God’s word, for knowledge of God’s will, and for the capacity to hear and obey God.”

In Merton’s definition of prayer, God is at the center. We search for understanding and direction in our lives that need to open us to God. We find five helpful points for this goal in Merton’s definition of prayer:

1) All prayer must raise our awareness of God’s presence.

2) We need to encounter God’s Word. The most privileged way of this engagement is with the Bible but it also is in the experiences of life.

3) The encounter with God’s Word leads us to God’s will, a call out of selfishness to generosity toward God and others.

4) In this prayer, listening is the key.

5) New insight into the reality of God’s word and will guides our way of life.

Conclusion

It is clear that there is interdependence between self-knowledge and prayer. In this mutual dependence, we discover one of the many contradictions in the spiritual life. As self-knowledge increases, there is a startling awareness that we just are not able to fix all that is broken. The after-effects of original sin run very deep. This opens us to God’s mercy which, in time, moves us to a greater dependence on prayer.

John 21:1-19

Dear Friends in Christ, Today’s selection is the end of John’s Gospel. It is commonly seen as a later addition to the original text. It was written by a disciple of the author who was totally in touch with the special vision that permeates the original Gospel message. Most see it as a balancing effort to the classic teaching in the Gospel’s Prologue.

There are three clear and profound teachings for the early Church and the Church of today. First, there is a declaration of universality. Jesus wants the Church reaching out to call people of all times and places. This is the meaning from the exact number of fish. 153 was the number of different kinds of fish that the world was able to identify at that time. The Gospel makes it clear that God’s loving grace revealed in Jesus knows no limits. It is for all humanity’s incredible number of cultures and nationalities.

Secondly, in the tender scene between Jesus and Peter we have a profound display of the mercy of God. Once again, Peter finds himself next to a charcoal fire. Now, it is not a time of denial and rejection, but a testimony of love. This is the message of the depth and breadth of God’s mercy. It is without limit. It is without condition. It is for Peter and for all. We are all invited into the Kingdom as we respond to Jesus’ question: “Do you love me?” (Jn 21:16) We are invited to cast off our burden of guilt. The Gospel is reminding us that there is no more consequential reality for us than the question: Do we love Jesus? Can we accept his call to mercy, his call to share the Good News that we are forgiven and summoned to a new life? Thirdly, today’s Gospel tells us that there is a price to pay when we proclaim the Good News of Jesus. Jesus tells Peter: “When you grow older, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (Jn 21:18)

Peter did, indeed, go where he did not want to go. This led to his crucified death in imitation of Jesus. It was the final and definitive answer to Jesus’ question, “Simon Peter. Do you love me?” (Jn 21:16)

We, too, will encounter many a sacrifice if we are faithful to walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

In answering Jesus’ question: “Do you love me?” we are entering into a new world of the Easter message. Death gives way to life when we are faithful to God. As we walk with Jesus, much sooner than later we will hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Our heart will open up to move out of our comfortable world into a life of service and sacrifice for the values of the gospel.

We will move out of the captivity of indifference to injustice and human greed. We will enter into the utter joy of the Easter Alleluia. Our commitment to the gospel will open our heart to all, no matter the color or race, no matter the sexual orientation, no matter the status in society. Filled with joy in the Easter victory, we will embrace the gift of God’s mercy. It will make our sacrifice and struggle a joy as we respond like Peter: “Lord, you know that I love you.” Jn 21:17)

John 20:19-31

It was a truly fatal weekend for the disciples, a devastating seventy-two hours from the washing of the feet on Thursday to the visit of the Risen Christ on Sunday evening. Of course, Peter led the way in the trauma department.

He was a living poster child of the weeds and the wheat, of sin and grace. Wash my feet! Never! Then my hands and face also! I will be willing to die rather than deny you! I do not know the man! Peter “went out and wept bitterly.” (Lk.22:62) “The doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.” (Jn 20:1) It was a short trip from total arrogance to total devastation.

Fear and pain had shattered their dreams. Slowly, they realized the events of the weekend not only exposed them as losers for wasting three years of their lives chasing what now appeared to be a delusional ambition. At this moment, they were in danger of doing time in prison and maybe even losing their lives. Fear was a very reasonable response to their tormenting and alarming circumstances.

The urgency of crisis management did not give them much time to let the depth of their loss sink in. Likewise, they were unable to see with any clarity the extent of their personal cowardice in their flight and rejection after three years of intimacy at the feet of Jesus. Self knowledge does take a long time!

Then, in the midst of the pain, the fear, the loss and utter darkness and confusion they see Him and hear, “Peace be with you.” (Jn 20:19)

They had a lot of experience with the upside down world of Jesus. However, nothing prepared them for this. In an instant, defeat and failure are now victory and triumph. Darkness is now light. Abandonment leads to embrace. Sin and denial are washed away in love and mercy. Indeed, “Peace be with you.” It would take a long time for the consequences of this overwhelming experience to sink in.

The story continues in Acts to show us this frightful group of very ordinary broken men as transformed and fearless proclaimers of the gospel. Driven by joy and faith, they set the Church on its 2000 plus years of announcing and celebrating the Risen Christ.

No wonder the Church invites us to ponder and pray about this awesome mystery of the Resurrection for the next seven weeks. There is a lot to take in.

If we are willing to dig deep enough, we gradually will see the story of our lives in the vulnerability of the disciples. We will see the dominance and control of our fear and anxieties In the ordinary flaw of human events our fears are many. Personally, we are apprehensive about the fragile love with our closest relationships. Physically, among many threats, we see gun violence creeping ever closer to all of us. Likewise, Mother Nature is usually the leading story on the nightly news. If we are reasonable, we need to fear the ravages of climate change. Fear of aging can be denied for only so long. We are always anxious about the loss of our possessions. Each of us can add to the list.

An important part of the glorious Easter message is, “Be not afraid!” This command is spoken to us over three hundred times in the Scriptures but never more gloriously in the words of the Risen Savior in today’s gospel text.

Indeed, Christ is risen! Alleluia! When we let this glorious mystery seep into the depths of our heart, nothing will ever be the same again.

It is no wonder this is the day we so fittingly celebrate the mercy of God. Like the disciples, we are loved in our brokenness. We are accepted in our weakness and sinfulness. Slowly, we will get a glimmer of the love Jesus has for us. It is without limit or condition. The mercy of God is a treasure we can hardly grasp. No matter how gradually we seize this treasure, the goal of our spiritual journey in life is to let the power and beauty of this merciful love transform us. Just like the disciples, we are called to be a new creation. We are called to be the people of the Alleluia!

The material in this selection is a more advanced message for readers who are more urgent in their Search for the gift of contemplation. Self-Knowledge and the Pursuit of God

Our normal mind-set is filled with deep prejudices, false values, illusions, and a grandiose sense of self-importance. They all join together to blind us to God’s presence in the depths of our heart and more especially in our world. Clearing this passage is the task of an authentic spiritual life. Self-knowledge, an appreciation and awareness of what is taking place within us, is a crucial element on this path.

The journey of self-knowledge is often described as moving from the false self to the true self. It is a new way of looking at ourselves, at others, and at the world. It is a transformation of consciousness. Growth in self-awareness also opens up the vast patterns of injustice in the world. In our day, this is especially manifest in the thoughtless and uncaring violations of the gift of God’s creation.

The false self is entrenched in our exaggerated sense of self-importance, our illusions of grandiosity, the blindness of our prejudices and addictions, and, most of all the unreality of our idols. Our heart creates many false centers in our attachments and the distorted use of God’s creatures. The heart becomes fragmented and flawed.

We tend to become blinded to our faults and failures. We emphasize the shortcomings of others. Jesus described it well. He highlighted our blindness to the log in our eye in contrast to our stress on the splinter in our neighbor’s eye (Matthew 7:4–5). Self-righteousness dominates our approach.

As we become aware of the false values flowing from our deficient heart, we come to a fork in the road. We are called to decide. Are we really motivated by the love of Christ? Or are their more hidden and more selfish values driving our actions? If we look at our likes and dislikes and our powerful emotions we can get a clue what is really driving our decisions. As we pause for reflection we will often be surprised at the hidden darkness driving our actions.

This is the dominance of our false self. We need to move away the choice of death, a decision that surrenders to the clamoring of the false self. We choose life when we yield to the mercy of God, which leads to the true self. At the heart of this encounter is the perennial challenge of knowing ourselves.

Teresa of Avila and the Mercy of God

For Teresa of Avila, the long search for self-knowledge led to two important facts that became the foundation of all her spirituality. First, she had a clear encounter with the false self, a distracted heart pulled in many directions leading away from God. In this disorderly heart she identified her sinfulness.

More importantly, she slowly accepted her helplessness to change. The second reality Teresa welcomed was this: she was loved and forgiven. She lived in a sea of mercy. This led Teresa to accept life rooted in her vulnerable sinfulness. At the same time, she experienced life immersed in the loving mercy of God. She was the creature caught in sin but a loved and forgiven child of God. God was the creator revealing his power in love and mercy.

Self-knowledge, Prayer, and Life

Teresa of Ávila was relentless in declaring the importance of self-knowledge for the spiritual journey, the journey to God in the center of our being.

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. (THE INTERIOR CASTLE, 2.1.11)

For Teresa, the mystery of God unfolds in the dynamic of the person’s prayer and life experience. Self-understanding brings this process together. When we accept the reality of God’s place and our place, God’s mercy is the dominant issue. As she grew in self-knowledge, Teresa grew steadily more compelling in her oft-repeated conviction: “My life is the story of God’s mercy.”

As we grow in self-knowledge, we will celebrate our lives as immersed in the sea of God’s mercy. Self-knowledge will gradually bring us to embrace the wonder of this gift. There is no better way to understand and enter into this relationship between God and ourselves than opening our hearts to Jesus and his call. Deep personal prayer will follow.

In the Exsultet, the most glorious Easter proclamation, we read:
That sanctifying power of this night
Dispels the brokenness, washes faults away,
Restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to the mourners,
Drives out hatred, fosters concord and brings down the mighty.

The Christian Life aims to make that beautiful vision of the Exsultet an overwhelming certainty in the life of each follower of Christ. One factor in this necessary personal transformation is self-knowledge.

The brokenness acknowledged in the Exsultet is our heritage, the consequence of the sin of our original parents, Adam and Eve. Every human being is caught in this alienation that drives them away from God. This is the product of personal, social, economic and cultural factors. We are all caught in the grasp of a false consciousness that leads us to see things for our personal benefit. From these most fundamental desires flow the division, the isolation, the conflict and hatred so inherent in our common human experience. Likewise, culture creates further false values to support hostility and separation. The economic system adds to the pattern of lies that defines us as consumers with needs that supposedly only further acquisition can bring the happiness we long for.

The following five observations help clarify the intensity of this false consciousness that engulfs us.

1) We are locked into a false consciousness.

2) This false consciousness creates a world view that is a gross distortion of reality but a world view, nevertheless, that we embrace as true.

3) Part of this perspective. Fostered by society and culture, and driven by our innate egoism, defines us primarily as a consumer.

4) We are constrained by the deep and hidden prejudices aimed at protecting our economic, political, cultural, gender, social and racial privileges to the exclusion and deprivation of others.

5) The power of the ego is in a relentless struggle to avoid any diminishment of its control of our false consciousness.

The interplay of all these forces, generating a false consciousness, deeply influences our quest for happiness. It is a never-failing way to ultimate disappointment and grief. These are patterns of deceit and distortion. They create a mindset that pursues goals that, in the end, can never achieve lasting happiness.

Authentic self-knowledge is the only way out. Jesus has told us, “The truth will set you free.” (John8:32) The first step on the road to freedom is moving out of the captivity of the destructive lies. We need to move into the truth of God’s call to our original innocence. This is the work of the Christian life. Self-knowledge is a critical feature of the venture.

Here is a short personal example of false consciousness. As a child, I was told the “colored people” would never come past 47th St. Gay and lesbian people just did not exist. The glass ceiling for women, which was never mentioned, was more like a combination steel and titanium. All of these were wrapped up in a religious message of my beloved parish.

My spiritual journey has been an on-going struggle to break free of this racism, prejudice against the LGBTQ community and sexism. All of these destructive lies have festered deep within my false consciousness over a lifetime. Like a cancer, they have quietly been eating away at my spiritual well-being. The search for true self-knowledge has led to a fierce battle against my ingrained captivity.

Eventually, a growth in self-knowledge has been generated by seeking a true Christian life. This has been possible only with an encounter with Jesus in the Gospels and deep personal prayer. The struggle continues. The importance of Self-Knowledge on the Christian Journey.

Luke 24:1-12

Dear Friends, The resurrection stories are an invitation into the Mystery of Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. They remain challenging for us as they were for the disciples and the special women on that first Easter. The information of the story, its content, has to be embraced not only in the mind but in a heart that is open and searching the deep questions of our life.

It is good for us to look back at the utter bewilderment and sense of hopelessness of the disciples. The story of the women and the empty tomb had to face some harsh realities that engulfed these first followers of Christ. They were immersed in a total and communal sense of loss as they agonized over the devastating events of the weekend. Then, they had to face the mystery of the Suffering Messiah, both in the words of the prophets and in the very concrete experience of Jesus as the Crucified Christ. Add to this confusing challenge, the fact that Jesus had foretold his fate three times. It was no wonder their first reaction to the women’s astounding declaration was to label it as an idle tale.

In today’s story, we have in Peter a man searching for salvation, for deliverance. Just a few short hours earlier, he slept while Jesus agonized about is coming Passion and Death. Then Peter denied the commitment of all his time with Jesus: “I do not know the man!”

As he ran to the tomb, no doubt, Peter’s mind and heart captured the question of the human journey that is part of all of our experience. “Is there a way out of this broken reality we call life?”

The hearing of Jesus’ call and then the commitment to walk with Jesus captured the initial enthusiasm. Then the increasing challenge to believe in the context of life’s growing burden and confusion led to the questioning of Jesus, and finally, the denial. Now, as he ran to the tomb his heart was searching for a new beginning.

In today’s passage, we are given a powerful insight about discipleship, Peter’s and ours: God never gives up on us!

At the Tomb, the messengers of God, dressed in white, tell the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” (Lk 24:5-6)

The women carried the message, in all its wonder and all its challenge and all its confusion, to the disciples. Soon enough, the deepest hope was soon to be fulfilled. Not only has Jesus risen, but Peter, as a model for all of us, was to be accepted in all his brokenness in the loving arms of his gracious God.

Jesus has not given up on Peter and the disciples. Their failure to grasp his message, their desertion at the time of the Passion and Death, does not call forth the wrath of a vengeful God. On the contrary, we are presented with a faithful and forgiving and ever so patient God. Indeed, the reality is God did not give up on the disciples and, especially Peter. Nor will God ever give up on us.

In Peter’s running to the tomb, we have an invitation to enter into the Gospel message with new eyes of faith. It is a call for us to truly understand the words of Jesus to take up our cross and follow Him to Jerusalem. It is an invitation to face up to death in all its manifestations, great and small. We need to realize that God has spoken with the ultimate authority about our human reality. The last word is not death but life, not defeat and hopelessness, but victory that unveils graciousness and a sense of hope in all our darkest moments. God has not given up on us!

We need to return to Galilee and encounter God’s word in Jesus with new eyes opened by the reality of the Resurrection. It is, indeed, a long journey to learn that there is victory in defeat and it is better to serve than to be served and that the first shall be last and the last first and to save our life we need to lose it! Alleluia! Christ has risen! Alleluia!

Luke 24:1-12

Jn 8:1-11

Dear Friends, Today’s gospel story pulls us into the depths of our human condition. We are both the accusers and the accused. We need to let the teachings of Jesus help us understand this truth about ourselves. We share the sinful condition of the leaders, the mob and the woman. We carry the burden of religious practice that tends much more to condemn and punish rather than to forgive and call to life.

Jesus offers a better way of dealing with sin. Condemnation and punishment offer an emptiness and void. The gross self-righteousness of the leaders and the crowd is only an invitation into death for all concerned. The wonder of God’s mercy offers glorious new opportunity of life for all.

The Jewish leaders had little interest in the law and less in the woman. For them she was mere chattel, devoid of all dignity and rights. For Jesus, she was a sinful but loved and forgiven child of God.

The leaders target was Jesus. They wanted to trap him in the choice of either rejecting the Law of Moses or upholding his constant message of mercy. In the eyes his accusers, Jesus faced nothing but destructive choices. He had to accept the Jewish faith and condemn the woman. This would put him against the Romans and their control of the death penalty. On the other hand, he had to reject the teachings of the law. The leaders saw no way out for Jesus. They felt excited about their victory and his defeat.

Jesus dabbled on the ground to show his disinterest in their supposed dilemma for him. He presented the real issue. It was a woman caught in the senseless blindness of a mob whose ideological rage and sham would not let them see the absolute terror of the situation. This woman faced the the stark and immediate probability of death by stoning.

Jesus cut through the layers of deception. He presented a choice that made the mob recognize that, in the end, they shared the fate of the woman. This was a condition common to all human beings. We are sinners and we need forgiveness. Without forgiveness, all of us must face a hopeless misery. The woman faced this stark reality in the clearest of terms: life or death. In the end, only mercy opens the possibility of life for all of us as it did for the woman.

Jesus said to the woman, “Neither do I.” (Jn 8:11) The miracle of these words for her and for us was that Jesus put no condition on his declaration of mercy. He accepted her and us as we are. The condition is on us. He simply asked that we continue the struggle to sin no more.

We have the opportunity in today’s gospel passage to recognize and accept our sinfulness. We have the rest of Lent to cherish this gift to move out of the darkness and death to the light and life. This is what Lent is all about: “Repent, and believe in the gospel!”

Today’s episode highlights the reality of misery and mercy that the Lenten journey presents to us. In the end, our story is about the mercy of God. The Lenten message is to cast away the stones of our misery and judgmental attitude. These are the stones of our pride and attachments, the stones of our neglect of prayer and sacrifice and service. We need to free our hands and open our hearts to receive the mercy of God in the awesome words: “Neither do I.” (Jn 8:11)

Then we can cast away all deeper inclinations of our heart: the stones of our accusations and all the many grudges and hurts. This Lent is the time to share the mercy and forgiveness of God with all our brothers and sisters, especially the ones we have not loved as we should.

Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

Dear Friends, Today’s parable enjoys the popular name of the Prodigal Son. This title loses much of the drama and message of the parable. It is definitely about three persons. Each character has much to teach us. Luke’s magnificent parable, by whatever name, continues this Lent’s theme of repentance.

The first son’s story tells of greed and indulgence encountering the harsh limits of the human condition. The way out is repentance leading to an encounter with mercy. His story tells us as sinners that no step toward God, no matter however small or feeble, will go unanswered.

The s second person is the father. Here we have the great insights into the potential of loving human relationships overcoming the power of possessions and prestige. He shows us clearly the importance of people over property. The father’s response deals with the abandonment of both sons. It is hardly possible to have a more simple and profound mirror of the unconditional love and mercy of God.

The father’s love shows us that God’s love is neither earned nor deserved. It is extravagant, uncalculating, absolute and free. God loves the sinner while he is still a sinner. This divine love is there even before the repentance. It is this divine love that makes the change of heart possible for all of us sinners.

In the second son we have the image of interior alienation that has festered like a cancer over the years. The African American community has a rich description of this experience. It is called the pity party. His self-absorption blinded him to the beautiful love right in front of him. Instead, a hidden anger and jealousy blocked out all the blessings of an incredible parent.

The first son found himself lost in the dark pit of total failure and utter despair. The painful conclusion was the degradation of feeding the pigs. He approached his father in fear and trembling with his well prepared plea for minimal acceptance. His last-hope spiel was cut off by the outrageous rush of mercy and forgiveness by the father.

The whole scene is a litany of violations of expected behavior by 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 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 was met with his hand reaching out in mercy and understanding. The self-pity was countered with an invitation to give all that he had. The withdrawal was challenged with the invitation to join the celebration.

He did not let the son’s pathetic anger and jealousy obstruct the dialogue. His only response to a sea of negativity was love, patience, encouragement and acceptance.

There is an even deeper message for us that relates to the overall experience of Jesus and his ultimate rejection. He was accepting the sinners and tax collectors while the Pharisees and Scribes stay wrapped up in the rigidity of their self-righteousness. The first son’s story is pure gospel. The lost are found. The sinners are being forgiven. The dead are rising to new life.

In contrast, the second son is clearly a model of the Jewish leaders locked into their resentment and hostility towards Jesus. They consider all the forgiven sinners as thieves of their privileged heritage. They wallow in the self-pity as Jesus forgives and accepts the tax collectors and sinners.

In the father’s actions, Jesus unveils the awesome wonder of the Father’s mercy and unconditional love. Our Lenten call is to recognize ourselves in both sons. We are invited to the party. We are called to let go of our blinding indulgence in the dead-end pursuits of a self-absorbed life. We are asked to forgo our self-pity and jealousy. Most of all, the utter life-robbing power of the long held grudge is laid out in utter simplicity.

The indispensable response on our part is clear. We need to accept ourselves in our broken condition. We are called to share God’s unconditional love with our brothers and sisters. We are asked to give up the feeling of resentment. We are invited to open up the dialogue in spite of all the perceived violations of our rights and dignity. We need to accept God’s ever-present love and mercy on our Lenten journey to the great party of Easter Sunday.

Lk 13:1-9

Dear Friends, We begin Lent each year with a clear message, “Repent and believe in the gospel!” After having measured Jesus’ temptations and his Transfiguration in light of our life experience and struggle, we now journey three weeks in Luke’s Gospel on the theme of repentance.

Today’s gospel selection has a story of two tragedies and a parable of the fig tree.. The two disasters, one the product of human cruelty and the other an accident, are explained by Jesus as a call to repent. Jesus is clear. Any interpretation of these events as punishment from God for the victims is totally off the mark. All people are liable to death. It may come from injustice or the foibles of both nature and human mistakes or even human malice. In fact, it seems that the good are more prone to this fate of unearned suffering. Nevertheless, death is inevitable for all.

We have before us in today’s gospel a clear choice. We need to realize that death and God’s judgement are always close. Whether at worship in a church or standing next to a wall or whatever the circumstances, we know neither the day nor the hour. Our choice is to accept openly the reality of death or to live in a state of denial.

Today’s gospel passage raises the question? Am I with Jesus or against Him? We are confronted with the reality that we do not control the timeline. The moment of death is totally beyond our direction. Jesus is referencing the two tragedies to emphasize the harsh limits of our mortality. In the parable of the fig tree, we also have a message of God’s mercy. We are called to make that decision for Jesus without delay. This is our Lenten task.

Jesus is using these two events, along with the fig tree parable, to invite people to take stock of their lives. The issue is this: are we ready to meet God? It is an unambiguous call to repentance, a time to examine the state of our life in the light of God’s call.

As always, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus is most helpful in understanding the message of today’s gospel. His life is a clear message that bad things happen to good people. Jesus’ life is a clear manifestation that we can live in communion with God no matter what happens. Jesus shows us that life goes on and love prevails over all in the end.

Likewise, it helps to see Jesus as the gardener in the parable. He both is a person of compassion and the promise of the God of “the second chance.”

The Lenten season is a time for us to take stock of our life. The Lenten message invites us into the mystery of our merciful God. It is a time to accept our sinful condition and plunge into the sea of God’s cleansing mercy that awaits us. We are called to produce the fruit of a good life. Through Jesus, God is offering us the ultimate overture of love. This offer of love is wrapped in a mercy that washes away our sins if we only open our heart to receive the gracious call to life, forgiveness and love. The best place to start is to recognize both our sinfulness and God’s mercy.

Today’s gospel is quite clear. Now is the time to act. We have no guarantee for tomorrow! The fig tree is a sign to us that we may well be in our final year to bear fruit. The limits of the human condition are very real!

Praying Alone Together

ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-7

Part Two

I

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

John 13:31-35

ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-6

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-5

ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-4

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

John 21:1-19

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

John 20:19-31

ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-3

Teresa of Avila and the Mercy of God

Self-knowledge, Prayer, and Life

ADVANCED CONTEMPLATION-2

EASTER SUNDAY

Luke 24:1-12

PALM SUNDAY

Luke 24:1-12

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

Jn 8:1-11

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

Lk 13:1-9

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