Jesus Changes Our Mind About Conformity

March 18, 2015

Wednesday of the 4th week of Lent

Jesus Changes Our Mind About Conformity

“The Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing;

for what he does, the Son will do also.”

Today’s Gospel tells us Jesus looked, not to the law, but to the Father for what he should do. He kept the laws, but only as he saw the Father would want him to keep them, not by doing automatically what the law said. And he explained, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.” 

Jesus knew the Father wants us to keep every law in a way that is lifegiving for ourselves and others. When he made Peter the head of the Church he gave him the great pastoral commandment that must rule all pastoral policies: “If you love me, feed my sheep” (John 21:15).

But not all obey this commandment. Jesus warned his disciples to “Watch out, and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6). He meant the “teaching” of the Pharisees about how to observe the law. That yeast is still very active in the Church today, and it is one of the major things we are called to “change our minds” about.

In yesterday’s Gospel, Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and told him to carry his mat home. But, Pope Francis preached in his homily, he runs into “the ‘doctors of the law,’ who ask him: ‘Why are you carrying that? You can’t, today is the Sabbath.’ … Instead of rejoicing, of saying: ‘How beautiful! Good job!’… they begin to investigate and discuss: ‘Let’s see what has happened here. The law.... We need to protect the law.’”

L’Osservatore Romano reports, March 17, 2015:

This story, the Pope said, “happens many times in life: a man — a woman — who feels sick in spirit, sad, who has made many mistakes in life, at a certain point feels the water stirring.” It is “the Holy spirit who moves something.” Or the person “hears a word” and reacts… They find courage and go.” But “how often today in Christian communities” that man “finds the doors closed.” Perhaps he hears: “You cannot, no you cannot; you’ve made mistakes here and you cannot. If you want to come, come to Mass on Sunday, but stop there, don’t do anything more” [like receiving Communion or performing ministry in the parish]. Thus it happens that “what the Holy Spirit does in people’s hearts, Christians destroy with the psychology of the doctors of the law… They do the same thing they did with Jesus” by objecting: “This one speaks heresy… this one goes against the discipline of the Church, this one goes against the law.” And thus they close the doors to so many people. Therefore, the Pope concluded, “let us ask the Lord today” for “conversion to the mercy of Jesus”: only in this way “will the law be fulfilled, because the law is to love God and neighbor, as ourselves.”

Today’s Gospel says, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” Jesus came so that we might “have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). So whatever we see happening around us, we need to ask, “Is this giving life to all concerned?” If it is, we don’t need to worry about whether or not it conforms to the rules. We must conform our understanding of rules to our understanding of the mind and heart of God, not vice-versa.

That is a metanoia to which we are called both by Jesus and the Pope; or by Jesus giving his same message through the Gospel and through Francis.

Do I choose to let Jesus change my mind about conformity to rules?

Pray: “Lord teach me to be gracious and merciful, to lift up all who are falling, and to raise up all who are bowed down.”

Practice: Never keep or enforce a rule without first looking at the mind and heart of the Father.

Discuss: How have you experienced the “leaven of the Pharisees” in yourself?

Jesus Changes The Root Of All Relationships

March 15, 2015

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Jesus Changes The Root Of All Relationships

“So must the Son of Man be lifted up,

so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

Cyrus was an enlightened king. When he said, “All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord, the God of heaven, has given to me,” he recognized a responsibility that came from his relationship with God and with those God had let him conquer. If he asked loyalty from the Jews because of their relationship with him as king, he had to allow them to be loyal to God by living out the special relationship they had with Yaweh by covenant.  So he decreed: “Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up [to rebuild Jerusalem], and may his God be with him!”

Paul writes that God, Creator and Ruler of all humanity, is “rich in mercy.” To have “mercy” means “to come to the aid of another out of a sense of relationship.” God has chosen to enter into relationship with us, not just as Creator, but as Father. It was because of this relationship, “because of the great love he had for us” as Father, that “even when we were dead in our transgressions, he brought us to life with Christ.” Paul says, “You have been saved by grace”; that is by the favor of sharing in the divine life of God through incorporation into Christ as members of his body, living by his Life. Jesus is the key to our relationship with God as Father. “In Christ,” we are “sons and daughters in the Son.”

In John’s Gospel Jesus draws the conclusion: “So must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus must be the center and focus of our religion, because he is the keystone of our relationship with God—and with everyone and everything else. Not only “in him” do we have “redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” but “in him all things in heaven and on earth were created… all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:14).

Francis of Buenos Aires and Rome says this must define our relationship with all other human beings:

The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone!

“But Father, the atheists too?” Even the atheists. Everyone! His Blood makes us all first class children of God! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all!

“But I don’t believe, Father. I am an atheist!” Nevertheless, you are doing what is good, and that is where we meet.

And we all have a duty to do good. This commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will create the “culture of encounter.” We must meet one another doing good.

This has shocked a lot of people who don’t take for granted, as Francis does, the Catholic belief in “Baptism of desire.” Francis is not saying we can be saved just by doing good human “works” without faith. Paul clarified that in his letter to the Romans. Francis is saying what today’s Gospel says, that “whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”

We believe that God gives everyone the grace to be saved. But some cannot believe in Jesus, or even in God, under their proper names. Christians have made it hard for many to accept Christ. The bishops at the Second Vatican Council acknowledged that believers have had “more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral or social life, they conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and of religion” (“The Church in the Modern World,” no. 19).

If some can’t accept Jesus, he comes to them under a different name: “Love,” perhaps, or “Beauty.” Or “Unity and peace with all.” God is supremely “the Good, the True and the Beautiful.” Whoever accepts one of these without reserves is accepting God.

So we don’t judge people by their words: “I am a Christian,” or “I am an atheist.” For us, all who “live the truth,” however they explain it, in such a way that “their works may be clearly seen as done in God,” are people we presume to have received “Baptism of desire” (or to be “anonymous Christians”) and accept as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Do I choose to let Jesus change the root of all my relationships with others by making him the key to them all?

Pray: “Lord, make us one, as you are with the Father, and we are in you, so that the world may believe” (John 17:21).

Practice: Look deeper than appearances. Try to see everyone as Jesus does.

Discuss: What does it take to be “saved”?

Jesus Changes Our Recognition Of “Oneness”

March 14, 2015

Saturday of the 3rd week of Lent

Jesus Changes Our Recognition Of “Oneness”

“For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,

  and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

What gives us our sense of identity with others (from idem, “the same”)? What gives me my individual identity as a person? How can I be “one and the same” in myself, and “one and the same” with others at the same time? Do I lose my identity when I become “one” with others?

This isn’t a superficial question. “Oneness” is one of the four “transcendentals” that all beings have in common, God as well as creatures. Everything that exists as a recognizable being has being, oneness, truth, and goodness.

But “oneness” causes a problem, because God, who is the source (and therefore the model) of all being, is both supremely One, and also Three Persons. The Three Persons are “One in Being,” but distinct from each other as Persons. They are distinct by their relationships. A relationship makes a difference without adding anything. No Person of the Trinity, Father, Son or Spirit, has more or less of anything than the others, but they differ by their relationships, a word practically interchangeable with interactions.

Since to be God is to be a Person in relationship, we can argue that for human beings made in the image of God, being a “person” has something to do with being in relationship. In fact, we might say that for humans, being authentically a “person” has everything to do with being in relationship. One of the first things God said about his human creatures was, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner” (Genesis 2:18). So it is literally “essential” for us to enter into relationship with others. Human beings do not make complete sense in isolation. Our nature calls for relationships. Our “oneness” or unity as human beings calls for “community,” a “common unity,” with others.

We form relationships by interacting. The Persons of the Trinity are related to each other as Father, Son (Word), and Spirit according to the way they interact with each other. The Father who “generates” the Son (a word we use to avoid being precise) is—in some way that is not strictly causal—the source of the Trinity’s Being and Goodness; the Son or “Word” is in some way the expression of the Trinity’s Truth (the “reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint [charakter, representation, expression] of God’s very being [hupostasis, substance],” Hebrews 1:2); and the Holy Spirit is in some way the realization of the Trinity’s Oneness in love: the Three Persons are one “in the unity of the Holy Spirit.” But these are differences in relationship, not in being. Both the Son and the Spirit are “one in being” with the Father. So, even though this is a mystery we cannot understand, we can ask what it says about us.

It says that, although in ourselves we are “whole and entire” as beings, we cannot be fully persons unless we enter into relationship with others. Our identity (idem, “same”) depends on identifying with others in the “common (koinos) sameness” and diversity of a community (koinonia: “fellowship,” “sharing”).

We ask how we, as “contemplatives,” see or recognize our identity with other Christians.

The Gospel says that:

The Pharisee… spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity— greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

The Pharisee saw himself as a good Jew, a loyal member of the community, because he kept the rules and observed the practices of his “religion.” And undoubtedly he was strictly orthodox in his profession of doctrines. But Jesus blamed him. What was missing?

The Pharisee was not conscious of the need to be in the kind of relationship with others that God wants. He was glad he was “not like the rest of humanity,” not “one” with them, but different, set apart by his good behavior.  And even his good behavior was not a way of interacting personally with God; he did “what” was right, without making it a conscious response to the “who” of God. Jesus blamed the Pharisees because they kept God’s laws without connecting them to God’s mind and heart. They did not cultivate personal relationship with God as a "Who." When they accused his disciples of breaking the law of Sabbath observance, he said, “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless” (Matthew 11:7).

When God says, “It is mercy I desire, [Hosea says “steadfast love”] and not sacrifice,” he is talking about relationship. To have “mercy” (in Spanish piedad, from the Latin pietas) means “to come to the aid of another out of a sense of relationship.” It is motivated by “compassion,” which means “co-suffering,” to “suffer with” another out of a sense of oneness. We can’t have “compassion” or “mercy” and say, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity.”

Jesus changes the understanding we have of being united with others by “religion.” We do not find our religious identity through professing doctrines and keeping rules, although these are a necessary part of authentic religion. We know ourselves as “Christians” by the relationship, the kind of personal interaction we have wth God and other people. Pope Francis says in The Joy of the Gospel that in sharing the Good News with others:

128… The first step is personal dialogue, when the other person speaks and shares his or her joys, hopes and concerns for loved ones, or so many other heartfelt needs. Only afterwards is it possible to bring up God’s word, perhaps by reading a Bible verse or relating a story, but always keeping in mind the fundamental message: the personal love of God who became man, who gave himself up for us, who is living and who offers us his salvation and his friendship.

Do I choose to let Jesus change my recognition of “oneness” with others?

Pray: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner, and make me merciful to others.”

Practice: In everything you do, be conscious of interacting personally with God and others.

Discuss: What gives you your sense of identity as a “Catholic” or other kind of Christian?

Jesus Changes Our Perception of Each Other’s “Truth” and "Goodness"

March 13, 2015

Friday of the 3rd week of Lent

Jesus Changes Our Perception of 

Each Other’s “Truth” and "Goodness"

“We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’ to the work of our hands”

When Jesus said, “The second commandment is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, he did not mean it the way it sounds. For Christians, “as yourself” means “as your divine self.” We must love others as divine children of the Father; as the divine body of Christ, God the Son; as sacred dwelling places of the divine Spirit of God present in each one; for that is what we are, what we have become by “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Jesus calls—and enables—us to change our way of perceiving the “truth” of each other’s being. “Truth,” or intelligibility, is the second “transcendental” that all beings have in common. And Jesus changes our perception of it in everyone we see.

We know a being as a being (this is metaphysics) when we make the judgment that God is giving it existence in order that it might do what its design, its structure, enables it to do. Switching (for clarity’s sake) to our knowledge of artifacts, we “call a spade a spade” when we make the judgment that someone shaped this thing as it is so that it could serve for digging. Without perceiving the intentionality in its design, and making the free judgment that someone actually gave it this shape for the purpose of making it a tool for digging, we simply cannot call a spade a spade. The same is true for the beings to which God gives functional form and existence. Their intelligibility, their "truth" depends on our recognition of an intentional, functional structure.

 

Normally, we see the “goodness” of every being in the operations its structure makes it able to perform. A spade is “good”—worth making or having—because it can penetrate and move dirt. If it doesn’t “work,” we say it is “no good.”

But Jesus has changed our perception of both the truth and the goodness of human beings. What we see humans can do does not show us the real “truth” or “goodness” of their being, of what they are; not if they have received the further gift of grace: of life that is divine as well as human. And if we don’t see this “more,” we may fall into a terrible error—the error Pope Francis identifies in The Joy of the Gospel as that of our “throwaway culture”:

53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.

Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers.”

If we just understand humans in terms of what we see they are able to do—and if we “fall short” (the scriptural word for “sin”: hamartia) of recognizing that they are able to know, love and serve God, and were in fact created for this—we can fall into the error of measuring people’s value by their usefulness. Then, when they are no longer useful to us, we “throw them away.” We “discard” the poor and helpless simply by neglecting them, by not letting them “count” in our policy decisions and voting. Those who are terminally sick or old we euthanize. When we do this we are making “idols” of success and achievement.

But if we let Jesus “change our minds” about human truth and goodness, “we shall say no more, ‘Our god,’ to the work of our hands.” And we will love our neighbors as we love our redeemed selves, knowing that all the redeemed possess equally the divine life of God. All are empowered equally to live and act on the level of God through the actions—“functions—that really count, the acts of faith, hope and love. All are equally valuable and “useful” for what humans exist for: establishing and entering into the “kingdom of God.” By faith we know the “truth” of what each one is, not by recognizing intentionality in functional structure and design, but by awareness of the Holy Spirit acting in each and all.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ (1Corinthians 12:4).

We must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15).

Hosea says, “Let those who are wise understand these things; let those who are prudent know them.” Do I choose to do that? Do I choose to let Jesus change my way of perceiving the real “truth” and “goodness” of my fellow human beings?

Pray: “Lord, pour your grace into our hearts, that we may constantly see each other by the heavenly teaching you give us.”

Practice: Look for spiritual gifts in people instead of just at their functionality and achievements.

Discuss: Is everyone of equal value? Why?

Jesus Changes Our Perception Of Each Other’s Being

March 12, 2015

Thursday of the 3rd week of Lent

Jesus Changes Our Perception Of Each Other’s Being

“I will be your God and you shall be my people.”

Because of Jesus, who has made us children of the Father enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we are called and able to see each other with new eyes.

“Being” is the second “transcendental” all beings have in common. The most basic thing we know about each other is that we are what we are. But Jesus changes the way we see each other as beings.

First, Christians don’t just see each other as fellow human beings; we know we walk in the midst of beings who are divine. In every other Christian whom we see, the Father, Son and Spirit are present, living their divine life. Every other person we see is sharing in their divine life and living on the level of God. We live in an ongoing miracle. We walk in a milieu of mystery. We are in wonderland. Oz can’t even compare with it. If we see with the eyes of faith.

All human appearances are—literally—“mundane.” But if we put on our “faith glasses,” we see everything transformed. People are divine. God is present and acting with them, within them and through them. We are in a world of visible divinity.

This is what it means to be “contemplative.” It means to walk about with open eyes, or to see through the lens of faith. Contemplatives look. They look intently and deeply. They look to see what is there: all that is “visible and invisible.”

And their joy is full.

Do I choose to let Jesus show me others as they are?

Pray: “Lord, let me see your face. Show me yourself in others.”

Practice: Practice seeing everyone through faith-tinted glasses.

Discuss: How can we see God in all who have received the divine life of grace?

Jesus Changes The Common Ground of Life

February 22, 2015

First Sunday of Lent

Jesus Changes The Common Ground of Life

“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand.

 Repent, and believe in the Good News.”

With Jesus came “the time of fulfillment.”

We should know, when we present the Good News to anyone—which means, when we offer anyone greater knowledge, understanding or appreciation of Jesus—that we are affecting that person’s whole being by offering something that enhances understanding and appreciation of four fundamental things: who we are, what we know, how we should live, and how we should relate to other persons and to the world. That is pretty all-inclusive.

Actually, it is totally all-inclusive, because those four things are the four “transcendentals of being”; that is the four realities common to and found in every being; both in the infinite Being of God and in created beings. Every being is true, good and one.

The four “transcendentals” are not just philosophical abstractions; they are something we encounter and deal with every day, all day, in every human act. We experience them and deal with them in every interaction with anything that exists. And for those who know him, Jesus changes them all. He raises each of the “transcendentals” to a higher level. When we offer greater knowledge of Jesus and of his Good News to anybody, we are offering “life to the full”; that is, the fullness of being, truth, goodness and unity.

If you are not into philosophy—or, more precisely, into the metaphysical tradition of the Greek “pagan” Aristotle, as explained by the Jew Moses Maimonides, the Christian Thomas Aquinas, and the Muslim Abu Ibn Rochd, known in Latin as Averroës—a more groundlevel, Scripture-based explanation will be offered later. But why not see if your own “love of wisdom” (philo-sophia) will be enhanced by the clarifications that follow.

The Four Transcendentals 

Being

The first thing all beings have in common, obviously, is being. But to understand ourselves as “beings” we have to know that we are and what we are.

That we are—our “existence”—is an ongoing act of creation. We need to realize that nothing in us explains the fact that we are. To know ourselves as existing is to know that God is continuing to say “Beeeee…” If he stops, we return to nothingness.

But by “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” we exist now, not only by God’s creative act, but also by the gift of sharing in God’s own act of Being, God’s divine Life. Jesus changes—and enhances—the understanding and experience we have of our existence. Our existence is not just a human, but a divine act of being. It is “eternal life”—life without beginning or end, which only God has, but we share in it.

What we are—our “essence” or “nature”—is determined by how God designed and equipped us to function. What we are able to do, the operations we are structured to perform, constitute the “end” that defines each particular kind of being; in our case, a “human being.” Humans are beings that can do the kind of things humans are designed to do: not just walk and talk, but know and choose and love. In terms of moral activity, the Ten Commandments are the “operator’s manual” for good human behavior.

But Jesus, by giving us the gift of sharing in his own divine life and Nature, has enabled us to do things only God can do. By the gift of faith we share in God’s own act of knowing, and can know what only God can know, as only God can know it (see Matthew 11:27; John 1:18; Romans 8:14-16; Galatians 4:4-7; 1Corinthians 12:3). By the gift of love we share in God’s own act of loving (see John 13:34; Ephesians 3:16-21, 4:16, 5:25). And because by “grace” we share in the life and nature of God (2 Peter 1:4) Jesus has given us his “New Law” that calls us to live on the level of God. The Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5-7) is the “operator’s manual” for the life of grace. It tells us what is expected of us as human beings now that we are also divine.

The first thing Jesus changes—and enhances—is our understanding of the first “transcendental”—who and what we are: he transforms the appreciation we have of our being.

Truth

The second thing all beings have in common is intelligibility, which we call their “truth.” One of the greatest things we experience about ourselves is our ability to know. Humans have intellects that allow us to perceive the design and intentionality that make things what they are. When we say, “This is a cow,” we are echoing the creative act of God, who designed this creature (perhaps through millions of years of evolution) to be able to function as it does (its essence or nature), and is presently giving it existence to do that. Our perceptive, free judgment: “it is, and it is a cow,” echoes God’s intentional act of creation: “let it be, and let it be as a cow.” In making this judgment we experience ourselves as understanding God’s own thinking and willing. We recognize ourselves as being enough like God to enter into conscious relationship with him through admiration and praise.

But Jesus, as we said above, has changed our understanding and experience of knowing God and God’s creation. He has let us share in God’s own divine act of knowing. And he has revealed far more than we could ever have guessed about God’s plan and purpose in creating the world and the humans who live in it. When he says “the kingdom of God is at hand,” we know what that means (see Ephesians 1:9; Colossians 1:12). In doing this, Jesus has enhanced our appreciation of ourselves as “knowers,” and our appreciation of everything we know. We are the “light of the world,” and we see everything by God’s divine light (Matthew 5:14; John 1:9, 8:12).

The second thing Jesus changes—and enhances—is our understanding of the second “transcendental”: he transforms our experience of truth and of ourselves as knowers of truth.

Goodness

Everything to which God is giving existence is good. If it were not, God would have no reason to give it existence. What we call “evil” is a lack of existence, something missing, in a good being that exists. Usually this is some defect in the way the being is functioning or “operating” (from opus, “work”), some action that is not according to its nature, not ordered to the end for which it exists.

When we say humans are “evil,” we are not talking about their being, but about their activity. In the same way, when we say people are “good,” we usually mean, not that their being as such is good (which it is, because God is holding them in existence), but that their behavior is “good” because it is the kind of behavior God wants from human beings—or, if we are talking about those who have been “reborn,” from divine human beings.

That is the third difference Jesus makes. By sharing his divine life with those he has made members of his own body by Baptism, Jesus changes the expectations we have of ourselves and others. Everything we do now should be, not just “good” but good as God is good; that is, divine (see Matthew 5:20; 19:17; John 13:34; all of Romans; 2Corinthians 5:21). He calls—and empowers—us to radically upgrade our lifestyle; to make everything we say and do reveal the presence of God’s divine life and of God’s Holy Spirit within us. The goodness of our daily life and lifestyle should be a visible embodiment of God’s own goodness and love.

The third thing Jesus changes—and enhances—is the way we understand, experience and live out the third “transcendental” of our being: our goodness.

Unity

When we call something a “being,” we mean that it is existing by one single act of existence. Ultimately, this means we are judging that God is giving it existence as a single whole; not as a collection or colony of beings. If a cow really is a cow, then everything it is made of is cow, not bone, or skin, or carbon atoms. What exists is the cow; everything else is receiving existence, not as a distinct being, but as a part or aspect of a whole.

There is a lot of metaphysics behind this. We are dealing with the age-old, fundamental problem of “the one and the many.” This is not the place to give it a full, or even an adequate, treatment. But the key to recognizing a being as a being is the judgment we make about the intention of the one giving it existence; that is, God. This judgment isn’t arbitrary; it is based on our own judgment about what we are looking at. Is the cow really a cow, or just a collection of atoms? Our act of judgment, when we say “It is,” is the echo of God’s act of saying “Let it be.” If, in fact, the thing really is what we say it is, then we have understood what God is giving existence to. And whether we are right or wrong, whatever the “being” is, it is “one” because it is receiving one single act of existence, and receiving it as a single whole.

What, we ask now, has this got to do with our understanding of ourselves and our life in this world?

At this point we will go beyond philosophy, which relies on reason alone, and into “theology” (from theos, “God,” and logos, the “intelligibility of”). We rely here on the divine revelation that God is Three in One: the Holy Trinity of three Persons in one Being—Father, Son and Spirit, who are one and the same in Essence (or Nature) and Existence. The Three Persons are “one in Being’ (or, in the unfortunate obfuscation of the new 2011 “Roman-English” translation of the Mass, “consubstantial”), which means that each Person has everything the others have, and that when they act “outside of themselves”—that is, in creating or dealing with creatures—they all act together as one. They differ only as “Persons”; that is, in their relationships, which are identified by their interaction with each other.

This is not the place to attempt a clarification of the mystery of the Trinity! The previous paragraph is given only as background to explain the role of relationships in every creature’s existence, and above all in the life of humans created explicitly in the image and likeness of God.

More specifically, we want to explain how humans, who are many, are nevertheless called to be one with each other and with the whole of creation. Each individual human is “one in being” by receiving one unique act of existence from God. But this “transcendental” of individual unity that makes each of us “whole and entire” as human beings, nevertheless leaves us “incomplete” and unfulfilled as persons. As a human race, we are meant to be parts of a whole, of a community, a “common unity” formed through interactions with others that give us our “identity” as persons. We who are identified as beings by being “one” with ourselves, are only identified as persons through our relationships, formed by interaction with other beings; especially with those on the same level of being as ourselves—other human persons—and with God.

Since God is what he is, Three Persons in one God, God’s Oneness is not intelligible apart from the relationships that diversify the Three Persons. Since we are what we are, multiple persons created in the image of God, our individuality is not intelligible apart from the relationships that make us one in the “common unity” of the human race. The same reality—relationship—that diversifies God’s unity unifies our diversity.

So relationships are essential to authentic human living. The “oneness” that is a transcendental of our limited, finite being cannot be understood, and does not make sense, unless we see it as including a need for relationships. To be authentically true and good in the oneness of our finite being, we need to be in relationship with other persons—as God, who is absolutely One, True and Good in his infinite Being, exists as a Relationship between three divine Persons.

Unlike God, however, we are not “one in being” with any of the persons with whom we are in relationship. In spite of all our interactions, each of us remains isolated in the oneness of our individual being. The closest we come to unity is the “common unity” found in a community of persons.

But Jesus has changed that. The community, the koinonia or “fellowship,” into which he has called us, is not just a “common unity” of interaction. It is a common unity of being, a common unity that comes from sharing in God’s own divine Being and Life. Those who are one with each other “in Christ” are one with each other as the Father, Son and Spirit are one. Jesus prayed at the Last Supper “that they may be one, as we are one… that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us” (John 17:11, 21).

Our unity with each other is the mystery of God’s own divine unity: “truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” It is “the communion (koinonia) of the Holy Spirit.” (1John 1:13; 2Corinthians 13:14;

This fellowship (koinonia) is “the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things,” the mystery “that has now been revealed by the Spirit.” This mystery is that, not only the Gentiles, but all who are “in Christ” have become “one body” and “one in being” in Christ. Jesus took flesh and died to “create in himself one new humanity” (see John 1:1-13; Ephesians, chapters 2 to 4).

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:4).

On ground level, this changes our relationship with very other person (whom we must presume to be sharing in the divine life of grace). It calls us to interact  with them divinely: to love others as our own body, as the body of Christ, and to love everyone else with the same divine love Jesus gives to us.

We must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15; see 5:29; John 5:12).

The fourth thing Jesus changes—and enhances—is the way we understand, experience and live out the fourth “transcendental” of our being: our oneness. It cannot be authentically understood or lived without the inclusion of relationships. And Jesus has transformed our relationship with each other into a mystery of sharing in the unity and diversity of the Trinity. To be one is to be one with one another as the Three Persons of God are one.

Relationship with the world

The change Jesus brought to the understanding we have of our oneness is a double change: it affects our relationship with other persons and our relationship with everything else in the universe.

As human beings, we already have a responsibility for this world that God gave to Adam and Eve. We are “stewards of creation” (Genesis 2:15-19). But because Jesus has made us by Baptism sharers in his messianic mission as Prophet, Priest and King, we are also “stewards of his kingship.” We are responsible for bringing every area and activity of human existence under the lifegiving reign of God. This changes our relationship with everyone and everything around us. Our oneness is a oneness with the cosmos. We cannot enclose ourselves in our own private well-being, or even in our limited nationalistic patriotism, as if the whole of life on this planet were not our concern. God’s “plan for the fullness of time” is “to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth… God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. (Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 1:16; and see 15:25).

The change Jesus brought about in the way we understand and live out the fourth “transcendental” of our being, our oneness, changes the way we look at and interact with everything else in the world. We cannot refuse the relationship of responsibility that we have for everyone and everything else on the planet.

That enhances our existence.

Do I choose to let Jesus change the “ground of my being”—the way I understand and live out the truth, goodness, and oneness that characterize my being?

Pray: “Lord, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

Practice: Think deep. Reflect on the four “transcendentals of being.”

Discuss: How has Jesus changed your understanding of yourself?

Jesus Changes Priorities

February 21, 2015

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Jesus Changes Priorities

If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath

from following your own pursuits on my holy day;

If you call the Sabbath a delight…

In three sentences the Gospel summarizes the whole process of conversion to Jesus.  

“Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post.” Jesus notices, looks at, and calls everyone. Levi was an outcast who betrayed his people by collecting taxes for a colonial government. Jesus saw what he could be and accepted him.

Pope Francis says this experience is offered to everyone:

No one should think that this invitation [to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ] is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.” The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace.” How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost!

Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards! (Joy of the Gospel 1).

“He said to him, ‘Follow me.’” Jesus did not urge Levi to repent of his sins (although when preaching to a crowd he introduced the Good News by calling for a total “change of mind,” metanoia: Matthew 4:17). He did not call him to embrace a “religion.” If Matthew had been a Catholic, Jesus would not have pressed him to start going to Mass. What he invited him to was a personal relationship: “Follow me.”

This was Pope Francis’s first message to the Church:

1. The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew…

I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day…

“And leaving everything behind, he got up…” We don’t find relationship with Jesus by including his teachings in our value system, or making him one of our circle of friends. The core of Judaism was and is that it is impossible to worship God by accepting him as one of many gods. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4). In the same way, it is impossible to follow Jesus if we follow—or pursue—anything else. We either give up all other goals, values, priorities, attachments and desires, or we don’t recognize Jesus for who he really is. Jesus doesn’t thunder it from the mountain, but he says it just as forcefully: “I am the LORD your God… you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Deuteronomy 5:6).

Jesus said the same thing in different words, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate [remove from all competition with me] father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple… So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions (Luke 14:26, 33).

Anything in our life that competes with total devotion to Jesus is an idol.

Pope Francis tells us what the current idol is:

2. The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.

The Jewish law of Sabbath observance struck at the heart of this attitude:

If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from following your own pursuits on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight, and the Lord’s holy day honorable; if you honor it by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice—then you shall delight in the Lord.

By requiring his People to abstain one day a week from doing anything that involved them in this world’s business or pursuits, God taught them in the most effective way possible that they had a raison-d-être, a meaning and purpose in life, that was not of this world, but above and beyond it. And, paradoxically, this is a first step toward the renewal of a society verging on ruin:

Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday. Then the Lord will guide you always, and give you plenty even on the parched land.

People trained to put everything aside on the Sabbath can understand and accept “leaving everything behind,” to “get up” and follow Jesus.

“…and followed him.” Luke ends his sentence as all conversion to Jesus must end: with Levi entering into enduring relationship with Jesus. Being a Christian is not living by the teachings of Jesus or following his example; it is “following” Jesus himself by remaining constantly in his presence, in constant interaction (the reality of relationship) with him. To “accept Jesus,” believe in him, or give ourselves to him means very simply that we make him the focus of our lives. We make personal interaction, and personal relationship with him, our first priority and the priority that determines the place of every other.

How do we know we have truly encountered Jesus Christ? By the change it has made in our priorities.

Do I choose to let Jesus change my priorities?

Pray: (from “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”):

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Practice: Ask before everything you do, “Will Jesus do this with me?”

Discuss: In practice, what does it mean to make interaction with Jesus the first priority in your life?

Jesus Changes Root and Fruit

February 20, 2015

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Jesus Changes Root and Fruit

A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Fasting was something a “good Jew” did. And those who did it thought they were good Jews—both those who were open enough to listen to John the Baptizer (his “disciples”) and those who weren’t (the Pharisees). They were both shocked because the disciples of Jesus weren’t into fasting.

Jesus answered them by asking what fasting expressed. Was it just something a good Jew did, or was it a physical hunger one embraced in order to be aware of spiritual hunger for God?

If it expressed hunger for God, the disciples who were listening to Jesus every day were already getting what they hungered for: “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”

The Second Vatican Council (“On the Sacred Liturgy,” no. 48) said the same is true of those who are present at Mass, not “as strangers or silent spectators,” but as disciples of Jesus who “take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration.” Their hunger is being satisfied.

Authentic “disciples” are those members of the congregation who seek to be “instructed by God's word and be nourished at the table of the Lord's body.” They are there consciously to learn. They have a hunger to know God. And to satisfy this hunger, the Council bishops decreed that the readings at Mass should systematically cover the whole Bible over a three-year cycle (Sunday readings for Years A, B, and C, with daily readings for Years I and II in Ordinary Time):

51. The treasures of the bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word. In this way a more representative portion of the holy scriptures will be read to the people in the course of a prescribed number of years.

This means that if we listen, we will be fed. And the homilies should help by focusing on the mystery within the doctrines we are taught, and on practical principles for living them out in action:

52. By means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text, during the course of the liturgical year.

We should note the difference between principles and rules. A principle is defined by Aristotle as “that from which something begins.” A rule is commonly assumed to be the pronouncement in which a reflection process ends. Law-abiding Catholics keep rules unreflectively, as if there were nothing more to think about. They just do what the rule says. But the Council bishops wrote that in the homily it is “the guiding principles of the Christian life” that should be explained. In other words, the homily should teach us to think.

That is how authentic disciples of Jesus Christ listen to the readings and to the homily: they are making a conscious effort to learn his mind and heart.  They are the only ones who can truly understand the purpose and correct interpretation of Church rules. Non-disciples just follow them blindly—and often destructively.

The Council bishops insist that listening to the readings and homily with a fervent intention to learn is just as important as entering reverently into the Eucharistic Prayer:

56. The two parts which make up the Mass; namely, the liturgy of the word and the eucharistic liturgy, are so closely connected with each other that they form but one single act of worship. Accordingly this sacred Synod strongly urges pastors of souls that, when instructing the faithful, they insistently teach them to take their part in the entire Mass…

We legitimately ask, “Why, then, do so many people find Mass so boring they ‘get nothing out of it’?”

The simple answer is, “Because they are not really listening to the words or paying attention to what is happening.” They are “just there.” They are not doing what the Council bishops taught:

48. They should give thanks to God [how many consciously do this at Mass?]. By offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.

This is not the place to explain full participation in the Eucharistic celebration (see my books Experiencing the Mass and A Fresh Look at the Mass). But if you need an explanation, that explains (in part) why the Mass may not be for you the nourishing experience it should be.

There are two other explanations. Jesus is referring to the first when he says, “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” This too would be long to go into. In a nutshell, it means that sometimes the human experience of Christ’s presence, of the truth of his words, the reliability of his promises, the reality of his love for us, and of ours for him, just goes away. The spiritual writers call this “desolation,” or if it is extreme and extended, the “dark night of the soul” (read St. John of the Cross). Saint Ignatius echoes Jesus when he tells us that the right response when this happens is to “fast”—for example, by “ insisting more on prayer, meditation, earnest self-examination, and some suitable way of doing penance” (Spiritual Exercises, no. 319).

The reading from Isaiah gives the second explanation. Nothing we do will nourish our souls or satisfy our hunger for God unless we live out love for others: “This, rather, is the fasting that I wish… Setting free the oppressed… sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless… and not turning your back on your own.”

Any time, or any place, in which the Church seems to be ineffective—whether on the level of parish, diocese, or in the home—the first thing we should examine is the way we are living out love for others. Pope Francis says this is a key to parish renewal:

The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration. In all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelizers. It is a community of communities, a sanctuary where the thirsty come to drink in the midst of their journey, and a center of constant missionary outreach (Joy of the Gospel, 28).

When we change at the very root of our being—in our attitudes and values—and begin to live out the words God speaks in our hearts, the divine life of God within us will begin to bear fruit in our lives and for the world:

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed… Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!

Do I choose to do this? Do I choose to let the words of Jesus transform the “root and fruit” of my Christian living?

Pray: “Lord, let me know the breadth and length and height and depth of your love, so that I may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18).

Practice: Lay the ax to the root of the tree (Matthew 3:10).

Discuss: How do your Christian attitudes “take flesh”: in action?