Love God

Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole mind, and with your whole strength (Deut. 6:5).

Jesus told the Pharisees that this is the "first and greatest commandment" -- the commandment to love God spirit, soul, and body-- with our whole being.  And how then can God command us to "love" Him?  Can any one of us "command" others to "love" us? 

God wants us to belong entirely to Him, to cling to Him, to breathe Him in as our breath of life.  He wants to possess us, spirit, soul, and body.  We, on the other hand, want to possess Him -- that is, we want to reduce Him to something we can comprehend.  We want to confine Him within the narrow limits of our own understanding and definitions. 

One definition of hell might be that all of the mysteries of the universe and of God Himself are reduced to the limits of my own spirit, my mind, and my body.  If I do not comprehend something, it doesn't exist, or it's not true:  mine, mine, mine.  We want to "possess," or "own" -- and thereby control -- all that we can.

Only in love do we move out of the prison of our own selves into the incomprehensible mystery of the "Other."  And if the Other is infinite, we continually expand the narrowness of our own souls in flowing out of ourselves into Him.  When we love God, we become infinite like He is, always moving out of ourselves into Him.  Catherine of Siena said, God is He Who Is; Catherine is she who is not.

When we freely give ourselves away, no longer claiming spirit, soul, and body as "ours" but "Yours," we become more than we can even ask or imagine --- we find ourselves being transformed into His likeness, "from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18).   God commands us to love Him so that He can mold us into His character:  light from Light.

First we love (Spirit to spirit); then we understand (Mind to mind);  and finally we are transformed into His likeness (Body to body).  If we seek to reverse the order, confining the Infinite into the finiteness of our own understanding before we give ourselves completely to Him, we will never love Him, but only our ideas of who He is.  We will still "own" ourselves: ye shall be as gods.

If we could only take the first and greatest commandment as our rule of life, we might see everything differently.  We make all of our decisions in life as if we "owned" ourselves, but what if we saw ourselves as belonging entirely to the Most High?  Can we imagine God commanding us, as His servants, to cheat others, to abort our children, to tear down and not build up?

What if, in every circumstance, we bowed before the Lord and said, "I belong to You; tell me what You would have me do!"  We would need no other commandments or laws if we loved the Lord with our whole hearts, our whole minds, and our whole strength.

Lectio Divina

All that God wants of us is to know his love.

(--Michael Leach "Bathed in Sweet Mercy)

And how do we come to know --- that is, to experience -- His love?

I think Michael Leach is exactly right.  Once we know God's love for us, everything changes.  Only then can we begin to walk in His love and to do the right things.  But until we grow still, it is hard for us to experience God's love for us.  Our days are filled with distractions; our minds, crowded with things we have to get done, and we have grown used to nightly entertainment as a way to still our bodies and souls so that we can sleep.

Maybe the reason we are commanded to "keep holy the Sabbeth" -- which means "stopping" -- is to force us to sit, to stop long enough to focus on the love of God for us and for the world He made.  Even then, we tend to fill the time with being busy or being distracted -- golf on television, if we can find nothing better to do.  Even then, our minds do not "stop;" they are still "anxious about many things," keeping us from focusing on God's love and providence for us.  Attending church helps, if we can only allow ourselves to be present in the moment and not somewhere else in our minds, waiting for the service to end so that we can resume our "real" lives.

The Jews have always taught that man's obligation is to study as well as to pray.  Every Jewish boy learns Hebrew in order to be able to read, or study, the Torah.  And American universities were originally founded that men (sorry, women) could read and study Scripture.

A great spiritual writer wrote that lectio divina, or spiritual reading, is like the bark of the tree, protecting our life and growth from disease and insects that would destroy our peace --- and reflection on what we read is like the sap that nourishes the tree, or our minds.  Unless we supply our minds and souls with nourishment, we are prey to anxieties, fears, woundedness, helplessness, and every other kind of attack on our souls.  Once we take up the Scriptures, or commentaries and reflections on them, we protect our very lives. 

The richness and fullness of Scripture -- and of course, of spiritual writers who are nourished by Scripture--drives out negativity, fear, anxiety, and, as Jesus says, "sets us free."  To read slowly and meditatively is to chew our food and to relish its taste.  To focus on what we read is to allow the love of God to seep into our very bones.

Sometimes, sleeplessness can be a gift.  During the day, it is hard to "be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10), but in the still of the night, we are not usually busy about other things.  It is a wonderful time to slowly read a good book, one that opens our minds and hearts to the love of God.

Even in our reading during the day, we rush to finish -- or we are thinking that we shouldn't be sitting here reading when there are so many other things to be done.  But during the night -- well, what else is there to do? 

Most of us, when awake in the middle of the night, feel frustrated that we cannot sleep.  But maybe God is trying to talk to us and just can't find any other time when we'll be still and listen to Him.  Maybe instead of Ambien, we just need the embrace of God's love.

Substance and Accident

When I took Philosophy many many years ago, we learned the difference between "essence" -- or substance, soul-- and "accidents" -- or form, shape, appearance.  I think most of the time, we are relating to "accidents" in the people around us -- that is, how they look, or how they act, or how they talk.  Sometimes, though, if we are patient, we learn to see the soul of a person -- who they really are deep inside.  And then the accidents no longer matter so much.

When I first started listening to J. Vernon McGee on the radio in the mornings on my way to work, I thought maybe he was a backwards country preacher because of his gravelly voice and deep country accent.  But the more I listened to him, the more he revealed his "soul" -- a deep and abiding and sweet love of Jesus and of His truth.  I came to love J. Vernon McGee, and from the letters his radio program still receives from all over the world, so do thousands of people despite race, culture, creed.  McGee has gone on to be with the Lord, but his teaching still goes out into all the world on a daily basis, and letters come from all parts of Africa, Uganda, Russia, Turkey, South America, China, Korea, Poland, Armenia, etc.   I doubt there is anyplace in the world that has not been touched by the words of this simple country preacher.

The older I get, the less the accidents matter to me.  In just a few minutes of conversation, the essence, or soul, of someone begins to unfold, and I have discovered it is possible to love someone even if the "accidents" are driving me crazy on the surface.  When working on projects with other people, sometimes I want to say "Stop it; just stop it" if they can't seem to progress in an orderly fashion to complete the job.  But I also see the humor in the situation because of the purity of their hearts.

There is something to be said for "his heart's in the right place."  In the end, despite all of our fumbling around, God sees our hearts and what we love.  And despite all the differences of all those people around the world, we will ultimately love one another in heaven because of the purity of our hearts -- never mind how stupidly we executed our projects on earth.

If only we could keep the final vision in mind as we work alongside one another on a daily basis.  I think if we focus on Substance and diminish the "accidents," or appearances, we should find more joy in our exchanges with one another.

My Soul Magnifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior....,

for He has done great things for me,

and holy is His Name (Luke 1:46).

I love it that Mary did not have to find the words to explain to her cousin Elizabeth what had happened to her in Nazareth.  I wonder if on the journey to the "hill country of Judah" she pondered how on earth she would tell Elizabeth that an angel had appeared to her and that now she was pregnant.  It was a pretty far-fetched story.  But at the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth "was filled with the Holy Spirit" and knew --- she just knew---that Mary was the Mother of the Messiah and said, "Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"

Elizabeth knew that Mary had received the word of God, had heard from God, and that His word would come to life in her.

I think that maybe Mary's experience with God's revelation to Elizabeth may have prepared her to trust God to also speak to Joseph three months later.  There was not much she could have said to him, except "I am with child."  She had to leave it at that, and trust that God would reveal everything else.  Maybe she was expecting an instant revelation, as had happened with Elizabeth -- but it did not happen that way this time.  I wonder if Mary faltered a bit when she saw the expression on Joseph's face -- his confusion and bewilderment.  I wonder if she went to bed frightened that night.  I wonder if God was stretching her faith a bit further this time, because she would later need even more faith.

I once heard a talk about our experience in the spiritual life.  The priest said that when we first begin to walk with God, we feel like we are flying on a magic carpet, far above all the problems of the world.  One day, however, we look down and see God pulling out the threads of the carpet one by one.  "What are you doing?" is our response; "I need this carpet!"  "You don't need the carpet," says God.  "I am teaching you that you need only Me."  We no longer have "instant" answer to prayer, instant healing, instant success in all our ways.  Our faith often seems stretched to the limit --- but in the end, the result is the same:

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior,

...for He who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is His Name.

The further we go in the spirit, the more we know that God is not a "magic carpet," but always an unfailing refuge, the One who says in Isaiah:

Listen to me, O house of Jacob....

Even to your old age and grey hairs,

I am he; I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you, and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you (46:3-4).

The deeper we go in the spiritual life, the more we want to dance and sing the Magnificat; the more joy we have at the everlasting faithfulness of God.  He may stretch our faith a little further each time, but only that we know that "His arm is not too short to save us," no matter where we are.

Recently, I was privileged to read a letter from a nun who lived in the East sector of Berlin, separated from the other sisters of her order whose house was in the Western sector.  On the day of the re-unification of the two sectors, she describes all of the people -- Christian and non-Christian, baptized and non-baptized, Catholic and Protestant and athiest, Communist leaders and common people --- all gathering in all of the churches to thank God in inter-dominational services led by both Catholic and Protestant preachers and priests.  The joy of those people "behind the wall" was a great Magnificat!  They were all thanking God  for their freedom --even the Communist mayor of the village. 

I have heard that Pope John Paul II had a great deal to do with the crumbling of that dividing wall, but that remains for history to tell us.  However it happened, it was as much a miracle as the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and the opening of the Red Sea.  For those who lived for years behind the wall, it must have seemed that God had abandoned them -- but all the time, He was working on their behalf! 

In the book of Daniel, after Daniel and his companions were delivered from the lions' den, King Nebuchadnezzar was amazed and said this:  No other god can save in this way.  Then he wrote to "all the peoples, nations, and men of every language who live in all the world:"

It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me.  How great are His signs, how mighty His wonders!  His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; His dominion endures from generation to generation (Daniel 4:1-3).

Even the Persian king was singing the Magnificat after he had seen what God can do!

The Alpha and the Omega

His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand, he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword.  His face was like the sun shining in all its brillance....."I am the Alpha and the Omega.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold, I am alive for ever and ever! (Rev. 1:15-18).

It would take a Picasso to paint the image in John's vision -- I wish I could do it.  John's vision was of the Living Christ, the One who died and who rose from the dead and Who now lives forever in glory, the One Who holds in His hand the 'seven stars' -- that is, the churches of Asia to whom John is writing.  He says He is the "First and the Last," echoing the words of Isaiah 44:6:  This is what the Lord says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:  I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.

The Epistle to the Hebrews describes Jesus as "the author and perfecter of our faith," (12:2) who "is now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone" (Heb. 2:9).  Because of His obedience, He is the "author of our salvation," as well as its finisher; He delivers into the freedom of the sons of God all those who have lived under the fear of death.

This is a great mystery, hard to think about and grasp -- but also very freeing to those who have lived in fear all their lives:  fear of God's punishment; fear of doing the wrong thing; fear of not being good enough; fear of not being loved or loveable.  Jesus is the Author -- or Beginning---of our faith; He is also the Omega -- or end-- of our faith.  He starts and He finishes the work of God in us.  What do we have to fear if He is the One doing the work in us?  We have only to surrender to the work He does and trust that He knows how to bring it to fulfillment.  If we but give Him permission to do all in us that He wishes, He will lead us to the perfection of God's vision for our lives. 

If He is the author and finisher of the work of God in us, and if we surrender to Him, "it is finished."

The Power and Ministry of the Word

Once we have read, or studied, the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit can then use them to speak to us of the mind of God.  If we have heard, sung, or read a portion of God's Word to us, those little bits are stored inside us, much as the alphabet that we can use at will---or rather, it comes to us as it is needed without our having to "go find it," so to speak.

Hebrews 4:12 says this:  The word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

When I first began reading the Bible, before I knew what it contained, or where to find things, I was amazed at how God could show me things that immediately spoke to the moment or the situation.  It was kind of scary at first.  For example, one day, I criticized my pastor to someone else; that very afternoon, I read this in Psalm 34:                Come, my children, listen to me;

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

Whoever of you loves life

and desires to see many good days,

keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from speaking lies.

Turn from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it.

I was immediately convicted with that two-edged sword of God's living Word, so much so that I dated and annotated the Scripture in the margin of my bible, a practice that I continue to this day.  When the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to correct you, it is not something you easily forget-- especially if the Scripture is one that you have never before seen and did not know even existed!  As you go through the pages of my Bible today, you see dates going back to 1977, when the Spirit first began to open the Scriptures to me in a "living and active" way.

As the days went on, I found that the Scriptures continued to heal, to correct, to soothe, to comfort, and to strengthen me, no matter what was happening in my life.  I began to hold onto God's Word as an anchor for my soul in the midst of storms---and His Word brought me peace and confidence.  Two years ago, as I faced surgery, I repeated again and again: My help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.  Like a mantra, those words got me through those first nights of pain and struggling to breathe.  Whenever I repeated them, I felt calm and sure.

The power, strength, wisdom, and healing of God's Word continues as strongly in my life today as at the beginning---only now, after almost 40 years of interacting with the Word, I no longer need to have the Bible in my hands.  The words, as He promised, are in my mouth, in my heart, and on my tongue---they come to me in the night and in the morning, still "living and active," more powerful than any two-edged sword.

Yesterday morning, at Mass, I kept hearing these words in my spirit:  Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyes were not dimmed.....(Deut. 34:7).  I had no idea why I might be "stuck" on those words, yet they kept coming to me.  All day, they went through my head like a song that repeats itself in your mind.  My husband called me around 1:00 pm to remind me that I had a 3:00 appointment with the eye doctor---an appointment I had written on my calendar 6 weeks ago and then had forgotten.  I had not been to the eye doctor in 3-4 years, but anticipated only that I would need a new prescription for glasses.  I was not prepared to hear him say "erosion of the cornea."  But immediately, the words of Scripture came back to reassure me:  "Don't worry;" they seemed to say.  "Moses was 120 years old, and his eye was not dimmed ---and neither shall yours be!"  Wow!  God sent His Word and healed them  (Ps. 107:20) --  even before they knew they needed healing!

No wonder my confidence is in God's Word:  it is living and active and more powerful than any two-edged sword.  I desperately wish that I could pour the Word of the Lord into everyone I meet -- it is as though I have found a miracle, but cannot pass it on.  No one wants the Word of God, even though it heals, it comforts, it reassures, it strengthens, it guides and counsels, it gives peace and joy, it makes us unafraid of the future........There is nothing else in all the world like God's Word!  No kind or wise words of man have the ministry and power of the Word of God:  if they do not speak according to this word, what kind of wisdom will they have?

Matthew 22:29

Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."

...in your light, we see light (Ps. 36:9).

In the 7th century, a Syrian bishop wrote The Book of Perfection, considered today to be a masterpiece of Syrian monastic literature.  There he wrote this:  without the light of the Scriptures, we are unable to see God, who is light, or his justice, which is filled with light.

At first reading of Matthew 22:29, where Jesus is speaking to the Sadducees, who seem to be exploring what Moses wrote about marriage, it strikes the reader as strange that Jesus told them they did not know the Scriptures.  This group was opposed to the Pharisees because they (Sadducees) would accept only the written Mosaic law and would not accept oral tradition.  They spent their time searching the Scriptures to verify their beliefs.  If they do not "know the Scriptures," who the heck does?

Jesus goes on to answer the question they were posing to him by saying, "Have you not read what God said to you.....?"  (Emphasis mine).

"Have you not read what God said to you....?" 

If we think that Scripture is man-made reflection, coming from the "light" of man's knowledge, understanding, wisdom, or power, we will never accept it as what God has said to us.  The Sadducees were followers of Moses, and they believed only what Moses wrote.  But Moses wrote of God, and according to the words of Jesus, of Him also.  Jesus told them:  You search the Scriptures because you think that by them you have eternal life.  These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life (Jn. 5:39).

It is necessary that we, like both of the Judaic sects (the Pharisees and the Sadducees) study the Scriptures.  If we do not, the only "wisdom" we have to rely on is that manufactured by our own minds or the minds of others.  Jer. 8:9 says this:  Since they have rejected the Word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom do they have?  And St. Jerome said: Knowledge of the Scriptures is knowlege of God.

Without the Scriptures, we are indeed unable to see God; the reason churches exist is to preserve the Scriptures, much as Judaism existed to carry the Tabernacle enshrining the Law--the Instruction--through the wilderness and to erect a permanent dwelling place to hold it. When the Temple was destroyed, the Jews then became "People of the Book," learning to enshrine the Torah in the Tabernacle of their hearts and their community.

 In all synagogues today, the central feature is the Tabernacle, holding within it the Sacred Scrolls, the Torah.  Catholic churches today also have a Tabernacle, holding within it the Word of the Lord, the Light of the World, the "Presence of the Lord," referred to in the Old Testament as the Shekinah- the Glory.  Protestant churches no longer have tabernacles, but they enshrine the Word of God in a central place in the sanctuary.

But according to Matt. 22:29 and John 5:39, more is needed than simply study of the Scriptures.  Obviously, a man (or a group) can study the Scriptures but still not know God.  When Jesus said to the Sadducees, "Have you not read....?," He was directing them to a different part of the Scripture from the one they were focusing on at the moment.  He was shining a light on something they had not considered as the answer to their inquiry...."and the people were astonished at his teaching" (Matt. 22:33).

My favorite Greek icon depicts the Christ holding either a closed or an open book (depending on the icon) in one hand, with the other hand raised as a teacher.  With icons, we need to learn to "read" what we are seeing, much as we do when we read literature that is symbolic.  This particular icon "says" that only the Christ is able to open the book to us and to teach us what it says.  Without the Christ, the book remains closed, no matter who "studies" the Scriptures or how much they "search" it.  The Light of God must illumine the pages of Scripture for us.  Our reading must be under His tutelage and guidance; our reading must be directed by the Holy Spirit.  It must be prayer.

That's what makes the Scripture come alive for us---the power of God Who Himself is "writing His word on our hearts" and "placing His word within us," and becoming our God, just as He promised to do in Jer. 31:33.  Before that dynamic process, we can "prove" or "disprove" almost anything from Scripture.  After the Scripture becomes a living Word to us, we have no need of man's wisdom or his proof, for the Holy Spirit Himself teaches us all things, and we "have the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2:14).

Details, Details

On this Feast of St. Joseph, we probably should consider some of the details that are often overlooked in our celebrations of parades and St. Joseph Altars. 

In the tiny village of Nazareth, where everyone would have known everyone else's business, Mary would have returned from visiting her cousin Elizabeth three months pregnant.  Joseph had not yet taken her into his house, and according to Deuteronomy 22, Mary could have been stoned for infidelity after betrothal.  Her family could have rejected her, and there would have been no honorable way for a woman to support herself in that day.  Joseph would not publicly repudiate her and put her to shame, so he had decided to quietly divorce her -- until an angel revealed to him in a dream that the child was the Son of God. 

Now, Joseph has to decide whether to share in Mary's disgrace:  if he takes her into his house, and the baby is born 6 months later, he is "admitting" to the Village that the baby is his.  Even though betrothal gives the right of union before marriage, it is not customary until the man can provide for the woman.  And everyone knows that Mary has been visiting her cousin for the previous three months, so there will always be a question of who the father really is.  Later, during Jesus' public ministry, the Pharisees say to him, "We are not born of fornication; our father is Abraham" (Jn. 8:41).  Their word would have been a not-so-subtle reference to his birth and Mary's pregnancy.

In Anne Rice's book on the childhood of Jesus, she imagines the leaders of the Nazareth synagogue hesitant to allow the child into the synagogue, for suspicion that he is a bastard.  Mary, of course, did not have to attend the Sabbeth service, but could remain at home.  Joseph would have taken the child with him to Sabbeth worship, and as Joseph was a just man, I'm sure the leaders would not have easily opposed him.

No wonder in God's great Providence, Mary and Joseph would have welcomed Jesus in Bethlehem rather than in Nazareth, where the villagers might have shunned all of them for a time.  And after the birth, Mary and Joseph go down into Egypt, their journey and establishment there provided for by the Gifts of the Magi.  So, once again, by the time the three arrive back in Nazareth, no one really knows exactly when the child was born.  The families and villagers can without question or shame welcome Mary, Joseph, and Jesus into their midst, despite any questions that might have remained. 

Joseph was willing to take Mary under his care, no matter what the future might bring -- He could not know that God had provided ahead of time for all the minute details, including saving all of them from embarrassment and shame.  I'm sure that he and Mary both sang the Magnificat for the rest of their lives when they realized the great Providence of the Most High God who stooped to care for His people, even to the smallest detail of life!

Providence

God can intervene on our behalf in two ways:  He can create a miracle, as He did when He opened the Red Sea, or He can arrange 10,000 circumstances to meet our need.  The latter is called Providence.  It is no less a miracle than the opening of the Red Sea, but it is not as dramatic. 

Yesterday at Mass, the deacon told a story about a five-year-old boy who loved to play the piano.  His mother took him to a piano concert given by a famous Polish pianist, thinking he would enjoy it.  While waiting for the concert to begin, the mother began talking to a friend of hers, and the younster slipped out of his seat near the stage, climbed up onto the stage and sat at the waiting piano.  His mother was horrified when she turned around to see him playing chopsticks on the stage.  The audience was laughing and enjoying the impromptu performance -- until the maistro himself entered the stage from the wings.  The audience gasped, thinking the great pianist would be angry.  But the musician simply put his arms around the young boy and began to improvise beautiful melodies to accompany the boy's playing.

That is how I think of Divine Providence:  the arms of God encircling our feeble performance in this world to make it work on our behalf and for the good of others.  Unless His arms hold us up, there is nothing we can do to make our lives work.  But fortunately, "the everlasting arms" never leave or abandon us, even when we falter and fail.  Bishop Sheen once told a story about a musician who played a wrong note in a great symphony.  That out-of-place note, Sheen said, could never be retracted; it would remain forever a wrong note in the strastosphere, where sound as we understand it never disappears. 

But, Sheen said, if the Great Composer takes that note and makes it the opening note of an entire new symphony, it is no longer out-of-place, but the prelude to a new and greater opus.  That is how Providence works in our lives:  what we thought was our greatest failure becomes instead the introduction to a whole new work.  The arms of God encircle us, to carry us forward.

When Jesus entered the synagogue in Caparnum, He opened the scroll to Isaiah 61: "The Year of the Lord's Favor" and read:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me....

to comfort all who mourn

and provide for those who grieve in Zion--

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.

If we know Romans 8:28 -- and we know that God makes all things work together for good unto them who are called according to His purpose---and if we lean into that truth, we also believe in Divine Providence -- the arms of God encircling our lives, to make a beautiful symphony out of our "chopsticks."



Trust

Do not be anxious about your life, as to what you will eat, or what you shall drink, nor for your body, as to what you shall put on (Matt.6:25).

Jesus gives us a reason not to be "anxious:"  for your Father in heaven knows you have need of these things, but seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added to you.

He also tells us to observe the birds of the air, "who neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns," yet who are fed by His Father.  If we do "observe" the birds, we see that they are not standing around waiting to be fed.  They do indeed work for their food; indeed, they are busy all day with the tasks of feeding themselves and their brood, constructing nests in which to lay their young, and filling the world with song.  The difference is that no bird is worrying or anxious about tomorrow, "for tomorrow will take care of itself," in the words of Jesus.

Jesus never told us not to work, but only not to worry or "be anxious."  Actually, it is much more difficult in my opinion not to worry than it is to work.  Worry, or anxiety, seems to come much easier to us than trust.  It is hard to trust in God; He seems far away from us.  We are not sure He actually knows what is happening in our individual lives -- or that He cares.  We tend to think that He would dismiss our small concerns as unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Jesus taught us to ask and to keep on asking.  I think it is a lack of faith when we are afraid to ask.  I remember many years ago, before I really knew the Father, that someone asked me if I had prayed about a health problem.  "I am afraid to ask," I said, "because if God does not help me, I would lose the little faith I now have."  Looking back now, I realize that what I thought was faith was nothing but a lack of trust.

If we refuse to ask, we will always believe that whatever happens is what we ourselves made happen--or had no power to make happen.  Fortunately, God began to teach me in many ways to ask and to trust.  I am still on the journey; my trust is not yet perfect, but I am learning "in all things to give thanks, for this is the will of God on your behalf," and "to cast [my] cares upon the Lord, for He cares for [me]" (Phil. 4:6) and (I Peter 5:5-7).  We cannot afford to wait for the big things in life-- the major illness, the threat of bankruptcy, the loss of a job -- before we begin to ask, although that is usually what we do.  We tend to think we ourselves can handle our daily lives, so we don't "call on the Lord" until we really need Him -- sort of like going to the emergency room.  The problem is that when we do call on Him in a time of great need, we have not learned to trust along the way, so we remain anxious even while we are asking.

I recall once hearing a man tell a story about how he began to learn that God is here -- now-- and listening to our every prayer.  He had heard people say that we should ask for what we need, no matter how "small" we think the request might be.  He had parked downtown and found that he was short 25 cents for the meter (in the days before credit card meters).  He was on time for his appointment, but could not afford to leave his parking space and search for a free place to park.  What to do?  Most of us would not "bother" God with such a frivolous request; we would think that God would not care whether we parked or not -- and especially not when a quarter was the issue.   Maybe if we desperately needed five thousand dollars -- but a quarter?  Get real!

See -- that's exactly what the Lord said in Isaiah -- your ways are not my ways, nor are your thoughts my thoughts.  Imagine if we actually out loud said to Jesus what we are thinking:  God does not care that I need a quarter; He only begins to care if we need five thousand dollars.  I think Jesus might smile -- that is, if He did not throw back His head and laugh out loud at us!

Anyway, in his moment of desperation, the man telling the story, humbled himself -- and it was humiliating because of the small amount -- to ask his Father in heaven for the quarter he needed.  Just at that moment, as he was standing there trying to decide his next step, a friend of his drove up and stopped at the traffic light.  The two greeted one another, and the man asked his friend if he had a quarter to lend him.  Of course.....what did you expect?

Now here's the thing:  the man telling the story did not hesitate to ask his friend for a quarter, because it was nothing to the friend to hand over a quarter.  In fact, the friend was greatly happy to do so; he was so glad to have been on the spot and to be able to supply a great need of the moment, even though it was a small thing to him.  Can we see that our needs of the moment are also great to us, and that God's care for us extends to our "daily bread" as well as to what we think of as "important" enough for us to ask Him for? 

If we don't begin to ask our Father in heaven for the small things of life, there's no way we will ever be able to believe that He cares enough to give us the larger things we need.  And if we do begin to ask for the small things that are still important to us at the moment---like the quarter--we will begin to dance for joy at the attentiveness of the God who loves us enough to supply our needs from moment to moment.

You might think I am either crazy or impious or inpertinent, but I will confess that I even ask God for mulch for my garden when I begin to run low.  There was a time when I would not have dared to ask for such a "silly" thing, but now.....Well, when your neighbor comes over to apologize that he has not yet gotten around to raking his leaves and delivering them to your driveway, you just have to laugh.

Faith and Belief

I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! (Luke 12:49)

We are not saved by our beliefs, but only by our faith!  Belief satisfies the mind that inquires after truth, but faith brings peace to the soul, which goes deeper and further than our minds.  It has been said that faith is like the pick or hook used by mountain climbers -- it is tossed upwards from where the climber now stands; it anchors into a safe place, permitting the adventurer to climb upwards to that point.  In the same way, our faith anchors our souls into a Person, a Place of Safety that cannot fail us.  Then our minds gradually follow until we comprehend and fully understand our faith.

God does not ask us to dismiss the mind He gave us to understand truth; but the truth is that we will not fully comprehend until we surrender in faith to the only One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

We've got it backwards if we think to understand first and then we'll surrender.  Our minds are too small to understand the mysteries of the universe, much less the ways of God. 

Abraham was asked to start out on a journey, whereby he would come to know the Creator of the universe in faith.  In everything he did, he encountered the faithfulness of God, who was always and everywhere with him, who never abandoned him.  At first, he did not have right belief, but only faith.  It was his faith in the Person that led him to the Truth.  He came out of a pagan culture, worshipping many gods until he came to know the One and Only God.  His faith led him to the Truth!

Many years ago, I was teaching a woman from Taiwan, a faithful Buddhist, who had entered this country with her two teen-agers on a temporary Visa.  Her children were enrolled in high school, and she was taking English classes at the college.  An unscrupulous lawyer in Texas, who spoke her language, was holding her papers for blackmail.  He was threatening to report her to the government for illegal entry if she did not pay him vast sums of money.  Without her documentation, she was helpless and desperate.   Under months of intense worry and anxiety, she broke down and told me her story.

I asked whether she had prayed about the situation.  She confessed to me, "I pray and pray to your Jesus, but he don't answer me!"  "Maybe this is His answer," I told her.  "I have a good friend who is a Christian lawyer; maybe he can help you."    We prayed together that day for wisdom and direction for her.  Soon, she decided to attend a Bible study I was teaching at night.

The first night, she arrived at 9:00, as we were leaving.  She cleaned houses at night, and had just got off work.  Since she had driven to Metairie from New Orleans East, I could not tell her that we were all going home.  So I told her that we would do a quick lesson.  She had never before seen a Bible, so I showed her the first chapter of Genesis and then the first chapter of John: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....in Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

"How can I receive this Jesus?" she asked me.  "You just invite Him to come within you," I replied. 

"I cannot," she said; "there is too much crime within me."  "That's why He came," I said, "to take away the crime from within our hearts, to give us new hearts!"  With that, she immediately knelt on the floor and asked Jesus to come into her heart.  In all my life, I have never witnessed anything like what I saw happen that night!  She rose from the floor with tears in her eyes, full of the "fire" of truth:  Now I know the real God, she almost shouted.  All my life, I have visited the temples of Buddha, spending much money on thousands of candles, burning them before every shrine and statue.  How could I have not known that these were not real gods?!  How could I have not seen that they could not help me?!

The Truth entered that woman's heart without anyone telling, explaining, or teaching her.  The Holy Spirit fell on her that night and taught her the Truth from within.  Never again would she be deceived by the empty promises of idols---now she knew the real God, in her own words.  That night, she went home and started reading the Bible for the first time.  The next day, she introduced both of her children to Jesus, and they both accepted Him as their God and began to read the Bible with her. 

The next time she spoke to her husband in Taiwan, he asked, "What happened to you?  Everytime I talk to you, you are crying and worried.  Now you are happy and not worried anymore!"  She told him about Jesus and told him to buy a Bible and to begin reading it.  He too started reading the Bible in Taiwan and accepted Jesus.  Later, her son started a Bible study in his public high school.

If that is not the "fire" that Jesus came to cast upon the earth, I don't know what is!   And here is the interesting thing:  none of these people had to come first to right "belief" or doctrine before they surrendered to Jesus.  Abraham was called first to "leave his people and his father's house and come to a land I will show you."  As he took the first step, he came to know and to believe in the God Who had called him forth.  So, too, my student and her entire family:  they were called to surrender first, and to learn afterwards.  Like the mountain climber, they anchored their souls in the One Who IS Truth, and learned from Him what they were to believe.

If we think we will come to Truth any other way, we have not yet found the Savior of the world:  no one comes to the Father but by Me!  Our belief is the what we hold true, but our faith is in a Person who cannot fail us.  Many people do not know exactly what they believe, but they do know the One in whom they trust.  The Apostles articulated their doctrines, or beliefs, only later, after the One they loved had risen from the death and had manifest Himself to them as alive.  Then, and only then, did their minds begin to re-form and re-shape their beliefs.

The Word of the Lord

He sent forth His word and healed them;

he rescued them from the grave....

They reeled and staggered like drunken men;

they were at their wits' end.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,

and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper;

the waves of the sea were hushed (Ps. 107:20;27-30).

During his 40 days in the desert, Jesus Himself had to come to know in His innermost soul and mind the truth of Deuteronomy 8:3:  He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

I would have to say that both Scripture passages cited here sum up the experience of the Christian.  Who has not known deep spiritual hunger and thirst? Who has not experienced overwhelming fear -- almost despair and abandonment -- and not turned to the Lord?  And who among us has not experienced Jesus awaking from His sleep in the corner of our boat to still the storm and calm the waves?

Until we go through such an experience, we probably cannot recognize the significance of "manna in the desert," feeding us with food that "neither [we] nor our fathers had known" -- the Word of God that sustains the weary and heals the broken-hearted.

I have heard that a broken bone that heals is stronger than the bones around it; the healing process has filled the bone with more calcium than it had previous to the break.  The ways of nature and of the body

speak volumes to us about the spiritual world:  those who have been deeply wounded are the strongest, those best equipped to heal the wounds of others.  But healing of our spirit comes only through and by the Word of the Lord -- he sent forth His word and healed them; by His word, the storm was hushed.

Psalm 119, the longest in the Bible, is a hymn of praise to the Word of God, calling it by a variety of synonyms:  the law of the Lord; your precepts; your commands; your word; his statutes; your decrees; the laws that come from your mouth; your unfailing love....your promise; the word of truth, your teaching.  Psalm 119 says this:  My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise renews my life....I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have renewed my life.

The writer of Psalm 119, presumably David, so loved the Word of the Lord, the promises of God, that he used each letter of the Hebrew alphabet as the basis of 8 verses, all beginning with that letter.  The psalm is an acrostic, though we cannot read it that way in English, unfortunately, and each verse contains a different synonym for Word -- again, something we don't always see in our English translations. 

Anyone who has ever spent the night wrestling with an agonizing problem, crying out to the Lord, feeling as if "the cords of the grave [were] coiled around [him]," as Psalm 18 puts it -- and then experienced the Lord "turning my darkness into light" (Ps. 18:28) will, like David, sing a hymn of praise to our God. 

About a year ago, I bought a bracelet at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  The bracelet bears an inscription from Psalm 46:  God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress.  I wear the bracelet every day whenever I leave the house, putting it on with my watch.  As I was praying this morning, after "wrestling" most of the night with a problem, my cat got up on my dresser and tossed my bracelet on the floor in front of me, something she has never done before.  In my spirit, I had been hearing "He sent His word and healed them" (from Ps. 107) ever since I awoke, but I never thought God would literally send His word to me by tossing it on the floor at my feet! 

I am learning never to underestimate the power and the humor of the Most High!

Seeing Through God's Eyes

As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts (declares the Lord) (Is. 55:8).

Every now and then, the curtains of this visible world draw back to allow a glimpse of the invisible world -- and it takes my breath away.  Today was such a day.

Yesterday, we traveled with 15 high-school juniors to the Abbey Youth Fest, an annual gathering of 5000 young adults who come together to celebrate their Catholic Faith and to be encouraged by their mutual energy and strength.  We had heard from others how great the festival was, and we all looked forward to a day of spectacular music, inspirational talks, and fun. 

Despite predictions all week of rain, the weather turned out perfectly--cool, sunny, a small breeze.  The 5000 kids and adults gathered in a huge field around 10:00 a.m., as the first of several bands during the day began playing -- sort of a Christian jazz-fest.  There were groups from about seven states: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and other areas.  Some of the groups were highly energized and excited by the music, jumping up and down and waving their arms in the air.  Our kids were not "into" that kind of excitement.  They sat patiently waiting for the first talk.  That, too, seemed to fall flat. 

By 11:00, the sun was high in the heavens; there was no available shade, and our group was wilting.  They were hungry (we had left the parking lot at 7:30); they were not "inspired" by what was happening around them, and I was beginning to wonder why we had all come on this journey.  I had been pretty sure all week that God was leading us to do this, but now I began to doubt.

By 1:00 in the afternoon, the kids were all sunburned and napping on the tarps.  None of them were wearing hats; most of them were amusing themselves by giggling or texting.  Fortunately, around 1:30, a cloud-cover began to move over the entire field, growing deeper and more welcome with each passing hour.  It was not a dark rain-cloud, but more like an umbrella, allowing a cool breeze to refresh us.  For the first time in my life, I began to really understand the Exodus passage that describes the Israelite journey through the desert, accompanied by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  (Without the cloud by day, they would have fainted from the heat; without the fire by night, they would have frozen after sunset. )  

Mass began at 3:30, and it was beautiful to see 5000 teens worship quietly, without cell phones, chatter, and distraction.  That was the best part of the day, and I continued to glance at the clouds over us with a thankful heart.  After Mass, we decided to gather up the ice-chests and tarps and head back to the bus, even though the bus driver was not supposed to arrive until 7:00 pm.  We thought we'd just sit on the bus for an hour and wait -- but another miracle happened (the first was the cloud-cover).  The bus driver arrived at 6:00 instead of 7:00!

I was so grateful that God was taking care of this small bedraggled group that we had dragged to a long, hot, and in their eyes, boring, day.  It was supposed to be their Confirmation retreat, and it had turned out to be something to endure rather than an inspiration.  I felt that I had let them down somehow.   I kept thinking about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness, where they experienced hunger and thirst and heat and exhaustion -- and they said to Moses:  Were there no graves in Egypt that you had to bring us out into the desert to die?  In the Exodus story, the people murmured against Moses and even rebelled against him.  As we all got onto the bus for the trip home, I wondered whether the kids would do the same against me, and I wondered what this trip had been all about.  I told  them that despite the heat, boredom, hunger, and exhaustion of the day, I had not heard a lot of whining and complaining, and I was grateful to them for their patience.  But I did wish the day had been more fun and inspiring for them.

In the middle of the night, I got up because I couldn't sleep, and as I sat with God for awhile, I slowly began to see something that I could not see before.  With my physical and mental "eyes," I had been seeing an experience that failed all of my expectations.  Now, seeing the experience through the eyes of God, I saw something else:  all year, in preparing for Confirmation, I have been talking about the fruits of the Holy Spirit --- those qualities of character in us that can arise only from the Spirit of God dwelling in us:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Looking back on the day, I could clearly see all of these qualities in our kids.  Though they were hot, tired, hungry, bored, and sunburned; though they desperately wanted us to call the bus-driver and have him come back (an hour and a half) to get us, they did not gripe, complain, whine, or pester me.  They carried their own suffering without inflicting it on me and everyone else around them.  They were good, and patient, and kind, and self-controlled. 

God allowed me for a moment to see through His eyes -- in the long run, a beautiful, joyful, inspirational day, while it would have fulfilled all our hopes and expectations -- was not as valuable to Him as the patience and endurance and long-suffering of these children.  I saw, too, that in most of life's endeavors (such as marriage, for example), we begin our journey full of hope for a wonderful and joyful experience.  But we soon discover that life can be tedious, wearing, boring, exhausting, hot, and hunger-producing, much as the Israelite journey through the desert.  We soon wear down and become discouraged.  In such circumstances, it is a great and immeasurable gift to be traveling with those whose souls are filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit, rather than with the spirit of grumbling, complaining, whining, and blaming other people for their discomfort. 

Seeing what God sees in these children makes me realize that the Spirit of God does indeed dwell within them, and that it is difficulty, rather than entertainment, that draws forth their goodness.  My prayer is that they, too, will see their goodness and rejoice in it forever!

What is Truth? (3)

"Then you are a king?"

"For this I was born and came into the world, to testify to the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

"What is truth?"

Skeptics (like Pilate) believe that no one possesses truth -- and they are correct!  We do not have the Truth -- it has us:  Those who belong to the truth listen to Me. 

Jean Vanier founded an international network of communities for people with intellectual disabilities, and he also wrote a book called Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John.  His title alone would be enough for us to contemplate, if we but followed where it would lead.  But his writing on truth is so profound that all I can do here is to share it with you:

We are called humbly to contemplate the truth that is given to us,

to search unceasingly in order to be drawn into truth,

to be possessed by truth and to serve truth.

To live in truth is to live a relationship of love

with the Word of God made flesh,

who is truth, compassion, and forgiveness.

To be true is to let oneself be challenged by others

and to accept all the brokenness in us.

The truth, then, is not something to make us feel superior.

On the contrary, it calls us into humility, to littleness,

and to the light of love.

All the light in us comes from the light of the Word of God.

The light of truth, then, is the gentle marriage

of what we see and experience,

with what we have received from above and the Word of God,

each one enlightening the other,

each one calling us to live in God

and to see things through the loving eyes and loving heart of God.

I know of no greater joy than to take each event of our lives and to examine it in conversation with The Truth, the Light of the World, Jesus of Nazareth, Who came into the world to bear witness to the Truth.  He alone is the Wisdom of God, the One who "makes sense" of our experience, who opens our eyes to see and to understand the ways of God.  He is indeed the king, but not of this world. 

If Truth possesses us, we, like Mary, turn over "all these things" in our hearts, pondering "what this might mean."  If we do not give ourselves over to Truth, if we do not enter into the Truth, we remain like Pilate, skeptical that Truth exists.  Jesus came to testify to Truth.  The only way we can know Truth is to surrender and to listen to Him.  He unfolded it gradually to those who walked with Him daily.  The process is still the same for us today.

Spirit to spirit

My heart is broken within me;

all my bones tremble.

I am like a drunken man,

like a man overcome by wine,

because of the Lord

and his holy words.

The land is full of adulterers;

because of the curse, the land lies parched

and the pastures in the desert are withered....

[False prophets] keep saying: 'You will have peace,'

and 'No harm will come to you.'

But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord

to see or to hear his word?

Who has listened and heard his word?....

...if they had stood in my council,

they would have proclaimed my words to my people

and would have turned them from their evil ways (Jer. 23:9-10; 18 & 22).

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The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God....no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God....we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept  the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (I Cor. 2:10-14).

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When Paul traveled to Greece, he found there a culture of debate and argument, following a long history of philosophers and statesmen whose entertainment (no television) was to sit in public forums listening to "wise men" speak and declaim earthly wisdom.  Those who had the best argument, based on human reason, "won."  Sometimes I think our televised political debates follow the tradition of the Greeks. 

I can no longer listen to them; they are all speaking empty words.  Whoever the candidate, his spirit does not speak to my spirit, so his words no longer matter to me.  I am not being negative; I still plan to vote for the man (or woman) who seems to be the best leader for our troubled nation.  All I am saying is that human wisdom is no longer enough to save us as a nation.  Unless we can find leaders who "stand in the council of the Lord" to hear His words, we are certainly lost.  And of course, I realize that living in the public eye, moving along the campaign trail, and trying to please all of the people all of the time leaves no time for prayer and listening to the Spirit of God speaking to our own spirit.

As a nation, as a church, as a people, as individuals --- we all need Divine Wisdom to carry out the tasks we have been given.  It is not about being popular, being liked, being admired -- as the prophet Jeremiah discovered.  No one really wants to listen to God or to the directions of the Holy Spirit, for that means giving up our own agendas, opinions, and ways.  All of us want to go our own way and "do our own thing." 

None of us want to wait upon the Lord, to be still and to hear His direction.  It is too hard; it demands too much.  It is easier for us to stand in the marketplace, raise our fists, and demand to be heard.  It is easier for us to impose our own will on others than to listen to the Lord's will for us.

Moses had a passion to free his people from slavery to unjust rulers.  He first tried his way -- violence--but found that did not work.  Forty years later, after retreating to the desert, he was finally able to "stand in the council of the Lord" and to listen to God's way: not by power, not by might, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.  Following the counsel of the Lord, he led the people to the Red Sea and said, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still."

Unless Moses had listened, he could never have known the mind and the plans of God -- His mind and His plans for us are spiritually discerned.  The man without the spirit does not understand or accept the things of God, for they are foolishness to him.....But we have the mind of Christ.

If we want the mind of Christ, if we want to understand God's plans to deliver us from evil, we must listen to Him.  We must stand in the council of the Lord.  If we fail to do this, nothing else matters -- not political debates, not promises, not the words of any false prophet.



Martyrdom

As Catholic children, we heard the names "Perpetua and Felicity" read at Mass in the list of the saints/ martyrs, but the names sounded to me so foreign, so "other," that they bore no relationship to the world I knew.  Now that I have had the opportunity to hear about the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity, I marvel at these courageous young women, and now that I have heard about similiar martyrdoms happening today, I am still in awe that men and women today have the courage to become Christian in such a hostile culture.

In the year 200, the Roman empire still ruled the known world, and to be a Christian was to be an enemy of the state, to call down the wrath of pagan gods who might be offended by this "unknown" God of the Christians.  Perpetua was 22 and the mother of an infant son when she was arrested with her servant Felicity, who was 8 months pregnant, both of whom had converted to Christianity.  Perpetua had to leave her baby in the care of the Christian community; Felicity delivered her child while still in prison and had to hand over her new-born daughter to friends.  The next day, both were led into the arena to face being torn apart by wild beasts.  Both died in 203 A.D.

A few days ago, I heard that the U.S. Senate was considering a bill to formally protest the case of a young pastor in Iran, who is now in prison and under the formal sentence of execution for converting from Islam to Christianity.  He, too, is considered an enemy of the state, as was Bonhoeffer and others in Germany in 1939 who were executed for sedition against the government.

Yesterday, I wrote about hatred against the Jews.  That same "spirit of hatred and persecution" still exists today in many parts of the world, not only against Jews, but also against Christians.  We may not see it in the free world, but all over the world, Christians are still imprisoned and martyred just because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

In Cuba, in the 60's, Christian pastors and workers were considered enemies of socialism and Communism, and they were imprisoned and tortured.  Those who risked their lives and everything they owned to escape from Cuba did so for a reason.  I remember praying for "political" prisoners in Cuba during the 60's and 70's because I had heard about the torture they were suffering.  Many years later, I met one of those people I had prayed for -- a man who had been stuffed into a small cage on asphalt in the hot sun for days, without food or water.  He could not lie down or stand up or even sit; his body was folded into a cage too small for him to shift position.  He was forced to lie in his body waste until he was released.  Then, because the commander was not yet satisfied that his spirit had been broken, he was immediately put back into the cage for three more days.

His crime?  He believed in Jesus Christ, as he does even to this day.  It was a privilege and a humbling experience for me to encounter this man, whose spirit is still strong and unbroken.  Where does this kind of strength come from?  Surely not from ourselves.  In the face of this kind of suffering and torture, it must be that we are sustained by the Spirit of Jesus Himself. 

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."  Jesus taught us this prayer.  "Temptation" to us means inducement to sin, but the word as used in the New Testament means "the place of trial or testing."  Knowing that gives strong impetus to our prayer.  We need to pray not only for ourselves, but for all those who are facing torture, sickness, fear, and death:  Deliver us from evil!

Question

"Come," they say, "let us destroy them as a nation,

that the name of Israel be remembered no more" (Ps. 83:4).

Psalm 83 is a prayer for God to rise up and destroy those who are seeking to destroy Israel -- to wipe the nation of Israel off the face of the earth.  It was written by David, or in the time of David, and sung as a hymn in the Temple, around the year 1000 BCE.  In the Psalm, the nations of the world surrounding Israel are enumerated and named:  With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you [God].

Why is it that the nations of the earth have always been trying to destroy Israel?  Is there any other nation that has throughout history been so frequently and deliberately attacked, that other nations have always wanted to destroy?  What is it about Israel that draws such hatred?

There is a story that once Queen Victoria asked her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli to give her one proof for the existence of God.  "The Jew, your majesty," was Disraeli's reply.   There is no explanation for the continued existence of the Jewish nation and of the Jewish race except that God Himself has preserved them, in spite of every effort of man to destroy them. 

In the 27th Chapter of Genesis, we find a clue:  Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him.  He said to himself: "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob."

In the beginning (Gen. 12), God had selected Abraham as His vehicle of blessing for all nations:  all nations shall bless themselves through you.  Those who bless you, I will bless; those who curse you, I will curse.  The nation of Israel was "chosen" to represent God on earth:  those who hate God will hate Israel also; those who love God will love Israel. 

"Why was Israel chosen?  What about the rest of us?"  a student of comparative religions once asked the teacher.  The teacher, who was Jewish, had no good answer for the class.  But the answer can be found in Scripture:  it was not enough for Abram to be "exalted father" (of the Jewish nation). God changed his name to Abraham -- father of many nations. God chose one man, one family, one tribe, one nation, through whom He could bless the entire world. By our relationship with Abraham, we bless or we curse ourselves.

In the story of Esau and Jacob, Esau hated his brother, who had received his father's blessing, but later, Esau was to receive the same blessing through the hands of Jacob, who had been blessed by God.  In the same way, Joseph was also hated by his brothers because he had received from their father a blessing.  The brothers "buried" Joseph and sold him into slavery to a foreign nation, thinking to forever wipe him off the face of the earth.  But Joseph, by the power and preservation of God, "resurrected" to become a blessing to all of his brothers.  The entire history of the world down to our own times can be written in fraternal love or hatred toward the nation of Israel.

And Jesus, the fruit of Israel, was also "hated without cause" (Jn 15).  At the last supper, Jesus was referring to Psalm 35:

Let not those gloat over me

who were my enemies without cause;

they do  not speak peaceably,

but devise false accusations...

They gape at me and say, "Aha! Aha!

With our own eyes, we have seen it."

Jesus clearly told His disciples that if the world hated Him, it would also hate them, for "no servant is above his master." 

We live in a time when the entire world is aligning itself for or against Israel; my guess is that whatever happens to Israel now will also happen to the Christian people.  We may be facing Armeggedon, but the nation of Israel will continue.  If we read the Book of Revelation, we can see "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say.



The LIght has come into the world

When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was wild and waste,

formless and chaotic -- but the breath of God hovered over the abyss.

And God spoke:  Light, Be!

And Light Was!

But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well.  Should I not be concerned about that great city?  (God, to Jonah -- 4:11)

In the opening chapter of Genesis, Light enters a dark, chaotic, "wild and waste" (in the Hebrew) world and begins to transform the chaos into order, harmony, and beauty.  The next nine chapters, however, portray a world descending once again into chaos, ending in Chapter 11 with chaos and confusion -- a "babbling" of tongues and nations over the face of the earth.

Into this (once again) darkened world enters Abraham, one man called by God to a "new land," a land I will show you, called to be transformed from the culture of paganism into knowledge of the true God, called to be transformed by the Light of the world.  His transformation comes from walking with his God on a daily basis, learning to trust his God, seeing what his God will do for him.

The transformation does not occur all at once.  Abraham still walks partially in darkness, in not understanding, in not knowing exactly what he is supposed to do -- but also in experiencing the deliverance of His God in all circumstances of life. 

The story of the Jewish nation is the same.  God delivered them from the evil/darkness of slavery and brought them to a new land, giving them laws along the way and the Light of His standards --- oppress not the alien among you, for you yourselves were aliens in the land of Egypt; observe the Sabbeth as a day of rest for you, your slaves, and your animals; do not murder; do not be like the nations around you......

Always, always, the story is one of people being brought out of darkness (not knowing our left hands from our right) into the Light.  The story is one of gradual transformation from chaos to order, harmony, beauty.  We are all "on the way."  We are all in different stages of transformation by the Light of the World. 

The beauty of the Light is that we need only to come into it, to stand in it, to absorb it into our bodies, to "walk in the Light"  to find healing.  Jesus simplified all of the Law into two commandments:  Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole strength and Love your neighbor as yourself.  This is the Light of the World.  Anyone who walks in this light does not walk in darkness; anyone who walks in this light creates around him beauty, harmony, and order.  Anyone who walks in this light is being transformed daily "from glory to glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18).

It's not hard to stand in the sunshine, and the more of us who walk in the Light bring Light into a darkened and chaotic world. 

Our Sins = Our Stupidities

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing! (Luke 23)

In our blindness, in our deafness, in our selfishness, we are all stupid people.  When we hurt others, none of us know what we are doing.  All we see is our own need; our own hurt; our own wounds -- we do not see the wounds we are inflicting on other people.

These are the wounds that Jesus did see -- that God sees everyday -- and these are the wounds He takes upon His own body:  Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto Me.  We have all crucified the Son of God when we crucified and made one another helpless.

At first, we do not see what we are doing.  But later, looking back, when our eyes have been opened, we recognize our stupidities.  And they haunt us to the point of distraction.  Hearing Jesus say, ...they don't know what they are doing helps us to forgive ourselves.  If we had known, if we had seen, if only we had not been spiritually blind and deaf, we would have acted differently. We were wrapped up in our own lives; there was no room for anyone else.  We ourselves were wounded and hurting, so we inflicted our own wounds on others. 

St. Paul himself writes a powerful chapter in Romans 7: 

For I do not understand myself at all.  We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do....for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out....

So I find this law at work: when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being, I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work in my body.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death? 

[Chapter 8]:  ...through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death...the mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.

Jesus cured the blind and the deaf, opening eyes and ears --- but what He did in the physical realm is small potatoes compared to His on-going ministry TODAY.  He is still opening our spiritual eyes and ears and still taking off the shackles of our minds so that we can see, hear, and understand our own stupidities.  The stupid person understands nothing; the one who sins against another sees, hears, and understands nothing of what he is doing --- until it is too late.

We can pray for forgiveness for the past.  We can ask to be healed of our blindness for the present: Open my eyes, Lord; I want to see.