Understanding the Wise Virgins

 Last week, Bishop Barron commented on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, saying that the oil in their lamps was prayer, study, and the Eucharist, habits and fortifications built up over a lifetime, which cannot be shared at the last minute with others.  As this terrible storm (Hurricane Ida) approached the Louisiana coast yesterday, I was reminded of his words.  

Padre Pio once said, "I shudder to think of the harm done to souls by a lack of spiritual reading."  A friend of mine recently locked into Father Mike Schmidt's Bible in a Year broadcast available through Ascension Press.  For 20 minutes a day, she blocks out everything else, puts in her earbuds, and just enjoys Fr. Schmidt's commentary.  Sometimes she deliberately goes a day or more without listening just so she does not have to stop the broadcast after the daily segment.  It reminds me of watching episodes of Downton Abby a few years ago.  The feeling of agh! when the episode ends makes you anticipate the next episode all week.  Her plan is that when the year's cycle comes to an end, she will begin it all over again -- now that she understands the Bible, she really wants to dig into it more deeply.

As someone who has read and studied the Bible for over 44 years now, I am so happy that she had caught the fever.  The more you read, the more you understand; the more you understand, the richer the Word becomes, ministering daily, monthly, yearly to your spirit like water in a dry and thirsty land.

 Recently, when I was grieving for a couple of weeks because we may have to leave this house I love so much and move to a smaller place, the words from Jeremiah 29:11 suddenly came into my spirit:  For I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you a hope and a future, and not to harm you.  I realized then that God has always led me into green pastures and beside still waters, that He has always given me good things, and that I needed to trust Him to continue doing the same in the future.  

It is passages like this that come to me when I most need them that provide oil to my lamp and keep it burning.  There are so many events in my life where the Word of God came as a living word, sharper than a two-edged sword, and brought me peace and courage.  One time, when I was out walking, a strange dog came at me aggressively.  Immediately, I heard, "Stand still, and you will see the deliverance of God."  I immediately calmed down, stood very still, and the dog backed off.  A minor incident, but the greater ones are too long to talk about here.  

When faced with a Category 4 hurricane, I grieve for those who have no reserve peace and backup assurance from Scripture to help them face the catastrophe.  I would give them some of my oil if I could, but when there is no carved-out space, no meditative rumination on the word within us, someone else's lamp oil sounds like hollow platitudes.  It just doesn't keep our lamps burning.

For those who just cannot get into Scripture (it's almost impossible without the Holy Spirit), almost any spiritual reading will break the hard ground of our hearts.  Almost anything!  I think in my earliest days, I started reading Corrie TenBoom books, and I asked myself, "How do I get from where I am today to where she is today?"  I would never venture to say that I have come to her level of trust in God, but reading her stories started me on the way, and I am most grateful for that journey!

Is This Not Amazing?

 In 2010, the year I was diagnosed with lung cancer, a dear friend gave me a book called Anticancer, A New Way of Life.  At the time, I glanced through the book, assumed it was all about changing one's diet, but never actually read the book, which is heavy on technical data and research.  Actually, the book has been on my shelf untouched all these years.  

Yesterday, as I was sorting through books to give away, I casually flipped through its pages once again, trying to decide if this was something I would ever read or not.  I had almost decided to discard the book when a sub-title on page 159 caught my attention:  The Mantra and the Rosary.

The lead-in sentence to this section of the book was this:  There is a perfectly objective way to measure the relationship between exercises such as yoga and meditation and what is happening in the body.  Then the author describes the research of Dr. Luciano Bernardi of the University of Pavia in Italy, who had been looking at variations in heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and the way these rhythms fluctuate at different times of the day.  He knew that a balance between these various biorhythms is the most accurate indicator of good health; in some studies, measures of this balance can accurately predict survival forty years down the line.

Dr. Bernardi was looking at the conditions that lead to a temporary disorganization of these rhythms and the way the body recovers its equilibrium.  In other words, the slightest stress affects all of our biorhythms, and our bodies need some way to recover. [I myself had just experienced the effects he was describing.  I had just told my husband how upset/ angry/ frustrated it always makes me to spend an hour or more on the phone with a friend who just loves to talk.  As an extrovert, it doesn't matter to her what we talk about; the more trivial, the better, it seems: the flow of words is the important thing. I don't mind letting her talk, but as an introvert, mindless chatter seems to affect all of my biorhythms with discord.  I need recovery time when I get off the phone. Fortunately, I have discovered that a Sudoku puzzle seems to help me forget and de-program the effect of aimless and empty conversation.  By the way, an hour or more of meaningful conversation has the opposite effect of energizing and revitalizing me.]

Anyway, back on topic:  In order to measure the physiological changes in his experiments, Dr. Bernardi needed a "control" experiment, a so-called neutral condition in which the subjects talked aloud without mental effort or stress.  As the subjects lived in Italy, a deeply Catholic country he naturally thought of having them recite the rosary.  When his subjects started reciting a stream of Ave Marias in Latin, the laboratory instruments recorded a totally unexpected phenomenon:  all the different biological rhythms being measured started to resonate.  They all lined up, one after the other, mutually amplifying one another to create a smooth, harmonious pattern.  What Dr. Bernardi discovered was that during the rosary, the body mechanically and subconsciously adjusts breathing to a frequency of six breaths a minute, which happens to be the natural rhythm of fluctuations in the other biological functions: heart rate, blood pressure, blood flow to the brain. The result of this synchronization is that the rhythm of each function resonates with the others, mutually reinforcing one another, just as when one is on a swing and the forward thrust of the legs, timed precisely with the upswing, amplifies the movement.

In 2006, two researchers at Ohio State University published a review of all the studies concerning the variations of biological rhythms.  They concluded that everything that amplifies variations, as in Bernardi's study, is associated with a number of health benefits, namely, better functioning of the immune system, reduction of inflammation, and better regulation of blood sugar levels.  These are, precisely, three of the principal factors that act against the development of cancer.

Of course, Dr. Bernardi's study is the only one that used the Rosary as a control factor; other studies have used mantras and meditation as controls, with much the same results.  Here is what I find amazing, however:  The Blessed Mother gave the Rosary to St. Dominic in the 12th century to combat the heresy of the Albigensians.  What preaching and teaching could not do at the time, the rosary did without effort, almost automatically.  But who knew at the time that the rosary would continue its benefits down to the 21st century, not in combatting heresy, but in combatting stress and discord in our bodies?  Perhaps this is the reason so many people say the Rosary in order to fall asleep each night.

I'm thinking that maybe I need to replace Sudoku with at least one decade of the Rosary!

Downloading God's Energy into the World

 Listening to the radio last week, I heard a psychologist advising a mother whose three-year-old was having meltdowns on a regular basis.  He told her that when we give someone a hug, particularly a child whose verbal capacity does not allow her to verbalize to express her pain, that we "download" our peace, our joy, our energy, into the person we hug.  He also suggested that the mother say something to the effect of, "It's tough when things don't go the way we want them to, isn't it,"  letting the child know that someone understands the frustration she cannot express any other way.

The doctor went on to extend the analogy to others beyond childhood.  When we give someone in distress a really good hug, we can usually feel them exhale and relax, letting go of some of the pain he/she is carrying.  Again, he mentioned that we are in some way downloading our own peace into the other person.

In a time of Covid, I know that hugs are probably few and far between among friends.  Still, thinking about his use of the word "downloading," it came to me that it is such an apt description of what Jesus meant when He said, "You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world."  

In the words of John Henry Cardinal Newman:

The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full of "lamentations, and mourning and woe....if there be a God, since there is a God, the human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity.  It is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator.

To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man...their mutual alienation, their conflicts...the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish...that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no hope and without God in the world," --  all this is a vision to dizzy and appall; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution.  (from Apologia Pro Vita Sua)

God called Abraham out of the pagan Ur of the Chaldees, and brought him gradually into a position of trust that God was with him.  Finally, God revealed to Abraham the reason he was called out of darkness:  I will bless you, and you will be a blessing.  All nations will bless themselves through you!

Anyone who has experienced the Light of Christ in the chaos of their lives has been blessed with the peace the world cannot give.  It seems to me that the task we have been given as Christians is not to judge the world but to bless the world -- to hug and to download to others the blessings we ourselves have received from God.  If we cannot physically hug those with whom we come into contact, we can hug them with our eyes, with our ears, with our understanding, and with our hearts:  it's tough when things don't work out the way we want them to.  That sounds condescending when said to someone in grief, so I don't recommend those exact words to anyone beyond three years old.  However, the idea is the same -- what I can give, I give you; what I have received from God, I freely offer you.  My peace I give you, not as the world gives, but as God gives!
 

 

God is My Helper

 It is not good that the man should be alone.

We are social creatures.  No matter how much we have to enjoy, we are lonely until there is someone with whom to share it.

In Genesis, Adam literally had the world at his fingertips, but still was lacking something -- a companion.  God said, "I will make him a helper as his partner."  Our early English translations rendered, "I will make him a help-meet," which eventually became in popular usage, "I will make him a help-mate."  But the proper meaning is, "I will make him a helper suitable to him," (or like he is.)  Adam's response upon seeing Eve was, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."  She is like him.

According to some ancient creation stories, woman is not equal to man, and those stories leached their way into our understanding of the Bible also.  But the word we translate "helper" is ezer in Hebrew, and more than a dozen times, that same word is used in the Hebrew bible to refer to God himself:

Blessed are you, O Israel!
Who is like you, 
a people saved by Yahweh?
He is your shield and helper (ezer)
and your glorious sword. (Deut. 33:29)

***

I lift up my eyes to the hills--

where does my help come from?

My help (ezer) comes from Yahweh,

the maker of heaven and earth....

Yahweh watches over you--

Yahweh is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

Yahweh will keep you from all harm ---

he will watch over your life;

Yahweh will watch over your coming and your going

both now and forevermore (Ps. 121).

***

We wait in hope for Yahweh;

He is our help (ezer) and our shield (Ps. 33).

In the New Testament, Jesus promises to send The Helper (another name for the Holy Spirit) to his disciples, who will teach them all things:  I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you ....You know him, for he lives with you and is in you (Jn. 14).

Jesus' statement, "I will not leave you orphans," I think could be compared to God's compassion on Adam: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable to him.

We are not designed to go it alone.  We all need a helper, both human and divine. When I see the popular approach to marriage on tv, with people looking for fun and sex as their criteria in a partner, I think it might be a good idea to study Ps. 121.  The way our Divine Helper watches over our lives, as our "shade at our right hand," keeping us from harm, is a wonderful description of the way we need to be helpers to one another.

 

A Theology of Recital

 A wise priest once told me, "What we do for God is very interesting, but what God does for us -- well, that's the whole story!"  

That shift in focus IS the whole story.  Today is the Feast of Mary's Assumption into heaven, and she would be the very first to tell us the same thing.  Her extraordinary life that brings us all into contemplation is all about "God has done great things for me!" (and for Israel, according to His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.)

After the Israelites had crossed over into a land flowing with milk and honey, as FREE people, able to work for themselves without the lash of Egypt, Joshua gathered together all the tribes for a conference. "Fear the Lord," he told them, "and cast out all the other gods served by all the peoples around you." And here is what the people answered Joshua:

Far be it from us to forsake Yahweh for the service of other gods. For it was Yahweh, our God, who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a state of slavery. He performed those great miracles before our very eyes and protected us along our entire journey and among all the peoples through whom we passed.  At our approach the Lord drove out all the peoples, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. Therefore we also will serve Yahweh, for he is our God."

Two hundred and fifty some-odd years after this recital, Psalm 106 tells us what actually happened:

But they soon forgot what he had done, and did not wait for his counsel....Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise....They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods; they provoked the Lord to anger by their wicked deeds....They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord had commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. They worshiped the idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves.

 All of these horrible things happened because "they forgot what he had done."  At the center of Israel's faith lay the great proclamation that the God of the fathers had heard the cry of a weak, oppressed people in Egypt. As slaves for whom the world had made no provision, they were delivered by a most extraordinary demonstration of divine grace.  Israel's belief of God was not derived from systematic or speculative thought, but rather from the attempt to explain the events which led to their establishment as a free people and nation.

The Israelite eye, therefore, was trained to take human events seriously, because in them was to be learned more clearly than anywhere else what God willed and what he was about.

Like the Israelites, it is imperative for us to begin not with doctrine to be believed, but with the history of our own lives as the arena of God's activity.  The ancient polytheist concentrated his attention upon nature when seeking his/her gods.  Israel alone concentrated on history as revelation of what God had done for them; their religious observances even down to the Passover celebrations today, focus on recital of what God has done for them.

As Catholic worshippers, our service centers on what God has done for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, freeing us from the slavery to sin and the fear of death.  If we are not aware of what God has done for us in our individual histories, if we have not experienced this freedom from sin and fear of death, our service is probably obligation rather than worship.  Once we being to reflect upon our own stories and the stories of those around us, we begin to thank and praise God in earnest ---because of what He has done.

He revealed Who He Is in Jesus Christ, washing the feet of his friends, healing the lepers and the social outcasts, accepting the woman at the well in friendship, forgiving Peter for betrayal, and telling the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  But He continues to reveal who He is in our own lives, day by day.  If only we can begin to see and believe what He is doing for us moment by moment, if only we can begin to remember and recite His deeds on our behalf, we can begin to worship in spirit and in truth.

Going Walkabout

 The Australian aborigines have a term -- going walkabout -- that describes a ritual for males during adolescence (10-16) whereby they leave home, interrupt their normal worklives, and live "in the bush" or off the land for 6 months or so.  The term has been adapted to modern times, where teens (typically European) graduating from high school or college take a year off before beginning the next phase of their lives to "go walkabout," to find themselves or to explore the world before settling down.

American culture, on the other hand, has dispensed with such nonsense in our very practical approach to life: "Get on with it;" "Get a job," "Start earning your way," "Start making money" --- all before finding out what life we really want out of life.  In other words, we tend to "go" before we know where we are going or why.

Henry David Thoreau is, in my opinion, an American hero because he defied the usual cultural expectations.  His father owned a pencil factory, but in those days, the pencils were not very satisfactory. According to legend, Henry David Thoreau worked on the problem of making a better pencil out of inferior graphite. He solved the problem by using clay as the binder. With clay he created a superior, smear-free pencil whose hardness was controllable.  Once he had perfected the pencil, Thoreau "went walkabout" into the woods, in order, as he said, "to live deliberately and not to discover when I came to die, that I had not lived."

What is interesting to me about all of this is that from the very beginning of the Bible, Abraham is told by God to "Go [for yourself] from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you (Gen. 12:1).  One might say these are the first words of the biblical narrative, after the prologue (Gen. 1-12).  The "story of redemption" begins with these words to Abraham:  Go for yourself, or "go walkabout" to discover for yourself what I am doing.

Once we leave the Garden of our parental homes, paradise, our task is seek wisdom about where we are going and how we are going to get there.  So few of us really tackle that task in our desire to start earning a living and supporting ourselves.  Instead, we must eventually deal with a mid-life crisis, wherein we realize that we never really asked ourselves what we really wanted out of life.

God had told Abraham to leave his father's house and to come to "a land that I will show you."  In order to find his way to that land, Abraham had to seek wisdom by building an altar and seeking the Lord in every place that he stopped along the way (see Gen. 12).  Once he had arrived in Canaan, Abraham is told, "Up, walk about the land, through its length and breadth, for I will give it to you" (Gen. 13:17).  Again, even after the long journey from Ur, Haran, and Egypt (stopping places along the way), Abraham is told to walk the length and breadth of Canaan itself.

God wanted Abraham to take possession of the land he was given by walking it and  noting its boundaries.  The closest I can come to explaining this command is Plato's maxim:  the unexamined life is not worth living.  "Going walkabout" is a way of examining life, to see its length and breadth, and of discovering what it means to live life and not to discover when we come to die, that we had not really lived at all.

In the beginning, we are told that God walked in the Garden in the cool of the evening.  Presumably, that's when He and Adam conversed together, as, for example, Enoch did when he "walked with God" in Genesis 5.  Proverbs 6, in speaking of wisdom, notes that "When you walk about, it shall lead you."

Genesis tells us of three people who "walked (about) with God."  In Hebrew, an unusual form of the verb "walk" occurs as hit-halach (walk about) in reference to only three individuals: Noah, Enoch, and Abraham (Gen. 5:22, Gen 6:9, and Gen. 17:1).  In the last instance, Abraham is told, Walk about in My presence and be perfect. (English translations do not include the word "about," but the verbal forms in Hebrew are used only in these cases.)  

Hebrew commentaries indicate that these three men were characterized by their relentless search for wisdom as they "walked (about) with God."

The biblical Abraham is an active person.  We see him moving from one country to another, herding his flocks, leading a nomadic life, but through all of this activity, we see God speaking to him on numerous occasions.  Rabbi Bachyaben Asher ben Chlava, in the 13th century commentary on the Torah, says this: The seeking of wisdom requires movement of the intelligent soul and quietness of the body; this is the opposite of the needs of the body, which require movement of the body but quietness of the soul.  So God said, "I will give it to you," meaning, "I will give you knowledge and wisdom so that you may know the essence of all that exists."  In 1 Kings 5:9, it is written, "And the Eternal gave wisdom to Solomon."

Maybe we all need to "go walkabout" at some point, if not daily, in our lives to discover what it is we are all about.

What Do I Do With What I Know?

 At this stage of my life, I am desperately trying to find ways to get rid of all the things I've spent my life collecting, so ordering a hard back book is last on my list of priorities. Nevertheless, last week, I found myself intrigued by a book reviewed by Bishop Barron's website, Word on Fire.  The more I read, the more I felt that this was a book I needed to read.

The book arrived yesterday, and I started reading it at 4:00 am today.  Rarely have I read a book that leads me into deep contemplation after four pages, but Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity: The Search for a Meaningful Life by Christopher Kaczor and Matthew Petrusek has done exactly that.  Now, the question arises, "What do I do with what I know?"  or put another way, "How shall I pour out upon the world all the riches I have been given?"  It is agonizing to have received so much wisdom and joy and have to contain it without saying to someone else, "See, Look at all this overflowing bounty!  Don't you want to enjoy it too?"  Now I kind of know how Adam felt in such a rich and beautiful garden and having no one with whom to say, "Isn't it gorgeous?"  "Isn't that a queer looking animal?"  "Isn't that a funny, or touching, or gentle creature?"  Or, "What has Yahweh said to you lately?"

From the opening paragraph of this book, I discovered that it has been my misfortune to never have heard of Jordan Peterson:

The most influential biblical interpreter in the world today is not a pastor, a Scripture scholar, or a bishop.  He's a Canadian clinical psychologist with no formal training in biblical studies and no church membership.  Jordan Peterson's immensely popular YouTube series, The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories (which has more than eight million views of the first video alone), offers a complex and wide-ranging psychological analysis of the book of Genesis -- the stories of creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, the call of Abraham, and more. This series has captured the imagination of committed atheists who rave online about the wisdom Peterson has shown them in the Bible. Countless people, believers and religiously unaffiliated "nones" alike, report that their lives have been changed for the better by this work of explicating some of the oldest stories in human history.

Evidently, Peterson approaches his overall analysis of Scripture under the headings of evolutionary, psychoanalytic, literary, moral, practical, rational, and phenomenological. According to Christopher Kaczor's commentary on Peterson, "science tells us what is the case, and the text of Genesis is telling us what ought to be the case.  Genesis encapsulates in narrative form what a successful human being embodies in action....Science is theoretical; the stories of faith are practical" (p. 5).

Peterson believes that Scripture is an unimaginably ancient and profound source of wisdom refined through the ages from the collective human imagination...Any story retold for thousands of years captures something enduring about the human condition.  The biblical text is cross-referenced with itself such that one verse can be used to understand another verse. (See page 7).

Jordan Peterson makes use of any and all available human knowledge to illuminate the text of Scripture.  Benedict XVI took a similar approach when he said, "...whatever we learn about the created order can shed light on Scripture, and whatever we find in Scripture can shed light on the created order....To live a faith that comes from the "Logos," from creative reason, is to be also open to all that is truly rational." 

So far, I've read one chapter of this book and I'm ready to wave it in the face of everyone I know. But maybe the best place to begin is to open Jordan's YouTube series and become more familiar with his approach to what the Bible can tell us about ourselves.

King David's Secret

 David never intended to be either a king or a warrior; he was a simple shepherd, the youngest of 10 brothers.  But his time in the fields alone taught him to rely solely on God for his help; there was no one else around.  God chose him from the fields, anointed him for kingship, and gave him strength against his enemies.  

From the psalms, we can learn David's secret.  Even though he sinned greatly and brought grief upon his family in later years, David never ceased to rely on Yahweh as his strength and source of help.  Psalm 16 expresses the length and breadth of David's dependence upon God:

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to Yahweh, "You are my Lord. 

You are my good, you alone."

 

O Yahweh, it is you who are my portion and cup;

it is you yourself who secure my destiny.

Pleasant places are marked out for me:

a fair heritage indeed is my lot!

 I will bless Yahweh who gives me counsel,
who even at night directs my heart.
I keep the Lord before me always; 
with God at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;

even my body shall rest in safety.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

nor let your holy one see corruption.

You will show me the path to life,

the fullness of joy in your presence,

at your right hand, joy forever.

Today, we tend to rely as much as possible on ourselves, on our own strength and intelligence, on our own resources.  "You can do it!" is what we try to teach our children.  But David evidently never had that mindset of "You can do it!"  David trusted Yahweh to "mark out pleasant places for him," to give him counsel, to deliver him from death, and to show him the path to life.  God was "at his right hand" in everything he did, and that knowledge refreshed his heart, his soul, and even his body.

Whether we have sinned greatly or not, this kind of confidence in God's support and constant attention is all we need.  St. Jeanne de Chantal said this:  Sometimes put yourself very simply before God, certain of his presence everywhere, and without any effort, whisper very softly to his sacred heart whatever your own heart prompts you to say.

It is so good to lean with confidence on someone else's support; when that Someone Else is God, who is always present to help, we can go through life with "the fullness of joy" in his presence.

Truth

 Yesterday I reflected on the need for the charismatic experience --- that is, the mysteries of our faith should lead us to knowing God through revelation.  At one point, Peter said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."  Once we begin to experience the love of God for us, we also begin to see ourselves as sinners needing to have not only our feet cleansed by him, but also our hearts and thoughts.  

The "sinful man" who was Peter was also invited and taken to the mountaintop where Jesus revealed His Glory in the Transfiguration.  Years later, Peter was to write:  We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.  Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.  You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts (2 Peter: 18-19).

Now, here's the crux of the matter:  unless the Son of God comes to us through revelation, through the Gift of the Holy Spirit, we do not and cannot know Him personally, no matter how long we "go to church."  Like the gift of the Old Testament, our church experience must draw us closer and closer to the revelation of Christ and of ourselves.  

We do not begin by seeking the charismatic gifts-- knowledge, prophecy, visions, voices, etc.  We begin by seeking Jesus Christ as God's revelation to us of Who He Is.  The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Wisdom) opens our eyes to seeing Jesus as the Son of God ---and then, our eyes are also opened to see ourselves as less than, but still beloved, sons/daughters of God.  

If we seek visions without this critical understanding of who we are, we are in danger of deceiving ourselves or of being deceived.  So we seek Christ; we seek to know Him -- and then comes the revelation from God:  You will seek Me and find Me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, and will bring you back from captivity (Jer. 29). 

I am fascinated by the counterbalance Peter offers in his narrative of what happened at the Transfiguration:  "We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain."  ("charismatic revelation")   "Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.  You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."

Peter is writing in his later years to a young church, perhaps mindful of the problems Paul had with the Corinthians who were all seeking the charisms poured out in their gatherings.  We seek TRUTH, not visions, when we gather together as church.  The prophetic message will lead us to recognize Christ, and in recognizing Him, we also see ourselves.  The "prophetic message," which we know as the Old Testament, will open our eyes to recognize who Christ is; then He himself will invite us and take us to the mountaintop, where "the morning star will rise in our hearts."  

Why "Charismatic"?

 Our bible /book study group yesterday had a discussion about the supra-rational aspects of faith -- that is, the elements that simply don't make sense to the rational mind:  visions, voices, miracles, etc.  If Joan of Arc had yielded to the rational, France would not have been saved from the English.  In fact, she was eventually burned at the stake for not making rational sense, for yielding to the voices that directed her.

Bishop Barron's reflection on today's Gospel reading reinforces our discussion.  Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"  Immediately come the rational answers--- the ones that "make sense:"  "Some say you are John the Baptist" (returned); "Some say Elijah" (returned); "Some say Jeremiah or one of the prophets" (returned).  How remarkable that what "makes sense" to our rational minds is that these people have returned from the dead.  In other words, we cannot explain spiritual realities, and when we reach for rational explanation, our answers don't really make sense either.

Peter's answer came from revelation, from the Holy Spirit:  Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to someone who recognized Him, not through rational sense, but through direct revelation from the Father. Bishop Barron says this:  This is the mystical faith that stands at the heart of Christianity.  To hold this Petrine faith is to be a Christian; to deny it is to deny Christianity....The church is neither democratic nor aristocratic -- it is charismatic. And this is where its power comes from.

The "mysteries" of our faith are supposed to lead us to revelation.  Our faith doesn't "make sense" if it is real; it is not given to us by man but by God Himself.  The sacraments of the Church is the Latin translation of the Greek "mysteries."  We come to the sacraments in our rational lives; we are baptized; we confess our sins; we receive the Eucharist, etc.  But these rational and ordinary steps are designed to lead us into the mystery of Christ revealing Himself to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

A recent survey revealed that 70% of Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, but only a symbol.  This tells me that 70% of Catholics are sitting in the seats of the other apostles at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus asked his question: Who do you say that I am?  Without revelation, without the Holy Spirit, we attempt to "make sense" of our religion.  It cannot be done.  

Karl Rahner once said, "The Christian of the future will either be charismatic or he will be nothing."  I think we are at that point.  Those who still attend church from culture or custom will drop away.  Those who remain must become flames of fire, knowing through revelation from the Holy Spirit: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  And You are with us now.  I know this to be true, even if it makes no sense to anyone else.

The Pearl of Great Price

 Jesus told the parable of the Pearl of Great Price, for which one would give all that he has.  And the night before He died, He actually gave to His disciples that very thing --- the Pearl, the Treasure, of Peace:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14).  

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (Jn. 16).

Most of us tend to avoid those who have no peace, for it typically makes us upset to be around them, to experience their fear, their restlessness, their anxiety.  So we may not realize or reflect upon what a gift it is to have peace in our lives.  But watching reality tv brings the world to our doorstep.  We see first-hand, and it becomes like a pattern laid out before us, the results of peace or the lack thereof.

I used to watch a show called 19 Kids and Counting.  The Dugger family was not perfect; in fact, their oldest son brought grief and shame on the entire family after he had left home and established his own family.  However, what was evident throughout all the ups and downs of family life was continuing love and support from all the members to one another.  Their faith sustained them: In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.

A more recent show, Outdaughtered, follows the adventures of the Busby family who had quintuplets (all girls) several years ago, in addition to one other daughter.  The stresses and strains of having 5 premature babies, and then handling their infancy and toddler years, were evident throughout the years.  One of the children has eye problems that require more than one surgery; another shows fear in almost every new situation.  And yet, the parents continue to support one another with faith, with humor, and with fortitude.  They even bring the children with them to help families devastated by recent hurricanes in Texas and Louisiana.  Peace reigns in that household and overcomes every difficulty in the end.  Nothing is ever easy, but peace and love make it possible.

In contrast, another program follows couples who meet online and think they have found the man/woman of their dreams: sexy, "hot," gorgeous, etc.  Character, evidently, is not all that important to these people -- or, at least, they don't take the time to explore that option.  What happens to those relationships is altogether predictable: anger, hostility, fighting, accusations, blame, etc.   Everyone seeing the relationships unfold knows that we are watching a train wreck ready to happen. 

I have slowly come to the realization that watching this show is not a good thing; it seems to be somewhat like the Roman gladiator contests---watching people kill one another for our own pleasure and entertainment.

When I see them on the path to self-destruction one more time, I want to pour peace into their hearts: I do not give to you as the world gives.  I know these people are no different than I am.  St. Paul tells us in Galatians what human nature is like:  The sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with one another, so that you do not do what you want....the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like....But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5).

Paul also tells the Galatians, If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.  If reality tv has no other purpose, it paints living portraits for the world to see  the effects of both peace and the lack of peace in our lives.  We cannot give ourselves peace; it is a gift, a pearl of great price, for which a man (or woman) will gladly give all that he/she has.  And, as C. S. Lewis once said, Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in the midst of difficulties.

Finding Lasting Happiness — Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

"We'll never be as happy as dogs in this life; they are an image of heaven!"  

A great line!

Why pray?

 Why pray?  Because our Father longs to be good to us.....because He yearns to send the Spirit to console, to teach, to comfort, to guide us moment by moment.

Yea, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff give me comfort.

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you (Jer. 29).

Prayer -- listening, attending to God's voice within us -- is the open door to the peace we need so desperately.