Your life story

Here are two excerpts from Pope Francis's recent homilies at Casa Santa Marta.

Jonah. John August Swanson.

1. On Jonah and the good Samaritan: "I ask myself and I ask you : Do you let God write your life story or do you want to write it yourselves? And this tells us about docility: are we obedient to the Word of God? 'Yes, I want to be docile!' But you, do you have ability to listen, to hear it? Do you have the ability to find the Word of God in your every day life, or are your ideas what keep you going? Or do you allow yourself to be surprised by what the Lord has to say to you?"
2. On Martha and Mary: "And we ourselves, when we don't pray, what we're doing is closing the door to the Lord. And not praying is this: closing the door to the Lord, so that He can do nothing. On the other hand, prayer, in the face of a problem, a difficult situation, a calamity, is opening the door to the Lord so that He will come. So that He builds things, He knows to arrange things, to reorganize things. This is what praying is: opening the door to the Lord, so that he can do something. But if we close the door, God can do nothing!"

Who is writing our life story? Who is building our life? Am I, or is God?

At the feet of Jesus

The Gospel for today is about Martha and Mary. We are all quite familiar with the story. Martha is serving and preparing for Jesus. She must be quite busy. Mary is at the feet of Jesus, listening to his word. Martha becomes a little irritated, understandably, and asks Jesus that Mary help her. And Jesus replies that only one thing is necessary. Mary has the better part--it will not be taken from her.

The story is often interpreted as the elevation of the contemplative life over the active life. Martha is busy trying to prepare the house for Jesus, perhaps a little too busy. She represents the active life. Mary is sitting with Jesus, simply being with him. She represents the contemplative life. Insofar as the contemplative life is objectively superior to the active life--since the contemplative life more closely approximates our life in heaven--this is a legitimate interpretation of the text.

But even as this interpretation answers one question--namely, the relative ranking of the active and the contemplative life--it raises another: how are we to spend our time between the two lives? After all, no one on earth can live a purely contemplative life (even hermits need to eat and sweep out their huts) nor can anyone live a purely active life, try as we will (since nothing can take from man his desire for the happiness that this world can give; he is always restless for more, a sign of his interiority).

So we come to what I think is the deeper point of the Martha and Mary story: the need for discernment. Again, we are faced with a critical question: how do we decide to spend our time? When do we pray and when do we act? It is a question of immense importance, and confusion on the answer can have real consequences. Let's take the parable that immediately precedes the story about Martha and Mary. It is about the Good Samaritan. Here there is a confusion about how we are to spend our time. A priest walks by a wounded man on the way to the Temple, while a Samaritan stops to help. Perhaps the priest thinks to himself, "I'm off to Temple, and I can pray for that poor wounded man on the way. I've chosen the better part--no time to stop." That would be hypocrisy indeed! In this case, even though the contemplative life is superior to the active life, prayer without action would be a great evil. Pray for the wounded man on the road--good, yes!--but also act: attend to him, bandage his wounds, take him to an inn and provide for him.

So the question is this: how do I discern God's will for me, at this moment? How do I balance the obligations between prayer and action, knowing that prayer is the most necessary thing, but that this world also requires and yearns for our works of love? Here is where we get to the heart of today's Gospel. Action and prayer can both be at the service of God. But when we make an idol of our projects, when we cease acting for God and begin to act for ourselves, then we lose sight of the great treasure of our lives. When we begin to act for ourselves rather than God, we become irritable when things do not go our way, when they do not turn out well. We lose our peace. It is then that we have to return to the Master and prayer, reorienting ourselves to him and his designs--the better part.

What is the better part? It is placing ourselves at the feet of Jesus. This is the critical point: we must always place ourselves at the feet of Jesus, listening to his Word. We can place ourselves at his feet when we act, by humbling ourselves and serving others. Christ is in our family members, friends, and colleagues. We can place ourselves at his feet by serving them. We also serve and glorify God by taking time to literally place ourselves at his feet in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

The contemplative life is superior to the active life. But human life, no matter one's state, is always a mixture of both contemplation and action. It is our task to discern what God's will is for us at any one moment. We can begin by asking our Lord: "How can I place myself at your feet? Let me hear your word, as Mary does, and respond with action, as Martha does. Give me the heart of these saints." 

Where there is darkness...

We recently celebrated the feast of St. Francis. Below is a prayer attributed to him. The Missionaries of Charity pray it every day after Communion, so it played an important role in Mother Teresa's spirituality. I think that the references to light, peace, love, and joy had a special resonance for Mother Teresa. Jesus told Mother in a locution, "Come, be my light," which is also the title of a book that recounts Mother's dark night of the soul in her own words. In many ways this was her mission, to be Christ's light to the world. The references to peace and love are remembered in Mother's "business card." Of course, these are cursory thoughts; a fuller exposition of the prayer and its role in Mother's spirituality would be a major project in itself! 

Here is a version from the National Shrine of St. Francis in San Francisco: 

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Amen. 

Peripheral litrugy

The periphery is the place where the poorest of the poor dwell. The periphery of history is the Cross. If we imagine time as a ray (a line extending in a certain direction), the moment of the Crucifixion is the point on the line tangent to eternity. It is the point at which we become closest to entering into the eternal, into the life of God, for God alone is without beginning or end. For this reason, our liturgies are remembrances of the Paschal mystery. It is in the liturgy that we enter into the Paschal sacrifice and touch eternity, whether we are being baptized or receiving Last Rites. The periphery is our place of departure into the deeper realities of love and sacrifice, the places where time meets eternity.

Let us make our lives peripheral liturgies, sacrifices to God.

Who is Jesus?

Christ asks his disciples in today's Gospel: "Who do you say that I am?" (Lk 9:20). It is a question worth asking ourselves. Who is Christ to me? What is my relationship to Christ? We know the answers of others. He is a great prophet (Lk 9:19). We could translate that this way in the 21st century--he's a good and holy man, a wise teacher...but not God. Sound familiar? It is a scandal to the secularism of our culture that God assumed a human nature, that God became man (cf. Jn 1:14).

When she was in the hospital, Mother Teresa made a meditation on the parallel passage of this Gospel in Matthew (cf. Mt 16:15). I post her meditation below:

"Jesus is the leper..." Lepers in Pune, India.

Who do you say I am?

You are God. 
You are God from God. 
You are Begotten, not made. 
You are One in Substance with the Father. 
You are the Son of the Living God. 
You are the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. 
You are One with the Father.
You are in the Father from the beginning: All things were made by You and the Father.
You are the Beloved Son in Whom the Father is well pleased. 
You are the Son of Mary, conceived in the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. 
You were born in Bethlehem.
You were wrapped in swaddling clothes by Mary and put in the manger full of straw. 
You were kept warm by the breath of the donkey who carried your mother with you in her womb. 
You are the Son of Joseph, the carpenter who is known by the people of Nazareth. 
You are an ordinary man without much learning as judged by the learned people of Israel. 

Who is Jesus to me? 

Jesus is the Word Made Flesh. 
Jesus is the Bread of Life. 
Jesus is the Victim offered for our sins on the Cross. 
Jesus is the Sacrifice offered at the Holy Mass for the sins of the world and mine. 
Jesus is the Word--to be spoken. 
Jesus is the Truth--to be told. 
Jesus is the Way--to be walked. 
Jesus is the Light--to be lit. 
Jesus is the Love--to be loved. 
Jesus is the Joy--to be shared. 
Jesus is the Sacrifice--to be offered. 
Jesus is the Peace--to be given. 
Jesus is the Bread of Life--to be eaten. 
Jesus is the hungry--to be fed. 
Jesus is the Thirsty--to be satiated. 
Jesus is the Naked--to be clothed. 
Jesus is the Homeless--to be taken in. 
Jesus is the sick--to be healed. 
Jesus is the Lonely--to be loved. 
Jesus is the Unwanted--to be wanted. 
Jesus is the Leper--to wash his wounds. 
Jesus is the Beggar--to give a smile. 
Jesus is the Drunkard--to listen to him. 
Jesus is the Mental--to protect him. 
Jesus is the Little One--to embrace him.
Jesus is the Blind--to lead him. 
Jesus is the Dumb--to speak for him. 
Jesus is the crippled--to walk with him. 
Jesus is the Drug Addict--to befriend him. 
Jesus is the Prostitute--to remove from danger and befriend her. 
Jesus is the Prisoner--to be visited. 
Jesus is the Old--to be served. 

To me--

Jesus is my God.
Jesus is my Spouse.
Jesus is my Life. 
Jesus is my only Love. 
Jesus is my All in All. 
Jesus is my Everything. 

Jesus, I love with my whole heart, with my whole being.
I have given him all, even my sins and He has espoused me to Himself in tenderness and love. 
Now and for life I am the Spouse of my Crucified Spouse. 

Amen. 

God bless you,
Mother Teresa, MC

The authority of mystery

The Gospel for today (Thursday, Week 25 of OT) recounts the perplexity of Herod the Tetrarch (Lk 9:7-9). Presumably he has heard about the great miracles this man from Nazareth has wrought: raising the dead to life, casting out demons, quelling storms, and healing the sick and lepers. Quite naturally, Herod asks, "who is this about whom I hear such things?" The opinion polls are divided. Some think it is John the Baptist risen from the dead, others Elijah, and still others one of the great prophets.

The consequence of categorization.

What is the response of Herod and the people to Jesus Christ, to this miraculous intervention of the divine in history? First, perplexity (Lk 9:7). How are we to understand this Jesus of Nazareth? How is it that a man from such a humble background could work such great miracles? There is something mysterious about this man, something that can't be explained. He does not fit our expectations. There is some power working in and through him whose source remains hidden. 

What is the response to the perplexity that this great mystery inspires in us? It is to categorize: to demystify the mystery, to desacralize the sacred, to make the mystery fit into human containers and expectations. The people place Jesus in their own categories--perhaps this is a great prophet, they say. Herod probably sees him as a miracle-worker with unusual teachings (cf. Lk 28:8). Of course, neither Herod nor the people are right in their assessment of Jesus's identity, though they are not entirely wrong, either.

Do we fit this pattern of behavior? Are we perplexed by the intervention of the divine in history, choosing to categorize the divine according to our expectations, in such a way that we are not entirely wrong, but still far from being right? Note that the people do see something divine in Jesus. They think he is a prophet, because he has wrought extraordinary miracles. And yet the true identity of Jesus, the God-man, still infinitely exceeds their grasp.

Are we fully alive to the working of God in our lives, or are we too busy categorizing God's actions, certain that we know how he does and does not act? In the present moment, we are usually not capable of discerning what is from God and what is not. Discernment requires times (cf. Mt 7:16). Rather than categorizing, would it not be safer to do as Mary does: pondering these things in our hearts (cf. Lk 2:19)? She, who has encountered the deepest mystery, gives it the deepest reverence. 

"Mary, treasured all of these things..."

Herod is not without redeemable qualities. In his perplexity, he "endeavored to see him," to see Christ, though almost certainly for the wrong reasons (Lk 8:9). But we would do well to follow Herod's lead, endeavoring to see Christ, although we should do so inspired by a genuine faith, a faith that seeks holiness, and not out of trivial curiosity. We can bring this faith to all our activities today: our work, recreation, and relationships, seeking to encounter Christ, remaining always open to the possibility of encountering the divine. And when we do encounter Christ, or think that we may have, we must remember to let God be God, as Mary does--to let time unfold the fruit of the mystery present at every moment of existence. Not to categorize immediately, but to respect the authority and logic of mystery, which draws us inexplicably to holiness. 

Radical poverty

The Gospel for today, from Luke (9:1-6), contains a fascinating passage in which Jesus instructs his apostles, whom he is sending on mission, to take with them no staff, no money, no wallet, no bread--and no second tunic! I think that would make washing clothes rather tricky.

Why the instruction to radical poverty? It seems exaggerated and unnecessary, perhaps even dangerous by modern standards (and I'm sure it seemed like all of those things to the apostles). So what was the point? I think it has to do with the power that Christ gives them, "over all the devils, and to cure diseases" (Lk 8:1). I think it also has to do with the nature of their mission: "to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick" (Lk 8:2). In order to receive the power of Christ, "who though he was by nature God...emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave" (Phil 2:6-7). To enter into the power of Christ is to become weak, as St. Paul knew: "for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:10). Just as Christ's strength depends on his being entirely from the Father, we gain our strength from being entirely from Christ--living entirely in Christ and according to the form of Christ's life.

Christ asks that the apostles empty themselves of their attachments, to adopt a radical poverty, for the same purpose that he came into the world: to love man--"to love one another: that as I have loved you, you also love one another" (Jn 13:34). Radical poverty is for the sake of radical charity, as witnessed to by the purpose of the apostles' mission: to liberate man from material (disease) and spiritual evil (demons). In the MC charism, poverty [perfect emptiness] exists for the sake of our fourth vow, charity [wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor]. We empt ourselves of ourselves to fill ourselves with God's love. In emptying ourselves, we become weak in the eyes of the world, but such emptying gives us a great spiritual strength.

What are we attached to? Just as Jesus asked the apostles to leave behind even their staffs, so, too, he asks us to leave behind our staffs--those things that we lean upon for comfort and security to which we are inordinately attached. Perhaps it is my ego, my sensuality, my love of small comforts. Let's ask our lord for the grace to give these up, for the sake of living a more radical charity. 

Exile and return

Blessed be God who lives for ever! This is the response to the Canticle today (Tb 13). Blessed be God who lives forever! It is a response to Christ's miraculous work of bringing Israel out of exile in Babylon back to the promised land. And what an unexpected turn of events! A new king, Cyrus, makes a sudden proclamation that the Jews can return home to build their temple, and even provides funds to do so (cf. Ezr 9:5-9). It would seem nothing less than a miracle to the faithful remnant in Babylon.

A model of the Herodian Temple.

Do we need a miracle in our lives? Are we in a spiritual exile, distant from God and yearning for communion? We can renew our trust in the living God, the God who lives forever, by going to him in the Blessed Sacrament. Here is the greatest miracle Jesus wrought--God's eternal presence among us.

The Heavenly Jerusalem, with the Lamb of God at the center:
here is Christ, who gives himself to us in the Eucharist

Here  God has the power to deliver us from our exile and return us to the promised land to build another temple, the eschatological temple of which the Jerusalem temple was a mere shadow. To be with Christ is already a foretaste of heaven; it is already to be in the eternal promised land, to be in the Heavenly Jerusalem (cf. Hebr 11:10). And in his presence of Christ in the Eucharist we enter into the Christic temple, the temple of his body. Let us become living stones (1 Pet 2:5) of that spiritual temple of which Christ is the cornerstone (Eph 2:20). Let us live in that spiritual house as priests of the New Covenant, offering continual sacrifice. Smiling at that person who bothers you. Writing a note to someone who needs encouraging. Offering our work to God. In all these ways we build up the spiritual temple that is the Mystical Body of Christ.

Broken bodies

At the Fraction, when the priest breaks the consecrated host at the Mass...do we remember the broken members of Christ's mystical body? Those suffering from famine, war, displacement? Do we think of those suffering at their spiritual Calvaries--from despair, loneliness, fear? Perhaps they are in our family, in our classroom, on our streets. Perhaps we are ourselves suffering.

Let us ask Our Lady for eyes to see--to see as she saw. To see the deep unity between the wounds of Christ and the wounds of his mystical body, the poorest of the poor. And at every Mass we will remember to ask Our Lord to guard and guide those who are broken and breaking today.