Making a mess

Pope Francis on religious life (from the recent big interview):

“Religious men and women are prophets,” says the pope. “They are those who have chosen a following of Jesus that imitates his life in obedience to the Father, poverty, community life and chastity. In this sense, the vows cannot end up being caricatures; otherwise, for example, community life becomes hell, and chastity becomes a way of life for unfruitful bachelors. The vow of chastity must be a vow of fruitfulness. In the church, the religious are called to be prophets in particular by demonstrating how Jesus lived on this earth, and to proclaim how the kingdom of God will be in its perfection. A religious must never give up prophecy. This does not mean opposing the hierarchical part of the church, although the prophetic function and the hierarchical structure do not coincide. I am talking about a proposal that is always positive, but it should not cause timidity. Let us think about what so many great saints, monks and religious men and women have done, from St. Anthony the Abbot onward. Being prophets may sometimes imply making waves. I do not know how to put it.... Prophecy makes noise, uproar, some say ‘a mess.’ But in reality, the charism of religious people is like yeast: prophecy announces the spirit of the Gospel.”

Word cloud of the most common words in the prophetic books.

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. 

A map of life: hearing and doing

The Gospel for today (Lk 8:19-21) tells of an encounter between Jesus's mother and brethren who come to see him. They try to get closer to Jesus but cannot get in because of the crowds surrounding the Master. Jesus asks a question, "Who are my mother and my brethren?" And he gives what should appear to us as a surprising answer: "They who hear the word of God and act upon it."

The brothers of Christ--or to change the relational term: the sons of the Father--are those who hear God's word and act upon it. And so we have here a map to our ultimate destination in life, a path to divine sonship. First we must hear. Where do we hear God? In prayer. "In the silence of the heart, God speaks," as Mother Teresa so often repeated. And to hear, we must be silent.

So we are reminded of Mother Teresa's spiritual axiom: souls of great prayer are souls of great silence. The first step to becoming sons in the Son, children of the Father, is to learn silence. There is a silence of the body, a silence of the mind, a silence of the heart.

But as St. James exhorts us, "be doers of the Word and not hearers only" (Jas 1:22). To hear the word of God and not to act upon it--this is a great tragedy, because it is a refusal to accept the great dreams, gifts, and plans that God has made for us. It is to reject our own ultimate happiness, because our ultimate beatitude is in God. "I have come that they may have life!" It is life with the Father.

How do we become doers of the Word? Through charity. The fourth vow of the Missionaries of Charity is wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor. We can all live this vow, even if we do not publicly profess it. In this vow, we encounter the ideal of the Christian moral life. Faith, hope, and charity abide (1 Cor 13:13). But charity is the greatest. For to live a life of charity is to live the life of God, since God is love (1 Jn 4:8). Charity becomes the path to life.