Recognizing Him Now

Often we are so distracted that we are not paying attention well to the person standing before us.  Often we are so preoccupied that we miss what we are being told.  We have eyes to see.  Do we see who is in front of us?  We have ears to hear.  Do we hear what the person in front of us is trying to tell us?  

In today's Gospel reading, we hear of such difficulties in perceiving and in being open to what God is trying to tell us.  There we hear that 

That very day, the first day of the week, 
two of Jesus' disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
and they were conversing 
about all the things that had occurred.
And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.
He asked them, 
"What are you discussing as you walk along?"
They stopped, looking downcast.
One of them, named Cleopas, said to Him in reply,
"Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem
who does not know of the things
that have taken place there in these days?"
And He replied to them, "What sort of things?"
They said to him, 
"The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,
who was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people,
how our chief priests and rulers both handed Him over
to a sentence of death and crucified Him.
But we were hoping that He would be the one to redeem Israel;
and besides all this,
it is now the third day since this took place.
Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:
they were at the tomb early in the morning 
and did not find His body;
they came back and reported
that they had indeed seen a vision of angels
who announced that He was alive.
Then some of those with us went to the tomb
and found things just as the women had described,
but Him they did not see."
And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into His glory?"
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
He interpreted to them what referred to Him
in all the Scriptures.
As they approached the village to which they were going,
He gave the impression that He was going on farther.
But they urged Him, "Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over."
So He went in to stay with them.
And it happened that, while He was with them at table,
He took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized Him,
but He vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
"Were not our hearts burning within us
while He spoke to us on the way 
and opened the Scriptures to us?"
So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem
where they found gathered together
the eleven and those with them who were saying,
"The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!"
Then the two recounted 
what had taken place on the way
and how He was made known to them 
in the breaking of bread.*

As two of Jesus' disciples were on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus, Jesus appeared to them.  They did not recognize Him.  They were so caught up in their grief that they did not see the very man for whom they were grieving.  What and who we want may be before our very eyes, and we do not recognize what and who we long for.  

We may be wallowing in despair.  If someone shows up with the answer we require, will we recognize him as the helper we need?  Will we listen to the person who comes to assist us?  

Earlier this month a man who recently has been homeless, who I've met on multiple occasions, and who I'll call "Ed" here, showed up on our front porch here at the Catholic Worker House.  I saw him speaking with another man, who, I learned later, was going through a rough period.  Without being asked, suddenly Ed started counseling this troubled man.  Ed began saying, "My counselor told me, 'Ed, you deal with depression by getting things done, day after day.  After a few weeks, it becomes a habit.'"  Ed was sharing that by forming a habit of productivity, we can administer to ourselves an effective antidote to depression. 

Ed was relating the helpful advice he had received to the man standing before him.  Ed had recently been homeless, before he started staying in a shelter for homeless persons, and so some persons might not see him as someone worthy of giving advice.  If the recipient of Ed's guidance was proud, he wouldn't be able to benefit from Ed's assistance.  Conversely, when we are humble, we can learn from others.  

When we open our eyes, we can recognize the person standing in front of us as someone who is there to help us.  When we use our ears to listen, we can hear how someone else is trying to help us.  When we use our eyes and our ears, we can recognize Jesus coming to us through our neighbor.  When we open our hearts to Jesus, we can receive from Him.  When we open our hearts to God, we can receive the love He wants to give us.  When we open our hearts to our neighbor, we open our hearts to God.  

* Luke 24:13-35 

Compassionately Loving Neighbors

We show who we are in how we react when we see others suffering.  We declare who we are in what we wear and what we eat.  We proclaim who we are by what we do with the abundant resources at our disposal.  We determine our eternal destiny when we make these choices.  In choosing whether we are compassionate now, we decide where we are going.  We are to be compassionate and merciful toward our neighbor, just as God is compassionate and merciful towards us.  

And so we hear in today's Gospel that Jesus said to the Pharisees 

"There was a rich man 
who dressed in purple garments and fine linen
and dined sumptuously each day.
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, 
covered with sores,
who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps
that fell from the rich man's table.
Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.
And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me.
Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water 
and cool my tongue,
for I am suffering torment in these flames.'
Abraham replied, 'My child,
remember that you received what was good during your lifetime
while Lazarus likewise received what was bad;
but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established
to prevent anyone from crossing
who might wish to go from our side to yours
or from your side to ours.'
He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him
to my father's house,
for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them,
lest they too come to this place of torment.'
But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets.
Let them listen to them.'
He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
Then Abraham said,
'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded
if someone should rise from the dead.'"*    

We can go about our day meditating on how we are affecting others or not pondering how we are affecting them.  We decide whether or not we acknowledge the impoverished person standing on the street asking for assistance.  Either we give to such individuals or we do not give to them.  Do we even think about how we affect their lives?  At every moment, we choose whether or not we are going to evaluate how our actions are impacting others.  

Like the rich man in the parable, do we wear fine clothing?  If we do, do we consider how it was made, by whom, and under what conditions?  Was it made by young children?  Was it manufactured by a destitute person, who is living in an underdeveloped country, who is not making enough money to live in safe, clean housing and to eat a nutritionally balanced diet everyday?  Gandhi said, "There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it causes hunger and unhappiness."  If we are not mindful of how the clothing was made that we wear, we might be financially supporting unjust working conditions of extremely poor persons.  We might be turning a blind eye to the plight of impoverished persons as we wear the fine cloth they have sewn in their underpaid labor.  

Similar to the rich man in the parable, do we eat delectable food everyday?  Who helped supply the ingredients in the food we eat?  Who picked the fruits and vegetables we eat?  Were they paid a fair wage for their back-breaking work?  In the companies we patronize, we are indirectly ratifying how they treat their employees.  In the marketplace, we vote with our dollars.  We can express our values in how we spend our cash.  By consciously directing our funds to companies which fairly treat their employees, we can show real, effective concern for our neighbors who are economically struggling.  

Do we too encounter an impoverished person who is languishing in illness?  Do we do anything to help such persons heal?  I think of a doctor I met who volunteers his services here in northern California.  He provides free medical care to homeless people.  These particular indigent persons push their belongings around in shopping carts.  They sleep in tents on sidewalks.  This doctor does not see himself as being above them.  He meets with them.  He sits down with them.  He serves them.  He does what he can to help them to heal.  He sees the sores on their bodies and not only believes that they deserve better than having their sores licked by dogs, as occurred in the parable.  He welcomes them, listens to them and does what he can to remedy their ailments.  He is not ignoring them, but is doing what he can to care for them.  

We too can help hurting people to heal.  When we cross paths with a homeless person, we can apply a soothing medicine to them as we simply acknowledge their presence.  In this easily applied remedy, we restore their dignity to them.  In merely greeting them, we admit that they are human beings who are worthy of our attention.  In simply speaking with them with courtesy, we give them a valuable gift of respect.  

Do we encounter people who would gladly eat their fill from the scraps of food from our tables, as Lazarus would have done with the scraps from the table of the rich man?  Again, we can easily, with almost no effort, hand food to homeless people.  If we know we are going to be walking down particular streets where we likely will pass homeless people, we can plan so that we bring extra food with us to give to them.  On a larger scale, I have happily and joyously witnessed companies here in Silicon Valley donating their food leftovers, from the lunches they provide their employees, to charitable organizations serving needy individuals.  There are many ways for the rich man to share his scraps with the least of those among us.  

Once we die, we will be sent where we deserve to be sent as a result of who we have helped.  After we die, we will go where we deserve to go based on what we have done.  

After death, what we receive will based on what we have given.  If we want to receive, we must give.  Today at Mass, in his homily the priest explained that if we give, then we receive.   

If we give our love to someone else, then we too are recipients of that love.  The Trappist monk Thomas Merton beautifully and eloquently explained that "love can only be kept by being given away."  He wrote that if we truly love others, then their good becomes our good.  Then we truly wish the best for other people.  Then we are compassionate for other persons, because we are so identified with them that we seek our good solely in their well-being.  

When we truly love our neighbor, then when someone, when the poor man at our doorstep, asks that we have pity on him, we most certainly express compassion for such a person in how we care for him.  Truly loving our neighbor, we do not turn a blind eye to the suffering of our neighbor.  

However, after death, will we be asking that pity be had on us?  Will we be asking to be relieved of suffering?  

During our life, what have we received?  During others' lives, what have they received?   

Do we live in luxury without acting out of compassion for those who live without basic necessities such as housing, food, clothing and medical care?  Do we turn away from the agony others are enduring?  If so, we invite eternal torment upon ourselves, the anguish of others that we refuse to alleviate now, while we still can.  

During Mass today, the priest noted that Lenten observances of more intense prayer, fasting and almsgiving are ultimately about stirring us to be more compassionate.  Through undertaking such penitential practices, we are to be led to be more merciful and compassionate toward our neighbor.  During Lent, we are to be moved to act, to ease the suffering of our neighbor.  

Now is the time to be compassionate.  After we die, we will not be able to send someone to warn others, to urge them to love their neighbor as themselves.**  

In the parable, the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers that they might have compassion and love their neighbor.  Abraham responded that they have Moses and the prophets, and that they should listen to them.  

The rich man realized that his brothers would not listen to the law of love that Moses delivered to the people.  He also knew that they also would not listen to the message of repentance from sin that the prophets had delivered over centuries.  The rich man replied that if someone from the dead went to them, they would repent.  Abraham told the rich man that if people don't believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone comes back from the dead.  

I think of the book "90 Minutes In Heaven" and the film based on that book.  In this book and in this film, we hear from a man who died and came back to life.  He explains how, when he was dead, he went to Heaven.  He is only one of the people who have described this journey.  Persons have gone to Heaven and back: people still do not believe.  

Even though we already were given enough in Moses and the prophets, and in Jesus, who is The Word made flesh, suffering and dying for us to save us from our sins, and rising from the dead, still God gives more to us.  Although God had already given us plenty of signs and messages to convince us to believe, God loves us tirelessly.  God will keep trying to convince us to turn to Him.  God is love,*** and so God will keep on loving us forever.  

God loves us infinitely more than we can understand, since God is love, God is infinite, and God loves us infinitely.  God is merciful toward us, and has infinite compassion toward us.  

Thus we are called to be merciful, just as God is merciful to us.****  We are called to be compassionate, just as God is compassionate toward us.  We are called to love our neighbor, just as God loves us.  

* Luke 16:19-31 
** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
*** 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16  
**** Luke 6:36 

Not Only Bread

When it seems like we are suffering without meaning, a purpose can be achieved if we but trust in God.  A point rests in difficulties, if we are but willing that it be shown to us.  God is training us.  Do we accept this guidance?  We learn not just when we are sated.  We grow also when we are longing and feel we are not being satisfied.  

We realize who we are both through times which are rewarding as well as during trying periods.  By navigating amidst both types of waters, we see reflected in those waters our truest, deepest desires.  In time we come to see our true identity in all types of moments, and thus we come to discover true joy, the deep and profound joy which comes from knowing who we truly are.  

And so we are not always satiating our desires.  We know that we learn also when we deprive ourselves of what we want.  Thus now during Lent, for forty days we immerse ourselves in a more intense period of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  

We are encouraged in our Lenten observances through knowing that Jesus fasted in the desert for forty days.  Thus in today's Gospel we hear that 

At that time Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert
to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry.
The tempter approached and said to him, 
"If you are the Son of God, 
command that these stones become loaves of bread."
He said in reply,
"It is written:
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth
from the mouth of God."

Then the devil took him to the holy city, 
and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, 
and said to him, 
"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.
For it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you
and with their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone."
Jesus answered him,
"Again it is written, 
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."  

Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world 
in their magnificence, 
and he said to him, "All these I shall give to you, 
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me."
At this, Jesus said to him,
"Get away, Satan!
It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve."

Then the devil left him and, behold,
angels came and ministered to him.*  

There is the temptation to focus on what is visible.  Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread.  If we focus too much on food, we can end up putting our bodies before our souls.  Then, at the hour of our death, we can be in the position of wishing we had put our souls before our bodies.  Jesus reminds us that we truly subsist on the Word of God, for the Word feeds our souls, while bread feeds only our bodies.  We need not only bread, but, far more importantly, the Word of God so we may be fully nourished.  

There is the temptation to test God.  Satan tried to tempt Jesus into jumping off the spire of the temple to see if God the Father would save Him.  We try to test and see if God is really going to take care of us.  We worry that God doesn't have everything in His care.  God has a plan that is infinitely better for us than anything we could possibly imagine.  Jesus directs us not to put God to the test.  God calls us to trust Him.  

There is the temptation to grab power, and in doing so, to sacrifice our souls through turning away from God.  Satan tempted Jesus with the suggestion of earthly power.  Jesus knew who He was and is; Jesus knew that His Kingdom is not of this world.**  We are not to grasp for power that is not within the scope of our vocation: we are not to cling to power that God is not calling us to have.  We are to follow the call that God sends to each of us.  In the process, we respect ourselves and we reverence God, for we are who He created us to be, and we do what He created us to do, to adore, and praise and glorify Him.  

When Jesus faced these temptations for forty days, He was strengthened in the knowledge of the Israelites' exodus in the desert for forty years.***  Jesus knew also that Moses had spent forty days fasting on the mountain as he received the Ten Commandments from God.****  

Jesus was conscious of what God the Father had been trying to show us for years through deprivation.  When Jesus confronted temptation, He knew the purpose of the desert.  In not only the literal desert, a dry, barren, stark landscape, but also in spiritual deserts characterized by spiritual dryness and loneliness, and in emotional deserts fraught with frustration, dissatisfaction and depression, we encounter denial of our desires.  We are tested through hardship.  Through adversity, we are brought up by God: through trials, God helps us to progress beyond being spiritual infants.  Amidst difficulties, God helps us grow up to be spiritually mature and robust, strong in our faith so that we trust in Him when we are assailed by stressful circumstances which test our faith, so that we may prove our love for Him.  

It is from this perspective of one akin to that of a loving parent that we come to understand a faint, slight glimmer of how God loves us.  While we may think that we are suffering pointlessly, God is helping us to become more than we have been, to become much better than we have been.  

Through this lens of spiritual clarity we gain when we see that God is a deeply loving Father, we come to view our past trials through a new light.  We see how God has been working all for our good, for those of us who love Him.*****  Then we understand how the Israelites were told 

Remember how for these forty years 
the LORD, your God, 
has directed all your journeying in the wilderness, 
so as to test you by affliction, 
to know what was in your heart: 
to keep his commandments, or not.  
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, 
and then fed you with manna, 
a food unknown to you and your ancestors, 
so you might know 
that it is not by bread alone that people live, 
but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.  
The clothing did not fall from you in tatters, 
nor did your feet swell these forty years.  
So you must know in your heart that, 
even as a man disciplines his son, 
so the Lord, your God, disciplines you.  
Therefore, keep the commandments of the Lord, your God, 
by walking in his ways and fearing him.******  

With the realization that afflictions are not meaningless suffering, but are tests from God to demonstrate our love for Him, and are lessons that we must rely only on Him, we see that we are led to love God.  God guides us through all that happens, some of which seems harsh and painful.  Yet we must remember that when we are being disciplined, although it seems a cause not of joy but of distress, later it brings fruit in peace for those who have gone through it.*******  

By way of analogy, I think of a family who recently moved out of the Catholic Worker House here.  They often come back to visit, so we still get to see them a lot.  The mother has noticed that one of her children asks very frequently for chocolate.  The mom now often tells her daughter that she may not have chocolate when she asks for it.  

If a child grows up always getting what she wants, what kind of adult will she become?  If God always gives us what we want, what sort of people will we be?  

I think too of a conversation I had recently with a certain homeless woman I've met countless times.  Once again here I'll call her "Roslyn."  Roslyn once asked me why God lets unfortunate things happen to people.  I suggested to Roslyn that she imagine a child playing on a playground.  I added into the visualization a parent who stayed at the playground and always intervened and prevented any harm from ever coming to the child.  I asked Roslyn what she thought of the way that such a child would be brought up.  She replied that the child would not be well raised.  I said that thus God loves us and lets us learn in varied ways.  

Yet are we willing to learn?  Do we embrace opportunities to learn, or do we reject such occasions to learn when they feel unpleasant?  A friend of mine recently broke up with her boyfriend.  Understandably, she was disappointed that they realized that they had to part ways because their values were too divergent to make a continuing relationship feasible.  At the end of relationships, what is God trying to teach us?  In every situation in our lives, what is there we can learn?  

To learn, we must be humble.  God wants us to learn, so He humbles us.  

God makes us feel hunger and thirst, so we can hunger and thirst for what we need.  We grow not just through our desires being satisfied.  We also develop through our yearnings.   

So that we may grow, God tests our inmost heart.  If we are never tested, we never know where we stand and thus where and how we need to grow.  God wants to see what we desire.  God wants to see if we truly love Him.  

Do we really love God?  Will we obey God even when things become rough?  

And so some periods in our lives become harder.  God knows that sometimes if we suffer, we can learn.  There are instances when God allows us to hurt so that we may grow through the pain.  

If we see that God allows misfortune so that we may grow, then we become more willing to die to ourselves.  If we realize that, by denying our desires, we can grow, then we are likely to begin fasting.  

We come to see that we live not on bread alone.  When we see that our souls are fed and are strengthened in the midst of adversity, we become willing to suffer out of love of God and love of our neighbor.  Feeling nourished by the love we witness through the sacrifice Jesus made for us, it becomes clear to us that our souls are fed by the Word of God.   

During Mass, when we remember His sacrifice, we recall how he gave Himself to die for our sins.  In this recollection of His death on the Cross, we are implicitly encouraged to die for our neighbor as He died for us.  We receive the encouragement and love of Jesus when we receive the Eucharist.  Thus we can come to realize that the Eucharist is not merely bread.  

Jesus is living in us.  If we welcome Jesus into our hearts, then we are living in love.  If we remain in Jesus as He remains in us,******** we have true life, and thus true joy: this is a joy which no one can take away from us,********* no matter what happens.  In this joy we begin to have a foretaste of the joy we will have in Heaven.  If we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we can begin to live in eternal joy right now.  

* Matthew 4:1-11 
** John 18:36
*** Deuteronomy 8:2-3 
**** Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18 
***** Romans 8:28 
****** Deuteronomy 8:2-6 
******* Hebrews 12:11 
******** John 15:4 
********* John 16:22