Seventy-Seven Times

Our hearts are small; we think of love in limited ways.  God's love is infinite.  Since God is so merciful, God forgives us for our grievous offenses against Him, for what we owe to Him but could never pay to Him.  Yet we hold onto much smaller offenses and hold them against our neighbor.  We must forgive our neighbor if we want God to forgive us.  

And so we hear in today's Gospel reading that 

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
"Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times 
but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of Heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.'
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
'Pay back what you owe.'
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
But he refused.
Instead, he had him put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master
and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, 
'You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?'
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will My Heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart."*  

As humans we have limited conceptions of love.  We think we are to forgive our neighbor merely seven times.   

God is infinite, so God loves us infinitely.  When Jesus answers Peter's question, Jesus uses a figure of speech.  Jesus tells Peter that he is to forgive his neighbor not just seven times, but seventy-seven times.  

How do we know that Jesus is using a figure of speech when he tells Saint Peter that he is to forgive his neighbor not just seven times, but seventy-seven times?  Why is it significant that Jesus uses a figure of speech to answer Saint Peter's question?  Jesus follows up on his answer to Saint Peter with a parable.  In the parable, a debtor owed a huge amount to his master.  There was no way he could ever repay it all.  The debtor did not owe ten times a usual amount.  The debtor owed a gigantic sum: the debtor never would be able to repay the debt owed to his master.  

There is no way to completely repay God.  God created us; therefore, we can never pay him back.  There is nothing we can possibly do to completely satisfy this debt: God did something for us far beyond what we could ever do for Him.  

In creating us, God showed us tremendous love, love which we can never repay.  In creating us, God began to show us why all glory, praise and honor is due to Him.  

God created us, yet we sin.  God has immense love for us, yet we show grossly insufficient gratitude to Him.  

As Saint Catherine of Siena related that God had told her, God is infinite goodness.  She added that God explained to her that to sin against God commits an offense which demands infinite satisfaction.  

If God would not forgive us, we would be doomed.  God, in His great mercy, forgives us.  

Accordingly, we are to beg God for mercy.  God will forgive us if we earnestly implore Him to be merciful to us.  

Yet our neighbors commit far lesser offenses against us, and we insist on enslaving our neighbors for what they have done.  Consequently we enslave ourselves.  If we refuse to forgive our neighbor, God will not forgive us.  

Jean Vanier wrote that people escape from the prisons of past hurts as they learn to forgive.  As we learn to forgive, and to let go of the past injuries we have suffered, we are liberated from the pain which has been holding us hostage.  As we relent and forgive our neighbor, we free our neighbor from the anguish and regret they may feel, and from the hurt we inflict on them by failing to forgive them.  

Otherwise, if we refuse to forgive our neighbor, we can end up in prison for a long time with our neighbor.  Consequently the road to forgiveness can be long, with many turns.  Almost certainly we will have to keep forgiving our neighbor, just as we too would like to be repeatedly forgiven.  

I think of two particular homeless people I know.  A little over a month ago, on Valentine's Day, I wrote of how Jocelyn had stuck by her boyfriend Jonny despite his drug use.  Later in the day on Valentine's Day, after I had posted that blog entry, Jonny told me that he had broken up with Jocelyn.  He explained that she was always keeping him up at midnight.  He told me, "I can't live like this; I need to get up in the morning so I can go to work."  Despite their breaking up, a few weeks later I heard that he had been thanking those who bring food, beverages and clothing to Jocelyn when he's not around.  Yesterday I saw Jocelyn and Jonny together just outside their tent where they sleep in the bushes.  Jocelyn and Jonny forgive each other.   

I think of another specific homeless person I know, who again here I'll call "Brendon."  A couple of weeks ago, I had heard that after he had been abusing hard drugs, Brendon entered a drug treatment program.  I saw him about a week ago.  He told me he had gotten high the previous day.  We can judge Brendon and others who are also homeless, who are also addicted to illicit substances.  Or we can listen to them.  We can love them.  

In the last couple of weeks, Brendon also told me, "I've always lived in institutions and in foster homes.  I don't know how to function in society."  If we're busy judging Brendon and others on the fringes of society, our hearts are not open to them.  If we're judging Brendon and others who are marginalized, we're not forgiving them.  If we forgive our neighbor, we can listen to our neighbor.  When we listen to our neighbor, we can understand our neighbor.  When we understand our neighbor, we come to love our neighbor.  As we come to know our neighbor, we come to love our neighbor as ourselves.**    

When we forgive our neighbor, we love our neighbor.  When we choose forgiveness, we let God love our neighbor through us.  When we forgive, we turn to God.  When we forgive, we become love.  

* Matthew 18:21-35 

** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

Keep On Loving

Today I write to you of love.  I write to you about the love of a woman for a man.  I have seen it with my own eyes, and so I testify to it.*  As usual, I write to you of what I know.  And as I typically aim to do, I witness to how the Gospel is being lived out in front of me.  

I see my neighbor forgiving my neighbor.  I recognize my neighbor consenting to the love of God being shown through her.  I hold in high regard when my neighbor lets God love others through her.  We love our neighbor when we forgive our neighbor.  Jesus instructed us to keep forgiving our neighbor.  Saint Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?  As many as seven times?"  Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times."**  God calls us to forgive our neighbor over and over and over again, and to keep on forgiving our neighbor after that.  We are to keep on loving our neighbor despite how he or she keeps falling.  

I have seen this tireless love and devotion shown by a particular woman to her boyfriend here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Countless times I've interacted with a certain homeless woman, who I'll call "Jocelyn" here, and with her homeless boyfriend who I'll call "Jonny" here.  Despite Jonny's repeated self-defeating choices, Jocelyn has remained with him.  

I had heard that Jonny was addicted to a hard drug.  Someone had also told me that Jocelyn could easily stop being homeless.  This person opined that Jocelyn was obstructed from moving out of homelessness because she was persistently staying with her boyfriend.  This person insinuated that Jocelyn could help herself, but she was refusing to do so because she was insisting on remaining with her boyfriend.  

Essentially Jocelyn has kept putting someone else before herself.  She has kept loving her neighbor without counting the cost to herself.  

Jocelyn imitates Jesus.  Jesus gave Himself up on the Cross to save us, who are sinners.  

While He was on the Cross, Jesus was mocked by the soldiers who told Jesus to save Himself if He was the King of the Jews.  The leaders who were there jeered at Him that if He was the Messiah, that He should save Himself.  One of the two criminals being crucified next to Jesus also abused Him, demanding that Jesus save Himself as well as the two of them.***  Jesus could have saved Himself but He did not.  Rather than save Himself, He died on the Cross from love of us, praying for us even though we had ignored, mocked, disrespected, tortured and abused Him.  

It might seem foolish not to save yourself when you can.  Maybe it seems like deciding to die when you can live.  Yet in the perspective through which you choose to view the world, you determine whether your outlook is setting you on a path to being saved or to being lost, being on the road to life or to death, both for yourself and for others.  Saint Paul explains that "the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."****  

Those who do not love will perish.  People who do not give of themselves are doomed.  When you love, you choose to be saved.  When you persist in loving, despite all indications that your demise is imminent, actually you are working not only to be saved but also so that others may be saved.  When you love despite all evidence suggesting that your love is ineffective, you are loving from faith.  When you love not paying attention to appearances, you are putting credit in faith.   

The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich assures us, "All will be well."  When we say that all will be well, despite what we see to the contrary, we make an assertion of faith.  

If we truly have faith, we are fixing the foundation of our souls, our hearts, our minds and our bodies on what we do not see.  As Saint Paul wrote, "We look not to what is seen, but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal."***** 

Do not think that I am speaking merely of rewards that we will see only in the next life.  Certainly here I address the glory which will be revealed to us in the life to come.  Yet if you have faith and trust in God, you also reap the fruits of that faith now in this life.  I am not speaking in hypothetical terms, trying to assure you of things which I believe but have not seen.  As I have already said, I tell you of what I have seen.  

I have seen the change in his appearance.  I have seen the deep crevices disappear from Jonny's face over the last few weeks, deep lines which are symptomatic of abuse of hard drugs.  

I have witnessed the change in his behavior, how this month he walked up to me and greeted me with a wholeheartedly warm embrace.  Months ago he would barely acknowledge my presence upon crossing paths.  

Upon greeting him a few weeks ago and asking him how he was doing, I heard him excitedly proclaim to me, "Doug, I've gotten a job!"  After I had witnessed all of these and other signs of improving health, Jocelyn told me, "He stopped using the needle weeks ago."  

Jocelyn kept loving Jonny.  She did not give up on him.  She did not like what she saw, and she told him so.  I was present one day when in public she loudly and vehemently made clear to him that he did not look good, and that she was displeased with his behavior.  Yet she did not abandon him.  She kept loving him, despite his appearance, which was not promising.  Although she was not encouraged by his behavior, by what she saw, she moved forward in faith, in the hope she had for a better future.  

For centuries people have trusted in God, having hope in God's promise, having confidence that God can and will work wonders.  Indeed God will show us marvels if we will but have faith in Him.  In the fourth century, Saint Monica prayed indefatigably for years for her son Saint Augustine of Hippo.  After years of praying for him, he experienced a conversion: his life was reformed and he repented of his sins.  Having such faith in God, and being miraculously transformed from such faith, we enter into a new kind of life.  In the film "Restless Heart," Saint Monica says to her son Saint Augustine, "We are already living in eternal life."  Saint Monica and Saint Augustine lived such lives of faith in God, with such hope in His promise, that even in this lifetime, they had already begun living in eternal life.  

In this time, right now, the work before us is that of faith and hope, for we hope for what we do not see.******  The work of love is also now.  Jesus instructed us to love one another as He has loved us.*******  As Jesus has loved us, and died for us, now we are to die to ourselves for our neighbor, so that we and our neighbor may be saved.  Now we are to love out of faith and hope.  

Later, in the next life, we will see the fruits of our faith and hope.  In the next life, faith and hope will be realized in the love we will then experience.  For those in Heaven, that love will never end, for God is eternal, and God is love.********  And so love is eternal and will never end.  For those of us in Heaven, when we are in eternity, we will be with God, and so we will be with love forever.  

So keep on loving now.  In the end, love will rule.  Love will reign in Heaven once we get there, just as it rules there now.  Love now, and keep on loving.  Step onto the bridge of love which Saint Catherine of Siena described, that boundless love of Jesus, which will take you on The Way into eternal love.  Step into eternal life now.  Live the life of love now you are meant to live forever.  

* 1 John 1:1-3 
** Matthew 18:21-22 
*** Luke 23:35-39
**** 1 Corinthians 1:18 
***** 2 Corinthians 4:18 
****** Romans 8:25
******* John 13:34 
******** 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16  

Faith Works Wonders

"Are you doing everything you can?"  Someone asked me that question months ago and it has been echoing in my mind since then.  In October last year, I attended the International Gathering of Catholic Workers, which took place in Nevada.  During the gathering, we participated in workshops on different topics related to our ministries as Catholic Workers.  Over the course of the few days we were together, we also walked in a couple of protests.  

In one of the protests, we went to Creech Air Force Base to protest the use of drones.  When drones are used to attack, those who deploy the drones are able to be further removed from the people who are killed and from the property which is damaged.  I took part in that protest because I want people to be conscious, aware, cognizant of what actions they are choosing to take and to recognize and realize the visible consequences of those acts.  

When we had finished the protest, I was speaking with an unusually cordial, polite law enforcement officer.  He appeared so collected in his demeanor that he seemed almost contemplative in how calmly he spoke.  He also struck me in how he seemed to be listening so attentively to me.  I was having with him the kind of calm, considerate, respectful exchange I envision ideally having with people who are in positions opposite me, that is, when I am conversing with someone who has views markedly different from the ones I hold.  In addition to being surprised by his demeanor and by his listening skills, he also took me off guard by asking me, in the context of whether we were accomplishing what we wanted to do through protesting, "Are you doing everything you can?"  

I replied, "It's a very good question.  In fact, it's a question which each and every one of us should always be asking ourselves."  

Now it looked like it was his turn to be taken off guard.  It seemed that he did not expect me to suggest that he should ponder that same question.  However, in keeping with how seemed to contemplate and process what was being said, I was not at all surprised that he appeared to be considering his own question.  

It is a question for everyone to ask themselves.  Are you doing everything you can?  Are you concerned about the state of the world today?  If so, what are you doing about it?  And, if you are doing something about it, could you also be taking additional actions in addition to what you are already doing?  

It is in this vein that I responded to a recent query from a friend.  She asked, that in the midst of current affairs, if I was considering using certain means at my disposal for the greater good.  I replied that yes, I do intend to do so in some form, since I want to be firing on all cylinders.  That is, I am trying to use every last means at my disposal to have a positive impact on the world right now, given the present state of the world.  

And so, as I have previously indicated, I protest.  However, I do not endorse the use of violence, whether in protests or otherwise.  I am greatly saddened and disturbed, and find unfortunate and distressing the resort to violence in protests this week as well as during protests in years past.  I believe that violence towards others is unjustified, even when we find what others say to be offensive.  If we become hateful, we become what we despise.  Then we become hate.  

In contrast, when we peacefully protest, we seek truth since we are objecting to injustice.  When we seek truth, we love.  To fulfill our duty to our neighbor, we protest and we also take other actions.  

If we care, we will act.  If we love our neighbor, we will take action.  We act, rising up out of contemplation to apply those contemplative fruits for the benefit of both ourselves and our neighbor.  

Most certainly we are to pray.  Aware that we are nothing without God, we are to pray with devoted faith, sure of His great love for us.  We are to petition Him to help us love each other here and now in this lifetime.  

As vital as prayer is, we do not fulfill our duty to God solely through prayer.  Faith without works is dead.*  If we have true faith, we will act to show our love for our neighbor.  

And if you truly love someone, you want to do all you can for that person.  You utilize all the means at your disposal to love that person.  

Since I love my neighbor, I seek truth, which I do when I peacefully protest, to object to injustices done.  I protest to cry out against people's rights being violated.  

In addition to peacefully protesting, I write to my representative in Congress and to my Senators.  If we do not voice our opinions on what policies trouble us, how can we complain if and when those policies are later implemented?  

If we do not do what we can when we can, later we will regret it.  If we do not act now, we lose the time to act, which is now.  

Saint Catherine of Siena has related to us that God told her that at the moment of death, our consciences will accuse us.  We will be faced with what we could have done, but did not do.  We must remember at that critical moment of our existence, that God has immense mercy.  At that crucial point in our existence, we must not despair.  We must call out to God and beg earnestly for mercy, for not having loved Him and our neighbor better than we did.  For we will fall short.  None of us can ever possibly do well enough to have no need of God's mercy.  All of us are sinners. 

I know God is merciful.  As Pope Francis has told us, the name of God is mercy.  God is merciful because God is love.**  God is infinitely merciful, because God is infinitely loving.  Insofar as God is infinitely loving, when we see God, we will be basking in a vast peace and a boundless joy which is infinitely beyond anything we have experienced or ever could experience in this life.  We cannot comprehend how amazing God is.  No one can see the face of God and live.***  When our souls pass out of our bodies, you can call it death, but it is truly eternal life if you are going to Heaven.  I know that what awaits there is remarkable beyond measure.  Therefore, I focus on what is coming.  

I am not saying that you should not worry because everything will be all right.  I am certain that dark times are ahead here on this earth.  You should not worry because you cannot change anything by worrying.  As Jesus asked us, can any of us add a single moment to our lives by worrying?****  So He told us, "Do not worry."*****  On any given day, do what you can.  Then rest.  Rest, and get the proper nourishment and sustenance you need, or else the journey will be too much for you.******  

Rest in a sure and certain peace.  I have a deep peace and an abiding calm in me.  I know what awaits me on the other side of death.  It is infinitely better than anything we can possibly imagine. 

I try to do everything I possibly can to try to help my fellow humans now in this world.  I aim to die as much as possible at peace with what I have done.  Then, at that moment of passing away, I will turn over to God whatever regrets I might have over having offended Him, and I will trust in His mercy.  I rest confident in the gift of this faith God has given to me; I rest secure in the sure hope of the promise of God's great mercy.  

* James 2:17 
** 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16  
*** Exodus 19:21, 33:20 
**** Matthew 6:27 
***** Matthew 6:31 
****** 1 Kings 19:7 

Wonders Far Beyond

For a few weeks now in my mind has been reverberating part of the Gospel reading from the Mass on Christmas Eve.  There we heard 

Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.  
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, 
but before they lived together, 
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.  
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, 
yet unwilling to expose her to shame, 
decided to divorce her quietly.  
Such was his intention when, behold, 
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 
“Joseph, son of David, 
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  
For it is through the Holy Spirit 
that this child has been conceived in her.  
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, 
because he will save his people from their sins.”  
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said 
through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 
and they shall name him Emmanuel, 
which means “God is with us.”  
When Joseph awoke, 
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him 
and took his wife into his home.  
He had no relations with her until she bore a son, 
and he named him Jesus.*   

Before Our Blessed Mother Mary and Saint Joseph lived together, he found out that she was pregnant.  Perhaps from his perspective he felt that what he had been expecting had been ruined.  Maybe he had been looking forward to a life of marriage with a devoted partner, and then was disappointed to discover that his wife was pregnant, seemingly by another man.  He very well may have felt that his hopes had been dashed and shattered.  

And so he planned to divorce her.  He decided to end his and Mary's marriage.  

Then God spoke.  When Joseph was about to act, in effect God stepped in front of Joseph.  God sent his angel to Joseph.  The angel explained to Joseph that all was not lost.  All was far from lost.  Rather, through this unexpected pregnancy God came to save all who otherwise would have been lost.  

Rather than all being lost, just the opposite was about to come true: all were about to be saved.  Instead of a pregnancy unmasking a betrayal of infidelity, Mary, in her obedient and submissive fidelity to the will of God, had humbly assented to the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit, and thus had come to be expecting a child.  The child in Mary had come to be through God Himself, through the Holy Spirit.  

When Joseph thought that all he had come to expect had been ruined, in fact it turned out that God had a plan which was immeasurably glorious.  God had a plan which was far better than anything that Joseph or anyone else could have conceived.  God Himself was going to pay the infinite debt we owe to Him.  As God explained to Saint Catherine of Siena, in committing sin, we offend God, who is infinitely good, and thus commit an infinite offense against Him, which none of us as finite beings could ever pay.  God was setting in motion a chain of events, with the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, which would lead to our redemption, through the suffering and death on the cross of His Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

When events seemingly take a turn for the worse in our lives, what do we think?  One friend of mine recently went through a painful breakup with someone who is now her ex.  When we part ways with someone, of course we feel pain.  We feel the pain of separation.  I do not mean to suggest that we should not feel sorrow at parting with others.  It is only human to feel sad when we part with others.  When there is a parting of the ways in our lives, whether it be through a breakup, or the passing away of someone we love, in that separation we naturally feel pain and sorrow. 

Yet we are also called to seek and find meaning in the pain we feel.  God is always seeking to teach us, to help us learn, so that we may grow.  God is always calling us back home to Him.  He seeks to help us get there in a variety of ways, through pleasure and joy, pain and sorrow, depending on the need of each of us at particular junctures in our lives, according to His infinite wisdom.  Are we open to learning what God wants us to learn, to become better people, to become more than we have been, to become who and what God has always intended us to be?  Do we trust God to lead us to the knowledge of who we are meant to become?  

To accept this invitation from God, we need to gain true self-knowledge.  We must realize that we are nothing, a fact that is true for every person alive: without God, each and every one of us is nothing.  In realizing our true identity, we simultaneously realize our actual identity in relation to God's true identity: none of us can reach God without His help.  

To reach this point of realizing who we really are, and how we must completely trust God and rely on Him, we are called to much humility.  We need to cast off the shackles of pride which separate us from God and from the plan He has for us which is far better than anything we can envision on our own.  

When events unfold in our lives which we were not expecting, which seem to us to be ruining our lives, do we think of our own plans?  I think right now too of another friend of mine who became homeless last week.  Literally he has not had a place to call home since then.  Yet since then he spent two days enjoying the generous hospitality of some thoughtful, kind and compassionate hosts in free accommodations with ocean views.  There he enjoyed complimentary food as well.  Having such blessings abundantly bestowed on him, perhaps he is seeing the beginnings of how God cares for us when we expect that all is lost.  

Do we think about how God not only can, but in fact does, plan steps for us which lead us in ways far better than we could ever imagine?  To admit and embrace how God can plan much better for us than we ever could, we are called to be humble.  When we allow ourselves to be humbled, God assists us.  God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.**  Selah.  I intentionally utilize that particular word, in that particular language, right now.  Selah, used in Scripture, means to meditate upon what has been said.  Again I say that God gives grace to the humble, which empowers those who are humble not only to survive, but, through the grace of God, to thrive in conditions which would otherwise break and crush the human soul.  Thus, for souls who are humble, such persons are positioned to be at their best in the midst of inordinately stressful trials.  

For someone who realizes that when life circumstances seem to be at their worst, the best can occur, such a person not only decides to endure severe and intense tribulations, but gladly welcomes them.  This kind of person is joyous in the midst of what many would view as horrible misfortune.  Such a person is grateful for such a fate, which many others would view as a sentence that one has been forsaken by God.  Such people rejoice at such a turn of events because in their sure faith in God, they totally trust in Him.  They know that God can do wonders far beyond what we could ever imagine in such circumstances.  Selah.  

* Matthew 1:18-25 
** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6