Song Of All

This day is a day on which workers are especially supported and encouraged.  Today in particular the common dream of bettering ourselves comes to the fore in a way it does not on other days.  

Today, the first day of May, has been known to many as May Day.  In 1886 workers organized in efforts to lead to a shorter work day.  In the course of those rallies and demonstrations, violence erupted between police and workers in an unfolding of events which has come to be known as the Haymarket Massacre.  In the outcry against that violence, workers became galvanized in solidarity with each other, such union still being expressed each year on May 1 in support of workers everywhere.  

Today is also the Feast Day of Saint Joseph the Worker.  In honor of Saint Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, Pope Pius XII established today as the Feast Day of Saint Joseph who worked as a carpenter as Jesus did.  

Saint Joseph is the patron saint of workers.  Thus workers pray and ask him to intercede with God for them.  

All workers may look to Saint Joseph for his assistance.  All workers are engaged in a universal struggle, despite their being individual workers.  Regardless of their individual identity, all workers have common aspirations.  All workers are involved in a shared endeavor.  Thus employees often join together in solidarity with each other.  

Thus workers have the right to form unions.  Pope Leo XIII affirmed this right in his papal encyclical entitled "Rerum Novarum," or "Of The New Things."  

Workers share a common dream.  They are aspiring toward the same goal.  

As human beings generally as well we have much in common with each other in our deepest longings.  We resonate in our hearts with each other.  

We find this similarity in general amongst each other's aspirations.  We also see this basic sameness and congruence of yearnings in how people feel about their homeland.  

I have seen this theme of the universality of love of one's country in the hymn entitled "This Is My Song."  In this hymn, I have also found the idea that the love of country that one person has can peacefully coexist with the love of country that another person has for a different country.  

In "This Is My Song," we hear 

This is my song, O God of all the nations, 

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.  

This is my home, the country where my heart is, 

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine.  

But other hearts in other lands are beating, 

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.  

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean, 

And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.  

But other lands have sunlight too, and clover, 

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.  

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations, 

A song of peace for their land and for mine.  

The lyrics of "This Is My Song" are set to the tune of the musical piece entitled "Finlandia," which was written by the composer Jan Sibelius.  Sibelius wrote Finlandia in the midst of the Finnish people feeling oppressed by the Russians.  The piece is evocative of the national struggle of the Finns for freedom.  Finlandia is electrically charged with a pent up sense of frustration and ardent craving to be liberated.  

I found the universality of this longing for personal freedom illustrated this evening in an unexpected way.  By my side was someone with whom I share a fundamental longing, despite the vastly different circumstances in which we have lived up until now.  

I am speaking of Samah, the Saudi Arabian guest we have been hosting for months here at the Catholic Worker House.  Tonight she too was at the performance of Finlandia which was being performed by my fellow Catholic Worker Susan and the rest of her musical band.  

However, I did not know that Samah was there at the performance tonight.  During intermission, an event organizer made an announcement that someone had left sunglasses in the lobby.  Next I saw someone raising her hand.  I did not recognize the person raising her hand and waving, even though it was Samah.  

I thought she was someone responding to the news of the lost glasses.  I thought she was saying she was the one who had lost her glasses.  I perceived her wave as responding to a call that perhaps she didn't even realize was being made.   

Later, in considering that moment of raising one's hand to get someone else's attention, and being mistakenly perceived as responding to a call, I recalled that pivotal scene in the film "North By Northwest."  Cary Grant's character happens to raise his hand to get someone's attention precisely at the moment when someone else's name is being called.  He gets confused with someone else, and from then on the rest of the film depicts the maelstrom of misfortune through which he is dragged, all because people think he is someone he is not.  

However, here, Samah has already been gravely mistaken for being someone she is not.  Someone has already tried to foist a false identity upon her.  

You see, she has been expected to marry a man she does not want to marry.  Others have their expectations of her, conceptions of her which, if followed, would subject her to a life of miserable slavery, trampling down who she has always been meant to be.  

In so doing, others have been turning her world upside down.  She has been subjected to a cyclone of trouble, all because others have tried to force her to be someone she is not.  She has been put through this hardship because they do not see her for who she is.  

And yet I too did not recognize her.  As she waved, she made a gesture as if to say, "Do you recognize me?  Do you see that our dreams are not so different?"  

We all seek to grow into that space that God has prepared for us.  Our work now, in this moment, is to live to our fullest potential in this life.  

We are to live out our lives as ourselves so that we may go to dwell in that space in Heaven that God has prepared for us.  Jesus told His disciples just as He tells us, "I go to prepare a place for you."*  

We all aim to throw off the societal shackles which bind us and keep us in the horrible prison which is created when we do not live as our true selves.  Although we may not consciously realize or acknowledge this truth, we all long to discard the false self which society has tricked us into believing is us.  

The Trappist monk Thomas Merton unmasked the cruel tendency of society to convince us into believing that each of us is to live as the false self that society expects us to be.  We are to believe that we need to buy unnecessary items, that we must listen to advertisements, that we must wear certain clothes.  In all this we are led to put on false personas.  Yet we all desire to be our true selves.  Each of us deeply craves to live out our lives as the true self we have always been meant to be.  

We all hunger to be ourselves.  We all thirst to live the life of love toward ourselves and toward others and toward God that we have always been meant to live.  

On our way, we are hungry because we are suffering from the malnourishment that results from not living as ourselves.  We suffer from the delusion that we are people other than ourselves.  We misperceive others to be people they are not.  When we pick up on these errors, then we are empowered to move past our incorrect assumptions about people and see them for who they are.  

Once I finally realized it was Samah who was waving, that she was waving at me to get my attention, and that she was inviting me over to her, I joined her.  I went and sat next to her.  

During intermission, we laughed at the failure to connect with each other during that moment when she was waving and I was oblivious.  As humans often we miss the message, even when we clearly see it right in front of us.  

Later, when the part of Finlandia was being played which serves as the tune of the hymn entitled "This Is My Song," my tear ducts opened.  As that part of Finlandia was being played, I began to weep.  

It was at that point that I realized that this is my song.  I saw that this song, which speaks of the irrepressible desire to live in true freedom, and thus grow into our true selves, is my song.  And in the very next instant, I thought of Samah.  I saw that this is her song too, that this is the song of the Saudi Arabian woman sitting next to me, even though she has lived a drastically different life from mine.  

This is the song of every human being.  Do we realize it?  Do we hear it?  Do we listen to it?  Do we follow it?  

Even when society tries to squelch this burning desire in our hearts to be free, it is an indefatigable longing in our hearts.  It cannot be repressed forever.  It yearns to burst forth, to get out and be free.   

It is this irrepressible bottled up vitality, of our true life within us, screaming to be fully released and honestly expressed, which is gradually boiling up within us, threatening to burst forth.  Here is an energy which is revolutionary.  This desire revolts against repressive societal expectations which make unreasonable demands upon it, ridiculously expecting it to be untrue to itself.  This pent up life force is volatile; it will not stand for being bottled up.  It is incendiary, threatening to explode if it is not released.  This energy of the true life within us is easily powerful enough to obliterate the false conceptions of ourselves that society has foisted upon us.  

This truth of who we truly are is so charged that it is far more than powerful enough to set us free.  We do indeed share this common desire to better ourselves, to join together, to express ourselves constructively through our work, so may become what we have always been meant to be.  It is this deep yearning that is part of what forges a common bond among people from vastly different backgrounds.  

This is your dream.  This is my dream too.  

Let us support each other in our dreams to be ourselves.  In how we follow our dreams, through being our truest selves, we implicitly encourage others to do likewise.  

This way we can truly love ourselves.  This way we can be empowered to truly love each other as we love ourselves.**  

This way, by being ourselves, by being who we have always been meant to be, by being who God created us to be, by consenting to God's will for us, we are pleasing to God.  Through this way we can enter into the place He has prepared for us.  Amen.  

* John 14:2 

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

Obediently Trusting God

Do we have ears to hear?  If we have ears to hear, let us use them to listen.*  If we listen, do we understand?  If we have the good sense to do our best to try to comprehend what is being told to us, let us do our best to fathom that God wants to meet us in bottomless depths, and that God wants to raise us to great heights, if we are but willing to allow ourselves to be humbled.**    

Let us not fear, but trust in God, remembering that God holds us in the palm of His hand, and that He has unimaginably fantastic rewards in store for us.  If we but open our eyes and use them to see, we will recognize the magnificent wonders that God has already shown us.  Thus we will be led to open our hearts to welcome all the marvels which God wishes to work through us and otherwise in our little lives.  He wishes that we give our consent to welcome His will, so that our souls may flourish like tiny mustard seeds, just as the Kingdom of God is sprouting from a mustard seed into an immense bush which will provide much shelter,*** comfort and repose for ourselves and others, and ultimately bringing us into peace and joy in his loving embrace.  

And so it was when the angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit and give birth to Jesus.  Thus yesterday in our celebration of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, we heard that 

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin's name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end."
But Mary said to the angel,
"How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?"
And the angel said to her in reply,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God."
Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."
Then the angel departed from her.****  

The angel Gabriel arrived and greeted Mary.  He acknowledged her as being full of grace, that God was with her.  Mary was troubled at this greeting; she wondered what type of salutation the angel could be offering to her.  

God is always wanting to talk with us.  God speaks to us.  Yet we don't understand what God is saying to us.  

The angel told Mary not to be afraid.  The angel assured her that she had found favor with God, so she had no reason to fear.  

When God speaks to us, how do we feel?  Do we worry when God addresses us?  Do we fear when God talks with us?  

In the midst of stressful circumstances in our lives, how do we react?  Do we panic?  Do we trust in God, or do we succumb to fear?  

When we fear, what does God have in store for us?  In times when we are scared of what is going to happen in our lives, is God trying to give us something we don't expect? 

The angel told Mary that she was going to conceive and bear a son, and that she must name Him Jesus, since He would save people from their sins.  Accordingly, He would be great.  He would not only sit upon the throne of His ancestor King David, but He would rule forever.  She was told that His Kingdom will have no end.  

When we are terrified, we must remember that God operates on a much grander scale than we do.  When we tremble, we must keep in mind that God holds us in the palm of His hand.   

When the angel told Mary that she was to give birth to Jesus, she asked, "How can this be?"  She so inquired because she had not had relations with a man.  

God works wonders.  We wonder how God works.  God unravels marvels in front of us.  We marvel at what transpires before us.  We wonder how all these wonders take place.  

The angel explained to Mary that the Holy Spirit would come upon her.  The angel revealed to her that God's power would overshadow her.  

We cannot see how God works through us.  We do not realize how God works wonders in our lives.  Through His mighty spirit, God transforms us, those around us and our lives.  God is infinitely greater than we are, and so God can transfigure us in ways and to extents we could never do without Him.  God reminds us of His great power to work amazing changes in us.  

The angel reminded Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had conceived in her old age.  People had called Elizabeth barren and unable to have a child, just as Sarah was thought to be unable to bear a child to Abraham since she too was elderly.  Yet angels also brought the glad tidings to Abraham and Sarah that soon they would have a son.*****  Thus the angel reminded Mary that nothing is impossible for God.******   

We are to look at what we have already seen.  We must look at the wonders which have already been shown to us.  In recalling these magnificent deeds God has already done for us, we are strengthened in our faith, and are emboldened in our quest to do His will.  

We have already seen the evidence of God's great power and His abounding love for us.  What more proof do we need of what He can do for us?  What more do we need to see to realize that He boundlessly loves us?  

In short, we are presented with a question which forces us to choose between fear and trust.  Do we trust God?  Do we believe that God wants to do great things for us?  

If we believe, then let us say with Mary that we too are servants of the Lord.  Trusting in God, let us say, "God, may it be done to me as you have said."  

How do we get to a point of such utter submissive abandonment, trusting in God so completely that we are totally obedient to God's will?  We use our ears to hear what God is saying to us.  If we remain silent and sit still, in solitude, we can listen to what God wants to tell us.  We look at the wonders God works around us.  We ponder these things in our hearts.*******  We open our hearts, and allow these marvels to permeate our souls and transform us.  Being attentive to the remarkable feats God performs in our lives, then we realize that we cannot rely on ourselves, and that we must depend on God.  When we allow ourselves to be humbled, then God will raise us up.  Then when we assent to His will, and agree to die to ourselves, then, being grains falling into the ground and dying, He will reap a rich harvest through us.********  Sure of this comfort, we rest secure in peace, and approach the joy that comes in eternal life.  Looking forward to this eternal bliss, we gladly offer our consent to our loving God.   

Thus confident that God will work wonders through us to His praise and glory and honor, let us courageously proclaim in bold prayer, "God, do what you want with me.  Here I am, ready to do Your will."   

* Matthew 11:15 
** Matthew 23:11-12; Matthew 20:26; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14 
*** Matthew 13:32; Mark 4:31-32; Luke 13:19 
**** Luke 1:26-38 
***** Genesis 17:16, 19, 21; Genesis 18:14 
****** Genesis 18:14; Luke 1:37 
******* Luke 2:19 
******** John 12:24 

Abandoning Our Plans

We do not see what we are offered.  We are standing inside of a grand tale.  It is much larger than we are.  We cannot see how we fit into it.  We cannot even see where we are in it.  And yet we propose to determine our own place in this great drama.  However, the Master Storyteller knows and assigns the role each one of us is to play.  He will tell us, in the midst of our discernment, if we only ask Him.  We will hear Him if we merely listen.  When He tells us, we must choose if we accept the role he offers us.  In this decision, we determine our own destiny, which is inextricably interwoven with that of others.  

So Joseph, the husband of Mary the Mother of Jesus, had to decide.  Earlier this week, when we celebrated the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, we heard in the Gospel reading of the day 

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."  
When Joseph awoke, 
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him 
and took his wife into his home.*  

In how he began to relate how the birth of Jesus came to be, it is as if Saint Matthew was saying, "Let me tell you the full story."  Within this story, Saint Joseph had an idea of what he was going to do.  It was his own scheme.  It was not God's plan.  

In our lives, we are living a story larger than we realize.  We have our own plans.  Are our limited conceptions the same as God's boundless immensity?  

Our minds are finite; God is infinite.  God can, and wants to, and does devise and execute plans far greater than what we can ever possibly envision.  

Joseph and Mary were betrothed.  They were engaged to each other.  They were not living together.  She became pregnant.  

When we have committed to a course of action, sometimes does something unexpected happen?  How do we react?  

After Joseph learns that Mary is expecting a child, he devises his strategy.  He is going to divorce her, but quietly, because he doesn't want to disgrace her.  

We come up with our own approach to what unfolds in our lives.  Are we trying to stray from where God wants to lead us?  

God told Joseph that He had intended that Mary had come to be with the child within her.  Through His angel, God told Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary his wife into his home.  He explained to Joseph that the child had been conceived in her through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Joseph was to name Him Jesus, since he was destined to save people from their sins.  
Do we trust God when God tells us not to fear?  Do we rest secure in God?  Do we welcome how the Holy Spirit seeks to work in our lives?  

God seeks to give us gifts.  If humans, as evil as we choose to be, know how to give our children good things, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?**  God wants the best for us.  God wants such good for us, and so loves us that God sent His Son, Jesus, the Messiah, to save us from our sins.***  

If we abandon our own plans, then we can welcome what God has store for us.  If we empty ourselves, then we can be filled with what God wants to give to us.  

This week I've heard from both Larry and Susan, my fellow Catholic Workers here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House, that when one is discerning one's calling, one does well if one is indifferent.  That is, if you are detached from all vocational possibilities, then you can dispassionately evaluate the courses of action which rest in front of you.  When you're unattached to any particular choice, then your mind is clear enough to be well-disposed to hear and listen to what God is trying to tell you.  

If we stop clinging to our ideas about where we think we are supposed to be, and what we think we are supposed to do, then we are turning onto the road of objectivity.  When we let go, and stop trying to demonstrate our strength, instead admitting we do not know, allowing ourselves to be humbled, then we are given the strength we need.  Then we are able to discern well-reasoned, wise decisions.  

Saint Joseph gave up his plan, which he had formulated without understanding where he stood in God's master plan.  After he had been told what he was to do, he let go of the idea he had had to divorce his wife Mary.  Joseph did as he was told.  Once the angel had told him to take Mary his wife into his home, he did so.  Upon being told to accept Mary as his wife, he offered his own fiat.  He awoke and proclaimed through his actions that it should be done to him as he had been told by the angel.****  

For his obedient submission to the will of God, Saint Joseph was rewarded.  For his acquiescence to the will of God, Saint Joseph became the foster father of the Savior of Humanity, inextricably and intimately linking his destiny with that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  

Do we cling to our own ideas?  Will we open our hands and let go of our own plans?  If we merely unclench our fists, then we are able to open them to what God wants to hand us.  In what God wants to give to us, we will receive what is far better than anything we can even imagine.  

We do not see what we have been promised, for we cannot see it this side of eternity.  As Saint Paul wrote, we fix our hope on what is not seen.*****  Yet as Saint Paul also wrote, we strive toward this goal.******  We are able to make this progress since The Way we follow is illuminated by the light of faith, as Pope Francis has told us.  And so we are encouraged as we move forward, knowing that we are bound in love as part of a communion of brothers and sisters stretching out over centuries.  We are inspired by the examples of faith our brothers and sisters have provided to us over the centuries.  Encouraged by their witness, we are confident that we too can hear and listen to how God is also calling us to abandon our own plans and turn to Him so we can be who and what He has always intended each of us to be.  

* Matthew 1:1-18, 24 
** Luke 11:13 
*** John 3:16 
**** Luke 1:38 
***** 2 Corinthians 4:18 
****** Philippians 3:14 

Fear Not Foreigners

Today we are faced with a fundamental choice: do we fear, or do we love?  Do we close our hearts to those in need, or do we open our hearts and our doors to people desperate for help?  

We face this choice each and every day.  At times this choice is brought into sharp relief by what is happening in our world.  

We have been encountering this tension since before we can remember our history as humans.  Two millenia ago, Jesus and His disciples were subjected to exclusion because people feared them as strangers.  In today's Gospel reading, we hear that 

Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea, 
to the territory of the Gerasenes.  
When he got out of the boat, 
at once a man from the tombs 
who had an unclean spirit met him.  
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains, 
but the chains had been pulled apart by him 
and the shackles smashed, 
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides 
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.  
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, 
he ran up and prostrated himself before him, 
crying out in a loud voice, 
"What have you to do with me, 
Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!"  
(He had been saying to him, 
"Unclean spirit, come out of the man!")  
He asked him, "What is your name?"  
He replied, "Legion is my name. There are many of us."  
And he pleaded earnestly with him 
not to drive them away from that territory.  

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.  
And they pleaded with him, 
"Send us into the swine. Let us enter them."  
And he let them, 
and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.  
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank 
into the sea, 
where they were drowned.  
The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town 
and throughout the countryside.  
And people came out to see what had happened.  
As they approached Jesus, 
they caught sight of the man 
who had been possessed by Legion, 
sitting there clothed and in his right mind.  
And they were seized with fear.  
Those who witnessed the incident 
explained to them what had happened 
to the possessed man and to the swine.  
Then they began to beg him to leave their district.  
As he was getting into the boat, 
the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.  
But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead, 
"Go home to your family and announce to them 
all that the Lord in his pity has done for you." 
Then the man went off 
and began to proclaim in the Decapolis 
what Jesus had done for him; 
and all were amazed.*  

Today I heard a brief sermon on this Gospel passage which provided new insight about it to me.  This morning here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House, as we usually do on Monday mornings, we gathered with each other and with other Catholic Workers from around the San Francisco Bay Area.  After updating each other about our lives, we moved into the living room for our liturgy together.  Our dear friend Steve, who is a Jesuit priest, presided at our house Mass here.  In his brief sermon, Steve explained to us that in these verses, Jesus and His disciples had traveled out of Jewish territory.  During this story, they were strangers to the people they met.  

The residents of that area asked them to leave.  We are told that they were afraid when they saw the man who had been possessed by a demon, who used to scream and bruise himself with rocks, now sitting in his right mind.  

Why did they ask Jesus and His disciples to leave?  Jesus and His disciples were strangers to them.  Jesus had just performed a miracle, expelling a demon out of a man who had been hitherto known for his screaming and bruising himself with stones.  The people living in that area could not understand how this man had just been miraculously transformed from being a madman into a mentally stable, sane person.  

People fear what they do not understand.  People fear what and who they do not know.  People fear the stranger.  People fear someone else they haven't gotten to know, when they haven't spent time with that person.  

We make judgments about people based on little or no information.  We fear people when we know nothing about them.   

If we're busy fearing someone, we are closing our hearts to them.  If we fear our neighbor, we are closing our hearts also to God, for we are closing ourselves off from the love which God wishes to shower upon us through our neighbor.  If we fear our neighbor, we cannot open our hearts to be able to love our neighbor.  

In love there is no room for fear, for perfect love drives out fear.**  When we purely love, we do not fear the person in front of us.  If we purely love, we do not fear what might happen through our decision to love.  When we perfectly love, we simply extend the love which is needed by the person in front of us.  

Unfortunately people are often motivated by fear to exclude others they do not know, have never or barely met, and who they do not understand.  As the mayor of Philadelphia recently described, at the airport there this weekend, officials detained and then turned away Syrian refugees.  He related that by all accounts they had waited to obtain months to obtain the proper documentation to be able to legally enter the U.S.  He added that they were being sent back to a war-ravaged nation.  They will be endangered for various reasons.  

Jesus was similarly endangered.  When Jesus was a baby, He and Saint Joseph and Our Blessed Mother Mary were refugees.  They fled from their home country to Egypt.***  As if these details of their flight into Egypt were not enough to make us recognize Jesus in refugees among us, Jesus has told us that whatever we do to the least of those among us, we do to Him.****  Jesus has explained to us that when we fail to welcome the stranger, we reject Him.*****  When we turn away refugees, we refuse to welcome Jesus.  

When we fear what might happen to us from loving someone else, we cannot love that other person.  When we fear, we wall ourselves off from love.  In fearing our neighbor, we close ourselves off from what we might learn from our neighbor.  By fearing our neighbor, we refuse to learn from our neighbor.  

I have learned in my own life that we have much to learn from people of foreign cultures.  When I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, I enjoyed the gracious hospitality of  Moroccans who were Muslim.  I had never before been offered such generous hospitality by anyone in the United States.  

Which of us living here in the United States would invite a stranger into our home to share lunch with us?  Many foreigners who visit Morocco receive exactly such a welcome.  After being treated to such a meal by Moroccans they have just met, guests are often told by their Moroccan hosts that if they would like to lay down, and even nap, they may do so.  Which of us here in the states would extend such hospitality to someone we had just met?  

While I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, another Peace Corps Volunteer asked me how my life would be different once I returned to the states.  I replied that I was looking forward to extending hospitality to others.  And so I was influenced in my decision to enter a reformed Benedictine monastic community, since Benedictine monks offer hospitality to visitors.  I was influenced in my decision to enter monastic life at the hermitage in Big Sur because Moroccans had implicitly encouraged me to extend hospitality to others through their own shining examples.  

Similarly, I was influenced in my decision to become a Catholic Worker, practicing hospitality, and reaching out to those who are homeless, because Moroccans had shown me the importance of providing hospitality.  They had provided me outstanding examples of how to extend hospitality to others.  

I learned how to extend hospitality from Moroccans, who are Muslim.  To exclude all people of certain religions, or of particular nations, as is current practice, is to wall ourselves off from what they have to teach us.  If we refuse to welcome entire groups of people, we refuse many opportunities to love, to learn and to grow.  If we reject whole groups of people, we reject Jesus many times.  If we refuse to welcome refugees, we reject Jesus in our actions, regardless of whether we claim to be compassionate toward refugees.  

We choose everyday whether or not we will welcome the stranger.  We decide each day if we will open our hearts to love our neighbor or if out of fear we will close ourselves off to our neighbor.  We must always be deciding whether we will choose to learn from our neighbor and grow as loving human beings, or if we will choose to exclude our neighbor and refuse to be taught by him or her.  

If we have humility, we will want to learn from our neighbor.  We will realize that even though someone is different from us, we can learn from that person.  

If we have humility, we will embrace opportunities to learn, and thus grow, and thus love better.  If we are not humble, we will reject chances to learn from our neighbor, walling ourselves off from how God seeks to teach us through our neighbor.  

Always we are presented with these choices on our spiritual path.  Everyday we must choose between love and fear.  

* Mark 5:1-20 
** 1 John 4:18 
*** Matthew 2:13-15 
**** Matthew 25:40 
***** Matthew 25:43 

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