Hear And Keep

Those who hear God's Word and who do it are blessed.  Persons who accept what they are called to do in each and every moment are blessed.  We are reminded of these truths in today's Gospel, where we hear that 

It happened that as Jesus was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, "Blessed the womb that bore You and the breasts that fed You!"  But He replied, "More blessed still are those who hear The Word of God and keep it!"*  

As Saint Augustine has noted, Our Blessed Mother Mary is blessed moreso because she heard The Word of God and kept it, rather than just because she carried Jesus in Her womb.  Our Blessed Mother Mary assented to the will of God that she would conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit, and bear the Son whom she would name Jesus.  In response to the angel Gabriel informing her that this would come to pass, she declared to the angel Gabriel, "Let it happen to me as you have said."**  Our Blessed Mother Mary heard The Word she was to bear, and welcomed Him into her womb, and, more deeply, into her heart.  She was so blessed because she heard the will of God and acquiesced to it.  

In how she lived her life while she walked on this earth, Our Blessed Mother Mary gave us a hint of the message she would come back to give in her apparitions to Saint Jacinta, Saint Francisco, and Servant of God Lucia.  When she appeared to these peasant children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, she told them that we are called to pray much and make sacrifices, since many souls go to Hell since they have no one to pray for them.  Later Jesus told Lucia that the sacrifices demanded of each of us are the performance of the duties of our state in life.  

In our lives, we are constantly called to do our duties.  As the author of "The Cloud Of Unknowing" notes, we will be called to account for every fraction of time that has been given to us.  We are always being called to attend to the duty of the present moment, as the Jesuit priest Jean-Pierre de Caussade described.  In every little moment, we can make little sacrifices of love of our neighbor, as Saint Therese of Lisieux demonstrated.  

In each little instant of time, the duty of the present moment calls us to perform little acts of love for our neighbor.  Where each one of us happens to be, there we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, just as Jesus taught us to do.***  Wherever each of us finds ourselves, there we are to love others and thus do the will of God, just as the situation calls us to do.  

For Our Blessed Mother Mary, in the moment when the angel Gabriel announced to her that she would bear the Son whom she would name Jesus, her duty was to give her consent to bear the Son of God in her womb.  In accepting the duty presented to her, she accepted the Son of God not only into her womb, but also into her heart.  She heard The Word proclaimed to her, that she would bear Jesus, and she accepted This Word and carried The Word out.  She was so blessed since she heard The Word of God and submitted to it.  

Those who obey the will of God are blessed.  People who hear The Word of God, and who do what The Word calls them to do, are blessed.  If you wish to be blessed, do what the state of your life calls you to do.  Amen.  

* Luke 11:27-28 
** Luke 1:31-38 
*** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

Littleness Bears Fruit

This morning I looked out my window here at the Catholic Worker House and saw Jacqueline walking down the sidewalk.  She's a homeless woman who came here to the Catholic Worker House a few weeks ago.  

That night nearly a month ago, the doorbell rang.  When a Catholic Worker opened the door, there stood Jacqueline.  She explained that she was by herself.  And then, she added, as she burst into tears and started sobbing, that she didn't know where she was going to stay for the night.  

Although the Catholic Worker answering the door felt like she couldn't do anything to help, she figured she could at least try to calm Jacqueline.  She suggested to Jacqueline that she sit down on our front porch and take some time to rest.  She told Jacqueline that when another Catholic Worker got home in a little while, we could put our heads together to figure out how we could help her.  

Jacqueline sat down on the porch and began to eat something someone had given to her.  Later that evening, I went out to the porch to check on Jacqueline, but she was gone.  

A couple of days ago, when I was out and about here in Redwood City, I saw a woman walking through a parking lot.  Wanting to be friendly, I greeted her.  

She came over to me and her face lit up.  She revealed to me that she was the one who had been so distraught that night on the porch.  Somehow I hadn't recognized her.  Jacqueline expressed much appreciation and gratitude, saying that she had felt supported during her time in need by that Catholic Worker who had answered the door that night.  She updated me on her life, relating that since then, she has started living in a homeless shelter here in Redwood City.  She was beaming as she happily told me about how she is doing.  

Now Jacqueline is finding shelter and security.  That night a few weeks ago, it seemed she was inconsolable, yet in the midst of her trial, she was finding comfort and care: it had seemed that there was little or nothing that could be done to help, yet that Catholic Worker had been soothing her more than initially was apparent.  

There in the little scraps of time which that Catholic Worker had had with her, in the present moment with her, were tiny chances to perform little actions of love for her.  We can brush off opportunities to give little gifts of love to others, since in the duty of the present moment God might be calling us to such minuscule acts of love that we conclude such opportunities are too insignificant to bear substantial fruit.  

Yet in every little chance we get to love our neighbor as ourselves* as Jesus taught us, we are given a chance to plant a little mustard seed for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  If we seize every small chance we have to love our neighbor, if we plant every such tiny little seed of love, much fruit can result for the Kingdom of God.  

Jesus told us if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains.**  If we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we will have confidence in God's ability to bear much fruit through our little actions of love in each moment, in every tiny scrap of time.  If we have faith, we can value little fragments of time which "The Cloud of Unknowing" describes, and we can be more attentive to "The Sacrament of the Present Moment" as Jean-Pierre de Caussade urges, and can be well-positioned to perform little acts of love, as Saint Therese of Lisieux related.  

Little acts of love are like little grains of wheat: as long as they remain unused and unplanted, they have little value.  Just as little grains of wheat yield a harvest once they are planted, so it is that little loving actions only yield much spiritual fruit once they are actually carried out.  

Jesus told us that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single grain; yet if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.***  If we but die to the inaccurate assumptions we have about what God calls us to do in the present moment, and instead embrace the person standing in front of us, the microscopic seeds of our miniature acts can bear much fruit in the heart of our neighbor.  Having faith in this approach to life, we can let God move mountains through us, when it seems we are only picking up a grain of sand.  With faith, we become more comfortable with dying to our own ideas about what we are to do, and are freed up to love our neighbor in his time of need.  

When we love our neighbor in his time of need, his fear about surviving dies.  When we love our neighbor, we let God love our neighbor through us, and our neighbor is reassured that he is loved by God and by us, and is given the strength from God to carry onward.  When our neighbor lets the fear in her die, she can live to grow into the person God has always intended her to be; she can see who she is and what she is to do.  

Dying to his fear, our neighbor rises from the death that fear had caused.  Then when we see our neighbor risen from the dead, we do not recognize our neighbor.****  He has grown into the new person God has always intended him to be.  He is living out the new life God has meant for him to live.  We foster and nourish this new life when we die to our misconceptions of what we believe we are being called to do in the current moment.  

By embracing the duty of the present moment, to love our neighbor in every little instant of time, we realize that every small act of love for another can bear much fruit in the heart of that person.  By letting God love others through us, others have the love they need to become who God has always intended them to be.  

* Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
** Matthew 17:20; Matthew 21:21; Mark 11:23 
*** John 12:24 
**** Luke 24:16; John 21:4 

Gentle Little Tap

Today I was happy to cross paths with a particular homeless woman who here I'll call "Anna."  As I was talking with Anna next to the van I use, I opened the back two doors of the van to take something out.  The back doors of the van easily swing.  Even if there's just a little wind, the doors readily swish back and forth.  

At one point, when the back doors of the van were open, Anna was bent over, collecting some of her property which she had placed on the sidewalk.  She got a little distracted from the task at hand.  One of the doors turned toward her, hitting the end of the bill of her baseball cap she was wearing.  She acknowledged the gesture, remarking, "Yes, thank you, God."  

I was struck by how she seized the opportunity to show gratitude to God for a gentle little tap on the head.  It seemed especially touching how she thanked God for that tiny collision given how, she told me, she had spent much of today repeatedly crying.  Even amidst such intense pain she had been feeling, she found it in herself to give thanks always.*  

It is true it was just an insignificant slight bump on the head.  Perhaps one can see it as something to ignore and forget.  Yet, as Jean-Pierre de Caussade counsels us in "The Sacrament of the Present Moment," we are always being afforded opportunities to embrace how God is trying to reach out to us.  In every microscopic fraction of time, as "The Cloud of Unknowing" describes, we have chances to embrace the will of God.  

God speaks to us as we are able to hear.  God gives to us according to our capacity to receive.  God does not give us more than we can handle.**  God gives to us what we can manage, for in our dear Jesus, we do not have an unsympathetic mediator, but rather one who is most certainly sympathetic to us, since He was tested just as we are tested.***  Therefore, God meets us where we are, in the place in which we find ourselves.  Anna had wept much today, and so God gently and lovingly reached out to her and poked her playfully in the head.  

In this vein, when Anna thanked God, I noted, "Yes, Anna.  It's like God was just saying to you, 'Now, Anna, stay on task!'"  

* 1 Thessalonians 5:18 
** 1 Corinthians 10:13 
*** Hebrews 4:15 

Little Loving Present

This morning I picked up and dropped off food donations.  When I got home, I was happily surprised to see a few of our friends on our front porch.  

One of them, who I'll call "Betty" here, asked me for a pen and paper so she could exchange contact information with someone I'll call "Jane" here.  Someone I'll call "Christy" asked me for a bag so she could more easily carry the items she had just gotten for free that had been left on our front porch.  

When I had gotten what they had requested, I came back out onto the porch to give them the seemingly insignificant items they wanted.  First I gave a pen to Betty, along with a little pad ornately decorated with colorful flowers and sparkling designs, and told her she could keep it.  Then I said to Christy something like, "And much less impressively, here is this bag."  

Immediately Jane got up and came over to me.  She embraced me.  Right away I could tell she needed comfort.  I rested my head against hers and really tried to soothe her with calm and peace as we hugged.  

Before today I had already known that Jane was homeless.  However, after I saw Jane today, someone told me that all of her possessions had just been stolen.  She had nothing.  In the context of being bereft of all she had had, she was in dire need of tenderness and kindness.  She just needed someone to do merely what they were capable of doing, showing her love.  

We do these things in life we don't even consider.  We do little things we forget.  We don't even think about them, so we wouldn't even think that they matter even if we did think about them.  

Yet tiny little moments can be windows of opportunity for great love to be shown through us. If we open ourselves up to what is happening right in front of us, we can let God love others through us.  

In each tiny fragment of time, we can be present to our neighbor to perform little acts of love for each other.  In this vein, I have been wondering if anyone has ever written about the convergence and intersection of thought amongst "The Story of a Soul" by The Little Flower, that is Saint Therese of Lisieux, and "The Sacrament of the Present Moment" by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, and "The Cloud of Unknowing" by an anonymous medieval author.  

The anonymous author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" wrote of how we are responsible for even fractions of seconds.  Thus, even an instant, although it is so brief, holds much significance, since it holds the potential for great love to be expressed in it.  

Saint Therese of Lisieux wrote of how she would get to Heaven along her little way of serving her neighbor through little loving actions.  She saw her vocation as being one of love expressed in small gestures of love for others.  

The Jesuit priest Jean-Pierre de Caussade, in his book "The Sacrament of the Present Moment," explains that we find our duty to God in the present moment.  He explained that we serve God when we embrace what the present moment requires of us.  
If we are attentive to what the current moment presents to us, then in every microscopic moment, we can realize immense potential to love through seemingly insignificant little acts of charity towards others.  Jesus told us that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains.*  If love that is the size of a mustard seed is in our hearts, we can move mountains with this little love.  The mustard seed of our little loving act may bear much fruit in the heart of the person who receives the love of God that is being shown through us.  If we embrace the duty currently being presented to us, if we agree to love our neighbor** in little ways, even in fleeting instants, we can be witness to much love blooming in the hearts of others.  

Each of our little loving acts can be little flowers.  And from one little action of love, much love can be sown in the heart of another, just as from one little flower, much pollen can spread and germinate and bear much fruit.  

We can become convinced that some actions are insignificant.  How do we know this to be so?  We can assume some acts have no important impact.  How can we be sure this is so?  

Do we think that what we do makes no difference?  Maybe we think it makes no difference to us, but maybe it makes a big difference to someone else.  

* Matthew 17:20; Mark 11:23  
** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14