Listen To Echoes

The truth of who we are echoes over our lives.  The persistent emergence of our identity resounds in our souls, a message which, in its recurrence, repeatedly encourages us to stay true to who God faithfully calls us to be, and to evermore become.  

During my present stay here at the hermitage, I have been witnessing how my life continues to unfold consistently in ways which reinforce how God calls me to be who He has always meant me to be.  In the midst of this stay here, I hear my life echoing who I am.  

These few days of retreat seem like they can be taken as a tiny version of the year and a half I lived here.  In the ebb and flow of my emotions now, and in the present stirrings in my soul, and in the current movements of the Holy Spirit within me, I am reminded of similar interior shifts when I resided here.  

Much like when I moved in a few years ago to live here, similarly a couple of nights ago I was filled with joy and excitement at the prospect of basking in the stillness and silence and solitude here, so conducive to prayer and meditation.  Upon both arrivals, I deeply breathed in this contemplative atmosphere.  

Both three years ago and two days ago, I calmed down soon after arriving.  I began to take stock of who I am, namely someone with monastic tendencies, yet also with great love of those who are poor.  Then I came to see myself, and now I view myself, as a servant of those who are impoverished, and as having an inner monk I am to nourish through spiritual disciplines I can follow even in the midst of whatever activity occupies me.  

I practiced such attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit amidst busy days while I still lived here.  After I had lived here for about half a year, I started driving monks who couldn't drive, usually to their doctor appointments.  Today, about halfway through this visit, I drove to Carmel and picked up a monk; he was on his way back from monastic business with other Camaldolese monks in Italy.  After meeting him in Carmel, I brought him back here to the hermitage.  

As I progressed in my residence here, I concluded that it didn't seem that God was calling me to become a monk here, but that God had been calling me to be here so I could deepen my prayer life.  Similarly, while I have been deeply nourished during the last couple of days here, it seems clear to me that I am to ponder in my heart, as our Blessed Mother Mary did.*  I feel I am to retain and treasure what has so nurtured me and allow it to guide me and to empower me and to light my path** as I strive to serve my neighbors, many of whom are poor.  As the Trappist monk Thomas Merton noted, we are to bring the contemplative treasures we have been given and share those spiritual fruits out in the world.  We are to share with others the great love which God has bestowed upon us.  

To properly serve, we must show great love.  If we empty ourselves, God can fill us with His love.  Nourished by the presence of Jesus, especially felt in stillness and silence and solitude, we can help others to feel the presence of Jesus.  If we remain in Jesus, and Jesus in us,*** we can bear much fruit in His name; conversely, without Him, we can do nothing.****  If we are filled with the love of God,***** we can recognize Jesus in those who are the least among us,****** and we can welcome Jesus into our hearts.  

When we welcome Jesus into our hearts, we hear and welcome The Word which God has been speaking in eternity.  The Word, the love of God, has been echoing for all eternity.  We hear this echo calling to us in the depths of our souls.  When we hear, and listen to, and respond with open hearts to this repeating invitation, we become who God has always intended us to be.  

* Luke 2:19 
** Psalm 119:105 
*** John 15:4,5,6,7,9,10 
**** John 15:5 
***** Romans 5:5 
****** Matthew 25:40,45 

Emptying Ourselves Completely

Today is the feast day of Saint Romuald.  Today in the Catholic Church we commemorate the life of this saint who lived in the tenth and the eleventh centuries and who reformed Benedictine monasteries.  In time, his reforms were seen to have formed a new religious congregation of monks who came to be known as Camaldolese, named after their head monastery called Camaldoli, which is in Italy.  

After spending a year and a half living at New Camaldoli Hermitage on the Big Sur coast of California, I grew quite fond of the monks there, as well as the folks who work there too.  While I lived there, I came to realize better how and why we can be nourished deeply in the recesses of our souls by the spiritual disciplines of solitude, silence, prayer and meditation.  There in a dwelling space called a monastic cell, a monk lives as a solitary, assisted by these monastic spiritual practices as he strives to respond to God's call.  These spiritual disciplines position us so that, in opening our hearts to God, we consent to God loving our neighbor through us.  

I was significantly guided in my pursuit of these spiritual practices by the Rule of Saint Romuald.  He wrote it as a brief directive for men who came to monasteries to commune with God.  In his little rule, Saint Romuald counsels 

Sit in your cell as in Paradise.  Put the whole world behind you and forget it.  Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish.  The path you must follow is in the Psalms--never leave it.  

If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind.  

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.  

Realize above all that you are in God's presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.  

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.  

The Rule of Saint Romuald resonates with how I have sought to orient my life over the last half dozen years.  I do my best to take time to retreat and forget about the world for a time so as to be recollected in my soul.  I have also aimed to forget the false notions the world gives me.  I have been aspiring to forget the false self that the world has tried to convince me I am, as the Trappist monk Thomas Merton describes.  We can choose to reject the empty promises the world makes, vainly suggesting that we always need to be buying and possessing certain items in order to remain relevant in today's ever-changing material world.  Rather than consume our energies on fruitless pursuits, we can direct our focus elsewhere.  In still silent solitude, we are better positioned to listen to God so we can ever more discover our true selves.  

This rule directs us to take every opportunity we can to sing the Psalms in our hearts.  Insofar as we are to pray always,* again the Rule confirms my inclinations.  So often I find myself mindlessly wasting precious time on trivial concerns which ultimately do not matter.  Rather than burn up our energy on matters which are truly unimportant, instead we can strive to orient our hearts toward God in every instant.  

In his rule, Saint Romuald advises us not to feel discouraged when our minds wander from words of wisdom, which they certainly will.  Rather, we are once again to apply ourselves to The Word in front of us.  So often I find my mind straying off course.  Thus I so appreciate Saint Romuald's gentle encouragement, as a reminder to remain on course.  We should not feel downtrodden when we fall, since most certainly we shall fall; we must remain resolute and we must once again rise once we have fallen.  

Saint Romuald reminds us that we are in God's presence.  Jesus is with us always.**  We are to stand before God like a person standing before an emperor.  Seeing ourselves for what we truly are, nothing without the help of God, we are humbled.  Having been humbled, we are well-situated for God to work through the Holy Spirit in us.  

Realizing that we are nothing without the aid of God, we can empty ourselves.  Knowing that we can do nothing without God, we can wait for God to transform us.  Upon being humbled, we can receive the grace and strength from God we need, for God gives grace to the humble.***  

Seeing our true place, and humbled by the reality that we can do nothing without God, we can then open our hearts to God.  If we are silent and wait patiently upon God, we can be nourished by the presence of Jesus.  Our Lord Jesus empowers us to do the will of our Heavenly Father.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.****

By the grace of God, we can come to do what by human standards seems impossible.  For humans, to love like God loves is impossible.  For God, nothing is impossible.*****  

Through the grace of God, we become able to give to everyone who asks,****** as Jesus instructs us to do in today's Gospel reading.  Having sought the tender, warm, loving touch of Jesus in silence, stillness and solitude, we become empowered through the gentle strength of His presence to convey His love to others.  By opening our hearts to God, we welcome God into our hearts, so that Jesus abides in us,******* and loves others through us.  Opening our hearts to God, we allow God to love others through us.********  We can thus let the love of God be shown through us.  Let us let God love others through us.  Amen.  

* 1 Thessalonians 5:17 
** Matthew 28:20 
*** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6 
**** Philippians 4:13 
***** Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37 
****** Matthew 5:42 
******* John 15:9 
******** Romans 5:5 

Peace Through Us

Jesus tells us first and foremost to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  He tells us second to love our neighbor as ourselves.*  

In these two most important commandments, Jesus directs us to love.  We are to let love flow out of us to God and to our neighbor.  God asks us to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, to help us to love Him.**  God asks us to consent to Him loving our neighbor through us.  

To love God, I must also love my neighbor.  Anyone who claims to love God but hates his or her neighbor is a liar.***  

To love my neighbor, I must not judge my neighbor.****  If I am judging my neighbor, there is no room in my heart to love my neighbor.   

We judge persons when we see what we do not like in them.  When I encounter thoughts, words and actions I dislike, I am to despise them in myself.  I am to be outraged at the appalling tendencies I notice in myself.  

I believe that the path to salvation is paved with despising my own horrible tendencies and begging God to forgive me out of His great mercy. We receive the infinite gift of God's immense mercy when we turn to look at ourselves, acknowledge our own sinfulness, and implore His mercy.  

Since I prefer to direct my energies toward how I need to improve, rather than on where other people might need to change, last week I made a choice reflecting this aspiration I have.  As I have previously mentioned, Catholic Workers regularly protest outside the facilities of a manufacturer of armaments here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Last week I was asked to choose the short writings we would read before and after our protest.  

In line with the sentiments I have expressed about trying to focus on how I need to improve, for our brief reading just before the protest, I selected a composition in which the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote 

Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all.  And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.  If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed--but hate these things in yourself, not in another.  

I strive to love my neighbor, though often I find it challenging, and although often I fail.  We love our neighbor by taking an honest look at ourselves and how we need to improve so we can better love our neighbor.  

Thus I prefer to focus on what I need to do to treat people better than I do.  To help work for peace, we can examine our own thoughts, words and actions.  As Gandhi suggested, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."  

Herein rests the reason why I don't protest more than I do and why I don't write about protesting more than I do.  While I find it important to speak out against injustice, I strongly contend that it is far more appropriate to try to improve myself than it is to point out why others are inappropriately acting. Since I wish to witness to peace, I want God to bring about peace through me.  For God to bring about peace through me, I must open my heart to God so He can transform me and thus create peace in the world, right now, in this very moment.  

Consequently, for our short reading together immediately after the protest, I selected the prayer commonly attributed to Saint Francis, which beseeches God 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.  

We can agree to God's plan to be channels of His peace.  We can consent to God bringing peace to the world through us.  

In every little fragment of time, in the present moment God is always extending His hand to us, inviting us to open our hearts to Him.  He is requesting that we assent to His will and open our hearts to Him, and love Him, so that He may enter into our hearts and love our neighbor through us, and thus bring peace into the world through us.  Let us open our hearts to God so He may abide in us,***** love through us and bring us peace.  Amen.  

* Matthew 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:5; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
** Romans 5:5 
*** 1 John 4:20 
**** Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37 
***** John 15:7 

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 

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 

Loving Through Humility

We find true, lasting, limitless power in love.  Those who serve become great.  However, if we raise ourselves above others, we will be lowered.  Yet if we lower ourselves, we will be raised up.  As we bow before others, we are empowered to lift others up.  Thus, if we are humble, we will love our neighbor as ourselves.*  

And so in today's Gospel reading, we hear that Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying 

The greatest among you must be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.**  

The greatest one among us has served us, and has served us better than anyone else.  Jesus came to serve.***  He taught us The Word in all He said and did, and thus in His great love for us, He showed us that He is The Way, The Truth and The Life.****  He has loved us so much that He was obedient even unto death, death on a cross,***** so that we would be saved from our sins.  

If we too wish to be great, then we too must serve.  A servant is not greater than his master.******  We should not expect to be greater than Jesus.  When hardship befalls us, we should remember that we too are expected to suffer, just as Jesus suffered and died for us.  We are to die to ourselves so we can live for our neighbor, just as Jesus died for us.  

Essentially, we are called to consent to being humbled, just as Jesus gave His assent to His Heavenly Father humbling Him.  We are called to humility.  

Here we are not presented with easy work.  Our egos tend to get in the way.  I am reminded of an interaction someone related to me.  A young woman I know very well described how she was standing in a busy cafe.  A middle-aged woman who appeared impoverished was also standing at the counter in the process of ordering an item.  This older woman kept glancing nervously at a shopping cart loaded with personal items, which was stationed just outside the cafe.  The young woman gestured to the older woman and the merchandise she wanted.  The younger woman altruistically offered, "I'll get that for you."  

The older woman immediately and indignantly rebuffed the younger woman's generous offer, scoffing, "Oh, no, you won't!"  The younger woman was surprised and silently backed away.  The older woman seemed like she was too proud to accept help from someone else.  

Yet if we raise ourselves up, sooner or later we will be humbled.  At some point we will realize that we need others to help us.  The twentieth century Trappist monk Thomas Merton pointed out that "no man is an island."  If we isolate ourselves, we cannot survive.  

Yet if we acknowledge our weakness, we embrace the reality of our own humanity.  When we admit that we need others, we see the true nature of being human.  Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche residential communities for intellectually disabled persons, has noted, "If we deny our weakness and the reality of death, if we want to be strong and powerful always, we deny a part of our being, we live an illusion...  To be human is to be bonded together, each with our weaknesses and strengths, because we need each other.  

When we admit our needs, we are humble, since we are seeing ourselves as we really are.  If we acknowledge that we must rely on each other, we touch the reality of life.  

Otherwise we are destined for disaster, to have no peace.  Saint Teresa of Calcutta has explained, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."  When we proudly insist on being completely independent of all others, we are setting ourselves up for ruin.  

However, we are set and ready to aid others if we but humble ourselves.  We witness this truth in the lives of many saints over the course of millenia.  Saint Anthony of Egypt, a great saint who was considerably sanctified during his life on earth in the third and fourth centuries, saw in a revelation numerous spiritual snares laid out in front of him.  It seemed that no matter where he would step, he was going to get caught and fall.  He prayed to God, asking Him what could possibly get him through such treacherous terrain.  He was told that with humility, he could successfully traverse such hazardous spiritual landscape.  

Saint Anthony lived for decades as a monk in the Egyptian desert.  He survived on what people brought to him.  Upon his consenting to his being so humbled, God greatly blessed Saint Anthony.  Through him God healed those who came to him.  

Once Saint Anthony had given his assent to being humbled, in effect he had agreed to let God use him as an instrument to heal others in the world, to kindle others' faith in God.  When a person, such as Saint Anthony, or like our Blessed Mother Mary, obediently acquiesces and submits to the will of God, God will utilize that person, helping others through her, since she has become an appropriate vehicle for positive change in the world due to her humility.  

At the time we may view humbling circumstances as embarrassing and demoralizing, but if we have faith in God, in time we come to realize that God will work wonders through such apparent misfortune.  Through our hardships we can come to better understand the difficulties others suffer, and thus we can become better equipped to help them.  

Thus the fifteenth century monk and priest Thomas a Kempis wrote that 

It often happens that after great consolation there comes profound desolation, or troublesome temptation, or bodily unease, or aggravation on the part of men, or loss of friends, or attacks of the enemy, or disturbance of soul, or derision from children or reproof from elders, or harsh correction by superiors.  All these are designed to humble the pride in our hearts, so that we might have compassion on those who are ill as well as on those who are tempted and troubled.  

When calamity strikes, understandably we feel overwhelmed.  However, we are not offered pointless agony when we encounter catastrophes.  If we look by the light of faith, that light by which God seeks to illumine the path before us, we can see that a deeper meaning rests below the surface of the apparent misfortune which has befallen us.  

In the midst of the adversity we face, and the greater understanding we are being given of others' suffering, we are being trained to comprehend others' plight, we are being led to be more compassionate, and thus to better love our neighbor.  How do we respond to such invitations from God?  Do we become angry at God?  Or do we realize that God is inviting us to open our hearts in the midst of trials and tribulations, so that, through intense pain, we can learn to love with greater hearts?  

In effect, when we find ourselves in the midst of humbling circumstances, in how we respond, we are faced with the question on which we will be judged for all of the choices we make in our entire lives.  When we are presented with chances to be humbled amidst afflictions, it really comes down to the question, are we going to choose to love?  

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

** Matthew 23:11-12; Matthew 20:26; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14  
*** Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; Luke 22:27; John 13:1-15  

**** John 14:6 

***** Philippians 2:8 

****** John 15:20