Divesting From Oppression

Yesterday someone I know closed his bank account with Wells Fargo.  He told me that he was taking all of his money out of Wells Fargo because that bank was one of the funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline, often abbreviated as DAPL.  DAPL threatens Native Americans' water supply.  Further, tribal leaders contend that they were not properly consulted regarding the construction of this oil pipeline and about how they would be affected by it; hence, tribal leaders say, this pipeline violates federal law as well as treaties between Native Americans and the U.S. government.  

This man who stopped doing business with Wells Fargo explained to me that he has long felt grieved over how the U.S. government slaughtered Native Americans for decades.  He has felt pained that this native people were made refugees on the land where they had been living for countless generations.  

This man related how, for decades he maintained that he never would have participated in the exploitation and degradation of Native Americans had he lived in the 1600s, 1700s or 1800s.  He described how he would have respected their human rights.  
Then this particular person painted the picture of how he had known for months that DAPL endangered Native Americans' water supply.  He shared too how he knew that tribal leaders had felt that they had not been properly consulted about the construction of the oil pipeline.  Although he protested against DAPL, for months he failed to withdraw his funds from the bank funding this oil pipeline.  

Then he remembered the words of Jesus, when Jesus berated the scribes and the Pharisees, telling them 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.  
You are like whitewashed tombs, 
which appear beautiful on the outside, 
but inside are full of dead men’s bones 
and every kind of filth.  
Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, 
but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.  
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.  
You build the tombs of the prophets 
and adorn the memorials of the righteous, 
and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, 
we would not have joined them 
in shedding the prophets' blood.'  
Thus you bear witness against yourselves 
that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; 
now fill up what your ancestors measured out!"*  

This person who yesterday closed his bank account with a bank funding the pipeline, felt rightly accused by Jesus' words.  He realized that he was one of the hypocrites who Jesus had described.  He had insisted that he would not have oppressed Native Americans centuries ago.  However, he had continued to do business with a bank that was funding a pipeline that was being installed without proper consultation with Native American tribes: he had stood by while his money supported an institution which had supported disrespect of Native Americans.  He had supported repression of the people he had claimed he supported.  

During his languishing and dragging his feet, as he continued to do business with the bank funding the pipeline, during Lent he considered Scripture passages on fasting.  He felt led to withdraw his money out of Wells Fargo given the words of the prophet Isaiah, who recorded how God told him 

Is this not . . . the fast that I choose: 
releasing those bound unjustly,  
untying the thongs of the yoke; 
Setting free the oppressed, 
breaking off every yoke?  
Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry, 
bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house; 
Clothing the naked when you see them, 
and not turning your back on your own flesh?**  

He felt that the time had long since arrived for him to withdraw his money from Wells Fargo.  He felt driven to stop participating in the oppression of Native Americans.  

He felt that the time had come a long time ago to start following the Word of God.  I must say I agree with him.  You see, this man I have been describing is me.  

* Matthew 23:27-32
** Isaiah 58:6-7 

Compassionately Loving Neighbors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not Only Bread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Receiving Upon Giving

We are dust, and unto dust we shall return.*  So we are reminded today on Ash Wednesday, at Mass when we step forward and each one of us has a cross of ashes made on his or her forehead.  

And so begins Lent, our more intense period of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, over the course of about the next six weeks, between now and Easter Sunday.  Today at Mass the priest noted that in Lent, we are not only entering into a practice of more frequent penance in atonement for our sins.  During Lent, on Good Friday, we especially remember our Lord Jesus dying for us on the Cross to save us from our sins.  To contrast with our Lenten penance, today the priest pointed out that we are also anticipating the triumph of our Lord Jesus over death through His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  

As we enter this period of intensified prayer during Lent, we may examine how we approach prayer.  As Pope Francis has inquired of us, in our prayer do we only ask God for things and thank God for things?  If we are focused on what we want, we are likely to experience difficulty in receiving what God wants to give us.  If we are preoccupied with what we want, we are less likely to be adoring and praising God and always rejoicing** out of gratitude for whatever God gives us.  Yet if we are excited about whatever God has in store for us, we practice another approach.  

I heard about such a different conception of prayer yesterday when I drove with someone else to pick up some items which were being donated to the Catholic Worker House.  As we traveled to, and later back from, our donor's home, my passenger was sharing with me how she has come to view prayer.  She described that when she is sitting down to read the Bible, she feels like she is receiving a gift.  It seems to her like she is opening a present, not knowing what is inside.  She suggested that when you aspire to truly receive God's Word into your heart, you do not know what God is about to give you: you do not know how God is about to transform you, if you have truly opened your heart to God.  You are not aware what specific spiritual blessings you are about to receive.  

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, explained, "Our God does not want to know what we want, but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what He is preparing to give us."  How can we prepare ourselves to receive what God wants to give us?  As Jesus tells us in today's Gospel reading, "When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret."***  By sitting motionless in silent solitude, we still and quiet ourselves alone, having removed ourselves from distractions.  We are well-positioned to listen to what God wants to say to us.  We are situated to receive what God wants to give to us.  

We receive what God gives us when we let go of our own desires.  We give up our desires also through fasting.  We tend to conceptualize fasting as giving something up.   Often we give up certain food during Lent, though sometimes people fast from social media during Lent.  Someone can fast from anything.  We are to fast from all things which separate us from God.  When we fast, really we are going beyond giving something up and are doing more than trying to live in greater simplicity.  When we fast, we tell God that we are willing to, and are trying to, subordinate our desires to His will.  As we fast, we show God that we seek to be submissive to His will, and thus obediently open our hearts to what He wants to give us. 

When we give something up, we receive something back.  When we die to ourselves, when we die to our desires, when we set fire to our desires and aim to reduce our desires to a pile of ashes, we try to humble ourselves.  God gives grace to the humble.****  

When we give up what we have out of love of our neighbor, we humble ourselves for the sake of love.  So it is with almsgiving.  When we give to those who are needy, we step out of our comfort zone to help others in their discomfort.  When we give out of our comfort, we are able to comfort the afflicted.  Saint Basil of Caesarea has said that the extra coat which is hanging unused in our closet belongs to the poor shivering impoverished person who has no coat.  Out of our comfortable wealth of unused property, we can comfort people who do not have what we have.  We can easily give them what they need but we do not need since we have more than we need.  

We can give away what we have to help others.  We can give up to God what we have.  We can give up, meaning that we can surrender.  We can give up ourselves to God.  We can surrender ourselves to the will of God.  In return we can receive from God the gift of simplicity.  We can receive back from God the amazing gift of total dependence on Him.  Realizing that we are to turn to God for all we need, then we are in a position to receive from God the gift of awareness of who we truly are.   

* Genesis 3:19 

** 1 Thessalonians 5:16 

*** Matthew 6:6 

**** 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6 

Giving Our Consent

Last Thursday we celebrated the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, commemorating how Mary was conceived without sin.  In our celebration of this Solemnity, we see how God invites us to greatness by asking us to simply give our assent to His plan. 

The Gospel reading on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception was from Luke 1:26-38.  There we hear that 

In the sixth month, 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, favored one! 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.*    

Saint Augustine of Hippo has explained how Our Blessed Mother Mary is blessed moreso for her obedience to God than for her having borne Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  He cited the Gospel verses in which Jesus stretched out His hands over His disciples and remarked that "Here are My mother and My brothers: for whoever who does the will of My Heavenly Father is My brother and sister and mother."**  The saint explained that Mother Mary did the will of God the Father.  She gave her consent to God's plan for her to give birth to God's Son, Jesus.  The saint went on to explain that insofar as Mother Mary did God's will, and thus followed Jesus' teaching, she is more blessed in her being a disciple of Jesus than in having birthed Jesus.  

Saint Augustine invited us to examine further the Scriptures with him to see how this is true.  He referred to the instance in which a woman in a crowd called out to Jesus, "Blessed is the womb that carried You and the breasts at which You nursed."  

Jesus replied, "Rather, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and observe it."***  

Saint Augustine explained that Jesus responded as He did because He wanted people to look beyond the physical.  Jesus deeply desires, much more than our physical needs to be satisfied, for our souls to thrive through our embracing the will of God.  

The saint explained that Mother Mary heard the Word of God and kept it, and thus she was blessed.  The saint made clear that she kept God's Truth in her mind, which was nobler than carrying His Son's body in her womb.  

When God presented His plan to Mother Mary, she had the humility to describe herself as the handmaid of the Lord God.  She saw herself as a servant of the Lord God who would willingly submit to God's will.  She stood ready to do the will of God.  She replied to the angel, "May it be done to me as you have said."  She was waiting to do the will of God; when she was presented with the will of God, she was prepared to reply, "Yes."  
Clearly Our Blessed Mother Mary provides an example for us to emulate.  In pondering how Mary accepted Jesus into her life, we are led to consider how we respond to Jesus.  How are we preparing ourselves for the arrival of Jesus this Advent, and throughout the year, when we encounter Jesus everyday in our neighbor?  

Through prayer and fasting, we deny ourselves.  In denying ourselves, by letting go of our preconceptions and judgemental ideas and biases, we can empty ourselves so God can fill us with what He wants so dearly to give to us.  By letting go of what poisons us, what stifles us, what holds us back, we make room for what God desires to give us to nourish us, to help us grow, to draw us forward on our way back to Him.  

Once we have made room in our hearts, we can let in others.  By serving our neighbor, especially the person we see who is disempowered and marginalized, we can come to understand the struggles of those who endure much more challenging circumstances than we face.  Thus we can feel more compassion toward our neighbor, and, in turn, feel and express and show more love.  

As we love more deeply and more unconditionally, we grow closer to God as God continues to sanctify us.  Opening our hearts to God, we welcome God as He seeks to present to us what He has in store for us.  God has so many wonderful things in store for us, which we can enjoy if we only trust Him.  God is so much more powerful, and so much wiser, than we are.  If we trust God, He will draw us into becoming far more than we could ever be without assenting to His plan.  To experience great wonder, God calls us to reply "Yes."

* Luke 1:26-38 
** Matthew 12:49-50 
*** Luke 11:27-28 

Praying Waters Souls

During Mass today, I noted synergy between my early morning reading and the sermon.  This morning, before I went to Mass, I was reading some spiritual maxims written by Saint John of the Cross, the Carmelite friar and mystic who lived in Spain in the sixteenth century.  Among other axioms written by him, this morning I read how he wrote that "By prayer aridity is expelled, devotion increased, and the interior practice of virtue is established in the soul."  

Then, on this first Sunday of Advent, I attended Mass at 7:30 a.m. here in Redwood City.  During the sermon, the priest analogized us to cornstalks.  He also likened how much we pray, and with how much devotion, and under what circumstances, as being analogous to the extent to which a cornstalk is rooted in the ground.  

In the midst of arid, dry weather, the roots of a cornstalk grow deeper into the ground as they search for water.  So too when we experience spiritual aridity, that is, dryness in prayer, God is calling us to persist in our faith and in our prayer and to deepen our relationship with Him.  As Saint John of the Cross tells us, we expel aridity by praying.  By continuing to pray in the midst of spiritual dryness, we show God that we love Him.  God wants us to seek Him humbly in earnest.    

Roots stabilize the cornstalk.  With deep and extensive roots, a cornstalk can withstand strong winds.  So too when we weather severe storms in life, if we have a deep, devoted, fervent prayer life, through the grace of God, we will resist any and all challenges which we encounter.  

The priest added that the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent are characterized by more intense fasting and prayer than usual.   He offered encouragement to more deeply enter into prayer in this Advent season.  

During Advent, as we meditate upon the birth of Jesus which we will soon celebrate, we are invited to live more ascetically over these next few weeks.  At times we experience periods of spiritual aridity which we do not consciously choose, and are called upon then to pray more intensely.  Yet at certain times in the liturgical calendar, we are also called to make more intense sacrifices of prayer and fasting, such as during Advent and Lent.  Thus in this current Advent season, we are invited to plumb the depths of own our souls more deeply in prayer.  In doing so in still, silent solitude, we seek a conscious communion with Jesus which can strengthen us against whatever storms may confront us in our lives.