Longing for Him who longs for us

Today's gospel is a revelation of a truth that some think about rarely but which should ideally be our hourly meditation: the longing of God for us. Too often we focus on what we are doing - or failing to do - and there is a grain of truth in that: we must all of us pick up our beds and walk. Nevertheless, what is it that we walk towards if not the open and loving arms of our Father who looks for us, like the father of the Prodigal Son who awaits his return from exile? 

We cannot out-love God in this regard. Jesus tells us to be as perfect as the Father is perfect but not because we can be. What He means is that as God is perfect as God (i.e. it is in the nature of God to be all perfect), so we should strive to be perfect in our own measure - the measure that God calls us to in our own calling. Later in our Holy Mile journey, we will consider the nature of vocation, but we can sum it up in a simple phrase here: our calling is God's dream for us.

Coming back to our gospel today, how do we know what the calling of Jerusalem is (or the vocation of any of us)? Simply by listening to God's longing for it (or for ourselves). How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings'. What is God's dream for me? I can only know by asking Him. I can only hear that dream by listening to the Heart that wants to gather me to itself. And I can only embrace that dream by asking for the grace to open my hands to receive it as His gift.

And, finally, how do we listen to His Heart except by learning the ways of docibilitas - teachability? We can make our prayer along the lines of today's Responsorial Psalm:

Blessed be the Lord, my rock,

who trains my arms for battle,

who prepares my hands for war.

To receive God's dream for us, we need His training and His preparation. Perhaps as we saw in the gospel a few days ago, we also need some manuring! But with that training and preparation (and the manuring!), our hearts can learn to answer - anawim and beggars though we be -  the all-powerful longing of the One who made us.

Figs, manure and docibilitas

Today's gospel gives us a good picture of what happens when we lack docibilitas: our fruitfulness is limited. In a way the figtree is deaf to its duties, resistant to bringing forth fruit, and solidly uncooperative.  The figtree is us! Or at least ourselves minus docibilitas. 

A lack of docibilitas - teachability - belongs to the worst version of ourselves. And we ought to admit that when we are in our comfort zones, that is precisely when impediments to fruitfulness can multiply. No wonder we need the manure!

We all love the idea of bearing fruit, but perhaps we underestimate its cost. The loving regard we want to cast upon the Lord must somewhere include an admission of our poverty before him. We are the anawim, the servants of the Lord. We are loved, but as He knows us to be - in all its unflattering light! - not as we want to imagine ourselves to be.

But to have docibilitas is not to be inclined to self-hatred. Rather it involves a thirst for truth about God and about ourselves. 

And then, with that knowledge, we can prepare to bear fruit. Let the manuring begin!

Laws and the spirit of laws

 All week long the gospels have been relating to us Jesus' analysis of the Pharisees and the Scribes, and the picture He has drawn is not a pleasant one. There seem to be three problems (though there may be others) that Jesus has dwelt upon: the first is that of hypocrisy, i.e. that the Pharisees and the Scribes follow laws that require outward religious conformity while neglecting to conform their own hearts to the greatest law of divine love; the second is that of rigidity, i.e., that they have overlooked the major laws in order to fulfil the minor laws; and the last problem is that of delinquency (in the sense of neglecting their duty or maladministration) in advising others to carry legal burdens they do not shoulder themselves. Let's be careful though. The one thing Jesus does not seem to say is that, to quote the Pirates of the Caribbean, they are not really laws - they're really more like guidelines! Jesus elsewhere, for example, says: "Do not think that I have come to abolish Law or Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them." (Matt 5: 17).

It is important to see what is going on here with the Pharisees. In a way, the problem is not the laws at all; it is the spirit with which they are kept. The notion that Jesus is somehow encouraging a slapdash approach to the law is deeply flawed. Later in the gospel of Matthew (the very gospel aimed at a Hebrew audience), Jesus says:  

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone." (Matt 23: 23). 

Whatever Jesus' teaching, he is not simplistically opposed to laws or rules. Some cultures just have more rules than others. It is how they organize things for the common good. In Jerusalem today you can still see taps for washing by the Western Wall, the one remaining part of the Second Temple.

(Photo of taps by the Western Wall by Susanne, COLW Group 1)

Why, then, is the spirit so important if even the minor laws should not be left "undone"? Perhaps it is because laws are in a way a kind of tool or instrument: a tool for order and justice. Yet the problem here is that we human beings are all too prone to being controlled by our tools. If you want proof of that, just look at how novel technologies, which we all lived happily without yesterday, suddenly become tomorrow's necessities. Invention is the mother of necessity as Melvin Kranzberg quipped. And so, laws or rules can have this feedback effect on us, and instead of becoming a path towards the good, they seem to become a sort of exoskeleton or a suit of heavy armour, weighing us down and robbing us even of legitimate freedom. In this sense, the letter of the law can kill by a kind of negative feedback effect. Those who disregard the law do not understand this effect precisely because they do not take the law seriously. It is a flaw of those who take the law seriously that they can sometimes take it as it is not meant to be taken!

Yet we are left then with the problem of what to do when lower laws seem to contradict higher laws. What should the priest and the Levite do on the road to Jericho when they see the man robbed and beaten and left for dead? What they should do precisely is not set the law aside; rather they should let the higher law prevail over the lower law. The Samaritan who saved the man robbed was not lawless; he was living by a higher law This is not merely a rule of divine justice; it is a path of interpreting the law that is recognised in human courts. The famous "Nuremberg defence" - I was only following the orders of my superior officers - is not a valid defence because the lower law of obedience to superiors bows before the higher law of justice and charity to all.

Of course, the devil is in the detail. I cannot say I will leave my spouse to live with my lover because the law of love is higher than the law of fidelity (not that I have a lover either!). That would be nonsense, because infidelity is radically incompatible with divine love. 

But the general rule should be clear: do not keep a lower law at the expense of a higher law. If a house is on fire, the fire brigade cannot let the law of trespass stop them from running into it to rescue those in danger. From which principle we must deduce the conclusion that rigidity is not a true characteristic of the law, for the law is meant to be both hierarchical and supple - strong enough to sustain but flexible enough not to break. Rigidity is the victory of whim over substance; it is a victory of nearsightedness over true perspective. 

And the true perspective of the law, both in the gospel and in life, is to love God above all things, to love our neighbour as ourself, and - if we listen to Jesus at the Last Supper - to make that love of neighbour akin to His love for each of us. 

Yes and thank you

 Friday's gospel (of the Annunciation) cast a light on the first part of the summary of the COLW charism:

O Mary, teach us always to say yes to the Lord every moment of our lives.

Yesterday's gospel (the grateful Samaritan leper) cast a light on the second part of that summary: 

O Mary, teach us always to give thanks to the Lord every moment of our lives.

We could not have hoped for a more serendipitous choice of gospels to get our new Book of Life journey started. In some ways, however, it is the second part of the summary of the charism which is the more mysterious, the more difficult to fathom. 

Saying 'yes' to God is not easy but there is a certain simplicity about it. It is the fundamental challenge of the human will that takes us back to Eden and the drama of the fall of our first parents. Will we be children of Eve and say no to God? Or children of Mary and say yes? Will we impede the kingdom of God through our rebellion, or will be say in our actions what we say in words every time we pray the Our Father: Thy kingdom come, they Will be done? This is a choice that takes us straight to the heart of the mystery of the Annunciation, the drama of the Holy House, and gives us a foreshadow of the spirituality of Walsingham.

But what about the thanks? In Mary's case, the expression of that thanks is not recorded until the moment of her Magnificat during the visitation to Elizabeth, though who can doubt her heart was full of thanks from the second she pronounced her fiat before the Angel Gabriel? Before Elizabeth, however,  we hear her song of thanksgiving given full rein in a hymn of praise to the God of the humble (whom the Book of Life calls "the anawim of the Lord"). In contrast, in the case of Sunday's gospel, the thanks of the Samaritan comes after Jesus shows His power in the lives of the lepers by freeing them from this terrible disease. 

On the surface, the wonder of this story is that only one leper returned to thank the Lord. At the same time, we have to admit that our own thanks can be often short lived, evaporating as the feelings of gratitude abate. That may in fact be a useful way to distinguish thanks and gratitude: that gratitude is the emotion while thanks are the action we undertake to express it. 

Nevertheless, even true gratitude must be more than a mere emotion for it can never be separated from thanks. Together they lead to a chain of realisations and actions on our part. We realise our own poverty has been made richer by a gift; we realise the gift comes from a giver who looks upon us; we respond to the gift and the giver by acknowledging the gift and the sentiments behind it. 

In this last action lies the difference between the Samaritan leper and the others whose gratitude, ironically, was but skin deep. The others realised they had received a gift and no doubt rejoiced in it. But the Samaritan alone saw beyond the gift to the Giver who had healed him. Here is the challenge of true thanks. And here also is a key to the meaning of the thanks that we ask Mary to teach us how to give. With our thanks not only do we see beyond the gift we have received. We acknowledge the Giver who gave us life and calls us to union with Him.

Let us sum up the COLW charism and the lesson of this gospel this way, therefore. Our 'yes' is the way we submit to God; our 'thanks' are the fruit of that 'yes'. With our thanks, we see beyond all His gifts to the blazing heart of love that offers itself to us.

Discernment and the Word of God

In today's gospel we hear Jesus point out one of the key paths towards holiness: ‘Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!’  There could be no better gospel to reflect on what the Book of Life invites us to do. Incidentally, Jesus' words here are not a rebuke to his Mother in whose womb he took flesh and at whose breast he suckled. Rather, these words highlight one of the key virtues of Mary that COLW particularly meditates on: her obedience to God. Mary is the first of the saints - those whose inner life is the life of Jesus - who listens and does what God requires. Let it be done to me, according to your word.

Who is it that hears the word of God? This is a theme that comes up later in the gospel when Jesus points out that not all those who hear the word are in fact listening. To hear God's word requires us to do two things: to set aside our own thoughts and preoccupations and to allow God to reshape our minds with his truth. To listen to the word is to accept that we can only see so far, even in the matters that affect us the most. Usually, our vision is bound to this earth and often restricted by the appearances of things: our defeats wound us, our disasters depress us and the dashing of our hopes can leave us despondent.

In contrast, God's word comes to show us how those concerns of our daily life can be understood in His eternal light. And when we stand regularly in that light, when we think often on His word, we begin to hear more clearly His call to us to come further up and further in, and to perceive the mystery of His love for us. We are loved individually with a boundless love and He wills us only to say 'yes' - to say our 'fiat' (let it be) in joy and sorrow - to His plans for us.

Our lectio divina gives us this opportunity to listen to God. Day by day, line by line, thought by thought, our lectio divina is a way of slipping our hand into the hand of Jesus and holding our ear close to His heart which "thinks thoughts of peace, not affliction" (Jer 29 : 11). Keeping a journal of our thoughts during lectio divina from time to time is a way of helping us dwell on the fruits of that listening. In fact, if we wish to keep the word, as Jesus says in today's gospel, then keeping a note of what we have reflected on can help us to preserve the insights of this precious time, and to take a step forward in our commitment to being obedient to the gospel. 

Hearing the word of God and keeping it: this is what Mary does and what Mary has always done. We saw in the gospel of the Feast of the Holy Rosary that Mary heard the angel's word and embraced it. She kept it as she bore the child Jesus in her womb; she kept it as she raised him in Egypt and then in Nazareth; she kept it as she followed His ministry; and how firmly she must have clung to it when she followed her Son to Calvary where once again she heard the word of God spoken seven times from the Cross. 

This is the true form of discernment that everyone seems to be talking about these days: to hear the word of God and allow it to remold us into something new, like Mary who, having heard the word of the angel, declared her obedience to God and wandered away into the hills of Judea.

Photo of the hills of Judea from Susanne (COLW Group 1)

Teachability

 As we prepare for the new year of the Book of Life programme this week, the gospel of today draws our minds to one of the core principles of COLW: teachability. 

"Learn from me," says Jesus, "for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

The command to learn from Him - to be teachable always in His presence - is of course essential. He is our teacher, the captain of our souls, the one who brings us out of that darkness in which we fail to know God. The God whom we discover in Jesus is a gentle presence and even - to the wonder of St Paul, as we know - humble, humbling himself even to accept the death of the Cross for our sake. 

There are two ways of being like God: the way of the tempter ("You will be like gods"), sometimes called the 'ape of God', through which we make idols of our desires and satisfactions. In contrast, there is also the way of Jesus who tells us to be as perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect (i.e. "Be like God"). Yet in giving us this command He is not inviting us to grasp a forbidden fruit that does not belong to us, as if we could be as perfect as God. Rather, He is inviting us to be as perfect as our created being allows us to be: to fill our minds with truth and our wills with love, for knowing truth and loving good are the first things that make us like God. In fact, through the grace of Christ, knowing the truth of God and loving Him bring us into communion with the Holy Trinity.  Being like God is not self glorification but a path of obedience to the truth established by our Creator, especially the truth that He has desired to share His life with us. 

So, in this sense, we learn from Him who is gentle and humble of heart. But note also the end result of that learning process: you will find rest for your souls. In reality, when we begin to know God, we can begin to know ourselves. False beliefs about ourselves can even impede our knowledge of Him. All the great saints of the mystical path have known this truth. Humility is the result of knowing ourselves - our worth and indeed our limitations. And in that humility, we find that we lose the tension which sin and ignorance bring into our inner selves. We make ourselves weary by pursuing ourselves. We must learn instead to let God refresh us by bringing us to a greater knowledge and love of the truth: the truth about Him and the truth of who He made us to be.

Together, both these paths - the path to self knowledge and to knowledge of God - are summed up in COLW by the idea of teachability or docibilitas to use the Latin word. Jesus, help us to open up our hearts to you, to learn who you are, to learn from you who the Father and the Holy Spirit are, and to see ourselves and all humans in the light of the truth that you have revealed to us.