The truth of self-insufficiency

A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Matthew 5: 17-37) presents us with a series of injunctions from Jesus who places His demands at the centre of the new law. Be perfect as you heavenly Father is perfect, He tells them, but the details of this injunction are even more startling. Henceforth, justice to others is no longer a matter of merely respecting their life. It is also a matter of not even being angry with them, of exercising patience, i.e. our capacity to bear with others. Purity is not to be thought of only as the avoidance of adultery but also as the purity of mind and heart where even our feelings and imaginations are shaped by a virtuous balance. Finally, truthfulness cannot be contained simply by speaking the truth, so much as in being above the need to swear to one’s veracity. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion, but Jesus’ followers are supposed to be intrinsic truthtellers.

When we distil these commandments to their bare outlines, they sound like a heavy burden. There is indeed a way of keeping the commandments which is not only wrongheaded but wrong-hearted. This was in part the sin of the Pharisees who only judged things by their appearances. Nevertheless, the heart can go wrong not only when it seeks to seem good rather than to be good, but also when it attempts to meet the challenges of the law by its own resources. If the sin of the former is hypocrisy, the sin of the latter is self-sufficiency. James and John sometimes exhibit hypocritically skin-deep virtue, losing their temper to the point that Jesus called them the Sons of Thunder. Peter, in contrast, is the patron of self-sufficiency, declaring his undying adherence to the Lord until the moment of trial brought a bitter defeat. As he then learned, the burdens of patience, purity, and truthfulness are all the more momentous when we face them all alone.

But this is why no part of the gospel can be read in isolation from the rest. Jesus’ commandments in this gospel extract only make sense when connected with the rest of His teachings, not least the surprising lesson of the Good Shepherd: learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart. Or, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink – if by thirst we understand the thirst for justice in the disciple who wants to carry out his Master’s wishes.

The madness of our self-sufficiency – for madness it is – comes even more to the fore in the discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper. There, we see that our path of perfection is in point of fact a path towards union. Not only does Jesus promise to dwell with the Father in those who love Him, He also affirms that we are only the branches to His vine. St Paul will say a similar thing later on by calling us all members of Christ’s body. We are not our own, nor are we Romantic heroes who strike a blow for rugged authenticity. Paul longed to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and so should we all, no longer clamouring for our hour in the spotlight, acclaiming our “I” before the world, but surrendering to the author of our existence our readiness to receive the incomparable gift of Himself.

There within, when all the noise dies and God has sculptured His silence within, then, we might know what it is to have the Lord come and pronounce His own Fiat within our hearts and minds, to speak His thank you to the Father in our own members in justice, patience, and truthfulness. 

Drink l’chaim to life

A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be found here.

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Today’s gospel (John 2: 1-11) gives us that classic gospel episode of the wedding at Cana. Mary, an honoured guest at the occasion, sees they have no wine. She and Jesus exchange remarks that indicate they had a shared understanding of the symbolism of both ‘wine’ and His ‘hour’ that John does not explain for the reader. Next, we hear Mary’s imperious command: do whatever He tells you. Hardly have the servants followed Jesus’ instructions than the feast is suddenly flowing with wine again, to the mystification of the caterers and the joy of the guests. It is a foreshadowing of the feast of the Lamb that St John will relate later in his Book of Revelation.

This episode is one of the few times we hear of Our Lady being present in the adult life of Jesus, and it is certainly the most dialogue that we get from her. And what dialogue! What does she mean when she turns to Jesus and says, They have no wine? The plain meaning is that the wedding guests had drunk the feast dry of course. Yet Our Lord's reply suggests another level of meaning, understood by both of them: Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Woman, as we know, is a little like the French expression 'Madame'; it is a title of honour. But what about My hour has not yet come? Clearly, He is not talking about the wine, as she appeared to be. But when we read the next verse, we understand that she knew perfectly what He meant: His mother said to the servants, Do whatever He tells you. Mary and Jesus move thereby between different levels of meaning in their own conversation. It is a moment of intimate exchange for them and insight for us. This is what happens when a saint's heart (Mary's) is so deeply fused to God's will (her Son's) that the communion between them tells its own tale.

We owe this gospel anecdote to the observant St John who was present at the wedding feast. Marvellously, he was close enough to hear this dialogue, or one of the interlocutors repeated it to him later on. Many years ago, someone of my acquaintance used to say mischievously that this scene was all about wine, women and song, and these are the reasons why.

The wine in Cana evokes both about our physical and spiritual needs. The wedding hosts physically lacked wine, and Mary was kind enough to notice their embarrassment. What then is the spiritual meaning of wine? We can only grasp that when we note the meaning of Jesus' hour: the appointed hour of His sufferings, the hour he remarks upon on the night of Holy Thursday, the hour of darkness but also the hour of redemption. If what the wedding guests lack is what Jesus can obtain in His hour, then the spiritual meaning of the wine is grace and salvation; its meaning is the work of love and the fruit of love, for God so loved the world.... The COLW prayer after Holy Communion turns this fusion of wine and eternal love into an act of love returned: 

May COLW be a little grapevine in your pure hands to quench the thirst of Jesus.

In this image Mary helps us return the eternal love shown to us by God into a love that returns to God. It is symbolized in this prayer by the fruit of the vine which itself will be taken by Jesus at the Last Supper to become the sacramental sign of His precious blood. And just as the juice of grapes comes flooding from the winepress, so the blood of Jesus will come flooding from the cross to shed His blessings far and wide.

After the wine of the scene, the Woman is of course Mary who tells the servants at the feast: Do whatever He tells you.  I wonder if these are about the only words Mary ever addresses to any servant of Christ. As we would say these days: Just do it! Or to put it another way: fiat - let it be so.  When we utter the summary of the COLW charism Mary teach us always to say yes to the Lord we are in effect saying: Mary, take us always to Cana to serve the Lord. To which she no doubt replies: Do whatever He tells you.

Finally, in this scene, if we listen carefully, there is also song. The only recorded time in the gospel that Jesus sang is on Holy Thursday when He and the disciplines walked from the Upper Room to Gethsemane. And yet I can only imagine this scene in Cana being full of song: l'chaim, l'chaim to life! But not only that. Song is one of the age-old human expressions of celebration: it is a sign of deep joy. It is also - and let's be plain about this - one of the notable signs that people have been drinking. Nobody who hears singing late at night in the street would think that the singers had just been downing lemonade or Earl Grey tea. Is it irreverent to think of Jesus facilitating a boozy wedding feast? No doubt some would think it is. Yet Providence could easily have arranged for it to be the food, not the wine, that failed in Cana, and Jesus could have rustled up a magnificent feast, as He does later in the gospel. Jesus too sings L'chaim to life: human and divine life.

The wine, Woman, and the song and thus all linked. At the request of the Woman, Jesus provides the wine - the love, the grace, the salvation - and we can only imagine the rousing choruses that broke out when that excellent wine was shared around. The wine - the love, the grace, the salvation - produces its effects in the hearts of the guests, and filled now with joy, the guests could only have responded accordingly. In the Gregorian chant setting of the Communion verse of this day - which uses the steward's words to the bridegroom: You have kept the best wine till now - the music leaps around vigorously when the steward speaks, as if he too is already showing the inebriating effects of the excellent wine. Is this not because, as St Augustine observes, only the lover sings? 

The conclusion, therefore, is simple. If we wish, like the disciples, to be taken to the eternal banquet, we had best look like we have a taste for wine (love and salvation), "woman" (Mary's obedience) and song (the return of love for love received). Indeed, we should indulge as frequently as we can!

PS The acquaintance who inspired this reflection lost his way very badly; I can only surmise it was because he did not follow his own advice about wine, woman, and song. Please pray for Benny. 

 

Of salt and light

 A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be accessed here.

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Today's gospel (Matthew 5: 13-16) sees Jesus deliver a teaching that is all about the self-awareness of the disciple. Jesus addresses His disciples with two metaphors: you are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world. The stakes of self-awareness enter into the equation when He invites the disciples to reflect on whether they are faithful to these challenges of discipleship: let your light shine before others. Self-awareness and an awareness of others that is oriented towards their good, not one’s own.

In both cases - salt and light - it is a matter of balance. On the one hand the salt must not be tasteless. Salt induces the sense of taste precisely by stimulating the sensitivity of taste buds. If food is not excessively salted, what we taste is the food that is enhanced, not the salt. In the case of the disciples, what is interesting is that Jesus calls them the salt of the earth. God made the earth and everything in it: every joyous thing - from the scent of a delicate flower to the pleasures of marital union - is His gift. But sin alienates as from every good thing, and it is only within the framework of our relationship with Almighty God that we can rediscover the truth of things, even of ourselves. In this sense, discipleship must itself be a journey of incarnation in which divine grace reshapes the fabric of the world and the fabric of our lives in it according to His image. When the Holy Spirit moves the Gift of Knowledge in us, we read deeply into things of the earth the imprint of the finger of God. Beyond the physical appearances lie the mysteries of the love that conceived and created everything around us. Perhaps, if we are faithful, others too will discern that mystery through what they see in us: in that perspective, we can be the salt that awakens them to the mystery just waiting for them.

But I said above that this is a matter of balance, and perhaps this is better seen in the second metaphor of the gospel: you are the light of the world. On Ash Wednesday, we will hear Jesus tell us to hide ourselves away when we pray and do penance. In today’s gospel, we hear Him command the opposite: let our light shine before men. In other words, just as salt must be balanced, so too must light. We must not hide away unnecessarily; even Jesus chose his moments to speak but sometimes fled the crowds and would not disclose His intentions. Not to hide our light is a matter of just being who we are. While this commands integrity, it also requires discretion. Jesus’ command is to be the light of the world, but there is a difference between being the light of the world and trying to shine that light directly into someone’s eyes! This differs according to context and individual. Some people are ready to look for the light; yet others are so accustomed to darkness that a rude illumination is as likely - if not more likely - to provoke them to screw their eyes up tight, rather than opening them.

While being the salt of the earth requires the Gift of Knowledge, being the light of the world requires the movements of the Gift of Counsel: the gift of knowing when and how to intervene, of when to echo the words of Jesus and when to emulate His silence. The divine gifts we cannot use of our own accord. All we can do is beg the Holy Spirit to move them in us; all we can do is try to remove every obstacle in us to their movement, readying ourselves to be docile instrument in the hands of the Master. Even then, only He can truly prepare us for that service which we are called to give. We must beg from him even our beggar’s voice, as Fabrice Hadjadj says.

Then, both we and those for whom we aspire to be both salt and light may be able one day to give praise together to our Father in heaven.   

 

A dangerous lack of self-knowledge

A recording of today's gospel and reflection can be found here.

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Today’s gospel (Mark 6: 1-6) sees Jesus back in his hometown, preaching as He did elsewhere, but finding the people incredulous. After all, they knew Him, did they not? He was just Jesus, the carpenter’s son. They knew his nearest and dearest relatives. What on earth, they wondered, did He think He was up to, swanning around the place talking like a prophet? And so, Jesus worked few miracles there, and turned to other villages instead.

              In the middle of this scene, there are at least two mysteries that deserve reflection, and that give us cause for being humble. The first is that, often, the hardest thing to evangelise within us is the thing that is closest and most familiar to us. We take it for granted that we know ourselves, that we cannot be surprised by ourselves. Here, Jesus is among His own people who find it impossible to accept that they had misunderstood such a familiar figure, one of their own. They were wedded to the familiar so much – they had problematized it to such an extent– that to see its mystery was beyond them, as it is often beyond us. Affirming command of our surroundings, the sense of knowing our nearest and dearest: these things are part of our security. We do not like to think the unknown can get so close to us. It upsets our sense of safety; we are unprepared for its strangeness. But lo and behold, here is the Unknown among us, and unless our hearts are ready for it, we do not turn to face the mystery, and, by the same token, the mystery does not bring us the light we need. Our lack of awareness then should keep us humble; without humility, we risk letting the unknowns remain unknown.

              While this first lesson is an uncomfortable one, the second lesson is sobering. Why doesn’t Jesus just try harder with the Nazarenes? Surely, the thing to do in the face of such incredulity is to perform the big miracles. That way, they will believe, won’t they? Where does this refusal to go the extra mile come from in the Lord? After all, He has come down to earth for them; why not just grant them a glimpse of the power that lies within to defeat their resistance? Or why not organise some tables and chairs and conduct a conversation in the Spirit with the villagers, a pre-evangelization jamboree? He spends half the night talking to Nicodemus.

              To a great extent, the Lord’s choices in this moment are a mystery to us. Yet, perhaps it is something to do with His timing. Some people suppose that everyone else should share their culture with its sensibilities and customs. Others make a similar assumption that everyone lives in the same historical moment. Be wary of those who speak of the ‘modern world’, as if the modern world were as identifiable as a piece of self-assembly Ikea furniture or a flip calendar. Some of us are simply not the contemporaries of others; our mentalities, our virtues and vices smack of another age that only partially shares the contours of our own. For some of us, the parochialism of the present day is as dark as any of the supposed dark ages, while those who boast of their fresh innovations are unwittingly pale imitators of yesterday’s fashions. Yet the moment we live in is defined less by our preferences than by our unconscious biases. As we have said already, we can be strangers to ourselves.

The Lord knows all this. Nazareth will have another moment, but it will not be now. Now, the Lord will go and preach elsewhere. Like the first mystery, this second mystery then is another reason to remain humble lest we miss the Lord’s passing, the moment that God has chosen to intervene in our lives.

Jesus passed on, therefore, to other villages, but I wonder if, before He left the area, He looked back on that village of His youth and shed a tear or two over its resistance, saying:

If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

             

             

Of sorrows and joys

A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Matthew 5: 1-12) gives us so many criteria by which we can identify those who belong to God: happy are the poor in spirit, happy the gentle, happy those who mourn, happy those who hunger…In a way this is the counter agenda to so many of the values that prevail around us: happy are the successful, happy are the comfortably well off, happy are those who know how to look after their own interests first, happy are those who express themselves... Jesus’ criteria are self-effacing, turned towards God and neighbour; the counter proposals of the world are self-seeking, turned towards the ego, even when ostensibly focused on others, like the people who limit their families so the children can “have everything”.

Yet, for all the tension between these two sets of values, it is the last criterion of Jesus that is the most challenging for us. “Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you … Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” It is not our nicer virtues that are the deepest proof of where our hearts are turned. Anyone can be enthusiastic for the pleasant or even the generous dimensions of the gospel - feeding the poor, being a peacemaker, showing mercy: accolades for such actions are given to secular saints, as well as religious ones.

Yet, these qualities do not quite get to the roots of our heart. Ultimately and regardless of our state in life, the following of Christ grows out of an act in which we give ourselves totally to God and wherein God becomes our joy. The fiat of sorrow, which we are required to say in the face of persecution, comes out of the fiat of joy which is the fruit of our love for Him. There where our hearts are, there will be our treasure also. In today’s gospel, Jesus is not saying we should be happy because of the abuse, but rather we have an additional cause to be happy when persecution comes and does not rob us of what we treasure most… But what if it does?

Insofar as persecution takes our joy and robs us of peace, perhaps that is the measure of how far we have to go yet before we are truly united to Him; of how much we must long and pray for that union with him. According to the great French Dominican and master of mysticism Fr Garrigou-Lagrange, in Jesus on the cross desolation and perfect peace and joy dwelt together. In contrast, if suffering bends us all out of shape and traumatises us, perhaps that is because we are not yet fully surrendered to God and to the Father’s forming action. We may think we love the people around us, but the people we really love are those we refuse to be separated from, despite our suffering, despite what their love costs us. It is not the suffering that reveals who we are, therefore, but the steadiness of our hearts when the suffering comes: grace and joy under pressure.

Another gospel parable that illuminates these Beatitudes is the story of the man who found a pearl in a field and went away and sold everything he had to buy the field. We think too easily about the pearl in this parable, of what a great pearl it must have been: literally a pearler! But what lies on the other side of the parable – the untold story - is everything the man sold in order to obtain the field with the pearl. What did he give up? What treasures did this man part with to obtain that pearl? How angry was his wife that he was selling up the family possessions? What a fool did his neighbours consider him? How much pity did he endure from his drinking buddies?

But he had found the pearl of great price. The questions of those around him made no sense or were only fragments of an older story that was no longer the measure of his life and of his possessions. The pearl - a symbol of union with God - was now, he realised, everything he could ever desire or need in this world. 

The man was standing on a different horizon. And so must we.

Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you…for this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.