On being good

Today's gospel (Luke 6:36-38) might seem on the one hand to offer us an opportunity to do something nice in the modern sense of that word. Be compassionate. Do not judge. Do not condemn. Who could object to such commands as these?

The challenge is of course somewhat different depending on who we are. As people of faith, we are called to believe in the mysteries of God and in the wisdom of the teachings of Jesus, things the modern world might find not so nice. But this is why judging can be so difficult to avoid. We feel like we owe it to the profession of our faith to cast judgement. We feel that we cannot be true to our principles if we do not condemn.

These instincts are in fact good (owing something to our profession of faith and being true to our principles) but they lead us to the wrong conclusions because they are not sufficient. First, we cannot live them truly without humility, and humility requires us to acknowledge that there may be circumstances we are not aware of, especially in matters that do not fall under our responsibility. Second, we must distinguish between judgement and judgement. The kind of judgement that Jesus is talking about here is the one that weighs up the soul of another person and pronounces sentence as it were, arrogating to itself a function that belongs to God, the keeper of consciences. But that is not the only kind of judgement. Jesus’ command most certainly does not require us to stick our head in the ground, to pretend that evil is good, or that someone cannot have done evil just because they happen to hold a certain role or office. We now know too much about the evil consequences of such "non-judgementalism". Nor does Jesus' command mean we should refrain from lamenting the effects of actions that are wicked in themselves (like gossip), even if their author did them inadvertently. Not judging does not preclude the possibility that we have to speak the truth about things. Prudence may require that we hold back but not love. Love requires us to go on; to contend with the evil done, even while refraining from condemning the evil doer. Ultimately we might recall this piece of wisdom: we are called to be like the saints - tough on principles but easy on people; not like the devil - easy on principles but hard on people. Too often, we are tempted to be easy on principles and on people. But that is a religion for nice people with nice feelings; not for the likes of those who aspire to follow a Saviour who overturns the tables of money lenders and calls Pharisees whitened sepulchres!

In a way this brings us to the second part of the gospel. In the first sentence Jesus had required us to be as compassionate as our Father is. This point of comparison underpins all the more the command that Jesus now delivers: to give and to give freely in full measure like our Father in heaven who is goodness itself. When the medieval scholastic theologians discussed the meaning of goodness, they observed that it is in the nature of goodness to share itself. Goodness does not hold back. Goodness pours itself forth. Goodness aspires to be diffused all around. Perhaps the last element of this goodness is that it must not count the cost:

My candle burns at both ends,

It will not last the night,

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends,

It gives a lovely light.

Edna Saint Vincent's words were not meant to be a commentary on the gospel, but they very much are. 

How we want our goodness and our giving to be acknowledged, and it will be - but by God! We should not demand our own wages from others. We should not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. When we do, we turn ourselves into employees who offer their services only in return for something. We should give not to the point of exhaustion (or resentment), but to the measure of joy. For it is in giving that we receive, as St Francis says. The good are simple and open handed. 

The paradox here is that when we aspire to such goodness and practise it, then it is God who judges us benignly, and not only judges us but rewards us. Indeed, He rewards us with himself principally because to share oneself in such away is to be like Him. 

We cannot do any of this without his grace. Yet, as He tells St Paul: my grace is sufficient for you. We only need ask Him for the living waters - for them to flow freely through us and onto others.

Lent Series: Self-Awareness and St. Teresa of Avila, Part 2

What can hinder us in developing the humility sufficient for growth in self-awareness?

We need to be aware that the devil can present a false image of our situation: false humility and a false sense of our ‘state of soul’. This could present as pride - not acknowledging sin

or an inflation of our sense of sin, scruples, mistaking woundedness for sin or lack of self

worth. A victim position or self-abasement, are never true humility and could also be temptations.

Teresa possibly discovered the practice of the Ignatian daily ‘Examen’ through her various

Ignatian confessors.  The examen as a regular practice is really beneficial for us as we  journey towards self knowledge.  Looking at how we define and consider ourselves when examining our life in solitude and the narrative we give of ourselves to others helps bring light.  

Teresa didn’t suggest prolonged examens or unhealthy introspection as that could turn us in on ourselves. This training or ‘ascesis’ will reveal to us the truth of our soul, bringing an increase of humility, self-awareness and greater knowledge of God.  On the path to holiness there is healing that only God can do, through His grace, and other healing He will bring about if we co-operate.  Teresa encourages us to choose to do our part to receive God's sanctifying grace and healing. 

In becoming more aware of ourselves, we move from intellectual, ‘head knowledge’ to ‘heart

knowledge’, becoming aware of our origin and nature and our conscious and unconscious

motivations.  We also begin to know ourselves deeper from the point of view of prayer,

beginning to see ourselves as God sees us and thereby beginning to grow in union with Him.

By mansion six of The Interior Castle, as we open increasingly to awareness of God’s

grandeur, our littleness, our self-awareness gradually increases.

Soon we will become aware of our “shadow”, what Teresa refers to as “snakes and lizards”,the unconscious place where we may have buried painful experiences, wounds, and even things we are afraid to acknowledge.  These lurk outside the door of the castle of our soul.  Over time, growing in trust and humility, we will need to work through these elements of our shadow through patient prayer and abandonment to God’s loving mercy.  The help of spiritual accompaniment is also important here.

Growing awareness of the ‘reptiles’ shouldn’t lead us to false humility or abasement before God or others, nor self-aggrandizing.  Instead, Teresa speaks of God’s grandeur.  In the life of prayer, a leap of faith is needed from being awed by God’s grandeur to trusting in growing friendship with Jesus.  He will help us to be truly humble and know ourselves better.

Whereas today we consider this growth in self-awareness to be psychological work, Teresa instructs her sisters to bring it to prayer and ask God for interior light to see into the dark corners of shadow.  

To Teresa it doesn’t appear unusual to appeal to God for help to reach even the unconscious parts of the mind.  For her, His light can reach such hidden depths, the “interior world close at hand”. 

Horror, horror, horror

 Today's gospel (Matthew 25: 31-46) is a challenging one for us and for many of our contemporaries. We see the events of the last judgement unfold in three acts.

In the first act, Jesus describes the return of the Son of Man. He will come in glory, i.e. nobody will be able to deny that this is the Christ, the anointed one of God. He will take his seat on the throne of glory, i.e. He will sit as a judge who has power to liberate and to punish, for justice may require both. He will face all of humanity, the people of all nations, not just his followers and not just the Chosen People.  And finally in this scene, He will separate men from each other, “as the shepherd separates sheep from goats”. We can almost guess what is coming next for we know that sheep and lambs are images of those whom Jesus loves and who return that love. For many years, theologians have insisted on the unity of the human race. Yet that unity cannot be understood without taking into account the implications of this passage which narrates the final moments in the history of all humanity. The unity that makes every single one of us part of that human race is itself meant to serve the union that joins creation to its Creator. To separate the sheep from the goats, i.e., to separate the saved and the damned, is not to destroy the unity of the human race, but rather to make public the actions of those you have destroyed it. It is not our inheritance that defines us but what we do with it that makes us who we are supposed to be.

Then comes the second act. The king invites the sheep to come and receive the heritage that His Father has prepared for them since the beginning of time. And the judge then goes on to announce why it is that the sheep will receive this inheritance. In this well-known passage, Jesus singles out the corporal works of mercy that manifest the love that rules the hearts of the Blessed and makes them most like God. The implications of this passage are alarming. When Jesus told the disciples at the Last Supper to “love one another as I have loved you”, He might almost have said, “Love one another, for the way in which you love each other will be the way in which you love me”. It is a thought that invites us to drive from our hearts every movement of hostility and coldness, even towards those who have hurt us. This is a blessing that only the grace of Jesus can work in us. We must not imagine that love of neighbour exhausts our duty to God, for Jesus confirmed that the greatest commandment has two requirements: love of neighbour of course, but also love of God. Yet these two are in some ways intertwined. As Saint John argues in one of his letters, “How can you love the God you do not see if you do not love the brother that you do see?” (I quote the words approximately, but it is 1 John 4: 20!). The worst sin as we know is not against neighbour but against God, for it is the sin against the Holy Spirit. As to what is required of any individual in this moment of the last judgement, we can cite also the words of Jesus elsewhere: to whom much is given, much will be expected (Luke 12: 48). God will judge not only according to His law but according to the gifts that He gave to every individual. Now, there is a sobering thought.

And, so we come to the final act of the last judgement when the effects of the separation that Jesus spoke of at the beginning become apparent in their fullest sense. And we hear words that are now so deeply unfashionable that some might even believe Jesus could not have said them: “Go away from me with your curse upon you to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” The Sacred Heart, the Divine Mercy Incarnate, the gentle Jesus of countless children's carols - this Jesus who came to heal the contrite is also the Judge who pronounces the most terrible of sentences. Our one consolation here is that we know this Judge will make no mistakes. He knows everything: every thought, every word, every act of love and every act of rebellion of which we are the author. We do not often think of Him in this powerful position, but it should be a reminder to us that when we ask for mercy, we cannot trade in it cheaply. When we ask for His mercy, it must be to reconcile ourselves with Him; not to soothe the disappointment of our self-love which is wounded by our failure to follow Him.

As we dwell on these three scenes, we cannot go forward without acknowledging the horror of eternal suffering. It is quite common these days to dally with theories about whether hell is empty. Even a lot of high-placed clergy are prone to this kind of wishful thinking. This blog is not a place of controversy to address that issue but let us at least observe the following. Nobody should even consider such a question who has not conceived in their hearts a horror for sin equal to their horror for the idea of eternal damnation: horror for sin because it separates us from God, because it disfigures His image in us, and because it alienates us from everything that He calls us to.

May every reader hear the words that are spoken to the sheep. But let us not forget: there will be sheep and there will be goats. Jesus Himself says it. Mercy itself makes no sense without justice.

Lent Series: Self-awareness and St. Teresa of Avila, Part 1

St. Teresa of Avila wrote about spiritual self-awareness in her book, The Interior Castle'. She believed self-awareness was a vital ingredient for growth in the spiritual life and the journey to union with God. She said Self-knowledge is important in helping open up to the love of God, able to see ourselves as God sees us, open to being teachable and willing to surrender to the forming action of God in our life, all through learning who we are and ‘Whose’ we are.

What did Teresa mean by self-awareness?  How did she propose to obtain it?  The journey begins in the ‘room of self-knowledge’, a necessary place of humility and simple appraisal of our soul before God.  This is the essential place to begin this journey of prayer. It is the only way to a deeper spiritual life.  Staying in this 'room', pondering God’s word, learning He is waiting there for us, will lead to greater self knowledge, awareness of our need for God and our dependence upon Him.  We will see more clearly how Jesus humbled Himself for us and reflect on our lack of humility.  

Teresa said true humility is central to growth in self-knowledge on the journey to the truth of the soul and union with God, even though this might cause discomfort. Humility lays us bare to the truth, of how small and limited we are, and the infinity of Who God is and of our distance from Him, the gap between us. 

Once we have learned enough of ourselves to see this huge gap, we are standing in the truth

of the situation and true humility will result.  This journey can be traced from her first lines in the Interior Castle all the way through to the seventh mansion, where the soul is ready for union with God.  This work must never be abandoned.

Lack of humility often goes unnoticed as we are blind to our motivations and attitudes.  We can fail to see ourselves truthfully, to admit our pride and see our reality before the reality God sees.  True humility should become a daily habit.  Teresa insists on knowledge of the grandeur of God and work for self-awareness to please God, going hand in hand to help increase humility. 

Teresa said humility is essential to self-awareness, seeing ourselves more clearly, knowing ourselves better and growing in compassion for others at the same time.  

We will often need to return through the 'rooms' of self-awareness throughout the journey of prayer.  As we will see next time, Teresa followed St. Augustine’s thought that only in forgetting self and looking within would we find God.

Keep it safe, keep it secret

Frequently in the gospel of Saint Mark that we are reading day by day, Jesus tells someone He has cured (or the family of someone He has raised from the dead) not to tell anyone about it. What is the meaning of this mysterious desire of Jesus who has, after all, come to be a light to the Gentiles? If Jesus is here to share revelation with us, then surely, He should be giving these people the very opposite instruction. Could it be that these words were said with a wink and a smile, as if both He and His listeners knew very well that such miracles could never be concealed?

According to some authorities, Jesus’ intention is something quite different. Jesus wants those who benefit from his miracles not to turn them into a huge spectacle but rather to reflect deeply on the meaning that such interventions have in their lives. Let us imagine for a moment that we were the recipient of such a miraculous cure. The very first question we would ask ourselves is not how many people can we tell but rather: what does this miracle mean for me and for God's purposes for my life? The restoration of good health, or indeed of life, is not an absolute end in itself. Jesus is not simply the minister of well-being. These cures and these resurrections point beyond the natural order towards the supernatural and eternal vocation to which their beneficiaries and we are called. Just as our personal vocation (the particular form of holiness which God calls us to) precedes and accompanies our vocation to a state in life (married or religious life, priesthood or single life), so it would seem that sounding the deepest meaning of the miracles of Jesus precedes the noisy, gossipy festivity that they always seem to have unleashed. If we are simply overcome by the performance, we are in danger of missing the reality.  

The message here is not so much to be secret. The message rather is: go out into the deep. Do not stay in the shallows: dare to plunge into the very depths of truth. The surface appearance will always be there and almost any fool can see it. God's invitation is to cast ourselves into the abyss of His mysteries.

Touching the hem of His garment

Today’s gospel (Mark 6: 53-56) is very short and very simple, as are its implications for us. Where are we in these simple scenes that reveal a growing mass of people following Jesus and bringing the sick to him to be healed? We are perhaps there in three ways in this gospel.

Sometimes we are like those who bring the sick to Jesus. The older we get, the longer becomes our list of prayer intentions for others. We know more people who die, who are sick or who clearly need the balm of Jesus’ grace. We should bring them to Him in their droves; batter the door of His heart for their good. And include all those we have failed or led into sin ourselves. Whenever we failed in our vocation, we let down someone other than God, for then we missed the role Providence had assigned to us in their lives. Let us bring them to Him in all their need.

Sometimes we are also like the ones who are brought to Jesus. We may be barely conscious. We may feel like every move makes our wounds ache and our inner being revolt. But His is the healing touch. Here we are reminded of the sorrow that tinges the edges of the Presentation that we celebrated on Friday. The sword of sorrow is there for us all, and that is where our path often leads. We are disciples of a Lord who is only waiting to be lifted up on the cross to draw the world to Himself. If we are conformed to Him, there will be a share in that suffering.

And sometimes, I wonder finally if we are like the crowd who milled in Jesus’ sight, a mass of sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9: 36). For leadership in our time seems to fail in so many places. Our politicians make unspeakable laws and embrace unspeakable compromises, while for the last two decades our spiritual leaders have been beset by sexual scandal. Let our consolation be that Jesus looks upon us in this chaos with His deepest compassion. For those who love God all things work together unto good, says St Paul (even sin, adds St Augustine).

And all those who touched Him were cured, the gospel concludes. Well, we know what to do then, or we know what we need to aspire to.

Joy and suffering at Candlemas

 Today’s gospel (Luke 2: 22-40) is full of fulfilled longing and pathos yet to come. Like any moment in our own lives, there is a sense of something having been accomplished, and of a road ahead that contains both light and darkness.

The longing fulfilled in tangibly the longing of Simeon, but he stands in a way for the longing of all the prophets and fathers of old, the people of Israel awaiting their Saviour whose day has dawned with the birth of Jesus. Jesus is even named as ‘Israel’s comforting’ because whatever the consolations of the Old Law, there is beneath it an enduring anguish of waiting for the wisdom of God to be fulfilled. Most beautifully, Simeon also recognises that the comfort of Israel is not just for Israel but is a light to enlighten the gentiles whose pagan anguish and darkness exceeds the anguish of the Jews. The traditional Catholic ritual this day involved a procession of candles (to symbolise the light of Christ, in anticipation of the Easter light), as the choir would sing with the sweetest melody, Lumen ad revelationem gentium – a light for the revelation of the gentiles. Simeon’s joy that day is our joy now: he had encountered the longed-for Christ, and his joy was complete.

Yet there is pathos – suffering – still to come in this scene. The light has arrived, yet His dawning is but the beginning of a journey which will, as Simeon warns, drive a sword through the heart of his Mother. Such suffering is inseparable from the joy. Love is the cause of joy, but it is also the reason for suffering for we suffer on account of what we love. Mary’s heart, as Simeon says, is in some senses a source of revelation from which we learn how those who love Jesus look upon His suffering. In other words, if with Simeon and Mary we have the joy of the presence of the Lord, a joy renewed in his Resurrection, we will inevitably face our own anguish too, for our Saviour does not come initially as a victorious conqueror but builds His kingdom on the foundation of Calvary, a place of execution. Joseph too shares in this suffering and joy as the silent witness of these mysteries.

We wish each other joy this feast of Candlemas. We should wish each other faithfulness too, the faithfulness of Simeon. But if we love the Lord, as we say we do, that faithfulness will cost us suffering before the final victory. Mary’s immaculate heart is not some pious symbol. It is a hallmark planted by the consuming love of God upon the frail flesh of our Mother in Christ.

Our souls as the battleground

Today's gospel (Mark 5: 1-20) is one of the most touching and bewildering in all of St Mark’s life of our Lord. It is most touching, on the one hand, because Jesus delivers a man who is in utter torment from a large number of demons. It is most bewildering because it is not really clear why Jesus should send these demons into a local herd of pigs who then destroy themselves by running off a cliff.

Our hearts must go out to the man possessed in this incident. He is tortured by the demons who have possessed him. Demonic possession is a real, not a symbolic, spiritual event, and it requires a real ministry of exorcists to manage it even today. But this man’s misery is not only spiritual or psychological. In addition to his internal torment, he lives in a cemetery, howls his pain day and night to whoever will hear him, and even gashes himself with stones. This last action may in fact be an attempt at self-therapy, but self-therapy of this kind is itself a torture and cruel burden. If we read these events at a spiritual level, however, this possessed man could stand for any soul who becomes seduced by passions or appetites within, only to find that such passions and appetites themselves become torturers who exact full payment. Perhaps these appetites are for bodily or sensuous pleasures or, for the more pious, perhaps these appetites are for spiritual satisfactions: certainties, signs of approval from God, self-validation and things of this sort. These too can torture no less than sensuous passions to which one has become enslaved. Religious idealism is not a sign of integrity but a dangerous disguise of inner disorder. Who can free us from the body of this death? We know the answer And it is not ourselves.

What is more bewildering in this gospel is the fact that Jesus drove out the demons from this man's soul and allowed them to enter the herd of swine which then plunged themselves over the edge of a cliff. The effect of this event was so great that the people of the town begged Jesus to leave the area. Indeed, the gospel tells us that the people of the town were afraid at what had happened. The Fathers of the Church commenting on this scene offer various interpretations of its meaning. Perhaps the most persuasive, however, is the Jesus is showing the townspeople, and by extension anyone who hears about this event, about the terrible, destructive power that demons can wield. The only “solace” the townspeople had offered to the man possessed was to attempt to put him in chains which he broke in his fury. But this will not do. We cannot protect ourselves from evil by pretending it does not exist or by building imaginary safe spaces for our modern souls. We cannot guard against the gates of hell by minimising the risks.

Especially in our own day, the ambient culture is so enamoured of individual choice that we do not like to think upon the consequences of those who give themselves to evil actions. The story of the men set free of the legion of demons should be a lesson for us that ignorance is no protection, and that we are called to conversion because our souls are a battleground of the Kingdom of God.

The devil and our vocation

In today's gospel (Mark 3:22-30), Jesus crosses swords, as He so often does, with the scribes, but his argument is subtle. The principle on which it depends is that no Kingdom divided against itself can stand. Jesus applies this principle to demonstrate that He cannot be in league with the devil.

The strength of this argument, however, was probably more apparent to the onlookers that heard it. How could anyone think that Jesus was an agent of Beelzebub if they had witnessed the ways in which He had cured the sick, healed the leper, restored hope to the hopeless, and shown mercy to those on the brink of despair? The very fact that the scribes raised the question says more about them and the state of their souls than it does about Him. This is yet again an example of something which today is unfashionable to say. Although we must not judge people’s intentions, the reality is that some people do act in bad faith with bad intentions, and all the while are quite happy to lord it over others.

This, by the way, seems to be the subtext of Jesus’ final remark about those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Once someone has decided that God is wicked, that God is the source of evil rather than the source of all good, how will that person ever turn again? In the case of the scribes, they were witnesses to some of the most remarkable interventions that God had made in history, and yet here they were speculating about whether Jesus was really of the devil. Sinners can only be saved by God Himself, so how can they be saved if they have said God is in fact the source of evil?

In truth, however, the kingdom of the devil, such as it is, cannot but be divided against itself. Even if it is united by the desire to pull down every effort to build God's Kingdom, it is shattered with the division that comes from the ego-centred choices that separate every fallen Angel and every fallen soul from its Creator. Those choices are wrong not just because they are oriented towards the ego and not God; they are wrong also because they are an assault on the place that God wishes to assign us in the symphony of His goodness. The diabolical is literally that which is ‘thrown across’ - something violently at odds with the path it is meant to be on. 

The failure to recognise and pursue our vocation is not just a missed opportunity.  It is literally an initiation to the diabolical path that contradicts our eternal call.

Going out with tears, coming home with gladness.

 In today's gospel (Mark 2:18-22), Jesus shares with us a paradox that shapes the life of every believer who is committed to following Him. Some of his critics question why his disciples do not fast, and Jesus tells them that as long as the disciples are with the Bridegroom, it is not fitting that they fast, but that a time for fasting will come. It is probably worth noting that while penance is a deeply unfashionable not to say enduringly unpleasant feature of our religion, it is one which comes from the Lord himself. As he says elsewhere, “Unless you do penance, you will all likewise perish (Luke 13: 5).”

But let us dwell on the paradox here. We are the disciples insofar as we dwell with the Bridegroom, and happily we always dwell with the Bridegroom as long as we do not lose Him through mortal sin. Jesus himself tells us that He and the Father (and, thereby, necessarily the Spirit also) dwell in the souls of those who love Him. What is eternal life except to dwell with Him? In this limited sense, we already hold eternal life in our hands. Our horizons should be different from those of other human beings. We walk with another compass and guide ourselves by another map. In the final analysis, a soul living the Christian life is held in God's almighty embrace of love and returns that embrace to the God who has saved them.

But here comes the paradox. While in one way we are with the Bridegroom, in another way we are still wayfarers on our journey towards the wedding. While He dwells in our souls, our attention and our hearts are constantly surrounded by the things of this world, and being the fallen creatures we are, our minds and hearts too often seek their happiness there. And we are fallen creatures! If any man thinks he can stand, let him take heed lest he fall, says Saint Paul. The good that we wish to do, we do not, while the evil we would avoid we sometimes do (again St Paul who is not letting us slackers off the hook!). Actually, the same wisdom about the fallibility of human nature can be found in the writers of classical antiquity. It was the poet Ovid who wrote:

I see and approve the better things,

But the worse things I follow.

Like all the paradoxes in our religion, we have to hold these two things together. Rejoice because we dwell with the Bridegroom. Mourn because we are sinners and we need to do penance, not only to train our wills in some ascetic sense, but to share in the Bridegroom’s sufferings and so to help make reparation for our sins - to fill up in our bodies the sufferings wanting to the passion of Christ, as St Paul tells the Colossians.

Those who forget either end of this paradox are in trouble. If we lose hold of the necessity of living joyfully in tour hearts with the Bridegroom, we risk becoming a grim burden to ourselves (and others) for nothing alleviates the heavy atmosphere in which our hearts then live. If we lose hold of the necessity of penance, we become doe-eyed religious narcissists who never even think to darken the door of the confessional.

We live in joy but must season our smiles with tears until we reach our journey's end.